Remembering him, as I did, as the most brilliant and notable
personality among my university friends, I began to apply to him
Mallock's epigrammatic damnation of the man of whom it was said at
twenty that he would do great things, at thirty that he might do great
things, and at forty that he might have done great things.
This was the frame of mind of those who remembered Alexander Kielland
(and he was an extremely difficult man to forget), when in the year 1879
a modest volume of "Novelettes" appeared, bearing his name. It was, to
all appearances, a light performance, but it revealed a sense of style
which made it, nevertheless, notable. No man had ever written the
Norwegian language as this man wrote it. There was a lightness of touch,
a perspicacity, an epigrammatic sparkle, and occasional flashes of wit
which seemed altogether un-Norwegian. It was obvious that this author
was familiar with the best French writers, and had acquired through them
that clear and crisp incisiveness of utterance which was supposed,
hitherto, to be untransferable to any other tongue.
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