"^W^J^^ 
 
 THE UfJIV-R^ITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSIiY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO 
 
 SELMtXffiMF 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 HER WORK 
 HER MESSAGE 
 
 in' 
 HARRY E. MAULE 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PA(^,K & COMPAN^' 
 GARDEN CV\'\ NEW ^ORK 
 
 r
 
 LIBRARY
 
 Selma Lagerlof 
 
 THE WOMAN, HER WORK, 
 HER MESSAGE 
 
 Including liberal quotation from 
 Dr. Lagerlof 's own autobiograph- 
 ical writings and from 
 some of her critics 
 
 BY HARRY E. MATTE 
 
 DOnn.EDAY. T'AGE & CO^rPAXV 
 
 (lAHDKN ( ITV 1!M7 NKW VOUK
 
 Copyright, 1917, hy 
 DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & COMPANY
 
 NOTE 
 
 9 7? 
 
 This little study of the life and work of Selma 
 Lagerliif is not so much an appreciation or a cri- y >>^ 
 tique perhaps as it is an attempt to catch, and 
 present to the American reader, some of the back- 
 ground from which the author draws her idealism 
 and her illusive literary qualities. In so doing the 
 author and editor has gone direct to the fountain- 
 head of Dr. Lagerloi's own autobiographical writ- 
 ings so far as possible — but even these are illusive 
 and unsatisfactory without some of the plain facts 
 which we in America would like to know of her. 
 Therefore, the narrative is carried along through 
 Miss Lagerlof's own words wherever possible, but 
 for the most part in a simple direct statement of 
 her- life and work and some of the influences be- 
 hin<l it. There is probably no need to explain 
 that the reasoji for publishing this sketch lies in 
 the ever growing interest in INIiss Lagerlof as 
 one of the world's great figures in literature. 
 
 The brochure is not for sale. As long as the 
 printing lasts copies will be supplied gratis to all 
 who request them, preference being given to schools 
 and libraries. Address the publishers: 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & COMPANY 
 
 * Garden City, New York
 
 SELMA LAGERLOF
 
 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 HONORED by her own generation and in 
 her own country no less than through- 
 out the whole civihzed world, Selma 
 Lagerlof has fulfilled the happy portent of her 
 name. For Lagerlof, literally translated, mejuis 
 laurel leaf, and the absorbing life story of this 
 quiet, calm-eyed little Swedish woman carries the 
 reader from one crowning with laurel to the next. 
 The only woman to win the Nobel Prize for Litera- 
 ture, she, shortly after that event was made a mem- 
 ber of the exclusive Swedish Academy, and there- 
 fore is also the only woman ever to sit as one of 
 those eighteen Immortals. 
 
 Born at a time when llie cold. star of realism was 
 in the ascendant in Scandinavian literature, her 
 soul filled with idealism, and steeped in the romance 
 of ancient Northland sagas she stands forth a
 
 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 brilliant exception to the materialism of her contem- 
 poraries. Comparing her books with the salient 
 facts of her Hfe it would be impossible to say what 
 is so frequently said of others, that her work is in 
 any material sense an autobiographical reflection. 
 Yet leaving the obvious facts aside, the idealism , 
 the nobility of conception, the richness of imagina- 
 tion are a true outpouring from the soul and an 
 authentic expression of the author's reactions 
 toward life. To quote from the introduction 
 of Mr. Henry Goddard Leach, to the present Amer- 
 ican edition of Jerusalem; "Although Miss Lager- 
 lof has not been without her share of life's per- 
 plexities and of contact with her fellowmen, it is 
 
 . by intuition that she works, rather than by ex- 
 perience." How true that intuition has been is 
 attested not alone by the critics, but also by the 
 universal appeal of her characters and the world- 
 wide popularity of her books. 
 
 In all her work Miss Lagerlof's heart has 
 turned with greatest understanding to that life 
 in which she was born, the life of rural Sweden 
 
 ^ teeming with tradition, responsive always to the 
 onslaughts and the miracles of Nature. 
 
 Here she has found material, which, though
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 local in its outward aspects she has been able to I 
 clothe with that universal human significance 
 which may be found in nearly everything she 
 writes. 
 
 So here at Marbacka Manor, Sunne, in the 
 province of Varmland, Sweden, into a large family 
 of brothers and sisters on November 20th, 1858, 
 was born the little Selma Ottiliana Louisa Lagerlof . 
 
 Springing from Swedish gentlefolk of the land- 
 owner class (her father was a retired army officer, 
 and her mother was descended from a long line of i 
 distinguished clergymen) Miss Lagerlof from 
 earliest childhood seemed destined for the part of 
 an onlooker and an inter[)reter of life. She never 
 was strong enough to run wild over the farm with 
 the other children of the family, and so, sitting 
 at home in a deep chimney corner with the old 
 folks and her books, she let her childish imagina- , 
 tion carry her off on excursions which were denied 
 the physically more active youngsters. 
 
 When there were no visitors at the manor house 
 to enchant her childish fancy with the brave 
 legends of the countryside the little girl had re- 
 course to books. Here, as we shall see later she 
 also was fortunate, for not only was she allowed
 
 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 to browse in the ample library of her father but 
 was helped by both her parents in her reading. 
 Through their broad culture and interest in litera- 
 ture she was led to the best and her natural taste 
 for romantic stories was fostered and directed . But 
 late hours with her books was not encouraged, 
 for in one place we are told that during her child- 
 hood she "was allowed to read Tegner and Rune- 
 berg and Andersen" through only twice each 
 winter. "In that way," adds Miss Lagerlof, 
 "I came by my first big debt." All of these and 
 more the little girl read and loved, varying her 
 wide reading with her own childish attempts at 
 writing. 
 
 Then, at the age of nine the little girl went to 
 Stockholm, to spend the winter with her Uncle 
 and his family. 
 
 In an essay entitled "Two Predictions" which 
 appears in her latest volume "Men and Trolls" 
 Miss Lagerlof describes the wonderful journey 
 and her impressions of the great city. "Men and 
 Trolls" has not yet appeared in English and the 
 essay referred to has never been translated. 
 Here she tells of her difficulty in becoming 
 accustomed to city life, to the confinement, to
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 the hard cobblestone-paved streets, and to the 
 city ways. 
 
 "I feel stupid and awkward with these bright 
 city children" she says (using the present tense 
 which is found so frequently in Swedish) "for I 
 talk the homely Viirmland dialect. But there are 
 things indescribably wonderful in the old house 
 where I stay. For one thing my Uncle has a . 
 bookcase full of Sir Walter Scott's novels. Then 
 there is the theatre." She goes on to tell that 
 sometimes her imcle would give the housekeeper 
 a theatre ticket and the old woman would take 
 I lie little girl and let her stand in front of her during 
 the performance. "But what matter, time flies 
 so at the theatre. Sometimes it is a play and 
 sometimes an opera — a rosy world. It is fortunate 
 that I had sat at mother's knee and read Nosselt's 
 History, else how could I find my way. It is not 
 a new world after all but rather my well loved 
 world of romance presented in living picture^. 
 Sometimes now in foreign lands I enter a theatre 
 and feel the old thrill of expectation. 
 
 "For myself," she continues, "I like the folk 
 stories, but the old lady doesn't care for the peasant 
 plays. She really hurts me by saying that the fair
 
 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 Helen is different from other folks, for I am in 
 sympathy with my own people." 
 
 In the spring the little girl returned to her home 
 and on school holidays played theatre with her 
 brothers and sisters. Their favourite piece — one 
 suspects Miss Lagerlof's own favourite piece — 
 was "My Rose of the Forest," "not," she remarks, 
 "because it is the most interesting, but because 
 it is the simplest, and in fact the only one we can 
 present. I have to rehearse them all. We have 
 no prompt book, only my memory to guide us. It 
 is I who, with the help of quilts and blankets, make 
 the stage scenery and it is I who make up the 
 actors. I am the only one with any knowledge 
 of all these things." 
 
 Then she goes on to describe the performance, 
 how the family were the audience, and how she 
 played the dual role of heroine and of an old man 
 with long white hair. For the latter part, the 
 little Swedish girl's own yellow hair was rear- 
 ranged to imitate the locks of the aged man. 
 "I wonder," she continues, "what the author 
 would have said? Perhaps he would have been 
 pleased. 
 
 "From that day I long to write great plays and
 
 THE WOMAX 
 
 not to sit on a school-bench and waste my time in 
 composition and arithmetic. 
 
 "At fifteen I have read all the poets in the house 
 and have written my first verse." Here Miss 
 Lagerlof remarks that when she first realized her 
 gift of rhyming she resolved to become as great 
 as the poets she had read. She had always in- 
 tended to write novels and plays but now at 
 fifteen she felt that nothing was so desirable as to 
 write great poetry. One evening she felt her 
 gift of rhyming and the whole night long she 
 lay awake composing verse after verse. But, 
 she goes on to say, of all the verses she wrote at 
 this period there is only one that she remembers 
 or is pleased with. "And that," she says, "I 
 sometimes whisper to myself as I stand in the 
 shade of the trees and watch the evening sun's 
 light flame over the plain and valley. This 
 httle couplet reads: 
 
 "Z)t'< dr sa morkt under Undarna 
 Sa iingslight stilla i vindarna' 
 
 Roughly translated: 
 
 It is so dark beneath the Hndens 
 The winds are so ominous! v still
 
 10 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 At twenty she is back again in Stockholm to 
 take a competitive examination for entrance to 
 the Teachers' College. She describes her anxiety 
 because the number of students was limited to 
 twenty -five and there were forty taking the exam- 
 inations. Finally, when she hears that she is one 
 of the fortunate twenty-five who have passed in the 
 examinations she says that she steals off to the other 
 end of the house to be alone. She is no longer help- 
 less and dependent on others but has a career be- 
 fore her and is going to manage her own life. 
 
 Thus in 1882, after a year at Sjoberg's Lyceum 
 for Girls, in Stockholm, Miss Lagerlof entered 
 the Teachers' College where she remained for 
 three years, returning for all her vacations to her 
 beloved Varmland home where, as we shall later 
 see, she was ever living in the soul, taking deeper 
 and deeper within herself the legends of that 
 beautiful, mystical land, for the great book which 
 was to turn the course of her life. 
 
 Her studies completed, she received an appoint- 
 ment to teach in the Grammar School for Girls at 
 Landskrona, Province of Skane. There she hoped 
 to find time for literary work, and much that she did 
 then was later turned to good purpose. Accord-
 
 THIO WOMAN 11 
 
 ing to Miss Lagerlof s own account, however, noth- 
 ing worth while was accomplished — only some son- 
 nets in the Swedish magazines, and endless folk 
 tales told after school to her pupils. 
 
 This phase of Miss Lagerlof 's life is told by her- 
 self in an appealing little autobiographical account 
 of how she came to write her first book "The 
 Story of Gosta Berling" which, of course will stand 
 as long as her works are known as a classic of 
 Swedish romance.
 
 n 
 
 THE STORY OF A STORY 
 
 {A digest of Miss Lagerlof's own account of her early liter- 
 ary struggles, publislied under the above title in her col- 
 lection of short stories " The Girl From the Marsh Croft." A 
 charming and irresistible autobiographical account, it has 
 nevertheless all the qualities that mark Miss Lagerlof's fiction. 
 It i^ characteristic of her b'est work, and typical of her modesty 
 and self detachment.) 
 
