is never permitted to follow the
example of _bonus Homerus_, who, as every one knows, sometimes nods.
Jonas Lie was far from nodding in "The Barque Future" (1872). There was
an abundance of interest in the material, and a delightful picturesque
vigor in the descriptions of nature. But of romantic interest of the
kind which the ordinary novel-reader craves, there was very little. _A
propos_ of "The Barque Future" let me quote a bit of general
characterization which applies to nearly all the subsequent works of
Jonas Lie.

"It is in this particular that Jonas Lie most distinctly diverges from
all romanticism and romance-writing: His interest in practical affairs,
his ability to see poetry in that which is contemporary. The sawdust in
the rivers has never offended him, nor the Briton's black cloud of
coal-smoke. The busy toil of office and shop is not prose to him. He
penetrates to the bottom of its meaning--its significance to
civilization."[16]

[16] Arne Garborg: Jonas Lie, p. 172.

"The Barque Future" is, as regards its problem, Gustav Freytag's _Soll
und Haben_ ("Debit and Credit") transferred to Nordland. Instead of the
noble house of Rothsattel we have the ancient and highly esteemed
commercial firm of Heggelund, whose chief falls into the toils of the
scoundrel, Stuwitz, very much as Baron Rothsattel was dragged to ruin by
the Jew Veitel Itzig. But no more than Freytag can find it in his heart
to award the victory to the Hebrew usurer, can Lie violate the
proprieties of fiction by permitting Stuwitz to fatten on his spoil. He
could not, like the German novelist, conjure up a noble gentleman of
democratic sympathies and practical ability (like von Finck) and make
him emerge in the nick of time as the heir of the ancient gentry,
justifying the dignities which he enjoys in the state by the uses which
he fulfils. In Norway there is no nobility; and Lie, therefore, had to
make his able and industrious plebeian, Morten Jonsen (the equivalent of
Anton Wohlfahrt in _Soll und Haben_) the inheritor of the future. He
accordingly awards to him the hand of Miss Edele Heggelund; but not
until he has put Jacob to shame by the amount and character of the work
by which he earns his Rachel.

The reception of "The Barque Future" was far from satisfactory to its
author. He grew apprehensive about himself. He could not afford another
failure; nay, not even a _succes d'estime_. Accordingly he waited two
years, and published in