SELMA LAGERLOF.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1925, Page 22

SELMA LAGERLOF.

No one ever interfered with Selma'e ' plans when it came to making up plays. J Ever since, as a little girl, she had [ visited her Uncle in Copenhagen and been to the theatre, she had written plays. "She's sure to be a great actress sometime," Ulla Moreaus exclaimed on this occasion when Selma, in the midst jof a group of boys and girls, had just I finished telling them how the play was to end. Many young people predict greatness for each other, and in this instance it was a true prophecy, though it was not as a great actress that the world was to hear of this fair Danish maid, but as a writer of stories. Selma lived in a lovely country house called "Marbacka," surrounded by giant trees, in Vannland, in the central part of Sweden. On this particular day the moment the boys were released from rehearsal they were off at a bound for their coasting. The girls had this scene to themselves. It showed a typical kitchen in one of the prosperous homes. The room was lighted only by juniper roots burning in a large iron basket, hanging from a tall iron pole by the hearth. There were four weavers, all girls of 15 or Iβ, though dressed to appear as matrons, except Beata. In the play, she was Selma's rival and herself a dashing belle. > The spinning wheels stood in a zig-zag line at the front of the stage. Nora was spinning fine white cotton on a black wheel inlaid with yellow; Ulla, whose spinning wheel waa painted red and green, was next; Lisa the prettiest of them all, was spinning fine line yarn, while Beata'e wheel was an unpainted one.

<I wish, Lisa said when the rehearsil was over and the g lr ls were putting"on • their wraps "there were some* 8 ** that we could act out that story » y - i mother tells of you when youToaS' "- over Lovsjo (Green Lake) " coaßt ea Beata interrupted, "I don't think even you," pointing a finger at Selma, «S ' do that on the stage, could T Louisa?" Selma possessed three Chris* tian names—Selma Otilliana Louw!;and sometimes her friends made use * them all. They were referring to ones when as a little girl she had desired to" go to her uncle's, but a heavy snowfall" ' blocked the roads. Nothing daunted, she - had broken off some branches from the trees, made two piles of them,' placed' her little brother on one shoved him-' out on the ice on the lake. Seating hep ' self on the other and each of the children'" holding up a branch as a sail, the wind had done the rest. They were carried' rapidly across the lake and arrived at ; their uncle's to the amazement of the ' people who saw them blowing by. Her mother always held after that that any- ; thing the child set out to do she could accomplish. • • So it is not to be wondered at that when she set out to be a writer she sue-" ceeded, and succeeded beyond even her • own girlish dreams, for among other' attainments she was the first woman to be granted the Nobel prize.