nd occupies a conspicuous position.

JONAS LIE

The last Norwegian novelist who is in the Parisian sense _arrive_ is
Jonas Lie.[12] The _Figaro_ has occupied itself with him of late; and
before long, I venture to predict, London and New York will also have
discovered him. English versions of a few of his earlier novels
appeared, to be sure, twenty years ago--in very bad translations--and
accordingly attracted no great attention. "The Visionary," which has
recently been published in London, has had better luck, having been
accorded a flattering reception. Of its popular success it is yet too
early to speak. But even if Jonas Lie were not about to knock at our
gates, I venture to say that I shall earn the gratitude of many a reader
by making him acquainted with this rare, complex, and exceedingly modern
spirit. For Jonas Lie is not (like so many of his brethren of the quill)
a mere inoffensive gentleman who spins yarns for a living, but he is a
forceful personality of bright perceptions and keen sensations, which
has chosen to express itself through the medium of the novel. He dwells
in a many-windowed house, with a large outlook upon the world and its
manifold concerns. In a score of novels of varying degrees of excellence
he has given us vividly realized bits of the views which his windows
command. But what lends their chief charm to these uncompromising
specimens of modern realism is a certain richness of temperament on the
author's part, which suffuses even the harshest narrative with a rosy
glow of hope. Though, generally speaking, there is no very close kinship
between him and the French realists, I am tempted to apply to him Zola's
beautiful characterization of Daudet: "Benevolent Nature placed him at
that exquisite point where reality ends and poetry begins." Before he
had yet written a single book, except a volume of flamboyant verse,
Bjoernson said of him in a public speech: "His friends know that he only
has to plunge his landing-net down into himself in order to bring it up
full."

[12] Pronounced _Lee_.

The man who, in anticipation of his achievements, impressed Bjoernson so
deeply with his genius, was, however, by others, who felt themselves to
be no less entitled to an opinion, regarded as an "original," not to say
a fool. That he was decidedly queer, his biography by Arne Garborg amply
testifies.

"Two souls, alas, abide within my breast,
The one forever strives against the other