42 Q^
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS 
 OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHANNES REIMERS 
 
 Man is fallen ; nature is erect and serves as a 
 differential thermometer, detecting the presence or 
 absence of the sentiment in man. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
 BOSTON 
 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) 
 
 M D CCCC
 
 Copyright, 1900 
 BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Colonial 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed by C H. Simonds & Co. 
 Boston, U. S. A.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS 
 OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 2132543
 
 Unto the Heights of 
 Simplicity 
 
 9 
 i 
 
 LYDER VAN MEEREN had passed the 
 Examen artium at the Christiania 
 University. 
 
 He and three other youths, with downy 
 upper lips and white student caps, had 
 returned to their respective homes in Ber- 
 gen, walking all the way across country, a 
 feat which at that time was very fashionable. 
 
 They had returned, these four dons amis, 
 with sunburned faces in place of those 
 bleached, tired countenances presumed to be 
 the result of their ardent mental work in a 
 student's dingy attic. Inhaling the fragrance 
 from woods and mountain wastes, listening to 
 the song of the cascades and the wild steps of 
 5
 
 6 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 the wind across the blooming moors, they 
 forgot their dreams of future positions in 
 the king's service, forgot everything except 
 that they were young. 
 
 Old Herr van Meeren was very proud of 
 his only son. 
 
 True, Lyder had passed anything but a 
 brilliant examination ; but once Herr van 
 Meeren had despaired of ever seeing him 
 with the student's tasselled cap. Lyder had 
 occasioned his father a great deal of anxiety 
 on account of his unreliability and persistent 
 lack of interest in study. 
 
 The one, of all others, who took the 
 most pride in Lyder's success was Helga, 
 although, indeed, there had not always been 
 a brotherly and sisterly feeling between 
 the two. 
 
 He was but a year older than she, and 
 during their childhood together he had 
 teased her unmercifully ; besides, she could 
 not for a long time get rid of the recollection 
 of those disagreeable weekly scenes between 
 her brother and father, when Lyder brought
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 7 
 
 home from school the teacher's written com- 
 plaint of his conduct, he did not study his 
 lessons and often played truant. Yet Helga, 
 with sisterly faithfulness, had always begged 
 him to do better, though all in vain. Lyder 
 preferred to roam far into the lonely moun- 
 tains, where he found a happiness, the source 
 of which his boyish mind did not compre- 
 hend. So, week after week, it was the same 
 thing over again, until Helga had come to 
 feel almost a dislike for her brother. 
 
 In those days the only one who showed 
 Lyder sympathy was his mother. 
 
 " He is such a handsome boy," she said 
 to her sister, the childless widow of a high 
 official. " He shows such refined interests 
 and inclinations." 
 
 She was a beautiful woman, Fru van 
 Meeren, and must have been still more so in 
 her youth. But her gay laughter had dis- 
 appeared with the years, and something hard 
 would now often show itself in her expres- 
 sion. She lived a retired and so her friends 
 said an embittered life, in her large,
 
 8 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 antique Hanseatic mansion behind the high, 
 well-kept hawthorn hedges. 
 
 Between Herr van Meeren and his wife 
 existed none of that warmth which makes 
 home happy. His cold, polite conduct to- 
 wards her was not merely the result of his 
 business habits. 
 
 The children had never seen it otherwise, 
 and noticed it only in a vague, half-compre- 
 hending way ; but other people, who thought 
 they knew all about it, spoke of the why 
 and wherefore, Herr van Meeren had not 
 been true to his wife, and she was aware of 
 the fact. 
 
 In her somewhat haughty way, she seemed 
 all absorbed in her household, looking after 
 the many servants, who, far from loving her, 
 gossiped of the proud, mute manner in 
 which she treated her husband. 
 
 But now, when Lyder had returned and 
 given them all so much happiness, Helga 
 forgave him, and came nearer to him, day 
 after day, through her visible, sisterly pride 
 and love. She began to think that if she
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 9 
 
 had shown him that long ago, she might 
 have had far more influence over him ; and 
 in consequence she blamed herself for part of 
 his failings. 
 
 Lyder was certainly attractive to look 
 upon, in his light-coloured summer suit and 
 white student cap adorned with a cockade 
 bearing the miniature head of Minerva in 
 silver, with his soft intimation of a blond 
 mustache, his light hair, curled about the 
 ears ; and then his nonchalance of manners, 
 the very way he tipped his cap, ah, there 
 were times when he perfectly fascinated her. 
 It filled her with the happiest sensation 
 of pride to walk with him evenings on 
 " Smaastrandgaden," the fashionable boule- 
 vard, where, leaning on his arm, she read 
 envy in the glances of her girl friends. 
 
 The four dons amis, those happy-go-lucky 
 young academicians, had become the lions of 
 the season. They were the centre of a 
 great deal of gayety, picnics and soirees at 
 summer villas. 
 
 Such an autumn as that, Helga had never
 
 IO UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 before seen. Nobody remembered having 
 plucked roses and dahlias as late as they did 
 that year. The fiord glittered in the sun- 
 shine, under a cloudless sky; the distant 
 islands seemed surprisingly near through 
 that limpid air; the high mountains stood 
 steely hard and blue. Everything had be- 
 come delightful. Helga fluttered from one 
 enjoyment to another, half in love with Jens 
 Birk. 
 
 She could not deny that he was very 
 dashing, perhaps a little too forward; but 
 interesting, nevertheless. 
 
 For all that, Lyder had lost none of his 
 charm for her. His company aided her in 
 her little coquetries; and, as she said to 
 herself almost in ecstasy one night, when 
 undressing in her cozy room after a ball at 
 Richter's, "What pleasure, what happi- 
 ness, to be a little coquettish ! " Then, as 
 an afterthought, " Karen Schl utter said after 
 a waltz with Lyder, in her silly, gushing 
 way, ' He is so sweet, Helga.' True, very 
 true; but Karen could have kept it to her-
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY II 
 
 self, at least not have said it so he could 
 hear it." 
 
 Why, was she becoming jealous of her 
 own brother? 
 
 Lyder was certainly drawing nearer to his 
 father. 
 
 Herman van Meeren began to believe his 
 son was one to be proud of, after all. He 
 even condescended to speak to him about 
 some of his business affairs. His new feel- 
 ings escaped him unexpectedly one evening, 
 when, accompanied by Lyder, he took his 
 usual walk to " Svartedig," a tarn among 
 high, dark mountains. 
 
 After that, he had trusted Lyder with 
 some of his minor bank transactions, and 
 under the influence of his son's youthful 
 companionship had joined one of the young 
 people's picnics, where he astonished every- 
 body by being extremely jovial. 
 
 Herr van Meeren looked like a well-kept 
 ledger, written in the most exact hand- 
 writing and scrupulously clean ; you could 
 hardly imagine him unbending, and indeed
 
 11 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 he himself apparently thought he had gone 
 too far and made himself laughable, for soon 
 afterwards he withdrew still more into his 
 lonely life with its unexpressed thoughts. 
 
 " Poor papa," said Helga, laughing, " he 
 tried to be jolly, but gave it up in despair. 
 Poor papa ! " 
 
 And who knows if he had not tried to 
 make a change, if he had not, perhaps for 
 the hundredth time, tried to smooth away 
 that which kept his wife at such a great 
 distance from him, now that Lyder had 
 returned and was giving them both so much 
 satisfaction? Ah, if only she would forgive 
 and forget! 
 
 But Herr van Meeren did not receive 
 what he hoped for; the past was not 
 forgotten. 
 
 The reaction from this summer of sun- 
 shine was agreeable to none. Herr van 
 Meeren complained of hard times and an 
 increasing unrest in business circles. He 
 visited the club more frequently; when at 
 home, he was often irritable towards the
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 13 
 
 young people, though invariably polite to 
 his wife. The companion he had lost in 
 her, he found little by little in Helga. 
 
 Almost every evening he and his daughter 
 walked together. Not much was said be- 
 tween them ; still they enjoyed each other's 
 silent companionship. Herr van Meeren 
 would watch Helga as she strolled off by 
 some side-path, picking autumn leaves and 
 belated flowers, and wait for her, patiently 
 leaning on his ivory-headed cane, until she 
 returned; then just as quietly they went on 
 their way to the -tarns. 
 
 Once arrived there, they would seat them- 
 selves on a bench from which they over- 
 looked the dark water. The mountains rose 
 in great threatening masses ; but here in 
 the peaceful autumnal evening Herr van 
 Meeren forgot his troubles, here he rested. 
 
 After a while, they would walk slowly 
 home, greeting those whom they met on 
 their way, peasants for the most part, re- 
 turning from town with large empty wooden 
 milk vessels strapped to their backs, and
 
 14 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 sometimes smaller ones in either arm ; all 
 patiently plodding their way to the small 
 rocky farms far back among the mountains. 
 
 Lyder had now returned to the university 
 to carry on his studies for the second ex- 
 amination. He went leaving a little girl 
 behind, who did not know certainly whether 
 she was quite engaged to him or not. 
 
 Helga too longed for him. She missed 
 him at the balls and soirees ; she missed him 
 especially at home, now the evenings were 
 growing so very long. She had gotten over 
 her possible fancy for Jens Birk ; he was 
 not the kind of man she could love. There 
 was nothing in his mental self to attract her. 
 She had grown tired of his bold witticisms. 
 She was becoming disgusted with society 
 itself, with the foppish, empty-headed 
 young men who surrounded her; with the 
 silly, gushing girls, lacking any high or 
 noble interests. 
 
 And the silent friendship between her and 
 her father grew stronger day by day. 
 
 She began to have a vague feeling that
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 15 
 
 there was something unspoken which op- 
 pressed her father ; that he wanted to open 
 his heart to her, but could not. 
 
 Sometimes, alone in her room, Helga would 
 ask herself why she had not put her arm about 
 him and caressed him? Surely that some- 
 thing would then have melted away ; surely 
 he would not have resented such caresses. 
 Perhaps, after all, that was what he was long- 
 ing for, more love, more caresses. It did 
 not enter her mind that there was one as 
 near, yes, nearer than she, to give both to 
 him. 
 
 " Mamma is so refined, so well-bred, of such 
 an old aristocratic family. Mamma is so 
 beautiful, so noble, so reserved, so above all 
 others." Such was Helga's impression of 
 her mother. 
 
 She made up her mind that if it was 
 caresses her father wanted, she would give 
 them to him. 
 
 But the result was the same, that some- 
 thing came always between them. And still 
 they knew they loved each other.
 
 1 6 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Winter had come. 
 
 One evening as father and daughter stood 
 overlooking the tarns, watching the high 
 snow-covered mountains dip their glowing 
 crests in the mirroring water, Herr van 
 Meeren took Helga's hand and held it 
 securely. She could not remember his ever 
 having done so before, not since she was 
 very small. He spoke to her of the great- 
 ness of nature, its wonderful changing moods, 
 so impressive to the human mind if one but 
 opened his soul to its influence. 
 
 There came something almost happy into 
 his gray, expressive eyes, as he glanced at 
 her and again looked out over the tarns, 
 settling back to his own silent thoughts. 
 
 Why did she not at that time return the 
 pressure of his hand ? Why did she let it 
 slowly glide away from her? She blamed 
 herself over and over; yet she could not 
 have done otherwise, for that something had 
 been there standing between them. She 
 could only nod. Did he read in her eyes 
 what she felt?
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 1 7 
 
 She commenced to sing Grieg's " Cradle 
 Song." It blended well with the winter 
 evening's melancholy freshness, and with 
 the snow-covered mountains in the fading 
 light. 
 
 And Herr van Meeren sat longer than 
 usual, for he listened to Helga's singing. 
 She put her whole soul into the melody ; the 
 tears came to her eyes. 
 
 She had a voice of no great power, but 
 delightfully soft in all its cadences, so home- 
 like, so well suited to the romances of the 
 Norse composers. When she sang at home, 
 Herr van Meeren invariably put aside the 
 newspaper and listened, but never before 
 had she seemed to him to sing so charm- 
 ingly as on that evening. 
 
 " Beautiful, beautiful ! " he said, as if to 
 himself, when she had finished. 
 
 " Happy will be the one who shares his 
 home with her" he thought; and involun- 
 tarily the young men of their acquaintance 
 passed in review before his inner eye. There 
 
 was not one he did not discard, empty- 
 
 a
 
 1 8 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 headed, arrogant, most of them returning 
 from a few years abroad with a demeanour 
 as if they had conquered a world, but who, 
 if left to their own resources, would sink far 
 below recognition in the whirling stream of 
 human competition. 
 
 Then his thoughts dropped back to his 
 business.
 
 II 
 
 SPRING brought Lyder back again from 
 the university. 
 
 He had written home that he had lost 
 interest in his studies, that he believed he 
 would make a better merchant than lawyer, 
 and that if his father would give him a posi- 
 tion in the office, he would work satisfactorily, 
 and perhaps some day become almost as good 
 a merchant as his successful forefathers. 
 
 Herman van Meeren & Son, thought 
 Lyder, and later on, Lyder. van Meeren. 
 
 He wrote both forms several times on a 
 slip of paper, but wisely not in the letter. 
 Yes, it sounded and looked well ; he practised 
 it over and over again, Herman van Meeren 
 & Son, with a great flourish below it. 
 
 Herr van Meeren felt somewhat disap- 
 pointed at first. He would rather have seen 
 his son in some secure government position. 
 Trade was by no means as profitable as it
 
 2O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 used to be. The lower classes were getting 
 better schooled, more independent, all of 
 which made competition greater. 
 
 With the worst apprehensions for the 
 future, Herr van Meeren saw the steady 
 onward march of the middle class into social 
 as well as mercantile and political influence. 
 He prophesied great calamities that would 
 befall a people losing respect for its God- 
 ordained rulers, where the poor, penniless 
 wretches of society thought, yes, dared to 
 express openly their opinion that they had 
 the same rights as the wealthy and educated. 
 
 Herr van Meeren was a strong conserva- 
 tive royalist, and looked askance at the proph- 
 ets of the new spirit; at these youngsters, 
 these tailors and shoemakers, yes, even peas- 
 ants and labourers, who wanted to be heard, 
 who laughed at what they chose to call the 
 antiquated laws of society, laws under 
 which the country had been prosperous for 
 a hundred years. 
 
 And, what was worse, there were those of 
 the educated should he call them better
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 21 
 
 classes ? who joined in this down-cry of old 
 institutions. 
 
 No wonder times were getting hard, that 
 one business venture after another failed, 
 that the old profits of his youth and of his 
 forefathers seemed a thing of the past. 
 
 Herman van Meeren had the bulk of his 
 capital invested in large sailing vessels which 
 ploughed all known seas, proudly flying the 
 Norwegian flag in distant harbours. During 
 the fisheries, he had quite a fleet of smaller 
 craft, schooners and fishing-smacks, at Ice- 
 land, Lofoten, and Finmarken. 
 
 But the freight rates of sailing vessels had 
 reached low-water mark ; the Iceland fisheries 
 were not always a success, very often a total 
 failure. 
 
 And these same men, these radicals, who 
 had succeeded through false promises to the 
 people in sneaking into the Storthing, these 
 same men had the audacity to tell the ex- 
 perienced merchants of that old Hanseatic 
 city that the steady increase in the use of 
 steamers was at the bottom of the just as
 
 22 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 steadily declining freight rates of sailing 
 vessels. 
 
 Herr van Meeren and the whole Board 
 of Exchange, of which he was a member, 
 laughed at this idea. Steamers would never 
 pay for long distances, they said ; yet the 
 freight rates went down ; the Iceland fish- 
 eries were almost a failure for several years 
 in succession ; no wonder Herr van Meeren 
 bethought himself before he consented to his 
 son's mercantile plans. 
 
 But it won't last, he thought ; better times 
 will soon come they must. 
 
 It had always been so ; the best times in- 
 variably succeeded the hardest. 
 
 So Lyder van Meeren was permitted to 
 occupy a seat in his father's office, at the 
 large, old-fashioned desk. 
 
 " Herman van Meeren & Son," whispered 
 his imagination to him, and he practised 
 writing it on waste paper with that artistic 
 flourish beneath it. After a while he grew 
 careless, and one day the senior member of 
 the imaginary firm became accidentally
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 23 
 
 aware of several such signatures which had 
 found their way to the waste-basket. 
 
 Herr van Meeren laughed aloud, and 
 shook his head. 
 
 That black cloud of hard times rested 
 thicker than ever right overhead, and at the 
 horizon sparkled the free thoughts, the 
 spirit of the time, like ugly streaks of light- 
 ning ; and a murmur of distant thunder, 
 the voices of the oppressed masses, became 
 louder day by day. 
 
 And then that bitterness in his heart, that 
 shadow of doubt, his wife's lack of confi- 
 dence in him, the cold, unforgiving, colour- 
 less way in which she looked at him and still 
 did not see him, this beautiful, proud woman, 
 proud of her old family, too proud to for- 
 give him that one sin. Could she never for- 
 get the past? Never again surround him 
 with the warmth and sunshine in which they 
 had lived during the first years of their mar- 
 riage ? " Marriage ! " he exclaimed in his 
 thoughts. " Marriage ! If this is marriage, 
 it is degrading, embittering ; when one has
 
 24 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 promised what one cannot keep, what per- 
 haps circumstances make it impossible to 
 keep, when temptation steals upon one like 
 the thief in the night, when, intoxicated with 
 life, one's will is gone, and the blood sweeps 
 on with checkless rapidity through the veins." 
 
 It was long, long ago. 
 
 Now age had laid its cooling influence on 
 his gray head. Had he felt then as he did 
 now, never, never should it have happened ! 
 Had he not begged his wife to forgive him ? 
 
 Had he not told her that he loved her? 
 That his love for her had lost nothing of its 
 strength, that she was the only one he had 
 ever loved ? Did she wish him to go to her 
 in confession and beg for mercy all through 
 life ? Never ! Never ! 
 
 But the harmony, the warmth, the happi- 
 ness, love which makes home a home, which 
 makes of two, man and wife gone ! gone 
 forever ! 
 
 And that woman whose mere bodily 
 charms had tempted him and made him 
 tempt her, how he hated her ! What a whirl
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 25 
 
 of contradictions, what a chaos of unhealed 
 diseases, pestered the body of civilised 
 society ! Yet such it has always been, such 
 it will always be, he told himself. 
 
 The woman had bothered him with her 
 continual demands for money, which, when 
 he gave it to her, she so sadly misused. 
 And when once he had refused her more, 
 she had carried out her threat and betrayed 
 him to his wife. 
 
 He suspected that she still annoyed his 
 wife with such demands, but he had not 
 the courage to ask. 
 
 Meanwhile times grew harder.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE Van Meeren mansion was built of 
 wood, and dated back to the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century. 
 
 It had a large veranda sunk into the cen- 
 tre of the fa9ade, supported by heavy, fluted 
 pillars with Doric capitals, reaching to the 
 height of both storeys. The large windows, 
 double in winter, consisted of many small 
 panes of rather inferior glass. Back of the 
 high stone wall having a sloping roof of blue 
 glazed tiles, and two heavily ironed, spiked 
 ports, lay the large terraced garden, with its 
 century-old lindens and lilacs, its grotesque 
 wooden statuary, and high, well-trimmed 
 hedges ; its stiff beds, with old-fashioned 
 Dutch flowers and long rows of gooseberry 
 and currant bushes. Scaling the mountain, 
 back of the house, was a forest of some size, 
 of hazel, birch, and rowan trees, with winding 
 trails and jutting ivy-covered rocks, and a
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 27 
 
 few immense white beeches, which had stood 
 there for centuries, since the time, indeed, 
 when all the surrounding hills and grass- 
 lands were included in the bishop's garden. 
 
 The king's highway, broad and well kept, 
 lined on either side with lindens, ran in 
 front. 
 
 This summer evening the lindens were in 
 full bloom, and the air was heavy with moist 
 warmth and an undefinable mixture of per- 
 fumes from the fields and gardens. 
 
 A few stray clouds burned in the sunset 
 sky. 
 
 The fiord at the foot of the hills lay 
 smooth and unruffled, like the softest satin. 
 Some sparrows were still quarrelling in the 
 dense crowns of the tall trees. 
 
 Lyder was just going to open the portal 
 and enter, when he saw a girl coming down 
 the elevated sidewalk towards town. 
 
 He had noticed her before. She was one 
 of the servants in a neighbouring family, 
 presumably the Richters'. 
 
 Lyder waited to let her pass.
 
 28 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 She was tall, well shaped, with large blue 
 eyes in an oval, pale, dimpled face. 
 
 One would never have thought her a 
 peasant girl, had it not been for the white 
 embroidered kerchief tied over her head. 
 
 This was all that remained of her peasant 
 costume except a silver filigree pin fastened 
 at her throat in the plain black woollen 
 dress. 
 
 She returned his look with a short, uneasy 
 glance, and before Lyder fully comprehended 
 what he was doing, he had let go the latch 
 of the portal and followed her. 
 
 He walked faster than she, and as he 
 passed her, she hurriedly looked in the 
 opposite direction. 
 
 After a while he returned and passed her 
 once more. When he looked at her now, 
 she slowly withdrew her eyes. 
 
 " My God," he spoke to himself, "my God, 
 how beautiful she is ! " 
 
 And that pale face, that slender, finely 
 formed body, haunted him for days after. 
 She stood before him when he least ex-
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 29 
 
 pected it, so plainly seen, so very desirable. 
 Her fair skin, almost pale, but not dead 
 oh, no in his mind he had let her smile 
 to him with that wonderful expression of 
 those heavily-lidded eyes. He wondered if 
 that was the way she really smiled. 
 
 Lyder had grown tired of writing the 
 imaginary signature of Herman van Meeren 
 & Son. To be honest with himself, he ad- 
 mitted he had grown heartily tired of the 
 whole office and the smell of dried cod and 
 cod-liver oil. 
 
 Now summer was come, he began to 
 feel like a bird in a cage. He longed for 
 the large world outside, and sent a yearn- 
 ing thought with the ships, which, all sails 
 set, flew off to warmer seas and countries, 
 of richer, gayer colours, under a bluer sky. 
 
 Oh, if he could throw it all off ! Out, out ! 
 
 He would leave the old Adam in him 
 behind, step out in the great world a new 
 and freer man, with only his good qualities 
 predominating.
 
 3O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Why not go to Brazil and become a 
 planter ? 
 
 Then he dreamed of a large hacienda, 
 and of a house with broad verandas in a 
 tropical garden, and of black-eyed Spanish 
 women. He would keep many slaves to 
 whom he would be very kind. 
 
 He dreamed of a new generation of Van 
 Meerens, still more powerful, more aristo- 
 cratic, more renowned, than the old family 
 in that ancient Hanseatic town. 
 
 Lyder van Meeren the trunk of that 
 new tree extending its branches in time all 
 over the civilised world a second Roth- 
 schild ! 
 
 Ah, and the fragrance on board those 
 vessels coming home from the tropical 
 countries, the fragrance of spices ! 
 
 The sunburned sailors, the strange trink- 
 ets which he imagined must have been 
 bought from some fair southern maiden ! 
 Lyder van Meeren had barely reached 
 twenty. 
 
 But hiding all this, when he least expected
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 3! 
 
 it, stood that pale, oval face with the heavily- 
 lidded blue eyes smiling at him. 
 
 One day that pale, dimpled face really 
 smiled upon Lyder not just as in his 
 dreams of her, more temptingly even, show- 
 ing a row of perfect white teeth. 
 
 He made up his mind that he must speak 
 to her. They smiled at each other now 
 whenever they met; but he could never 
 muster courage enough, in fact, there had 
 never been an opportunity, to speak; there 
 was always some one near, who might see 
 and report, and that why, that would 
 never do. But in his thoughts he had 
 already embraced her and whispered to her 
 what he ought not, though he could not 
 feel sure that she would have responded. 
 
 Herr van Meeren kept his son under 
 close surveillance. He allowed him no 
 official liberties which he would not have 
 given as well to any of his clerks. He 
 insisted upon Lyder's being at the office 
 on time, morning and afternoon. Lyder 
 was punctual for a while, then he com-
 
 32 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 menced to lag; and Herr van Meeren went 
 so far once as to reprimand his son in the 
 presence of his clerks. 
 
 Lyder, pallid with anger, looked defiantly 
 at his father, but did not answer. Later 
 on he complained to his fond mother, who 
 in her haughty way asked her husband if 
 such a thing could be possible. 
 
 Herr van Meeren laid aside the paper he 
 was trying to read. 
 
 He came near giving a sharp answer, but 
 bethought himself. 
 
 " Madame," he said politely, " I demand 
 order in my office ; I do not want my own 
 son to set a poor example; besides " 
 
 But Fru van Meeren had left the room. 
 
 When liberated from the office, Lyder 
 generally went straight home. 
 
 He and Helga worked in the garden 
 after supper, where they planted and watered 
 and sang together. They cut and dug trails 
 in the forest, finding there shady nooks 
 and cool grottoes under the overhanging 
 cliffs, which formerly had been hidden be-
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 33 
 
 hind the dense undergrowth of ferns and 
 bushes. 
 
 When thus occupied, they were children 
 again. These peaceful groves became their 
 fairyland, where the din of the city near by 
 had lost its nervous restlessness, and the 
 rumble of heavily-loaded carts over the 
 rough cobble-stones came wafted to them 
 in faint murmurs. 
 
 Outside was the world, the busy, restless 
 world, with its incessant strife, with its hopes 
 and its disappointments, its pains and its 
 fleeting pleasures ; inside, the music of na- 
 ture, the fragrance of flowers. 
 
 Now for the first time did they fully 
 understand each other, and comprehend 
 how much they had in common. Helga 
 had never sung so beautifully, Lyder never 
 felt so happy, so liberated from the restless- 
 ness in him, as when during the long limpid 
 summer nights of their northland they gave 
 themselves into the care of Mother Nature. 
 
 But, for all this, the pale, dimpled face, 
 framed by the snow-white kerchief, the heavy 
 
 3
 
 34 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 blue eyes, the slender body in the tightly- 
 fitting, plain black dress, would never leave 
 him. No matter how much he tried to 
 drive them away, they stood before him 
 when he least expected, flitting across the 
 trails, greeting him from among the leaves. 
 
 Did he love this girl ? 
 
 A Van Meeren love a peasant ! 
 . Whence, then, her power ? 
 
 She seemed omnipresent in his mind, and 
 yet he had never spoken to her; in fact, 
 there were times when he felt he would 
 rather not as if her smile was all he 
 wanted anything more would break the 
 spell. 
 
 But not always were Lyder's thoughts 
 so platonic. It was only in the forest or 
 among the flowers, under the spell of na- 
 ture. More than once had he been on 
 the point of speaking to Helga concerning 
 all this; but something kept him from it. 
 
 He believed himself to have made the 
 discovery that women do not understand 
 their sex. Out in life, he noticed women
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 35 
 
 were cruel to other women, much more so 
 than were men. And what was this won- 
 derful something, forbidden yet so very 
 natural, which with but abnormal excep- 
 tions existed between the opposite sexes? 
 
 Love! love! was it love? If so, he 
 loved, and was it wrong ? " Under re- 
 strictions," answered Christian society, "you 
 may love." 
 
 No, Helga would not understand, Helga 
 was a woman ; and as for the other one, he 
 did not even know her name, nor whence 
 she came ; she was a woman, and he a man, 
 that was all he knew. 
 
 That open smile, those eyes, the slow, 
 graceful way of walking, she could not have 
 come from any of the narrow inland fiords, 
 where the mountains cast their eternal 
 shadows over the homes of the peasant. 
 She must have come from out among the 
 islands, where the sun laughs over broad 
 waters, and sea-birds take their long, free 
 flight over humming waves. 
 
 " Eh, Lyder van Meeren," thus he inter-
 
 36 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 rupted his own thoughts, " thou art in love 
 with a common peasant girl." 
 
 Yet why common ? Surely there was 
 nothing coarse about her. 
 
 Jens Birk, and those other bans amis of 
 his, could not understand what was the 
 matter with Lyder. He never came to the 
 club any more; he went very little in 
 society and seemed always in a hurry to 
 get home. It was ridiculous for a young 
 fellow like him to have said good-bye al- 
 ready to the gladness of youth. 
 
 To Lyder, this jolly circle seemed for the 
 first time coarse. He wondered how he 
 ever could have enjoyed their society. 
 
 Herr van Meeren now generally took 
 his long walks alone. He saw that Helga 
 preferred to be with Lyder, and he cared 
 little for his son; the two did not feel at 
 ease in each other's company. 
 
 Lyder irritated his father by his visible 
 lack of interest in the work. The spirit of 
 the woods, the mountains, the flowers, the 
 lakes, and the fiord combined to make Lyder
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 37 
 
 indifferent to his work. It seemed impossi- 
 ble for him to be at the office at regular 
 hours. 
 
 Herr van Meeren may have understood 
 the reason of his son's negligence, but he 
 simply said, " First duty, then pleasure." Of 
 course, he failed to analyse the benefits to 
 himself from the daily long walks which he 
 enjoyed so much. The source of that peace 
 which these few hours of daily contact 
 with nature brought to his mind, he never 
 searched for. 
 
 Soon he did not even miss Helga's com- 
 pany. He nodded to the peasants he met 
 walking the king's highway. There came 
 to be a kind of acquaintance between him 
 and those he passed regularly on his walks, 
 though he never spoke to one of them. 
 
 But times were growing harder; one old 
 business house after another collapsed. 
 
 Herr van Meeren bore his burden of 
 anxieties alone. His wife had no sympa- 
 thy with him; the past was not forgotten. 
 
 He laughed scornfully when he thought
 
 38 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 of those signatures of Herman van Meeren 
 & Son. 
 
 " Father does not comprehend me," Lyder 
 complained to Helga and his fond mother. 
 And the distance between father and son 
 grew greater and greater; they had grown 
 to be almost strangers.
 
 IV 
 
 THE silence of winter again lay over the 
 Norwegian mountains and valleys. 
 The sky was gray, the wind increased, and 
 then the snowflakes began their merry dance, 
 adding to the depth of that soft white carpet 
 already laid over the slumbering earth in the 
 far northlands. 
 
 The old, old trees in the park stood firm 
 under their heavy burden ; the hawthorn 
 hedges looked almost a solid mass of white- 
 ness ; but the sparrows found shelter among 
 the stunted, crooked twigs. They cuddled 
 themselves up and longed for spring and 
 plenty of food. 
 
 In the glittering, frost-cold nights, when 
 the aurora flashed restlessly over the deep, 
 starry sky ; or when the moon cast the fan- 
 tastic shadows of the trees upon the smooth, 
 glittering snow-blanket, Helga and Lyder
 
 4O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 stood by one of the large, small-paned win- 
 dows in the dining-room. 
 
 He laid his arm lightly around her, and 
 there they stood, as often, until late, mak- 
 ing plans for the future, confiding to each 
 other their thoughts and longings, gaining in 
 mutual understanding and affection. 
 
 It was Christmas. 
 
 Should they have a ball this year? Fru 
 van Meeren felt quite ashamed that the chil- 
 dren had been invited everywhere and as yet 
 had done nothing in return. 
 
 Invitations to the Van Meeren ball were 
 sent in all directions. 
 
 It was an elegant affair. 
 
 The large old-fashioned rooms, with their 
 immense, antique iron stoves, shone with 
 light from the glittering crystal crowns and 
 candelabra, while the air was heavy with 
 warmth and the perfume of salted roses. 
 
