s is highly regarded.

A little before Christmas, 1870, there appeared from Gyldendal's
publishing-house in Copenhagen a novel, entitled "The Visionary" (_Den
Fremsynte_), by Jonas Lie. To analyze the impression which this strange
book makes at the first reading is difficult. I thought, as I sat
rejoicing in its vivid light and color, twenty-four years ago: "This
Jonas Lie is a sort of century-plant, and 'The Visionary' is his one
blossom. It is the one good novel which almost every life is said to
contain. Only this is so strikingly good that it is a pity it will have
no successors."

It was evidently himself, or rather the Finnish part of himself, the
author was exploring; it was in the mine of his own experience he was
delving; it was his own heart he was coining. That may, in a sense, be
true of every book of any consequence; but it was most emphatically true
of "The Visionary." It is not to the use of the first person that this
autobiographical note is primarily due; but to a certain beautiful
intimacy in the narrative, and a _naive_ confidence which charms the
reader and takes him captive. With a lavish hand Lie has drawn upon the
memories of his boyhood in the arctic North; and it was the newness of
the nature which he revealed, no less than the picturesque force of his
language, which contributed in no small degree to the success of his
book. But, above all, it was the sweetness and pathos of the exquisite
love story. Susanna, though as to talents not much above the
commonplace, is ravishing. To have breathed the breath of such warm and
living life into a character of fiction is no small achievement. It is
the loveliness of love, the sweetness of womanhood, the glorious ferment
of the blood in the human springtide which are celebrated in "The
Visionary." The thing is beautifully done. I do not know where young
love has been more touchingly portrayed, unless it be in some of the
Russian tales of Tourgueneff.[15] The second-sight with which the hero,
David Holst, is afflicted, introduces an undertone of sadness--a pensive
minor key--and seems to necessitate the tragic _denouement_.

[15] Spring Floods, Liza, Faust.

The immediate success of "The Visionary" changed Jonas Lie's situation
and prospects. He was first sent with a public stipend to Nordland for
the purpose of studying the character, manners, and economic condition
of the dwellers within the polar zone; and, like the conscientious man
he is, he m