In his novel "Flags in City and Harbor" (1884), the English translation of which is entitled "The Heritage of the Kurts," Bjoernson has attacked a tremendous problem. He has attempted to illustrate the force of heredity, and the exact extent to which it may be modified by environment--to what extent an unfavorable heredity may be counteracted by a favorable environment. The family of Kurt, whose history is here traced through five generations, inherits a temperament which would have secured its survival and raised it to distinction in barbaric ages, but which will as surely, unless powerfully modified, necessitate its extinction in the present age. For the Kurts are incapable of assimilating civilization. An excess of physical vigor in the first Kurt who settled in Norway takes the form of lawlessness and an entire absence of moral restraint. Violence of the most atrocious kind goes unpunished because Kurt is powerful and has friends at court. In his two legitimate sons, Adler and Max (he has a host of illegitimate ones), the family temperament is modified, though in Max, who perpetuates the race, the modification is not radical. Adler is a weakling of enormous vanity, silent and moody, and addicted to the pleasures of the table. Max, on the other hand, is a man of inexhaustible vitality, violent like his father, but possessed of a gift of speech and a tremendous voice which serve to establish his authority over the simple inhabitants of the little coast town. Moreover, he is endowed with great shrewdness and practical sense, and is an expert in ship-building, agriculture, and other pursuits. But he is the terror of women, and his sensual excesses so undermine his strength that he becomes insane, and believes that he is continually pursued by the spirit of his brother, whose death he had caused. Konrad Kurt, the son of Max, runs away from home because he cannot endure to see his mother maltreated by his father. He inherits a shattered constitution and poor nerves; outwardly he is quite a respectable man, but he has a strong physical need of drink, and every night he goes to bed intoxicated. It is the author's purpose to show how the sins of his fathers, by a physiological necessity, predisposed Konrad Kurt to drink. His son, John Kurt, who is the result of a criminal relation, is the complete incarnation of the genius of the family. The fresh blood which he has derived from his English mother has postponed the doom of the race and enabled him to repeat, in a modified form, the excesses of his ancestors. He first distinguishes himself as a virtuoso in swearing. The magnificent redundance and originality of his oaths make him famous in the army, which he chooses as the first field of his exploits. Later he roams aimlessly about the world, merely to satisfy a wild need of adventure. On his return to his native town he signalizes himself by his vices as a genuine Kurt. The little town, however, cannot find it in its