ll name, spent six of the most impressionable years of
his life at that remote port. There he heard from the sailors many
strange tales of romantic adventure and of hazardous escape from
shipwreck, with the not uncommon result that he wished to be a sailor
himself. He was, therefore, sent to the naval school at Fredriksvaern;
but his defective eyesight proved fatal to the realisation of his wish
and the idea of a seafaring life had to be given up. He was removed from
Fredriksvaern to the Latin School at Bergen, and in 1851 entered the
University of Christiania, where he made the acquaintance of Ibsen and
Bjoernson. He graduated in law in 1857, and shortly afterwards began to
practise at Konsvinger, a little town in Hamar's Stift between Lake
Miosen and the frontier of Sweden. Clients were not numerous or
profitable at Konsvinger; Lie found time to write for the newspapers and
became a frequent contributor to some of the Christiania journals.
Meantime, Ibsen and Bjoernson were becoming famous in Norway, and in 1865
Lie, perhaps in a spirit of emulation, decided to abandon law for
literature. His first venture was a volume of poems which appeared in
1866 and was not successful. During the four following years he devoted
himself almost exclusively to journalism, working hard and without much
reward, but acquiring the pen of a ready writer and obtaining command of
a style which has proved serviceable in his subsequent career. In 1870
he published "The Visionary,"--"Den Fremsynte"--of which a translation
is now, for the first time, offered to English readers. In the following
year he revisited Nordland and travelled into Finmark. Having obtained a
small travelling pension from the Government, immediately after his
journey to Nordland, he sought the greatest contrast he could find in
Europe to the scenes of his childhood and started for Rome. For a time
he lived in North Germany, then he migrated to Bavaria, spending his
winters in Paris. In 1882 he visited Norway for a time, but returned to
the continent of Europe. His voluntary exile from his native land ended
in the spring of 1893, when he settled at Holskogen, near Christiansund.

"The Visionary" was followed in 1871 by a volume of short stories
"Fortoellinger," and during the next year by a larger and more ambitious
book, "The Three-master Future,"--"Tremasteren Fremtiden"--a realistic
sketch of life in the northern harbours of Norway. Two years later "The
Pilot and his W