 NCE there was a story that wanted to be 
 told and sent out in the world. This was 
 very natural, inasmuch as it knew that 
 it was already as good as finished. Many, 
 through remarkable deeds and strange events, 
 had helped create it; others, had added their straws 
 to it by again and again relating these things. 
 What it lacked was merely a matter of being 
 joined together, so that it could travel comfortably 
 through the country. As yet it was only a con- 
 fused jumble of stories — a big, formless cloud of 
 adventures rushing hither and thither like a 
 swarm of stray bees on a summer's day, not know- 
 
 12
 
 THE STORY OF A STOKV 
 
 ing where they will find some one who can gather 
 them into a hive. 
 
 The story that wanted to be told had sprung 
 up in Varmland, and you may be sure that it 
 circled over many mills and manors, over many 
 parsonages and many homes of military officers, 
 in the beautiful jjrovince, peering through the 
 windows and begging to be cared for. But it was 
 forced to make many futile attempts, for every- 
 where it was turned away. Anything else was 
 hardly to be expected. People had many things 
 of nmch more importance to think of. 
 
 Finally the story came to an old place called 
 Marbacka. It was a little homestead, with low 
 buildings overshadowed by giant trees. At one 
 time it had been a parsonage, and it was as if this 
 had set a certain stamj) upon the place which it 
 could not lose. They seemed to have a greater 
 love for books and reading there than elsewhere, 
 and an air of restfulness and peace always i)er- 
 vaded it. Here there was never any rush of 
 duties or bickerings with servants, nor were hatred 
 and dissension given house room, either. One 
 who happened to be a guest in this home was not 
 expected to take life too seriously, but was made
 
 14 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 to feel that his first duty was to be light-hearted 
 and to know that for one and all who lived on this 
 estate our Lord managed everything for the best. 
 
 As I think of the matter now, it seems to me 
 that the story of which I speak must have 
 lingered thereabout a great many years, in a vain 
 longing to be told, that it must have enwrapped 
 the place, as a mi§t shrouds a mountain summit — 
 now and then letting one of its many adventures 
 rain down upon it. 
 
 Sometimes the dear adventurers came to the 
 homestead in more tangible form. Aged and 
 poverty-stricken army officers would drive up 
 to the house behind rickety old horses and in rickety 
 carryalls, and stay for weeks at a time. In the 
 evening, when the toddy had put courage into 
 them, they would talk of the time when they 
 had danced in stockingless shoes, so that their 
 feet would look small, of how they had curled 
 their hair and dyed their mustaches. One of 
 them told of how he had once tried to take a 
 pretty young girl back to her sweetheart, and 
 of being hunted by wolves on the way; another
 
 THE STORY OF A STORY 15 
 
 had been at the Christmas feast where an an- 
 gered guest had flung all the hazel-grouse at the 
 wall because some one had made liim believe 
 they were crows; a third had seen the old gentle- 
 man who used to sit at a plain deal table and 
 play Beethoven. 
 
 It must have been because so many legends and 
 traditions hovered about the farm that one of 
 the children growing up there longed to become 
 a narrator. It was not one of the boys, however, 
 for they were away at school almost the whole 
 year and the story did not get much of a hold 
 upon them. But it was one of the girls — one 
 who was delicate and could not romp and play 
 like other children, and who found her keenest 
 enjoyment in reading and hearing stories about 
 all the great and wonderful things which had 
 happened in the world. 
 
 However, at the start it was not the girl's in- 
 tention to write about the stories and legends 
 surrounding her. She had not the remotest idea 
 that a book could be made of these adventures, 
 which she had so often heard related that to her
 
 K) SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 they seemed the most commonplace things in the 
 world. When she tried to write, she chose ma- 
 terial from her books, stringing together stories of 
 the Sultans in "Thousand and One Nights." 
 Walter Scott's heroes, and Snorre Sturleson's 
 "Kings of Romance." 
 
 It need hardly be said that what she wrote was 
 the least original and the crudest that has ever 
 been put upon paper. But this very naturally 
 she herself did not see. She went about at home 
 on the quiet farm, filling every scrap of paper she 
 could lay her hands on with verse and prose, 
 with plays and romances. When she was not 
 writing, she sat and waited for success. And 
 success was to consist in this: Some stranger 
 who was very learned and influential, by some 
 rare freak of fortune, was to come and discover 
 what she had written and find it worth printing. 
 After that, the rest would come of itself. Mean- 
 while nothing of the sort happened. 
 
 And so, one autumn, when she was two-and- 
 twenty, she went to Stockholm to prepare herself 
 for the vocation of teacher.
 
 THE STORY OF A STORY 
 
 The girl soon became absorbed in Ikt work. 
 She wrote no more, bnt went in for studies and 
 lectures. It actually looked as though the story 
 would lose her altogether. 
 
 Then something extraordinary happened. This 
 same autumn, when she had been living a couple 
 of months amid gray streets and house walls, 
 she was walking one day up Malmskillnad Street 
 with a bundle of books under her arm. She had 
 just come from a lecture on the history of literature. 
 The lecture must have been about Bellman and 
 Runeberg, because she was thinlving of them and 
 of the characters that live in their verses. She 
 said to herself that Runeberg's jolly warriors and 
 Bellman's happy-go-lucky roisterers were the 
 very best material a writer could have to work 
 with. And suddenly this thought flashed upon 
 her: Varmland, the world in which you have been 
 living, is not less remarkable than that of Fredman 
 or Fanrik Stal. If you can only learn how to 
 handle it, you will find that your material is 
 quite as good as theirs. 
 
 Thus she caught her first glimpse of the story. 
 And the instant she saw it, the ground under her 
 seemed to rock. The whole long Malmskilhiiid
 
 18 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 Street, from Hamn Street Hill to the fire-house, 
 rose toward the skies and sank again — rose and 
 sank. She stood still a long while, until the street 
 had settled itself. She gazed with astonishment 
 at the passers-by, who walked calmly on, appar- 
 ently unconscious of the miracle that had taken 
 place. 
 
 Then and there the girl determined that she 
 would write the story of Varmland's Cavaliers, 
 and never for an instant did she relinquish the 
 thought of it; but many long years elapsed before 
 the determination was carried out. 
 
 During these years things were constantly 
 happening which helped mould it. One morning, 
 on a school holiday, as she sat at the breakfast 
 table with her father, the two of them talked of 
 old times. He was telling her of an acquaintance 
 of his youth, whom he described as the most 
 fascinating of men. This man brought joy and 
 cheer with him wherever he went. He could 
 sing; he composed music; he improvised verse. 
 If he struck up a dance tune not only the young 
 folk danced, but old men and old women, high and
 
 xilE STOKY or A STORVT Itf 
 
 low. If he made a speech, one had to laugli or 
 cry, whichever he wished. If he drank himself 
 full, he playetl and talked better than when he 
 was sober, and when he fell in love with a woman, 
 it was impossible for her to resist him. If he did 
 foolish things, one forgave him; if he felt sad, 
 one wanted to do anything and everything to see 
 him glad again. But anv great success in life 
 he had never had, despite his wealth of talents. 
 He had lived mostly at the foundries in Viirmland 
 as private tutor. Finally, he was ordained as a 
 minister. This was the highest that he had 
 attained. 
 
 After this conversation she saw the hero of her 
 story better than heretofore, and with that a 
 little life and action came into it. One fine 
 day a name was given to the hero, he was called 
 Gosta Berling. Whence he got the name she 
 never knew. It was as if he had named himself. 
 
 Another time she had come home for the Christ- 
 mas holidays. One evening the whole family 
 went off to a Christmas party a good distance from 
 home in a terrible blizzard. It turned out to be a 
 longer drive than one would have thought. The 
 horse ploughed his way througU the drifts at a
 
 20 SELMA L.\GERLOF 
 
 creeping pace. For several hours she sat in the 
 sleigh in the blinding snowstorm thinking of 
 the story. When they at length reached their 
 destination, she had thought out her first chapter. 
 It was the one about the Christmas night at the 
 smithy. And what a chapter! It was her first 
 and for many years her only one. It was written 
 in verse, for the original plan was that it should 
 be a romance cycle, like "Fanrik Stal's Sagas." 
 But by degrees this was changed, and for a time 
 she was impressed that it should be written as 
 drama. The Christmas night was worked over 
 to go in as the first act. But this attempt was 
 not successful, either; at last she decided to write 
 the story as a novel. Then the chapter was done 
 into prose. It grew enormously long, covering 
 forty written pages. In the final revision it took 
 up only nine. 
 
 A few years later came a second chapter. It 
 was the story of the Ball at Borg and of the wolves 
 that hunted Gosta Berling and Anna Stjernhok. 
 
 As a matter of fact, all this occurred during the 
 'eighties, when stern Realism was at its height.
 
 THE STORY OF A STORY 21 
 
 She admired the great masters of that time, never 
 thinking that one could use any other style in 
 writing than the one they employed. For her own 
 part, she liked the romanticists better, hut ro- 
 manticism was dead, and she was hardly the one 
 to think of reviving its form and expression! 
 Although her brain was filled to overflowing with 
 stories of ghosts and mad love, of wondrously 
 beautiful women and adventure-loving cavaliers, 
 she tried to write about it all in calm, realistic 
 prose. She was not very clear- visioned. Another 
 would have seen that the impossible was im- 
 possible. 
 
 The longing came over her in this manner: 
 The homestead where she had grown up was sold. 
 She journeyed to the home of her childhood to see 
 it once again before strangers should occupy it. 
 As she was leaving, perhaps never more to see the 
 dear old place, she decided in all meekness and 
 humility to write the book in her own way and 
 according to her own poor abihties. It was not 
 going to be any great masterwork, as she had 
 hoped. It might be a book at which people
 
 22 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 would laugh, but anyway she would write it — 
 write it for herself, to save for herself what she 
 could still save of the home — the dear old stories, 
 the sweet peace of the care-free days, and the 
 beautiful landscape with the long lakes and the 
 many-hued blue hills. 
 
 But for her, who had hoped that she might yet 
 learn to write a book people would care to read, 
 it seemed as if she had relinquished the very thing 
 in life she had been most eager to win. It was 
 the hardest sacrifice she had ever made. 
 
 A few weeks later, she was again at her home in 
 Landskrona seated at her desk. She began 
 writing — she did not exactly know what this 
 was to be — but she was not going to be afraid of 
 strong words, of exclamations, of interrogations, 
 nor would she be afraid to give herself with all 
 her childishness and all her dreams! After she 
 had come to this decision, the pen began to move 
 almost of itself. This made her quite delirious. 
 She was carried away with enthusiasm. All, this 
 was writing! Unfamiliar thoughts and things, 
 or, rather, things she had never surmised were 
 stored away in her brain, crowded down upon the 
 paper. The pages were filled so quickly it aston-
 
 THE STORY OF A STORY 23 
 
 ished her. What had hitherto required months — 
 no, years — to work out, was now acconipHshed 
 in a couple of hours. That evening she wrote the 
 story of the young countess's tranij) over the ice 
 on Lake Loven, and the flood at Ekeby. 
 
