r as supers in _Pan_;
subjects or retainers of the all-powerful Trader Mack. It is as if
the sub-plots in one of Shakespeare's plays had been taken out for
separate presentment, and the clown promoted to be hero in a play of
his own. The cast is increased, the _milieu_ lightly drawn in _Pan_
is now shown more comprehensively and in detail, making us gradually
acquainted with a whole little community, a village world, knowing
little of any world beyond, and forming a microcosm in itself.

Hamsun has returned, as it were, to the scene of his passionate
youth, but in altered guise. He plays no part himself now, but is an
onlooker, a stander-by, chronicling, as from a cloistered aloofness,
yet with kindly wisdom always, the little things that matter in the
lives of those around him. Wisdom and kindliness, sympathy and humour
and understanding, these are the dominant notes of the new phase.
_Svoermere_ ends happily--for it is a story of other people's lives.
So also with Benoni and Rosa at the last. And so surely has the author
established his foothold on the new ground that he can even bring in
Edvarda, the "Iselin" figure from _Pan_, once more, thus linking up
his brave and lusty comedies of middle age with the romantic tragedies
of his youth, making a comprehensive pageant-play of large-hearted
humanity.

Meantime, the effect upon himself is seen--and avowed. Between
_Svoermere_ and _Benoni_ comes the frankly first-personal narrative
of a vagabond who describes himself, upon interrogation, as "Knut
Pedersen"--which is two-thirds of Knut Pedersen Hamsund--and hailing
from Nordland--which embraces Lofoten.

It does not need any showing of paper, however, to establish the
identity of Knut Pedersen, vagabond, with the author of _Pan_. The
opening words of the book ("Under Hoeststjaernen") are enough. "Indian
summer, mild and warm ... it is many years now since I knew such
peace. Twenty or thirty years maybe--or maybe it was in another life.
But I have felt it some time, surely, since I go about now humming a
little tune; go about rejoicing, loving every straw and every stone,
and feeling as if they cared for me in return...."

This is the Hamsun of _Pan_. But Hamsun now is a greater soul than in
the days when Glahn, the solitary dweller in the woods, picked up a
broken twig from the ground and held it lovingly, because it looked
poor and forsaken; or thanked the hillock of stone outside his hut
because it stood there fai