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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8152-8.txt b/8152-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1b7204 --- /dev/null +++ b/8152-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5573 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Henrik Ibsen + +Author: Edmund Gosse + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8152] +Posting Date: August 6, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + + + + + +HENRIK IBSEN + +By Edmund Grosse + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER I: CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + CHAPTER II: EARLY INFLUENCES + CHAPTER III: LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) + CHAPTER IV: THE SATIRES (1857-67) + CHAPTER V: 1868-75 + CHAPTER VI: 1875-82 + CHAPTER VII: 1883-91 + CHAPTER VIII: LAST YEARS + CHAPTER IX: PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS + CHAPTER X: INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + Henrik Ibsen + Ibsen in 1868 + Ibsen in Dresden, October, 1873 + From a drawing by Gustav Laerum + Facsimile of Ibsen's Handwriting + Ibsen. From the painting by Eilif Petersen + Bust of Ibsen, about 1865 + + + + +PREFACE + +Numerous and varied as have been the analyses of Ibsen's works +published, in all languages, since the completion of his writings, there +exists no biographical study which brings together, on a general plan, +what has been recorded of his adventures as an author. Hitherto the only +accepted Life of Ibsen has been _Et literaert Livsbillede_, published +in 1888 by Henrik Jaeger; of this an English translation was issued in +1890. Henrik Jaeger (who must not be confounded with the novelist, Hans +Henrik Jaeger) was a lecturer and dramatic critic, residing near Bergen, +whose book would possess little value had he not succeeded in persuading +Ibsen to give him a good deal of valuable information respecting his +early life in that city. In its own day, principally on this account, +Jaeger's volume was useful, supplying a large number of facts which were +new to the public. But the advance of Ibsen's activity, and the increase +of knowledge since his death, have so much extended and modified the +poet's history that _Et literaert Livsbillede_ has become obsolete. + +The principal authorities of which I have made use in the following +pages are the minute bibliographical _Oplysninger_ of J. B. Halvorsen, +marvels of ingenious labor, continued after Halvorsen's death by Sten +Konow (1901); the _Letters of Henrik Ibsen_, published in two volumes, +by H. Koht and J. Elias, in 1904, and now issued in an English +translation (Hodder & Stoughton); the recollections and notes of various +friends, published in the periodicals of Scandinavia and Germany +after his death; T. Blanc's _Et Bidrag til den Ibsenskte Digtnings +Scenehistorie_ (1906); and, most of all, the invaluable _Samliv med +Ibsen_ (1906) of Johan Paulsen. This last-mentioned writer aspires, in +measure, to be Ibsen's Boswell, and his book is a series of chapters +reminiscent of the dramatist's talk and manners, chiefly during those +central years of his life which he spent in Germany. It is a trivial, +naive and rather thin production, but it has something of the true +Boswellian touch, and builds up before us a lifelike portrait. + +From the materials, too, collected for many years past by Mr. William +Archer, I have received important help. Indeed, of Mr. Archer it is +difficult for an English student of Ibsen to speak with moderation. +It is true that thirty-six years ago some of Ibsen's early metrical +writings fell into the hands of the writer of this little volume, and +that I had the privilege, in consequence, of being the first person to +introduce Ibsen's name to the British public. Nor will I pretend for +a moment that it is not a gratification to me, after so many years and +after such surprising developments, to know that this was the fact. But, +save for this accident of time, it was Mr. Archer and no other who was +really the introducer of Ibsen to English readers. For a quarter of a +century he was the protagonist in the fight against misconstruction and +stupidity; with wonderful courage, with not less wonderful good temper +and persistency, he insisted on making the true Ibsen take the place of +the false, and on securing for him the recognition due to his genius. +Mr. William Archer has his reward; his own name is permanently attached +to the intelligent appreciation of the Norwegian playwright in England +and America. + +In these pages, where the space at my disposal was so small, I have not +been willing to waste it by repeating the plots of any of those plays of +Ibsen which are open to the English reader. It would please me best if +this book might be read in connection with the final edition of _Ibsen's +Complete Dramatic Works_, now being prepared by Mr. Archer in eleven +volumes (W. Heinemann, 1907). If we may judge of the whole work by those +volumes of it which have already appeared, I have little hesitation in +saying that no other foreign author of the second half of the nineteenth +century has been so ably and exhaustively edited in English as Ibsen has +been in this instance. + +The reader who knows the Dano-Norwegian language may further be +recommended to the study of Carl Naerup's _Norsk Litteraturhistories +siste Tidsrum_ (1905), a critical history of Norwegian literature since +1890, which is invaluable in giving a notion of the effect of modern +ideas on the very numerous younger writers of Norway, scarcely one of +whom has not been influenced in one direction or another by the tyranny +of Ibsen's personal genius. What has been written about Ibsen in England +and France has often missed something of its historical value by not +taking into consideration that movement of intellectual life in Norway +which has surrounded him and which he has stimulated. Perhaps I may be +allowed to say of my little book that this side of the subject has been +particularly borne in mind in the course of its composition. + +E. G. + +KLOBENSTEIN. + + + +CHAPTER I + +CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + +The parentage of the poet has been traced back to a certain Danish +skipper, Peter Ibsen, who, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, +made his way over from Stege, the capital of the island of Möen, and +became a citizen of Bergen. From that time forth the men of the +family, all following the sea in their youth, jovial men of a humorous +disposition, continued to haunt the coasts of Norway, marrying sinister +and taciturn wives, who, by the way, were always, it would seem, Danes +or Germans or Scotswomen, so that positively the poet had, after a +hundred years and more of Norwegian habitation, not one drop of pure +Norse blood to inherit from his parents. His grandfather, Henrik, was +wrecked in 1798 in his own ship, which went down with all souls lost on +Hesnaes, near Grimstad; this reef is the scene of Ibsen's animated poem +of Terje Viken. His father, Knud, who was born in 1797, married in 1825 +a German, Marichen Cornelia Martie Altenburg, of the same town of Skien; +she was one year his senior, and the daughter of a merchant. It was in +1771 that the Ibsens, leaving Bergen, had settled in Skien, which was, +and still is, an important centre of the timber and shipping trades on +the south-east shore of the country. + +It may be roughly said that Skien, in the Danish days, was a sort of +Poole or Dartmouth, existing solely for purposes of marine merchandise, +and depending for prosperity, and life itself, on the sea. Much of a +wire-drawn ingenuity has been conjectured about the probable strains +of heredity which met in Ibsen. It is not necessary to do more than +to recognize the slight but obstinate exoticism, which kept all his +forbears more or less foreigners still in their Norwegian home; and to +insist on the mixture of adventurousness and plain common sense which +marked their movements by sea and shore. The stock was intensely +provincial, intensely unambitious; it would be difficult to find +anywhere a specimen of the lower middle class more consistent than the +Ibsens had been in preserving their respectable dead level. Even in that +inability to resist the call of the sea, generation after generation, +if there was a little of the dare-devil there was still more of the +conventional citizen. It is, in fact, a vain attempt to detect elements +of his ancestors in the extremely startling and unprecedented son who +was born to Knud and Marichen Ibsen two years and three months after +their marriage. + +This son, who was baptized Henrik Johan, although he never used the +second name, was born in a large edifice known as the Stockmann House, +in the centre of the town of Skien, on March 20, The house stood on one +side of a large, open square; the town pillory was at the right of and +the mad-house, the lock-up and other amiable urban institutions to the +left; in front was Latin school and the grammar school, while the church +occupied the middle of the square. Over this stern prospect the tourist +can no longer sentimentalize, for the whole of this part of Skien +was burned down in 1886, to the poet's unbridled satisfaction. "The +inhabitants of Skien," he said with grim humor, "were quite unworthy to +possess my birthplace." + +He declared that the harsh elements of landscape, mentioned above, were +those which earliest captivated his infant attention, and he added that +the square space, with the church in the midst of it, was filled all day +long with the dull and droning sound of many waterfalls, while from dawn +to dusk this drone of waters was constantly cut through by a sound that +was like the sharp screaming and moaning of women. This was caused by +hundreds of saws at work beside the waterfalls, taking advantage of that +force. "Afterwards, when I read about the guillotine, I always thought +of those saws," said the poet, whose earliest flight of fancy seems to +have been this association of womanhood with the shriek of the sawmill. + +In 1888, just before his sixtieth birthday, Ibsen wrote out for Henrik +Jaeger certain autobiographical recollections of his childhood. It is +from these that the striking phrase about the scream of the saws is +taken, and that is perhaps the most telling of these infant memories, +many of which are slight and naive. It is interesting, however, to find +that his earliest impressions of life at home were of an optimistic +character. "Skien," he says, "in my young days, was an exceedingly +lively and sociable place, quite unlike what it afterwards became. +Several highly cultivated and wealthy families lived in the town itself +or close by on their estates. Most of these families were more or less +closely related, and dances, dinners and music parties followed each +other, winter and summer, in almost unbroken sequence. Many travellers, +too, passed through the town, and, as there were as yet no regular inns, +they lodged with friends or connections. We almost always had guests in +our large, roomy house, especially at Christmas and Fair-time, when the +house was full, and we kept open table from morning till night." The +mind reverts to the majestic old wooden mansions which play so prominent +a part in Thomas Krag's novels, or to the house of Mrs. Solness' +parents, the burning down of which started the Master-Builder's +fortunes. Most of these grand old timber houses in Norway have indeed, +by this time, been so burned down. + +We may speculate on what the effect of this genial open-handedness might +have been, had it lasted, on the genius of the poet. But fortune had +harsher views of what befitted the training of so acrid a nature. When +Ibsen was eight years of age, his father's business was found to be in +such disorder that everything had to be sold to meet his creditors. The +only piece of property left when this process had been gone through +was a little broken-down farmhouse called Venstöb, in the outskirts of +Skien. Ibsen afterwards stated that those who had taken most advantage +of his parents' hospitality in their prosperous days were precisely +those who now most markedly turned a cold shoulder on them. It is likely +enough that this may have been the case, but one sees how inevitably +Ibsen would, in after years, be convinced that it was. He believed +himself to have been, personally, much mortified and humiliated in +childhood by the change in the family status. Already, by all accounts, +he had begun to live a life of moral isolation. His excellent sister +long afterwards described him as an unsociable child, never a pleasant +companion, and out of sympathy with all the rest of the family. + +We recollect, in _The Wild Duck_, the garret which was the domain of +Hedvig and of that symbolic bird. At Venstöb, the infant Ibsen possessed +a like retreat, a little room near the back entrance, which was sacred +to him and into the fastness of which he was accustomed to bolt himself. +Here were some dreary old books, among others Harrison's folio _History +of the City of London_, as well as a paint-box, an hour-glass, an +extinct eight-day clock, properties which were faithfully introduced, +half a century later, into _The Wild Duck_. His sister says that the +only outdoor amusement he cared for as a boy was building, and she +describes the prolonged construction of a castle, in the spirit of _The +Master-Builder_. + +Very soon he began to go to school, but to neither of the public +institutions in the town. He attended what is described as a "small +middle-class school," kept by a man called Johan Hansen, who was the +only person connected with his childhood, except his sister, for whom +the poet retained in after life any agreeable sentiment. "Johan Hansen," +he says, "had a mild, amiable temper, like that of a child," and when he +died, in 1865, Ibsen mourned him. The sexton at Skien, who helped in the +lessons, described the poet afterwards as "a quiet boy with a pair of +wonderful eyes, but with no sort of cleverness except an unusual +gift for drawing." Hansen taught Ibsen Latin and theology, gently, +perseveringly, without any striking results; that the pupil afterwards +boasted of having successfully perused Phaedrus in the original is in +itself significant. So little was talent expected from him that when, at +the age of about fifteen, he composed a rather melodramatic description +of a dream, the schoolmaster looked at him gloomily, and said he must +have copied it out of some book! One can imagine the shocked silence of +the author, "passive at the nadir of dismay." + +No great wild swan of the flocks of Phoebus ever began life as a more +ungainly duckling than Ibsen did. The ingenuity of biographers has +done its best to brighten up the dreary record of his childhood with +anecdotes, yet the sum of them all is but a dismal story. The only +talent which was supposed to lurk in the napkin was that for painting. +A little while before he left school, he was found to have been working +hard with water-colors. Various persons have recalled finished works of +the young Ibsen--a romantic landscape of the ironworks at Fossum, a view +from the windows at Venstöb, a boy in peasant dress seated on a rock, +the latter described by a dignitary of the church as "awfully splendid," +overmaade praegtigt. One sees what kind of painting this must have +been, founded on some impression of Fearnley and Tidemann, a +far-away following of the new "national" art of the praiseworthy +"patriot-painters" of the school of Dahl. + +It is interesting to remember that Pope, who had considerable +intellectual relationship with Ibsen, also nourished in childhood the +ambition to be a painter, and drudged away at his easel for weeks and +months. As he to the insipid Jervases and Knellers whom he copied, +so Ibsen to the conscientious romantic artists of Norway's prime. In +neither case do we wish that an Ibsen or a Pope should be secured for +the National Gallery, but it is highly significant that such earnest +students of precise excellence in another art should first of all have +schooled their eyes to exactitude by grappling with form and color. + +In 1843, being fifteen years of age, Ibsen was confirmed and taken away +from school. These events marked the beginning of adolescence with a +young middle-class Norwegian of those days, for whom the future proposed +no task in life