 The following afternoon she wrote the scene in 
 which the gouty ensign, Rutger von Orneclou, 
 tries to raise himself in bed to dance the Cachuca, 
 and the evening of the next day appeared the 
 story of the old Mamsell who went off to visit the 
 parsimonious Broby clergyman. 
 
 Now she knew for a certainty that in this way 
 she could write the book; but she was just as cer- 
 tain that no one would have the patience to read 
 it through. 
 
 In the spring of 1890 Idun invited prize com- 
 petitors to send in short novelettes of about one 
 liundred i)ages. Here was an opening for a story 
 that wanted to be told and sent into the world. 
 It nmst have been the story itself that prompted 
 her sister to suggest that she make use of this 
 oi)portunity. Here, at last, was a way of finding 
 out whether her story was hopelessly bad! IT
 
 SELMA LAtJEKLOF 
 
 it took the prize, much would be gained; if it 
 didn't, she would simply stand where she had 
 stood before. 
 
 There were only twenty-four hours of the prec- 
 ious time left, and still twenty pages to be written. 
 
 On this the last day they were all invited to a 
 house party, and were to be away over night. 
 Naturally, she too had to go. When the party 
 was over and the guests had retired to their 
 rooms, she sat up in the strange house the whole 
 night, writing. 
 
 At times she felt very queer. The place where 
 she was visiting happened to be the estate on 
 which the wicked Sintram had once lived. Fate, 
 in a singular way, had brought her there on the 
 very night that she must write about him who 
 sat in the rocker and rocked. 
 
 Now and then she would look up from her work 
 and listen in the direction of the drawing-room, 
 for the possible sound of a pair of rockers in mo- 
 tion; but nothing was heard. In the morning, 
 at the stroke of six, her five chapters were finished.
 
 TUK STORY OF A STORY 25 
 
 This happened on one of the last days in July. 
 Toward the end of August Idiin contained a notice 
 to the effect that something over twenty manu- 
 scripts had been received by the editors, but that 
 one or two among them were so confusedly written 
 they could not be counted in. 
 
 Then she gave up waiting for results. She 
 knew, of course, which novelette was so "con- 
 fusedly written" that it could not be counted 
 in. 
 
 One afternoon in November she received a 
 curious telegram. It simply contained the words 
 "Hearty Congratulations," and was signed by 
 three of her college classmates. 
 
 To her it seemed a terribly long wait until noon 
 of the following day, when the Stockliolm papers 
 were distributed. When the paper was in her 
 hands she had to search long before finding 
 anything. Finally, on the last page she found a 
 little notice in small type which told that the prize 
 had been awarded to her. 
 
 To another it might have not meant so much, 
 perhaps, but for her it meant that she could 
 devote herself to the calling which all her life she 
 had longed to pursue.
 
 26 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 There is but little to add to this: The story 
 that wanted to be told and sent out in the world 
 had begun to move toward its goal. Now it was 
 to be written, at least, though it might take a few 
 years to complete it. 
 
 She who was writing the story had gone to 
 Stockholm about Christmas time, after she had 
 received the prize. 
 
 The editor of Idun volunteered to publish the 
 book as soon as it was finished. 
 
 If she could ever find time to write it ! 
 
 The evening before she was to return to Lands- 
 krona she spent with her loyal friend, Baroness 
 Adlersparre, to whom she read a few chapters 
 aloud. 
 
 "Esselde" listened, as only she could hsten! 
 After the reading she sat quietly thinking. "How 
 long will it be before all of it is ready .f^" she asked 
 finally. 
 
 "Three or four years." 
 
 Then they parted. 
 
 The next morning, two hours before she was to 
 leave Stockholm, she received a message from 
 Esselde, asking her to come to her before leaving 
 town.
 
 VUE STORY OF A STORY 
 
 The old baroness was in hvv most |)ositive and 
 determined mood. "Now you must. take a leave 
 of absence for a year and finish the book," she 
 said, "I shall procure the necessary funds." 
 
 Fifteen minutes later the girl was on her way 
 to the Principal of the Teachers' College to ask 
 her assistance in securing a substitute. 
 
 At one o'clock she was happily seated in the 
 railway carriage. But now she was going no 
 farther than Sormland, where she had good friends 
 who lived in a charming villa. 
 
 And so they — Otto Gumaelius and his wife — 
 gave her the freedom of their home — freedom to 
 work, and peace, and the best of care for nearly a 
 year, until the book w'as finished. 
 
 Now, at last, she could write from morning till 
 night. It was the happiest time of her life. 
 
 But when the story was finished at the close of 
 the summer, it looked strange. It was wild and 
 disjointed — ^the connecting threads were so loosely 
 drawn that all the parts seemed bent upon follow- 
 ing their old inclination to wander off, each on 
 its own way. 
 
 It never became what it should have become. 
 Its misfortune was that it had been compelled to
 
 28 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 wait so long to be told. If it was not properly 
 disciplined and restrained, it was mostly because 
 the author was so overjoyed by the thought 
 that at last she had been privileged to WTite 
 it.
 
 in 
 
 HER WORK 
 
 "She is an idealist pure and simple in a world given over to 
 realism, yet such is the perfection of her style and the witchery 
 of her fancy that a generation of realists worship her.'' — The 
 London Times. 
 
 IN THE foregoing pages we have seen how 
 Miss Lagerlof started her Hterary career; 
 how in spite of severe handicaps her very 
 first work was crowned with distinguished success, 
 foreshadowing that fate which so truly fulfills the 
 promise of her name. We have seen how the 
 creation of "The Story of Gosta Berling" made 
 it possible for her to give up teaching and devote 
 her whole time and thought to her writing. 
 
 Then what of the other books that followed? 
 What account has she made of her opportunity 
 and by what work did she achieve her present 
 exlialted position? 
 
 To i)lace her in a word is of course impossible, 
 yet perhaps the above quoted passage from The 
 
 29
 
 30 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 London Times gives as true a summary of her 
 position as necessary. One of her admirers has 
 said that, gazing down a forest valley dotted with 
 little redroofed Swedish farmhouses and black 
 roofed churches she knows exactly what is trans- 
 piring within. Moreover, it might further be 
 said that she knows just what is going on in the 
 hearts of the inhabitants. 
 
 Viewing her work as a whole it reveals a biblical 
 simplicity of style, the trusting heart of a child 
 and at the same time the mystic insight of a seer. 
 Speaking of Dr. Lagerlof in his volume of inter- 
 pretation "Voices of To-Morrow" Edwin Bjork- 
 man says: "Selma Lagerlof is one of the great- 
 est of an increasing group of writers who represent 
 a synthesis of two pKst literary epochs, and who, 
 for this reason, must be held especially represen- 
 tative of the literary epoch that is now coming. 
 She has revived not only the courage but the abil- 
 ity to feel and dream and aspire that belonged to 
 the scorned romanticists of the early nineteenth 
 century. But this recovery of something long held 
 to be lost and outlived forever she has achieved for 
 us without surrender of that intimate connection 
 between poetry and real life which was established
 
 MKU ^\()UK 31 
 
 by the naturalists in the latter half of the same cen- 
 tury." Sodeep is her message as J. B. Kcrfoot said 
 in Life that, "the wise cannot find bottom nor 
 the child get beyond its depth." English critics 
 have compared her with George Eliot, but her 
 literary traditions, sprung from the rich folklore 
 of S\N?feden and the wide reading of a cultivated 
 Scandinavian home, defy the ordinary catch-as- 
 catch-can comparisons of literary criticism. She 
 " is as national " says Walter Prichard Eaton, " as a 
 song by Grieg or a play by Tchekhov. And like 
 all deeply national art, it is therefore universal.'' 
 Of these things, however. Miss Lagerlof with 
 characteristic modesty herself has spoken. In 
 her Nobel Prize address, which is quoted later in 
 this paper she dwelt feelingly upon her literary 
 inlieritance. Still, we feel that Selma Lagerlof is 
 — just Selma Lagerlof because of her complete 
 independence of accepted forms and because of 
 her very abundance which bursts through the 
 conventional bounds of technique to find its own 
 meaning in life's drama. 
 
 In her choice of material Dr. Lagerlof usually 
 selects the common clay of mankind, but in the 
 infinite fineness of her tooling, we see the object
 
 32 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 in all its universality, so that every heart is touched, 
 every mind is led to understand the inscrutable 
 ways of life with her people. And in the light of her 
 inner vision even inanimate objects are touched 
 with the quickening influence so that we come to 
 feel the dark woods, the sleeping waters, the gray 
 northern stones and the tender green things of 
 spring to be an eternal part of the woof of her 
 dream. To her there is no definite line of demar- 
 cation between the conscious and the unconscious, 
 the animate and the inanimate. Through her con- 
 stant mastery over the bounds of the merely physi- 
 cal we come to realize that when she tempts us into 
 far-off, fantastic worlds of her own making, her ulti- 
 mate object is to help us see the inner meanings 
 of the too often over-emphasized superficial act- 
 ualities of our own existence. 
 
 "Reading Selma Lagerlof," says the Swedish 
 composer, Hugo Alfven, "is like sitting in the 
 dusk of a Spanish cathedral. . . . Afterward, 
 one does not know whether what he has seen was 
 dream or reality, but certainly he has been on 
 holy ground." In the same strain, to quote one 
 of our own American critics, Mr. Henry Goddard 
 Leach of the American Scandinavian Foundation,
 
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 1) 53
 
 II KU WORK ,"».? 
 
 said in his warmly appreciative introduction to 
 "Jerusalem": "The average mind, whether Swed- 
 ish or Anglo-Saxon, soon wearies of heartless 
 preciseness in Hterature and welcomes an idealism 
 as wholesome as that of Miss Lagerlcif. Further- 
 more, the Swedish authoress attracts her readers 
 by a diction unique unto herself as singular as 
 the English sentences of Charles Lamb. Her 
 style may be described as prose rhapsody held in 
 restraint, at times passionately breaking its bonds. 
 . . . It is by intuition that she works rather 
 than by experience. . . . She sees her char- 
 acters with w^oman's warm and delicate sympathy 
 and w^ith the clear vision of childhood. . . . 
 Selma Lagerlcif takes her delight in developing, 
 not the psychology of the unusual but in analyzing 
 the motives and emotions of the normal mind." 
 
 Thus out of the multitude of her characters not 
 one is there who does not stand out as an interpre- 
 tation of the Great Enigma, and of the universal 
 human traits which guide our destinies. There 
 is Ingmar Ingmarsson who scarified his love that 
 he might retain the Ingmarsson farm; and big 
 Ingmar who communed with his long dead father 
 to determine his roiirsr in choosing public shame to
 
 34 SELMA LAGERLOP^ 
 
 right the wrong that he had done "because it is 
 the way of we Ingmarssons." Then we have 
 happy, carefree Gosta BerHng "weakest and strong- 
 est of men" perennial playboy of the northern 
 world of heedless joy and tragedy; and his impe- 
 cunious followers the Cavaliers, the pensioners at 
 Ekeby. Who, that has ever read of him can 
 forget poor old Jan of Rufluck Croft, that lowly 
 Emperor of Portugallia, who as his good Katrina 
 said, "is wiser than we know." Can we ever 
 forget his arrival at the pier intending to protect 
 his little Glory Goldie Sunnycastle from her en- 
 emies, "Pride and Hardness, Lust and Vice." 
 
