1874 "The Pilot and his Wife," which made its
mark. It is an every-day story in the best sense of the word, the
history of a marriage among common folk. And yet so true is it, so
permeated with a warm and rich humanity, that it holds the reader's
attention from beginning to end. Then, to add to its interest, it has
some bearing upon the woman question. Lie maintains that no true
marriage can exist where the wife sacrifices her personality, and
submits without a protest to neglect and ill-treatment. Happily we are
not particularly in need of that admonition on our side of the ocean.
The wife of the pilot, Salve Christensen, had once broken her engagement
with him, having become enamored of the handsome naval lieutenant, Beck;
but she recovers her senses and marries Christensen, whom she really
loves. After her marriage she tries to do penance for the wrong she has
done him by being, as she fancies, a model wife. But by submission and
self-extinction, so alien to her character, she arouses his suspicion
that she has something on her conscience; and, in his feeling of
outrage, he begins to neglect and abuse her. When, at last, his
maltreatment reaches a climax, she arises in all the dignity of her
womanhood, and asserts her true self. Then comes reconciliation,
followed by a united life of true equality and loving comradeship.

Such a mere skeleton of a plot can, of course, give no conception of the
wealth of vivid details with which the book abounds. There is, however,
a certain air of effort about it, of a strenuous seriousness, which is,
I fancy, the temperamental note of this author.

"The Pilot and his Wife" besides reviving Lie's popularity also served
to define his position in Norwegian literature. He had at first been
assigned a definite corner as the "poet of Nordland," but his ambition
was not satisfied with so narrow a province. In all his tales, so far,
he has surpassed all predecessors in his descriptions of the sea; and
the critics, when favorably disposed, fell into the habit of referring
to him as "the novelist of the sea," "the poet of the ocean," etc. The
Norwegian sailor, whom he may be said to have revealed in "The Pilot,"
came to be considered more and more as his property; and no one can read
such tales as "Press On" (_Gaa Paa_) and "Rutland" without agreeing that
the title is well merited. I know of no English novelist since Smollett,
who produces so deep a sense of reality in his descriptions of ma