o his final
success. "Thomas Ross," "Adam Schrader," and "Grabow's Cat" have not
grown perceptibly in the estimation either of the critics or of the
public since their first appearance. But they supplied their author a
hard but needed discipline. They warned him against over-confidence and
routine work. He had passed through a soul-trying experience, in its
effect not unlike the one which Keats describes _a propos_ of
"Endymion:"

"In 'Endymion' I leaped headlong into the sea and thereby have become
better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks than
if I had stayed upon the green shore, took tea and comfortable advice. I
was never afraid of failure--would rather fail than not be among the
greatest."

Jonas Lie reconquered at one stroke all that he had lost, by the
delightful sea-novel "Rutland" (1881), and reinstated himself still more
securely in the hearts of an admiring public by the breezy tale, "Press
On" (1882). But after so protracted a sea-voyage he began to long for
the shore, where, up to date he had suffered all his reverses. It could
not be that he who had lived all his life on _terra firma_, and was so
profoundly interested in the problems of modern society, should be
banished forever, like "The Man Without a Country," to the briny deep,
and be debarred from describing the things which he had most at heart.
One more attempt he was bound to make, even at the risk of another
failure. Accordingly in 1883 appeared "The Life Prisoner"
(_Livsslaven_), which deserved a better fate than befell it. The critics
found it depressing, compared it to Zola, and at the same time scolded
the author because he lacked indignation and neglected to denounce the
terrible conditions which he described. He replied to their arraignments
in an angry but very effective letter. But that did not save the book.
Truth to tell, "The Life Prisoner" is a dismal tale. It was, in fact,
the irruption of modern naturalism into Norwegian literature. It reminds
one in its tone more of Dostoyevski's "Crime and Punishment" than of
"L'Assommoir." For to my mind Dostoyevski is a greater exponent of
naturalism than Zola, whom Lemaitre not inaptly styles "an epic poet."
The pleasing and well-bred truths or lies, to the expounding of which
_belles lettres_ had hitherto been confined, were here discarded or
ignored. The author had taken a plunge into the great dumb deep of the
nethermost social strata, which he has explored with a