 And of the women, contrast the indomitable 
 Mistress at Ekeby with fair Gertrude of "Jerusa- 
 lem", a frail flower mighty in her spiritual strength; 
 or with the fascinating Marianne, gay, frivolous, 
 lightsome, yet always introspective until she was 
 Hfted out of herself by Gosta. 
 
 Impossible to mention them all, a goodly host, 
 whom the world is the better off and the happier 
 for knowing. 
 
 To resume where Miss Lagerlof left off in her 
 inimitable "The Story of a S.ory," it may be said 
 that "Gcsta Berling" was published in book form
 
 HER WORK f},) 
 
 in Sweden in 1894. Idealism in a world of realism; 
 a romance amidst the smother of gray Scandina- 
 vian pessimism, this saga of Gosta Berling, poet, 
 philosopher, carefree vagabond of Loven's sunny 
 shores, became the epic of \'armland, and her 
 countrymen gave full honour to its writer. Soon 
 the book was translated and published in all the 
 other European countries. In 1899 it appeared 
 in the United States in the translation of Pauline 
 Bancroft Flach. 
 
 Of jVIiss Lagerlof's three great novels, "Gosta 
 Berling," "Jerusalem," and "The Emperor of 
 Portugallia," it must forever remain a matter of 
 individual taste as to which is the best. But 
 whichever one of these may be chosen by the 
 critic, one will always be tempted to place on a par 
 with it her great juvenile classics "The Wonderful 
 Adventures of Nils" and "The Further Adven- 
 tures of Nils." 
 
 A brief description of "The Story of Gcista 
 Berling" perhaps may not be out of order here 
 after so much has been said in the foregoing pages. 
 
 Consult the map of modern Sweden and in the 
 province of Varmland one finds Lake Fryken, 
 and upon its shores the village of Sunne. It is
 
 36 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 here in the old rectory, Marbacka Manor, that 
 Miss Lagerlof grew to womanhood, and it is here 
 that she now hves. This, and the country round- 
 about is the setting for "Gosta Berhng." Lake 
 Fryken is Lake Loven, or, as she so frequently calls 
 it "Long Lake," and Marbacka is Liljecrona's Lov- 
 dalla of "Gosta Berling," "Liljecrona's Home" 
 and of so many other of her stories. 
 
 At the opening of "The Story of Gosta Berling," 
 the hero, an outcast minister of the gospel, is 
 rescued by the Mistress of Ekeby from a snow- 
 bank where he had cast himself down to die. 
 What more magnificent figure in all fiction than 
 this masterful lady of the seven iron works ! 
 When first Gosta saw her she was "on the way 
 home from the charcoal kilns with sooty hands 
 and a clay pipe in her mouth, dressed in a short 
 unlined, skeepshin jacket and a striped homespun 
 skirt, with tarred shoes on her feet and a sheath 
 knife in her bosom." Ah yes, a wonderful woman ! 
 Hear her own words, "If I wave one finger the 
 governor comes, if I wave with two the bishop 
 comes, and if I wave with three all the chapter 
 and the aldermen and mine-owners in Varmland 
 dance to my music."
 
 HER WORK 
 
 And to llio bachelors wing in the great manor 
 house at Ekeby where Hved lier pensioners at 
 leisured ease she l)roiight Gosta Berling, drunken 
 preacher, poet, "lord of 10,000 kisses and 13,000 
 love letters." Gosta Berling whom all women 
 love and who loves them all — but deceives them 
 not — who is yet "strongest and weakest of men" 
 a drunkard, yet heroic, a scamp, yet noble and 
 self-sacrificing, a tremendous force for evil, and a 
 tremendous force for good. On Christmas Eve 
 the pensioners who find shelter beneath this 
 woman's hospitable roof hold a revel in the old 
 smithy. From the forge steps the devil in full 
 panoply of hoofs and horns and reveals to them 
 the terrible compact which their benefactress 
 has made with him to atone for her sins. And so, 
 these shameless cavaliers in hypocritical self- 
 righteousness drive forth the one who had sheltered 
 them. And even Gosta Berling, most lately in- 
 debted to the iron mistress, sits quiescent during 
 her humiliation and expulsion. 
 
 For a year the pensioners run the seven estates to 
 suit themselves. Their lives are filled with mad 
 pranks and insane adventures. "How are you all 
 at Ekeby? " the people ask. " Milk and honey flow
 
 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 there," answers the poet Gosta. "We empty the 
 mountains of iron and fill our cellar with wine. The 
 fields bear gold with which we gild life's misery, 
 and we cut down our woods to build bowling alleys 
 and summer houses." 
 
 Milk and honey indeed! And while the pen- 
 sioners dance the seven estates go to rack and ruin, 
 the old mistress stalks about the country with a beg- 
 gar's crutch. It is during these mad pranks that we 
 meet the fascinating Marianne Sinclair, Ebba 
 Dohna, the lowly broom girl, Anna and many other 
 women who could not resist the charms of Gosta 
 Berling's personality. Above all, we remember the 
 gentle Countess Elizabeth who, conscience stricken 
 at her own unwelcome passion for the poet, deserts 
 her home and pettish husband. Divorced and 
 a homeless wanderer, fate brings her at last to a 
 refuge at Ekeby. Here she asks of Gosta a su- 
 preme sacrifice. They are married and through 
 her influence Gosta Berling's redemption is ac- 
 complished. The manor house is rebuilt, the 
 contract with the devil is cancelled, the rule of the 
 pensioners is ended, and together the Countess and 
 Gosta spend their lives in glorious self-renunciation. 
 
 At the end the old mistress returns home to die.
 
 HEIl WORK f50 
 
 For her ancient sin was the storm of God let loose, 
 bringing ruin and destruction in its path, but at 
 the end sweeping the heavens clear of clouds. 
 
 Thus has ]\Iiss Lagerlof woven from the skeins 
 of countryside legend a wonderful tapestry of 
 Vtirmland. A tapestry of rich colours and great 
 crude figures it is, but her gentle humour, her ever 
 present idealism, and the invariable delicacy of 
 her style have set it apart from anything which she 
 or any other Scandinavian writer has done. 
 
 Miss Lagerliif's next work, a book of short 
 stories entitled "Invisible Links" was published 
 in 1894. Many of the stories are based on the old 
 Swedish sagas, and in all of them we feel the very 
 spirit of the North; the romance which broods 
 over the desolate forests and peoples the wilderness 
 with supernatural beings. The title of the book 
 is intended to convey llie relation of human beings 
 to these manifestations of nature. For in some 
 hidden half-comprehended way thyir lives are 
 linked with the animating spirit which controls the 
 elements. Unlike the characters of "GostaBerling" 
 the people in these tales are mostly humble 
 peasants, fisher folk and other toilers, and as one
 
 40 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 critic said, the events are narrated so that one 
 not only sees the immediate story in hand but 
 the entire hves of the individuals involved. The 
 book was translated by Mrs. Flach and published 
 in this country in the fall of 1899. The critics 
 here were extravagant in their praise of Miss 
 Lagerlof as a short story writer, comparing her 
 favourably with Kipling, Hawthorne, and Poe. 
 Following the publication of "Invisible Links" 
 King Oscar of Sweden and his son Prince Eugen 
 (widely known as a talented and successful land- 
 scape painter) extended financial aid to Miss Lager- 
 lof who also was awarded at this time a small sti- 
 pend by the Swedish Academy in acknowledgment 
 of her achievements. The same year, in company 
 with Sophie Elkan, the author, she made her first 
 trip to Italy. The immediate result of that trip 
 was "The Miracles of Antichrist," published in 
 Sweden in 1897, and in this country in Mrs. 
 Flach's translation in the spring of 1899. 
 
 In this book Miss Lagerlof showed herself 
 completely at home among the legends and folk 
 tales of Sicily. It is rich in the warm colours 
 of the South and apparently her understanding
 
 HER WORK 41 
 
 of the hot blooded Sicilians is as great as it is of 
 the introspective Swedish people. There are 
 characters in this book long to be remembered 
 but it is in the development of the theme that we 
 chiefly marvel. She takes as her text the ancient 
 Sicilian legend which says: "When Antichrist 
 comes he shall seem as Christ. There shall be 
 great want, and Antichrist shall go from land to 
 land and give bread to the poor. And he shall 
 find many followers." Upon this she builds a 
 colorful tale of modern Sicily at the time when 
 revolutionary Socialism swept the island, making 
 heavy inroads upon the influence of the Church. 
 
 An Englishwoman, coveting the wonderful image 
 of the Christchild in the church at Rome, makes 
 an exact duplicate, except that upon the crown 
 of the spurious image is scratched the legend 
 "My Kingdom is only of this World." While 
 pretending to kneel before the shrine she takes the 
 holy image and puts in its place her earthly 
 counterfeit. Months afterward a miracle comes 
 to pass in that the church bells ring, and the true 
 image of the Christchild is found standing at the 
 door. The monks tear down the false statue 
 and cast it into the marketplace, restoring the
 
 42 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 sacred one to its niche. The image whose '* King- 
 dom is only of this world" is picked up and 
 carried into Sicily where as Antichrist, the personi- 
 fication of agnostic ideals, it works many miracles 
 of material aid to the poor and destitute of theland. 
 
 To put it broadly Antichrist represents the 
 spirit of Socialism, whose kingdom was only 
 of this world, recognizing always the rights of 
 man but admitting naught of God. The story 
 ends with the Pope advising Father Gondo as to 
 the restoration of Christianity in the Sicilian 
 towns which have been won over to Socialism. 
 "Father Gondo," said the Pope, sternly, "when 
 you held the image in your arms you wished to 
 burn him. Why.'^ Why were you not loving to 
 him? Why did you not carry him back to the 
 little Christchild on the Capitolium from whom 
 he proceeded? 
 
 "That is what you wandering monj^s could do. 
 You could take the great popular movement in 
 your arms, while it is still lying like a child in its 
 swaddling clothes, and you could bear it to Jesus' 
 feet; and Antichrist would see that he is nothing 
 but an imitation of Christ, and would acknowledge 
 him his Lord and Master. But you do not do so.
 
 HER AVORK 43 
 
 You cast antichristianity on the pyre, and soon he 
 in turn will cast you there. . . . We do not 
 fear him. When he comes to storm the Capitol, 
 . . . we shall meet him and we shall lead him 
 to Christ."* 
 
 "From a Swedish Homestead, " Miss Lagerlof's 
 next book was published in 1899, and was brought 
 out in this country in the English of Jessie Broch- 
 ner, in 1001. f 
 
 The book is made up of a novelette "The Story 
 of a Country House" otherwise known as "From 
 a Swedish Homestead," the remarkable "Queens 
 of Kungahalla" and eight other shorter stories. 
 Of these only three "The Fisherman's Ring," 
 "Santa Catarina of Siena" and "The Emperor's 
 Money Chest" are laid elsewhere than in Sweden, 
 the former in Italy, and the third in the "black 
 country" around Charleroi, an allegory toucliing 
 upon the labour troubles that then beset Belgium. 
 
