“The story of Arne is simple though pathetic, and its incidents serve very well as the occasions for descriptions of the country life with which the author is familiar. These sketches are remarkably pretty – weddings, dancing-parties, nutting-parties, and the like.
…
The general tone of this tale is happy and genial, though there are one or two shades of truly Scandinavian gloom … The manners described are simple and almost patriarchal, though the standard of morality seems hardly to stand at the highest level among the country folk in Norway.”
‘Our Library Table: Norwegian Country Life’, The Month, London: 1866