demanding a more elaborate education than the local +schoolmaster could give. Ibsen announced his wish to be a professional +artist, but that was one which could not be indulged. Until a later date +than this, every artist in Norway was forced abroad for the necessary +technical training: as a rule, students went to Dresden, because J. +C. Dahl was there; but many settled in Düsseldorf, where the teaching +attracted them. In any case, the adoption of a plastic profession meant +a long and serious expenditure of money, together with a very doubtful +prospect of ultimate remuneration. Fearnley, who had seemed the very +genius of Norwegian art, had just (1842) died, having scarcely begun to +sell his pictures, at the age of forty. It is not surprising that Knud +Ibsen, whose to were in a worse condition than ever, refused even to +consider a course of life which would entail a heavy and long-continued +expense. + +Ibsen hung about at home for a few months, then, shortly before his +sixteenth birthday, he apprenticed to an apothecary of the name of Mann, +at the little town of Grimstad, between Arendal and Christianssand, on +the extreme south-east corner of the Norwegian coast. This was his home +for more than five years; here he became a poet, and here the peculiar +color and tone of his temperament were developed. So far as the genius +of a very great man is influenced by his surroundings, and by his +physical condition in those surroundings, it was the atmosphere of +Grimstad and of its drug-store which moulded the character of Ibsen. +Skien and his father's house dropped from him like an old suit of +clothes. He left his parents, whom he scarcely knew, the town which +he hated, the schoolmates and schoolmasters to whom he seemed a surly +dunce. We find him next, with an apron round his middle and a pestle in +his hand, pounding drugs in a little apothecary's shop in Grimstad. What +Blackwood's so basely insinuated of Keats--"Back to the shop, Mr. John, +stick to plasters, pills and ointment-boxes," inappropriate to the +author of _Endymion_, was strictly true of the author of _Peer Gynt_. + +Curiosity and hero-worship once took the author of these lines to +Grimstad. It is a marvellous object-lesson on the development of genius. +For nearly six years (from 1844 to 1850), and those years the most +important of all in the moulding of character and talent, one of the +most original and far-reaching imaginations which Europe has seen for +a century was cooped up here among ointment-boxes, pills and plasters. +Grimstad is a small, isolated, melancholy place, connected with nothing +at all, visitable only by steamer. Featureless hills surround it, and it +looks out into the east wind, over a dark bay dotted with naked +rocks. No industry, no objects of interest in the vicinity, a perfect +uniformity of little red houses where nobody seems to be doing anything; +in Ibsen's time there are said to have been about five hundred of these +apathetic inhabitants. Here, then, for six interminable years, one +of the acutest brains in Europe had to interest itself in fraying +ipecacuanha and mixing black draughts behind an apothecary's counter. + +For several years nothing is recorded, and there was probably very +little that demanded record, of Ibsen's life at Grimstad. His own +interesting notes, it is obvious, refer only to the closing months of +the period. Ten years before the birth of Ibsen of the greatest poets of +Europe had written words which seem meant to characterize an adolescence +such as his. "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature +imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, +in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of +life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted; thence proceed mawkishness +and a thousand bitters." + +It is easy to discover that Ibsen, from his sixth to his twentieth +year, suffered acutely from moral and intellectual distemper. He was at +war--the phrase is his own--with the little community in which he lived. +And yet it seems to have been, in its tiny way, a tolerant and even +friendly little community. It is difficult for us to realize what life +in a remote coast-town of Norway would be sixty years ago. Connection +with the capital would be rare and difficult, and, when achieved, the +capital was as yet little more than we should call a village. There +would, perhaps, be a higher uniformity of education among the best +inhabitants of Grimstad than we are prepared to suppose. A certain +graceful veneer of culture, an old-fashioned Danish elegance reflected +from Copenhagen, would mark the more conservative citizens, male and +female. A fierier generation--not hot enough, however, to set the +fjord on flame--would celebrate the comparatively recent freedom of the +country in numerous patriotic forms. It is probable that a dark boy like +Ibsen would, on the whole, prefer the former type, but he would despise +them both. + +He was poor, excruciatingly poor, with a poverty that excluded all +indulgence, beyond the bare necessities, in food and clothes and +books. We can conceive the meagre advance of his position, first a +mere apprentice, then an assistant, finally buoyed up by the advice +of friends to study medicine and pharmacy, in the hope of being, some +bright day, himself no less than the owner of a drug-store. Did Mr. +Anstey know this, or was it the sheer adventure of genius, when he +contrasted the qualities of the master into "Pill-Doctor Herdal," +compounding "beautiful rainbow-colored powders that will give one a real +grip on the world"? Ibsen, it is allowable to think, may sometimes have +dreamed of a pill, "with arsenic in it, Hilda, and digitalis, too, +and strychnine and the best beetle-killer," which would decimate the +admirable inhabitants of Grimstad, strewing the rocks with their bodies +in their go-to-meeting coats and dresses. He had in him that source of +anger, against which all arguments are useless, which bubbles up in the +heart of youth who vaguely feels himself possessed of native energy, and +knows not how to stir a hand or even formulate a wish. He was savage in +manners, unprepossessing in appearance, and, as he himself has told us +with pathetic naïveté, unable to express the real gratitude he felt to +the few who would willingly have extended friendship to him if he had +permitted it. + +As he advanced in age, he does not seem to have progressed in grace. By +the respectable citizens of Grimstad--and even Grimstad had its little +inner circle of impenetrable aristocracy--he regarded as "not quite +nice." The apothecary's assistant was a bold young man, who did not +seem to realize his menial position. He was certainly intelligent, and +Grimstad would have overlooked the pills and ointments if his manners +had been engaging, but he was rude, truculent and contradictory. The +youthful female sex is not in the habit of sharing the prejudices of +its elders in this respect, and many a juvenile Orson has, in such +conditions, enjoyed substantial successes. But young Ibsen was not a +favorite even with the girls, whom he alarmed and disconcerted. One of +the young ladies of Grimstad in after years attempted to describe the +effect which the poet made upon them. They had none of them liked him, +she said, "because"--she hesitated for the word--"because he was so +_spectral_." This gives us just the flash we want; it reveals to us for +a moment the distempered youth, almost incorporeal, displayed wandering +about at twilight and in lonely places, held in common esteem to be +malevolent, and expressing by gestures rather than by words sentiments +of a nature far from complimentary or agreeable. + +Thus life at Grimstad seems to have proceeded until Ibsen reached his +twenty-first year. In this quiet backwater of a seaport village the +passage of time was deliberate, and the development of hard-worked +apothecaries was slow. Ibsen's nature was not in any sense precocious, +and even if he had not languished in so lost a corner of society, it is +unlikely that he would have started prematurely in life or literature. +The actual waking up, when it came at last, seems to have been almost an +accident. There had been some composing of verses, now happily lost, and +some more significant distribution of "epigrams" and "caricatures" to +the vexation of various worthy persons. The earliest trace of +talent seems to been in this direction, in the form of lampoons +or "characters," as people called them in the seventeenth century, +sarcastic descriptions of types in which certain individuals could be +recognized. No doubt if these could be recovered, we should find them +rough and artless, but containing germs of the future keenness of +portraiture. They were keen enough, it seems, to rouse great resentment +in Grimstad. + +There is evidence to show that the lad had docility enough, at all +events, to look about for some aid in the composition of Norwegian +prose. We should know nothing of it but for a passage in Ibsen's later +polemic with Paul Jansenius Stub of Bergen. In 1848 Stub was an +invalid schoolmaster, who, it appears, eked out his income by giving +instruction, by correspondence, in style. How Ibsen heard of him does +not seem to be known, but when, in 1851, Ibsen entered, with needless +acrimony, into a controversy with his previous teacher about the +theatre, Stub complained of his ingratitude, since he had "taught the +boy to write." Stub's intervention in the matter, doubtless, was limited +to the correction of a few exercises. + +Ibsen's own theory was that his intellect and character were awakened +by the stir of revolution throughout Europe. The first political event +which really interested him was the proclamation of the French Republic, +which almost coincided with his twentieth birthday. He was born again, +a child of '48. There were risings in Vienna, in Milan, in Rome. Venice +was proclaimed a republic, the Pope fled to Gaeta, the streets of Berlin +ran with the blood of the populace. The Magyars rose against Jellalic +and his Croat troops; the Czechs demanded their autonomy; in response to +the revolutionary feeling in Germany, Schleswig-Holstein was up in arms. + +Each of these events, and others like them, and all occurring in the +rapid months of that momentous year, smote like hammers on the door of +Ibsen's brain, till it quivered with enthusiasm and excitement. The +old brooding languor was at an end, and with surprising clearness and +firmness he saw his pathway cut out before him as a poet and as a man. +The old clouds vanished, and though the social difficulties which hemmed +in his career were as gross as ever, he himself no longer doubted +what was to be his aim in life. The cry of revolution came to him, of +revolution faint indeed and broken, the voice of a minority appealing +frantically and for a moment against the overwhelming forces of a +respectable majority, but it came to him just at the moment when his +young spirit was prepared to receive it with faith and joy. The effect +on Ibsen's character was sudden and it was final: + + Then he stood up, and trod to dust + Fear and desire, mistrust and trust, + And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet, + And bound for sandals on his feet + Knowledge and patience of what must + And what things maybe, in the heat + And cold of years that rot and rust + And alter; and his spirit's meat + Was freedom, and his staff was wrought + Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought. + +We are not left to conjecture on the subject; in a document of extreme +interest, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of his +commentators, the preface to the second (1876) edition of _Catilina_, +he has described what the influences were which roused him out of +the wretchedness of Grimstad; they were precisely the revolution of +February, the risings in Hungary, the first Schleswig war. He wrote a +series of sonnets, now apparently lost, to King Oscar, imploring him to +take up arms for the help of Denmark, and of nights, when all his duties +were over at last, and the shop shut up, he would creep to the garret +where he slept, and dream himself fighting at the centre of the world, +instead of lost on its extreme circumference. And here he began his +first drama, the opening lines of which, + + "I must, I must; a voice is crying to me + From my soul's depth, and I will follow it," + +might be taken as the epigraph of Ibsen's whole life's work. + +In one of his letters to Georg Brandes he has noted, with that +clairvoyance which marks some of his utterances about himself, the +"full-blooded egotism" which developed in him during his last year of +mental and moral starvation at Grimstad. Through the whole series of +his satiric dramas we see the little narrow-minded borough, with its +ridiculous officials, its pinched and hypocritical social order, its +intolerable laws and ordinances, modified here and there, expanded +sometimes, modernized and brought up to date, but always recurrent in +the poet's memory. To the last, the images and the rebellions which were +burned into his soul at Grimstad were presented over and over again to +his readers. + +But the necessity of facing the examination at Christiania now presented +itself. He was so busily engaged in the shop that he had, as he says, to +steal his hours for study. He still inhabited the upper room, which he +calls a garret; it would not seem that the alteration in his status, +assistant now and no longer apprentice, had increased his social +conveniences. He was still the over-worked apothecary, pounding drugs +with a pestle and mortar from morning till night. Someone has pointed +out the odd circumstance that almost every scene in the drama of +_Catilina_ takes place in the dark. This was the unconscious result of +the fact that all the attention which the future realist could give to +the story had to be given in the night hours. When he emerged from the +garret, it was to read Latin with a candidate in theology, a Mr. Monrad, +brother of the afterwards famous professor. By a remarkable chance, the +subject given by the University for examination was the Conspiracy of +Catiline, to be studied in the history of Sallust and the oration of +Cicero. + +No theme could have been more singularly well fitted to fire the +enthusiasm of Ibsen. At no time of his life a linguist, or much +interested in history, it is probable that the difficulty of +concentrating his attention on a Latin text would have been +insurmountable had the subject been less intimately sympathetic to him. +But he tells us that he had no sooner perceived the character of the man +against whom these diatribes are directed than he devoured them greedily +(_jeg slugte disse skrifter_). The opening words of Sallust, which every +schoolboy has to read--we can imagine with what an extraordinary force +they would strike upon the resounding emotion of such a youth as Ibsen. +_Lucius Catilina nobili genere natus, magna vi et animi et corporis, sed +ingenio malo pravoque_--how does this at once bring up an image of the +arch-rebel, of Satan himself, as the poets have conceived him, how does +it attract, with its effects of energy, intelligence and pride, the +curiosity of one whose way of life, as Keats would say, is still +undecided, his ambition still thick-sighted! + +It was Sallust's picture more than Cicero's that absorbed Ibsen. +Criticism likes to trace a predecessor behind every genius, a Perugino +for Raffaelle, a Marlowe for Shakespeare. If we seek for the master-mind +that started Ibsen, it is not to be found among the writers of his age +or of his language. The real master of Ibsen was Sallust. There can be +no doubt that the cold and bitter strength of Sallust; his unflinching +method of building up his edifice of invective, stone by stone; his +close, unidealistic, dry penetration into character; his clinical +attitude, unmoved at the death-bed of a reputation; that all these +qualities were directly operative on the mind and intellectual character +of Ibsen, and went a long way to mould it while moulding was still +possible. + +There is no evidence to show that the oration of Cicero moved him nearly +so much as the narratives of Sallust. After all, the object of Cicero +was to crush the conspiracy, but what Ibsen was interested in was +the character of Catiline, and this was placed before him in a more +thrilling way by the