 It is, however, the first story in the vol nine, 
 "The Story of a Country House" that has at- 
 
 • It should be borne in mind that this story was written before the wide spread 
 of Fabian and Christian Sociahsm, and as such may be taken as rather a re- 
 markable prophecy by Miss Lacier! )f. 
 
 tA new edition of this book was published in 1916 in format uniform with 
 Miss Lagerlof's later work, in response to the demand.
 
 44 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 traded the greatest attention. Here as clearly 
 as anywhere in her work runs that vein of mystic 
 beauty underlying all she does. In the hands 
 of the grim Scandivanian realists this story would 
 have been almost too harrowing, but handled with 
 Miss Lagerlof's delicacy of touch, it becomes a 
 fantasy nearly on a par with "The Emperor of 
 Portugallia." The story deals with a young 
 student at Upsala University who goes into the 
 northern woods to recoup the family fortunes, and 
 who loses his reason through self reproach and 
 pity when his great flock of sheep are frozen to 
 death l^efore his eyes in a storm. This youth of 
 the landed gentry then becomes a peddler of odd 
 trinkets throughout the countryside known only 
 as "The Goat" until through love he is restored 
 to his reason and to his family. 
 
 Following the completion of "From a Swedish 
 Homestead, " in 1899, Miss Lagerlof made her 
 first trip to the Orient from which came her second 
 great classic, "Jerusalem." A few years before a 
 company of peasants from Nas, a severe parish of 
 the sturdy rural district of Dalecarlia, had made 
 a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to join a colony
 
 HER WORK 45 
 
 formed by a Mrs. Edward Gordon of Chicago who 
 had established a mission there made u]) for the 
 most part of Swedish-Americans. 
 
 Thus the historical background of ''Jerusalem.'* 
 Their aim was practical as well as spiritual, for 
 the mission conducted a school, a hospital, and 
 otherwise aided in much needed public works. 
 
 Not only were their early experiences in Jerusa- 
 lem of the most harrowing nature through the 
 rigours of the unaccustomed climate, the fevers 
 which assailed them, and the scanty bounty of a 
 desert land but also there came back to Sweden 
 rumours of the most alarming sort of the conduct 
 of the pilgrims in the Holy Land. 
 
 To ascertain the truth of these rumours, and to 
 probe the cause of the saying, then prevalent in 
 Sweden, that "Jerusalem kills," Miss Lagerlof 
 made the journey to Palestine in 1899-1900. 
 
 Only too truly did she substantiate the grim 
 northern acceptance of an inevitable fate in the 
 Holy Land. "Jerusalem kills!" It was all too 
 true; for the unhappy Dalecarlians, removed from 
 their bracing northern climate, fell an easy prey 
 to the hardships of the desert. Death had stalked 
 among them, but with that determination which
 
 / 
 
 46 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 has won for the Dalecarlians the term of "the 
 backbone of the Swedish nation" they held to 
 their task. As to the charges, it was substantiated 
 that the Swedish mission in its Hberal pohcy 
 toward Christian and Moslem alike had earned 
 the enmity of the other missions there, making 
 easy traffic for the stories which caused such 
 heartache in the Dalecarlian homesteads. 
 Of these conditions Miss Lagerlof wrote: 
 "Here the Catholic speaks evil of the Protestant, 
 the Methodist of the Quaker, the Lutheran of the 
 Reform sect. . . . Here envy lurks; here the 
 fanatic looks askance at the man of sound ideals; 
 here orthodox contends with heretic; here one 
 finds neither pity nor tolerance; here one hates for 
 God's highest glory's sake every human being. 
 . . . Here is the soulhounder's Jerusalem. 
 Here is the evil tongue's Jerusalem. Here one 
 persecutes without cessation; here one murders 
 without weapons. It is this Jerusalem that kills." 
 Perhaps one of the greatest tests of Miss Lager- 
 lof 's artistry was the task of weaving into a work 
 of fiction this background of facts, which were at 
 the time a matter of pressing national importance. 
 To take facts as they are, retain the panorama-like
 
 HER WORK 47 
 
 truth for a background, and then create in tlie 
 foreground a work of art which is anytliing more 
 than an obvious and laboured superstructure is a 
 feat which few have accomplished. The raw 
 colours of the background are yet too new, too 
 stark in their insufficiently understood meaning, 
 to work into a creative story. 
 
 Yet on her return from the Holy Land,. Miss 
 Lagerlof wrote the first volume of "Jerusalem," 
 and had the satisfaction of seeing it hailed as her 
 masterpiece. The book was published in Sweden 
 in 1901, but was not brought out in this country 
 until 1915 in the English of Velma Swanston 
 Howard who has translated all of Miss Lagerlof's 
 later work and who is her authorized representative 
 in this country. * 
 
 Just here a word in regard to Mrs. Howard's 
 untiring work in the cause of Selma Lagerlof in 
 America may perhaps be in order. She is Swedish 
 born but at an early age came to this country. 
 She was reared in constant association with both 
 Swedish and English scholars and is equally at 
 home in both languages. As a young woman she 
 returned to Sweden where she worked for some
 
 48 SEL.MA LAGERLOF 
 
 years as a journalist, somewhat astounding the 
 leisurely Scandinavians with her American methods 
 of newspaper work. One of her first assignments 
 — a "scoop" on her Swedish colleagues — was an 
 interview with her literary idol, Selma Lagerlof. 
 This meeting was the first of many that developed 
 a warm friendship between author and translator. 
 
 Later on at home in America she achieved success 
 as a writer, as a translator of Scandinavian litera- 
 ture and as a lecturer. In Miss Lagerlof 's work, 
 however, she finds her greatest delight for in Mrs. 
 Howard's translations we feel this sympathy im- 
 mediately and we perceive also that through her 
 illuminative translations we get as deeply into 
 the inner meanings and subtleties of Miss Lager- 
 lof's creations, as it is possible to do through an 
 interchange of languages. 
 
 In "Jerusalem" (Volume I) Miss Lagerlof is 
 concerned with the preparation for — the psycholo- 
 gical background, as one might say — the pilgrim- 
 age. The whole book is laid in Dalecarlia, cen- 
 tring around the ancient farm of the long line of 
 Ingmarssons, "Big Ingmar," "Strong Ingmar" 
 and so on. Here we see the very soul of the 
 Swedish people in a series of separate, but linked
 
 Q 
 
 y.
 
 IIKIJ WOUK 49 
 
 pen-pictures, the history of two generations of a 
 farmer family and the crisis of religious fantacism 
 in a rural Swedish parish. Among the peasant 
 aristocracy of Dalecarlia attachment to the 
 homestead is life itself. In "Jerusalem" this 
 emotion is pitted on the one hand against religion, 
 on the other against love. Hearts are broken 
 in the struggle which enables Karin to sacrifice 
 the Ingmar Farm to obey the inner voice which 
 summons her on her religious pilgrimage, . and 
 which leads her brother, on the other hand, to 
 abandon the girl of his heart and his life's personal 
 happiness in order to win back the farm. 
 
 Of the book, Edwin Bjcirkman, the Swedish 
 American critic and writer said, "The first chapters 
 alone are enough to make it immortal," while to 
 quote J. B. Kerfoot again, this time from Everybody's 
 "'Jerusalem' is, on the surface, only one of" the 
 simplest stories yet, in some strange way, it is tlie 
 story of us all. And because its author is a child 
 and a woman and a seer — these three — in one, 
 a child may read 'Jerusalem,' or a sage and be 
 equally enthralled." 
 
 Here in sharp contrast with the irresponsible 
 Viirmland cavaliers of "Gosta Berling," we have
 
 50 SELMA LACERLOF 
 
 the outwardly stolid and plodding peasants of 
 Dalarne, or Daleearlia. Through the witchery 
 of Miss Lagerlof's style we see their cloddish ex- 
 terior, but we also see them right down to the 
 cores of their very hearts and souls. And through 
 her we see why the Dalecarlians have earned the 
 name of "backbone of the Swedish nation." Here 
 we encounter a people who for centuries have asked 
 first of all, "is it right.f^" "is it my duty.^^"; a race 
 who recognize no class differences, who know no 
 nobility except that of character. Here we see a 
 people already deeply religious, stirred to their 
 very depths by the Helgumist movement. 
 
 In the opening chapters which comprise "Book 
 One" we first meet Ingmar Ingmarsson ploughing 
 in his ancestral fields and battling with his con- 
 science. A sullen churl is this "Little" Ingmar; 
 an Ingmarsson with no standing in the community; 
 an Ingmarsson of all that illustrious line who 
 carries a burden upon his conscience. To right 
 that wrong, to marry Brita who had strangled 
 her new-born babe and bring her to rule over the 
 Ingmarsson farmstead, after a term in prison would 
 only make matters worse. And so "Little" 
 Ingmar, as he plodded up and down the field after
 
 iii:i{ woitK 51 
 
 the plow took his troubles to his long dead father 
 "Big" Ingiiiar as he was known the country round. 
 A daring feat, this collociuy with the dead, for 
 even so daring a novelist as Aliss Lagerlof, but 
 carried out with sneh delicacy the reader feels 
 no si>nse wliatt-ver of the bizarre. The decision 
 is reached, and in tlie face of what he considers 
 certain ostracism, Ingniar goes down to the city 
 to meet and marry Brita as she comes out of prison. 
 But here comes out the true Dalecarlian stuff. 
 Instead of being shunned Ingmar is restored to 
 standing in the community for his action and wins 
 the title of "Big" Ingmar. 
 
 Book Two carries us on to that panorama of 
 Swedish peasant life which ends with the dramatic 
 departure of the Dalecarlians for Palestine. 
 
 In structure and technique it has nothing in 
 common with the American or English idea of 
 novel writing, yet from episode to episode we 
 follow the characters, l)it l)y bit getting deeper 
 and deeper into their souls, and little by little , 
 understanding more clearly the inevitability of their 
 destinies. Someone has called Miss Lagerlof a 
 sj'mbolist. Perhaps symbolism is as good a term 
 as another for that strangely fascinating texture
 
 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 which knits all the chapters of "Jerusalem" 
 together in one compelling epic. 
 
 The second volume, called in Swedish "Jerusa- 
 lem in the Holy Land," deals with the lives of the 
 Halgumists in Palestine, but ends as the first volume 
 began in the ancient farmhouse of the Ingmarssons. 
 This was published in Sweden in 1902, the year 
 following "Jerusalem in Dalecarlia." It has not 
 yet appeared in America.* 
 
 Miss Lagerlof's next book "Christ Legends" 
 was published in 1904 and was brought out in this 
 country in Mrs. Howard's translation in 1908. 
 This is a collection of simple little tales of the 
 visible miracles and inner mysteries surrounding 
 the Christ from the time of His birth and up to 
 the time of the Crusades. 
 
