Both these features are accentuated further in the story of the Wanderer with the Mute. It is a continuation of _Under Höststjaernen_, and forms the culmination, the acquiescent close, of the self-expressional series that began with _Sult_. The discords of tortured loveliness are now resolved into an ultimate harmony of comely resignation and rich content. "A Wanderer may come to fifty years; he plays more softly then. Plays with muted strings." This is the keynote of the book. The Wanderer is no longer young; it is for youth to make the stories old men tell. Tragedy is reserved for those of high estate; a wanderer in corduroy, "such as labourers wear here in the south," can tell the story of his chatelaine and her lovers with the self-repression of a humbler Henry Esmond, winning nothing for himself even at the last, yet feeling he is still in Nature's debt. Hamsun's next work is _Den Siste Gloede_ (literally "The Last Joy"). The title as it stands is expressive. The substantive is "joy"--but it is so qualified by the preceding "last," a word of overwhelming influence in any 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. _Börn 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.