austere reserve of the historian. No doubt, to a +young poet, when that poet was Ibsen, there would be something deeply +attractive in the sombre, archaic style, and icy violence of Sallust. +How thankful we ought to be that the historian, with his long sonorous +words--_flagitiosorum ac facinorosorum_--did not make of our perfervid +apothecary a mere tub-thumper of Corinthian prose! + +Ibsen now formed the two earliest friendships of his life. He had +reached the age of twenty without, as it would seem, having been able +to make his inner nature audible to those around him. He had been to +the inhabitants of Grimstad a stranger within their gates, not speaking +their language; or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at +all, but indulging in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like +Caliban, and tamed, and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship. +One of those who thus interpreted him was a young musician, Due, who +held a post in the custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud (1827-59), +who deserves a cordial acknowledgment from every admirer of Ibsen. He +also was in the receipt of custom, and a young man of small independent +means. To Schulerud and to Due, Ibsen revealed his poetic plans, and +he seems to have found in them both sympathizers with his republican +enthusiasms and transcendental schemes for the liberation of the +peoples. It was a stirring time, in 1848, and all generous young blood +was flowing fast in the same direction. + +Since Ibsen's death, Due has published a very lively paper of +recollections of the old Grimstad days. He says: + +His daily schedule admitted few intervals for rest or sleep. Yet I never +heard Ibsen complain of being tired. His health was uniformly good. +He must have had an exceptionally strong constitution, for when his +financial conditions compelled him to practice the most stringent +economy, he tried to do without underclothing, and finally even without +stockings. In these experiments he succeeded; and in winter he went +without an overcoat; yet without being troubled by colds or other bodily +ills. + +We have seen that Ibsen was so busy that he had to steal from his duties +the necessary hours for study. But out of these hours, he tells us, he +stole moments for the writing of poetry, of the revolutionary poetry +of which we have spoken, and for a great quantity of lyrics of a +sentimental and fanciful kind. Due was the confidant to whom he recited +the latter, and one at least of these early pieces survives, set to +music by this friend. But to Schulerud a graver secret was intrusted, no +less than that in the night hours of 1848-49 there was being composed +in the garret over the apothecary's shop a three-act tragedy in blank +verse, on the conspiracy of Catiline. With his own hand, when the first +draft was completed, Schulerud made a clean copy of the drama, and in +the autumn of 1849 he went to Christiania with the double purpose of +placing _Catilina_ at the theatre and securing a publisher for it. A +letter (October 15, 1849) from Ibsen, first printed in 1904--the only +document we possess of this earliest period--displays to a painful +degree the torturing anxiety with which the poet awaited news of his +play, and, incidentally, exposes his poverty. With all Schulerud's +energy, he found it impossible to gain attention for _Catilina_ at the +theatre, and in January, 1850, Ibsen received what he called its "death +warrant," but it was presently brought out as a volume, under the +pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme, at Schulerud's expense. Of _Catilina_ +about thirty copies were sold, and it attracted no notice whatever from +the press. + +Meanwhile, left alone in Grimstad, since Due was now with Schulerud in +Christiania, Ibsen had been busy with many literary projects. He had +been writing an abundance of lyrics, he had begun a one-act drama called +"The Normans," afterwards turned into _Kaempehöjen_; he was planning a +romance, _The Prisoner at Akershus_ (this was to deal with the story of +Christian Lofthus); and above all he was busy writing a tragedy of +_Olaf Trygvesön_. [Note: On the authority of the Breve, pp. 59, 59, +where Halvdan Koht prints "Olaf Tr." and "Olaf T." expanding these to +Tr[ygvesön]. But is it quite certain that what Ibsen wrote in these +letters was not "Olaf Li." and "Olaf L.," and that the reference is not +to Olaf Liljekrans, which was certainly begun at Grimstad? Is there any +other evidence that Ibsen ever started an _Olaf Trygvesön_?] + +One of his poems had already been printed in a Christiania newspaper. +The call was overwhelming; he could endure Grimstad and the gallipots +no longer. In March, 1850, at the age of twenty-one, Ibsen stuck a few +dollars in his pocket and went off to try his fortune in the capital. + + + +CHAPTER II + +EARLY INFLUENCES + +In middle life Ibsen, who suppressed for as long a time as he could most +of his other juvenile works, deliberately lifted _Catilina_ from the +oblivion into which it had fallen, and replaced it in the series of his +writings. This is enough to indicate to us that he regarded it as of +relative importance, and imperfect as it is, and unlike his later plays, +it demands some critical examination. I not know whether any one ever +happened to ask Ibsen whether he had been aware that Alexandre Dumas +produced in Paris a five-act drama of _Catiline_ at the very moment +(October, 1848) when Ibsen started the composition of his. It is quite +possible that the young Norwegian saw this fact noted in a newspaper, +and immediately determined to try what he could make of the same +subject. In Dumas' play Catiline is presented merely as a demagogue; he +is the red Flag personified, and the political situation in France is +discussed under a slight veil of Roman history. Catiline is simply a +sort of Robespierre brought up to date. There is no trace of all this in +Ibsen. + +Oddly enough, though the paradox is easily explained, we find much more +similarity when we compare the Norwegian drama with that tragedy of +_Catiline_ which Ben Jonson published in 1611. Needless to state, Ibsen +had never read the old English play; it would be safe to lay a wager +that, when he died, Ibsen had never heard or seen the name of Ben +Jonson. Yet there is an odd sort of resemblance, founded on the fact +that each poet keeps very close to the incidents recorded by the Latins. +Neither of them takes Sallust's presentment of the character of Catiline +as if it were gospel, but, while holding exact touch with the narrative, +each contrives to add a native grandeur to the character of the +arch-conspirator, such as his original detractors denied him. In both +poems, Ben Jonson's and Ibsen's, Catiline is-- + +Armed with a glory high as his despair. + +Another resemblance between the old English and the modern Norwegian +dramatist is that each has felt the solid stuff of the drama to require +lightening, and has attempted to provide this by means, in Ben Jonson's +case, of solemn "choruses," in Ibsen's of lyrics. In the latter instance +the tragedy ends in rolling and rhymed verse, little suited to the +stage. + +This is a very curious example, among many which might be brought +forward, of Ibsen's native partiality for dramatic rhyme. In all +his early plays, his tendency is to slip into the lyrical mood. This +tendency reached its height nearly twenty years later in _Brand_ and +_Peer Gynt_, and the truth about the austere prose which he then adopted +for his dramas is probably this, not that the lyrical faculty had +quitted him, but that he found it to be hampering his purely dramatic +expression, and that he determined, by a self-denying ordinance, to tear +it altogether off his shoulders, like an embroidered mantle, which is in +itself very ornamental, but which checks an actor's movements. + +The close of Ibsen's _Catalina_ is, as we have said, composed entirely +in rhyme, and the effect of this curious. It is as though the young poet +could not restrain the rhythm bubbling up in him, and was obliged to +start running, although the moment was plainly one for walking. Here is +a fragment. Catiline has stabbed Aurelia, and left her in the tent for +dead. But while he was soliloquizing at the door of the tent, Fulvia +has stabbed him. He lies dying at the foot of a tree, and makes a speech +which ends thus:-- + +See, the pathway breaks, divided! I will wander, dumb, To the left hand. + + AURELIA + (appearing, blood-stained, at the door of the tent). + Nay! the right hand! Towards Elysium. + + CATILINE + (greatly alarmed). +O yon pallid apparition, how it fills me with remorse. 'Tis herself! +Aurelia! tell me, art thou living? not a corse? + + AURELIA. +Yes, I live that I may full thy sea of sorrows, and may lie With my +bosom pressed a moment to thy bosom, and then die. + + CATILINE + (bewildered). +What? thou livest? + + AURELIA. + + Death's pale herald o'er my senses threw a pall, + But my dulled eye tracked thy footsteps, and I saw, I saw it all, + And my passion a wife's forces to my wounded body gave; + Breast to breast, my Catiline, let us sink into our grave. + +[Note: In 1875 Ibsen practically rewrote the whole of this part of +_Catilina_, without, however, improving it. Why will great authors +confuse the history of literature by tampering with their early texts?] + +He had slipped far out of the sobriety of Sallust when he floundered, +in this way, in the deep waters of romanticism. In the isolation of +Grimstad he had but himself to consult, and the mind of a young poet who +has not yet enjoyed any generous communication with life is invariably +sentimental and romantic. The critics of the North have expended a +great deal of ingenuity in trying to prove that Ibsen exposed his own +temperament and character in the course of _Catilina_. No doubt there +is a great temptation to indulge in this species of analysis, but it is +amusing to note that some of the soliloquies which have been pointed out +as particularly self-revealing are translated almost word for word +out of Sallust. Perhaps the one passage in the play which is really +significant is that in which the hero says:-- + +If but for one brief moment I could flame And blaze through space, and +be a falling star; If only once, and by one glorious deed, I could +but knit the name of Catiline With glory and with deathless high +renown,--Then should I blithely, in the hour of conquest, Leave all, and +hie me to an alien shore, Press the keen dagger gayly to my heart, And +die; for then I should have lived indeed. + +This has its personal interest, since we know, on the evidence of his +sister, that such was the tenor of Ibsen's private talk about himself at +that precise time. + +Very imperfect as _Catilina_ is in dramatic art, and very primitive as +is the development of plot in it, it presents one aspect, as a literary +work, which is notable. That it should exist at all is curious, since, +surprising as it seems, it had no precursor. Although, during the +thirty-five years of Norwegian independence, various classes of +literature had been cultivated with extreme diligence, the drama had +hitherto been totally neglected. With the exception of a graceful opera +by Bjerregaard, which enjoyed a success sustained over a quarter of a +century, the only writings in dramatic form produced in Norway between +1815 and 1850 were the absurd lyrical farces of Wergeland, which were +devoid of all importance. Such a thing as a three-act tragedy in blank +verse was unknown in modern Norway, so that the youthful apothecary in +Grimstad, whatever he was doing, was not slavishly copying the fashions +of his own countrymen. + +The principal, if not the only influence which acted upon Ibsen at this +moment, was that of the great Danish tragedian, Adam Oehlenschläger. +It might be fantastically held that the leading romantic luminary +of Scandinavia withdrew on purpose to make room for his realistic +successor, since Oehlenschläger's latest play, _Kiartan and Gudrun_, +appeared just when Ibsen was planning _Catilina_, while the death of the +Danish poet (January 20, 1850) was practically simultaneous with Ibsen's +arrival in Christiania. In later years, Ibsen thought that Holberg and +Oehlenschläger were the only dramatists he had read when his own +first play was written; he was sure that he knew nothing of Schiller, +Shakespeare or the French. Of the rich and varied dramatic literature of +Denmark, in the generation between Oehlenschläger's and his own, he must +also for the present have known nothing. The influence of Heiberg and of +Hertz, presently to be so potent, had evidently not yet begun. But it +is important to perceive that already Norway, and Norwegian taste and +opinion, were nothing to him in his selection of themes and forms. + +It is not to be supposed that the taste for dramatic performances did +not exist in Norway, because no Norwegian plays were written. On the +contrary, in most of the large towns there were, and had long been, +private theatres or rooms which could be fitted up with a stage, at +which wandering troupes of actors gave performances that were eagerly +attended by "the best people." These actors, however, were exclusively +Danes, and there was an accepted tradition that Norwegians could +not act. If they attempted to do so, their native accents proved +disagreeable to their fellow-citizens, who demanded, as an imperative +condition, the peculiar intonation and pronunciation cultivated at +the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, as well as an absence of all native +peculiarities of language. The stage, therefore--and this is very +important in a consideration of the career of Ibsen--had come to be the +symbol of a certain bias in political feeling. Society in Norway was +divided into two classes, the "Danomaniacs" and the "Patriots." Neither +of these had any desire to alter the constitutional balance of power, +but while the latter wished Norway to be intellectually self-productive, +and leaned to a further isolation in language, literature, art and +manners, the former thought that danger of barbarism lay in every +direction save that of keeping close to the tradition of Denmark, from +which all that was witty, graceful and civilized had proceeded. + +Accordingly the theatre, at which exclusively Danish plays were acted, +in the Danish style, by Danish actors and actresses, was extremely +popular with the conservative class, who thought, by attendance on these +performances, to preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of +"high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the +patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave +suspicion as likely to undermine the purity of national feeling. + +The earliest attempt at the opening of a National Theatre had been made +at Christiania by the Swede, J. P. Strömberg, in 1827; this was not +successful, and his theatre was burned down in 1835. In it some effort +had been made to use the Norwegian idiom and to train native actors, but +it had been to no avail. The play-going public liked their plays to be +Danish, and even nationalists of a pronounced species could not deny +that dramas, like the great historical tragedies of Oehlenschläger, +many of which dealt enthusiastically with legends that were peculiarly +Norwegian, were as national as it was possible for poems by a foreign +poet to be. All this time, it must be remembered, Christiania was to +Copenhagen as Dublin till lately was to London, or as New York was +half a century ago. It is in the arts that the old colonial instinct of +dependence is most loath to disappear. + +The party of the nationalists, however, had been steadily increasing in +activity, and the universal quickening of patriotic pulses in 1848 had +not been without its direct action upon Norway. + +Nevertheless, for various reasons of internal policy, there was perhaps +no country in Europe where this period of seismic disturbance led to +less public turmoil than precisely here in the North. The accession of +a new king, Oscar I, in 1844, had been followed by a sense of renewed +national security; the peasants were satisfied that the fresh reign +would be favorable to their rights and liberties; and the monarch showed +every inclination to leave his country of Norway as much as possible to +its own devices. The result of all this was that '48 left no mark on the +internal history of the country, and the fever which burned in youthful +bosoms was mainly, if not entirely, intellectual and transcendental. The +young Catiline from Grimstad, therefore, met with several sympathetic +rebels, but found nobody willing to conspire. But what he did find is +so important in the consideration of his future development that it is +needful briefly to examine it. + +Norway had, in 1850, been independent of Denmark for thirty-six years. +During the greater part of that time the fiery excitements of a struggle +for politic existence had fairly exhausted her mental resources, and had +left her powerless to inaugurate a national literature. Meanwhile, there +was no such discontinuity in the literary and scientific relations of +the two countries as that which had broken their constitutional union. A +tremendous effort was made by certain patriots to discover the basis of +an entirely independent intellectual life, something that should start +like the phoenix from the ashes of the old régime, and should offer no +likeness with what continued to flourish south of the Skagarak. But all +the efforts of the University of Christiania were vain to prevent the +cultivated classes from looking to Copenhagen as their centre of light. +Such authors as there were, and they were few indeed, followed humbly in +the footsteps of their Danish brethren. + +Patriotic historians of literature are not always to be trusted, and +those who study native handbooks of Norwegian criticism must be on their +guard when these deal with the three poets who "inaugurated in song the +young liberties of Norway." The writings of the three celebrated lyric +patriots, Schwach, Bjerregaard and Hansen, will not bear to have the +blaze of European experience cast upon them; their tapers dwindle to +sparks in the light of day. They gratified the vanity of the first +generation after 1815, but they deserve no record in the chronicles of +poetic art. If Ibsen ever read these rhymes of circumstance, it must +have been to treat them with contempt. + +Twenty years after the Union, however, and in Ibsen's early childhood, +an event occurred which was unique in the history of Norwegian +literature, and the consequences of which were far-reaching. As is often +the case in countries where the art of verse is as yet little exercised, +there grew up about 1830 a warm and general, but uncritical, delight in +poetry. This instinct was presently satisfied by the effusion of a vast +quantity of metrical writing, most of it very bad, and was exasperated +by a violent personal feud which for a while interested all educated +persons in Norway to a far greater degree than any other intellectual +or, for the time being, even political question. From 1834 to 1838 the +interests of all cultivated people centred around what was called +the "Twilight Feud" (_Daemringsfejden_), and no record of Ibsen's +intellectual development can be complete without a reference to +this celebrated controversy, the results of which long outlived the +popularity of its skits and pamphlets. + +Modern Norwegian literature began with this great fight. The +protagonists were two poets of undoubted talent, whose temperaments +and tendencies were so diametrically opposed that it seemed as +though Providence must have set them down in that raw and inflammable +civilization for the express purpose of setting the standing corn of +thought on fire. Henrik Wergeland (1808-45) was a belated son of the +French Revolution; ideas, fancies, melodies and enthusiasms fermented +in his ill-regulated brain, and he poured forth verses in a violent +and endless stream. It is difficult, from the sources of Scandinavian +opinion, to obtain a sensible impression of Wergeland. The critics of +Norway as persistently overrate his talents as those of Denmark neglect +and ridicule his pretensions. The Norwegians still speak of him as +_himmelstraevende sublim_ ("sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the +Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster. Neither view +commends itself to a foreign reader of the poet. + +The fact, internationally stated, seems rather to be this. In Wergeland +we have a typical example of the effects of excess of fancy in a +violently productive but essential uncritical nature. He was ecstatic, +unmeasured, a reckless improvisatore. In his ideas he was preposterously +humanitarian; a prodigious worker, his vigor of mind seemed never +exhausted by his labors; in theory an idealist, in his private life he +was charged with being scandalously sensual. He was so much the victim +of his inspiration that it would come upon him like a descending wind, +and leave him physically prostrate. In Wergeland we see an instance of +the poetical temper in its most unbridled form. A glance through the +enormous range of his collected works is like an excursion into chaos. +We are met almost at the threshold by a colossal epic, _Creation, Man +and the Messiah_ (1830); by songs that turn into dithyrambic odes, by +descriptive pieces which embrace the universe, by all the froth and roar +and turbidity of genius, with none of its purity and calm. The genius is +there; it is idle to deny it; but it is in a state of violent turmoil. + +It is when the ruling talent of an age is of the character of +Wergeland's-- + + Thundering and bursting, + In torrents, in waves, + Carolling and shouting + Over tombs, over graves-- + +that delicate spirits, as in Matthew Arnold's poem, sigh for the silence +and the hush, and rise at length in open rebellion against Iacchus and +his maenads, who destroy all the quiet of life and who madden innocent +blood with their riot. Johan Sebastian Welhaven (1807-73) was a student +at the University with Wergeland, and he remained silent while the +latter made the welkin ring louder and louder with his lyric shrieks. +Welhaven endured the rationalist and republican rhetoric of Wergeland +as long as he could, although with growing exasperation, until the +rhapsodical author of _Creation_, transgressing all moderation, accused +those who held reasonable views in literature and politics of being +traitors. Then it became necessary to deal with this raw and local +parody of Victor Hugo. When, in the words of _The Cask of Amontillado_, +Wergeland "ventured upon insult," Welhaven "vowed he would be avenged." + +Welhaven formed as complete a contrast to his antagonist as could be +imagined. He was of the class of Sully Prudhomme, of Matthew Arnold, of +Lowell, to name three of his younger contemporaries. In his nature all +was based upon equilibrium; his spirit, though full of graceful and +philosophical intuitions, was critical rather than creative. He wrote +little, and with difficulty, and in exquisite form. His life was as +blamelessly correct as his literary art was harmonious. Wergeland +knew nothing of the Danish tradition of his day, which he treated with +violent and bitter contempt. Welhaven, who had moved in the circle of +the friends of Rahbek, instinctively referred every literary problem to +the tribunal of Danish taste. He saw that with the enthusiasm with which +the poetry of Wergeland was received in Norway was connected a suspicion +of mental discipline, a growing worship of the peasant and a hatred and +scorn of Denmark, with all of which he had no sympathy. He thought the +time had come for better things; that the national temper ought to be +mollified with the improved economic situation of the country; that the +students, who were taking a more and more prominent place, ought to be +on the side of the angels. It was not unnatural that Welhaven should +look upon the corybantic music of Wergeland as the source and origin +of an evil of which it was really the symptom; he gathered his powers +together to crush it, and he published a thunderbolt of sonnets. + +The English reader, familiar with the powerlessness of even the best +verse to make any impression upon Anglo-Saxon opinion, may smile to +think of a great moral and ethical attack conducted with no better +weapon than a paper of sonnets. But the scene of the fight was a small, +intensely local, easily agitated society of persons, all keenly +though narrowly educated, and all accustomed to be addressed in verse. +Welhaven's pamphlet was entitled _The Twilight of Norway_ (1834), and +the sonnets of which it consisted were highly polished in form, filled +with direct and pointed references to familiar persons and events and +absolutely unshrinking in attack. No poetry of equal excellence had +been produced in Norway since the Union. It is not surprising that +this invective against the tendencies of the youthful bard over whose +rhapsodies all Norway was growing crazy with praise should arrest +universal attention, although in the _Twilight_ Welhaven adroitly +avoided mentioning Wergeland by name. Fanaticism gathered in an angry +army around the outraged standard of the republican poet, but the lovers +of order and discipline had found a voice, and they clustered about +Welhaven with their support. Language was not minced by the assailants, +and still less by the defenders. The lovers of Wergeland were told that +politics and brandy were their only pleasures, but those of Welhaven +were warned that they were known to be fed with bribes from Copenhagen. +Meanwhile Welhaven himself, in successive publications, calmly analyzed +the writings of his antagonist, and proved them to be "in complete +rebellion against sound thought and the laws of beauty." The feud raged +from 1834 to 1838, and left Norway divided into two rival camps of +taste. + +Although the "Twilight Feud" had passed away before Ibsen ceased to be a +boy, the effect of it was too widely spread not to affect him. In point +of fact, we see by the earliest of his lyric poems that while he was +at Grimstad he had fully made up his mind. His early songs and +complimentary pieces are all in the Danish taste, and if they show +any native influence at all, it is that of Welhaven. The extreme +superficiality of Wergeland would naturally be hateful to so arduous a +craftsman as Ibsen, and it is a fact that so far as his writings +reveal his mind to us, the all-popular poet of his youth appears to be +absolutely unknown to him. What this signifies may be realized if we say +that it is as though a great English or French poet of the second half +of the nineteenth century should seem to have never heard of Tennyson +or Victor Hugo. On the other hand, at one crucial point of a late play, +_Little Eyolf_, Ibsen actually pauses to quote Welhaven. + +In critical history the absence of an influence is sometimes as +significant as the presence of it. The looseness of Wergeland's style, +its frothy abundance, its digressions and parentheses, its slipshod +violence, would be to Ibsen so many beacons of warning, to be viewed +with horror and alarm. A poem of three stanzas, "To the Poets of +Norway," only recently printed, dates from his early months in +Christiania, and shows that even in 1850 Ibsen was impatient with the +conventional literature of his day. "Less about the glaciers and the +pine-forests," he cries, "less about the dusty legends of the past, and +more about what is going on in the silent hearts of your brethren!" Here +already is sounded the note which was ultimately to distinguish him from +all the previous writers of the North. + +No letters have been published which throw light on Ibsen's first two +years in the capital. We know that he did not communicate with his +parents, whose poverty was equalled by his own. He could receive no help +from them, nor offer them any, and he refrained, as they refrained, from +letter writing. This separation from his family, begun in this way, grew +into a habit, so that when his father died in 1877 no word had passed +between him and his son for nearly thirty years. When Ibsen reached +Christiania, in March, 1850, his first act was to seek out his friend +Schulerud, who was already a student. For some time he shared the room +of Schulerud and his thrifty meals; later on the two friends, in company +with Theodor Abildgaard, a young revolutionary journalist, lived in +lodgings kept by a certain Mother Saether. + +Schulerud received a monthly allowance which was "not enough for one, +and starvation for two"; but Ibsen's few dollars soon came to an end, +and he seems to have lived on the kindness of Schulerud to their great +mutual privation. Both young men attended the classes of a celebrated +"crammer" of that day, H. A. S. Heltberg, who had opened in 1843 a Latin +school where elder pupils came for a two-years' course to prepare them +for taking their degree. This place, known familiarly as "the Student +Factory," holds quite a prominent place in Norwegian literary history, +Ibsen, Björnson, Vinje and Jonas Lie having attended its classes and +passed from it to the University. + +Between these young men, the leading force of literature in the coming +age, a generous friendship sprang up, despite the disparity in their +ages. Vinje, a peasant from Thelemark, was thirty-two; he had been a +village schoolmaster and had only now, in 1850, contrived to reach +the University. With Vinje, the founder of the movement for writing +exclusively in Norwegian patois, Ibsen had a warm personal sympathy, +while he gave no intellectual adherence to his theories. Between the +births of Vinje and Björnson there stretched a period of fourteen years, +yet Björnson was a student before either Ibsen or Vinje. That Ibsen +immediately formed Björnson's acquaintance seems to be proved from the +fact that they both signed a protest against the deportation of a Dane +called Harring on May 29, 1850. It was a fortunate chance which threw +Ibsen thus suddenly into the midst of a group of those in whom the +hopes of the new generation were centred. But we are left largely to +conjecture in what manner their acquaintanceship acted upon his mind. + +His material life during the next year is obscure. Driven by the +extremity of need, it is plain that he adopted every means open to him +by which he could add a few dollars to Schulerud's little store. He +wrote for the poor and fugitive journals of the day, in prose and verse; +but the payment of the Norwegian press in those days was almost nothing. +It is difficult to know how he subsisted, yet he continued to exist. +Although none of his letters of this period seem to have been preserved, +a few landmarks are left us. The little play called _Kaempehöien_ +(The Warrior's Barrow), which he had brought unfinished with him from +Grimstad, was completed and put into shape in May, 1850, accepted at the +Christiania Theatre, and acted three times during the following autumn. +Perhaps the most interesting fact connected with this performance +was that the only female part, that of Blanka, was taken by a young +débutante, Laura Svendsen; this was the actress afterwards to rise to +the height of eminence as the celebrated Mrs. Gundersen, no doubt the +most gifted of all Ibsen's original interpreters. + +It was a matter of course that the poet was greatly cheered by the +acceptance of his play, and he immediately set to work on another, +_Olaf Liljekrans_; but this he put aside when _Kaempehöien_ practically +failed. He wrote a satirical comedy called _Norma_. He endeavored to get +certain of his works, dramatic and lyric, published in Christiania, but +all the schemes fell through. It is certain that 1851 began darkly for +the young man, and that his misfortunes encouraged in him a sour and +rebellious temper. For the first and only time in his life he meddled +with practical politics. Vinje and he--in company with a charming +person, Paul Botten-Hansen (1824-69), who flits very pleasantly +through the literary history of this time--founded a newspaper called +_Andhrimner_, which lasted for nine months. + +One of the contributors was Abildgaard, who, as we have seen, lived +in the same house with Ibsen. He was a wild being, who had adopted the +republican theories of the day in their crudest form. He posed as the +head of a little body whose object was to dethrone the king, and to +found a democracy in Norway. On July 7, 1851, the police made a raid +upon these childish conspirators, the leaders being arrested and +punished with a long imprisonment. The poet escaped, as by the skin of +his teeth, and the warning was a lifelong one. He never meddled with +politics any more. This was, indeed, as perhaps he felt, no time