 The Swedish school authorities at this time 
 feeling the need of a school reader which would 
 serve to keep ahve the rich store of folk lore and 
 historic tradition which is the background of 
 Swedish life, and at the same time teach the 
 
 * It may be mentioned here that announcement already has been made by 
 Doubleday, Page & Co. of the second volume of Jerusalem under the title of 
 " The Holy City Jerusalem, Vol. II." Velma Swanston Howard the translator 
 has been at work upon this book for nearly a year and has only completed her 
 work in time for fall publication.
 
 WVM WOHK 
 
 wonders of the country's geography, commissioned 
 Miss Lagerlcif to write such a book. "The 
 Wonderful Adventures of Nils" and "The Further 
 Adventures of Nils," (1906 and 1907) were the 
 result. 
 
 If aught were needed to secure forever the 
 place of the writer in the hearts of her countrymen, 
 these books accomplished the purpose. Published 
 in this country in Mrs. Howard's translation in 
 1907 and 1911 respectively, they immediately 
 achieved a popularity which none of her previous 
 books had enjoyed up to that time. They were rec- 
 ognized as classic stories for children of all ages and 
 were circulated widely through the regular book 
 channels, as well as through reading circles, 
 schools, and special library lists. A practical 
 point in regard to the popularity of these books is 
 that they have appeared in the reprint editions, 
 where they have been put in price within the reach 
 of many, many thousands of children who other- 
 wise could not own them. A handsome illustrated 
 edition of "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils," 
 with pictures by Mary Hamilton Frye, also has 
 been issued with success. 
 
 In the face of such wide distribution it seems
 
 54 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 almost superfluous to give here any descriptive 
 note of the two books. Little Nils Holgersson, 
 Morten Goosey Gander, the flock of wild geese 
 and the other characters met there are now as 
 much a part of the web and woof of story tradition 
 in the American child mind as Andersen, Grimm 
 and Aesop. Although these books were Miss 
 Lagerlof's first work for children they showed her 
 perfectly at home before a juvenile audience. 
 Indeed, by many. Nils is considered the author's 
 crowning achievement. 
 
 The year following, 1908, appeared "The Girl 
 From the Marsh Croft" a volume containing the 
 novelette of that title and eight shorter stories, 
 including "The Story of a Story" quoted in the 
 early part of this sketch. "The Girl From the 
 Marsh Croft" is a piece of work as powerful and 
 at the same time as delicately idealistic as the 
 first part of "Jerusalem." The volume was 
 translated by Mrs. Howard and published in this 
 country in 1910. 
 
 "Liljecrona's Home" appeared in 1911, and 
 two years later was translated and published in
 
 HER WORK 
 
 this country in the translation of Anna Barwell. 
 While many of the short stories of Sehna 
 Lagerlof have been laid in Viirmland, and have 
 employed some of the legendary characters of 
 ^'Gosta Berling," here is a whole novel centring 
 around the musician who, although he had a 
 comfortable home, a loving wife, fine children, and 
 a bounteous farm, must needs fritter away his time 
 with the roystering cavaliers at Ekeby. "It is 
 not luxury and good cheer which tempt me away," 
 he plays on his violin when begging forgiveness 
 from his wife, "not love for other women, nor 
 glory, but life's seductive changes : Its sweetness, 
 its bitterness, its riches I must feel about me." 
 And here in this book we see at last the restless 
 musician come home to stay, at peace with the 
 world and with his own restless stormswe})t soul. 
 Like "Gosta Berling" "Liljecrona's Home" is laid 
 in the author's beloved Viirmland and the Lovdalla 
 (home) around which the tale is written is so much 
 like Miss Lagerlof 's own iNIarbacka that one might 
 even say it was taken from it. 
 
 "The Legend of the Sacred Image" one of her 
 most delicate tales of the Holv Land, translated
 
 56 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 by Mrs. Howard, was made up separately as a 
 Christmas gift book here and has enjoyed great 
 popularity. 
 
 "The Emperor of Portugallia" appeared in 
 Sweden in 1914, and in this country in Mrs. 
 Howard's translation in 1916. Dr. Lagerlof's 
 latest collection, published last year in Sweden 
 under the title, "Men and Trolls" is made up of 
 legends, essays, and addresses. 
 
 For any comparison with "The Emperor of 
 PortugaUia" we must go back to "Jerusalem" 
 and "The Story of Gosta Berling," for in its 
 touching simplicity, its spiritual message, and its 
 artistic universality it is comparable only to 
 the highest points of the author's work. The 
 story is so fresh in the public mind that a summary 
 is perhaps unnecessary but for the sake of com- 
 pleteness I should like to set down here a brief 
 outline. 
 
 From the highest critical judgment in this coun- 
 try has come genuine praise such as probably none 
 of her previous books has received . In this romance 
 is seen the fulfilment of that aim which may be 
 found in all her work, of establishing that invisible
 
 HEIt WORK 
 
 link between God and man — of the seen and 
 unseen, of deep spiritual motive and outward 
 action. Hildegarde Hawthorne, one of the first 
 critics in this country to recognize the genius of 
 Sehna Lagerlof says of "The Emperor of Portu- 
 galHa" in the New York Times: 
 
 "Who shall convey the poignant pathos, the serene beauty, 
 the deep and delicate understanding of the human heart 
 whic'li are revealed in this simple story? The very breath 
 of life is in it, the beauty of great art, the unconsciousness of 
 greatness. The setting of forest and mountain, barely indi- 
 cated, yet intimately felt, the hint of magic and of mystery, 
 that is, after all, forever present in life, the contact of good 
 and evil, the joy that becomes sorrow, the sorrow that grows 
 to a loftier and keener joy, all these are here, all woven to- 
 gether into a web of rare texture, strong and fine." 
 
 Speaking of the spiritual message that Miss 
 Lagerlof brings in this book Prof. Stanwood Cobb, 
 of the English Department at the Naval Academy 
 at Annapolis, compares her to Rabindranath 
 Tagore and calls her "a cosmic genius." 
 
 Of the subtlety of its beauty, Ina Ten Eyck 
 Firkins, in the Bellman says: 
 
 "Thought acts upon her pages like sunlight on a sensitive 
 plate; no material medium is evident, but after the exposure 
 the impression is revealed, delicate, distinct, truthful."
 
 58 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 While a reader impressed by its beauty writes 
 to the pubHshers to call the book "a story, a song, 
 an appeal, and a benediction." 
 
 But to return to the story itself: 
 
 "The Emperor of Portugallia" is an epic of 
 fatherhood — a Swedish Pere Goriot, it was called 
 in France — and of the transcendent power of an 
 alchemy which turned to fine gold that which 
 before the whole world was dross. 
 
 It is small wonder that Jan of Rufl3uck Croft 
 never ceased to talli of the time that his little 
 daughter came into the world because upon that 
 day a great change came into his life. When first 
 the tiny bundle was placed in his arms and he 
 became conscious of another heart beating in 
 unison with his own, the churlish peasant was trans- 
 formed. The toil-worn clod became a being of 
 love and happiness, the constant companion of 
 his little girl. On the very next day after her 
 birth he carried her to the door of the humble 
 cottage, and as the ruddy rays of the departing 
 sun bathed father and daughter in their splendour, 
 he christened her Glory Goldie Sunnycastle, 
 Godchild of the Sun. 
 
 And then, the irony of fate that sent the growing
 
 II EH WORK 59 
 
 girl out into the world to earn money that Jaii 
 and Katrina might not lose their home! Appar- 
 ently it was all too etisy, for after the first few- 
 letters containing the needed money, nothing 
 more was heard from the Godchild of the Sun. 
 How Jan took her absence, how he refused to 
 believe ill of her, telling the neighbours that she 
 was away reigning over her Empire of Portugallia 
 and that he, the Emperor of Portugallia, would 
 ())K' day welcome her home with imperial splendour, 
 constitutes as poignant and as deeply searching 
 a story as Miss Lagerlof has ever done. 
 
 But this is no cold. Northern study of Ibsenesque 
 ghosts and mental derangements. "It is well, in- 
 deed, that we have her," says the Boston Tran- 
 script, "for otherwise we should possess but a one- 
 sided understanding of the Northern lands." 
 
 In the climax we see poor Jan's sacrifice made 
 good and the spiritual awakening of Glory Goldie 
 accomplished. 
 
 HER PI^YS 
 
 Since winning the Nobel Prize, Selma Lagerlof 
 lias written two plays — both successes. The 
 first was a dramatization of "The, Girl From the
 
 60 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 Marsh Croft." It is still playing in Denmark, 
 Finland, Norway, and Holland. It was from 
 Mrs. Howard's translation of "The Girl From the 
 Marsh Croft" that Marie Claire made, in connec- 
 tion with the original Swedish, her dramatization 
 of the book for the French stage. A pastoral 
 comedy put on last season at the Royal Theatre, 
 Stockholm, is Miss Lagerlof's second dramatic 
 success.
 
 Ill 
 
 IIEH HONOURS 
 
 UNLIKE so many great figures of literature 
 Sclma Lagerlbf has received full recogni- 
 tion in her own lifetime, both in her own 
 country and by foreigners. Not the least of her 
 honours does Dr. Lagerlof count the tribute that has 
 been paid her work abroad, and she treasures vol- 
 umes of her books which have been translated into 
 many strange languages. Her popularity in Amer- 
 ica, France, and Germany has been every bit as 
 great as at home. In England, too, her works rank 
 in popular and critical regard with the best of the 
 British novelists, and large editions of both "Jeru- 
 salem" and "The Emperor of Portugallia" have 
 found a ready sale and co-incident with the Amer- 
 ican uniform Northland Edition, it is announced 
 that one of the large English publishers will do 
 likewise. Besides her popularity in the French, 
 English, and German speaking countries, Miss 
 Lagerlof's books have been translated into Rus- 
 
 61
 
 G2 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 sian, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Dutch, Italian, 
 Icelandic, while some of her books have ap- 
 peared in Arabic, Hebraic, Armenian, and Ja- 
 panese. 
 
 Of her honours at home it is almost unnecessary 
 to speak. She was created Doctor of Literature 
 by the University of Upsala in 1907 and two years 
 later was awarded the Nobel Prize of $40,000 for 
 literature. This prize is given by that august body 
 of eighteen Immortals, the Swedish Academy, and 
 in choosing the only woman who so far ever has 
 received it, they announced that the award was 
 made "for reason of the noble idealism, the 
 wealth of imagination, the soulful quality of style 
 which characterize her works." 
 
 Five years later, in 1914^, Dr. Lagerlof was 
 elected a member of the Academy, thus making 
 her not only the first woman winner of the Nobel 
 Prize for literature, but also the first and only 
 woman member of the Swedish Academy. 
 
 The award of the Nobel Prize to INIiss Lagerlof 
 was made at a banquet given December 10, 1909, 
 at the Grand Hotel, Stockholm, by King Gustav. 
 Her speech of acknowledgment took the novel 
 form of a story which is typical of the best of her
 
 HER HONOURS 03 
 
 work. It is here quoted in part, as translated by 
 Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard: 
 
 "Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 "A few days ago I sat in a railway carriage on 
 my way to Stockholm, It was drawing on toward 
 evening; it was dark outside and quite dim in the 
 coach. ]My travelling companions were dozing, 
 each in her corner, and I sat quietly listening 
 to the rumbling of the train as it sped along the 
 tracks. 
 