 The large ball-room, grotesquely frescoed, 
 lay on one side of the hall and the broad 
 winding staircase. Every time the veranda 
 door opened, the quaint hall lantern of
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 4! 
 
 wrought iron, struck by the draught, growled 
 on its hinges at all this modern gayety, re- 
 membering the poor old thing! the 
 times of the first Van Meerens. 
 
 The high-backed ebony chairs, bright with 
 golden leather, had been freed from their 
 dust covers and shone in all their antique 
 beauty. 
 
 The marbled floors, the tables laden with 
 heirlooms of silver and porcelain, the home- 
 made, crocheted antimacassars on the im- 
 mense hair-cloth sofas, seemed a strange 
 mixture, and told of family history and taste 
 for almost two hundred years. 
 
 At the broad entrance of the drawing- 
 room stood the host and hostess : Herr van 
 Meeren aristocratic and tall of stature, with 
 gray hair brushed into a tuft over his fore- 
 head, and high stiff collar wound around 
 with a heavy white satin cravat, stood by 
 the side of his beautiful wife, who was clad 
 in a stiff black silk dress and with a spark- 
 ling diamond brooch at her throat. As 
 they stood there together, smiling and shak-
 
 42 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 ing hands with each new arrival, no one 
 could have guessed the distance between 
 them. 
 
 Helga and Lyder were busy introducing 
 and otherwise looking after their guests. 
 Helga was radiant that evening ; she showed 
 her happiness in every movement, and Lyder 
 was once more one of the old dons amis. He 
 had forgotten everything in the desire of 
 making all happy. 
 
 The tall Nuremberg clock in the hall 
 boomed drowsily, with long rests between 
 each stroke; it belonged to the old, easy- 
 going time. 
 
 " I can't say another word until that old 
 thing stops," said Karen Schllitter, affectedly. 
 She was coquetting with Jens Birk. " It 
 really makes me nervous; you don't know 
 whether it is through or not there, now." 
 
 But that clock could have told many 
 stories of the good old days, the time of the 
 earlier Van Meerens, who ages ago emi- 
 grated from some Dutch Hanseatic city, and 
 who had been so successful in their adopted
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 43 
 
 country. Perhaps they were standing there 
 in the corners, unseen, in their powdered 
 perukes, by the side of their gentle dames, 
 watching disdainfully the generations which 
 had grown up after them. 
 
 Yet Herr van Meeren was as gallant as a 
 courtier. 
 
 He, too, had forgotten his troubles for a 
 little while, his ships, his calculations, the 
 hard times, and his past ; drowned it all in 
 this laughter and happiness around him, 
 this atmosphere of youth, thoughtlessness, 
 and old wines. 
 
 But the dark, familiar thoughts came to 
 him once, even in all this light. He hurled 
 them away and looked at his wife, so well 
 preserved, so beautiful, in her flushed excite- 
 ment. It was long, long ago it seemed to 
 him an eternity and on just such an even- 
 ing as this, in the intoxicating whirl of 
 society, at her father's home, that they had 
 joined hands for life. 
 
 Herr van Meeren did not sleep that night. 
 For hours after his guests had left, he wan-
 
 44 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 dered back and forth through the glaring 
 rooms, imagining all the past. Outside, the 
 snow was falling listlessly, covering up every- 
 thing. 
 
 Oh, if she only loved him ! he thought. 
 
 The winter wound up with a terrible storm 
 all along the coast. It cut heavily into Van 
 Meeren's fishing fleet ; but the vessels were 
 all insured, and everybody expected better 
 times with the advent of spring. 
 
 Herr van Meeren felt quite sure there 
 would be a change, if not well, some more 
 of the old business houses in the large cities 
 would collapse that was all.
 
 SPRING came, and very suddenly. It 
 commenced to blow with a warm air 
 from the south. 
 
 The rain poured down, the snow melted, 
 and the water flowed in torrents towards the 
 sea. 
 
 Small brooks became muddy rivers ; and 
 the frozen cascades, freed from their fetters, 
 succeeded, with their deep boom of falling 
 water, in making a strong impression upon 
 expectant Nature. 
 
 What a busy time they had, all the little 
 roots in the soft, black mould up in the 
 sheltered cracks, and among the rocks on 
 the southern slopes ! 
 
 They stretched themselves after the long 
 winter sleep, and soon there appeared tiny 
 round leaves. One day Helga brought in a 
 buttercup. 
 
 The air became dense and warm.
 
 46 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 The steam rose from the meadows and 
 marshes, dark spots became visible in the 
 snow masses of the high mountains; and 
 the islands, out over the soft, gray sea, were 
 almost hidden behind all that drifting 
 moisture. 
 
 The sparrows were quarrelling and making 
 plans for their weddings. 
 
 The bird-cherry stood drooping under its 
 large burden of flowers, and the cuckoo 
 laughed in the thickets. 
 
 " Beautiful spring," said Helga, " oh, how 
 beautiful ! " and she sang. 
 
 One Sunday morning Lyder was on his 
 way up to the mountains and tarns, following 
 the king's highway. 
 
 He had started early, not caring to meet 
 any one. 
 
 Soon he reached the heights, where he 
 could look over the stone walls and terraces 
 of the parks towards the fiord and islands. 
 There rested a Sunday expression over all, 
 quiet, almost solemn.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 47 
 
 Lyder hurried on with long steps. He 
 thought of the tall eagle-ferns, of the heather, 
 and the cry of waterbirds on the marshes 
 and lakes. He longed for it all and for 
 that loneliness amid which he never felt 
 lonesome. 
 
 And after Sunday must needs come the 
 invariable Monday. That meant back again 
 to the office, keeping bopks, while all this 
 happy life of summer was going on among 
 the mountains. 
 
 What kind of life was he leading, anyhow ? 
 Why would not his father let him have his 
 wish, to live out here in the only kind of 
 place in which he could be happy? 
 
 He had written to his father, not being 
 able to summon courage to speak, and had 
 asked that he would buy him a farm, elo- 
 quently pleading that indoor work was un- 
 suited to him, telling how he yearned to dig 
 in the soil, plant and harvest ; how gladly he 
 would be poor, if he might live out in the 
 blessed country, where all that was best in 
 him helped him to conquer his lower desires,
 
 48 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 where he felt honest and free. " I would 
 much rather be poor," ended the letter, 
 " poor and a man, than rich and a 
 brute." 
 
 For four long days he awaited an answer. 
 Coming home from the exchange, the fourth 
 day, his father said in a strange, cold way, 
 
 " I received a letter from you the other 
 day." Then followed a painful silence. 
 After a while, " There is not dry bread in 
 farming; you really astonish me, my son, 
 with your inconsistency." He shook his 
 head, and added, "Such dreams of a hut 
 and a heart are too impracticable for our 
 time. I most sincerely wish you would settle 
 down to energetic work in your present posi- 
 tion in which there are thousands who would 
 envy you." 
 
 That had been the end of it, Lyder 
 made no reply, and his father never alluded 
 to the matter again. 
 
 Lyder turned off from the king's highway, 
 and entered an almost abandoned road, 
 scaling some birch-covered hills. It was
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 49 
 
 lined on both sides by stone fences, and 
 deeply shaded by large rowan-trees, under 
 which the clear water oozed from the wet 
 hillsides, faintly gurgling along the gravelly 
 waggon-ruts. This road was a short cut to 
 the tarns. 
 
 The thrushes sang in the hazel thickets. 
 Lyder longed for a sight of that pale peasant 
 girl. He felt what happiness it would be to 
 saunter alone with her in this fragrant air, 
 with this jubilant summer all around them. 
 Then the thought oppressed him, he became 
 sad. 
 
 Was he in love with her, really in love? 
 Well, why should he not be? 
 
 Was she not as good as many of those 
 fine ladies, who, with no more right than she, 
 expected so much of life ? 
 
 Eh, but was she not a peasant, lacking in 
 education, her language crude, her manners 
 ah, if it came to manners there was some- 
 thing almost queenly about hers, simple 
 and proud. Surely there was nothing coarse 
 or bold in her smile. 
 
 4
 
 5O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 If he might meet her in the heather, among 
 the wild mountains, on that day ! She 
 seemed to belong so closely to it all, to be 
 the soprano in that concert of summer 
 voices. 
 
 He had now reached the crest of the hills. 
 Far below lay the tarns, nestling among the 
 mountains. 
 
 Down there, just where the road turned 
 to follow along the shore, at the top of a low 
 knoll, somebody was sitting, a woman 
 whose form stood out clearly against the 
 dark water. 
 
 Lyder stopped abruptly. 
 
 " Silly fool ! " he spoke to himself, " how 
 could she be there ? What would she do out 
 of town so early on a Sunday morning? As 
 if there were not a thousand lasses and more 
 wearing white kerchiefs ! " 
 
 Nevertheless Lyder hurried on. 
 
 A grove of hazels hid the tarns from view ; 
 then again they appeared, again were lost. 
 
 He could not sing, as he was wont to do 
 when walking quickly downhill.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 51 
 
 " If it should be she, after all," he sighed. 
 
 As the road swept around some great 
 lichen-covered rocks, he suddenly found 
 himself closer to the woman than he had 
 expected to be. 
 
 She looked around, hearing him slide over 
 the rocks, then arose and walked slowly, 
 following the road by the shore. 
 
 Lyder felt stunned. Should he follow 
 her? For all his longings, he had scarcely 
 been prepared for this. He halted a 
 moment, then hastened after her. 
 
 " Good-morning," he said in a low voice 
 as he overtook her. 
 
 She glanced out over the tarns. He 
 thought she was laughing. 
 
 " Where are you going so early this morn- 
 ing ? " he asked in a friendly tone. 
 
 She looked at him scrutinisingly, but did 
 not answer. 
 
 Lyder was beginning to feel ashamed of 
 himself, yet gathered courage for one more 
 effort. 
 
 " Your parents do not live up here among
 
 52 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 the mountains, do they ? " he said kindly, 
 without looking at her. 
 
 " No, but my sister does." 
 
 " I did not know you had a sister. What 
 is her name ? " 
 
 " Marit Hakonsdatter." 
 
 " That is a nice name ; and yours ? " 
 
 " Mine ? Guri." 
 
 " Guri Hakonsdatter," he said, and smiled. 
 It fitted her well, that name. 
 
 " So you are going to see your sister, are 
 you ? She is married, is she ? " 
 
 Guri laughed, as if greatly amused. 
 
 " No, she is n't married, sure ; she is the 
 cook at Schliitter's, at the head of the lake. 
 They moved up there a few weeks ago for 
 the summer, and I have not seen Marit 
 since then. But monsieur would better walk 
 on. I see city folks coming," she added with 
 evident anxiety, stopping as if to let him pass. 
 
 Lyder understood it would not appear 
 well for him to be seen in company with 
 a peasant girl. And he recognised the 
 Schliitter turnout in the distance.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 53 
 
 If Karen Schliitter was in the carriage 
 with her sweet mamma, it would indeed be 
 food for the hungry ! 
 
 " I will wait for you by the old stone 
 bridge," he said hurriedly. 
 
 She gave him a short, half-reproachful 
 glance and lowered her eyes, but made no 
 answer. 
 
 " Even if they did chance to see me speak 
 to her," he thought, " they might easily sup- 
 pose I said only good-morning or something 
 like that." 
 
 He tipped his straw hat as the Schliitters 
 passed him. The whole family were evi- 
 dently on their way to church. Karen 
 smiled graciously at him, and he felt relieved 
 when out of their sight. 
 
 On the pillars of the old stone bridge 
 grew a small fern, Asplenium trichomane. 
 Lyder wanted some roots for the rockery at 
 home in the garden ; he would see if they 
 were there yet ; that would make time pass 
 more quickly. He found them in great 
 abundance, fine and graceful. Ferns were
 
 54 
 
 his favourite plants; they made him dream 
 of the tropical islands he had read about. 
 
 It seemed to take an eternity for her to 
 reach the bridge. 
 
 Perhaps she was afraid of him, and had re- 
 turned; but, no, the white kerchief appeared 
 above the knoll, then her head, then her 
 whole body against the blue sky. Slowly 
 she walked towards him, smiling as if their 
 meeting was a matter of course. With one 
 hand she lifted her gown to keep from 
 touching the spongy ground. A faint flush 
 had come into her cheeks; she raised her 
 head and scanned the upper tarn, scintillat- 
 ing in the broad sunlight at the foot of the 
 mountains whose snowy crests rose above 
 the summer verdure. 
 
 The air was filled with fragrance from the 
 birches ; once in a while a strong gust of air, 
 descending from the peaks, would darken the 
 water. 
 
 He took her hand and looked into her 
 very soul. She did not lower her eyes ; 
 there came a sort of veil over them, and she
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 55 
 
 smiled again faintly as he pressed her hand 
 and stammered, " Guri, thou art beautiful, 
 beautiful, beautiful ! " 
 
 She gave him no answer, but her smile in- 
 toxicated him. 
 
 He led her into the forest of alders. The 
 tarn shone between the dark trunks of the 
 trees below the yellow swamps on its mar- 
 gin. The thrushes flew screaming around 
 their nests to protect them. A far-off boom 
 from a rockslide silenced the song of the 
 birds in the thickets for a few seconds, when 
 they commenced again more jubilant than 
 ever. 
 
 Lyder and Guri walked together slowly 
 over the soft, moss-covered forest ground. 
 He had taken her arm and kept it pressed 
 close to him. Slowly, slowly, almost as in 
 a dream, he led her along ; deeper and deeper 
 into the forest, among moss-covered boulders, 
 over little rills clear as crystal, humming 
 among the ferns, among the foxgloves and 
 tall brakes ; farther and farther away from 
 the world into that soothing solitude of
 
 56 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 nature, Guri so beautiful, so majestic in 
 her slow, gliding walk; smiling, ever faintly 
 smiling. 
 
 " Guri," he whispered, " thou art beautiful, 
 beautiful;" and he laid his arm around her 
 waist, leading her always farther, farther into 
 the forest 
 
 The day had become warm. 
 
 The sunlight glittered on the small waves 
 of the tarn, dazzling Guri's eyes as she 
 looked at it. The girl was walking alone in 
 the shade of the alders. 
 
 She hurried on, suddenly stopping by the 
 corner of a stone wall which surrounded the 
 garden of the Schliitter summer residence. 
 She looked over the back yard and kitchen 
 garden for Marit. 
 
 A little rill crossed the road from under 
 the ferns and rocks. Guri bent down, 
 moistened her handkerchief, and held it 
 over her burning face. Could she not get 
 around that corner and enter the gate? 
 Something held her, was she afraid of
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 57 
 
 her own sister? She wished to return, 
 but could not do that either. She leaned 
 her elbow on the rock fence, for a faintness 
 was coming over her. But she shook her 
 head and laughed a strange laughter, that 
 scared her. 
 
 " My God, my God ! " she whispered. 
 
 Somebody opened the door and slipped 
 out into the yard, singing. It was Marit. 
 If Guri only could be sure her sister was 
 alone, she would hurry to meet her before 
 she went in again, or call her. 
 
 " Marit ! " she tried to call, but it barely 
 passed her lips. She succeeded better with 
 a second effort. 
 
 Marit looked around, shading her eyes. 
 
 Guri called once more, and Marit, turning 
 towards the gate, walked out into the highway 
 where Guri was standing. 
 
 " What on earth is the matter with you ? " 
 she said, reaching out her hand. 
 
 " Oh, nothing," said Guri, trying to answer 
 lightly. 
 
 " Why don't you come in ? "
 
 58 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 " Oh, you 'd better come out ; let us go 
 up on the hillside, where we can be alone, 
 darling." 
 
 Marit gazed at her in astonishment. Some 
 one called from within, " Marit." 
 
 " I will stay here till you return ; or no 
 I will go up on the big rock yonder and wait 
 for you," said Guri. 
 
 She walked on slowly and seated herself 
 in the shade of the rocks. 
 
 Below lay the marshes interspersed with 
 groves of stunted alders. The tarn looked 
 darkly deep. A string of ducks came flying 
 low over it from out of the distance, alighting 
 with a splash in the middle. Once in a while 
 a trout, which had jumped for a fly, left faint, 
 waning circles of wavelets. The shades of 
 the rugged peaks fell blue upon the snow 
 in their crevices. And what a singing of 
 migratory birds ! What a love-feast among 
 them! Then such a warm, sleepy air, so 
 fragrance-laden ; such wafts of soft wind 
 rising across the waters, dying away in the 
 heather 1
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 59 
 
 Guri stretched herself on the moss. She 
 lay on her side with one arm under her 
 head, looking out over the lakes, but seeing 
 nothing. 
 
 What would the kind old pastor at Vik 
 have said ? Had he not told her to keep to 
 the Lord ? Had he not that evening, before 
 she boarded the steamer, knelt with her alone 
 in his quiet study and prayed to God for her 
 that she would remain pure and good in the 
 great city, amid its many temptations ? Then 
 he had laid his hand on her head, " God 
 bless you, my child," said he. The poor old 
 vicar ! how she loved him. 
 
 Her thoughts wandered back to a terrible 
 winter long ago, when her father went away, 
 never to return, when her mother was so 
 sick, and all the children were hungry ; when 
 old grandmother Guri was carried away by 
 the avalanche ; the winter when her mother 
 cried through all the long, gray days, and 
 after dark cried louder and wilder, thinking 
 the children asleep, begging God for Hakon, 
 her husband.
 
 6O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 How clearly it all stood before Guri now, 
 though she was so very little at the time! 
 Among the grayness and darkness of that 
 winter, which seemed the beginning of her 
 life, stood the vicar with his kind, loving 
 face. He took her to his home and brought 
 her up among his own children till she grew 
 old enough to do housework. 
 
 She longed for the broad fiord, where it 
 entered from the ocean ; for the islands and 
 for seabirds, whose nests she used to rob. 
 She longed for the vicar ; she wanted to go 
 to him that he might pray for her after she 
 should have told him all. 
 
 Would he turn her away? "The city with 
 its temptations," he had said. He knew it 
 all, the dear old vicar; he would understand 
 her, forgive her, help her. 
 
 But Lyder van Meeren, young, a gentle- 
 man, the son of a rich family, how she loved 
 him ! 
 
 The fine perfume of his costly clothes, 
 yes, and his nearness, had taken her senses 
 away. He was kind and gentle, too. He
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 6 1 
 
 had spoken to her softly, lovingly: "Little 
 Guri, don't, don't cry ; I love you, love you." 
 My God, if only she dared love him, dared 
 proclaim it to all the world ! 
 
 He would not be dishonourable, Lyder van 
 Meeren. When he said, " Little Guri," he 
 said it as if he truly loved her. 
 
 The thought overpowered her, and she 
 wept. She was weeping still when Marit 
 came. Seating herself close to Guri, the 
 latter scolded, teased, begged, till at last she 
 knew it all. 
 
 A long silence followed. 
 
 The more Marit thought of it, the harder 
 grew the expression of her face. She cursed 
 these rich men who sought only pleasure and 
 left behind them only sorrow. She ground 
 her teeth at the thought. How she would 
 like to see them poor, see them humble as 
 those who have to serve. Only a lass was 
 not that what they said ? And what did 
 they care if they took away the peace and 
 happiness of that poor lass forever ? 
 
 J3ut as Marit's hatred for Lyder van Meeren
 
 62 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 and his sort increased, so did her love for her 
 sister become tenderer and tenderer. 
 
 Marit was the younger, a coarse-looking 
 girl, with reddish hair and colourless eyes. 
 She had a deep, masculine voice, and her 
 nature was an unusual mingling of high 
 temper with reserve. 
 
 " God punish him for it ! " she said to her- 
 self ; " God punish him for it ! but," aloud, 
 " don't you cry, dear, don't." 
 
 Evening came with reddening peaks and 
 silence, with burning clouds after sunset, 
 with the fragrance of moisture from the 
 moorlands. 
 
 An impromptu party of young fplk had 
 arrived at the villa. 
 
 There was jolly laughter and singing 
 among the rowan-trees and the birches. 
 Coloured lamps hung under the leafy vaults 
 by the shore, and their reflections quivered 
 on the dark water. 
 
 The summer night seemed filled with love 
 and thoughtless happiness. Gay speeches
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 63 
 
 and laughter rang out from around the punch 
 table in the garden hall, and in a secluded 
 arbour where, some one had forgotten to light 
 the coloured lamps, whispers fell lightly. 
 
 Along the shore walked Guri. 
 
 She moved slowly, keeping well in under 
 the trees, where she could not be seen, once 
 in a while stopping to lean against a trunk 
 and listen for a voice she knew ; wondering 
 if Lyder van Meeren was among those happy 
 youths, listening for his laugh among the 
 laughter, but in vain. 
 
 It made her happy to think he was not 
 there. 
 
 She continually heard the sweet words he 
 had spoken to her, growing more and more 
 happy, more sure that she wished to meet 
 him again. She had forgotten the old vicar 
 with his silvery hair, his deep vibrating voice, 
 his fatherly love and his warning, " the large 
 city with its many temptations." She had 
 forgotten everything but love ; the simple 
 lass loved Lyder, and she made up her mind 
 to do many things for his sake.
 
 64 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 When she reached the hazel forest on the 
 heights, she commenced to sing. It was a 
 song her mother had taught her, a melody 
 softly rocking like a boat on a summer sea, 
 a fisherman's song with a pleasing melan- 
 choly in its gayety. And Guri, as lasses are 
 wont to do, smacked her lips when she was 
 through singing. 
 
 How happy she was !
 
 VI 
 
 LYDER sat at his desk looking out on 
 the harbour where the steamers were 
 going and coming. 
 
 It was sultry in the office, the air being 
 saturated with the odour of dried and salted 
 fish and oil. 
 
 To some this smell meant life, business 
 transactions, and prosperity, the odorous 
 wealth of the sea stored in the ancient ware- 
 house of the old Hanseates. 
 
 The long blue-painted shelves along the 
 walls were filled with yarn and nets and 
 tarred ropes, goods to be traded for what 
 the fishermen brought every summer from 
 their homes in the far northlands. 
 
 Every summer they came with their large 
 open hulks loaded high up to the masts with 
 stacks of dried fish. 
 
 They came speeding in the fiord, these 
 high-prowed, square-sailed crafts resembling 
 
 5
 
 66 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 the vikings' dragons of old. They came 
 from their gray northern seas, and had on 
 board a race of hardened men accustomed to 
 look death in the eye, men who were always 
 poor, and who in their slow, singing way of 
 speech, earnest expression of features, and 
 the singular melancholy of their mirth, 
 seemed to have been shaped both bodily 
 and mentally in conformity with their 
 surroundings. 
 
 The dreary, stormy winters, the desolate 
 marshes and barren hills of their home-land 
 and islands had stamped them. 
 
 They were men whose eyes could sparkle 
 like the lightning of a storm-night on the 
 sea. They were men of deep emotions, hail- 
 ing from a land where death and sorrow so 
 often wailed over the waters in the dark 
 storm-nights; men looked down, upon be- 
 cause they were not understood. 
 
 Tied up in debt to the old business houses 
 of the city, suffering from the uncertainty of 
 their ocean harvest and steadily increasing 
 indebtedness, debt-slaves to the end of their
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 67 
 
 lives, they sank by the score into early 
 graves under a capsized boat on a frightful 
 sea, or died from winter hardships while 
 gathering their precious harvest. 
 
 They looked awkward and slow, often 
 sullen, as they entered the office in a long 
 row, bringing with them the odour of wet 
 clothes and dried fish. Lazy and without 
 energy they seemed to those who had not 
 lived among them and seen them at work, 
 riding the wild sea in their open boats under 
 the bleak northern winter sky. Even the 
 street gamins made fun of them, imitating 
 their singing mode of speech. 
 
 After a short stay in the city, they hoisted 
 their large, tanned sails, and before a 
 southerly breeze, perhaps in a pouring rain, 
 glided out from the fiord towards their 
 northern homes to renew their battle for 
 existence with the elements. 
 
 Old Herr van Meeren had no longer any 
 occasion to feel dissatisfied with his son. 
 Lyder was the first in the office and the 
 last to leave it. He did his very best to
 
 68 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 please his father, and Herr van Meeren 
 hoped that at last his son had come to his 
 senses, become aware of his duties. 
 
 However, Lyder's interest in his father's 
 business was not more than skin deep. He 
 hated as much as ever to sit shut up, scrib- 
 bling letters, keeping books, and, as he said 
 to himself, helping to rob as best he could. 
 But since the day he had first spoken to 
 Guri, a feeling of responsibility had come 
 home to him. He wished to please his father, 
 so that some day it must come soon 
 he might go to him with more confidence 
 and ask for his liberty. He would ask for a 
 part of his inheritance, take Guri, and go out 
 in the world, far off to the North Ameri- 
 can coast of the Pacific ocean. There in 
 that new fruit and wine garden on the 
 western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, he 
 would buy a small home, cultivate the soil, 
 live an ideal life, the master of himself, and 
 her master too, for he expected her to be 
 obedient! Was not he a Van Meeren, while 
 she ? But Guri was beautiful, lovable ; and
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 69 
 
 what she lacked in education and perhaps in 
 manners he would soon teach her. 
 
 There were times when he doubted 
 whether, on account of this difference in 
 social position, he should be happy with 
 Guri Hakonsdatter as his wife. 
 
 It ought not to be so such a difference 
 ought not to exist; something was wrong, 
 very wrong, in society. Yet the Bible said, 
 " The poor ye have always with you." 
 
 Besides, in a discussion going on between 
 Jens Birk and his friends on one side, and 
 Hans Gram, the editor of " The Liberal 
 Press," on the other, many things were very 
 convincing. Jens Birk had certainly the 
 stronger arguments, both from the Bible and 
 history ; he used them forcibly, too. Hans 
 Gram's arguments for equal rights and op- 
 portunities seemed rather loose-jointed ; in 
 fact, as Jens Birk said, they were imprac- 
 ticable. All could not be masters; some 
 had the gifts for making money, others 
 had not; and as money was the real dis- 
 tributor of advantages and opportunities,
 
 7O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 how could the two classes then ever become 
 equal ? 
 
 Hans Gram's answer that money was 
 the accursed ruler of Christian society, and 
 that humanity never would become civilised 
 so long as money existed brought forth 
 loud laughter. He was a radical with 
 socialistic tendencies, they said ; perhaps a 
 full-fledged Socialist think of it Social- 
 ist ! Murder and anarchy ! 
 
 Yes, Lyder had begun to think. This 
 affair with Guri had started him. Experi- 
 ence is a wonderful teacher, he thought. 
 
 His desire to live close to the soil was 
 inherent in him. Only there did he feel 
 happy and sure of himself. 
 
 " I love her, " he said to himself ; and 
 still there was something, something 
 
 Of course he could never marry her in 
 his present surroundings. What a scandal 
 would not that be ! " There goes the Van 
 Meeren who married a peasant girl," people 
 would say when he passed them on the 
 streets.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY Jl 
 
 At last came the day when Lyder could 
 endure no longer. 
 
 Lately, of evenings, when occupied in the 
 flower garden and the park, his conversation 
 with Helga had by degrees glided into more 
 practical, more earnest channels. 
 
 They had been children long enough. 
 Now they began to exchange opinions, each 
 one defending hotly his or her side of the 
 question. 
 
 Helga doubted whether it was right for 
 them to shut themselves up away from those 
 who were struggling out in the world. 
 
 " What right have we to enjoy ourselves 
 this way, while out yonder goes on the battle 
 for existence ? " 
 
 " Well," answered Lyder, musingly, " I 
 doubt whether that battle you speak of, 
 where those who fall in the throng are 
 stepped upon by those who follow, where 
 the few live in luxury and the many suffer 
 want, is anything to desire. I would rather 
 leave it all if I could, Helga. I want to go 
 where I can live undisturbed, close to nature,
 
 72 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 cultivate the soil, and keep as far away as 
 possible from that strife where there is no 
 mercy." 
 
 He saw it all plainly before him, to 
 become a man, he must be put where he 
 had absolute need of all his faculties, where 
 he should stand dependent on no one but 
 himself. Oh, but what was there in him 
 to fit him for the world's struggle, he who 
 had love for the flowers, for nature, he who 
 admired art and music and who could dream 
 for hours at the piano ? And the thought 
 saddened him ; but the murmur of industry 
 outside the tall hawthorn hedges would 
 not leave him alone any longer. He com- 
 menced to speak to Helga about duty. He 
 told her he hated to struggle; he longed 
 to live in peace, work for himself, raise his 
 bread from the soil. All other, struggles, 
 wherein one had to push in the throng of 
 humanity, use one's nails and scratch, lie, 
 break others down in order to succeed one- 
 self, he hated the very thought of it. 
 
 But ill suited as he was to struggle, how
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 73 
 
 dared he take Guri with him ! Did he love 
 her enough to live with her always ? What 
 was that something which at times seemed 
 to push her away from him even in his 
 thoughts of her ? 
 
 He had met her often since the first time. 
 
 They had wandered together in the loneli- 
 ness among the mountains, by the lakes and 
 in the forest, up on the high peaks, where 
 they felt free. 
 
 And the more he saw of her, the more 
 charmed he felt. 
 
 "My God," he sighed "she is not like 
 other peasant girls she is devoid of all 
 coarseness." 
 
 And still that something! He made 
 up his mind that he must leave soon and 
 without her work out in the world first 
 with the thought of making a home for her 
 to encourage him ; then when he had built 
 the home, send for her. 
 
 But what would become of her while he 
 was away ? It might take a year, perhaps 
 two, before he could return. Would the
 
 74 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 something grow stronger ? Too strong for 
 him, so that she never could come ? What 
 would become of her then ? 
 
 With horror he thought of his old com- 
 rades, if she should fall, into their clutches ! 
 
 He must protect her ; but how ? 
 
 Speak to Helga ? Tell her all, beg her to 
 make a sister of Guri until he was able to 
 send for her? Insanity! How could Helga 
 van Meeren and a peasant lass become sis- 
 ters? What would Helga's warm heart and 
 all her love for him amount to under that 
 glaring eye of so-called Christian, society ? 
 
 A servant girl, a peasant, daughter of a 
 widow with many children, supported by the 
 district, living away out on a naked island by 
 the open sea, and Miss van Meeren ! 
 
 When he took Guri into consideration, he 
 almost gave up his determination of speak- 
 ing to his father that evening. It would be 
 hard to leave her, and even if he warned her, 
 there was still great danger. He felt con- 
 vinced that should she fall into the hands of 
 others, they would leave her a wreck by the
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 75 
 
 roadside, a human wreck tossed on the bil- 
 lows of Christian indignation, thrown against 
 the cliff of Christian condemnation, hope- 
 lessly lost. 
 
 Was not the world full of such examples ? 
 
 Strange, he thought, and it had never 
 stood so clearly before him as then, 
 strange what a great difference there is 
 between Christ and those who call them- 
 selves His followers. Was that the reason 
 why his father never went to church ? Was 
 he, despite all his conservative ideas, under 
 the influence of the liberal school of religious 
 thought ? Or was he simply ungodly ? 
 
 Then came to Lyder's mind something 
 which had happened while he was yet a child, 
 something he had then not understood. 
 
 One day, being very busy talking to him- 
 self, he was startled to hear a clear voice 
 behind him say, 
 
 "How-de-do, Lyder?" 
 
 Turning, he saw a girl of about his own 
 age smiling at him. He had never seen her 
 before, and it astonished him that she should
 
 76 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 thus call him by name. He stood and gaped 
 at her. 
 
 " Don't you know me ? " she asked. 
 
 Lyder shook his head. 
 