for +rebellion; all over Europe the eruption of socialism had spent itself, +and the docility of the populations had become wonderful. + +The discomfort and uncertainty of Ibsen's position in Christiania made +him glad to fill a post which the violinist, Ole Bull, offered him +during autumn. The newly constituted National Theatre in Bergen (opened +Jan. 2, 1850) had accepted a prologue written for an occasion by the +young poet, and on November 6, 1851, Ibsen entered into a contract by +which he bound himself go to Bergen "to assist the theatre as dramatic +author." The salary was less than £70 a year, but it was eked out by +travelling grants, and little as it might be, it was substantially more +than the nothing-at-all which Ibsen had been enjoying in Christiania. + +It is difficult to imagine what asset could be bought to the treasuries +of a public theatre by a youth of three and twenty so ill-educated, so +empty of experience and so ill-read as Ibsen was in 1851. His crudity, +we may be sure, passed belief. He was the novice who has not learned his +business, the tyro to whom the elements of his occupation are unknown. +We have seen that when he wrote _Catilina_ he had neither sat through +nor read any of the plays of the world, whether ancient or modern. The +pieces which belong to his student years reveal a preoccupation with +Danish dramas of the older school, Oehlenschläger and (if we may guess +what _Norma_ was) Holberg, but with nothing else. Yet Ole Bull, one of +the most far-sighted men of his time, must have perceived the germs +of theatrical genius in him, and it is probable that Ibsen owed his +appointment more to what this wise patron felt in his future than what +Ole Bull or any one else could possibly point to as yet accomplished. +Unquestionably, a rude theatrical penetration could already he divined +in his talk about the stage, vague and empirical as that must have been. + +At all events, to Bergen he went, as a sort of literary manager, as a +Claretie or Antoine, to compare a small thing with great ones, and the +fact was of inestimable value. It may even be held, without fear of +paradox, that this was the turning-point of Ibsen's life, that this +blind step in the dark, taken in the magnificent freedom of youth, was +what made him what he became. No Bergen in 1851, we may say, and no +_Doll's House_ or _Hedda Gabler_ ultimately to follow. For what it did +was to force this stubborn genius, which might so easily have slipped +into sinister and abnormal paths, and have missed the real humanity of +the stage, to take the tastes of the vulgar into due consideration and +to acquaint himself with the necessary laws of play-composition. + +Ibsen may seem to have little relation with the drama of the world, but +in reality he is linked with it at every step. There is something of +Shakespeare in _John Gabriel Borkman_, something Molière in _Ghosts_, +something of Goethe in _Peer Gynt_. We may go further and say, though +it would have made Ibsen wince, that there is something of Scribe in _An +Enemy of the People_. Is very doubtful whether, without the discipline +which forced him to put on the stage, at Bergen and in Christiania, +plays evidently unsympathetic to his own taste, which obliged him to do +his best for the popular reception of those plays, and which forced +him minutely to analyze their effects, he would ever have been the +world-moving dramatist which, as all sane critics must admit, he at +length became. + +He made some mistakes at first; how could he fail to do so? It was the +recognition of these blunders, and perhaps the rough censure of them the +local press, which induced the Bergen theatre to scrape a few dollars +together and send him, in charge of some of the leading actors and +actresses, to Copenhagen and Dresden for instruction. To go from Bergen +to Copenhagen was like travelling from Abdera to Athens, and to find +a species of Sophocles in J. A. Heiberg, who had since 1849 been sole +manager of the Royal Theatre. Here the drama of the world, all the +salutary names, all the fine traditions, burst upon the pilgrims from +the North. Heiberg, the gracious and many-sided, was the centre of light +in those days; no one knew the stage as he knew no one interpreted it +with such splendid intelligence, and he received the crude Norwegian +"dramatist-manager" with the utmost elegance of cordiality. Among the +teachers of Ibsen, Heiberg ranks as the foremost. We may farther and say +that he was the last. When Ibsen had learned the lesson of Heiberg, +only nature and his own genius had anything more to teach him. [See Note +below] In August, 1852, rich with the spoils of time, but otherwise poor +indeed, Ibsen made his way back to his duties in Bergen. + +[Note: Perhaps no author, during the whole of his career, more deeply +impressed Ibsen with reverence and affection than Johan Ludvig Heiberg +did. When the great Danish poet died (at Bonderup, August 25, 1860), +Ibsen threw on his tomb the characteristic bunch of bitter herbs called +_Til de genlevende_--"To the Survivors," in which he expressed the +faintest appreciation of those who lavished posthumous honor on Heiberg +in Denmark: + + In your land a torch he lifted; + With its flame ye scorched his forehead. + + How to swing the sword he taught you, + And,--ye plunged it in his bosom. + + While he routed trolls of darkness,-- + With your shields you tripped and bruised him. + + But his glittering star of conquest + Ye must guard, since he has left you: + + Try, at least, to keep it shining, + While the thorn-crowned conqueror slumbers.] + + + +CHAPTER III + +LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) + +Ibsen's native biographers have not found much to record, and still less +that deserves to recorded, about his life during the next five years. He +remained in Bergen, cramped by want of means in his material condition, +and much harassed and worried by the little pressing requirements of the +theatre. It seems that every responsibility fell upon his shoulders, and +that there was no part of stage-life that it was not his duty to look +after. The dresses of the actresses, the furniture, the scene-painting, +the instruction of raw Norwegian actors and actresses, the selection of +plays, now to please himself, now to please the bourgeois of Bergen, all +this must be done by the poet or not done at all. Just so, two hundred +years earlier, we may imagine Molière, at Carcassonne or Albi, bearing +up in his arms, a weary Titan, all the frivolities and anxieties and +misdeeds of a whole company of comedians. + +So far as our very scanty evidence goes, we find the poet isolated from +his fellows, so far as isolation was possible, during his long stay at +Bergen. He was not accused, and if there had been a chance he would have +been accused, of dereliction. No doubt he pushed through the work of +the theatre doggedly, but certainly not in a convivial spirit. The +Norwegians are a hospitable and festal people, and there is no question +that the manager of the theatre would have unusual opportunities of +being jolly with his friends. But it does not appear that Ibsen made +friends; if so, they were few, and they were as quiet as himself. Even +in these early years he did not invite confidences, and no one found +him wearing his heart upon his sleeve. He went through his work without +effusion, and there is no doubt that what leisure he enjoyed he spent in +study, mainly of dramatic literature. + +His reading must have been limited by his insensibility to foreign +languages. All through his life he forgot the tongues of other countries +almost faster than he gained them. Probably, at this time, he had begun +to know German, a language in which he did ultimately achieve a fluency +which was, it appears, always ungrammatical. But, as is not unfrequent +with a man who is fond of reading but no linguist, Ibsen's French and +English came and went in a trembling uncertainty. As time passed on, he +gave up the effort to read, even a newspaper, in either language. + +The mile-stones in this otherwise blank time are the original plays +which, perhaps in accordance with some clause in his agreement, he +produced at his theatre in the first week of January in each year. A +list of them cannot be spared in this place to the most indolent of +readers, since it offers, in a nutshell, a résumé of what the busy +imagination of Ibsen was at work upon up to his thirtieth year. His +earliest new-year's gift to the play-goers of Bergen was _St. John's +Night_, 1853, a piece which has not been printed; in 1854 he revived +_The Warrior's Barrow_; in 1855 he made an immense although irregular +advance with _Lady Inger at Östraat_; in 1856 he produced _The Feast at +Solhoug_; in 1857 a rewritten version of the early _Olaf Liljekrans_. +These are the juvenile works of Ibsen, which are scarcely counted in +the recognized canon of his writings. None of them is completely +representative of his genius, and several are not yet within reach of +the English reader. Yet they have a considerable importance, and must +detain us for a while. They are remarkable as showing the vigor of the +effort by which he attempted to create an independent style for himself, +no less than the great difficulties which he encountered in following +this admirable aim. + +_Lady Inger at Östraat_, written in the winter of 1854 but not published +until 1857, is unique among Ibsen's works as a romantic exercise in +the manner of Scribe. It is the sole example of a theme taken by him +directly from comparatively modern history, and treated purely for its +value as a study of contemporary intrigue. From this point of view it +curiously exemplifies a remark of Hazlitt: "The progress of manners +and knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps +destroy both tragedy and comedy.... At last, there will be nothing left, +good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real life." + +When Ibsen undertook to write about Inger Gyldenlöve, he was but little +acquainted with the particulars of her history. He conceived her, as he +found her in the incomplete chronicles he consulted, as a Matriarch, +a wonderful and heroic elderly woman around whom all the hopes of an +embittered patriotism were legitimately centred. Unfortunately, "the +progress of knowledge," as Hazlitt would say, exposed the falsity of +this conception. A closer inspection of the documents, and further +analysis of the condition of Norway in 1528, destroyed the fair +illusion, and showed Ibsen in the light of an indulgent idealist. + +Here is what Jaeger [Note: In _En literaert Livsbillede_] has to give us +of the disconcerting results of research: + +In real life Lady Inger was not a woman formed upon so grand a plan. She +was the descendant of an old and noble family which had preserved +its dignity, and she consequently was the wealthiest landowner in the +country. This, and this alone, gives her a right to a place in history. +If we study her life, we find no reason to suppose that patriotic +considerations ever affected her conduct. The motive power of her +actions was on a far lower plane, and seems to have consisted mainly in +an amazingly strong instinct for adding to her wealth and her status. +We find her, for instance, on one occasion seizing the estates of a +neighbor, and holding them till she was actually forced to resign them. +When she gave her daughters in marriage to Danish noblemen, it was +to secure direct advantage from alliance with the most high-born +sons-in-law procurable. When she took a convent under her protection, +she contrived to extort a rent which well repaid her. Even for a +good action she exacted a return, and when she offered harbor to the +persecuted Chancellor, she had the adroitness to be well rewarded by a +large sum in rose-nobles and Hungarian gulden. + +All this could not fail to be highly exasperating to Ibsen, who had set +out to be a realist, and was convicted by the spiteful hand of history +of having been an idealist of the rose-water class. No wonder that he +never touched the sequence of modern events any more. + +There is some slight, but of course unconscious, resemblance to +_Macbeth_ in the external character of _Lady Inger_. This play has +something of the roughness of a mediaeval record, and it depicts a +condition of life where barbarism uncouthly mingles with a certain +luxury of condition. There is, however, this radical difference that in +_Lady Inger_ there is nothing preternatural, and it is, indeed, in this +play that Ibsen seems first to appreciate the value of a stiff attention +to realism. The romantic elements of the story, however, completely +dominate his imagination, and when we have read the play carefully what +remains with us most vividly is the picturesqueness and unity of +the scene. The action, vehement and tumultuous as it is, takes place +entirely within the walls of Östraat castle, a mysterious edifice, +sombre and ancient, built on a crag over the ocean, and dimly lighted by + + Magic casements opening on the foam + Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn. + +The action is exclusively nocturnal, and so large a place in it is taken +by huge and portable candlesticks that it might be called the Tragedy of +the Candelabra. Through the windows, on the landward side, a procession +of mysterious visitors go by in the moonlight, one by one, each fraught +with the solemnity of fate. The play is full of striking pictures, +groups in light and shade, pictorial appeals to terror and pity. + +The fault of the drama lies in the uncertain conception of the +characters, and particularly of that of the Matriarch herself. Inger +is described to us as the Mother of the Norwegian People, as the one +strong, inflexible and implacable brain moving in a world of depressed +and irritated men. "Now there is no knight left in our land," says Finn, +but--and this is the point from which the play starts--there is Inger +Gyldenlöve. We have approached the moment of crisis when the fortunes +and the fates of Norway rest upon the firmness of this majestic woman. +Inger is driven forward on the tide of circumstance, and, however she +may ultimately fail, we demand evidence of her inherent greatness. This, +however, we fail to receive, and partly, no doubt, because Ibsen was +still distracted at the division of the ways. + +Oehlenschläger, if he had attempted this theme, would have made no +attempt after subtlety of character painting and still less after +correctness of historic color. He would have given small shrift to Olaf +Skaktavl, the psychological outlaw. But he would have drawn Inger, the +Mother of her People, in majestic strokes, and we should have had a +great simplicity, a noble outline with none of the detail put in. Ibsen, +already, cannot be satisfied with this; to him the detail is every +thing, and the result is a hopeless incongruity between the cartoon and +the finished work. + +Lady Inger, in Ibsen's play, fails to impress us with greatness. "The +deed no less than the attempt confounds" her. She displays, from the +opening scene, a weakness that is explicable, but excludes all evidence +of her energy. The ascendency of Nils Lykke, over herself and over her +singularly and unconvincingly modern daughter, Elima, in what does it +consist? In a presentation of a purely physical attractiveness; Nils +Lykke is simply a voluptuary, pursuing his good fortunes, with impudent +ease, in the home of his ancestral enemies. In his hands, and not in his +only, the majestic Inger is reduced from a queen to a pawn. All manhood, +we are told, is dead in Norway; if this be so, then what a field is +cleared where a heroine like Inger, not young and a victim to her +passions, nor old and delivered to decrepit fears, may show us how a +woman of intellect and force can take the place of man. Instead of this, +one disguised and anonymous adventurer after another comes forth out of +the night, and confuses her with pretensions and traps her with deceits +against which her intellect protests but her will is powerless to +contend. + +Another feature in the conduct of _Lady Inger_ portrays the ambitious +but the inexperienced dramatist. No doubt a pious commentator can +successfully unravel all the threads of the plot, but the spectator +demands that a play should be clearly and easily intelligible. The +audience, however, is sorely puzzled by the events of this awful third +night