the self-consciousness of a sensitive child; he is for
ever thinking of what people think of him, and trying to create an
impression. Then, with a paradoxical sincerity, he confesses that the
motive of this or that action _was_ simply to create an impression,
and thereby destroys the impression. Sometimes he caps this by
wilfully letting it appear that the double move was carefully designed
to produce the reverse impression of the first--until the person
concerned is utterly bewildered, and the reader likewise.

_Mysterier_ appeared in 1893. In the following year Hamsun astonished
his critics with two books, _Ny Jord_ (New Ground) and _Redaktoer
Lynge_, both equally unlike his previous work. With these he passes at
a bound from one-man stories, portrait studies of eccentric characters
in a remote or restricted environment, to group subjects, chosen
from centres of life and culture in Christiania. _Redaktoer
Lynge_--_redaktoer_, of course, means "editor"--deals largely with
political manoeuvres and intrigues, the bitter controversial politics
of Norway prior to the dissolution of the Union with Sweden. _Ny Jord_
gives an unflattering picture of the academic, literary, and
artistic youth of the capital, idlers for the most part, arrogant,
unscrupulous, self-important, and full of disdain for the mere
citizens and merchants whose simple honesty and kindliness are laughed
at or exploited by the newly dominant representatives of culture.

Both these books are technically superior to the first two, inasmuch
as they show mastery of a more difficult form. But their appeal is
not so great; there is lacking a something that might be inspiration,
personal sympathy--some indefinable essential that the author himself
has taught us to expect. They are less _hamsunsk_ than most of
Hamsun's work. Hamsun is at his best among the scenes and characters
he loves; tenderness and sympathy make up so great a part of his charm
that he is hardly recognizable in surroundings or society uncongenial
to himself.

It would almost seem as if he realized something of this. For in his
next work he turns from the capital to the Nordland coast, reverting
also, in some degree, to the subjective, keenly sensitive manner of
_Sult_, though now with more restraint and concentration.

_Pan_ (1894) is probably Hamsun's best-known work. It is a love-story,
but of an extraordinary type, and is, moreover, important from the
fact that we are here introduced to