 " I am your sister." She took his hand 
 confidingly. " Your papa is my papa too, but 
 your mother isn't my mother." 
 
 Lyder was so dazed that he could find no 
 words ; but he did not fear her, for she spoke 
 kindly, and later on picked nuts for him, 
 being a much better climber than he. 
 
 She was dressed in the plain garb of a 
 working-man's child, with no shoes on her 
 feet and a ragged dress. 
 
 They played together quite awhile. He 
 liked her very much, for she did just as he 
 wished. 
 
 After she had left him and run halfway 
 down the hillside, she turned and called 
 back, 
 
 " Don't tell your mamma; if you do, she '11 
 fix it so that I never can come back and 
 play with you. Don't you tell." 
 
 As he now recalled this incident it seemed
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 77 
 
 to him that there was something terrible in 
 the way she said these words. 
 
 He hurried home and told his mother, 
 who clasped him in her arms and laughed, 
 such a strange, forced laughter; he could still 
 hear it ringing in his ears. 
 
 But that little girl never came back to 
 play with him. 
 
 Lyder had walked as far up the hillside as 
 the rowan-trees, where the road was lined on 
 both sides by high stone fences. 
 
 Here grew his favoured fern, the Asplenium 
 trichomane. 
 
 The water, oozing out among the rocks 
 higher up on the hillside, trickled clear as 
 crystal over the pebbles in the middle of the 
 old washed road. 
 
 " The rowan-berries are sour," said the fox. 
 
 Was that the reason why the great busy 
 world seemed so little in sympathy with him? 
 Was he like the fox, calling the berries sour 
 because he could not reach them ? 
 
 Coming to the conclusion that the world,
 
 78 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 not himself, was blamable, he felt happier. 
 Truly, those on whom Nature bestows her 
 noblest gifts are the very ones whom social 
 laws prevent from enjoying these gifts. The 
 greedy, the merciless, the unscrupulous, the 
 most ardent worshippers of Mammon, it is 
 often they upon whom society bestows most 
 lavishly the means of enjoyment, regardless 
 of the fact that the recipients of these bene- 
 factions are quite unable to comprehend the 
 value or the nature of the pleasures which 
 they share. 
 
 "Things are divided strangely in civilised 
 society," thought Lyder. 
 
 Yet why feel anxious ? The whole world 
 lay open to a Van Meeren. And had he not 
 long ago made up his mind that if ever he 
 should become a man, he must be left to his 
 own resources? 
 
 The more he thought of it, the more cer- 
 tain he became that this conclusion was 
 right, immovably so. 
 
 Then the question faced him again; it 
 would ever return, how about Guri ?
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 79 
 
 " They are sour," said the fox; " the rowan- 
 berries are sour sour sour " 
 
 But there was his father far ahead on the 
 road, walking slowly toward the tarns. Lyder 
 soon caught up with him. 
 
 Herr van Meeren was in deep thought. 
 He was thinking of his first ship, the one he 
 had built shortly after taking his father's busi- 
 ness. He called her " Lina," after his young 
 wife. She was the largest vessel built in Ber- 
 gen up to that day. How proud and beauti- 
 ful had she looked as she lay at anchor in the 
 stream outside the Van Meeren warehouse ! 
 
 Below her gunwale were large white- 
 painted imitation port-holes. These served 
 both as ornaments and as a scarecrow 
 against sea-robbers. They made her look 
 like a man-of-war, and indeed there were 
 pirates enough in those times both in the 
 south Mediterranean and the Malayan 
 Archipelago. 
 
 But the " Lina " foundered on her first 
 trip to China, and he then built " Bergen." 
 Others followed in close succession ; at last
 
 8O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 came the beautiful full rigger " Berent van 
 Meeren," named for his father. She was 
 the most beautiful ship that ever had en- 
 tered the harbour of Bergen, built in Genoa 
 of Italian oak. But she had never paid 
 interest on the capital. The good times 
 had persisted in staying away, and those 
 northern fishermen and the country mer- 
 chants were getting more independent; the 
 coasting steamers were searching every har- 
 bour for their goods; the city merchants 
 undersold and overbid one another; busi- 
 ness transactions and methods which in 
 the good old times would have been looked 
 down upon as dishonourable were now called 
 simply " business." 
 
 What would it all come to ? 
 
 In the Storthing the republicans, men 
 with insane modern ideas, were getting in 
 the majority, and passed laws by which 
 ignorant working-men would soon have as 
 much to say in political and social matters 
 as he himself. Ah, the times! the times! 
 Herr van Meeren shook his head.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 8 1 
 
 His large inherited fortune, to which in 
 earlier days he had added considerably, was 
 dwindling away at an alarming speed. 
 
 Lyder startled his father as he caught 
 up with him, so suddenly did he bring 
 him out of his dark thoughts. 
 
 Lyder had pleased him lately. 
 
 Herr van Meeren looked sallow and wor- 
 ried; his hair had turned almost white. 
 There was a faint vibration in his voice as 
 he said, 
 
 "Is that you, Lyder?" 
 
 Stopping, he leaned one arm on the stone 
 fence, looking over the terraced gardens 
 across the fiord towards Lovstaken, huge 
 and dark and naked. 
 
 The sun had set. The wind was raw as 
 it fell from among the mountains; some- 
 thing bleak rested over everything. Sum- 
 mer had surely vanished. 
 
 The swallows were gathering in large 
 flocks, preparatory to their departure. 
 
 There was a strange sense of unrest over 
 nature. 
 
 6
 
 82 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 The feeling of distance, which had grown 
 so strong between father and son, kept them 
 silent for a while, though each wished to 
 speak. 
 
 At last Lyder remarked that " Viking," 
 the steamer belonging to Berentz & Son, 
 had run ashore outside the mouth of the 
 fiord, though they thought she could be 
 saved if the sea kept calm. 
 
 " But I don't think it will," said Herr van 
 Meeren ; " there is a change in the weather 
 to-night." 
 
 " Well, they have full insurance both on 
 her and the cargo." 
 . " Of course, of course." 
 
 " And I presume they could stand it any- 
 how," added Lyder, lightly. 
 
 Herr van Meeren looked earnestly at his 
 son. 
 
 " Are you sure of that ? " he asked. 
 
 Lyder nodded, looking rather foolish. He 
 answered low, 
 
 " I thought so." 
 
 "Yes, but nowadays one is constantly
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 83 
 
 getting surprises in such matters, my son," 
 Herr van Meeren said in an earnest tone. 
 
 " But Berentz & Son are rich ; are they 
 not, father?" 
 
 " They were and probably are, and so was 
 Herman van Meeren once; but he is so 
 no longer, my son. I have wanted to tell 
 you this for some time, to tell you that 
 you must not depend upon me for your 
 future. It is hard for me to say it, but 
 of my fortune there is nothing left, 
 nothing? 
 
 He extended his two empty hands, then 
 added in a more composed voice, 
 
 " If I were you, Lyder, I would go . out 
 in the world. Here at home people are 
 stepping on one another; I would go out 
 in the world, and try to do better than your 
 father has done." 
 
 Lyder lowered his eyes ; then suddenly he 
 grasped his father's hand. 
 
 " Yes, yes," he stammered, " let let me 
 go ; I I want to, father just what I was 
 going to speak to you about to-night."
 
 84 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 It was the first time in years that father 
 and son had been so friendly. 
 
 Herr van Meeren put his arm into his 
 son's, and slowly they walked along together. 
 
 The air was restless. The wind blew 
 from all directions and whirled the faded 
 leaves. 
 
 " Do not tell your mother about my finan- 
 cial condition ; she will not understand, so 
 we had better not bother her with it. Be- 
 sides, so long as my credit lasts, and there is 
 no danger of sustaining losses to anybody if 
 I should fail, I will keep right at work, trying 
 to mend things. If times get better soon, 
 I shall perhaps be able to straighten out 
 matters. Why, then, give her unnecessary 
 anxieties? Better not bother her with it." 
 
 They had seated themselves on the bench. 
 At the foot of the hill lay the tarns. The 
 mountains looked hard and unsympathetic 
 in the twilight. 
 
 In thought, Lyder followed the road along 
 the shore, where he had spoken to Guri the 
 first time ; he followed it with his eyes to the
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 85 
 
 place where they had turned into the forest 
 among the moss-covered rocks. His courage 
 fell. He had many plans for his future that 
 he would have gladly confided to his father, 
 now it had come to the turning point, yet, 
 walking homewards, he accepted those of his 
 companion without a single objection, though 
 it must be admitted that many of Herr 
 van Meeren's good counsels passed through 
 Lyder's head unheeded. 
 
 One thought now superseded all others : 
 Guri, what would become of her now that 
 he was no longer backed by the riches of the 
 Van Meerens ? 
 
 Accursed money ! It is true, after all, it 
 rules everything. Lyder clinched his fist, 
 but he carefully kept his fists in his pockets. 
 
 If only he dared tell his father! Why 
 should he not dare? Why not simply go 
 to him with it all, as a son should go to his 
 father, ask his aid, his counsels, his encour- 
 agement to do his duty, the duty he so 
 gladly would do, though now the obstacles 
 seemed insurmountable?
 
 86 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 And still if it were so, as he now be- 
 lieved, if that little girl had told him the 
 truth years ago, if if ah, but they were 
 too far apart ; between him and his father 
 there was something insurmountable. Dif- 
 ferent inclinations, different objects in life, 
 so many mutual misunderstandings ; strife, 
 strife for supremacy in life, what was it all ? 
 It was all between them ; and yet he began 
 to think that perhaps his father was the very 
 one to whom he could go with his troubles, 
 the very one to understand, especially in this 
 about Guri. He had a vague feeling that his 
 father was a far more lovable man than he 
 seemed to be; that indeed his heart was 
 brimful of love for all of them ; and yet that 
 something ! 
 
 They were to each other as positive and 
 negative poles ; they could never be brought 
 together, never. 
 
 After supper Lyder withdrew to his room 
 to be alone with the thoughts that stormed 
 in on him. 
 
 He did not know whether to be happy or
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 87 
 
 to give himself over to the strange grief 
 which struggled to rise in his mind. 
 
 Slowly a great fear accompanied by a sense 
 of loneliness crept over him ; for he felt the 
 full seriousness of the step he had taken that 
 day. He had a presentiment of what it 
 meant to stand alone in the world. Not 
 until this moment had he had an idea of 
 what that meant. No longer would his 
 pockets be full of money ; he would not 
 be backed by the great name of the Van 
 Meerens. 
 
 And his father's words, " Of my fortune is 
 nothing left nothing," commenced to hum 
 through his head. It stood as if written on 
 the air before his eyes. He tried to blot it 
 out, to feel careless, thoughtless, and happy ; 
 but it constantly returned, till he became so 
 afraid of life that he tried to lie to himself, 
 tried to make himself believe that it was not 
 so after all, it could not possibly be, his 
 father had said it simply to scare him 
 into activity. But the thought returned 
 to him again and again, that after this
 
 88 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 he would have no more advantage than 
 those clerks in his father's office he so often 
 had pitied, looking upon them as life-long 
 slaves. In fact, he was not so well fitted as 
 they for the great struggle, for they had come 
 from poor homes and struggled all their 
 lives, they had never expected anything 
 else ; but he - my God, how poorly pre- 
 pared was he! 
 
 The temptation assailed him to let go of 
 it all, give himself over to a dissolute life 
 whereby he might forget. Such a life could 
 not last long so much the better ! 
 
 He arose and paced the floor, and his de- 
 spair grew stronger as he thought of Guri. 
 
 "O God! Thou knowest I wish to do 
 what is right by her ! " 
 
 How would it be possible for him to say 
 good-bye, when he dared promise her noth- 
 ing ? She would not believe him if he told 
 her that his father was poor. Van Meeren, 
 Van Meeren, it was one of those gilded 
 names which brought with its very sound a 
 jingle of gold. Yet it was not gold she
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 89 
 
 wanted ; no, it was love, love, that was 
 all. But gold had become stronger than 
 love. How dared he love her when his 
 purse was empty! 
 
 His father had told him once, that a hut 
 and a heart were not enough. 
 
 " What have I done," he sobbed, " how 
 did I do it ? I am in love with a peasant 
 girl. Through mutual consent we met, we 
 loved ; what wrong was there in that, what 
 harm to any one ? " 
 
 Did not the birds do the same? Ah, 
 but there was a great difference, they 
 were under different laws. The happy 
 birds in the woods had not, like civilised 
 humanity, strayed away from the mother's 
 home to pray to false gods; they had kept 
 close to her and were free. Civilised man 
 had misused the developed mind which 
 nature had given him. Instead of build- 
 ing to better, he had organised to rob. 
 
 Brotherly love love which ought to be 
 the fairest, the most conspicuous flower in 
 the garden of civilisation was but a rare
 
 9O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 little flower, beautiful, indeed, but the 
 other plants had grown up around it; this 
 little frail flower was hidden away among 
 the wilted leaves, while the great gorgeous- 
 coloured ones overshadowed it by their 
 brilliancy. They were interwoven by long, 
 strong tendrils of a vine with gay flowers 
 and tempting fruits. Its name was greed, 
 and its fruits were gold. 
 
 And love, the little flower hidden among 
 the leaves, stood and longed for deliverance, 
 for more light, for more air, for the coming 
 of the gardener, not the hireling, who 
 would clear away all this rank growth, 
 smooth aside the wilted leaves, and finding 
 that flower of all flowers, speak to it in his 
 kind way, give it sunshine and light, water it 
 plentifully that indeed it might become the 
 flower of all flowers and its fruits ripen into 
 human happiness, not happiness for the 
 few, but for all. 
 
 Ah, but where was the gardener? 
 
 Lyder heard some one open the door from 
 the sitting-room into the hall. He heard
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 9 1 
 
 his father cough as he walked upstairs to 
 his room. 
 
 Involuntarily he ran towards the door, 
 but stopped with his hand on the knob. 
 
 " Insanity, insanity ! " he murmured. " He 
 will not understand." He must see Helga 
 and tell her how he suffered. 
 
 He opened the door a little, and beckoned 
 to her, as she passed through the hall. 
 
 She looked a little astonished, but smiled, 
 as she entered, until she saw how pale her 
 brother was, and that he had been weeping. 
 
 Lyder pressed her down into a chair ; then, 
 walking slowly back and forth, sometimes 
 stopping suddenly in front of her, he told 
 her of his troubles, of all except the one 
 he felt sure she would not understand. He 
 said not a word about Guri. 
 
 Helga sat leaning her head backwards, 
 rocking slowly. 
 
 Her eyes were almost closed, but when he 
 stopped in front of her once in a while, she 
 opened them wide. 
 
 She was thinking of how lonesome it
 
 92 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 would be when Lyder left; of the great 
 house with its echoes of times long gone by; 
 and the garden, and their walks and trails in 
 the forest; of the books they were read- 
 ing together, the music they were practising, 
 the thoughts they were interchanging! 
 
 She sprang from the chair and embraced 
 him. 
 
 " You can't go, Lyder," she cried. " It 
 would be selfish to leave me here. I want 
 to go out in the world too and struggle. I 
 am not afraid of life." 
 
 " Not if you were poor ? " interrupted 
 Lyder. 
 
 " Yes ; but we are not." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " And he told her what 
 his father had said that evening. 
 
 She again seated herself, rocking back 
 and forth. 
 
 Lyder paced the floor. Both were in 
 deep thoughts. 
 
 Helga first broke the silence. 
 
 " Then you will be a man, Lyder. You 
 will have to struggle for a home of your own ;
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 93 
 
 you will feel happy when you have built it, 
 far more so than if you stayed here and " 
 
 "Ah, but I hate struggle," he interrupted. 
 " I am not fit for it, I want peace. I am not 
 afraid of work, work of the kind I am suited 
 for ; but struggle, struggle with the hope of 
 obtaining riches I detest the thought. I 
 can't." 
 
 " You need not," she said lovingly. " Get 
 a piece of land such as you said you wanted ; 
 make a good home of it, work with your 
 hands out in the fields under the open sky, 
 as you say you like and, Lyder, I will 
 come too, and we will make roads and trails 
 in your forest, we will tend to your flowers 
 when evening comes. I will sing for you 
 while you work in the field ; we will eat the 
 bread you have raised on your own land, the 
 fruits and vegetables which have grown there. 
 We will make it a little world of our own, 
 just as we have here inside the high garden- 
 wall and hawthorn hedges. Such a life ! 
 you your own master; I with you! O 
 Lyder, let me go! If you go alone, I am
 
 94 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 afraid you will become like the others. You 
 will forget everything for money " 
 
 " No danger of that, little sister," inter- 
 rupted Lyder, almost gayly. 
 
 " Don't, don't, Lyder ; don't feel that you 
 must laugh disdainfully at what we have 
 enjoyed together. I am afraid you will 
 shake your head when you think of this, 
 that you were a child after you were grown ; 
 for you will get energetic, and that means 
 greedy. I have been told Hans and Petra 
 told me that out on the American prairies 
 everything is energy, calculation money. 
 Hans says that constitutes the whole of life 
 over there, even more so than here at 
 home. You won't, will you, Lyder? You 
 won't forget the flowers? You will love 
 what is tender and beautiful. I do think it 
 is such a mistake that to be manly you must 
 be devoid of higher feelings, you must be 
 more or less overbearing, emotionless and 
 selfish." 
 
 " Oh no, Helga." 
 
 " Yes, yes, that is the way they are, all of
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 95 
 
 them, or the most of them, the successful 
 men. I know don't you think I do? 
 how Jens Birk and the others ridicule what 
 they call your effeminate tastes, your love 
 for nature and music ? They say you are 
 silly, a crank ; that you are not practical ; 
 that it is good for you your father is rich, as 
 otherwise you would starve cultivating your 
 flowers. Petra has told me it all. But 
 you will show them, won't you, that a man 
 can build up a home of his own and main- 
 tain it, and yet find time to cultivate the 
 best in him ? I do wish you would like 
 Hans Gram and Petra. They have opened 
 my eyes to many things. They are both so 
 simple, so open, so advanced, so perfectly 
 independent in thought. It is refreshing 
 to be with them. A man devoid of these 
 nobler feelings can make no woman really 
 happy, I care not how much money he suc- 
 ceeds in accumulating. I shudder when I 
 think of the power of money ! " 
 
 Helga had risen from the chair. They 
 were now sitting side by side on the edge
 
 96 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 of the bed. He had taken her hand in his. 
 They both dropped into their own thoughts. 
 
 " I am afraid that kind of man would be 
 called by the world a wishy-washy, senti- 
 mental thing," Lyder said, half to himself. 
 
 " Don't misunderstand me. I have no use 
 for bleached, long-haired men, soft men of 
 leisure. I like them strong, sunburned, with 
 honest eyes ; large men, if you please, men 
 with some purpose in life besides making 
 money, strong and independent." 
 
 " But how can they be such in civilised 
 society? and if they are, how can they re- 
 main so and not sink in the onrushing flood 
 of selfishness ? " he objected. 
 
 " If so, and I am afraid it is almost impos- 
 sible, live for yourself, Lyder; leave it all and 
 retire into solitude, where you will have the 
 least possible to do with the outside world, 
 where you can cultivate the best in you and 
 use your best influence on others, and you 
 will be happy, I am sure. Hans and Petra 
 are right, money is the curse of it all. 
 Lyder, I am so glad : maybe they will let me
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 97 
 
 go too, now that we are no longer rich. 
 Maybe I shall have to go I am not 
 much afraid of the world. I hope it has 
 not yet become unwomanly to be a woman. 
 I long to work, to use my brain. Poor 
 papa," she added quietly, as in thought ; 
 " and mamma, it will be hard on her. She 
 has been so delicately guarded all her life, 
 she is not fit to endure hardships, dear me ! 
 and I know that if I stay here any longer 
 I shall become the same way. To have re- 
 sponsibility just think of it, Lyder! what 
 a happy feeling that must be ! to be respon- 
 sible to yourself to humanity. Perhaps 
 after you have gone and prepared the way I 
 can go to you. I like to teach. I should 
 like to teach little children. Then when 
 the day's work is done we will go on ex- 
 ploring trips into the woods the new, the 
 strange it will be delightful." 
 
 Lyder put his arm around her. 
 
 " I knew it," he said ; " there is no one 
 who can help me like you. I sometimes 
 think that the sooner I am dead the better ; 
 
 7
 
 98 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 but when I speak to you, sister, you have a 
 strange power over me. I know what it is," 
 he said smilingly; "it is sympathy, love. I 
 need love, and there is so very little of it in 
 the world. But wait just a little bit, sister; you 
 shall see I feel something has grown strong 
 in me here to-night wait, we shall see."
 
 VII 
 
 IT was Sunday, and Guri was free. 
 After weeks of cold autumn fog and 
 drizzle, the sun had risen in a cloudless sky, 
 and the clearness of the chilly air imparted 
 its purity to all objects. 
 
 The large yellow leaves of the maples and 
 the smaller ones of hazel and birch lay 
 pasted to the wet ground. 
 
 A spicy, wild fragrance came wafted on 
 the fresh breezes, as the last lingering 
 thought of the Norwegian summer. 
 
 Guri seated herself, high up on the hill- 
 side, on a rock by the road, the short cut 
 between the king's highway and the tarns. 
 
 Below her lay the city, its two spacious 
 harbours plainly visible with their flag-deco- 
 rated vessels and small steamers and boats. 
 
 The exertion of climbing the steep grade 
 had painted faint, red roses on Guri's 
 cheeks; her bosom was visibly rising and
 
 TOO UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 falling, as she breathed the fresh air in 
 full draughts. 
 
 She was glad it was Sunday. 
 
 She felt so happy that she sang, while the 
 large bells of the cathedral rang out their 
 deep, harmonious song and all the church- 
 bells chimed in with them. 
 
 Sometimes that song of the bells seemed 
 very near, then again it was carried far off, 
 growing muffled, almost dying away ; then 
 suddenly a jolly, whirling breeze brought it 
 back again. 
 
 But as Guri sang, she became serious. 
 She often had such dark apprehensions 
 break in on her mind, when she felt the 
 happiest. 
 
 She thought of the old vicar, and in 
 memory saw the two-storied, white-painted 
 house, and the garden in front. 
 
 The vicar's loving words and his warning 
 to her came with the other memories. 
 
 And here she was again walking the for- 
 bidden road to meet him whom it was for- 
 bidden her to love.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY IOI 
 
 But how could she help loving him ! In- 
 deed, she would give her life for him. He 
 had met her with a power stronger than her 
 will. She must love him as long as she 
 was herself. 
 
 "But, my God!" she said, half aloud, 
 "what is the use, Guri Guri, what is the 
 use? He will never be yours yours to 
 keep." 
 
 Soon he would meet a fine lady, if he 
 indeed had not already, whom he would love 
 and marry, and then forget Guri. 
 
 Forget ? Hardly. She had given him so 
 much of herself, forget her he never could. 
 
 She need not speak to him any more 
 when that time came if she only might 
 see him once in a while, meeting him on the 
 streets if she might read a recognition in 
 his eye, one which said, " You and I, you and 
 I, Guri; we have had much together, you 
 and I." 
 
 She commenced to sing again, a song 
 Hakon, her father, had taught her mother 
 while they were young and courting.
 
 IO2 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Hakon's mother used to sing it long, 
 long ago, when they first lived by the sea, 
 before Grandmother Guri had married and 
 moved to the mountains, where she was 
 carried off by the avalanche. 
 
 Eh, the fiord ! 
 
 A small steamer was going out, soon dis- 
 appearing from view among the islands. 
 
 It was going to her old home ; she knew 
 by the course it took. 
 
 She could almost hear the cry of the sea- 
 birds there. 
 
 Oh, if Lyder van Meeren were but a poor, 
 ragged fisher-boy, then she might love him 
 all she pleased; as it was, he might love her, 
 but not belong to her. 
 
 Soon he must be here. He had told her 
 to wait for him there on the rock ; then they 
 would walk together over the mountain- 
 ridges into the solitude of the heather- 
 covered moorlands. 
 
 There he was at last, now hurrying up the 
 old road, waving his hat to her. 
 
 Soon they were walking together, he help-
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 1 03 
 
 ing her where the ground was steep or 
 rough with large boulders. 
 
 The fresh breeze had blown her three- 
 cornered kerchief from her head down upon 
 her shoulders. She looked rosy and happy, 
 her lips parted showing her fine teeth, her 
 eyes dilated and sparkling. 
 
 The solitude deepened, as the city and the 
 fiord disappeared behind the first crest. 
 
 Before them, towards Blaamand, lay roll- 
 ing heat and dark marshes. 
 
 To the right, visible through the clefts, 
 down between the mountains, lay the silvery 
 tarns. 
 
 The jolly mountain breeze danced and 
 twirled among the heather. 
 
 He took her hand and they commenced 
 a wild run faster and faster. They seemed 
 to glide along on extended wings with in- 
 creasing rapidity. They had a mutual feel- 
 ing of being liberated. Behind them, at an 
 increasing distance, lay the narrow world ; 
 they were free, free ! 
 
 Such an indescribable happiness as that
 
 104 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 sensation brought with it ! It drove away 
 all sensuality, it left in them both a wonder- 
 fully passionate love, the gentleman, the 
 peasant girl, and the mountain solitude! 
 
 They had reached the very crest of Blaa- 
 mand, one immense, naked granite rock, 
 smooth and rounded, crowned by an old 
 beacon. 
 
 The wind carried them to the summit. 
 
 On the other side was a blue abyss with 
 tiny, twinkling tarns at the bottom. 
 
 Guri clung to Lyder's arm, as they stood 
 suddenly at the brink. She felt drawn 
 towards the deep, and uttered a faint " Oh." 
 Still breathing heavily after their long run, 
 they seated themselves with their backs 
 against the beacon as a shelter from the 
 strong breeze. 
 
 A hawk was soaring listlessly, far below, 
 over the tarns. Once in a while it uttered a 
 piercing cry. 
 
 Far out to the west, past the islands with 
 their low mountains, lay a narrow blue 
 streak, the ocean ; and on the other side
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 1 05 
 
 of that trackless highway of the world lay 
 the great new country with its prairies, 
 its rivers, its enormous lakes and forests, 
 its desert, its civilisation, its energy, its 
 strife. 
 
 And as Lyder looked over this immense 
 wilderness of mountains and water, he 
 thought how insignificant were human laws 
 compared with those grand eternal laws of 
 everlasting nature. 
 
 He had almost forgotten that this was the 
 day of leave-taking. 
 
 It made it all the more difficult to come to 
 when he looked at Guri. She was utterly 
 unaware of his plans. 
 
 How beautiful she was, with her rich hair 
 loose over her back, her eyes glittering with 
 life and happiness ! 
 
 She remained silent from an overpowering 
 feeling of love, of being alone with him, 
 where she dared be his. She felt the fulness 
 of his power over her, and she gave herself 
 humbly into its possession. 
 
 His hands played in her loosened hair,
 
 IO6 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 tying it jestingly under her dimpled chin. 
 Then he kissed her. He took that long, 
 soft hair and enveloped his own head in it, 
 laying his cheek close to hers, feeling the 
 smoothness and warmth of her light skin, 
 inhaling the fragrance of her pure breath. 
 
 She forgot everything, all consequences 
 of her love, everything, except the present 
 vibrating enjoyment of it. 
 
 But the ocean, that long, narrow streak 
 over yonder, the ocean ! 
 
 He must speak to her now. 
 
 He felt his breath growing short; he 
 almost gasped for it. 
 
 He had forgotten all for a while in their 
 wild dance over the heath, that this was to 
 be almost a hopeless good-bye, a good-bye 
 forever. % . 
 
 Tears started to his eyes. 
 
 The old fear rose in him of the cruel, 
 merciless world, as it is to those who are 
 poor and fallen. He could have uttered a 
 loud cry of anguish ; and to keep it back, he 
 involuntarily threw his arms around her,
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 107 
 
 pressed her to his bosom, stammering, " Guri, 
 Guri." 
 
 She nestled to him like a kitten, receiving 
 all his caresses, smiling faintly with an ex- 
 pression of blissful rest. 
 
 And yet, how often when alone and in her 
 thoughts suffering the penalty of her love, 
 had she not felt herself hopelessly plunged 
 into despair ! Even the kind old vicar would 
 condemn her, and she had made up her mind 
 that he never should, and that never a spot 
 should appear on the name of that man whom 
 she loved. There were means by which it 
 could all be kept secret If it came to the 
 worst, she would take the life of that little 
 being which she felt below her heart, and to 
 whom society denied the right to be born, 
 whose rights after its birth the laws of the 
 land would curtail, put on it for life a 
 burden of shame and contempt. Had she 
 not seen, out there in the country, how such 
 children were brought up, how they were 
 degraded and ill treated ! 
 
 But when she was with him out among
 
 IO8 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 the mountains, life seemed light ; she forgot 
 everything for his caresses ; she was happy. 
 
 Lyder pressed his folded hands between 
 his knees. 
 
 Guri was about to take his arm and push 
 him towards the abyss, just to scare him a 
 little, when she became aware of the deep 
 earnestness of his expression. 
 
 She stopped suddenly. 
 
 " Lyder," he had insisted upon her calling 
 him so, " why do you look so sorrowful ? " she 
 asked quietly. 
 
 He glanced at her, while his eyes again 
 filled with tears. Gathering all his strength 
 and steadying his voice, he slowly, quietly 
 laid before her his plans, told her that he 
 must leave. 
 
 " If I am ever to make a man of myself, 
 Guri, I must go ; but there are two things 
 which make it very hard for me to leave, 
 the one, a dread of the struggle for exist- 
 ence, the battle for life which awaits me ; the 
 other the other " and he looked at her 
 through tears, seeing her as an embodiment
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 1 09 
 
 of all she had been to him. " The other, 
 could you guess it ? " he added, a slight break 
 coming into his voice. 
 
 But she gave no answer. She evaded his 
 glance, as if her eyes hurt ; but, as they at 
 last met his, and she saw the tears glitter 
 in them and then trickle down his cheeks, 
 all her love came into her features ; bending 
 her head under the great burden which 
 unawares had settled upon her, she burst into 
 a deep, subdued weeping, which shook her 
 whole frame, till, after a desperate struggle, 
 she closed her lips, and with one deep, vibrat- 
 ing sigh humbly delivered herself into the 
 hands of fate.
 
 VIII 
 
 IT was a dark night, late in that same 
 autumn. 
 
 Down at the harbour a policeman was walk- 
 ing his beat, up and down the long wharf. 
 
 A fine drizzling rain had been falling the 
 whole day. The air was raw, the water dark, 
 gurgling in restless motion among the timbers 
 of the landing. 
 
 The gas lanterns up the street looked 
 sleepy in the thick air. The sky, entirely 
 overcast, hung low over the harbour whose 
 long, narrow water-alleys were lost in the 
 darkness between the large warehouses and 
 wharves. 
 
 All this part of the city was wrapped in 
 utter darkness except for the impure glare of 
 yellow light from some low longshore saloon 
 or ill-smelling restaurant. But farther back 
 and higher up from the shore, where the city 
 was built on broad terraces with wide streets
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY I I I 
 
 and little gardens, shone a host of twinkling 
 lights in the thousand homes visible far out 
 on the fiord, and welcoming the ships bound 
 for the harbour. 
 
 Alongside the landing lay an English 
 steamer with the lights from her bull's-eyes 
 wreathing like fiery serpents on the black, 
 restless water. 
 
 A short distance away rose the old fort, 
 its dark walls and bastions and the high 
 Walkendorf tower half hidden behind the 
 silhouettes of leafless lindens. 
 
