Fredrika Bremer's most successful literary work was in the line of her earliest writings, descriptive of the every-day life of the middle classes. Her novels in this line have an unusual charm of expression, whose definable elements are an unaffected simplicity and a certain quiet humor which admirably fits the chosen milieu. Besides the ones already mentioned, 'Presidentens Döttrar' (The President's Daughters), 'Grannarna' (The Neighbors), 'Hemmet' (The Home), 'Nina,' and others, cultivated this field. Later she drifted into "tendency" fiction, making her novels the vehicles for her opinions on important public questions, such as religion, philanthropy, and above all the equal rights of women. These later productions, of which 'Hertha' and 'Syskonlif' are the most important, are far inferior to her earlier work. She had, however, the satisfaction of seeing the realization of several of the movements which she had so ardently espoused: the law that unmarried women in Sweden should attain their majority at twenty-five years of age; the organization at Stockholm of a seminary for the education of woman teachers; and certain parliamentary reforms.
In addition to her novels and short stories, she wrote some verse, mostly unimportant, and several books of travel, among them 'Hemmen i ny Verlden' (Homes in the New World), containing her experiences of America; 'Life in the Old World'; and 'Greece and the Greeks.'
A HOME-COMING
From 'The Neighbors'
LETTER I.--FRANCISCA W. TO MARIA M.
ROSENVIK, 1st June, 18.
Here I am now, dear Maria, in my own house and home, at my own writing-table, and with my own Bear. And who then is Bear? no doubt you ask. Who else should he be but my own husband? I call him Bear because--it so happens. I am seated at the window. The sun is setting. Two swans are swimming in the lake, and furrow its clear mirror. Three cows--my cows--are standing on the verdant margin, quiet, fat, and pensive, and certainly think of nothing. What excellent cows they are! Now the maid is coming up with the milk-pail. Delicious milk in the country! But what is not good in the country? Air and people, food and feelings, earth and sky, everything there is fresh and cheering.
Now I must introduce you to my place of abode--no! I must begin farther off. Upon yonder hill, from which I first beheld the valley in which Rosenvik lies (the hill is some miles in the interior of Smaaland) do you descry a carriage covered with dust? In it are seated Bear and his wedded wife. The wife is looking out with curiosity, for before her lies a valley so beautiful in the tranquillity of evening! Below are green groves which fringe mirror-clear lakes, fields of standing corn bend in silken undulations round gray mountains, and white buildings glance amid the trees. Round about, pillars of smoke are shooting up vertically from the wood-covered hills to the serene evening sky. This seems to indicate the presence of volcanoes, but in point of fact it is merely the peaceful labor of the husbandmen burning the vegetation, in order to fertilize the soil. At all events, it is an excellent thing, and I am delighted, bend forward, and am just thinking about a happy family in nature,--Paradise, and Adam and Eve,--when suddenly Bear puts his great paws around me, and presses me so that I am near giving up the ghost, while, kissing me, he entreats me to "be comfortable here." I was a little provoked; but when I perceived the heartfelt intention of the embrace, I could not but be satisfied.