The works of Gustav Wied appeared not only in Denmark's neighboring Scandinavian countries but also as far afield as Hungary; it is said that they were better known in Germany than were the works of any other Danish writer up to his day. Wied was recognized as a humorist with a bite. Although he may have loved individuals--and he wrote warmly about a few of his characters--his oeuvre is based on misanthropy. He possessed a keen sense of human folly; in fact, his fictional characters, some of whom are eccentric to the point of the absurd, have been called Dickensian. In a long, episodic closet drama, Dansemus. Et Satyrspil (Dancing Mice: A Satyr Play, 1905), Wied writes of a young philosopher who kept some dancing white mice. In their cage the mice deliriously and untiringly, but rather joylessly, whirl around and around an upright stick. They stop only to...