 It was getting late. 
 
 A few pedestrians, who had been pacing 
 the quay with no other visible aim than 
 killing time, had gone home. 
 
 An equipage came rattling over the cobble- 
 stones down the street, and rolled with a 
 hollow sound down the long wharf. It 
 stopped by the gang-plank of the English 
 steamer, and Lyder van Meeren with three 
 of his bons amis stepped out. 
 
 They hurried across the gang-plank and 
 into the smoking-saloon on the deck.
 
 112 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Lyder ordered champagne and produced a 
 box of cigars from his valise. 
 
 Aunt Katarina, a rich maiden sister of his 
 father, had given him a five hundred crown 
 bill, telling him to use it for amusements on 
 the long journey and sometimes think of her 
 when he did so. She had always been fond 
 of Lyder. 
 
 He had made up his mind to begin right 
 now. Once more, and for the last time, 
 he would be one of the dons amis. 
 
 He felt a reckless desire to forget. He 
 must drown that constant whisper of his 
 conscience, drown it in wine that sparkles, 
 in laughter. 
 
 He listened, seemingly with great enjoy- 
 ment, to the equivoke anecdotes of his 
 comrades. But there was a crack in his 
 laughter; his friends did not hear it, but he 
 himself felt it. 
 
 He must be strong ; how could he other- 
 wise succeed in the world? He must tear 
 himself loose, violently cut the thread with 
 one rash stroke, and be a man. He yet felt
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 113 
 
 his mother's and sister's tears on his cheek; 
 that tall, stately gentleman, his father, he 
 too had wept strangely when he embraced 
 his son and bade him good-bye. Away ! 
 Away with it! Drown it all in wine 
 and laughter ! Yes, he was one of the dons 
 amis that night. 
 
 A stupor fell over him as he stood by the 
 railing of the ship looking at his friends 
 walking up the wharf arm in arm, stagger- 
 ing drunkenly, singing, in a fearful way 
 with hoarse voices, some operatic drinking- 
 song. The first gray light of earliest morn- 
 ing fell over the last picture of them. He 
 tried to imprint that picture on his mind to 
 cover up all the others of that day and all 
 the days before, that it might be easier for 
 him to leave. 
 
 Lyder was drunk too, for he had taken 
 as much as the others ; but he could yet 
 hear the echo of voices far, far away, his 
 mother's, Helga's, his father's last farewell. 
 It rose as a high wall between the past 
 
 and his future. It hammered in his head. 
 
 8
 
 114 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 His lips were burning, and he ordered more 
 champagne. 
 
 Standing alone in the centre of the smok- 
 ing-saloon, he filled the slender glass until 
 it overflowed, and with drunken laughter 
 emptied it for L ove. He dropped the glass, 
 breaking it. He looked around, and in the 
 gray light of morning, mingled with the 
 yellow glare from the lamps, there seemed 
 to stand in the open door, a tall girl in black 
 woollen gown with a white kerchief pushed 
 from her head down over her shoulders. She 
 was terribly pale, and her eyes wore an ex- 
 pression of unfathomable despair. In that 
 mingling of natural and artificial light, she 
 seemed to tremble. She did not open her 
 lips nor change her expression ; that frown 
 of despair was frozen into her forehead. She 
 looked at him steadily, her arms stretched 
 before her, the pallor of death on her cheeks. 
 
 Lyder gazed at her with glassy eyes. He 
 gave a deep swallow to gain the power of 
 his tongue, and made a desperate struggle 
 to gather his senses. He ran toward her,
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 115 
 
 but she moved away noiselessly, without 
 stirring a limb. 
 
 She moved out through the door, across 
 the deck, never altering the deep frown of 
 insane despair on her forehead. She glided 
 on over the gray water, fainter, fainter, 
 fainter, then melted into the dark, fog-laden 
 mountain. 
 
 The propeller made a rumbling noise ; the 
 sailors passed back and forth on the deck, 
 busy with their work, while Lyder still kept 
 staring in the direction she had gone. He 
 expected that phantom of his mind to re- 
 appear ; but all in vain. 
 
 Gathering himself together, he walked to 
 his stateroom ; exhausted of vital power, he 
 soon fell into a slumber full of strange, 
 haunting dreams. 
 
 The steamer was speeding out the fiord 
 with Lyder van Meeren on board out, out, 
 with his future at her prow.
 
 IX 
 
 WINTER fell. 
 The poor suffered from cold and 
 deprivation. Bundled up in rags, they 
 walked from one wood-sloop to another with 
 the hope of saving one farthing on a bundle 
 of brushwood. 
 
 The charitable institutions held meetings 
 and contributed funds to ameliorate the great 
 need. But there was too much of it. The 
 relief was but momentary. Men who never 
 before had needed charity, bent their heads 
 and killed their pride to keep their families 
 from starving. Work was very scarce, and 
 rumour of war became loud among the civil- 
 ised nations. And in the countries not 
 engaged in the quarrel there was a wild 
 desire that war might begin, and in some 
 way relieve business. From the pulpits 
 ardent prayers were sent heavenwards for
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY ,!!/ 
 
 relief ; but the snow fell listlessly deeper and 
 deeper over the land. 
 
 The sun broke through the clouds, and 
 glittered in snow-crystals on the frosty morn- 
 ings. How grand and beautiful was nature ; 
 how light and cheerful everything looked in 
 the sunshine, wrapped in pure, white winter 
 dress ; but what a darkness in civilised 
 society: hopes of wholesale slaughter of 
 men as a means of financial relief for those 
 who looked on, or for the one who was to 
 be the winner of the battles ! Selfishness, 
 thoughtlessness, and civilised ignorance and 
 crime ruling the world ! 
 
 But those who were on the upper steps 
 leading to the throne of mammon continued 
 to enjoy life. The balls had never been more 
 numerous or more elegant, nor the ladies' 
 toilets more costly. Champagne flowed in 
 torrents ; gayety, reckless extravagance, and 
 flightiness accompanied the hard times, 
 though it was impossible to tell who would 
 be the next to tumble into the abyss and 
 draw others with him. Even some of the
 
 Il8 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 oldest, hitherto considered impregnable busi- 
 ness houses closed their doors, and Berentz 
 & Son were among them. 
 
 Up in the north a terrible hurricane swept 
 over the cold sea and dreary islands. It 
 howled in concert with the merciless waves, 
 it lifted huts from their foundations ; untold 
 lives were lost and homes destroyed ; bitter 
 poverty stared into the faces of many. 
 Fathers, sons, and husbands seeking bread 
 on the sea gone forever. 
 
 The great merchants in the cities, backed 
 by capital and social privileges, charitably 
 contributed, when times became so hard, to 
 the temporary alleviation of the needy. The 
 young folk of the privileged classes gave the- 
 atrical performances, the returns of which 
 were also sent northward. And the papers 
 spoke with loud praise of this Christian spirit 
 which helped those in need. Beautiful young 
 girls embroidered and stitched for the bazaars, 
 which usually ended with an elegant ball. 
 But, up the coast, the sea sang its old song. 
 Treacherous, treacherous is the sea; not so
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY IIQ 
 
 charitable as the rich, not so loving and wise 
 as Christian society ! 
 
 Helga was walking home late one evening 
 from a small party with Hans Gram and his 
 Petra. 
 
 Petra was an old schoolmate of Helga's. 
 She had always been a little odd ; not pretty, 
 but very bright. 
 
 Hans Gram was editor of " The Liberal 
 Press." He was a stanch upholder of the 
 liberal ministry, and had earned the deep 
 hatred of the plutocratic and official party 
 for the way he attacked its policies and some 
 of its leading lights. 
 
 Helga was coming more and more under 
 the influence of these friends. She had 
 learned from them to think independently. 
 They had opened her eyes to many abuses 
 which formerly she either had not thought 
 of at all, or else had considered must be 
 so for society was that way. 
 
 They accompanied her as far as the city 
 arch. From there, Helga had only a few 
 steps more to the garden gate.
 
 I2O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 The wind was blowing icy cold from the 
 frozen fiord, and she forbade her friends to 
 go any farther out of the shelter of the houses 
 to the open country road, particularly as 
 Petra had a slight cold. 
 
 Helga passed through the dark arch of 
 the city entrance. As she reached the 
 garden portal, she saw a woman standing in 
 the deep snow, leaning against one of the 
 lindens. 
 
 It was a young girl dressed in shabby 
 finery. 
 
 She stood bending forward, with her head 
 against the tree-trunk, spitting out blood 
 upon the snow. When she heard footsteps, 
 she lifted her head. Her face was yellow, 
 her eyes were glassy and underlined with 
 dark streaks ; her countenance wore a 
 peculiar wilted look in the moonlight, as she 
 nodded to Helga and smiled. 
 
 The wind drove the clouds with great 
 velocity, making the light of the moon very 
 uncertain. Helga stepped out into the 
 deep snow and went close to her.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 121 
 
 "Are you sick? " she asked. 
 
 The girl nodded. " Can't you see it ? " 
 she replied, and laughed foolishly. " Don't 
 you know me, Miss Helga ? " 
 
 Helga scrutinised her. 
 
 " You ought to, for I am your sister." 
 
 The girl was evidently drunk. A horrible 
 smell of liquor accompanied her words. 
 
 " Let me help you if I can," said Helga, 
 kindly. " Of course we are all sisters, and 
 if I can do anything for you, I will." 
 
 " Yes, there are there are many kinds of 
 sisters," said the girl, looking intently at 
 Helga. She took a step closer to her, so her 
 body touched hers. Her walk was unsteady ; 
 Helga involuntarily withdrew a little. 
 
 " Don't don't be afraid of me, Miss. 
 I I " 
 
 " Let me help you out of this deep snow," 
 said Helga, feeling ashamed of her fear. 
 She took her by the arm and led her to the 
 sidewalk. " Where do you live ? Can't I 
 help you home ? " 
 
 " No you can't ; no Miss, not even
 
 122 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 if you are my sister, for my home home 
 is where I happen to go, eh ? I feel 
 kind of played out to-night or I would 
 see Jens Birk you know him eh 
 'course you do he pays well when I tease 
 him for it, by God." 
 
 Helga shuddered. She came near losing 
 her hold of the girl's arm, who moved still 
 closer up to her, swallowing the blood 
 which came into her mouth and spitting 
 loudly. 
 
 " Whu that tastes like raw meat. 
 Had n't you better let go of me, Miss Helga, 
 though I am your sister, for " she 
 whispered it very confidentially "your 
 father is my father." Then she laughed 
 hoarsely and hiccuped. 
 
 " Woman, what do you say ? Woman ! " 
 ejaculated Helga. " You my sister, my 
 father's child ! Oh, you tell me a 
 falsehood ! " 
 
 " I do, do I ? Now don't you look so 
 scared, Miss Miss Helga, you fool you ; 
 it is not you, it 's your father and I
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 123 
 
 would n't have told you if I had been sober, 
 I I don't think I would. If he just would 
 give us more money, lots of money if he 
 had let me be nice nice nice like you," 
 and she patted Helga's boa, " you might 
 not have been ashamed of your sister then ; 
 but can't you go and tell him what I have to 
 do to get money ? Don't you see, if I had 
 money, lots of money, then I would have 
 well, all I needed, don't you see ? " And she 
 laughed an ugly, cracked laugh. 
 
 Hardly knowing what she did, Helga had 
 thrown her arms around the drunken girl 
 and pressed her to her breast. 
 
 " Come," she said lovingly, " come ; we 
 will go quietly up to my room ; you shall 
 sleep in my bed ; I will make a good fire for 
 you ; I will sit by the bed and nurse you, for 
 you are sick. Oh my God ! my God ! How 
 is it possible, my God ! Come, come, little 
 girl, come. I shall see to it, you will not 
 surfer any more come." 
 
 " No, no, I won't, Miss. The old man 
 would n't like it ; he would kick me out in
 
 124 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 the morning oh no, no, no, I have made 
 trouble enough between him and your Ma 
 no, I won't I'll just sail into town again, 
 I '11 sail into town again and find Mother 
 there is a dance at Valhalla to-night, and 
 lots of my friends there if only I could 
 stop that damned blood ! " 
 
 " Let me go with you, bring you home. 
 You must go to bed, child, you must" 
 said Helga, her voice filled with deepest 
 emotion. 
 
 " That 'Id be pretty company to be in ! 
 You 'd get a nice reputation, even if I am 
 your sister! No, no, you just go to bed, 
 yourself, see eh? And dream of your 
 sweetheart. Puh, it is n't the first time I 
 have been bleeding ; it helps to eat snow, 
 but," and she whispered confidentially, "I 
 am a little drunk to-night those ' mos- 
 jeus ' you know eh? I know you know 
 how they are eh? Goobye; " and she ran 
 towards town, swaying in her walk. 
 
 Helga held on to the heavy brass knocker 
 on the door.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 125 
 
 She pressed it hard in her gloved hands. 
 
 The wind swept the clouds past the moon, 
 casting flying shadows over the snow- 
 covered country. A chill ran through her 
 when she saw these dark shapes hurry over 
 the smooth surface of the frozen fiord. They 
 seemed a host of ghosts coming to visit her. 
 She dreaded their touch, furies, who were 
 coming to take her peace away. 
 
 She fumbled in her pocket for the key. 
 She had hold of it, but dropped it again. A 
 dizziness almost overcame her. 
 
 The bright moonlight glittered on the 
 frozen fiord, then again it became dark. A 
 few flakes of snow fell slowly, trembling. 
 Up among the clouds the wind was busy, 
 hurrying them eastward towards the moun- 
 tains, but down on earth it had gone to 
 rest; not a twig moved on the large trees in 
 the park. There was a deathly silence as in 
 the crystal palace of the snow queen. 
 
 Helga was in doubt whether to enter the 
 home. Had she a right to stay there, when 
 she had a sister out in the night drunk,
 
 126 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 spitting blood, fallen ; sold, body and soul 
 for money ? 
 
 Helga struggled to find an excuse to com- 
 fort herself withal, to carry along that burden 
 which so suddenly had fallen upon her. 
 
 Fate? Was that her sister's fate? Had 
 humanity no power against fate ? 
 
 " Indirectly," had Hans Gram said, " indi- 
 rectly through fate and its evolution." No 
 power, after all! 
 
 That girl had been cast where she must 
 go under, deprived of everything which could 
 elevate; the daughter of a fallen woman, 
 having grown up in the hot-house air of 
 depravity and social condemnation; tempted 
 from her earliest youth, with lust-stained 
 blood circulating through her veins even 
 before she was born yes, the greatest sin 
 had been done to her before ever she was 
 born and how had she not been sinned 
 against since then ! And how about herself, 
 Helga ? Sheltered behind these high walls 
 and hedges, where it was so quiet, so refined, 
 where there breathed comfort and plenty
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 127 
 
 through the large airy rooms, where in sum- 
 mer the flowers smiled upon her; brought 
 up in the sunshine of love, with everything 
 needed for the best development of mind 
 and body! 
 
 Then there arose before her the image 
 of her tall, handsome father, so clean-looking, 
 so refined in his manners, so above the 
 majority of men, daily going in and out of 
 his luxurious home, while out on the streets 
 a child of his was sinking deeper and deeper 
 into that utter darkness of legalised sin 
 which finds its relief only in death. 
 
 Could it be true, what this girl had told 
 her? 
 
 Helga had a strong intuition that it was. 
 In her mind was a faint recollection of once 
 having been told something, which she then, 
 yet a child, did not comprehend. 
 
 Yet how was it possible ? Her father ! 
 
 Could it be true, what Hans Gram said, 
 that there was an irresistible current in life 
 which carried humanity with it, entirely at 
 its mercy; that all, the whole organised
 
 128 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 society, was responsible for the sins of the 
 individual ; that only through a slow evolu- 
 tion the good would some day conquer, when 
 there had come new generations of parents, 
 and new generations and generations again, 
 which should give their children inheritances 
 with increasing percentages of desirable 
 qualities ; when civilised society had become 
 civilised indeed, and love true, unselfish 
 love ruled the world ? 
 
 Ah ! was he to be blamed ? 
 
 Could she condemn him, push him away 
 from her with utter disdain, the man who, 
 after all, was her father ? Or or indeed, 
 had there been something stronger than his 
 will, which had carried him off against his 
 own ideas of right? 
 
 Fate fate! Hans and Petra must be 
 right; it was all fate. 
 
 How could there, then, be question of one 
 human being forgiving another? Ought it 
 not, instead of forgiveness, to be sympathy, 
 love? Ought it not, instead of condemna- 
 tion, to be an extension of helpful hands to
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY I2Q 
 
 lead the fallen ones into better ways, a 
 transfer of desirable powers through love 
 from the strong to the weaker one ? Ought 
 not civilised society to be a unity of amelior- 
 ating forces to carry humanity on to higher 
 ideals, higher lives, greater happiness ? Yes, 
 yes Hans and Petra were right. 
 
 But how could he let his child drift along 
 in the centre of the highway of vice? 
 
 " Never condemn, but sympathise," Hans 
 and Petra said, when she sometimes was 
 rash in her opinions. She would go to her 
 father, speak to him openly about it. He 
 was not hard, he was generous enough. 
 People had told her he gave much to the 
 poor: 
 
 Perhaps, after all, it was an invention of 
 that girl to extort money from her. 
 
 Helga turned the key in the lock and 
 entered.
 
 X 
 
 ALMOST every two weeks there came 
 a letter from Lyder, who was in Cali- 
 fornia, where no winter came. 
 
 He sent home pressed flowers, picked 
 among the sand-hills by San Francisco. 
 
 He told of the great, blue Pacific Ocean, 
 of the beautiful Bay of San Francisco, of the 
 semi-tropical gardens, the Chinese and their 
 theatres, their temples, and restaurants ; but 
 he never wrote a word about work. 
 
 Was he not at work ? 
 
 Herr van Meeren made no remarks about 
 it. His wife had blamed him bitterly when 
 her only son, whom she loved so much, had 
 left their home, sent out in the world like a 
 common young man without influences. 
 She blamed her husband, because she knew 
 that father and son did not agree very well, 
 and because of old Herr van Meeren's appar- 
 ent indifference to the future of Lyder.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 13! 
 
 Then there was that hussy with her 
 daughter bothering her. They dared to 
 smile at her on the street ; the girl had even 
 the audacity to nod to her. They wrote 
 threatening letters demanding money. She 
 who herself had been always true to her 
 husband she who had loved him so much, 
 never, never could have been unfaithful to 
 him ; she the daughter of great forefathers 
 who for generations had held high offices 
 in the king's service ! Forgive ? Forgive ? 
 How forgive when she could not forget? 
 How lonesome she felt, at times, in that 
 cold, cheerless indifference without hatred 
 but also without love ! How she pitied 
 herself ! 
 
 And she wept when alone, wept great, 
 silent tears of pity for herself. 
 
 Lyder's letters were a relief. It consoled 
 her somewhat, that he enjoyed his life in the 
 far-off country, that he spoke with pleasure 
 of his plans, and his return some day to see 
 them all. His letters were beautifully re- 
 fined and emotional ; they stirred her deep-
 
 132 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 est feelings. The more she pitied herself, 
 the more did she love her only son, so mis- 
 understood by his father, who had sent him 
 unprepared out into the world. Even with 
 the word " America " was associated some- 
 thing harsh and rude and democratic ; it 
 made her shudder. 
 
 Helga was growing more quiet, more 
 thoughtful, more earnest. She was con- 
 stantly at war with herself. A strong feeling 
 had sprung up in her against her father, 
 which she sought to stifle, but which she 
 felt would become too strong for her if she 
 did not soon speak to him about that girl. 
 
 Then there came a letter from Lyder tell- 
 ing that his money was gone, and he did 
 not know where to find suitable work. He 
 thought that by the advent of spring it 
 would be more plentiful. He asked his 
 father if he would kindly send him a few 
 hundred dollars to carry him through until 
 then. 
 
 In former days Helga would have sym- 
 pathised with her brother when their father
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY IJ3 
 
 denied him that help; but now her eyes 
 were open to many things. 
 
 Work suitable for him ! She knew what 
 that meant. The young Mr. van Meeren 
 would not condescend to become a common 
 labourer, when he could not get a position of 
 command ; and what right had he, a novice, 
 to expect such preference ? 
 
 " Ah me ! " sighed Helga. She was yet 
 unsettled in her new faith. It seemed hard 
 to throw overboard all the old dogmas, those 
 ideas of right and wrong by which she had 
 been governed since childhood. 
 
 Whenever nervous and haunted by doubts, 
 a tempting voice still whispered to her, " Ah, 
 well ! Life is that way ; the world and 
 society are made that way. Take what 
 comes; it is only the very few who can 
 choose the position in life for which they 
 are best suited. Money is and must be 
 the first consideration, the alpha and the 
 
 omega. 
 
 The same evening she wrote to Lyder 
 to be satisfied to begin at the foot of the
 
 134 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 ladder. She advised him to go to work on 
 a farm, and when he was fully convinced 
 that he knew enough about it, to try to 
 get a home of his own. u I hope," she 
 added, " that you do not think manual labour 
 degrading far from it. Hans Gram says 
 he knows from experience that it is abso- 
 lutely necessary for the mental and bodily 
 well-being of any man ; that, in fact, his 
 moral control of himself to a great extent 
 depends thereon. It is over-work, resulting 
 in ignorance and poverty, which has de- 
 graded labour and is still degrading it ; but 
 it is not the labourer's fault but that of 
 society, which pays the smallest share to 
 him who carries the burden of the day." 
 
 Helga enclosed her letter with her father's. 
 
 Herr van Meeren sent his son a small 
 amount to tide him over a few weeks, inside 
 of which he must find work, suitable or 
 not. 
 
 Herr van Meeren's letter was written in a 
 tender tone, telling Lyder that the reason 
 he did not send him the amount he asked
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 135 
 
 for was not lack of love, but just because 
 he loved him. Furthermore, as Lyder 
 already knew, nothing was left of his 
 fortune, and he would have had to borrow 
 the money, not knowing whether he would 
 be able to pay it back. He wrote to his 
 son earnest words out of a life full of ex- 
 perience, expressing the wish that he him- 
 self were young again that he might com- 
 mence anew. He even condescended to 
 add in a confidential way that the more he 
 saw of life, the more assured he became 
 that in only the fewest cases did inherited 
 fortunes bring blessings to their possessors. 
 To bring true happiness, money which 
 meant daily bread must be earned by the 
 sweat of the brow. 
 
 " Ah me ! " sighed Herr van Meeren, as he 
 closed the letter. " If I were only young 
 again and poor!" And somehow he had 
 a vague feeling that there was something 
 in the old social institutions which ought 
 not to be so, even though it always had 
 been so.
 
 136 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Yet, could he forsake his old opinions? 
 How was it possible for him to drive away 
 the facts of former prosperous days ? And 
 now? Lack of faith everywhere, dissatis- 
 faction, hatred. Bah ! He almost hated 
 these radicals, these these traitors ! What 
 else could he call them ?
 
 XI 
 
 IT was New Year's day. 
 The evening before, there had been a 
 great ball at the Schliitters'. 
 
 Helga had felt compelled to go, not to 
 insult her old friends ; but she had long 
 since ceased taking any pleasure in these 
 society affairs. 
 
 Jens Birk, who was now married to Karen 
 Schliitter, asked her for a dance. 
 
 She could find no excuse for refusing him, 
 much as she hated to feel herself close to a 
 man who made so terrible a use of his su- 
 perfluity of money and another's need of it 
 a woman's need. 
 
 It was a waltz she gave him. 
 
 The string-band played well. Jens Birk 
 was a graceful dancer, despite his obesity. 
 
 The lights were mellow and dreaming; 
 the air was filled with perfumes ; they whirled 
 and whirled, Jens Birk and Helga.
 
 138 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 He had courted her once, and she had 
 loved him a little, several years ago, while 
 very young. He whispered to her of those 
 days; he spoke about them with such tact, 
 in such a sympathetic tone. And they 
 whirled and whirled, light and graceful, oh, 
 so very light, amid the perfumes of wilting 
 flowers. She forgot his sins. A strange 
 nervous happiness floated into her soul, so 
 light, so indescribably light, she felt. Her 
 nostrils dilated, but she did not feel tired ; 
 her mind seemed benumbed, but through 
 her body thrilled a sensation of strange de- 
 light. A pressure from his hand still 
 whirling whirling the perfumes of flow- 
 ers and elegant, rustling toilets the other 
 dancers whirling past them then lights 
 and everything in a blur fast carried off to- 
 ward dreamland and every once in a while 
 that thrill followed by the benumbed sensa- 
 tion again a faint pressure of his hand 
 his arm around her waist moved nearer to 
 her body ; she wished, in a half-compre- 
 hended way, that dance would last forever
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY I ^ 
 
 intoxicating everything; everything in a 
 whirl farther and farther away, dimmer and 
 dimmer 
 
 Suddenly a great fear took possession of 
 her. She could have screamed. Her sister 
 for God's sake, her sister out there in the 
 snow, drunk, degraded, sold sold to Jens 
 Birk for money. 
 
 " Please," she whispered, " let me go I 
 am tired please" she demanded; and grace- 
 fully he brought her out from among the 
 dancers. As he found a seat for her on the 
 sofa next to Fru van Meeren, he saw she 
 was very pale. He made a low bow before 
 her, and thanked her for the very enjoyable 
 dance. 
 
 A little while after, he was told, she had 
 fainted and had been taken home by her 
 mother. 
 
 This first day in the new year awakened 
 under a clear sky. The sunshine glittered in 
 the crystals of the frozen snow. The church- 
 bells sang cheerily in the pure morning air.
 
 I4O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 People, attired in their Sunday best, were 
 on the road to church to thank the Father 
 of all for his good gifts in the year which 
 had passed, and to ask him for his blessings 
 in the twelvemonth to come. 
 
 The old, sombre hymns of the Lutheran 
 church rose from the immense pipe organ, 
 mingled with a thousand voices into an un- 
 harmonious whole. But they came from 
 simple, needful hearts, and brought conso- 
 lation and strength, these old, old hymns, 
 which carry with them the history of the 
 Christian Church from ages back. 
 
 But all around, the mountains stood silent 
 in winter clothes, reaching far into the frosty 
 air. 
 
 Helga had made up her mind to begin 
 the new year rightly. 
 
 She would speak to her father about what 
 oppressed her. All day she made excuses 
 for not doing it, such as, that it was the first 
 day in the year, and she would not com- 
 mence it disagreeably by reminding him of 
 such trouble.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 But when twilight came, and Herr van 
 Meeren took his walk upon the king's high- 
 way, Helga met him. She made it appear 
 as if it were a happy accident, and, smiling, 
 she laid her arm in his. 
 
 He looked unusually well that day, she 
 thought, so becomingly dressed for an eld- 
 erly gentleman, in his high, stiff shirt collar 
 and white silken cravat, his well-fitting black 
 broadcloth suit and high hat ; so tall and 
 handsome with his snow-white hair. 
 
 Ah, if there only had not been that but 
 about him. 
 
 It could not possibly be so ! 
 
 They walked along, meeting many of their 
 acquaintances, greeting them in passing, 
 wishing them a happy New Year. 
 
 The street lamps were getting farther 
 apart. 
 
 They had reached the last one on the 
 highway, at the gate of the last suburban 
 residence. From thence onward was only 
 the light of stars and a faint reflection from 
 the snow.
 
 142 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 They reached the group of rowan-trees, 
 where there was only a narrow trail with 
 deep snow on both sides. 
 
 It was here she had made up her mind to 
 begin. 
 
 Pressing close to her father, as if afraid of 
 the darkness, she looked up into his face to 
 see if its expression was sorrowful or happy. 
 But she could read nothing there. 
 
 He turned his head towards her when he 
 felt her look, and pressed her arm gently. 
 
 Something in her eyes, as they met his, 
 touched him. He wondered if she knew the 
 full extent of his love for her, how much 
 he loved both her and Lyder ; how indeed he 
 constantly longed for his son, not feeling 
 quite sure if it had not been a little hard, 
 indeed a little too rash in him, to deny Lyder 
 that money. Surely it had taken all his will- 
 power to do it. How he wished he could 
 have kept him at home, after he showed the 
 desire of doing his best, at home, where he 
 could be near him and guide him, give him 
 the benefit of his experience, so dearly won.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 143 
 
 Even if his own life had become no life at all, 
 he could yet live it anew in his children. 
 
 In sanguine moments he had come so far 
 as to dream of a reconciliation with his wife. 
 There was nothing on earth he desired more 
 than that ; he would give his life for it. 
 
 " Father," said Helga, in a loving voice, 
 looking up to him, " father, I met acciden- 
 tally one evening a fallen woman." She 
 clung to his arm as if afraid to lose him. " It 
 was outside our portal. She stood leaning 
 against one of the lindens, knee-deep in the 
 snow ; she was somewhat intoxicated, and on 
 the snow was a dark spot of blood where she 
 had had a hemorrhage of the lungs. I felt 
 so sorry for her." 
 
 " Did you not speak to her, help her ? 
 Poor thing ! What a pity that there must 
 exist such beings ! " 
 
 Helga began to feel safe. How could he 
 speak that way when he himself 
 
 " Yes ; and what do you think, father ? 
 in her intoxicated state, she wanted me to 
 believe she was my sister ! "
 
 144 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Herr van Meeren did not answer. Helga 
 looked questioningly at him and pressed her 
 cheek against his arm. 
 
 That silence sent a terrible fear through 
 her. 
 
 Herr van Meeren was pale. He held her 
 arm pressed to his body, afraid lest she with- 
 draw it before he could find words to answer 
 her. 
 
 "Perhaps yes perhaps she spoke the 
 truth perhaps. She was not your sister, 
 but " He hesitated an instant, then added 
 slowly, " my child." 
 
 " It was long ago, Helga," he continued, 
 speaking firmly, as he laid his arm around 
 her, hearing her weeping "long ago, when 
 I was young. I was tempted and fell she 
 is my child," he added with a deep, earnest 
 voice. 
 
 The wind piped softly in the naked crowns 
 of the old rowan-trees. 
 
 Helga never knew how it escaped her lips ; 
 but freeing herself from her father's arm, she 
 looked defiantly at him, and in a cold voice
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 145 
 
 asked, " And is that the way you treat your 
 child ? " 
 
 There came no answer; but Herr van 
 Meeren did not lower his eyes before his 
 daughter. 
 
 " She told me," Helga continued, "that to 
 earn her bread she, your child, must sell 
 her flesh ! " 
 
 "Stop, stop, Helga; stop she told you 
 a falsehood. I have given them all they 
 needed, and more than that ; but her mother 
 squanders all I give her; she has brought 
 her daughter up in that way, after her own 
 licentious life. I I have done my utmost 
 to save that child, but in vain. It were far 
 better she had been killed when born that 
 she had not been born but, my God, what 
 can I do?" 
 
 " Nothing nothing now very likely 
 her days are numbered. Her dissolute life 
 will soon make an end to her diseased body ; 
 but her soul! What responsibility! It 
 seems improbable to me that there was not 
 
 a time when she would have been saved 
 
 10
 
 146 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 with your money, your social influence. 
 Even if you did not take her into your 
 home, could you not have bettered her 
 opportunities, made a woman of her, used 
 every possible means of saving her? How 
 is it possible that you, whom I have loved 
 and revered, looked up to, whom everybody 
 looks up to, has a child on the street slowly 
 dying the worst of all deaths ; that your 
 hands are covered with the heart-blood of 
 your own child ! My God, my God, have 
 mercy ! I know your excuses, father ; you 
 need not speak. The code of Christian 
 society forbade your taking her into your 
 home ; your wife would have forbidden you ; 
 your friends would have lifted their hands 
 in wonderment and disdain ; a howl would 
 have arisen from all around. Rather let 
 this human being be lost forever, rather let 
 the laws these insane laws be carried 
 out ; deprive this child of the right of her 
 father's home, an outcast before she was born, 
 one even if she grew up a good woman 
 the world would eye askance. And then
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 147 
 
 you threw money to them ; but that money 
 stained your hands, for where was the love 
 which excuses all, purifies all its deeds ? Oh, 
 I am ashamed of my father ! " 
 
 Helga buried her face in her hands and 
 sobbed. 
 
