religion of nature, the worship of nature. Auerbach was partial to the representation of the peasant, because the latter was to him a bit of nature, and it delighted him to seek in the unsophisticated soul the germ of that life philosophy which to him seemed the only true philosophy, the one which was destined to gain a speedy triumph over all others. Let the reader observe in his classic novel "Barfüssele" (Little Barefoot) how the bold young peasant maiden, far from heeding the command to offer her left cheek to any one who might smite her on the right, passes through life with clenched fists, and neither deems herself in the slightest degree to blame, nor suffers on that account the least humiliation. The spirit pervading these books is the political passion of Germany before the March revolution, to elevate the common man to a comprehension of the political and religious ideal of the educated classes. Quite different is the relation of the narrator to his materials in Björnson's peasant tales. In all essentials the poet was grounded in the same views of life as his heroes; his writings are no effusions of a philosophic mind. A poetic and artistic genius, no superior intellect addresses the reader from these pages. Hence the remarkable unity of sentiment and tone. The excellencies were specifically poetic; the tenderest sentiment was cast in the hardest form; the most refined, versatile observation was united with a lyric ardor which permeated the whole and burst into a freer course in numerous fugitive child, folk, and love songs. A vein of fundamental romance hovered over the narrative. The new order of novel admitted of being preluded without any disharmony by a nursery story, as in "Arne," in which plants conversed and vied with one another in their efforts. Notwithstanding the dry realism of certain of the characters, it was so idyllic that little detached stories, in which woodland sprites played a rôle, became wedded to the universally prevailing tone without causing any breach with the spirit of the general action. Björnson was a good observer and had amassed a store of little traits from which he constructed his tales. When his Arne is asked, "How do you manage when you make songs?" he replies, "I hoard up the thoughts that others are in the habit of letting go." Björnson might have given the same answer himself. And yet sagas, folk-songs, and folk-tales were the currents through whose intermingling his art-form became crystallized. He did not give it isolated grandeur, but kept himself through it in rapport with the popular mind.