“…its cheerful optimism becomes the winning personality of the hero and his fair lady-love. The book gains genius and charm, too, from its skilful presentation of peasant reserve and innate shyness. The correspondence of Eyvind[sic] during his sojourn at the agricultural college is at once extremely amusing and strangely pathetic. His letters awaken within us a profound astonishment that people so incapable of expressing themselves can ever achieve their ambitions. And yet the boy has an eloquence of his own, that to Marit at least proved irresistible:
‘To the Highly Honoured Marit-Knut’s Daughter, –I have just received your letter, but you seem to want me to be just as wise as I was before. I dare not write anything of what I want to write about, for I do not know you. But perhaps you don’t know me either. You must not believe that I am any longer the soft cheese out of which you pressed water when I sat and watched you dance. I have lain upon many a shelf to dry since that time. Nor yet am I like those long-haired dogs that for the slightest thing let their ears droop, and slip away from people, as I used to do. I take my chance now. Your letter was playful enough, but it was playful just where it ought not to have been, for you understand me well, and you could guess that I did not ask for fun, but because of late I can think of nothing but what I asked about. I waited in deep anxiety, and then came nothing but trifling and laughter. Good-bye, Marit Nordistauer, I shall not look too much at you, as I did at that dance. I hope you may both eat and sleep well, and finish your new web of cloth, and especially that you may shovel away the snow that lies before the church door.’”
Book review: ‘A Happy Boy’, The Academy, London: 1896
