exemplified in the young woman of to-day, of the
estrangement that too often creeps into married life, and of the
stirrings that prompt men of middle age to seek to renew the joys of
youth.

During the years that have passed since the publication of "Dust,"
Bjoernson has produced four volumes of fiction,--his two great novels, a
third novel of less didactic mission, and a second collection of short
stories. The first of the novels, "Flags Are Flying in City and
Harbor," saw the light during the year following the publication of "A
Glove," and the teaching of that play is again enforced with
uncompromising logic in the development of the story. The work has two
other main themes, and these are heredity and education. So much
didactic matter as this is a heavy burden for any novel to carry, and a
lesser man than Bjoernson would have found the task a hopeless one.
That he should have succeeded even in making a fairly readable book out
of this material would have been remarkable, and it is a pronounced
artistic triumph that the book should prove of such absorbing interest.
For absorbingly interesting it is, to any reader who is willing that a
novel should provide something more than entertainment; and who is not
afraid of a work of fiction that compels him to think as he reads. The
principal character is a man descended from a line of ancestors whose
lives have been wild and lawless, and who have wallowed in almost every
form of brutality and vice. The four preceding generations of the race
are depicted for us in a series of brief but masterly
characterizations, in which every stroke tells, and we witness the
gradual weakening of the family stock. But with the generation just
preceding the main action of the novel, there has been introduced a
vigorous strain of peasant blood, and the process of regeneration has
begun. It is this process that goes on before our eyes. It does not
become a completed process, but the prospect is bright for the future,
and the flags that fly over town and harbor in the closing chapter have
a symbolical significance, for they announce a victory of spirit over
sense, not only in the cases of certain among the individual
participants in the action, but also in the case of the whole community
to which they belong. So much for the book as a study in heredity. As
an educational tract, it has the conspicuous virtue of remaining in
close touch with life while embodying the spirit of modern scie