L ie and Kjelland 373 



social tendencies. I hardly think that when they are 

 stripped, as time must strip them, of the rather adventi- 

 tious aid of their connection with burning questions of 

 the day, Ibsen's social dramas will hold a very high place 

 among creative works. But a certain place they will 

 hold ; and they are far above the average dramas of 

 our age. 



Two more recent writers, who have scarcely yet come 

 to the knowledge of English readers, are Jonas Lie 

 and Alexander Kjelland. Both are voluminous writers, 

 who have given to the world novels and dramas. The 

 best of the novels of the former are those which deal 

 with the life of the sea, such as Lodsen og hans Eusfru 

 (The Pilot and his Wife), Eutlcmd, En Mcelstrdm, 

 Trcemasteren Fremtiden (The Ship Future). Kjelland 

 is a friend, and in a large degree a disciple of Bjornson, 

 a strong liberal, ready to use his pen for the propaganda 

 of his social and religious views, but at the same time 

 deeply impressed by the methods of the French 

 realists. Two of his best novels are Garman og Worse 

 (The Firm of Garman and Worse), and Skipper Worse 

 — the second to some extent a continuation of the first. 

 Both deal, rather after Bjornson's later manner and 

 that of Ibsen's social dramas, with the provincial town 

 life of Norway in its prosy aspects. 