 She had spoken excitedly, thinking only 
 of what burned in her to be uttered ; but 
 seeing her father's face full of grief, seeing 
 him stand there receiving uncomplainingly 
 her lashes, she suddenly felt a great pity 
 for him. She went close to him, and em- 
 bracing his arm leaned her forehead against 
 his shoulder, and said gently, 
 
 " Oh, father, what more right had I to 
 your home, your love, and to all you have 
 given me than she ? Oh, that home with 
 its beautiful garden ! I have no right there 
 any longer, with a sister out in the dark 
 streets. A call has come to me from your 
 child ; I must search the highways and 
 byways for such sisters ; I shall never have 
 peace until I am at work in some way or 
 other to redeem that burden of debt with
 
 148 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 which the favoured opportunities of society 
 have encumbered me. That home is not 
 my home. I can stay there, for you and 
 mamma are there ; but I must redeem it in 
 some way, or it will become forbidden 
 to me. Oh, father ! " Again she pressed 
 her face against his breast and sobbed. 
 
 Herr van Meeren's eyes were full of tears, 
 his whole body trembled ; but he could find 
 no words. 
 
 Hope, hope 1 where was there hope for 
 him? 
 
 He saw all plainly now. Yet had he not 
 striven against it, against that combina- 
 tion of forces stronger than his will, which 
 had been working against him, which had 
 ruined his life ? 
 
 " Child," he said, " my own dear little girl, 
 what can I say to you ? Ask your forgive- 
 ness? How can I, when I see no way in 
 which I could have escaped ; when, as I 
 look back upon my life, I can see how one 
 thing has worked into the other, how one 
 power has combined with another and grown
 
 UNTO -THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 149 
 
 strongest when I was the weakest ? Oh, I 
 have suffered for years the pang of loneliness, 
 of being unforgiven by others, by myself. 
 I see no hope, no hope ! My little girl, 
 it is terrible to stand here in the evening of 
 my day hunting for hope, for escape. Child, 
 if I had known then what I know now, it 
 would have been otherwise. Life is so 
 strange, so terribly undefined and contra- 
 dictory in its demands, that often not before 
 a man is ready to die does he see it in its 
 totality of failures. My heart is bleeding 
 to think of that child of mine living such 
 a life. But what can I do now ? Take her, 
 polluted as she is, into my home ? I will 
 try again to save her, send her away into 
 the country, among good people. I have 
 done it twice already ; but she is wild, there 
 is something so utterly licentious in her 
 nature I despair of saving her." 
 
 Despite Helga's attention to his little lik- 
 ings and despite her caresses, Herr van 
 Meeren felt that there had come something
 
 I5O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 between them which never could be totally 
 blotted out. 
 
 He could not have believed it possible 
 that a child of his would ever speak to him 
 in that way. 
 
 Helga's words, "I am ashamed of my 
 father," kept repeating themselves in his 
 thoughts with that expression of disdain in 
 which they had been spoken. 
 
 Those words had separated them for life. 
 
 He hoped, when alone and feeling bitter, 
 she never again would mention those things 
 to him, for after all what business of hers was 
 it, what explanation did he owe her for it? 
 Had everybody combined against him? 
 
 This lack of respect in children for their 
 parents was one of the influences of the 
 time. He knew from whence it had been 
 brought to poison the inexperienced minds 
 of the young. 
 
 He had seen with considerable displeasure 
 the preference Helga showed for that Hans 
 Gram and his emancipated wife, and for 
 those radicals their friends. It was just
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 151 
 
 what he had been fearing, that they would 
 turn his child's mind against her parents, 
 kill love and obedience through their doc- 
 trines, tearing down the good old laws under 
 which society had prospered so long. 
 
 Helga's experience at the New Year's ball 
 had made her think ; it helped her to forgive, 
 "never judge, but sympathise." 
 
 There were wonderful powers in life 
 wonderful. She had felt a power stronger 
 than her own mind ; it made her understand 
 much, excuse much, love much. It came in 
 time to keep her from hating her father, yes, 
 taught her to love him more than ever.
 
 XII 
 
 IT had been snowing the whole day. The 
 wind whirled the soft flakes mingled 
 with rain-drops around the street corners. 
 People held their umbrellas low over their 
 heads. Everybody was in a rush, no one 
 seemed inclined to stop for a chat; news 
 had little value, their sole desire was to get 
 under shelter from this soggy cold. 
 
 Inside the double windows at the Van 
 Meerens' it seemed very cozy. There was a 
 homely fragrance of salted rose-leaves, which 
 had been put on the stove, where the fire 
 murmured and crackled. 
 
 Helga stood by the window. She looked 
 out, lost in thought, at the whirling snow- 
 flakes. 
 
 She had had a letter from Lyder, that 
 morning. 
 
 He was working in a large vineyard, learn- 
 ing to prune and plough; he said he was
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 153 
 
 happy. He wrote that he had never felt so 
 well before. He had captured the heart of 
 his employer's wife by playing for her on 
 the piano and taking interest in her flowers. 
 She had asked all about his people at home 
 and seemed greatly interested. " Norway is a 
 part of Germany, ain't it ? " she had asked. 
 Helga laughed aloud when reading it. 
 
 This letter was not so full of dreamy long- 
 ings as his others had been. Lyder had 
 met a young man in that strange country of 
 selfishness, who he hoped would prove a 
 true friend to him. " But here everybody is 
 for himself; here everything is money. 
 Money! Indeed it is the alpha and the 
 omega." 
 
 Helga remained dreaming at the window 
 for a while, then went to the piano and 
 sang Schubert's "Standchen," at the same 
 time dreaming herself away to the land 
 where, instead of snow, there were sunshine 
 and flowers, to that far-off country where 
 her brother walked behind the plough in the 
 long black, steaming furrows.
 
 154 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Herr van Meeren sat later than usual that 
 evening at his desk in the inner office, a 
 small, plainly furnished room with smooth, 
 pasteboard-covered, painted walls above a low 
 wainscoting. On the wall hung a large map 
 of Europe, a few ship-models, and a water- 
 colour of his finest ship, " Berent van Meeren," 
 with all sails set, cleaving a very blue sea 
 with very accurate waves following one 
 another in military order. 
 
 Herr van Meeren had dismissed all his 
 clerks, and as Mr. Olsen, his cashier, the 
 old, faithful servant who had been with him 
 so long, and also with his father in his last 
 years of business, walked towards the door, 
 a rush of emotion overcame Herr van Meeren 
 the next day would throw this old, faithful 
 servant, too, out of work. It was fearful to 
 think of the consequences to so many homes 
 when it came to be known that Herman van 
 Meeren was bankrupt. 
 
 He extinguished all the lights, save the 
 one above the desk. His private office was 
 behind the other larger one, having double
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 155 
 
 doors between them. It was some distance 
 back from the street, with two small-paned 
 windows looking out upon a large cobble- 
 stoned yard. 
 
 Herr van Meeren put his elbows on the 
 desk and rested his head in his hands, search- 
 ing every corner of his resources to find hope. 
 Before him lay the notification of that large 
 promissory note which had to be paid the 
 next morning. He could not borrow the 
 money for it any longer and be honest. 
 What would be the use, anyhow ? After that 
 one came other notes. It was yet a long 
 time before spring, when all expected better 
 times. The harbour lay full of empty ships; 
 one could almost walk from deck to deck. 
 
 A large French steamer, with a cargo of 
 fish-spawn for the sardine fisheries, when 
 only a day out from the harbour had run 
 ashore in the dense snow-mist and was lost. 
 
 It was hoped that would raise the prices 
 on fish-spawns ; they were ruinously low. 
 
 Herr van Meeren found himself lost in a 
 whirl of disconnected thought; in vain he
 
 156 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 looked for a way out. There was no one to 
 whom he could go with his troubles, not 
 even to his own wife oh, no ! For the past 
 was not forgotten. 
 
 He put on his overcoat and hat. He bent 
 down for his cane, which had fallen ; and 
 slowly walking through the darkness of the 
 outer office, he came near forgetting to ex- 
 tinguish the lamp. 
 
 The wind pressed against the door as he 
 opened and shut it again. It was dark and 
 cheerless in the deserted street. 
 
 The sign over the small tinshop kept up a 
 busy clatter in the wind. The street-lanterns 
 looked dim in the snow mist. 
 
 Herr van Meeren took a short cut through 
 the narrow back streets and alleys towards 
 the city entrance. 
 
 He would take his walk, though of course 
 not so far as usual. He felt a desire to go 
 out on the highways, where he could be alone 
 with his thoughts. The storm did not 
 trouble him. 
 
 He had banished many dark thoughts
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 157 
 
 among the high mountains. When a little 
 boy, he used to climb them in spring to find 
 the first primroses and anemones ; in summer 
 he went thither for berries and alpine flowers. 
 
 To-night there was a terrible pressure on 
 his brain, his limbs felt sore and tired. Still 
 he hurried on with an involuntary desire to 
 get out to the fresh air among the hills. 
 
 Anders, the cobbler, in the narrow alley 
 back of the hospital for the lepers, was busy 
 at his work. Herr van Meeren stopped to 
 watch him through the small window. He 
 was sitting by his stool with a small, smoking 
 lamp, and his coarse, ugly wife sat by, watch- 
 ing him. 
 
 They were evidently discussing some im- 
 portant question. 
 
 Anders the cobbler was happy, at least he 
 always looked so ; those small black eyes of 
 his above or below the large spectacles 
 seemed always ready to enjoy a joke. 
 
 " Happy Anders," thought Herr van 
 Meeren, and walked on. 
 
 But how about himself?
 
 158 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 After his walk he would return to a home 
 no longer his own that old home of his 
 forefathers, it did not belong to him any more. 
 Soon it would be sold under the hammer, 
 and others would inhabit it, the old 
 home where he had been born and where he 
 had spent his happy childhood and youth, 
 where he had planted so many trees, trees 
 which had grown large, which he loved to 
 look at, reminding him, as they did, of the 
 days of his sorrow-free youth. There would 
 sound strange voices from behind the high 
 garden walls, happy laughter when he passed 
 outside, poor and pitied. That was the 
 worst of all. And all those men who had 
 looked up to him, who had taken their hats off 
 for him, who had been dependent on him, who 
 had trusted him with important public offices ! 
 
 What would become of him now? A 
 beggar supported by his relatives, a burden 
 to those who used to be below him in public 
 estimation and power. 
 
 Oh, if he could go somewhere with it all ! 
 If only she loved him ! She never had, and
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 159 
 
 now all this would be one more reason for 
 her to blame him. 
 
 Herr van Meeren stopped short, when he 
 reached the arch at the city entrance. 
 
 Ah, what was the use ! 
 
 He hurried though the arch. A few hun- 
 dred steps farther he passed under the por- 
 tal, climbed the back stairs on tiptoe and 
 entered his room. Without lighting the 
 candle, he went straight to the chest of 
 drawers, and took out something which he 
 put into the outside pocket of his overcoat. 
 
 Silently as he had entered, he stole out 
 again, following the king's highway, in haste. 
 
 He was convinced that no one cared for 
 him, not even Helga. Had she not said, " I 
 am ashamed of my father " ? 
 
 Ashamed ! 
 
 Then that child of his on the street, 
 beyond redemption ! 
 
 On the old road across the hills, sheltered 
 between high stone walls, the snow was deep 
 on both sides of the narrow trail.
 
 l6o UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 A little farther on, under the rowan-trees, 
 she had said it, " I am ashamed, ashamed of 
 my father ! " and, " Your hands are stained 
 with the heart-blood of your own child." 
 
 The poor little girl, she did not under- 
 stand him. " Ah, God," he prayed, " keep 
 her in Thy protection, that the world of strife, 
 where the strong trample over the weak, may 
 not handle her too roughly." 
 
 The place was easily found, even in the 
 darkness, the rowan-trees, the bend in the 
 stone walls, the steep hill ahead. He would 
 not climb the hill, oh, no, he wanted rest. 
 
 He leaned against the wall. 
 
 There was a dull report, audible but a 
 short distance through the snow-thick air. 
 
 Herr van Meeren sank on his knees, his 
 body swayed back and forth a few times, and 
 he fell on his face into the deep, soft snow. 
 
 The wind sang in the trees on the hill-tops ; 
 but down between the high stone-fences under 
 the old rowan-trees all was very quiet. 
 
 And the snow fell heavier and heavier, 
 listlessly covering up everything.
 
 XIII 
 
 IT was spring-time in California. 
 Red, downy leaves brightened the 
 long branches and slender twigs of the wild 
 grapevines along the booming creeks. 
 Orioles sang in the tops of the large oaks. 
 Orchards were delicately abloom in pink and 
 white. Humming-birds buzzed from flower 
 to flower, and the hills were tapestried with 
 many-coloured blossoms and grasses. 
 
 The blue of the sky was deep, deep, the 
 blue of the summer-lands, and dotted with 
 fleecy clouds. 
 
 Soil and air were moist, life-giving ; insects 
 busy, and birds in love. 
 
 Lyder van Meeren worked from morning 
 till night, following the plough between long 
 rows of blooming fruit-trees. 
 
 In his thoughts he saw a distant land 
 where yet the snow was covering the ground. 
 
 He saw the gray sky, the bleak country, the 
 
 ii
 
 1 62 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 cold winter sea; and the same overpowering 
 sadness came upon him as when the autumn 
 before he had watched the last naked skerry 
 sink below the horizon. 
 
 He liked this work just because he could 
 think while at it, send his thoughts wher- 
 ever he pleased. 
 
 If he was tired when evening came, rest 
 was so much the pleasanter. 
 
 But he often felt lonely, and in his loneli- 
 ness it was a question with him if to yearn 
 was happiness or pain. 
 
 Against the background of the past stood 
 the clear-cut figure of a slender girl. She 
 stood by the footlights of his scene of life in 
 her plain black dress and white kerchief, and 
 a great fear was it conscience ? at times 
 overpowered him. 
 
 He was seemingly no nearer a home of his 
 own than formerly. Any day might bring 
 the news that his father was bankrupt. The 
 few dollars he earned by his hands, what 
 did they amount to for a man with tastes and 
 inclinations like his ?
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 163 
 
 He associated very little with the people 
 about him. The friend he thought he had 
 found proved a disappointment, for that man 
 also loved money more than friendship. 
 
 On Sundays Lyder went out alone among 
 the hills, dreaming, longing, almost to the 
 verge of despair; indeed, he sometimes 
 passed that verge, and with folded hands and 
 uplifted eyes would gaze into the deep sky, 
 begging for aid from an Almighty Being 
 living up there somewhere. 
 
 And for what did he want aid ? 
 
 To obtain a home of his own. 
 
 Not a very unreasonable desire for a 
 working-man. Only a small piece of land 
 where he might work for himself and call 
 to his side a woman whom he should love 
 and who would love him. 
 
 She must be tender, he thought, with 
 a mind to which his could open freely, a 
 woman to whom he could go safely with 
 everything, his most secret thoughts. 
 
 Was Guri Hakonsdatter such a one ? 
 
 He hardly dared answer this question to
 
 164 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 himself. How dared he then write to her 
 and make her promises? 
 
 Yet at times he longed so desperately for 
 her that all doubts were banished. 
 
 His father's earnest face stood ever clearly 
 before him ; its varying expressions were so 
 clear in his mind they almost made him 
 shudder. 
 
 Indeed, he knew his father loved him, and 
 that at the bottom of his heart he himself 
 loved his father. He could not understand 
 why they should not have understood each 
 other, they were so very much alike. 
 
 Then he had great plans for the future. 
 
 When his father should become compelled 
 to shut the doors of his business house, the 
 whole family should come out to Lyder. He 
 felt that he could take care of them all, yes, 
 even he, who so often gave up all hope of 
 helping himself. 
 
 The reaction was sure to follow, and when 
 it came everything looked hopeless and fore- 
 boding. Then it was he longed most des- 
 perately for Guri, for her veiled eyes, for her
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 165 
 
 voice, for her caresses. Then the nights 
 seemed endless, when he tossed himself in 
 his bed, sleepless after a day's hard work. 
 
 Towards morning he would cry himself to 
 sleep, closely pressing his pillow like a child 
 hiding its face in its mother's lap. 
 
 The next day he would throw himself with 
 all his combined will-power into the work. 
 He did the work of two, and, when evening 
 came, he was very tired. The night brought 
 him unbroken rest, and in the morning he 
 would awake as bright as the cloudless Cali- 
 fornian summer sky.
 
 XIV 
 
 IT was a warm day. 
 The petals of the fruit-blossoms were 
 slowly dropping. 
 
 The sky had already become dulled by 
 smoke from a mountain fire. 
 
 Lyder threw himself on his bed to rest for 
 a few minutes after dinner. 
 
 He folded his arms above his head; his 
 face was sunburned and unshaven ; his blond 
 curly hair had grown too long and looked 
 unkempt. 
 
 Falling into a nervous slumber, he 
 dreamed he saw his father stand by his bed, 
 speaking to him in his earnest way, telling 
 him that the next day everybody would know 
 Herman van Meeren was bankrupt. 
 
 The old man looked sad and tired ; his 
 eyes seemed bewildered, looking about as if 
 in fear of some one. He laid his hand on 
 Lyder's forehead, that narrow hand with
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 167 
 
 the long thin fingers and the heavy, plain 
 gold ring. " Good-bye, Lyder, good-bye, my 
 dear boy, good-bye," he said, so lovingly, so 
 sadly ; then he faded away. 
 
 Lyder awoke. The sun was shining into 
 his face. He felt dazed, his mouth was dry, 
 the blood beat in his temples ; he hurried off 
 to his work, thinking anxiously about the 
 dream. 
 
 A few weeks after he received a letter 
 from Helga. 
 
 The writing became blurred. The letters 
 began to dance before he could finish read- 
 ing it. A dull pain ran through Lyder's 
 head ; he breathed heavily. 
 
 " My father, my poor father ! " he 
 stammered. 
 
 He hid his face in his arms ; leaning 
 against the rough wall of his little room, he 
 wept such tears as he had never shed. 
 
 Night was slowly stealing over the land. 
 The distant quak-quak of the frogs along 
 the creek mingled harmoniously with the 
 chirp of the grasshoppers. The soft breeze
 
 1 68 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 from the sea, laden with the spicy fragrance 
 of the Californian summer bloom, came 
 through the open door, as if taking pity on 
 the young man standing there, lost in his 
 sorrow. 
 
 The stars glimmered through the crowns 
 of the long-needled pines, where the soft 
 winds kept up their everlasting faint hum, 
 the lullaby of nature. 
 
 Lyder threw himself on his bed without 
 undressing. 
 
 What thoughts, what recollections that 
 came and went, what desperate longing, 
 what repentance, he experienced on that 
 summer-night ! 
 
 The long, long summer-night of the south 
 lulled him at last to sleep with its dizzy 
 whispers, while the large moths were busily 
 fluttering low among the flowers, and the 
 ground-spiders drew their long glittering 
 threads across the roads and lawns.
 
 XV 
 
 THE tidings of Herman van Meeren's 
 suicide spread like wildfire over the 
 old city of Bergen. Many were the fancied 
 reasons for the deed. 
 
 After the books of the house were exam- 
 ined, there was no doubt but that the assets 
 would cover all debts ; but that was all. 
 
 Fru van Meeren was very dramatic in her 
 sorrow. She fell into hysterics by her hus- 
 band's grave, but in time settled back to 
 life, taking it as it was, sharing the home of 
 a widowed brother in Christiania, a man in 
 high position, one of the king's most trusted 
 men. 
 
 Helga shed few tears. Something very 
 earnest had come into her features. Her 
 voice was fuller, more sonorous. The ex- 
 pression of her eyes became at times examin- 
 ing, penetratingly so. The old look of 
 warmth and affection had become deeper
 
 I7O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 through an added expression of one who has 
 suffered. Grave and resolute, she stepped 
 out into her new surroundings to battle un- 
 der social laws. She accepted a position in 
 the editorial sanctum of Hans Gram. 
 
 It was at small pay ; for newspapers, 
 especially liberal ones, which are not backed 
 by interested capitalists, are not a source of 
 great riches in Norway. 
 
 But she received enough for her needs ; 
 and her position threw her into association 
 with men and women of liberal minds, who 
 sympathised with the lower classes of hu- 
 manity. Helga began to see plainly the 
 wrongs which were daily perpetrated against 
 them, under the protection of social laws ; 
 and she meant in the future to have some- 
 thing to say on the subject, to throw herself 
 with her whole soul into that battle for 
 liberty fought by the masses. 
 
 The past with its fairy-castles in the old 
 park inside the high garden-walls and haw- 
 thorn hedges, seemed a dream of long ago ; 
 in fact, she did not understand how it ever
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 could have had such attractions for her. 
 Her energies had been slumbering, lulled to 
 sleep by carelessness, while outside roared 
 the battle. 
 
 She wished to help clear up all that 
 sediment of greed and selfishness, at the 
 same time knowing well how great was the 
 task, how slow the evolution of society, and 
 how little, how insignificantly little, she 
 herself was. 
 
 " But there are many of us," she said, 
 " many, and each day we are getting more 
 numerous." 
 
 She became an enthusiast in her work. 
 People of the old school spoke of her as 
 " that emancipated Miss van Meeren." The 
 climax was reached when she cut her hair 
 short. 
 
 " I only wanted to relieve myself of that 
 headache occasioned by my indoor work," 
 said Helga, smiling to Petra, who told her 
 what people said. " The doctor advised me 
 to do it indeed it hurt me to sacrifice it 
 ' ut let them say what they please."
 
 172 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 That sister of hers on the street had 
 found her last resting-place in the potter's 
 field. 
 
 She had been one of the numberless simi- 
 lar sores festering in the unhealthy body of 
 Christian society. She had sold herself and 
 made a living by it, while honest working- 
 men starved in the hard times. But so it 
 happens in civilised society.
 
 XVI 
 
 THERE was a great jubilee among the 
 religious people of the old city of 
 Bergen. 
 
 Love-feasts and prayer-meetings were the 
 order of the day. 
 
 An industrious missionary had brought 
 home from Zululand a real Hottentot, 
 an ugly thick-lipped fellow, who in broken 
 Norwegian spoke of the great glory and 
 love of the Christian God, who had sent 
 the Saviour for the poor black people as 
 well as the white. Moses, as he had been 
 baptised, was no fool. He enjoyecl all this 
 feasting; he enjoyed being driven around 
 with the missionary in the bishop's carnage, 
 that he might be interviewed by the great 
 and leading people of Christian endeavour. 
 
 Moses proved a most excellent advertise- 
 ment.
 
 174 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Poor widows, hysterical old maids, ig- 
 norant servants, small-minded emotional 
 tradespeople, and a few hypocrites adored 
 this black brother, and contributed to the 
 missionary fund according to their means ; 
 yes, it is to be feared that some of the first 
 mentioned starved themselves to give to it. 
 
 And the money-bag of the missionary 
 society became swelled like a plutocrat's 
 stomach. 
 
 Stockings were knitted and shirts made 
 by kind-hearted women for the black con- 
 verts in Africa, that they might look decent 
 in their native kraals ; and from the pulpits 
 of the large churches sounded forth eloquent 
 petitions for the dark brethren. 
 
 Then there came an unexpected " cooler " 
 from "The Liberal Press." Helga had 
 made her maiden effort. In a quietly 
 written article she asked if it were not better 
 to sweep first before one's own door, then 
 before that of others ; if there were not 
 heathenism, darkness, and nakedness enough 
 right there at home, and need of money and
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 175 
 
 food to satisfy the starving, both bodily and 
 mentally, without sending clothes and the 
 means gathered from the innocent and poor 
 to the Kaffirs, who, living in a southern land 
 of eternal summer, were in little need of 
 clothing; who were happy in their kraals 
 and hunting-grounds, who seemed to take 
 more willingly to the fire-water of civilised 
 nations than to their religions. 
 
 " Look you, you Christian people, and 
 behold the pallid men, the sorrowing, over- 
 worked mothers, the scantily clad, hungry 
 children right outside your doors, who, if the 
 eye of the police were not so watchful to 
 maintain law and order, would be begging in 
 the streets. 
 
 " Good people, instead of constantly rais- 
 ing your hands in prayer for the poor, where 
 you yourselves are the ones to act, banish 
 your selfishness, your antiquated ideas, and 
 join in the struggle for more equality, for 
 better social laws, for the victory of that 
 love which proclaims that men are brothers, 
 and that in a father's house not one child
 
 176 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 shall live in thoughtless superfluity, while 
 the other children bear the burdens of the 
 day and starve." 
 
 Then to the consternation of the good, 
 innocent people bad rumours became loud 
 about Moses. He had begun a life of 
 amours in the " dead-falls " of Christian so- 
 ciety; he was reported to be spending his 
 pocket-money in an ill way, and the sharp 
 tongues of the city wagged wittily about 
 Moses. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! " said the missionaries, and 
 packed Moses back to Africa, where he hast- 
 ened to surround himself with many wives. 
 
 But from conservative organs rose a mighty 
 cry against " The Liberal Press." " Hoved- 
 stadens Avis " led them all. One most rev- 
 erend gentleman after the other rose in the 
 full wrath of his Christian indignation, and 
 with eloquence and scriptural quotations 
 swung the flaming sword of salaried Chris- 
 tianity against the rising atheism of the time, 
 against all this godlessness in " The Liberal 
 Press."
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 177 
 
 They spoke with righteous hatred against 
 these radicals who through flighty talk and 
 criminal literature spread dissatisfaction 
 and infidelity among the lower classes, 
 dissatisfaction with their lot in life, and 
 hatred for those whom an all-wise God had 
 chosen for the more plentiful gifts of the de- 
 sirable things in life. 
 
 They gave scriptural proofs that such in- 
 stigators had existed since the dawn of his- 
 tory, though their strength, and the venom 
 of their ungodly attacks, were never more 
 active than at the present day, when they 
 made use of the hard times, oppressing all 
 civilised nations of earth, to attack the only 
 true church of God, and its ordained servants 
 on earth. 
 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them." 
 
 The reverend gentlemen met, shook their 
 heads, spoke in low voices among themselves, 
 condemning " The Liberal Press," its editor, 
 its whole staff ; they dragged into light per- 
 sonal rumours, and the sinful failings, in the 
 past and present, of these men. 
 
 12
 
 178 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 But on a cold, gray evening, in a wood- 
 shed behind a large city mansion, seated on 
 the hard floor, was a pale girl. 
 
 She had dragged herself into the darkest 
 corner behind the corded wood. 
 
 The small, four-paned window at the end 
 gazed at her like a cold, inquisitive gray eye. 
 
 It was only by the utmost exertion of will 
 that this poor, lonely lass kept back the cries 
 of pain which threatened to escape her. 
 
 She had forgotten everything her re- 
 sponsibilities, yes, even her own mother and 
 the far-off islands of her childhood's home. 
 She had forgotten the kind old vicar who 
 prayed with her so long ago. There was 
 only one desire left in her, to hide, hide 
 from everything in the world, from the 
 merciless gaze of civilised society. 
 
 Like the thief in the night, like the blood- 
 stained murderer, she desired nothing more 
 than to cover up her tracks, to hide, hide 
 from that terrible monster there outside that 
 small window with its cold gray light. 
 
 And this young girl what was her crime?
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 179 
 
 She had loved. 
 
 Loved? 
 
 Yes, but without the consecration of the 
 servant of the Lord. She had not asked his 
 reverence nor his dignitary if she might ; 
 she had merely loved. 
 
 That disposition which, according to the 
 belief of Christian society, the Almighty God 
 had created in her to love had been made 
 stronger than her power of will to obey social 
 laws. 
 
 She was a fallen woman, as it is generally 
 called. She had been too natural. 
 
 She crept as far into the darkness as she 
 could, her soul filled with terrible fear, a 
 ceaseless anguish. 
 
 She listened for footsteps, she fought back 
 the pains which surged through her. 
 
 And with all, how did she not long for him 
 to whom she had given herself in love ! Oh, 
 but he was so very far away ! 
 
 She stretched herself full length upon the 
 floor. It gradually grew dark where she lay ; 
 only that gray eye in the wall remained,
 
 l8o UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 perhaps a little sleepier, but constantly 
 watching her. 
 
 Tears of pain and of despair, of utter lone- 
 liness, trickled down her cheeks. 
 
 There came a short relief. 
 
 That girl had become a mother. To her 
 nature had given a child. It cried when it 
 was born ; and its mother, insane with terror 
 of the prying eyes and ears of her fellow- 
 beings, strangled, with her own hands, that 
 little babe. 
 
 Dark ? 
 
 Can you fathom the darkness in a mother's 
 mind who kills her own babe ? 
 
 The gray eye in the wall looked at her ; 
 it seemed to grow larger, larger, to come 
 nearer, nearer. It glared so terribly, so in- 
 quisitively ; it searched for her baby, it fell 
 over her, trampled on her, sending cutting 
 pains through her body, yes, away into 
 her very soul. 
 
 "Ah oh me!" A great lull followed. 
 Where ? Where was her child ? She groped 
 for it in the dark.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY l8l 
 
 Finding it, she pressed it to her bosom ; 
 this was his baby,. HIS. 
 
 She sc:w him plainly before her, she em- 
 braced him in the shape of her murdered 
 child, him, for whose sake she had killed 
 it. 
 
 Rest, oh, such rest ! She felt it come ; a 
 benumbed sensation crept over her limbs ; 
 that rest became deeper and deeper, more 
 and more senseless, such a perfect rest 
 without the least effort. There were flitting 
 dreams of long ago, of him. 
 
 Her life was slowly ebbing away. A 
 sudden quiver one spasmodic struggle 
 slowly passing, and she settled into the arms 
 of the angel of death, who, never looking 
 back, gladly carried her away from life.
 
 XVII 
 
 IT was a summer evening. 
 Lyder van Meeren was driving home 
 from the railroad station, at the mouth of 
 a tunnel penetrating the heart of a forest- 
 covered mountain. 
 
 It was a little out-of-the-way station, with 
 a signal-box and a small building contain- 
 ing a waiting-room and the station-master's 
 office. 
 
 Across a rocky ravine stood a few white- 
 washed dwellings, a store, a saloon, and 
 some rough-looking outbuildings and ware- 
 houses. 
 
 Several years had gone by since that 
 summer evening when Helga's letter brought 
 Lyder the tidings of his father's bankruptcy 
 and suicide. The wound which it had cut 
 in his mind had gradually healed; but the 
 sore was still there.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 183 
 
 Many an evening, when tired, had he lain 
 down in his little room, not able to sleep, 
 blaming himself, again blaming his father, 
 then society, which seemed to have com- 
 bined against him. 
 
 Lonely, he yearned for sympathy, for a 
 single soul to whom he could go when the 
 world seemed all darkness. 
 
 He was economical with the money he 
 earned, but there came months without work. 
 The small towns were full of idle men hang- 
 ing about, eating and drinking up what they 
 had earned in the busy time; and Lyder 
 was among them. 
 
