some of the characters and types
that are destined to reappear again and again in his later works.

Nagel, the exasperating irresponsible of _Mysterier_, is at his
maddest in his behaviour towards the woman he loves. It is natural
that this should be so. When a man is intoxicated his essential
qualities are emphasized. If he have wit, he will be witty; if a
brutal nature, he will be a brute; if he be of a melancholy temper, he
will be disposed to sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the
death of kings.

We see this in _Pan_. The love-making of the hero is characterized
by the same irrational impulses, the same extravagant actions, as
in _Sult_ and _Mysterier_. But they are now less frequent and less
involved. The book as a whole is toned down, so to speak, from the
bewildering tangle of unrestraint in the first two. There is quite
sufficient of the erratic and unusual in the character of Glahn, the
hero, but the tone is more subdued. The madcap youth of genius has
realized that the world looks frigidly at its vagaries, and the
secretly proud "_au moins_ je suis autre"--more a boast than a
confession--gives place to a wistful, apologetic admission of the
difference as a fault. Here already we have something of that
resignation which comes later to its fulness in the story of the
Wanderer with the Mute.

The love-story in _Pan_ takes the form of a conflict; it is one of
those battles between the sexes, duels of wit and _esprit_, such as
one finds in the plays of Marivaux. But Hamsun sets his battle in the
sign of the heart, not of the head; it is a _marivaudage_ of feeling,
none the less deep for its erratic utterance. Moreover, the scene is
laid, not in salons and ante-chambers, but in a landscape such as
Hamsun loves, the forest-clad hills above a little fishing village,
between the _hoeifjeld_ and the sea. And interwoven with the story,
like an eerie breathing from the dark of woods at dusk and dawn, is
the haunting presence of Iselin, _la belle dame sans merci_.

Otto Weininger, the author of _Sex and Character_, said of _Pan_ that
it was "perhaps the most beautiful novel ever written." Weininger, of
course, was an extremist, and few would accept his judgment without
reserve. It is doubtful whether any writer nowadays would venture to
make such a claim for any book at all.

_Pan_ is a book that offends against all sorts of rules; as a literary
product it is eminently calculated to elicit, especially in En