combination, that the total effect is one of sadness.
And the book itself is a masterly presentment of gloom. Masterly--or
most natural: it is often hard to say how much of Hamsun's effect is
due to superlative technique and how much to the inspired disregard of
all technique. _Den Siste Gloede_ is a diary of wearisome days, spent
for the most part among unattractive, insignificant people at a
holiday resort; the only "action" in it is an altogether pitiful love
affair, in which the narrator is involved to the slightest possible
degree. The writer is throughout despondent; he feels himself out of
the race; his day is past. Solitude and quiet, Nature, and his own
foolish feelings--these are the "last joys" left him now.

The book might have seemed a fitting, if pathetic, ending to the
literary career of the author of _Pan_. Certainly it holds out no
promise of further energy or interest in life or work. The closing
words amount to a personal farewell.

Then, without warning, Hamsun enters upon a new phase of power. _Boern
av Tilden_ (Children of the Age) is an objective study, its main theme
being the "marriage" conflict touched upon in the Wanderer
stories, and here developed in a different setting and with fuller
individuality. Hamsun has here moved up a step in the social scale,
from villagers of the Benoni type to the land-owning class. There is
the same conflict of temperaments that we have seen before, but less
violent now; the poet's late-won calm of mind, and the level
of culture from which his characters now are drawn--perhaps by
instinctive selection--make for restraint. Still a romantic at heart,
he becomes more classic in form.

_Boern av Tilden_ is also the story of Segelfoss, in its passing from
the tranquil dignity of a semi-feudal estate to the complex and
ruthless modernity of an industrial centre. _Segelfoss By_ (1915)
treats of the fortunes of the succeeding generation, and the further
development of Segelfoss into a township ("By").

Then, with _Growth of the Soil_, Hamsun achieves his greatest triumph.
Setting aside all that mattered most to himself, he turns, with the
experience of a lifetime rich in conflict, to the things that matter
to us all. Deliberately shorn of all that makes for mere effect, Isak
stands out as an elemental figure, the symbol of Man at his best,
face to face with Nature and life. There is no greater human
character--reverently said--in the Bible itself.

*