 Formerly he looked with disdain upon the 
 working people, condemning their ignorance 
 and lack of interest in everything but the 
 satisfying of physical wants. Now he under- 
 stood them. The labourer was a beast of 
 burden the greater part of the year, and 
 when without work his mind was filled with 
 anxieties. 
 
 Oh, if he only could get a home of his 
 own ! It had become almost a byword with
 
 184 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 him ; he would murmur it often in a half- 
 conscious way when languid, or tired of a 
 struggle with so poor a result. 
 
 But how should he ever be able to obtain 
 this much coveted happiness ? 
 
 He had read somewhere that one's first 
 duty was to be happy. 
 
 Easy to say, he thought. Of course, there 
 were happy people in the world, a great 
 many perhaps, but so many more who were 
 not, at least not as happy as they ought 
 to be. 
 
 And here were immense tracts of farming- 
 land, thousands of acres, whose rich proprie- 
 tors never had done a day's hard work in 
 their lives. A hundredth part of one of 
 these tracts would make a prosperous, 
 happy home, perhaps, for some one. As 
 it was, the ground lay but half cultivated, 
 while homeless men went walking in the 
 dust outside the barbed fences, casting 
 yearning looks over the wide stretches of 
 fertile soil held by rich men for speculative 
 purposes.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 185 
 
 Lyder thought with dread of a life spent as 
 he was spending it now, the slave of others 
 more favourably situated than he. 
 
 Was he going to be like one of these gray- 
 haired men he met on the dusty road with 
 their rolls of blankets on their backs, tramp- 
 ing from place to place, with vacancy staring 
 from their colourless eyes, where thoughts 
 seemed extinguished, and in their stead 
 glared an almost insane expression of yearn- 
 ing, constant hopeless yearning, steadily 
 degrading, all noble feelings deadened 
 simply to keep the body alive ? 
 
 " Much better be dead," he ejaculated, 
 "much better die at once!" 
 
 And the more he saw of the life which 
 surrounded him, the more did he understand 
 its barbarism. 
 
 Here was a land with broad valleys whose 
 fertility could not be surpassed, glittering 
 rivers, and safe harbours; a southern land 
 under a warm blue sky, where the tenderest 
 fruits ripened in abundance, where the 
 golden fields waved in the endless summer
 
 1 86 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 sunshine, and yet all this crying need, these 
 thousands of homeless people begging 
 for work, these thousands of homes where 
 men were struggling enslaved by the ruler of 
 the land, money; the serfs of the favoured 
 few, the priests in this golden temple where 
 there are many gods, but not those of love 
 and mercy. 
 
 Is this the great land to which I have 
 come, where stands the cradle of liberty, 
 the land towards which the oppressed of the 
 world look and stretch their arms in suppli- 
 cation, where they hope for deliverance, a 
 land where men are brothers ? 
 
 " Surely it is a sham, a sham," he sighed. 
 
 Tired at last with waiting, Lyder one day 
 wrote to his aunt in Bergen, telling her how 
 everything stood, and how he longed to own 
 a small place, asking if she would not lend 
 him some money, or, better, give it him, 
 since he could not promise ever to pay it 
 back. 
 
 Having mailed his letter, he went out, and
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 1 87 
 
 he hunted among the mountains for a suit- 
 able place to buy. 
 
 Two months later Lyder was the happiest 
 man in the land. He held in his hand 
 money enough to purchase a home of his 
 own ! 
 
 That was the way he came to be with his 
 team at the little station in the heart of the 
 red-woods that summer day. 
 
 And Lyder sang in the woods as he 
 slowly wound his way out of the deep 
 canon. 
 
 No wonder he was singing. 
 
 Away yonder on the mountains lay his 
 home. A small cleared spot was plainly 
 visible among the brushwoods, above the 
 trees. 
 
 The solemnity of the deep red-wood 
 forest ; the shaded road where it was so cool 
 on that warm day ; the deep, blue canons ; 
 the distant faint humming of the wind in the 
 tree-tops ; the leafy greenness of the syca- 
 mores and oaks ; the aroma of the woods, 
 all this combined to make him blissful. No
 
 1 88 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 wonder he sang. His song was a pot-pourri 
 of melodies from distant countries and 
 ancient days, old Norse and German folk- 
 songs entwined with ribbons of his own melo- 
 dious thoughts. 
 
 His horses were taking their own time. 
 They moved along with drooping ears, too 
 lazy even to switch away the large horseflies 
 thirsty for their blood ; perhaps the good 
 beasts also were lost in reveries of greener 
 pastures in a sorrow-free youth, before they 
 were bridled by man. 
 
 And the echo of his voice from the wood- 
 land told him that Nature was listening to 
 his songs. The hum and murmur and soft 
 whisper from the canons told him how 
 beautifully she also could sing ; and he list- 
 ened to that music which experience had 
 taught him yields itself so willingly accord- 
 ing to the state of the human mind, which 
 is grave and sombre if such be your mind ; 
 rippling, animated, if so you desire; gay, 
 happy, thoughtless, if you are young and 
 sorrow-free; dreamy if you are in love;
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 189 
 
 deep, caressing, hushed with deepest emo- 
 tions, if your mind is earnest, and you have 
 been seeking the shades of the forest to be 
 alone. 
 
 And Lyder had forgotten everything, 
 everything, save the forest that was casting 
 over him its mantle of rapture. 
 
 So enraptured was he, indeed, that sum- 
 mer day, as not to notice a figure sitting on 
 the large gray rock by the roadside. 
 
 He was looking in another direction, out 
 over the undulating forest-covered hills sink- 
 ing boldly into the deep canon. 
 
 " How d' ye do ? " said a musical voice close 
 beside him. 
 
 Startled, he looked round. A young girl 
 with a pale, refined face smiled at him from 
 under a white lace mantilla. 
 
 She had large, trustful velvety eyes, and 
 leaned her head a little to one side when 
 she spoke. 
 
 Lyder involuntarily pulled up his horses, 
 and looking very foolish, said nothing. 
 
 " Would you let me ride with you up to
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Buena Vista ? " she asked. " I have walked 
 very far, and doubt whether I have strength 
 enough to walk all the way back." 
 
 " Oh, certainly." He jumped to the 
 ground on the instant, but was too confused 
 to assist her. 
 
 " Yes, but then you must give me your 
 hand and help me up," she said, a little 
 roguishly. " Oh me, that was quite a 
 climb." 
 
 Lyder, in his dirty working-clothes, hardly 
 knew whether he dared speak to this refined, 
 well-dressed girl, but he managed to steal a 
 shy glance at her. She was beautiful, he 
 thought, with her well-shaped somewhat 
 aquiline nose, her emotional lips faintly 
 dimpled in the corners, and those large, dark 
 eyes veiled by such long lashes. 
 
 Suddenly she turned, and spoke in that 
 curiously tender way, with a faultless pronun- 
 ciation, such as makes even the English 
 tongue musical. 
 
 " These red-wood forests are so lovely that 
 one forgets one's self and walks too far. Is
 
 UNTO -THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 not your name Van Meeren ? " she added 
 somewhat abruptly. 
 
 " Yes, madam ; but how do you know 
 my name ? " asked Lyder, astonished. 
 
 She smiled. " Why, very easily. They gave 
 me a description of you up at Buena Vista. 
 They told me you would be returning from 
 the station, having passed this morning, and 
 that I could safely ask you for a ride if I 
 became too tired. There are not many peo- 
 ple who use glasses hereabouts, so you were 
 not hard to recognise. But you would n't 
 even help me into your waggon," she said, 
 with the playful ease of one who has associ- 
 ated much with different classes of people. 
 
 Lyder blushed. There was something 
 very tender in her voice ; it made him feel 
 safe. 
 
 " How lovely she is, but how very pale her 
 face," he thought 
 
 " Do you stay up at Buena Vista Springs ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Yes, I came there yesterday from Santa 
 Cruz. Is it not delightful at Santa Cruz ?
 
 1 92 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 that blue, rounded bay of Monterey I 
 love it." 
 
 " Yes, it is beautiful there." Lyder began 
 to feel at home with this interesting stranger. 
 " I grew up by the ocean," he continued, 
 " one not so blue and warm as this, but for 
 the most part gray under a low-hanging gray 
 sky. It is cold-looking, but no less grand. 
 I often long for it." 
 
 " I am afraid I shall also long for the 
 ocean," she said. After a while, " It can be 
 so unmerciful too." 
 
 " Have you ever seen it during a great 
 storm ? " he asked. He did not feel the 
 least afraid of her any more ; there was 
 nothing at all condescending about her. 
 
 " No, I always wanted to go, but my 
 brother would never allow me to. He is 
 always so afraid I shall catch cold and die. 
 It must be very grand." 
 
 "To die?" ' 
 
 " To die ? Oh, no. The ocean in a 
 storm ; perhaps, it is grand to die, too." 
 
 They went on silently for some distance.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 193 
 
 The quails were calling in the thickets. 
 The red evening-light had crept up from the 
 blue canons to the very highest crests, then 
 it faded entirely away, leaving the canon still 
 bluer with the haze from the forest fires ; 
 only the highest peak of Loma Prieta glowed 
 for a while, when the whole mountain with 
 its soft contours of brushwoods changed into 
 a deep purplish blue. 
 
 Lyder was conscious of a great desire to 
 let this little girl know that his mind was not 
 as rough as his clothes, that his tastes and 
 feelings were perhaps as refined as hers ; 
 that his home, once one of the richest, most 
 aristocratic, had left an inward if not an out- 
 ward mark upon him. He became afraid 
 that, after all, she considered him but an ig- 
 norant labourer. He feared this opportunity 
 to show her that he was not would be of too 
 short duration. But why so concerned? 
 Because here was at last one with whom he 
 felt his mind, his thoughts, his desires could 
 blend and give to him that greatest enjoy- 
 ment of all for which he had longed. 
 
 13
 
 194 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 After making several ingenious excuses 
 to himself for telling it all to her, he began. 
 He felt sure she was interested ; she looked 
 at him with so friendly an expression in 
 those deep eyes of hers. Lyder became al- 
 most eloquent as he dwelt upon the charms 
 of his dark, wild mountains at home; the 
 glittering glaciers ; the long, narrow fiords 
 of his native country. With transport he 
 spoke of its songs, its fairy-tales, its poets 
 and great composers, ending by asking her 
 if she had ever heard any of Grieg's music. 
 
 " Oh yes." 
 
 " Really ? " It seemed strange to him to 
 find any one in these far western forests 
 who knew that music, so closely connected 
 with the nature of his own Norseland. 
 
 " I heard you singing," she said. " I 
 suppose it was you far down in the canon; 
 it sounded very weird and beautiful." 
 
 Now they had reached the crest of the 
 hill, where the land was dotted with orchards 
 and vineyards. On the other side it sloped 
 into dusky canons and long spurs of dark,
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 195 
 
 forest-covered hills ; and beyond them, far, 
 far down, the great Pacific. 
 
 A faint reddish glare spread over the 
 western sky in which the evening star was 
 barely visible. 
 
 The surf along the rounded bay of Mon- 
 terey resembled a narrow white ribbon. 
 
 The air was softly vibrating with the 
 incessant chirp of the grasshoppers, and 
 heavy with the drowsy aroma of blooming 
 oleanders and ripe fruits. 
 
 Up to the left on a hillock, surrounded by 
 spreading live-oaks and tall red-woods, lay 
 Buena Vista, with its ever-blooming garden 
 of roses and oleanders, and large, blue fig- 
 trees on both sides of the entrance. 
 
 It would have pleased Lyder van Meeren 
 could that drive with the little maiden whom 
 the forest so unexpectedly had given into 
 his care, have extended throughout the even- 
 ing. This clear, melodious voice, so close to 
 him, filled him with a strange desire of trav- 
 elling onward, onward into that red evening 
 air, high, high above the dark forests and
 
 196 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 the ocean, onward, onward toward the even- 
 ing star. 
 
 By the gate he helped her down from the 
 high seat of his waggon. 
 
 Gay laughter and a murmur of voices 
 sounded from the verandas and the trees. 
 
 " Thank you so very much for this pleasant 
 ride, Mr. van Meeren," she said. 
 
 He would have liked to say, " I hope 
 you will give me the pleasure of repeating 
 it;" but how could he in his old, dirty 
 working-clothes to her, so well dressed, so 
 deliciously beautiful, so perfumed ? 
 
 She flitted with a rustling sound up the 
 broad gravel walk, disappearing in the twi- 
 light behind the shrubbery. 
 
 Up in the hotel the lamps were being 
 lighted. 
 
 Somebody played dance-music on the 
 long-suffering piano. It sent a shudder 
 through Lyder to think of her, who to him 
 seemed a revelation of the purest harmonies, 
 entering that atmosphere of degraded music. 
 
 He whipped up his horses, and the heavy
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 197 
 
 waggon rattled down the short, steep hill, 
 crossing a brook, and ascended the mountain. 
 
 That horrid voice of the piano died away, 
 but the memory of the little woman who 
 had so suddenly come into his life stayed 
 with him. He still saw her flitting up the 
 gravel walk in her white, rustling dress, with 
 the lace mantilla over the dark hair. He 
 looked at the footboard where those dainty 
 feet in the tanned shoes had rested ; he yet 
 felt the touch of her narrow velvety hand in 
 his. as he assisted her from the waggon. 
 " The pleasant ride " pleasant, she had said. 
 Was it merety an empty compliment, or ? 
 
 Ah, but, Lyder van Meeren, thou art poor, 
 poor, and that, in civilised society, means 
 degraded. While she? Perhaps very rich. 
 Yet he felt she was one who could sympathise 
 with him, one whose mind could blend with 
 his. An intuition told him that they were 
 made for one another ; only rich and poor ! 
 
 How deep was the abyss between them 
 yes, and between the son of Herman van 
 Meeren in former days and himself to-day 1
 
 198 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Oh, this rattling, clattering money ! Away 
 with it ! Away, far from it all into the soli- 
 tude of nature; only there was sympathy for 
 him ! But had he not let others suffer as 
 he had commenced to suffer now ? Should 
 money also destroy his happiness? Poor 
 Guri Hakonsdatter! poor little lass! She 
 stood before him with that frown of despair 
 on her forehead. He strove to drive her 
 from ^ : : .noughts and in her place put the 
 shape of the little girl from Buena Vista. 
 In vain. She would not move ; she remained 
 there surrounded by her terrible history, 
 dead, frozen to a hard wooden floor, with 
 the body of her child his child lying 
 across her breast. He had read it in " The 
 Liberal Press," several years ago. Helga, 
 his own sister, had written that attack on 
 so-called Christian society, not knowing that 
 her own brother was at the bottom of that 
 dark story. 
 
 Guri Hakonsdatter was poor, but he had 
 loved her. 
 
 Guri Hakonsdatter was fair, just as beau-
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 199 
 
 tiful in her way as the little girl from Buena 
 Vista. How she had loved him, Guri, with 
 all her powerful, simple love ! 
 
 But to-day that little girl from Buena 
 Vista ? 
 
 " Get up, boys ! come on ! it will be dark 
 before we reach home." The horses trotted 
 faster in the gathering dusk. 
 
 " Helga is right ; she is right','' he repeated 
 to himself, to drive away the dreadful doubts 
 that ever oppressed him. " Society is re- 
 sponsible for the majority of sins of its 
 individuals; but," he thought, "who is re- 
 sponsible for the sins of society? The in- 
 dividuals ? No responsibility anywhere ? 
 An unconquerable evolution and retrogres- 
 sion of the human mind ? 
 
 " How forgive, then ? The one human te- 
 rn^ forgive the other? How can the will to 
 obey social laws be made responsible when 
 it is such a weakling compared with our 
 natural desires? 
 
 " Ah, nature is responsible for it all ; that 
 omnipresent, that eternal power which has
 
 2OO UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 no foundation because it always was; which 
 has its climaxes, but no end ; which, through 
 its laws, has made us as we are, made us to 
 serve our place in its unfathomably immense 
 household." 
 
 When Lyder entered his cabin that night, 
 he thought it had never before looked so 
 disorderly nor so lonely. 
 
 There was something lacking which he 
 had not missed until now. 
 
 He walked out again and sat down on the 
 steps. 
 
 Far below him shone the long row of 
 lights at Buena Vista. 
 
 The wind came over the mountains, bring- 
 ing with it the bark of a fox. The sound 
 came nearer, then slowly died away in the 
 deep canon. 
 
 The lonely feeling it left made him shud- 
 der. He returned to the cabin, lighted 
 the lamp, and commenced to read the home 
 papers. There was also a letter from his 
 mother. Regularly, every two weeks these
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 2OI 
 
 letters came; but they contained the same 
 thing over and over again, expressions of 
 sorrow, sympathy; long jeremiads about the 
 terrible dispensation of Providence which 
 had compelled her son, who came from such 
 a fine family, to earn his bread by labour. 
 She was always begging him to return. 
 
 Lyder loved his mother and pitied her; 
 but he wished she would not write him such 
 letters.
 
 XVIII 
 
 FOR weeks after, Lyder remained at home. 
 He worked around the cabin, clearing 
 land to be planted the coming season with 
 fruit-trees. 
 
 As he laboured steadily, lost in thought, 
 there came before him a vision of a climbing 
 rose hiding his cabin under its spreading 
 branches. It should be all covered up, his 
 little home, under blooming vines. 
 
 A small three-cornered flume of edgings 
 brought the water from a spring to the cabin 
 door. It fell crystal clear into a leaky tub, 
 over the rim of which it oozed into a large 
 bed of petunias. There was also a narrow 
 bed of pansies along the north side of the 
 cabin. Helga had sent him the seed, and 
 Madame Pellier, the landlady at Buena Vista, 
 had given him slips of verbenas and Japanese 
 chrysanthemums. 
 ' He watered and watched them eagerly day
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 20$ 
 
 after day ; to them he spoke in his loneliness, 
 they were his only companions. 
 
 And when evening came, he would sit on 
 the steps and sing and dream and lay plans. 
 
 " Strange," he thought, " there is one be- 
 sides myself for whom I do all this ; who is it ? 
 Will she enjoy my flowers, admire my 
 view, that tuft of drifting summer clouds, 
 my songs ? Will she enter into my thoughts, 
 and what would she say if I followed this or 
 that desire ? " She was one whom he wanted 
 to please ;__ a phantom that followed him 
 everywhere, and which had something of 
 Guri, of Helga, something of all the women 
 he had ever known. But sometimes it had 
 something of his father too, the only man 
 he had really cared for, yes, despite all 
 misunderstandings, had loved. 
 
 And his new acquaintance from Buena 
 Vista ? 
 
 He watched the long row of lighted win- 
 dows every evening, and when the last light 
 was extinguished, he imagined it was hers, 
 and went to bed.
 
 2O4 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 But Lyder had his dark hours, when every- 
 thing seemed lost, his work wasted, life a 
 burden. 
 
 Then again some morning he would wake 
 up earlier than usual, after a night of perfect 
 rest, jump out of bed, whistle and sing, and 
 find everything enjoyable. Work was then 
 easy to him. Then tasks which he had 
 dreaded gave him pleasure to perform. 
 
 He had no longings for the outside world 
 and its pleasures, what were they compared 
 to that enjoyment nature gave him? 
 
 Despite his poverty he would not exchange 
 with the richest.
 
 XIX 
 
 ONE morning in October, Lyder started 
 out before sunrise with his team to 
 haul a load of wood to the station. 
 
 The air was chilly, for a shower had fallen 
 the day before, and along the little rills a 
 delicate hoar-frost silvered the fallen leaves. 
 
 The air was marvellously clear. The rain 
 had washed off all the dust and smoke of the 
 long, rainless summer, and Loma Prieta, with 
 its dense carpet of brushwood, looked clean 
 and refreshed after the bath. 
 
 In the garden at Buena Vista the chrysan- 
 themums were in bloom. Most of the summer 
 guests had left for their city homes ; the gravel 
 walks looked deserted, but it seemed more 
 homelike there without the clatter of dishes, 
 the inharmonious hum of humanity enjoying 
 itself, and the eternal sound of that suffering 
 piano.
 
 2O6 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Lyder had met the little girl from Buena 
 Vista only once since the first time. 
 
 She was in company with some other 
 guests, and had nodded to him in a very 
 friendly manner. He had envied those 
 companions of hers. Why should he not 
 go down to Buena Vista some Sunday and 
 see her? he had asked himself. He could 
 don his best clothes, play for her on the 
 piano, and show her he was not a " hobo." 
 
 But when Sunday came, he did not keep 
 his promise to himself. He feared he should 
 not find her alone. So he talked to his 
 flowers, as usual, and walked far into the 
 woods, among the tall ferns, fancying Helga 
 with him, or that phantom shape of his mind. 
 
 Lyder felt unusually strong and fresh this 
 autumn morning. His horses seemed to 
 share his feeling ; he had hard work to keep 
 them from running down the steep hills. 
 
 A little ahead on the road, where it made 
 a wide curve around the hill before re-enter- 
 ing the forest, he saw a woman walking 
 slowly.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 2O7 
 
 Now and then she bent over to pick up 
 an autumn leaf, or reached up the high bank 
 for an overhanging fern. 
 
 It was she whose name he did not know, 
 the girl from Buena Vista. 
 
 She had not left, then, with the other 
 summer guests. 
 
 He recognised her by the mantilla; but 
 instead of the white gown, she wore one of 
 an indescribable hue a mixture of brown, 
 green, and red like the leaves in autumn. 
 
 A sudden nervousness came over him. 
 He would willingly have stopped then and 
 there, yet he could not very well be so rude 
 as to pass by and not offer her a ride. 
 
 So he slowed his horses, holding them 
 back firmly. 
 
 There was something about this girl he 
 almost envied her, not on his own account, 
 but for her sake, who once had given all of 
 herself to him, but who did not possess 
 this development of the soul, these refined 
 thoughts, language and action which made 
 the young lady from Buena Vista her supe-
 
 2O8 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 rior. Yes, he envied her that she should 
 possess all these qualities of body and mind, 
 which in their combination could give him 
 a happiness which he dared not hope would 
 ever become his. 
 
 And as he slowly drove along, holding 
 back his horses, he compared these two 
 women and saw the difference in them. 
 
 This little maid from Buena Vista pos- 
 sessed that which forbade him to look at 
 her with eyes of low desire. She was sur- 
 rounded by that halo of a cultured mind 
 which, combined with physical beauty and 
 an emotional soul, makes the ideal woman, 
 while Guri poor, poor lass ! 
 
 Ah, if that little maid in front of him 
 would lay her hand in his, turn her back 
 to the world, go with him trustfully, gladly, 
 into the forest higher, higher, to where 
 his cabin stands on the hill with " God's 
 country " all around ! 
 
 How beautiful she is, how gracefully she 
 flits from roadside to roadside, picking be- 
 lated flowers and autumn leaves.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 2OQ 
 
 Hearing the waggon rattle close behind 
 her, she stepped to one side of the road to 
 let it pass ; but recognising Lyder, she 
 waved her bouquet and called out, smiling, 
 " Don't drive over me, please." 
 
 Lyder tipped his hat somewhat awk- 
 wardly. " No indeed, I won't." Then hesi- 
 tatingly, " May I I offer you a ride this 
 morning ? " 
 
 Pushing the lace of the mantilla away 
 from her eyes, she looked up at the high 
 seat 
 
 "You are rather high up; are you. sure 
 I might not lose my balance and tumble 
 into the canon ? " 
 
 " Oh no," he answered assuringly, " there 
 is no danger. I will drive very slowly." 
 
 " But it might be too heavy for your 
 horses." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " he laughed merrily. " What 
 a heavy-weight you must be ! But it 's all 
 down hill, you know." 
 
 He tied the lines to the brake-bar, and 
 with both hands assisted her up. 
 
 14
 
 2IO UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 " Ah," she exclaimed, when well seated, 
 "the view from here is still better." 
 
 "Your health seems to have improved," 
 he ventured to say, " since you came here, 
 judging from your colour." 
 
 " Indeed it has," she replied, and lowered 
 her eyes for a second. " These forests and 
 this pure mountain air have done all that 
 for me." 
 
 " And the good company at Buena Vista," 
 he interrupted. 
 
 " Hardly ; there are very few people there 
 with whom I sympathise. Besides, I left the 
 city to be alone and rest." 
 
 Glancing back at the waggon, she said 
 kindly, 
 
 " It is hard work to cut wood, is it 
 not?" 
 
 "Yes, rather, but it is healthy work. I 
 always feel best when I chop wood. Of 
 course it hurts me every time one of those 
 old, beautiful trees topples over. I always 
 think of the long ages it has taken to make 
 them what they are, what wonderful trans-
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 2 1 I 
 
 formations of matter, what powers. They 
 seem to sigh in falling, as if grieving over 
 themselves; but I am obliged to clear the 
 land to make it produce something of more 
 value." 
 
 She looked at him attentively for a 
 moment, then away over the canon. 
 
 They were getting into denser and denser 
 woods. The blue] ays shrieked in the oaks, 
 gathering acorns, and the clank of the wood- 
 chopper's axe came wafted across from the 
 opposite mountain. 
 
 Lyder did not hurry his horses in the 
 least. This ride was to last as long as 
 possible. 
 
 " It is rare to hear men speak that way," 
 she said, after having been silent for some 
 time. She again looked at him scrutinis- 
 ingly, as if to learn out of what strange 
 material this son of the Vikings was made. 
 
 " Most men," she continued, when he did 
 not answer, " seem to think of nothing but 
 money, business, continually business." 
 
 "Yes," he interrupted, "and they don't
 
 212 UNTO THE HIEGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 care if they ruin others for the sake of it, 
 either." 
 
 " And much less a tree. Where did you 
 get so much feeling, Mr. van Meeren ; are 
 all Norwegians like that ? " 
 
 " I don't know, Miss " He fumbled in 
 his thoughts for her name, then remembered 
 she had not divulged it. 
 
 " Excuse me, Mr. van Meeren ; my name 
 is Garland Irene Garland ; I should have 
 told you it sooner." 
 
 " Irene is a very pretty name ; there is 
 music in it." 
 
 " Oh, you Scandinavians and Germans 
 hear music everywhere. It is quite possible, 
 though. My brother calls me Iry, and I 
 don't like it. Oh me! look at yonder 
 trees ! and there, away down, how the 
 brook glitters through the tree-tops. How 
 beautiful ! " 
 
 " Is your brother in California ? " 
 
 " Yes, he is in business in San Francisco. 
 He is the only brother I have. My father 
 and mother died when I was a child."
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 213 
 
 " And I have only one sister, Helga. I 
 long much for her; we had a great deal in 
 common. When evening comes, and I sit 
 alone up there on the mountain, and every- 
 thing is so quiet, I long for her. It seems 
 hard that we must be separated. How she 
 would admire these endless forest vistas ! 
 We were very happy together. We raised 
 beautiful flowers, getting the seeds from 
 foreign countries ; how eagerly we watched 
 the plants which grew from them. We 
 made trails through the wood. I tell you 
 they were masterpieces of civil engineering," 
 he added, laughing. 
 
 She joined his laughter. He resumed 
 more seriously, 
 
 " I often think if I had Helga here, I 
 should never feel blue. In this strange 
 country there is no one who cares for me, 
 and I am one of those unhappy mortals 
 to whom life without sympathy is misery. 
 What should I do had I not my young 
 orchard, my flowers, and all this natural 
 beauty around me! I am sure you would
 
 214 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 like her," he added, then feared that he had 
 said too much. 
 
 " Indeed, I should like to know her. Tell 
 her, for me, that there is an American girl 
 out here who loves nature as well as she. 
 Maybe she would sing for me some of your 
 old Norse songs ; how delightful it would be ! 
 The rare, the strange, has always had a great 
 attraction for me." 
 
 " And if she were here I should not let 
 you two enjoy it all alone, either, cest-a-dire, 
 I should, of course, simply be your guide 
 through this forest and mountain wilderness. 
 I have been on many an exploring expedition 
 there, and I have found secluded nooks in 
 these canons, where the ferns are taller than 
 I, where the brook babbles along through 
 the eternal shades, and where there is, oh, 
 such a music of nature's voices ; then I am 
 as happy as happy can be." 
 
 " There is that music again," she cried, 
 " music of nature's voices. Yes, I can hear 
 it too, only not interpret it ; can you ? " 
 
 " Perhaps, sometimes when I am alone,
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 215 
 
 or with one I know understands me. Away 
 in there in the great solitude is my dream- 
 land with its faint vibrating music on a 
 summer night, its grand organ tones when 
 the storm sings its oratorio." 
 
 " How beautiful ! Yes, indeed, I should 
 like to be one of you here." She gave an 
 earnest look to her bouquet of ferns and 
 autumn leaves. " I feel so free, so happy 
 here. I can understand how much more it 
 gladdens you, for you see more than I, you 
 live nearer to ' nature's heart.' Soon I go 
 back to the city ; then it will all be a recol- 
 lection of happier days. It will make me 
 sad. Your voice is clear and deep, you hear 
 music everywhere, will you not sing for 
 me?" 
 
 " I would rather talk to you." 
 
 " And why not talk to me as you do to 
 nature ? " she asked beseechingly. " Sup- 
 pose," when he shook his head and smiled, 
 " suppose you imagine you are alone now, 
 and sing one of your talks with nature." 
 
 He looked down at her, not sure that she
 
 2l6 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 had understood his feelings, if in what she 
 said there was not a tinge of ridicule ; but 
 her next words dispelled the doubt. 
 
 " I have been told, or I read somewhere, 
 that the melodies of your music the music 
 of Norse composers are developed to a 
 great extent from the old folk-songs." 
 
 ".Oh, yes, that is true," he replied ; " but 
 in the harmonies with which those melodies 
 are linked together, you will hear the voices 
 of our grand mountains. Take Edward 
 Grieg's compositions; in them is the fairy- 
 like whisper of the wind in the forest, the 
 ripple of wavelets on the lakes and fiords, the 
 boom of the waterfalls, the crushing, wild 
 rumble of the avalanche, the shrieks of water- 
 birds, the faint fluting of birds from the high 
 mountain heath ; the heavy, awkward steps 
 of the troll, when he comes to dance with 
 the safer lass ; the laughter and cajoling of 
 the huldre, and through it all, as a veining 
 echo among hills, sound the folk-melodies in 
 new forms interwoven with a chaos of har- 
 monies that seem to be issuing from among
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 217 
 
 the boulders of the rock-slides, a medley 
 of fairy-tales." 
 
 " How beautiful ! " she said musingly. " I 
 think I understand better now that strange, 
 bewitching music of Grieg's. My teacher in 
 San Francisco is a great admirer of his work. 
 But won't you sing for me now, one of those 
 little folk-songs, that I may understand it still 
 better ? " she begged. 
 
 " Sometime, perhaps. I have not known 
 you long enough to sing for you. Pardon 
 me, I know I am very odd, but, some day, 
 when you return from the city, because you 
 must come back to the forest, I will sing 
 for you. And so you must go back to the 
 city ? I feel sorry for you. I could not live 
 there ; my life would be lost. Sometimes I 
 have a strange wish that I could take Helga 
 with me and that we might lose ourselves 
 for ever in the forest. In the world one has 
 to be hard, unfeeling, in order to succeed. I 
 hate it all." 
 
 They had reached the bottom of the 
 canon where the road crossed the brook.
 
 2l8 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 They drove along under deep shade. The 
 water glittered below the overhanging trees, 
 gliding over the pebbles and yellow leaves, 
 and the ferns looked heavy with moisture. 
 
