AN ICELAND FISHERMAN

By Pierre Loti


Translated by M. Jules Cambon




PIERRE LOTI

The first appearance of Pierre Loti's works, twenty years ago, caused
a sensation throughout those circles wherein the creations of intellect
and imagination are felt, studied, and discussed. The author was one
who, with a power which no one had wielded before him, carried off his
readers into exotic lands, and whose art, in appearance most simple,
proved a genuine enchantment for the imagination. It was the time when
M. Zola and his school stood at the head of the literary movement. There
breathed forth from Loti's writings an all-penetrating fragrance
of poesy, which liberated French literary ideals from the heavy
and oppressive yoke of the Naturalistic school. Truth now soared on
unhampered pinions, and the reading world was completely won by the
unsurpassed intensity and faithful accuracy with which he depicted the
alluring charms of far-off scenes, and painted the naive soul of the
races that seem to endure in the isles of the Pacific as surviving
representatives of the world's infancy.

It was then learned that this independent writer was named in real life
Louis Marie Julien Viaud, and that he was a naval officer. This very