 "As I sat there, I began to think of the number 
 of times that I had journeyed up to Stockholm. 
 
 "The entire autumn I had been living in my 
 old home in Varmland, in the greatest solitude, 
 and now I was obliged to appear among so many 
 people. It was as though I had become somewhat 
 afraid of life and movement back there in the 
 solitude, and I grew troubled at the thought that 
 I must make my appearance in the world again. 
 
 "Then I got to thinking about my father, and 
 felt a sinking at the lieart because he was not liv- 
 ing, so I could loll him thai I had been awarded 
 the Nobel Prize. I knew that no one would have 
 been so glad of it as he. Never have T met any
 
 64 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 one who had such love and esteem for Hterature 
 and writers as had he; and if he only could have 
 known that the Swedish Academy had given me a 
 great literary prize! It was a real aflQiction not 
 to be able to tell him about it. 
 
 "And then my thoughts began to play. 'Think 
 if I were now riding to my old father in the 
 Heavenly Kingdom! I seem to have heard of 
 such things happening to others; why shouldn't 
 they happen to me?' 
 
 "When I meet father, I mused, he will probably 
 be sitting in a rocking-chair on a veranda, facing 
 a sunny garden full of flowers and birds; and 
 naturally he will be reading 'Frithiof's Saga.' 
 And when he sees me he will lay down the book, 
 push back his spectacles, rise and come toward 
 me. And he will say, 'Good day,' and 'Welcome,' 
 and 'So you are out walking,' and 'How are you, 
 my girl?' — in the same old way. 
 
 "Then, when he has settled himself in the 
 rocker again, he will begin to wonder why I have 
 come to him — 'Surely there is nothing wrong at 
 home?' he asks suddenly. 
 
 "'Oh, no, father, all is well'; and I'm about to 
 relate the news, but decide to hold it back a little
 
 IIElt HONOURS C5 
 
 while, and take a roundabout way. 'I have just 
 come to ask you for some good advice,' I say, 
 assuming a troubled expression. 'The fact is, 
 I am swamped with debts.' 
 
 '"I'm afraid you won't get much help in that 
 line from me,' says father. 'One can say of this 
 place, as they used to say of the old homesteads 
 in Varmland, "You will find everything here but 
 money.' " 
 
 '"But it's not in a money sense that I'm in 
 debt," I say. 
 
 "'So it's worse than that, is it.^' asks father. 
 
 * Now tell me all, from beginning to end, my girl ! ' 
 
 '"It's only fair that you should help me,' I say, 
 
 * because it was your fault at the start. Do you 
 remember how you used to sit at the piano and 
 sing Bellman ballads to us children.' And do you 
 remember how you let us read Tegner and Rune- 
 berg and Andersen twice every winter? In that 
 way I came by my first big debt. Father, how 
 can I ever repay them for teaching me to love the 
 sagas and their heroes, and the fatherland and 
 human life in all its greatness and all its frailty .'' 
 
 "As I speak, father straightens himself in his 
 chair, and a lovely light comes into his eyes. 'I'm
 
 66 RELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 glad I had a share in getting you into that debt,' he 
 says. 
 
 "*You don't mean to tell Ine that the Swedish 
 
 Academy ' says father looking me in the eyes. 
 
 Then he understands that it is true. And every 
 wrinkle in his old face begins to quiver and his 
 eyes to fill up with tears. 
 
 "'What shall I say to those who have deter- 
 mined this matter, and to those who have named 
 me for the honour.'^ Consider, father, it is not 
 only honours and gold they have given me, but 
 think how much faith they must have had in me, 
 when they dared to distinguish me before the whole 
 world! How shall I ever cancel that debt of 
 gratitude .f^' 
 
 "Father sits and ponders a while; then he wipes 
 away the tears of joy, shakes himself, and strikes 
 his fist on the arm of the chair. 'I don't care to 
 sit here any longer and muse on things which no 
 one, either in heaven or on earth, can answer!' 
 he says. 'If you have received the Nobel Prize, 
 I shan't trouble myself about anything but to be 
 happy.' 
 
 " Your Royal Highness, — ^Ladies and Gentlemen 
 — since I got no better answer to all my queries.
 
 HER HONOURS 67 
 
 it only remains for nie to ask you to join mc in a 
 toast of gratitude, which I have the honour to 
 propose to tlie Swedisli Academy." 
 
 Not only in literal ure has Selma Lagerlof been 
 honoured. In her article in the Vale Review on 
 "Four Scandinavian Feminists" Hana Astrup 
 Larsen considers her influence upon the feminist 
 movement in Sweden. Miss Larsen refers to 
 Miss Lagerlof as "the author of the two 'best 
 sellers' in Sweden next to the Bible, the most 
 beloved woman in Sweden, and the only one be- 
 sides Ellen Key whose fame has spanned the 
 w^orld." She then goes on to say : 
 
 "When she abandoned her habit of reserve 
 and appeared as the outspoken champion of 
 suffrage at the international suffrage congress 
 held in Stockholm, in 1911, the feminists of Sweden 
 considered it the most important victory they had 
 won in years. Her speech, which is worthy to be 
 preserved among the classics of the movement; is 
 characteristically Northern and breathes the 
 Northerner's passionate love of home. 
 
 "'Have we done nothing,' she asks, 'which
 
 68 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 entitles us to equal rights with man? Our time 
 on earth has been long — as long as his.' She 
 answers her own question by saying that woman 
 has created the home and made it happy and be- 
 loved. Man has created the state and made it 
 great; but all his efforts have not succeeded in 
 making it beloved or happy. ' Witness the hatred 
 between the classes; witness the stifled cries from 
 beneath, all the threats and revolutions. At 
 this very moment, when governments are totter- 
 ing, admirably constructed though they be, when 
 social revolution appears at our very door — it is 
 right here that the great woman's invasion of 
 the man's field of labour and of the territory of 
 the state begins!'" 
 
 This speech has been translated into all. the 
 languages of Europe and has been circulated widely 
 throughout this country by the woman suffrage 
 movement.
 
 IV 
 
 HER HOME 
 
 A ND so at last we come to Dr. Lagerlof's 
 / % home which is so deeply imbedded in 
 -^ -^ everything that she writes. For a knowl- 
 edge of her work it is well to understand her love 
 of the place of her childhood. The early years of 
 Miss Lagerlof's literary career, in fact from 1897 to 
 1908, were spent at Falun in Dalarne or Dalecarlia, 
 the home where she got so close to the hearts of 
 those sturdy self-reliant peasants we met in 
 "Jerusalem." In 1908, however, she returned to 
 Marbacka Manor, the home of her birth, the 
 Liljecrona's Lovdalla of so many of her stories, the 
 happy little farmstead where she breathed in the 
 wealth of legend and folk lore which gave the 
 world "Gosta Berling" and the rest. 
 
 But let us have the author herself tell us of 
 her return to Marbacka and of her restoration of 
 the old place to its ancient state as she had known 
 it through childhood. 
 
 69
 
 70 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 111 his journey homeward from Lapland with the 
 wild geese m "The Further Adventures of Nils" 
 the little boy is set down at a place in Viirmland 
 called Marbacka where he falls into conversation 
 with Mrs. Brown Owl. Miss Lagerlof continues : 
 
 "The very year that Nils Holgersson travelled 
 with the wild geese there was a woman who thought 
 of writing a book about Sweden which .would 
 be suitable for children to read in the schools. 
 She had thought of this from Christmas time 
 until the following autumn, but not a line of the 
 book had she written. At last she became so 
 tired of the whole thing that she said to herself: 
 *You are not fitted for such work. Sit down and 
 compose stories and legends, as usual, and let 
 another write this book, which has got to be 
 serious and instructive, and in which there m^ust 
 not be one untruthful word.' 
 
 "It was as good as settled that she would abandon 
 the idea. But she thought, very naturally, it 
 would have been a joy to write something beautiful 
 about Sweden, and it was hard for her to relin- 
 quish her work. Finally, it occurred to her that 
 maybe it was because she lived in the city, with 
 only gray streets and house walls around her.
 
 UVAi HOME 
 
 that she could make no headway with the writing. 
 Perhaps if she were to go into the country, where 
 she could see woods and fields, it might go better. 
 
 "She had never imagined that it would be so 
 wonderful to come home! As she sat in the cart 
 and drove toward the old homestead she fancied 
 that she was growing younger and j'ounger every 
 minute, and that soon she would no longer be 
 an oldish person with hair that was turning gray, 
 but a little girl in short skirts with a long flaxen 
 braid. As she recognized each farm along the 
 road, she could not picture anything else than 
 that everything at home would be as in bygone 
 days. Her father and mother and brothers antl 
 sisters would be standing on the porch to welcome 
 her, the old housekeei)er would run to the kitchen 
 window to see who was coming, and Nero and 
 Freja and another dog or two would come boimd' 
 ing and jumping up on her. 
 
 *' The nearer she approached the place the happier 
 she felt. It was autumn, which meant a busy time 
 with a round of duties. It must have been all 
 these varying duties which prevented home from
 
 72 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 ever being monotonous. All along the way the 
 farmers were digging potatoes, and probably 
 they would be doing likewise at her home. That 
 meant that they must begin immediately to 
 grate potatoes and make potato flour. The 
 autumn had been a mild one; she wondered if 
 everything in the garden had already been stored. 
 The cabbages were still out, but perhaps the hops 
 had been picked, and all the apples. . . . 
 
 " She had heard that it was very much changed, 
 and it certainly was! But she did not observe 
 this now in the evening. She thought, rather, 
 that everything was quite the same. There 
 was the pond, which in her youth had been full 
 of carp and where no one dared fish, because it 
 was father's wish that the carp should be left in 
 peace. Over there were the menservants' quar- 
 ters, the larder and barn, with the farmyard bell 
 over one gable and the weather-vane over the 
 other. The house yard was like a circular room, 
 with no outlook in any direction, as it had been 
 in her father's time — for he had not the heart to 
 cut down as much as a bush.
 
 II KR HOME 
 
 "She lingered in the shadow under the big 
 mountain-ash at the entrance to the farm, and 
 stood looking about her. As she stood there a 
 strange thing happened : a flock of doves came and 
 lit beside her. 
 
 "She could hardly believe that they were real 
 birds, for doves are not in the habit of moving 
 about after sundown. It must have been the 
 beautiful moonlight that had awakened them. 
 They must have thought it was dawn and flown 
 from their dove-cotes, only to become confused, 
 hardly knowing where they were. When they 
 saw a human being they flew over to her, as if she 
 would set them right. 
 
 "There had been many flocks of doves at the 
 manor when her parents lived there, for the doves 
 were among the creatures which her father had 
 taken under his special care. If one ever men- 
 tioned the killing of a dove, it put him in a bad 
 humour. She was pleased that the pretty birds 
 had come to meet her in the old home. Who could 
 tell but the doves had flown out in the night to 
 show her they had not forgotten that once upon a 
 time they had a good home there. 
 