after Martinmas, and resents the obscurity of all this intrigue by +candlelight. Why do the various persons meet at Östraat? Who sends +them? Whence do they come and whither do they go? To these questions, +no doubt, an answer can be found, and it is partly given, and very +awkwardly, by the incessant introduction of narrative. The confused and +melodramatic scene in the banquet-hall between Nils Lykke and Skaktavl +is of central importance, but what is it about? The business with +Lucia's coffin is a kind of nightmare, in the taste of Webster or +of Cyril Tourneur. All these shortcomings are slurred over by the +enthusiastic critics of Scandinavia, yet they call for indulgence. The +fact is that _Lady Inger_ is a brilliant piece of romantic extravagance, +which is extremely interesting in illuminating the evolution of Ibsen's +genius, and particularly as showing him in the act of emancipating +himself from Danish traditions, but which has little positive value as a +drama. + +The direct result of the failure of _Lady Inger_--for it did not please +the play-goers of Bergen and but partly satisfied its author--was, +however, to send him back, for the moment, more violently than ever to +the Danish tradition. Any record of this interesting phase in Ibsen's +career is, however, complicated by the fact that late in his life (in +1883) he did what was very unusual with him: he wrote a detailed account +of the circumstances of his poetical work in 1855 and 1856. He denied, +in short, that he had undergone any influence from the Danish poet +whom he had been persistently accused of imitating, and he traced the +movement of his mind to purely Norwegian sources. During the remainder +of his lifetime, of course, this statement greatly confounded criticism, +and there is still a danger of Ibsen's disclaimer being accepted for +gospel. However, literary history must be built on the evidence +before it, and the actual text of _The Feast at Solhoug_, and of _Olaf +Liljekrans_ must be taken in spite of anything their author chose to say +nearly thirty years afterwards. Great poets, without the least wish to +mystify, often, in the cant phrase, "cover their tracks." Tennyson, in +advanced years, denied that he had ever been influenced by Shelley or +Keats. So Ibsen disclaimed any effect upon his style of the lyrical +dramas of Hertz. But we must appeal from the arrogance of old age to the +actual works of youth. + +Henrik Hertz (1798-1870) was the most exquisite, the most delicate, +of the Danish writers of his age. He was deeply impressed with the +importance of form in drama, and at the height of his powers he began to +compose rhymed plays which were like old ballads put into dialogue. +His comedy of _Cupid's Strokes of Genius_ (1830) began a series of +tragi-comedies which gradually deepened in passion and melody, till they +culminated in two of the acknowledged masterpieces of the Danish stage, +_Svend Dyring's House_ (1837) and _King René's Daughter_ (1845). The +genius of Hertz was diametrically opposed to that of Ibsen; in all +Europe there were not two authors less alike. Hertz would have pleased +Kenelm Digby, and if that romantic being had read Danish, the poet of +chivalry must have had a niche in _The Broad Stone of Honour_. Hertz's +style is delicate to the verge of sweetness; his choice of words is +fantastically exquisite, yet so apposite as to give an impression of the +inevitable. He cares very little for psychological exactitude or truth +of observation; but he is the very type of what we mean by a verbal +artist. + +Ibsen made acquaintance with the works, and possibly with the person, of +Hertz, when he was in Copenhagen in 1852. There can be no doubt whatever +that, while he was anxiously questioning his own future, and conscious +of crude faults in _Lady Inger_, he set himself, as a task, to write in +the manner of Hertz. It is difficult to doubt that it was a deliberate +exercise, and we see the results in _The Feast at Solhoug_ and in _Olaf +Liljekrans_. These two plays are in ballad-rhyme and prose, like +Hertz's romantic dramas; there is the same determination to achieve the +chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. +Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without +an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that +he has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of +metrical writing, but breaks down surprisingly at awkward intervals, and +displays a hopeless inconsistency between his own nature and the medium +in which he is forcing himself to write. As a proof that the similarity +between _The Feast at Solhoug_ and _Svend Dyring's House_ is accidental, +it has been pointed out that Ibsen produced his own play on the Bergen +stage in January, 1856, and revived Hertz's a month later. It might, +surely, be more sensibly urged that this fact shows how much he was +captivated by the charm of the Danish dramatist. + +The sensible thing, in spite of Ibsen's late disclaimer, is to suppose +that, in the consciousness of his crudity and inexperience as a writer, +he voluntarily sat at the feet of the one great poet whom he felt had +most to teach him. On the boards at Bergen, _The Feast at Solhoug_ was +a success, while _Olaf Liljekrans_ was a failure; but neither incident +could have meant very much to Ibsen, who, if there ever was a poet who +lived in the future, was waiting and watching for the development of his +own genius. Slowly, without precocity, without even that joy in strength +of maturity which comes to most great writers before the age of thirty, +he toiled on in a sort of vacuum. His youth was one of unusual darkness, +because he had not merely poverty, isolation, citizenship of a remote +and imperfectly civilized country to contend against, but because his +critical sense was acute enough to teach him that he himself was still +unripe, still unworthy of the fame that he thirsted for. He had not +even the consolation which a proud confidence in themselves gives to the +unappreciated young, for in his heart of hearts he knew that he had as +yet done nothing which deserved the highest praise. But his imagination +was expanding with a steady sureness, and the long years of his +apprenticeship were drawing to a close. + +Ibsen was now, like other young Norwegian poets, and particularly +Björnson, coming into the range of that wind of nationalistic +inspiration which had begun to blow down from the mountains and to +fill every valley with music. The Norwegians were discovering that they +possessed a wonderful hidden treasure in their own ancient poetry and +legend. It was a gentle, clerically minded poet--himself the son of a +peasant--Jörgen Moe (1813-82), long afterwards Bishop of Christianssand, +who, as far back as 1834, began to collect from peasants the folk-tales +of Norway. The childlike innocence and playful humor of these stories +were charming to the mind of Moe, who was fortunately joined by a +stronger though less delicate spirit in the person of Peter Christian +Asbjörnsen. Their earliest collection of folk-lore in collaboration +appeared in 1841, but it was the full edition of 1856 which produced a +national sensation, and doubtless awakened Ibsen in Bergen. Meanwhile, +in 1853, M. B. Landstad had published the earliest of his collections +of the folkeviser, or national songs, while L. M. Lindeman in the same +years (1853-59) was publishing, in installments, the peasant melodies of +Norway. Moreover, Ibsen, who read no Icelandic, was studying the ancient +sagas in the faithful and vigorous paraphrase of Petersen, and all +combined to determine him to make an experiment in a purely national and +archaistic direction. + +Ibsen, whose practice is always better than his theory, has given rather +a confused account of the circumstances that led to the composition +of his next play, _The Vikings at Helgeland_. But it is clear that in +looking through Petersen for a subject which would display, in broad and +primitive forms, the clash of character in an ancient Norwegian family, +he fell upon "Volsungasaga," and somewhat rashly responded to its +vigorous appeal. He thought that in this particular episode, "the +titanic conditions and occurrences of the 'Nibelungenlied'" and other +pro-mediaeval legends had "been reduced to human dimensions." He +believed that to dramatize such a story would lift what he called "our +national epic material" to a higher plane. There is one phrase in his +essay which is very interesting, in the light it throws upon the object +which the author had before him in writing _The Vikings at Helgeland_. +He says clearly--and this was intended as a revolt against the tradition +of Oehlenschläger--"it was not my aim to present our mythic world, but +simply our life in primitive times." Brandes says of this departure that +it is "indeed a new conquest, but, like so many conquests, associated +with very extensive plundering." + +In turning to an examination of _The Vikings_, the first point which +demands notice is that Ibsen has gained a surprising mastery over the +arts of theatrical writing since we met with him last. There is nothing +of the lyrical triviality of the verse in _The Feast at Solhoug_ about +the trenchant prose of _The Vikings_, and the crepuscular dimness +of _Lady Inger_ is exchanged for a perfect lucidity and directness. +Whatever we may think about the theatrical propriety of the conductor +of the vikings, there is no question at all as to what it is they do and +mean. Ibsen has gained, and for good, that master quality of translucent +presentation without which all other stage gifts are shorn of their +value. When we have, however, praised the limpidity of _The Vikings at +Helgeland_, we have, in honesty, to make several reservations in our +criticism of the author's choice of a subject. It is valuable to compare +Ibsen's treatment of Icelandic family-saga with that of William Morris; +let us say, in _The Lovers of Gudrun_. That enchanting little epic deals +with an episode from one of the great Iceland narratives, and follows +it much more closely than Ibsen's does. But we are conscious of a less +painful effort and of a more human result. Morris does successfully +what Ibsen unsuccessfully aimed at doing: he translates the heroic and +half-fabulous action into terms that are human and credible. + +It was, moreover, an error of judgment on the part of the Norwegian +playwright to make his tragedy a mosaic of effective bits borrowed +hither and thither from the Sagas. Scandinavian bibliography has toiled +to show his indebtedness to this tale and to that, and he has been +accused of concealing his plagiarisms. But to say this is to miss the +mark. A poet is at liberty to steal what he will, if only he builds his +thefts up into a living structure of his own. For this purpose, however, +it is practically found that, owing perhaps to the elastic consistency +of individual human nature, it is safest to stick to one story, +embroidering and developing it along its own essential lines. + +There is great vigor, however, in many of the scenes in _The Vikings_. +The appearance of Hiördis on the stage, in the opening act, marks, +perhaps, the first occasion on which Ibsen had put forth his full +strength as a playwright. This entrance of Hiördis ought to be extremely +effective; in fact, we understand, it rarely is. The cause of this +disappointment can easily be discovered. It is the misfortune of The +Vikings that it is hardly to be acted by mortal men. Hiördis herself is +superhuman; she has eaten the heart of a wolf, she claims direct descent +from a race of fighting giants. There is a grandeur about the conception +of her form and character, but it is a grandeur which might well daunt +a human actress. One can faintly imagine the part being played by Mrs. +Siddons, with such an extremity of fierceness and terror that ladies and +gentlemen would be carried out of the theatre in hysterics, as in the +days of Byron. Where Hiördis insults her guests, and contrives +the horrid murder of the boy Thorolf before their eyes, we have a +stage-dilemma presented to us-either the actress must treat the scene +inadequately, or else intolerably. _Ne pueros coram populo Medea +trucidet_, and we shrink from Hiördis with a physical disgust. Her great +hands and shrieking mouth are like Bellona's, and they smell of blood. + +What is true of Hiördis is true in less degree of all the characters +in _The Vikings_. They are "great beautiful half-witted men," as Mr. +Chesterton would say: + + Our sea was dark with dreadful ships + Full of strange spoil and fire, + And hairy men, as strange as sin, + With horrid heads, came wading in + Through the long low sea-mire. + +This is the other side of the picture; this is how Örnulf and his seven +terrible sons must have appeared to Kaare the peasant, and this is how, +to tell the truth, they would in real life appear to us. The persons in +_The Vikings at Helgeland_ are so primitive that they scarcely appeal to +our sense of reality. In spite of all the romantic color that the poet +has lavished upon them, and the majestic sentiments which he has put +into their mouths, we feel that the inhabitants of Helgeland must have +regarded them as those of Surbiton regarded the beings who were shot +down from Mars in Mr. Wells' blood-curdling story. + +_The Vikings at Helgeland_ is a work of extraordinary violence and +agitation. The personages bark at one another like seals and roar like +sea-lions; they "cry for blood, like beasts at night." Örnulf, the aged +father of a grim and speechless clan, is sorely wounded at the beginning +of the play, but it makes no difference to him; no one binds up his arm, +but he talks, fights, travels as before. We may see here foreshadowed +various features of Ibsen's more mannered work. Here is his favorite +conventional tame man, since, among the shouting heroes, Gunnar +whimpers like a Tesman. Here is Ibsen's favorite trick of unrequited +self-sacrifice; it is Sigurd, in Gunnar's armor, who kills the mystical +white bear, but it is Gunnar who reaps the advantage. It is only fair +to say that there is more than this to applaud in _The Vikings at +Helgeland_; it moves on a consistent and high level of austere +romantic beauty. Mr. William Archer, who admires the play more than any +Scandinavian critic has done, justly draws attention to the nobility of +Örnulf's entrance in the third act. Yet, on the whole, I confess myself +unable to be surprised at the severity with which Heiberg judged _The +Vikings_ at its first appearance, a severity which must have wounded +Ibsen to the quick. + +The year 1857 was one of unsettlement in Ibsen's condition. The period +for which he had undertaken to manage the theatre at Bergen had now come +to a close, and he was not anxious to prolong it. He had had enough +of Bergen, to which only one chain now bound him. Those who read the +incidents of a poet's life into the pages of his works may gratify their +tendency by seeing in the discussions between Dagny and Hiördis some +echo of the thoughts which were occupying Ibsen's mind in relation +to the married state. Since his death, the story has been told of his +love-affair with a very young girl, Rikke Holst, who had attracted his +notice by throwing a bunch of wild flowers in his face, and whom he +followed and desired to marry. Her father had rejected the proposal with +indignation. Ibsen had suffered considerably, but this was, after all, +an early and a very fugitive sentiment, which made no deep impression on +his heart, although it seems to have always lingered in his memory. + +There had followed a sentiment much deeper and much more emphatic. A +charming, though fragmentary, set of verses, addressed in January, 1856, +to Miss Susannah Thoresen, show that already for a long while he had +come to regard this girl of twenty as "the young dreaming enigma," the +possible solution of which interested him more than that of any other +living problem. It was more than the conversation of a versifying lover +which made Ibsen speak of Miss Thoresen's "blossoming child-soul" as the +bourne of his ambitions. In his dark way, he was already violently in +love with her. + +The household of her father, Hans Conrad Thoresen, was the most +cultivated in Bergen. He himself, the rector of Holy Cross, was a +bookish, meditative man of no particular initiative, but he had married, +as his third wife, Anna Maria Kragh, a Dane by