SELMA LAGERLÖF (Page 276)
Selma Lagerlöf, who was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1858, is the Swedish idol in literature. She has had a series of honors such as rarely have fallen to the lot of a woman novelist, the climax of which has been the winning of the Nobel prize.[C] ] This enrolls her in a small group of authors of cosmopolitan interest—writers who belong to the whole world. Yet she is a woman who aspires to no prominence. She is modest, retiring, and unconscious of self.
No other Swedish writer of any period has so faithfully mirrored the soul of the Swedish people as has Selma Lagerlöf, nor has any other writer been so worshipped by her people. In her native province her work has sunk deep into the hearts of the people. The places and characters she has described have become so intimately associated with her stories and legends that the real names are constantly being confused with the fictitious ones she has given them in her Wonderful Adventures of Nils and Gösta Berling. Everywhere in Sweden one finds postal cards representing scenes from the Wonderful Adventures of Nils. This is an enchanting fairy story that may be compared to the fairy classics of Grimm and of Hans Andersen. In it fact and fancy are delicately interwoven with the geography and natural history of Sweden.
Miss Lagerlöf's popularity is not confined exclusively to Scandinavian countries, however. In Germany, Russia, and Holland, she is more widely read than almost any other foreign writer. In recent years, moreover, she has conquered France, and since the bestowal of the Nobel prize, she has become a world figure. It is since that event that she has become known in America, though she is not yet read here so much as she deserves.
She might well be called the founder of a new school of literature. She turned away from the general tendency of the European literature of her day, a tendency to morbid realism, or dealing with the ugliest facts of life. Her method is to throw into obscurity human frailties and vices and turn the light on what is biggest and strongest in people. This idealistic tendency may be readily traced in the story of "The Silver Mine," which is given in this text. It was for Optimism in Literature that Selma Lagerlöf was given the Nobel prize.
The Silver Mine
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276, 1. Gustav the Third. King of Sweden, 1771-1792.