The Project Gutenberg eBook, One of Life's Slaves, by Jonas Lauritz Idemil
Lie, Translated by Jessie Muir

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Title: One of Life's Slaves

Author: Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie

Translator: Jessie Muir

Release Date: May 18, 2005 [eBook #15853]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE OF LIFE'S SLAVES***

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ONE OF LIFE'S SLAVES

by

JONAS LIE

Author of "The Visionary," etc. etc.

Translated from the Norwegian by Jessie Muir

London Hodder Brothers 13 New Bridge Street, D.C.
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., London & Edinburgh

1895

PREFACE

In a review which appeared in the _Athenaeum_, of a translation of one
of Jonas Lie's earlier works--"Den Fremsynte" ("The Visionary")--the
reviewer expressed a hope that I would follow up that translation with
"an English version of Lie's 'Livsslaven,' that intensely tragic and
pathetic story of suffering and wrong." It is in accordance with this
suggestion that the present volume makes its appearance.

In taking Christiania life for the subject of "Livsslaven," Jonas Lie
attempted for the second time to break down the preconceived opinion of
critics, that such a subject did not come within his province. They were
accustomed to have tales of sea-life from his pen, and could not readily
be persuaded that another sphere of life might afford equal scope for
his talent. "Thomas Ross," published in 1878, had treated of Christiania
life, and had attracted but little attention; and now, in the spring of
1883, appeared this "story of a smith's apprentice, with his struggles
for existence and his ultimate final failure owing to the irresistible
indulgence of a passionate physical instinct." At first this too seemed
to be a failure. To use the words of Arne Garborg, a Norwegian author
and critic, Lie "had spoken--cried out in the passion or agony of his
soul, and people stood there quite calm and as if they had heard
nothing;" there seemed to be a total lack of sympathetic comprehension
on the part of the public. In