 "Perhaps her father had sent his birds with a
 
 74 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 greeting to her, so that she would not feel so sad 
 and lonely when she came to her former home. 
 
 "As she thought of this, there welled up within 
 her such an intense longing for the old times that 
 her eyes filled with tears. Life had been beautiful 
 in this place. They had had weeks of work broken 
 by many holiday festivities. They had toiled 
 hard all day, but at evening they had gathered 
 around the lamp and read Tegner and Runeberg, 
 ' Fru' Lenngren and ' MamselV Bremer. They 
 had cultivated grain, but also roses and jasmine. 
 
 " 'Nowhere else in the world do they know how 
 to get so much out of life as they did at one of 
 these little homesteads in my childhood!' she 
 thought. 'There was just enough work and 
 just enough play, and every day there was a joy. 
 How I should love to come back here again! 
 Now that I have seen the place, it is hard to leave 
 it.' 
 
 "Then she turned to the flock of doves and said 
 to them — laughing at herself all the while: 
 
 "'Won't you fly to father and tell him that I 
 long to come home.'^ I have wandered long enough
 
 HER HO.MIO 75 
 
 in strange j)laces. Ask liini if he can't arrange it 
 so that I may soon turn back to my childhood's 
 home.' 
 
 "The moment she had said this the flock of 
 doves rose and flew away. She tried to follow 
 them with her eyes, but they vanished instantly. 
 It was as if the whole white company had dis- 
 solved in the shimmering air. 
 
 "The doves had only just gone when she heard a 
 couple of piercing cries from the garden, and as 
 she hastened thither she saw a singular sight. 
 There stood a tiny midget, no taller than a hand's 
 breadth, struggling with a brown owl. At first 
 she was so astonished that she could not move. 
 But when the midget cried more and more pitifully, 
 she stepped up quickly and parted the fighters. 
 
 " ' I understand that you take me for one of the 
 tiny folk,' said the midget, 'but I'm a human 
 being, like yourself, akhough I have been trans- 
 formed by an elf.' 
 
 "The boy did not mind telling her of his adven- 
 tures, and, as the narrative proceeded, she who
 
 76 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 listened to him grew more and more astonished 
 and happy. 
 
 " ' What luck to run across one who has travelled 
 all over Sweden on the back of a goose!' thought 
 she. 'Just this which he is relating I shall write 
 down in my book. Now I need worry no more 
 over that matter. It was well that I came home. 
 To think that I should find such help as 50on as I 
 came to the old place!' 
 
 "Instantly another thought flashed into her mind. 
 She had sent word to her father by the doves 
 that she longed for home, and almost immediately 
 she had received help in the matter she had pon- 
 dered so long. Might not this be the father's 
 answer to her prayer?"
 
 MISS LAGERLOF TO-DAY 
 
 HERE at Marbacka and at her winter home 
 in Falun, Dalarne, she spends her time, 
 writing much less than of old now for the 
 demands upon her time and energy are many and 
 great. But ever more generous is the outpouring 
 of love from her warm human understanding and 
 tender woman's heart. Through her ready knowl- 
 edge of the other Scandinavian languages, and 
 with English, French, German, and Italian she 
 keeps abreast of all the great world movements. 
 A lover of solitude, she has nevertheless been 
 visited by many Americans and to each and every 
 one she put more questions than did the interviewer. 
 Woman suffrage. Christian Science, Socialism, 
 temperance, and the war in all its relations to 
 neutrals are subjects of which she cannot hear 
 enough from Americans. 
 
 Both Marbacka and Falun are typical Swedish 
 
 homes redolent of the rich store of tradition 
 
 77
 
 78 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 behind her art. The winter home at Falun is a 
 picturesque old cottage which was built nearly 
 200 years ago, and unlike the prevailingly austere 
 architecture of the province it has a quaint 
 beauty and charm that sets it apart from its 
 neighbours. 
 
 Within is an atmosphere of simple dignity, of 
 warm hospitality, for Miss Lager lof lives and 
 works amidst surroundings in harmony with 
 her personality. From beneath a crown of white 
 hair her eyes look at and through one, kindly yet 
 penetrating, and always ready to twinkle happily 
 at the humour which she sees in life. For years 
 she has lived in these two homes with her aged 
 mother, lavishing love, not only upon those near 
 and dear to her, but upon all humanity. Miss 
 Lagerlof's father died when she was a young girl, 
 but her mother lived until about a year ago. 
 
 Of the Americans who have called upon Miss 
 Lagerlof perhaps the only one to establish a 
 friendship which has lasted for years, and grows 
 closer as time goes on, is her translator, Mrs. 
 Velma Swanston Howard. The account of the 
 latter's first visit to Miss Lagerlof at Falun shows 
 much of the author's personality. Mrs. Howard,
 
 MISS LA(JEULOI" T()-DAY 7!) 
 
 as iiientioned before, was engaged in journalism in 
 Stockholm, and had been told by her friends that 
 Miss Lager lof never saw interviewers. Mrs. 
 Howard, with American energy, however, opened a 
 correspondence which finally resulted in an invita- 
 tion, not for an interview, but simply for a visit. 
 
 Of this first visit Mrs, Howard said : 
 
 "Miss Lagerlof received me with the cordiality 
 of old friendship. There was no feeling of strange- 
 ness. She is one of those rare personalities with 
 whom one may think aloud without fear of being 
 misunderstood. She never asks a personal ques- 
 tion. She is a ravishing listener. She was then 
 on the shady side of forty — a woman of medium 
 height, with fine, fair face, splendid head superbly 
 set on neck and shoulders. Her beautiful white 
 hands — she wears a five and a half glove — fasci- 
 nated me. Her sense of humour was keen. There 
 was a twinkle in her eye, a twist about the mouth, 
 a certain sly humour that preceded her speech, 
 while her chuckle was inimitable. 
 
 "'Shall we go to the park?' she asked, appar- 
 ently studying how best to entertain me. 
 
 "*If you do not object, I should prefer to stay 
 -where we are.' Her relief was obvious. Then
 
 80 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 she fell to questioning me about America. Her 
 curiosity was insatiable. She was eager to know 
 about American women. She admired their 
 freedom, vivacity, initiative. She was immensely 
 interested in Mary Baker Eddy. That a woman 
 should have founded a religious cult of such tre- 
 mendous following amazed and delighted her. 
 
 '"I have not been allowed to interview you,' 
 I laughingly said as we parted that night, at 
 eleven o'clock. 'Now I shall have to write how 
 I have been interviewed by Sweden's most be- 
 loved author.' 
 
 "That interview, which my Stockholm friends 
 assured me was not to be had," concluded Mrs. 
 Howard, "sowed the seed of a friendship that 
 culminated in my becoming Miss Lagerlof's Eng- 
 lish translator.' I had two unforgettable days 
 at Viirmland, on my last visit to Sweden in the 
 summer of 1914, and although my hostess was at 
 work on a new book we had many happy hours 
 together. Strangely enough, the dining -room 
 is panelled with Washington State landscapes, 
 painted by Miss Lagerlof's uncle, who lived some 
 years at Seattle." 
 
 Sweden's most popular author now passes her*
 
 MISS LAf;EULOK T(>-DAV SI 
 
 summers at Marbacka Manor, the home of her 
 youth, whieli she rebought after twenty years' 
 absence. She continues to employ there, to the cha- 
 grin of its overseer, a corps of aged servitors whose 
 youth went to the development of the estate. 
 Her fifty -eight fruitful years find her with a gener- 
 ous income from her books and plays, and it is 
 with her a joy to spend her time and her substance 
 in the service of humanity and of her loved ones.
 
 SELJVIA LAGERLOF'S SWEDEN 
 
 Herewith a key to the map of Sehna Lagerlof's Sweden 
 giving as far as possible the exact geographical names of the 
 places Dr. Lagerlof gave fictional names in her books. 
 
 Actual places in Roman letters. 
 Author's fictional names in Italic. 
 
 FICTIONAL NAME 
 
 Loven or Long Lake 
 
 Ekehy . 
 
 Sjp . 
 
 Bjorne 
 
 Lovik . 
 
 Brohy . 
 
 Bjbrksjon 
 
 Sandvik 
 
 Fors . 
 
 Bro 
 
 Borg 
 
 Svartsjo 
 
 Ndrlunda 
 
 Big Marsh 
 
 ACTUAL GEOGRAPHICAL NAME 
 
 Lake Fryken 
 
 Rottneros 
 
 Ojervik 
 
 Sundsberg 
 
 V. Emtervik 
 
 Amberg 
 
 Lake Rotinar 
 
 Lysvik 
 
 Bjorkefors 
 
 Sunne 
 
 Herresta 
 
 O. Emtervik 
 
 On Klar River 
 
 Bordering Klar River 
 
 See: 
 "The Story 
 of Gosta 
 Berling" 
 "The Girl 
 From the 
 Marsh- 
 croft" 
 "Legends" 
 Etc. 
 
 ^Liljecrorids Lovdalla Marbacka 
 
 Doveness . 
 Dove Lake 
 
 Raglanda . 
 Munkhyttan 
 
 The Parish 
 
 Skacks 
 Skacks Lake 
 
 "The Story of Gosta 
 
 BerHng" 
 
 " The Emperor of ' 
 
 Portugallia" 
 
 "Liljecrona's Home" 
 
 ^ See: 
 
 > "The Emperor of 
 
 J Portugalia" 
 
 See: 
 
 Southwestern Dalarne 
 
 ITpsala 
 
 Fifty Mile Forest 
 
 Falun 
 
 Nas 
 
 Dal River 
 
 Gagnef 
 
 Floda 
 
 "From a 
 Swedish 
 Home- 
 stead" 
 
 See: 
 "Jerusalem" 
 
 'Miss Lagerlof's own native home where "The Story of Gosta Berling" and most of her other 
 books were written. 
 2Miss Lagerlof's winter home where "Jerusalem" was written.
 
 ■»y.-.<-.Y- ::•••.■■.: , -;
 
 The Northland Edition 
 
 OF THE WORKS OF 
 
 SELMA LAGERLOF 
 
 NINE VOLUMES BOUND IN LIMP LEATHER 
 
 Translated by Velma Swanston Howard 
 
 The Emperor of Portugallia 
 
 Jerusalem 
 
 The Wonderful Adventures of Nils 
 
 The Further Adventures of Nils 
 
 The Girl from the Marsh Croft 
 
 Translated by Pauline Bancroft Flach 
 
 The Story of Gosta Berling 
 
 The Miracles of Antichrist 
 
 Invisible Links 
 
 Translated by Jessie Brochner 
 
 From a Swedish Homestead 
 
 Each volume, net, $1.75. Nine volumes, boxed, net, $15.75 
 (These volumes may also be obtained in cloth) 
 
 An attractive booklet on Selma Lagerlof and her works will be 
 
 sent free on request. Booklets on Kipling, Conrad 
 
 and O. Henry may also be obtained 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
 
 NTRAL UNIVEkoii 
 versity of Californj 
 
 DATE DU: 
 
 AA 000 947 931 2 
 
 7 1977 
 
 University of California _ 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 -^nt; ne Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 9biJoa 
 ^° LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 RetumthiimatH!^^ 
 
 1