 Irene Garland kept looking into her bou- 
 quet, smoothing aside the leaves as if she 
 wished to get to the heart of it. She had 
 grown tired of these sombre, dead things. 
 They were good enough as companions, 
 when there was nothing else to attract her; 
 now they had commenced to crimp up and 
 look ugly. Silently she dropped them out- 
 side the wagon. 
 
 It was true .what he said, she knew it 
 from her own experience. He had un- 
 wittingly surprised her secret, which had 
 haunted her so until the forest's soothing 
 influence had captured her, making her a 
 part of its great soul. But as the forest 
 had become her healer, it also awed her; 
 she felt the need of a human soul to share 
 the enjoyment of this " over-soul," drive away 
 its mental apparitions. 
 
 She had searched for such a one among
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 2IQ 
 
 the guests at Buena Vista, but in vain. It 
 was so everywhere; men and women, they 
 were all alike. An old lady, a motherly 
 friend of hers in the East, had told her, 
 " I am in despair to find so few people 
 with independent thoughts, who possess 
 anything worth the name of thoughts." 
 
 But to-day, on the high seat of that jolting 
 lumber-waggon she dared hardly believe it 
 
 here was a man who, with a foreign ac- 
 cent, spoke words which filled her with hap- 
 piness, which even made her forget the 
 forest, and then again led her uncon- 
 sciously into its mysteries. 
 
 " Yes, you are right, Mr. van Meeren," she 
 said ; " I felt it long ago, but dared not think 
 it out, for it would not be according to the 
 ideas of all the others. This civilised so- 
 ciety is a sorry institution. It is as you say 
 
 one could long to lose oneself in the forest 
 never to return. But am I too inquisitive, 
 if I ask how you, a man, have come to look 
 at things in this light? you who have so 
 much more advantage of those laws than we
 
 22O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 women ? I can hardly believe that there has 
 existed any one who would be willing to give 
 up an advantageous position in the world be- 
 cause he saw it to be unfair. I have got 
 into the habit of thinking that it is only the 
 losers, the sufferers, and not the gainers, 
 who see the need of reforms." 
 
 " Miss Garland, if you had experienced 
 what I have, seen what I have seen in my 
 short life, the unmerciful, cruel hand of 
 Christian society destroy what was noblest 
 and dearest to you, you would not speak 
 of men as gainers and women as sufferers; 
 you would hear one ceaseless shriek of de- 
 spair from the mass of humanity. Can you 
 not hear them, see them, how they clutch 
 at one another's throats for money ! " 
 
 A shrill whistle from the locomotive broke 
 the silence of the great forest. It died away 
 like an echo under the high green vault. 
 The cars rumbled over the rails, and, a few 
 minutes later, Lyder drew up at the station. 
 
 Irene had intended to walk no farther
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 221 
 
 than to her friend, the large gray rock by 
 the roadside. She had not even noticed it, 
 the poor rock on whose strong breast she 
 had sat for hours dreaming and regaining 
 her health. She had forgotten it for another 
 friend. 
 
 Towards evening they were back again at 
 Buena Vista. 
 
 It had been a delightful day for both of 
 them. The forest had opened their hearts, 
 and they had confided to each other feelings, 
 thoughts, and desires which under other cir- 
 cumstances, with other surroundings, would 
 perhaps have been uttered only after months 
 of daily intercourse. 
 
 As Lyder carefully helped her down from 
 the waggon, the soft narrow hand rested in 
 his. How he wished to keep that little 
 hand ! But he conquered his emotions and 
 said almost nonchalantly, 
 
 " Miss Garland, if, after this experience, 
 you do not consider a drive on my jolting 
 waggon too rough to be bearable, I shall be 
 happy to offer it to you again."
 
 222 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 " Thanks," she said. " It has been very 
 pleasant, thanks." She looked at the seat. 
 " Why, I entirely forgot how dangerously 
 high up I was." Then fearing lest he might 
 draw the right conclusion from her words, 
 she added, laughing: " But so it is; when one 
 gets used to a thing, the danger of it is soon 
 forgotten. I have noticed a small light shim- 
 mering high up there on the mountain towards 
 Loma Prieta ; I wondered if it were yours." 
 
 " Yes ; and when I sit on the steps of my 
 cabin, I can see the whole row of lights here 
 at Buena Vista." 
 
 The level red rays of the setting sun fell 
 among the trunks of the red-woods. It put 
 fire to the windows of the buildings, and 
 heightened the colours of the many-hued 
 autumn attire of the oaks and the poison- 
 ivy. Below lay the canons in hazy purple 
 shadows, one running into another, between 
 the sun-glowing forest ridges brilliant with 
 patches of autumn colours; while far, far be- 
 yond lay the ocean, barely visible through the 
 evening mist.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 223 
 
 Lyder's waggon rattled down a short slope 
 and across the rocky bed of a rill. His 
 horses knew they were homeward bound, 
 they could not understand why they had 
 been kept back so much all day, when they 
 were so willing to go. But now they felt the 
 lines slack, they used their opportunity and 
 hurried up the steep, winding road towards 
 home. 
 
 Lyder hastened to light the lamp. Then 
 he put fire to the large brush-piles ; would 
 she not be looking out for his beacon? 
 
 The fire cast a red glare over the hills. It 
 cracked and snapped in the green limbs, and 
 the sparks whirled into the star-lit autumn 
 sky. A faint echo answered from the 
 ravines, and the fox barked over by Loma 
 Prieta. Scared by the fire, it hurried back 
 to its lonesome haunts. 
 
 And he wondered if Irene was watching 
 his fire ; perhaps she was leaning on the bal- 
 ustrade of the piazza, wishing herself up 
 there in the solitude of the mountains, for
 
 224 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 had she not said she sometimes, like himself, 
 felt a desire to lose herself in the wild-woods, 
 never to return to the world ? 
 
 Seating himself not far from the fire, he 
 watched the blue jets of hissing flame emer- 
 ging from the glowing logs. He saw in 
 there a golden dream-castle with many halls, 
 one behind the other, and a strange light 
 shining from all directions. The halls ex- 
 tended, as he more and more became lost in 
 his dream ; they became the abode of his 
 materialised thoughts, listlessly gliding from 
 one to the other, restlessly passing one 
 another; some with fair, open faces, others 
 wrapt in dark veils, through which glowed 
 the reflection in their eyes of the red light. 
 Ah, they were all his thoughts, these shapes, 
 his thoughts from away back, when he 
 was but a child, up to the present day. 
 They glided back and forth without sound, 
 in an endless chain, through these immense, 
 glowing halls of his memory ; and there was 
 one among them who persisted in passing 
 near to him with arms outstretched as if
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 225 
 
 feeling for something in the deep darkness 
 ah, perhaps a darkness which was her 
 own. 
 
 Was she searching for him, that tall 
 figure in the black veil trailing behind 
 her? 
 
 Could she feel his nearness, yet never 
 touch him ? 
 
 What separated them ; and which one of 
 his thoughts was she ? 
 
 He knew it she must be looking for 
 him in vain. To be sure, he had once en- 
 joyed life with her ! 
 
 To be sure, she was once his / 
 
 " Cruel, cruel, cruel ! " he murmured. His 
 heart filled with sympathy for that figure 
 groping so helplessly in the dark, despite all 
 this glowing light of his dream-castle. 
 
 What did she want with him ? Those 
 slender arms looked as if they wanted to 
 embrace. Was it perhaps for the entrance 
 to the hall she searched, that she might 
 escape, slip quietly outside, into that blue 
 twilight with the tall poplars against the deep 
 
 '5
 
 226 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 blue sky, outside and past the river of life, 
 by which his castle lay ? 
 
 His eyes left her for a while and wandered 
 among those other shapes, some of whom 
 were far, far back, almost disappearing in 
 the distance,- so large were the halls. 
 
 And so many women among them ! He 
 could not recognise them all no, not by 
 far despite their ideal forms and the beauty 
 of their faces. 
 
 But by his side, close to him, with her arm 
 in his, leaning trustfully on him, safe and 
 happy, looking into his eyes with love the 
 little girl from Buena Vista. 
 
 She had entered the door of his castle 
 when least expected. Was she ready to 
 spend her life with him ; not asking, Who are 
 those shapes, the dark ones, and those whose 
 faces shine with light ? Was it enough to 
 her that they were his ? 
 
 The wind sighed in the tall poplars out in 
 the blue twilight by the river of life. It 
 carried with it, through the wide open por- 
 tals of his castle, the fragrance of night-
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 227 
 
 blooming flowers whose fruits were poisonous, 
 and the nightingale mingled its warblings 
 with the music from the harp of night. 
 
 Then the tall, dark figure with outstretched 
 arms glided still closer to him and laid her 
 hands in his. Dropping her veil, she stood 
 silent, pale as death Guri Hakonsdatter ! 
 
 Her smile was sad, but full of love. She 
 nodded forgiveness to him, never speaking. 
 One long look of love, which encircled also 
 the little girl by his side. Taking her hand, 
 she looked earnestly into her eyes and again 
 at him, dropped her own hands to her side, 
 and passed away. 
 
 She met another shape by the door a 
 man. Hand in hand they glided out into 
 the blue twilight and passed far beyond the 
 river of life. 
 
 " My father, oh, my father ! " whispered 
 Lyder, and awoke from his dreams weeping. 
 
 It was very quiet all around. The deep 
 night rested over the land. A few small 
 red lights shimmered in the distance, far, far 
 below.
 
 228 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 His brush-piles had dwindled into heaps of 
 glowing embers, over which crept a low, 
 flickering blue flame. No air was stirring, 
 not the least sigh in the chaparral. 
 
 They had been very close to him, those 
 two toward whom he had sinned the most. 
 But had he not read forgiveness in their eyes ? 
 
 He felt nervous and dazed, dropping so 
 suddenly back to reality. And the desola- 
 tion of the mountains fell over him like a 
 cold breath from a cave, arousing in him 
 fear. He listened for sounds. The least 
 snapping of a dry twig would not have es- 
 caped him, so greatly intensified seemed his 
 hearing. 
 
 Yes, they had forgiven him, those two 
 towards whom he had sinned the most; but 
 was not there a third to reckon with, 
 civilisation, society with its laws of selfish- 
 ness and arrogance that breed hypocrisy? 
 Those lights away yonder, what strife, 
 what greed behind those glowing embers of 
 human homes ! What hypocrisy often be- 
 tween man and wife 1
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 22Q 
 
 Sitting there in the stillness of the moun- 
 tain solitude, there seemed of a sudden an 
 abyss between him and the world. On his 
 side, the simple open-faced spontaneity of 
 nature; beyond, a narrow creed which 
 tried to bind human thoughts. " Ah, but 
 the human heart," he spoke, and put his 
 hand over his own, " it beats, it beats ; and 
 when you think it the tamest, of a sudden it 
 runs like a wild horse over the level pampas. 
 Forgotten are all its learnings and the pains 
 it paid for them." 
 
 His thoughts wandered back to his old 
 home and to bygone days. There lay a 
 sadness over it. He compared it to-night 
 with so many other homes he had known, 
 some yet aglow in his thoughts with the 
 happiness they had breathed. He wondered 
 why he had not then seen the great differ- 
 ence between them and his own. Man is 
 a beast of habit he excused himself. He 
 wondered if he had really ever experienced 
 full happiness. He had often started out 
 with a light heart on its road of song, but
 
 230 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 suddenly a broad shadow fell across it, un- 
 expected, and cooling his ardour. Ah, if he 
 ever could free himself of all shadows ! feel 
 such joy as Nature breathes when spring re- 
 turns after the long, gray northern winter. 
 Love was missing in his old home. He saw 
 it clearly now, how its absence had frozen 
 two hearts. Should his also die the same 
 death? He was young yet; life lay before 
 him. No, no; he would nurse the child 
 well, give it all the liberty it wanted, see it 
 develop into greater and greater beauty, 
 blessed little child of his heart ! He put his 
 fingers into its curly locks and called it 
 names of endearment. How pure and fra- 
 grant was its childish body, anointed by 
 Nature herself! It stood on the crest of 
 the heights of simplicity, looking all over 
 the world laughing. 
 
 Was there any danger of its ever straying 
 away from him, perhaps, when it grew older, 
 tired of him, seek farther into the wilder- 
 ness to heights where he could not reach ? 
 Had he better make it promise to stay, or
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 23! 
 
 were it safer yet to tie its wings, put a chain 
 around its ankle, and stake it by the hut, lest 
 some day, on returning home, he should find 
 it gone ? 
 
 " Silly fool ! " he told himself. " You would 
 find its dead body in the chains, and its soul 
 gone, far too free for human fetters." 
 
 Love was truly with him now. Did he 
 not love that little girl from Buena Vista? 
 How dared he, struggling with poverty in 
 this wilderness? 
 
 Yet, if she loved him, as he knew she 
 could love, what was all the rest ? Love con- 
 quers all ! She had inspired in him some- 
 thing which had made him nobler, stronger, 
 more courageous; which in her nearness 
 and in his thoughts of her excluded all sen- 
 suality, and left true passion, that which 
 elevates humanity above the beast. 
 
 " Oh me," he sighed, " Irene, Irene ! " and 
 his voice grew warm as he exclaimed to the 
 night, " I love you, Irene ! " 
 
 There was so much which before had been 
 a mystery to him.
 
 232 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 He saw now plainly what had been lack- 
 ing in his old home ; it was love, love be- 
 tween man and wife. And the result ? This 
 cold haughtiness between his parents and 
 his father's death. 
 
 All the lights among the hills were ex- 
 tinguished, save the one at Buena Vista. 
 
 It must be kept burning by one whose 
 mind, like his own, was too full for sleep. 
 
 But that last light was also extinguished. 
 He thought he saw it lighted again just for 
 a second. The fox barked again without 
 fear, for the fire had died away. The sound 
 came very near. " Poor thing," said Lyder, 
 " let it live ; it is calling its mate." Then 
 he remembered his chickens and hooted. 
 An echo answered him from out of the 
 darkness. 
 
 " Good-night good-night, Irene." He 
 waved his hand towards Buena Vista.
 
 XX 
 
 THE first hard storm of the season was 
 shaking off the last yellow leaves from 
 the sycamores and oaks. 
 
 It had come unexpectedly after dark. 
 The wind howled dismally in the forest, and 
 roared like distant thunder in the deep 
 canons. It played aimlessly in the chapar- 
 ral, but it played roughly, bending and twist- 
 ing it with unrelenting boisterousness. 
 
 On such nights Lyder longed for his old 
 home. Here was the same song of the 
 storm ; but in his native country, where the 
 waves thundered over the naked cliffs, and 
 the sea moaned as if in hellish pain, it was 
 a wilder, grander one. 
 
 The second day of the storm, towards 
 evening, Lyder was on his way to Buena 
 Vista. 
 
 Irene had only three more days to stay.
 
 234 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 There were no other guests now, and 
 Lyder felt an irresistible desire to see her 
 that very day, they could enjoy the stormy 
 evening together. 
 
 He had resolved to play for her ; he would 
 make her remember him. 
 
 The storm, which yet kept up its fury, 
 inspired him with weird happiness. 
 
 Below him the dark red-woods roared 
 and sighed. The gray, infuriated air swept 
 thundering through the canons. A gray- 
 headed forest giant toppled over, crashing 
 into the surrounding trees, strewing needles 
 and red bark all around. It sang its swan- 
 song when, after having withstood thou- 
 sands of former storms, it fell at last with 
 a sigh that reverberated among the great 
 hills. 
 
 And under the low sky of heavy rolling 
 clouds two gray eagles worked up against 
 the wind. Uttering their wild, piercing 
 cries, they gave in to the greater force, and, 
 soon overtaken by the down-pour, sailed off 
 towards the mountains.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 235 
 
 Lyder braved the storm well. He was 
 clad in a long oilcoat and high rubber boots, 
 with a yellow southwester pressed down on 
 his head. 
 
 Strong and happy, he looked out over the 
 storm-swept country. With his light hair 
 curling about his ears, he resembled one of 
 those brave pilots of his native coast. 
 
 His breast rose and fell with enjoyment. 
 His whole body and his soul felt refreshed ; 
 he laughed aloud when the storm sometimes 
 took hold of him and he had to bend for- 
 wards not to lose his balance. 
 
 When he entered the gate at Buena Vista, 
 he saw that the rain and wind had played 
 sorry havoc with the chrysanthemums. Large 
 moss-covered limbs had fallen from the 
 old oaks across the roads. The water was 
 washing deep gullies in the loose soil of 
 the vineyard ; the yellow leaves of the syca- 
 mores lay in large wet piles against anything 
 which had offered them resistance. In the 
 woods the storm roared incessantly. 
 
 Irene entered the parlour, and greeted him
 
 236 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 warmly in her charming, unconventional 
 way, extending both her hands to him. 
 
 " There is no one I would rather see than 
 you to-night," she said. " I know how you 
 delight in this storm, you Norsemen are 
 such a romantic race. How it must take 
 you back to your fiords you told me about 
 the other day. You need only shut your 
 eyes, and imagine that this roar in the forest 
 and canons is the voice of the sea or 
 music pardon me music of the sea 
 to be in your own Norseland. I Ve been 
 longing to see you to-day and hear you play, 
 but had no thought you would come in this 
 stormy weather, though you told me what a 
 gray-weather bird you are." 
 
 " Well, you see," he answered frankly, " I 
 knew you had but a short time to stay, and 
 I wanted to see you once more before you 
 should pass out of my life, perhaps for ever. 
 In this country it seems the common fate 
 to meet and part. You are a restless people, 
 singularly devoid of attachment to your 
 homes, even to the spot where you were
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 237 
 
 born. You say good-bye to old surround- 
 ings as easily as we foreigners depart from a 
 hostelry in which we have stayed for a night." 
 
 " Yes," she said thoughtfully, " your way 
 of looking at a home as a place where 
 you are to stay for life and where your 
 children and children's children will enjoy 
 the shade and fruits of the trees you planted, 
 is certainly a more happy one. But are you 
 sure it is the most broadening, most civilis- 
 ing way to live? 
 
 " It certainly has its charms, and so has 
 our moving way of life. Not that / enjoy 
 it, for I am a great home-body, but I know 
 that nothing is more educating than to 
 travel, meet new people, live under new 
 conditions, see new countries with their 
 people, and other manners ; fight the 
 battle of existence, to-day on the hill-tops, 
 to-morrow on the prairie, one day far to 
 the north, then again under a southern sky. 
 And," she added roguishly, " I am aware 
 that some Norsemen even, despite their 
 h'm great stolidity, follow that call from
 
 238 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 afar, from the romantic unknown with its 
 adventurous charms; and among them a 
 Mr. van Meeren, whose longing for that 
 alluring let me say it out, please allur- 
 ing unknown brought him from the city of 
 Bergen in the gray land of the Norsemen 
 to settle on a high " (she stood on tiptoe, 
 to make it more emphatic) " hilltop on the 
 western slope of this continent, and " 
 Lyder interrupted her laughingly, 
 " Ah, yes ; but, Miss Garland, it was for 
 the very sake of finding a home of his own, 
 where he might stay for life with his chil- 
 dren and children's children coming after 
 him, that this son of the old vikings har- 
 boured in this out-of-the-way place. There 
 was something lacking in his life at home 
 which he hoped to find out here." His 
 tone and look became more earnest. " Those 
 high, dark mountains were beginning to 
 grow oppressive; they seemed to close 
 around me. I felt almost crushed under 
 the weight of an accursed public opinion, 
 and I dared not be myself; and that
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 239 
 
 is the most terrible existence of all to me. 
 I wanted to get where the country is large, 
 and people are farther apart ; where I would 
 feel the omnipresence of Nature and not 
 society ; where I could live in sympathy 
 with her laws, according to my own faith 
 in morals, in everything, according to the 
 dictation of my own conscience. I cannot 
 be for ever hampered in every direction by 
 somebody else's opinion of right and wrong, 
 by the opinion of the great, ignorant ma- 
 jority, for what is right to me is perhaps 
 wrong to another. 
 
 " The only sin is sin against nature, and 
 it includes harm to our fellow beings. 
 The requirements of nature's laws are very 
 simple. They are not written on stone- 
 slabs in so many paragraphs. The law of 
 nature is inscribed on the star-spangled 
 vault above us; it is in the sea, in forests 
 and mountains, in the air; and in the case 
 of humanity, in flesh and blood, and their 
 issue, the soul, the mind. And the con- 
 cert of it all, the book of nature, that
 
 240 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 great book where each part of everything 
 constitutes a word in the chapters of her 
 eternal history, from the smallest atom 
 or the thinnest aeriform fluid to what we 
 suppose to be the highest, man." 
 
 Irene sat on the piano-stool facing Lyder, 
 who had sunk into one of the deep-seated 
 armchairs. She listened with apparent in- 
 terest. There was something in him which 
 she never had found in any one before, a 
 directness, an outspokenness combined with 
 an extraordinary emotionalism. That he 
 was a strong animal, she could not doubt; 
 but it did not make her afraid of him, for 
 the over-soul in him was stronger than the 
 animal. Already she had confessed to her 
 heart that he had unknown to himself, 
 she doubted not gained a great power over 
 her; indeed, did he but know it, he had but 
 to look at her to make her his for ever. 
 
 How Irene admired that power in him ! 
 
 The storm howled in the red- wood trees, 
 the rain beat against the windows,
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 24! 
 
 It grew dusk in the large parlour at Buena 
 Vista. 
 
 The proprietor, an old, asthmatic French- 
 man, was in the office gambling with some 
 friends. His large, fleshy wife, the amiable 
 Madame Pellier, kept watch by his side, 
 deeply interested in the game. 
 
 " Sacrement" he said to her, as he glanced 
 out into the storm, " sacrement, ma ckere" 
 And his thoughts hurried back to his 
 cards. 
 
 In the slowly darkening parlour Lyder had 
 seated himself at the piano ; Irene sat close 
 to him in an easy-chair, resting one of her 
 slender white hands on the case next to the 
 key-board, looking dreamily into vacancy. 
 
 And the storm roared in the woods ; it 
 howled in the large chimney, throwing the 
 sparks into the room. 
 
 From the treble sounded a strange, happy 
 melody, sometimes shrill and stubborn; then 
 again melancholy, weird and loving, moving 
 lower and lower by degrees, reaching the 
 bass, growing wilder, more boisterous, roar- 
 
 16
 
 242 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 ing like thunder among the mountains. 
 Then came lulls through which sounded 
 the lamentation of the huldre. 
 
 Lyder leaned forward over the keys, when 
 he commenced to play; but as his inspira- 
 tion grew, he gazed straight before him. 
 His thoughts came chaotically; he un- 
 tangled them harmoniously, weaving into 
 them old folk-songs, and many melodious 
 themes of Norse composers. 
 
 It became a wild dance over the mountain- 
 heath, with far-off vistas of fiords and peaks, 
 a dance with the huldre, the beautiful lass, 
 who wept when she laughed, who moaned 
 when she sang, who looked loving when she 
 hated; beautifully shaped and tempting, 
 with large blue eyes, when her hand rested 
 in her victim's, but who, when he thought 
 he could embrace her, showed her heifer's 
 tail and suddenly disappeared, leaving but 
 the sound of laughter behind her. 
 
 There came a lull in the storm without, as 
 if it were gathering its breath to continue 
 with renewed strength.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 243 
 
 Lyder's eyes fell on the narrow white 
 hand resting close to the key-board ; she 
 had not moved it; and with the quieting of 
 the storm came a calm in his thoughts, his 
 melodies became limpid, loving, captivating. 
 From that pale hand his eyes glided along 
 the slender arm, moving from the shoulder 
 in quick succession to the mouth and the 
 eyes, those velvety brown eyes with the 
 light from the fireplace reflected in them. 
 There they lingered ; while the melody rose 
 again with the storm, not so wild as before, 
 more human ; more and more caressing, even 
 in its strength. 
 
 How was it that he dared to keep his eyes 
 on hers ? How was it that the melodies 
 and harmonies glided away from him with- 
 out the least effort? He had never played 
 so before. And that white hand how did 
 it happen? rested at last on his arm, and 
 those large eyes glittered like embers in the 
 reflection of the fire, much closer to his ; 
 and as his own hand slipped from the keys, 
 he heard a woman's tender voice gently
 
 244 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 say, " I feel so strangely happy. Mr. van 
 Meeren, your music has intoxicated me." 
 And she put both hands before her eyes, 
 then dropped them in her lap and said, half 
 in revery, " How beautiful how beautiful ! " 
 
 And he did not embrace her ? Not even 
 then? 
 
 Perhaps he was afraid that she, like the 
 huldre, might disappear, and leave nothing 
 but a ringing peal of laughter behind her. 
 
 The embers on the hearth cast a red glare, 
 reflecting from the glass-covered pictures 
 and the large mirror at the end of the 
 room. 
 
 It was not so dark but that they could 
 very well discern one another's expressions. 
 
 Outside the storm continued to roar with 
 short lulls between the thundering showers, 
 when the forest softly sighed, as if tired after 
 its struggle with the wind. But suddenly 
 again every sound seemed whirled away, 
 and the storm took hold, leaving nothing 
 but the cry and grumble of the suffering 
 woods.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 245 
 
 Lyder rose, and stood with his elbow 
 upon the mantelpiece, his head resting on 
 his hand. 
 
 Irene moved over into a low rocking-chair 
 in front of the fire. Leaning her head back- 
 wards, she rocked slowly. 
 
 She felt as when, after a long sickness, one 
 is for the first time brought out into a glow- 
 ing summer evening. 
 
 After a long silence she said, 
 
 " I saw your fire the other night." Then 
 she added slowly, " It looked so pretty from 
 here, so weird, I thought of the old Norse 
 beacons with their flaring red flames in time 
 of war. I don't know how I came to think 
 of war, for the evening was extremely peace- 
 ful, so filled with soothing music, as you 
 would have said. Still, there was something 
 wild about that fire so far up on the moun- 
 tain. I imagined that the witches were 
 dancing around it, it was so very red. Then 
 I thought, ' Now Mr. van Meeren is sitting 
 by it, dreaming, listening to the voices of 
 night.' You know you have told me you were
 
 246 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 a dreamer. Was I mistaken ? " she asked, 
 looking up at him. 
 
 Lyder smiled. " Indeed they were ; the 
 witches danced that night around my fire, 
 yes, into the very midst of it." 
 
 " And did not scorch their brooms ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, but there was one circling close 
 to me and another on my arm ; the first was 
 heavily veiled, the other " he stopped for a 
 second, looking hard at her " my fairest 
 dream." 
 
 " And who was she with the veil, who hid 
 her face ? " Irene asked gently. " Had she 
 come from afar to meet you up on your hill- 
 top by your red fire? And the other, 
 who was she? Merely phantoms, both of 
 them, creations of your mind ? " 
 
 He shook his head with a melancholy 
 smile as he was going to answer; but 
 she spoke before him. Laughing, she 
 said, 
 
 " Was it harmonies embodied, Mol and 
 Dur?" 
 
 "You cannot guess it. They were not
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 247 
 
 phantoms of my mind." She saw how seri- 
 ous he looked as he continued : " The first 
 the first was Guri Hakonsdatter. Guri 
 Hakonsdatter," he repeated slowly, as in 
 thought, looking into the fire. "And she 
 came to bring forgiveness to me, forgive- 
 ness, Miss Garland." 
 
 He seated himself in a low chair close to 
 her. 
 
 " She came to give peace to my mind, 
 the poor, noble girl who is no more. Can 
 you listen to the saddest story of my life ? " 
 he asked, looking straight at her. " You are 
 not like other women I have met in this 
 country. I feel safe in speaking to you about 
 anything I choose." 
 
 She nodded, and said simply, " Please 
 tell me." 
 
 So Lyder told her the story of himself from 
 far back, and that of Guri Hakonsdatter, 
 ending it thus, 
 
 " She took the life of her own child, my 
 child. They found her dead, where she had 
 hidden herself from the merciless, spying eye
 
 248 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 of society. Can you wonder that I fled away 
 to the wilderness ? " 
 
 He stopped suddenly, yet did not take his 
 eyes away from her. 
 
 Irene sat pale, looking into the dying 
 embers ; then she slowly raised her eyes, tear- 
 filled, and in a voice vibrating slightly, 
 asked, 
 
 " And the other one, who was she ? " 
 
 The storm kept up its fury. The rain 
 lashed the windows ; there was utter darkness 
 outside in the wild night, with the babble of 
 running water during the short calms. 
 
 After a long pause Lyder arose and said 
 slowly, still looking at her, 
 
 " The other one, Miss Garland, is but a 
 dream." 
 
 There sounded heavy, thumping steps in 
 the hall, and presently Madame Pellier en- 
 tered with a small lamp in her hand. 
 
 " Ah, my great God ! Excuse me, Miss 
 Garland. I was so very busy in ze kitchen 
 looking after zat no good girl, zat I forgot 
 lighting ze lamps, excuse me."
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 249 
 
 She laid a large piece of wood on the 
 fire. 
 
 " It is a storm terrible, it is, and Mistre 
 Van had a long walk to see you, Miss Gar- 
 land." She spoke in a significant tone. 
 
 " Yes, and it is time for him to leave now, 
 my good Madame Pellier," said Lyder, gayly. 
 " I must go home and see if my chickens 
 have blown down from the trees." 
 
 Madame Pellier slapped her knee, open- 
 ing her eyes extremely wide. 
 
 " And are Mistre Van's chickens out in zat 
 weazer ? " she asked in amazement. 
 
 " My chickens do exactly as they please, 
 Madame Pellier." 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes, an' zey lay no eegs," an- 
 swered the old woman, laughing hoarsely. 
 
 After lighting the lamps, she left the 
 room, casting a short, scrutinising glance at 
 the young people. 
 
 Lyder buttoned his jacket, preparatory to 
 putting on his oilcoat. 
 
 As he started for the door, Irene suddenly 
 laid her hand on his arm.
 
 250 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 He did not want her to go out in the cold 
 hall, but she, smiling, disobeyed him. 
 
 He took her hand in his, and held it for a 
 moment. He longed to put his arm around 
 her, only for once for a first and last em- 
 brace. If he only might say a few words 
 which would tell her all he felt for her ! Ah, 
 but how dared he, with all the experience 
 which lay behind him, poor and struggling 
 too, and she ? 
 
 With great effort he conquered the im- 
 pulse. 
 
 He encased himself in the outer coat, and 
 said lightly, 
 
 " Well, Miss Garland, I suppose I shall 
 not see you again before you leave, so I will 
 say good-bye and thank you for your friendli- 
 ness to me. I I have enjoyed your society 
 so very much. Indeed, I hope to meet you 
 again, when spring comes ; and before I 
 go, I want to ask you one favour no, two 
 may I write to you and call you -my 
 friend ? " 
 
 " May you ? " She looked at him with
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 251 
 
 her eyes brimful of feeling. " You may, 
 my friend. It will make me so happy. We 
 are strangely alike ; I feel as if I had known 
 you long." 
 
 " Good-bye, Irene," he whispered, and 
 touched her forehead lightly with his lips, 
 " good-bye, my friend, good-bye." 
 
 The wind slammed the door behind him, 
 and he was gone. 
 
 The storm howled in the forest, and 
 moaned in the deep dark canons. 
 
 Irene stood for a second and gazed at 
 the closed door. She reached out her arms 
 towards it ; then hid her face in her hands, 
 looked around to see if she had been ob- 
 served, and went to her room. 
 
