PÄIVÄRINTA
Päivärinta—who belongs to the new school of Finnish writers—although he was born much earlier—is the prose poet of the peasant and one of his strongest equipments for this aesthetic role which he was to play so well, is the greatness of his heart—a sort of tragic pity—which is found in everything he writes. He sees with his heart and nothing escapes this seeing. Sometimes it lifts him to just such dramatic heights as the “Homeric laughter” of Gógol, which, by the way, too, was full of tears. It is an x-ray vision that lays bare the soul. He lived the life of a peasant, so he knows at first hand the things of which he writes. He left the plowshare after he was forty to picture the humble companions among whom he had spent his days. Like Burns, he did manual labor with one hand while he held a book in the other. The date of his birth—1827—seems long ago for him to be of that new school of story tellers of Finnland, among whom are Frosterus, Pakkala, Raijonen, Aho. His parents were poor, day laborers. He was brought up to work, and to the observance of stern discipline. There were a number of other children. Pietari was the eldest. The parents fell ill, and he was obliged to go out begging as a child in order to procure bread enough for the others. When he was scarcely out of his teens he married a poor peasant girl and bought himself a little piece of forest land. Unable to make a living by farming he traveled from parish to parish and sang; he had a voice of great beauty and power which won him his first fame. At length he settled down as clerk of a parish. Later he represented his peasant community in the Finnish Parliament. His first book was Episodes of the Great War, and it was published with success the year he wrote it. This was followed by others among which was an account of his own life. The subjects were always the same, pictures of peasant life. Päivärinta is a Joseph Israel of the pen.
