onas Lie, a word about his style is in order.
Style, as such, counts for very little with him. Yet he has a distinctly
individual and vigorous manner of utterance, though a trifle rough,
perhaps, abrupt, elliptic, and conversational. Mere decorative
adjectives and clever felicities of phrase he scorns. All scientific and
social phenomena--all that we include under the term modern
progress--command his most intense and absorbed attention. Having since
1882 been a resident of Paris (except during his annual summer
excursions to Norway or the mountains of Bavaria) he has had the
advantage of seeing the society which he describes at that distance
which, if it does not lend enchantment, at all events unifies the
scattered impressions, and furnishes a convenient critical outpost. He
does not permit himself, however, like so many foreigners in the French
capital, to lapse into that supercilious cosmopolitanism which deprives
a man of his own country without giving him any other in exchange. No;
Jonas Lie is and remains a Norseman--a fact which he demonstrated (to
the gratification of his countrymen) on a recent occasion. At the
funeral of the late Professor O. J. Broch--a famous Norwegian who died
in Paris--the chaplain of the Swedish legation made an oration in which
he praised the departed statesman and scientist, referring to him
constantly as "our countryman." When he had finished, Jonas Lie, without
anybody's invitation, stepped quietly up to the coffin and in the name
of Norway bade _his_ countryman a last farewell. "The spirit came over
Lie," says his biographer, "and he spoke with ravishing eloquence."

But why did he do such an uncalled-for thing, you will ask? Because
there is a systematic effort on the part of Sweden to suppress the very
name of Norway, and to give the impression, throughout the world, that
there is no such nationality as the Norwegian. Therefore every Norseman
(unless he chooses to be a party to this suppression) is obliged to
assert his nationality in season and out of season. But Jonas Lie has,
indeed, in a far more effective way borne aloft the banner of his
country. His books have been translated into French, German, English,
Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Russian, and Bohemian; and throughout
Europe the literary journals and magazines are beginning to discuss him
as one of the foremost representatives of modern realism.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN[17]

[17] A portion of this essay