 Going to the window, she looked out into 
 the darkness, watching for his light to greet 
 her ; but all in vain. 
 
 Lyder reached his cabin after a hurried 
 walk. 
 
 He had come to strange conclusions. 
 She had said so little, when he left. Was
 
 252 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 it with her as with himself, confused by 
 love, or did she doubt him, even feel afraid 
 of him ? No wonder if she did, he thought, 
 after all he had told her about himself. 
 
 " Fool ! fool ! what a fool am I to be honest 
 in a world of hypocrisy ! My lad, why don't 
 you howl with the wolves you live among, 
 instead of being silly, sentimental, honest ! 
 You will never succeed, you will always have 
 to struggle with poverty ; and when you die, 
 there will be no one to hold your head. 
 Fool ! fool ! why don't you go out and smile 
 to those whom you hate, creep before those 
 who are rich, flatter, swindle, why don't you 
 kill that feeling in you ! You must not feel, 
 my lad, you must be hard and manly, shut 
 your eyes to nature, to art. Business, busi- 
 ness, money! To be unscrupulous means 
 success ! 
 
 " But this little girl from Buena Vista ? 
 Oh, if she were a little homeless lass, but 
 otherwise just as now so tender, so beau- 
 tiful, so natural. 
 
 "Irene! Irene!"
 
 XXI 
 
 BY next day the storm had spent its 
 force. 
 
 The third morning the sun rose in a 
 cloudless sky. 
 
 Irene Garland sat in the Buena Vista 
 coach beside Madame Pellier. They were 
 waiting for the landlord, who never was on 
 time. 
 
 Away up on the mountain a faint column 
 of smoke rose straight into the clear sky. 
 There was no flame visible, and the blue 
 smoke melted into the pure, fresh air. 
 
 "Oh," thought Irene, "if I might climb 
 out of this waggon and walk through the 
 fragrant forest and chaparral this early morn- 
 ing; come upon him unawares, surprising 
 him at his work, stand there and look at him 
 for a little while, and then call his name 
 softly. Would he not open his arms, would 
 he not cry for happiness, * Irene ! Irene ! ' '
 
 254 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 She loved to hear him speak her name 
 with that little foreign intonation. 
 
 " Oh, my friend, I read your message ; 
 good-bye, good-bye, my Norseman ! " 
 
 Mr. Pellier, who at last had arrived, 
 took his place in the waggon, clicked his 
 tongue, and the horses started off at a 
 lively gait. It was all down hill towards 
 the station. 
 
 At the turn of the road, where it entered 
 the forest, Irene saw for the last time Lyder's 
 beacon. The smoke rolled in thick clouds 
 into the deep blue canon. 
 
 Here, too, was the large gray rock by the 
 roadside, where she had met him for the 
 first time. And all around the great forest 
 which he had helped her to inhabit with 
 thoughts. Everything everywhere spoke to 
 her of him. Unexpectedly the tears began 
 to fall. She tried her best to stop them, but 
 with the effort burst into sobs. 
 
 Madame Pellier and her worthy husband 
 looked greatly astonished. Irene strove 
 again to compose herself.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 255 
 
 " I really can't help it, Mrs. Pellier," said 
 she ; " I have spent such a heavenly summer 
 at Buena Vista. I shall long for it all so 
 very much, I shall indeed." 
 
 The whistle of a locomotive sounded near 
 at hand. The echo died away, and soon after 
 the train rushed on again, rumbling through 
 the woods.
 
 XXII 
 
 HIS first letter. 
 His letter. It lay in her lap; she 
 had fled with it to her room, her own 
 quiet little room, away from the noise of 
 the city. 
 
 She forgot where she was ; her fancy had 
 carried her to the mountains. 
 
 " His letter," she whispered. His thoughts, 
 his longings, his mountains, his air, his forest, 
 his cabin, his flowers by the side of the house, 
 the large pansies from the seed his sister 
 had sent him, and his music ! 
 
 He told about it all in that letter. Her 
 hands lay upon it, but her thoughts were 
 with him. 
 
 And was there not something else in that 
 letter ? Had he not written it between the 
 lines and across the words, in the margins, 
 the corners, in the hasty strokes of his pen, 
 where he had not even given himself time
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 257 
 
 to lift it from the paper, where the words 
 were connected like his thoughts all of it 
 blurred by love his love ! 
 
 How could she know? Not in a single 
 place was that word written, and still it was 
 everywhere. 
 
 She must read the letter once more. Per- 
 haps she was mistaken ; perhaps it was her 
 own love and not his, which blurred the 
 writing. 
 
 And she took up again the simple yellow 
 sheets of manila paper. 
 
 It had a fresh, pure, unartificial fragrance, 
 just like the forest. She kissed it, and felt 
 not in the least alarmed at herself for 
 doing so. 
 
 Yes, here was one place love. 
 
 " How much I should love to go with you 
 once more through the forest, only farther, 
 higher than we went before. We would 
 walk into deepest solitude I, with your 
 hand in mine, assisting you that you might 
 not fall far from roads and trails ; how I 
 should love it 1 " 
 
 '7
 
 258 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 Was nature, then, not enough for him 
 who loved nature more than any one 
 else ? 
 
 If she were there with him, would he love 
 it more because he loved her more? 
 
 " Oh, Irene Garland, what a philosopher 
 you are ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, she kissed the letter once 
 more and was happy. 
 
 Speedily she sent him an answer; while 
 her heart was yet full of the feelings his 
 letter had inspired. 
 
 Irene longed for spring. Her brother 
 would then go away on his yearly business 
 trip to Mexico, and she would flee back to 
 the mountains. 
 
 More and more, in her letters to Lyder, 
 did she lay her heart open before him, wish- 
 ing him to know her as she was. How 
 thankful she felt toward him for understand- 
 ing her so well! In fact, did they not 
 both, day by day, understand one another 
 better? 
 
 And he had kissed her !
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 259 
 
 She joyed to remember that, but felt 
 thankful to him that it was her forehead and 
 not her lips he had kissed. It was much 
 better so. 
 
 Every Sunday morning George Garland 
 went alone to Sunday-school. It pained 
 him that Irene went her own way to her 
 room, where she wrote letters. He had 
 spoken to her about it, and her answer 
 had been anything but satisfactory to 
 him. 
 
 But when afternoon came, she would lay 
 her arm in his, and persuade him to take her 
 out among the sand hills, to the park and 
 the ocean. 
 
 George Garland found it rather tiresome, 
 this walking back and forth on the beach. 
 But he loved his sister very much, and she 
 showed him in many ways how much she 
 enjoyed it. 
 
 " Is it not beautiful, George ? See, see 
 that great blue wave coming in here ; I wish 
 it would dash over me."
 
 26O UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 And on her other side walked a third 
 person, who enjoyed it all with her, one to 
 whom she gave her best thoughts. 
 
 " Even if he never becomes more than my 
 friend," she would say to herself, " what great 
 happiness ! But he loves me, loves me, and 
 I//"
 
 XXIII 
 
 LYDER'S letters came often and 
 regularly. 
 
 She read them over and over again during 
 the long rainy days of winter. They gave 
 her much food for thought. He spoke 
 freely to her, as to a good old comrade. 
 Daring in his opinions and ideas, she in the 
 beginning often rebelled against them. 
 Then, reconsidering, she saw their unconven- 
 tional fairness and simplicity, coloured with 
 the deepest conviction. They became reve- 
 lations of liberty to her. They had the free, 
 spontaneous freshness of the wooded heights 
 where he lived, and with a jubilant heart 
 she made his thoughts her own. She began 
 to see two widely separated classes of people 
 in the world, those who are in the majority 
 and those who are among the few, the ones 
 the free-thinking, the others the many- 
 imitating; that she had entered among the
 
 262 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 few, and before her lay a wide long-forgotten 
 country to be explored anew, its fathomless 
 spring of simplicity to be sounded, its 
 tales of the infinite to be listened to. She 
 kept his letters in her desk, all in perfect 
 order as they came. 
 
 George Garland had long ago become 
 suspicious about these letters for his sister, 
 which came to his office with the same 
 postmark. 
 
 At last he could conceal his curiosity no 
 longer. 
 
 "Who in the world are all these letters 
 from, Iry?" 
 
 The question came unawares, though she 
 had expected it long ago. He was to her 
 both a father and brother, and Irene 
 blushed. 
 
 " Oh, from a friend," she answered a little 
 shortly. 
 
 " Why, of course. I know you are not in 
 business." 
 
 " How do you know ? " she replied a little 
 saucily. " I might have invested my money
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 263 
 
 in forest lands and fruit-farms, for all you 
 know, and these letters are inquiries from 
 intending purchasers." 
 
 " Puh." 
 
 " No, I '11 tell you. I am going to be 
 married, that is it," she said roguishly. 
 " There is a middle-aged millionaire with 
 a spotted history, but a fine home, fine 
 carriages, etc. He is very ugly, with a lob- 
 ster nose and a wide girth, but oh me! 
 all the money he has! And when you 
 have money, you know, you have everything ; 
 some people even seem to think they can 
 bribe St. Peter with it, when some day they 
 knock at the portal of heaven. I have 
 promised to go back in spring to the red- 
 woods and marry him. Perhaps you know 
 him by name of course you do Lyder 
 van Meeren." 
 
 " Why, Irene, what is the matter with 
 you ? You speak so lightly about such 
 things. You you it is not becoming 
 at all ; you really alarm me sometimes." 
 
 She put her arm around his neck. " Don't
 
 264 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 you know what Emerson says ? ' The 
 things we now esteem fixed, shall, one by 
 one, detach themselves like ripe fruit from 
 our experience and fall. The wind shall 
 blow them none knows whither ' 
 
 " George, you are such a well, what 
 shall I call you ? so very kind, but so 
 unsophisticated, though you are much older 
 than I. Can't you see that I am in love, 
 deeply, deeply in love, that my whole 
 heart is filled with it, that it makes me happy, 
 that these letters are treasures to me ; that I 
 long for spring, when I may go back to my 
 forests, where I regained my health after 
 that long siege with the fever, last 
 winter ? " 
 
 She spoke half earnestly, half in jest. 
 George thought her more of a conundrum 
 than ever. He had really felt worried about 
 her lately; despite her happiness, her 
 disregard for, her ridicule of, old established 
 religion and social institutions, he did not 
 consider it ladylike, to say the least. She 
 had certainly strange notions about things.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 265 
 
 One evening, walking with him through 
 the streets, she asked, 
 
 " Who are all these lonely women gliding 
 into darkness and shady places ? " 
 
 " Nothing for you to know anything about, 
 Iry." 
 
 " No ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Oh, how I long to get back to the woods 
 again and my millionaire 1 " 
 
 " But, Iry, I do not like the way you speak 
 lately." 
 
 " No ? What do you like, then ? Doyou 
 like to look at the sallow, hardened faces of 
 these women? These overdressed, auda- 
 cious-looking girls almost children ? Do 
 you like that hoarse laughter coming from 
 these places we pass ? Do you mean to say 
 you are a Christian, and yet do not rise 
 against it all, you and your church, 
 against a social system which breeds such 
 wickedness ; against this fearful, this hellish 
 power of money ? The more I see and think 
 of it, the more do I despise such a church ! "
 
 266 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 " But, Irene, you certainly ought to moder- 
 ate your expressions somewhat ; it seems to 
 me you " 
 
 " Moderate ? George ; moderate ? Why 
 not say, shut my eyes, lie to myself, and 
 try to think that you are all stepping in 
 the footprints of your Master? That all 
 this darkness, with its horrid fumes and 
 shrieks, is well, rather bad, to be sure, 
 but such is the world there must al- 
 ways be sin. Bah! it is disgusting. O 
 George, if you would think think. When 
 I see these faces of women who sell them- 
 selves for lucre, I long yearn to be back 
 in the forest, where it is quiet, so pure and 
 beautiful, where civilised humanity has not 
 been able to gather its filth, where I feel 
 that which is good in me grow stronger, 
 where I feel I have a soul. And if the 
 forest should capture me or that mil- 
 lionaire, George, so I wanted to remain 
 there I wish you would marry ; you know 
 whom I mean. I know she is fastidious; 
 but now you are certainly able to furnish
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 267 
 
 her with the luxury she needs; and if Alice 
 loves you, she will excuse the lack of more, 
 and wait a few years for the rest. You and 
 she are in many ways so much of the same 
 mind. You both take an interest in church- 
 work. I I do not like her very much, 
 you know ; but what matters it ? / shall 
 be with my millionaire, and when you come 
 to visit us in our forest castle, I shall be 
 very kind to her, because she is yours." 
 
 They had reached the door. He made 
 no reply to her, but went straight to his 
 room. He was tired, he said. 
 
 The fog drifted in from the ocean, and 
 settled over the bay. All night the fog- 
 horn kept up its tooting; but Irene dreamed 
 of the mountains. She saw a Norse beacon 
 on a California hill. She walked toward 
 it, deeper and deeper into the forest no 
 end to it, no nearer the beacon. Terrible 
 anxiety filled her she must get there or 
 die the hardened, haggard faces of thou- 
 sands of sold women were behind her how 
 could she return ? " Irene ! Irene ! " it was
 
 268 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 his voice, so strong, so manly. Deeper 
 and deeper into the woods she went, 
 higher and higher, to a small cabin with 
 pansies by the wall, large, fine ones from 
 Helga's seeds. 
 A blue, blue sky and millions of stars 1
 
 XXIV 
 
 IT was an early morning in spring. 
 The evening before, Irene had arrived 
 at Buena Vista. 
 
 She had walked through the forest to 
 her old friend the gray rock; but to-day 
 she was going farther, to-day she would 
 reach those sacred places of absolute soli- 
 tude whence Pan's voice so often had whis- 
 pered to her. 
 
 Lyder's beacon had welcomed her last 
 night from away up towards Loma Prieta. 
 He had written he would not be at the 
 station. He could not meet her there, as 
 he would wish to ; everybody present would 
 read his feelings. 
 
 In his last letter he had asked her if she 
 would be his sister, for Helga was so far 
 away. 
 
 Irene had returned with a strange feeling 
 of anxiety. There was a moment when she
 
 270 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 doubted whether it was best to return ; but 
 just as quickly did she make up her mind 
 that it was the very thing for her to do. 
 
 And to-day she would see him ! 
 
 She felt much better acquainted with him 
 now through his letters ; yet she had flattered 
 herself with understanding him perfectly 
 when she left the red-woods. 
 
 She had not found desirable qualities only. 
 Oh, no; there were great faults peeping 
 through, and she loved him for those faults. 
 
 She rose very early, while there was yet 
 barely a faint blush on the sky where the 
 sun would rise above the crest of Loma 
 Prieta. The faintest kind of a blue haze 
 rested over the mountains. The forest, with 
 its faint hum of air and running water, 
 seemed to be dreaming ; while a few delicate 
 veils of vapour rose out of the deep canons. 
 The orioles sang their love song in the oaks. 
 The air was saturated with the fragrance of 
 wild blooms and woodlands, and the hum- 
 ming-birds buzzed past her in swift flight, 
 hunting for the gayest flowers.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 He had said he would come early, but 
 what was early? Perhaps he thought she 
 was a late riser, and it would yet be hours 
 before she should see him. 
 
 Madame Pellier called her to breakfast, 
 but she excused herself, she did not feel 
 hungry, she said she had not slept quite 
 well, she never did the first night in a 
 strange place; she would make up for it 
 another time, try her best to make her stay 
 unprofitable to Madame Pellier. Irene forced 
 a little laughter, and Madame Pellier shook 
 her head, she understood it all. 
 
 " Sacrement ! she is in love wiz zat Va-n," 
 she said to her husband, who looked at her 
 vacantly. It always took him a long time 
 to get perfectly awake in the morning, if in- 
 deed he ever did. 
 
 Irene heard footsteps on the gravel walk, 
 firm steps of a man. 
 
 He turned the corner by the acacias, walk- 
 ing leisurely with his hands in the pockets of 
 his short jacket. 
 
 He had already seen her from the road.
 
 272 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 He knew she was there waiting for him, but 
 dared not look up not before he was at 
 the foot of the steps. 
 
 He had intended to show her in one 
 glance all his happiness in being with her 
 again. But, as he held her hand, only a few 
 commonplace utterances escaped him; he 
 even remarked that it was a fine morning ! 
 But she did not resent it; she seemed to 
 understand him. 
 
 " How I have longed for you," she said. 
 " I have been standing here for over an 
 hour, and it was so long waiting for my 
 friend." 
 
 Ah, that wonderful intonation on the 
 words my friend / 
 
 " I saw your beacon," she said, as they 
 walked down the gravel-path toward the 
 gate. " I watched it till it smouldered away, 
 then I felt tired ; and yet I could not sleep, 
 not till toward morning, when I suddenly 
 awoke with a great fear I dreamt I had 
 overslept, and you were gone." 
 
 M Indeed ? Gone ? not much danger of
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 273 
 
 that, my friend. I would wait patiently a 
 long time if I knew certainly you would 
 come once." 
 
 She looked at him, but he compelled him- 
 self to look away. 
 
 He was taking very long steps; he was 
 nervous to get somewhere, and she tripped 
 beside him, as best she could, for a while. 
 
 " Oh," she breathed, " you go too fast." 
 
 He smiled and slackened his gait, then 
 bethought himself and took her hand. 
 
 The fragrant, moist air vibrated in the 
 long, narrow sunbeams falling between the 
 dark tree-trunks, gilding in spots the soft 
 carpet of brown needles. 
 
 They walked into deep ravines and out 
 again, always higher, higher, with narrow 
 vistas between the tree-tops of shady and 
 sun-gilded forest-covered ridges. Now and 
 then they were closed in under the high 
 green vault, among immense straight pillars, 
 seemingly an endless labyrinth of them. 
 
 She wore a broad-rimmed straw hat, fast- 
 ened to her hair with a long pearl-headed 
 
 18
 
 274 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF .SIMPLICITY 
 
 pin. She was a little pale at first, but soon 
 the blood rushed to her cheeks. Her eyes 
 glittered with a wonderful darkness in the 
 shade of the forest. 
 
 They were silent for a long while. They 
 reached a large, open spot covered by a 
 many-coloured carpet of flowers. 
 
 He stuck yellow poppies into her dark hair. 
 
 He did not ask her if he might ; and she 
 did not forbid him. 
 
 The gray squirrels barked at them from 
 the tall trees, but they themselves had very 
 little to say. 
 
 " Is this the way to your cabin ? " she asked 
 after a while. 
 
 " Yes, a short cut." 
 
 " Is this where you used to dream and long 
 for home ? " 
 
 " No, not here. And how did you enjoy 
 your stay in the city ? " he asked, as if she 
 had not told him, time and time again in her 
 letters, that she yearned to get away from 
 there. 
 
 " My friend," she answered, " remember we
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 275 
 
 are now walking toward the ' Heights of 
 Simplicity ' ; you gave them that name your- 
 self, and here you come to me and ask such 
 a question, I, who in thoughts telegraphed 
 you, and in my letters have told you all about 
 it and all about myself." 
 
 " Don't scold," he said, a little rueful; then, 
 taking a long step, added, " Come, let us be 
 happy." 
 
 " I am," she answered with simple con- 
 viction. 
 
 It gladdened his heart, and he sang. 
 Then they walked on for a while in silence 
 spellbound by thoughts. 
 
 " When you come to the spot where you 
 wrote so many of your letters to me, please 
 tell me." 
 
 " I wrote them everywhere." 
 
 " Did you ? " she said, thankful. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 Coming out of deep thoughts, he asked 
 abruptly, 
 
 " Is it ever right to begrudge ourselves the 
 fulness of love ? "
 
 276 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 " I must answer you with another question, 
 Which is the greatest simplicity ? " 
 
 " To love, and openly but, oh, there are 
 considerations." 
 
 " Most of which are hollow. See here," 
 she added, grasping fervently both hands 
 full of flowers and grasses, " They proclaim 
 all of themselves to this wilderness, they 
 throw their fragrance to the winds and fear 
 not." 
 
 He nodded his acquiescence. 
 
 Then they talked over the letters they had 
 exchanged. She pictured to him the rapture 
 of his first. He held her hand closer and 
 thanked God for her love. 
 
 " It was well you came," he said quietly; 
 " everything has grown more beautiful. Ah, 
 I even look better in my own eyes." 
 
 " And I // " she sang it out gleefully. 
 " You have helped me across the divide, and 
 I see the full clear sunlight of a simpler 
 world shining in our faces." 
 
 He sang to her a little melody of his own 
 which one lonesome evening had grown out
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 277 
 
 of his soul at the reading of a rhythmic 
 verse. 
 
 They bared their feet, when they reached 
 the brook. 
 
 " These polished pebbles are made for me 
 to play with," she said, with an almost child- 
 like expression ; " they are wet and cool and 
 glossy, nature's kiss upon them and nature's 
 dream-talk about them some day they '11 
 reach the sea." 
 
 But in his heart was a great struggle. He 
 wished, and yet wished not, that she would 
 help him to be strong. Instead of it, she made 
 him love her ever more. Ah, she had stepped 
 across the threshold, and become part of his 
 whole soul. How could he then ever ask her 
 to return for his own sake and for hers? 
 
 They stepped out of the woods, crossed a 
 narrow ravine where Pan sat in a long- 
 needled pine playing his pipe, looking wist- 
 fully at them. 
 
 They walked into the blooming chemisal, 
 where his bees droned and where in the sun- 
 shine the wild sage confided its warm thought
 
 278 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 to the breezes. They walked on slowly and 
 dreamily in the warmth of the day and the 
 warmth of their hearts, he concerned, she 
 in simplest happiness. 
 
 " I have come back I have come back," 
 she cried suddenly out of her overflowing 
 emotions, "and it is all welcoming me, 
 and I give you all of myself, oh, wild, wild 
 hills ! " Her eyes filled with tears. Those 
 were the tears of gladness. They blur one's 
 vision sometimes on great occasions in life, 
 yes, even a man's. 
 
 So Lyder pressed his hands over his eyes, 
 and complained of the dazzling light after 
 the deep shade of the woods. 
 
 " See ! " he spoke of a sudden, " over 
 yonder in my cabin." 
 
 " Come, come," she cried, " we are on the 
 roof of the hills, with all the intricate world 
 below us." 
 
 " There stands the throne of simplicity, 
 yonder gray rock," he broke in. 
 
 "Yes, hurry, hurry, lest we lose a single 
 moment of life."
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 279 
 
 " For such as these are precious," he added 
 with deepest conviction. 
 
 " How cozy it looks here, 1 ' she exclaimed, 
 as they stood by the low steps ; " and there 
 are more of Helga's pansies." 
 
 " No, excuse me, those are yours." 
 
 "Indeed! Quite pretty, are they not? 
 Ah me, and the view ! the fragrance ! Oh," 
 she drew in long breaths, " how fresh and 
 quiet." Her face beamed with happiness. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " yes, and peaceful. 
 See that black smoke-cloud far to the north- 
 west. That is above San Francisco Bay. I 
 have often watched it in clear weather, and I 
 felt sorry for my friend that she was under it. 
 I hoped that she was longing, not alone for 
 me, but also for all this," he made a sweep- 
 ing gesture, "all this blessed country." 
 
 " And here you live ? " 
 
 " Yes, and sometimes feel happy." 
 
 " You ought to be so always? 
 
 "I could be but " 
 
 "Well but?"
 
 280 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 " I am poor." 
 
 " I thought you did not care for money." 
 
 " I don't." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I do." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " And I don't." 
 
 " That tells it all, I am sure." And both 
 laughed. 
 
 " Are you not going to invite me in ? " 
 
 " You ? Well, I guess I shall have to." 
 
 " I must say you are polite this morning." 
 
 " I only wish to retaliate a little. But 
 first, I must introduce you to a true friend 
 of mine, who lives in the barn." 
 
 Lyder opened the barn-door, and a yellow 
 shepherd dog bounced out at him and then 
 at her, capering absurdly to show his joy. 
 
 " Miss Garland, this is Vigo. Now pro- 
 nounce it. You did well. And, Vigo, this 
 is my little friend whom I have longed for, 
 the one I so often told you about." 
 
 The dog seemed to understand ; he wagged 
 his bushy tail and gave a short bark.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 28 1 
 
 Irene laughed. Rubbing his head, she 
 entered into quite a lengthy dog-talk with 
 him. Then turning to Lyder, " Why did 
 you never tell me about Vigo in your 
 letters ? " 
 
 " I did not wish you to know I had even 
 one companion ; you would n't have felt 
 so sorry for me in my loneliness, if I had 
 told you of him." 
 
 " Ah," she said musingly, " I see, I see. 
 Now take me to your cabin." 
 
 As he swung the door open, " Here," 
 said he, " is the bachelor's nest." 
 
 " How pretty ! " She pulled the long 
 pin out of her hat, as if ready to make her- 
 self at home. 
 
 He had decorated the room with wild 
 flowers and branches of spruce. The Van 
 Meeren mansion had not been so clean 
 and orderly since it was built. The top 
 of the home-made table was one mass of 
 wild lilies and ferns. The home-made writ- 
 ing-desk seemed also a mass of blossoms. 
 On the wall above Lyder's bed, in a
 
 282 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 carved frame, surrounded by a wreath of 
 straw-coloured chaparral-lilies was Irene's 
 photograph. 
 
 " May I introduce you to my best and 
 only friend ? " he said, pointing to her 
 picture. 
 
 " Did you do all this for her ? " 
 
 " For her ? For whom else in the world 
 should I do it?" he asked frankly. "Out 
 here is my kitchen ; here are cold beans 
 and a roasted chicken, and that is all you 
 can have for dinner." 
 
 " Come, let us make a fire," she said ; " it 
 will be great fun. But are you not posi- 
 tively extravagant a man who loves money 
 as much as you do to kill such a fat 
 rooster all at once for one occasion ? " 
 
 She punched it with a fork, laughing 
 the while. 
 
 " Irene, you are absolutely silly," he said 
 with a voice choking with happiness, gently 
 tapping her fingers. " Hands off, will 
 you ? " 
 
 " Silly ! not a bit of it. I am only a
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 283 
 
 child again. I was born anew a year ago 
 and grew fast. To-day I merely babble ; 
 by and bye I will still be a child, but know 
 more, and some day will put on the glasses 
 of wisdom, yet a child ever a child when, 
 as you say, I have reached the wisdom of 
 simplicity." 
 
 The shadows of the tall trees had grown 
 long ; some reached clear across the narrow 
 ravines. A warm soft breeze came like a 
 jolly young fellow, with fragrant blossoms 
 in his hair, taking long and sudden skips 
 and jumps over the hills from the south. 
 It hummed in the long-needled pines by 
 the cabin, and little brown birds twittered 
 sleepily in the thickets. 
 
 " Now," said Lyder, " I will do my chores, 
 then harness the horses and take you back, 
 to save you that long walk. I am sorry 
 to say it is getting late." 
 
 She cast an interrogative glance at him. 
 " All right, but don't harness up quite yet ; 
 there are a few things I want to do in
 
 284 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 the house, clear up the dishes and wash 
 them." 
 
 " No, no, you shall not." 
 
 " Please \et me." 
 
 " No, I don't want you to bother with them. 
 I can do the work myself, in the morning." 
 
 " Will you not let me have the pleasure 
 of doing it ? " she asked with a strange 
 intonation. 
 
 " Yes I will yes ; " and he walked off 
 in search of his cow. 
 
 When he returned, the sun was setting. 
 
 Irene stood in the doorway of the cabin 
 listening for the cow-bell. She had plucked 
 some flowers and fastened them at her throat. 
 
 The fog-bank far to the northwest above 
 San Francisco Bay had altered its shape ; 
 it looked like some fabled monster clutching 
 the hills with its long arms. 
 
 Irene gave a few more energetic sweeps 
 to the rough steps, and looked out over the 
 undulating, forest-covered ridges. 
 
 " Peace what peace 1 " she spoke to 
 herself.
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 285 
 
 Lyder drove the cow into the barn and 
 banged the door shut. 
 
 Irene called him, 
 
 " Come quickly, I want you to see some- 
 thing before you harness the horses." And 
 she ran towards him, took his hand, and led 
 him towards the cabin. 
 
 Lyder sighed. He could not tell whether 
 for pleasure or for some secret anxiety. 
 
 " Why do you sigh ? " she asked quietly, 
 with a wonderful expression in her voice and 
 eyes. " Lyder, I have made up my mind 
 about something not now long ago " 
 
 " Yes, and what is it ? " he asked in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " You need not harness your horses, for, if I 
 must go, I would rather walk away from here, 
 and alone, to lose myself, get lost for ever." 
 
 He strove against his rising emotions. 
 
 " But are you not tired ? " There was 
 an audible vibration in his voice. 
 
 " No o, one could never be tired here. 
 I should like to stay for ever." She laid her 
 head on his shoulder ; he felt her tremble.
 
 286 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 " Irene." 
 
 "Lyder." 
 
 " You must not. Do not tempt me to aid 
 you in throwing your life away. You do not 
 know how I have fought with myself to-day 
 to keep back some words which constantly 
 threatened to escape. I am poor, and always 
 shall be ; there is nothing in me to make any 
 one happy ; I I have before me a struggle 
 for which I am not suited ; it is too harsh, 
 too rough for one so tender, so beautiful as 
 you. Please be a good little girl, and do not 
 pour oil on a fire I must smother." 
 
 " Because you are poor ? Yes? Come on." 
 
 They entered the cabin. 
 
 " See how I have arranged things ; they 
 are more handy now, and these flowers, 
 you picked them for for " 
 
 She looked very serious. There was a 
 little twitch in the dimples by her lips 
 
 "Irene! No, no, Irene! My darling; no, no 
 the world struggle ah, but / love you ! 
 Indeed I do, too much to want you to share 
 your life with me. The world, what would
 
 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 287 
 
 it say? You know how cruel would be its 
 condemnation. You so pure; I could not 
 have any one cast a disapproving look on 
 you. You do not comprehend what suffer- 
 ings it would bring you, the contempt and 
 disdain of others. True, there would be a 
 few, a very few, perhaps, who would under- 
 stand that what tied us together was the 
 highest and best of all, love. But consider 
 the social curse ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know ' the solid majority ' of 
 the unthinking would condemn us, but we 
 will be honest with the world, be just what we 
 are ; and I think the time is soon coming, in 
 fact it is partly here, when honest conviction 
 will be honoured and not condemned. But I 
 fear not the world and its scorn ; I have your 
 love and my own, that is enough to make 
 me happy. Tell me that I must go back to 
 that smoke-cloud over yonder, and I will 
 walk alone down the hill, into the forest, 
 on and on and on Oh me ! Why not let 
 me stay here ? I must, must, dear. As long 
 as you love me, will I stay, your struggles
 
 288 UNTO THE HEIGHTS OF SIMPLICITY 
 
 also my struggles, your hopes and your 
 pleasures also mine, comrades in the battle 
 of life. Oh, let me!" 
 
 Her voice choked, her eyes filled with tears; 
 she tried to hide her face on his breast. . 
 
 He led her gently out where the dew was 
 falling, where the air was filled with the scent 
 of millions of flowers, with the fragrance of 
 woodland and mountain wilderness. 
 
 And he sang to her as he had never sung 
 before. And when the mysterious voices of 
 night awoke in the woods, he led her back 
 step by step, to the cabin, she still with 
 her head on his shoulder, and lips slightly 
 parted, feeling herself wafted far beyond 
 the harshness of daily life, far away, 
 where everything seemed fragrance, noth- 
 ing but fragrance. 
 
 THE END.
 
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