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Page 3
The tragic intensity of "Jerusalem" is happily relieved by the
undercurrent of Miss Lagerl�f's sympathetic humour. When she has
almost succeeded in transporting us into a state of religious
fervour, we suddenly catch her smile through the lines and realize
that no one more than she feels the futility of fanaticism. The
stupid blunders of humankind do not escape her; neither do they
arouse her contempt. She accepts human nature as it is with a warm
fondness for all its types. We laugh and weep simultaneously at the
children of the departing pilgrims, who cry out in vain: "We don't
want to go to Jerusalem; we want to go home."
To the translator of "Jerusalem," Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard,
author and reader alike must feel indebted. Mrs. Howard has already
received generous praise for her translation of "Nils" and other
works of Selma Lagerl�f. Although born in Sweden she has achieved
remarkable mastery of English diction. As a friend of Miss Lagerl�f
and an artist she is enabled herself to pass through the temperament
of creation and to reproduce the original in essence as well as
sufficient verisimilitude. Mrs. Howard is no mere artisan
translator. She goes over her page not but a dozen times, and the
result is not a labored performance, but a work of real art in
strong and confident prose.
HENRY GODDARD LEACH.
Villa Nova, Pennsylvania.
June 28, 1915.
BOOK ONE
THE INGMARSSONS
I
A young farmer was plowing his field one summer morning. The sun
shone, the grass sparkled with dew, and the air was so light and
bracing that no words can describe it. The horses were frisky from
the morning air, and pulled the plow along as if in play. They were
going at a pace quite different from their usual gait; the man had
fairly to run to keep up with them.
The earth, as it was turned by the plow, lay black, and shone with
moisture and fatness, and the man at the plow was happy in the
thought of soon being able to sow his rye. "Why is it that I feel
so discouraged at times and think life so hard?" he wondered. "What
more does one want than sunshine and fair weather to be as happy as
a child of Heaven?"
A long and rather broad valley, with stretches of green and yellow
grain fields, with mowed clover meadows, potato patches in flower,
and little fields of flax with their tiny blue flowers, above which
fluttered great swarms of white butterflies--this was the setting.
At the very heart of the valley, as if to complete the picture, lay
a big old-fashioned farmstead, with many gray outhouses and a large
red dwelling-house. At the gables stood two tall, spreading pear
trees; at the gate were a couple of young birches; in the
grass-covered yard were great piles of firewood; and behind the
barn were several huge haystacks. The farmhouse rising above the
low fields was as pretty a sight as a ship, with masts and sails,
towering above the broad surface of the sea.
The man at the plow was thinking: "What a farm you've got! Many
well-timbered houses, fine cattle and horses, and servants who are
as good as gold. At least you are as well-to-do as any one in these
parts, so you'll never have to face poverty.
"But it's not poverty that I fear," he said, as if in answer to his
own thought. "I should be satisfied were I only as good a man as my
father or my father's father. What could have put such silly
nonsense into your head?" he wondered. "And a moment ago you were
feeling so happy. Ponder well this one thing: in father's time all
the neighbours were guided by him in all their undertakings. The
morning he began haymaking they did likewise and the day we started
in to plow our fallow field at the Ingmar Farm, plows were put in
the earth the length and breadth of the valley. Yet here I've been
plowing now for two hours and more without any one having so much
as ground a plowshare.
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