[56] _World’s Work_, February, 1908. [57] _Heretics_ by Gilbert K. Chesterton, London and New York, 1915, 1919. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co. [58] _Literary Digest_, July 5, 1924. [59] _Rudyard Kipling’s Verse_: Inclusive Edition, Garden City, N. Y., 1924, p. 3. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, Page & Co. [60] _Bookman_, 25: 561. [61] _Memories and Adventures_ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Boston, 1924. [62] By permission of Mr. Kipling. [63] George H. Doran, New York, 1917. [64] _A Gallery_ by Philip Guedalla, New York, 1924. By permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons. [65] _Independence_: Rectorial Address at St. Andrews by Rudyard Kipling, New York, 1924. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, Page & Co. [66] _Rudyard Kipling’s Verse_: Inclusive Edition, Garden City, N. Y., 1924. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, Page & Co. CHAPTER VII SELMA LAGERLÖF--SWEDISH REALIST AND IDEALIST The prize of 1909 has been awarded: Lagerlöf, Selma, born 1858: “because of the noble idealism, the wealth of fancy and the spiritual quality that characterize her works.”[67] “I declare it to be my express desire that in the awarding of the prizes no consideration whatever be paid to the nationality of the candidates, that is to say, that the most deserving be awarded the prize, whether of Scandinavian origin or not.” These words from the will of Alfred Nobel had been faithfully obeyed during the first eight years of the awards in literature. Only once had the prize been given to a Scandinavian, to Björnson, the Norwegian, in 1903. When the announcement came that the winner for 1909 was the Swedish writer, Selma Lagerlöf, the most severe critics of the Nobel Foundation Committee in former years were either commendatory or silently acquiescent. Here was an author who richly deserved the prize, for she was already known throughout Europe and America for her unique fiction, in which photographic realism was always blended with a dominant note of idealism. The juvenile book which combined geography, fancy, humor, and fascination for old and young, _The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_, and other books had followed the strange tale of folklore and character study, _The Story of Gösta Berling_; these writings were outstanding evidences of her literary gifts. It was an honor to womanhood everywhere that the Nobel prize was given to Selma Lagerlöf, first of the countrymen of Nobel to be thus immortalized in literature. In her years of teaching and her later messages from the press, she had shown her sincere purpose “to benefit mankind.” [Illustration: _By courtesy of The American-Scandinavian Foundation_ SELMA LAGERLÖF]