hitherto produced, in depth of conception and brilliancy of
execution. The marriage of that delightful, profane old sea-dog
Jacob Worse, with the pious Sara Torvested, and the attempts of his
mother-in-law to convert him, are described, not with the merely
superficial drollery to which the subject invites, but with a sweet
and delicate humor, which trembles on the verge of pathos.

The beautiful story _Elsie_, which, though published separately, is
scarcely a full-grown novel, is intended to impress society with a
sense of responsibility for its outcasts. While Bjoernstjerne
Bjoernson is fond of emphasizing the responsibility of the
individual to society, Kielland chooses by preference to reverse
the relation. The former (in his remarkable novel _Flags are Flying
in City and Harbor_) selects a hero with vicious inherited
tendencies, redeemed by wise education and favorable environment;
the latter portrays in Elsie a heroine with no corrupt predisposition,
destroyed by the corrupting environment which society forces upon
those who are born in her circumstances. Elsie could not be good,
because the world is so constituted that girls of her kind are not
expected to be good. Temptations, perpetually thronging in her way,
break down the moral bulwarks of her nature. Resistance seems in
vain. In the end there is scarcely one who, having read her story,
will have the heart to condemn her.

Incomparably clever is the satire on the benevolent societies,
which appear to exist as a sort of moral poultice to tender
consciences, and to furnish an officious sense of virtue to its
prosperous members. "The Society for the Redemption of the
Abandoned Women of St. Peter's Parish" is presided over by a
gentleman who privately furnishes subjects for his public