birth, and for a long +time, with the possible exception of Camilla Collett, Wergeland's +sister, the most active woman of letters in Norway. Mrs. Thoresen was +the step-mother of Susannah, the only child of her husband's second +marriage. Between Magdalene Thoresen and Ibsen a strong friendship had +sprung up, which lasted to the end of their lives, and some of Ibsen's +best letters are those written to his wife's step-mother. She worked +hard for him at the Bergen theatre, translating plays from the French, +and it was during Ibsen's management of the theatre that several of her +own pieces were produced. Her prose stories, in connection with which +her name lives in Norwegian literature, were not yet written; so long as +Ibsen was at her side, her ideas seem to have been concentrated on the +stage. Constant communication with this charming woman only nine years +his senior, and much his superior in conventional culture, must have +been a school of refinement to the crude and powerful young poet. And +now the wise Magdalene appeared to him in a new light, dedicating to +him the best treasure of the family circle, the gay and yet mysterious +Susannah. + +While he was writing _The Vikings at Helgeland_, and courting Susannah +Thoresen, Ibsen received what seemed a timely invitation to settle +in Christiania as director of the Norwegian Theatre; he returned, +thereupon, to the capital in the summer of 1857, after an absence of +six years. Now began another period of six years more, these the most +painful in Ibsen's life, when, as Halvorsen has said, he had to fight +not merely for the existence of himself and his family, but for the very +existence of Norwegian poetry and the Norwegian stage. This struggle was +an excessively distressing one. He had left Bergen crippled with +debts, and his marriage (June 26, 1856) weighed him down with further +responsibilities. The Norwegian Theatre at Christiania was, a secondary +house, ill-supported by its patrons, often tottering at the brink of +bankruptcy, and so primitive was the situation of literature in the +country that to attempt to live by poetry and drama was to court +starvation. His slender salary was seldom paid, and never in full. The +only published volume of Ibsen's which had (up to 1863) sold at all was +_The Warriors_, by which he had made in all 227 specie dollars (or about +£25). + +The Christiania he had come to, however, was not that which he had left. +In many directions it had developed rapidly. From an intellectual point +of view, the labors of the nationalists had made themselves felt; +the folk-lore of Landstad, Moe and Asbjörnsen had impressed young +imaginations. In some of its forms the development was unpleasing and +discouraging to Ibsen; the success of the blank-verse tragedies of +Andreas Munch (_Salomon de Caus_, 1855; _Lord William Russell_, 1857) +was, for instance, an irritating step in the wrong direction. The +new-born school of prose fiction, with Björnson as its head (_Synnöve +Solbakken_, 1857; _Arne_, 1858), with Camilla Collett's _Prefect's +Daughters_, 1855, as its herald; with Östgaard's sketches of peasant +life and humors in the mountains (1852)--all this was a direct menace +to the popularity of the national stage, offering an easy and alluring +alternative for home-loving citizens. Was it certain that the classic +Danish, which alone Ibsen cared to write, would continue to be the +language of the cultivated classes in Norway? Here was Ivar Aasen (in +1853) showing that the irritating landsmaal could be used for prose and +verse. + +Wherever he turned Ibsen saw increased vitality, but in shapes that were +either useless or antagonistic to himself, and all that was harsh and +saturnine in his nature awakened. We see Ibsen, at this moment of his +life, like Shakespeare in his darkest hour, "in disgrace with fortune +and men's eyes," unappreciated and ready to doubt the reality of his own +genius; and murmuring to himself:-- + + Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, + Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, + Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope. + With what I most enjoy contented least. + +How little his greatness was perceived in the Christiania literary +coteries may be gathered from the little fact that the species of +official anthology of _Modern Norwegian Poets_, published in 1859, +though it netted the shallows of national song very closely, contained +not a line by the author of the lovely lyrics in _The Feast at Solhoug_. +It was at this low and miserable moment that Ibsen's talent suddenly +took wings; he conceived, in the summer of 1858, what finally became, +five years later, his first acknowledged masterpiece, and perhaps +the most finished of all his writings, the sculptural tragedy of _The +Pretenders_. + +_The Pretenders_ (_Kongsemnerne_, properly stuff from which Kings can be +made) is the earliest of the plays of Ibsen in which the psychological +interest is predominant, and in which there is no attempt to disguise +the fact. Nothing that has since been written about this drama, the +very perfection of which is baffling to criticism, has improved upon the +impression which Georg Brandes received from it when he first read it +forty years ago. The passage is classic, and deserves to be cited, if +only as perhaps the very earliest instance in which the genius of +Ibsen was rewarded by the analysis of a great critic. Brandes wrote (in +1867):-- + +What is it that The Pretenders treats of? Looked at simply, it is an old +story. We all know the tale of Aladdin and Nureddin, the simple +legend in the Arabian Nights, and our great poet's [Oehlenschläger's] +incomparable poem. In _The Pretenders_ two figures again stand opposed +to one another as the superior and the inferior being, an Aladdin and +a Nureddin nature. It is towards this contrast that Ibsen has hitherto +unconsciously directed his endeavors, just as Nature feels her way in +her blind preliminary attempts to form her types. Håkon and Skule are +pretenders to the same throne, scions of royalty out of whom a king may +be made. But the first is the incarnation of fortune, victory, right and +confidence; the second--the principal figure in the play, masterly in +its truth and originality--is the brooder, a prey to inward struggle and +endless distrust, brave and ambitious, with perhaps every qualification +and claim to be king, but lacking the inexpressible, impalpable somewhat +that would give a value to all the rest--the wonderful Lamp. "I am a +king's arm," he says, "mayhap a king's brain as well; but Håkon is the +whole king." "You have wisdom and courage, and all noble gifts of the +mind," says Håkon to him; "you are born to stand nearest a king, but not +to be a king yourself." + +To a poet the achievements of his greatest contemporaries in their +common art have all the importance of high deeds in statesmanship and +war. It is, therefore, by no means extravagant to see in the noble +emulation of the two dukes in _The Pretenders_ some reflection of +Ibsen's attitude to the youthful and brilliant Björnson. The +luminous self-reliance, the ardor and confidence and good fortune of +Björnson-Håkon could not but offer a violent contrast with the gloom and +hesitation, the sick revulsions of hope and final lack of conviction, +of Ibsen-Skule. It was Björnson's "belt of strength," as it was Håkon's, +that he had utter belief in himself, and with this his rival could not +yet girdle himself. "The luckiest man is the greatest man," says Bishop +Nicholas in the play, and Björnson seemed in these melancholy years as +lucky as Ibsen was unlucky. But the Bishop's views were not wide enough, +and the end was not yet. + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SATIRES (1857-67) + +Temperament and environment combined at the period we have now reached +to turn Ibsen into a satirist. It was during his time of _Sturm und +Drang_, from 1857 to 1864, that the harshest elements in his nature were +awakened, and that he became one who loved to lash the follies of his +age. With the advent of prosperity and recognition this phase melted +away, leaving Ibsen without illusions and without much pity, but no +longer the scourge of his fellow-citizens. Although _The Pretenders_, a +work of dignified and polished aloofness, was not completed until +1863, it really belongs to the earlier and more experimental section +of Ibsen's works, and is so completely the outcome and the apex of +his national studies that it has seemed best to consider it with _The +Vikings at Helgeland_, in spite of its immense advance upon that drama. +But we must now go back a year, and take up an entirely new section +which overlaps the old, namely, that of Ibsen's satires in dramatic +rhyme. + +With regard to the adoption of that form of poetic art, a great +difference existed between Norwegian and English taste, and this must +be borne in mind. Almost exactly at the date when Ibsen was inditing the +sharp couplets of his _Love's Comedy_, Tennyson, in _Sea Dreams_, +was giving voice to the English abandonment of satire--which had been +rampant in the generation of Byron--in the famous words:-- + + I loathe it: he had never kindly heart, + Nor ever cared to better his own kind, + Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. + +What England repudiated, Norway comprehended, and in certain hands +enjoyed. Polemical literature, if seldom of a high class, was abundant +and was much appreciated. The masterpiece of modern Norwegian poetry +was, still, the satiric cycle of Welhaven. In ordinary controversy, the +tone was more scathing, the bludgeon was whirled more violently, than +English taste at that period could endure. Those whom Ibsen designed to +crush had not minced their own words. The press was violence itself, +and was not tempered with justice; when the poet looked round he saw +"afflicted virtue insolently stabbed with all manner of reproaches," as +Dryden said. + +Yet it was not an age of gross and open vices; manners were not +flagitious, they were merely of a nauseous insipidity. Ibsen, flown with +anger as with wine, could find no outrageous offences to lash, and all +he could invite the age to do was to laugh at certain conventions and to +reconsider some prejudicated opinions. He had to be pungent, not openly +ferocious; he had to be sarcastic and to treat the current code +of morals as a jest. He found the society around him excessively +distasteful to him, but there were no crying evils of a political or +ethical kind to be stigmatized. What was open to him was what an old +writer of our own defined as "a sharp, well-mannered way of laughing a +folly out of countenance." + +Unfortunately, the people laughed at will never consent to think the way +well mannered, and Ibsen was bitterly blamed for "want of taste," that +vaguest and most insidious of accusations. We are told that he began his +enterprise in prose [Note: "_Svanhild_: a Comedy in three acts and in +prose: 1860," is understood to exist still in manuscript], but found +that too stiff and bald a medium for a satire on the social crudity of +Norway. In writing satire, it is all-important that the form should +be adequate, and at this time Ibsen had not reached the impeccable +perfection of his later colloquial prose. He started _Love's Comedy_, +therefore, anew, and he wrote it as a pamphlet in rhyme. It is not +certain that he had any very definite idea of the line which his attack +should take. He was very poor, very sore, very uncomfortable, and he was +easily convinced that the times were out of joint. Then he observed that +if there was anything that the Norwegian upper classes prided themselves +upon it was their conduct of betrothal and marriage. Plato had said that +the familiarity of young persons before marriage prevented enmity +and disappointment in later years, that it was useful to know the +peculiarities of temperament beforehand, and so, being accustomed to +them, to discount them. But Ibsen was not of this opinion, or rather, +perhaps, he did not choose to be. The extremely slow and public method +of betrothal in the North gave him his first opportunity. + +It is with a song, in the original one of the most delicious of +his lyrics, that he opens the campaign. To a miscellaneous party of +Philistines circled around the tea table, "all sober and all ----" the +rebellious hero sings:-- + + + In the sunny orchard-closes, + While the warblers sing and swing, + Care not whether blustering Autumn + Break the promises of Spring; + Rose and white the apple-blossom + Hides you from the sultry sky; + Let it flutter, blown and scattered, + On the meadow by and by. + +In the sexual struggle, that is to say, the lovers should not pause to +consider the worldly advantages of their match, but should fly in +secret to each other's arms. By the law of battle, the female should be +snatched to the conqueror's saddle-bow, and ridden away with into +the night, not subjected to the jokes and the good advice and the +impertinent congratulations of the clan. Young Lochinvar does not wait +to ask the counsel of the bride's cousins, nor to run the gantlet of her +aunts; he fords the Esk river with her, where ford there is none. Ibsen +is in favor of the _mariage de convenance_, which suppresses, without +favor, the absurdity of love-matches. Above all, anything is better than +the publicity, the meddling and long-drawn exposure of betrothal, which +kills the fine delicacy of love, as birds are apt to break their own +eggs if intruding hands have touched them. + +This is the central point in _Love's Comedy_, but there is much beside +this in its reckless satire on the "sanctities" of domestic life. The +burden of monogamy is frivolously dealt with, and the impertinent poet +touches with levity upon the question of the duration of marriage: + + With my living, with my singing, + I will tear the hedges down! + Sweep the grass and heap the blossom! + Let it shrivel, pale and blown! + Throw the wicket wide! Sheep, cattle, + Let them browse among the best! + _I_ broke off the flowers; what matter + Who may graze among the rest! + +_Love's Comedy_ is perhaps the most diverting of Ibsen's works; it is +certainly the most impertinent. If there was one class in Norwegian +society which was held to be above criticism it was the clerical. A +prominent character in Ibsen's comedy is the Rev. Mr. Strawman, a gross, +unctuous and uxorious priest, blameless and dull, upon whose inert body +the arrows of satire converge. This was never forgotten and long was +unforgiven. As late as 1866 the Storthing refused a grant to Ibsen +definitely on the ground of the scandal caused by his sarcastic portrait +of Pastor Strawman. But the gentler sex, to which every poet looks for +an audience, was not less deeply outraged by the want of indulgence +which he had shown for all forms of amorous sentiment, although Ibsen +had really, through his satire on the methods of betrothal, risen +to something like a philosophical examination of the essence of love +itself. + +To Brandes, who reproached him for not recording the history of ideal +engagements, and who remarked, "You know, there are sound potatoes and +rotten potatoes in this world," Ibsen cynically replied, "I am afraid +none of the sound ones have come under my notice"; and when Guldstad +proves to the beautiful Svanhild the paramount importance of creature +comforts, the last word of distrust in the sustaining power of love had +been said. The popular impression of Ibsen as an "immoral" writer seems +to be primarily founded on the paradox and fireworks of _Love's Comedy_. + +Much might be forgiven to a man so wretched as Ibsen was in 1862, +and more to a poet so lively, brilliant and audacious in spite of his +misfortunes. These now gathered over his head and threatened to submerge +him altogether. He was perhaps momentarily saved by the publication of +_Terje Vigen_, which enjoyed a solid popularity. This is the principal +and, indeed, almost the only instance in Ibsen's works of what the +Northern critics call "epic," but what we less ambitiously know as the +tale in verse. _Terje Figen_ will never be translated successfully into +English, for it is written, with brilliant lightness and skill, in an +adaptation of the Norwegian ballad-measure which it is impossible to +reproduce with felicity in our language. + +Among Ibsen's writings _Terje Vigen_ is unique as a piece of pure +sentimentality carried right rough without one divagation into irony or +pungency. It is the story of a much-injured and revengeful Norse pilot, +who, having the chance to drown his old enemies, Milord and Milady, +saves them at the mute appeal of their blue-eyed English baby. +_Terje Vigen_ is a masterpiece of what we may define as the +"dash-away-a-manly-tear" class of narrative. It is extremely well +written and picturesque, but the wonder is that, of all people in the +world, Ibsen should have written it. + +His short lyric poems of this period betray much more clearly the real +temper of the man. They are filled full and brimming over with longing +and impatience, with painful passion and with hope deferred. It is in +the strident lyrics Ibsen wrote between 1857 and 1863 that we can best +read the record of his mind, and share its exasperations, and wonder +at its elasticity. The series of sonnets _In a Picture Gallery_ is a +strangely violent confession of distrust in his own genius; the _Epistle +to H. O. Blom_ a candid admission of his more than distrust in the +talent and honesty of others. It was the peculiarity and danger of +Ibsen's position that he represented no one but himself. For instance, +the liberty of many of the expressions in _Love's Comedy_ led those +who were beginning a movement in favor of the emancipation of women +to believe that Ibsen was in sympathy with them, but he was not. All +through his life, although his luminous penetration into character led +him to be scrupulously fair in his analysis of female character, he was +never a genuine supporter of the extension of public responsibility to +the sex. A little later (in 1869), when John Stuart Mill's _Subjection +of Women_ produced a sensation in Scandinavia, and met with many +enthusiastic supporters, Ibsen coldly reserved his opinion. He was +always an observer, always a clinical analyst at the bedside of society, +never a prophet, never a propagandist. + +His troubles gathered upon him. Neither theatre consented to act _Love's +Comedy_, and it would not even have been printed but for the zeal of the +young novelist Jonas Lie, who, to his great honor, bought for about +£35 the right to publish it as a supplement to a newspaper that he was +editing. Then the storm broke out; the press was unanimously adverse, +and in private circles abuse amounted almost to a social taboo. In 1862 +the second theatre became bankrupt, and Ibsen was thrown on the world, +the most unpopular man of his day, and crippled with debts. It is true +that he was engaged at the Christiania Theatre at a nominal salary of +about a pound a week, but he could not live on that. In August, 1860, +he had made a pathetic appeal to the Government for a _digter-gage_, +a payment to a poet, such as is freely given to talent in the Northern +countries. Sums were voted to Björnson and Vinje, but to Ibsen not a +penny. By some influence, however, for he was not without friends, +he was granted in March, 1862, a travelling grant of less than £20 +to enable him to wander for two months in western Hardanger and the +districts around the Sognefjord for the purpose of collecting folk-songs +and legends. The results of this journey were prepared for publication, +but never appeared. This interesting excursion, however, has left its +mark stamped broadly upon _Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_. + +All through 1863 his condition was critical. He determined that his only +hope was to exile himself definitely from Norway, which had become too +hot to hold him. Various private friends generously helped him over this +dreadful time of adversity, earning a gratitude which, if it was not +expansive, was lifelong. Very grudging recognition of his gifts was +at length made by the Government in the shape of another trifling +travelling grant (March, 1863), again a handsome sum being awarded to +Björnson, his popular rival. In May Ibsen applied, in despair, to the +King himself, who conferred upon him a small pension of £90 a year, +which for the immediate future stood between this great poet and +starvation. The news of it was received in Christiania by the press in +terms of despicable insult. + +But in June of this _année terrible_ Ibsen had a flash of happiness. +He was invited down to Bergen to the fifth great "Festival of Song," +a national occurrence, and he and his poems met with a warm reception. +Moreover, he found his brilliant antagonist, Björnson, at Bergen on a +like errand, and renewed an old friendship with this warm-hearted and +powerful man of genius, destined to play through life the part of Håkon +to Ibsen's Skule. They spent much of the subsequent winter together. +As Halvdan Koht has excellently said: "Their intercourse brought them +closer to each other than they had ever been before. They felt that they +were inspired by the same ideas and the same hopes, and they suffered +the same bitter disappointments. With anguish they watched the Danish +brother-nation's desperate struggle against the superior power of +Germany, and save a province with a population of Scandinavian race and +speech taken from Denmark and incorporated in a foreign kingdom, +whilst the Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen, in spite of solemn promises, +refrained from yielding any assistance." An attack on Holstein (December +22, 1863) had introduced the Second Danish War, to which a disastrous +and humiliating termination was brought in the following August. + +In April, 1864, Ibsen took the momentous step of quitting his native +country. He entered Copenhagen at the dark hour when Schleswig as well +as Holstein had been abandoned, and when the citadel of Düpper alone +stood between Denmark and ruin. His agonized sympathy may be read in the +indignant lyrics of that spring. A fortnight later he set out, by Lübeck +and Trieste, for Rome, where he had now determined to reside. He reached +that city in due time, and sank with ineffable satisfaction into the +arms of its antique repose. "Here at last," he wrote to Björnson, +"there is blessed peace," and he settled himself down to the close +contemplation of poetry. + +The change from the severities of an interminable Northern winter to +the glow and splendor of Italy acted on the poet's spirit like an +enchantment. Ibsen came, another Pilgrim of Eternity, to Rome's "azure +sky, flowers, ruins, statues, music," and at first the contrast +between the crudity he had left and the glory he had found was almost +intolerable. He could not work; all he did was to lie in the flushed air +and become as a little child. There has scarcely been another example +of a writer of the first class who, deeply solicitous about beauty, but +debarred from all enjoyment of it until his thirty-seventh year, has +been suddenly dipped, as if into a magic fountain, into the heart of +unclouded loveliness without transition or preparation. Shelley and +Keats were dead long before they reached the age at which Ibsen broke +free from his prison-house of ice, while Byron, in the same year of his +life, was closing his romantic career. + +Ibsen's earliest impressions of what these poets had become accustomed +to at a ductile age were contradictory and even incoherent. The passion +of pagan antiquity for a long while bewildered him. He wandered among +the vestiges of antique art, unable to perceive their relation to modern +life, or their original significance. He missed the impress of the +individual on classic sculpture, as he had missed it--the parallel is +strange, but his own--on the Eddaic poems of ancient Iceland. He liked +a lyric or a statue to speak to him of the man who made it. He felt more +at home with Bernini among sculptors and with Bramante among architects +than with artists of a more archaic type. Shelley, we may remember, +labored under a similar heresy; to each of these poets the +attractiveness of individual character overpowered the languid flavor +of the age in which the artist had flourished. Ibsen's admiration of a +certain overpraised monument of Italian architecture would not be worth +recording but for the odd vigor with which he adds that the man who made +that might have made the moon in his leisure moments. + +During the first few months of Ibsen's life in Rome all was chaos in +his mind. He was plunged in stupefaction at the beauties of nature, the +amenities of mankind, the interpenetration of such a life with such an +art as he had never dreamed of and could yet but dimly comprehend. +In September, 1864, he tells Björnson that he is at work on a poem of +considerable length. This must have been the first draft of _Brand_, +which was begun, we know, as a narrative, or as the Northerns call +it, an "epic" poem; although a sketch for the _Julianus Apostata_ was +already forming in the back of his head, as a subject which would, +sooner or later, demand poetic treatment. He had left his wife and +little son in Copenhagen, but at the beginning of October they joined +him in Rome. The family lived on an income which seems almost incredibly +small, a maximum of 40 scudi a month. But it was a different thing to be +hungry in Christiania and in Rome, and Ibsen makes no complaints. A sort +of blessed languor had fallen upon him after all his afflictions. He +would loll through half his days among the tombs on the Via Latina, or +would loiter for hours and hours along the Appian Way. It took him weeks +to summon energy to visit S. Pietro in Vincoli, although he knew that +Michelangelo's "Moses" was there, and though he was weary with longing +to see it. All the tense chords of Ibsen's nature were loosened. His +soul was recovering, through a long and blissful convalescence, from the +aching maladies of its youth. + +He took some part in the society of those Scandinavian writers, painters +and sculptors who gathered in Rome through the years of their distress. +But only one of them attracted him strongly, the young Swedish lyrical +poet, Count Carl Snoilsky, then the hope and already even the glory of +his country. There was some quaint diversity between the rude and +gloomy Norwegian dramatist, already middle-aged, and the full-blooded, +sparkling Swedish diplomatist of twenty-three, rich, flattered, and +already as famous for his fashionable _bonnes fortunes_ as Byron. But +two things Snoilsky and Ibsen had in common, a passionate enthusiasm for +their art, and a rebellious attitude towards their immediate precursors +in it. Each, in his own way, was the leader of a new school. The +friendship of Ibsen and Snoilsky was a permanent condition for the rest +of their lives, for it was founded on a common basis. + +A few years later the writer of these pages received an amusing +impression of Ibsen at this period from the Danish poet, Christian +Molbech, who was also in Rome in 1865 and onwards. Ibsen wandering +silently about the streets, his hands plunged far into the pockets of +his invariable jacket of faded velveteen, Ibsen killing conversation by +his sudden moody appearances at the Scandinavian Club, Ibsen shattering +the ideals of the painters and the enthusiasms of the antiquaries by +a running fire of sarcastic paradox, this is mainly what the somewhat +unsympathetic Molbech was not unwilling to reproduce. He painted a more +agreeable Ibsen when he spoke of his summer flights to the Alban Hills, +planned on terms of the most prudent reference to resources which seemed +ever to be expected and never to arrive. Nevertheless, under the +vines in front of some inn at Genzano or Albano, Ibsen would duly +be discovered, placid and dreamy, always self-sufficient and +self-contained, but not unwilling to exchange, over a flask of thin +wine, commonplaces with a Danish friend. It was at Ariccia, in one of +these periods of _villegiatura_, during the summer and autumn of 1865, +that _Brand_, which had long been under considerature, suddenly took +final shape, and was written throughout, without pause or hesitation. In +July the poet put everything else aside to begin it, and before the end +of September he had completed it. + +_Brand_ placed Ibsen at a bound among the greatest European poets of his +age. The advance over the sculptural perfection of _The Pretenders_ and +the graceful wit of _Love's Comedy_ was so great as to be startling. +Nothing but the veil of a foreign language, which the best translations +are powerless to tear away from noble verse, prevented this mastery from +being perceived at once. In Scandinavia, where that veil did not exist, +for those who had eyes to see, and who were not blinded by prejudice, +it was plain that a very great writer had arisen in Norway at last. +Björnson had seemed to slip ahead of Ibsen; his _Sigurd Slembe_ (1862) +was a riper work than the elder friend had produced; but _Mary Stuart in +Scotland_ (1864) had marked a step backward, and now Ibsen had once +more shot far ahead of his rival. When we have admitted some want of +clearness in the symbolism which runs through _Brand_, and some +shifting of the point of view in the two last acts, an incoherency and +a turbidity which are natural in the treatment of so colossal a theme, +there is very little but praise to be given to a poem which is as +manifold in its emotion and as melodious in its versification as it +is surprising in its unchallenged originality. In the literatures of +Scandinavia it has not merely been unsurpassed, but in its own peculiar +province it has not been approached. It bears some remote likeness +to _Faust_, but with that exception there is perhaps nothing in the +literature of the world which can be likened to _Brand_, except, of +course, _Peer Gynt_. + +For a long while it was supposed that the difficulties in the way of +performing _Brand_ on the public stage were too great to be overcome. +But the task was attempted at length, first in Stockholm in 1895; and +within the last few years this majestic spectacle has been drawn in full +before the eyes of enraptured audiences in Copenhagen, Berlin, Moscow +and elsewhere. In spite of the timid reluctance of managers, wherever +this play is adequately presented, it captures an emotional public at a +run. It is an appeal against moral apathy which arouses the languid. It +is a clear and full embodiment of the gospel of energy which awakens and +upbraids the weak. In the original, its rush of rhymes produces on the +nerves an almost delirious excitement. If it is taken as an oration, it +is responded to as a great civic appeal; if as a sermon, it is sternly +religious, and fills the heart with tears. In the solemn mountain air, +with vague bells ringing high up among the glaciers, no one asks exactly +what _Brand_ expounds, nor whether it is perfectly coherent. Witnessed +on the living stage, it takes the citadel of the soul by storm. When it +is read, the critical judgment becomes cooler. + +Carefully examined, _Brand_ is found to present a disconcerting mixture +of realism and mysticism. Two men seem at work in the writing of it, and +their effects are sometimes contradictory. It has constantly been asked, +and it was asked at one, "Is _Brand_ the expression of Ibsen's own +nature?" Yes, and no. He threw much of himself into his hero, and yet +he was careful to remain outside. Ibsen, as we have already pointed out, +was ready in later life to discuss his own writings, and what he said +about them is often dangerously mystifying. He told Georg Brandes that +the religious vocation of Brand was not essential. "I could have applied +the whole syllogism just as well to a sculptor, or a politician, as to +a priest." (He was to deal with each of these alternations later on, but +with what a difference!) "I could quite as well," he persisted, "have +worked out the impulse which drove me to write, by taking Galileo, for +instance, as my hero--assuming, of course, that Galileo should stand +firm and never concede the fixity of the earth--or you yourself in your +struggle with the Danish reactionaries." This is not to the point, since +in fact neither Georg Brandes nor Galileo, as hero of a mystical drama, +could have produced such a capacity for evolution as is presented by the +stern priest whose absolute certitude, although founded, one admits, on +no rational theory of theology, is yet of the very essence of religion. + +Brand becomes intelligible when we regard him as a character of the +twelfth century transferred to the nineteenth. He has something of Peter +the Hermit in him. He ought to have been a crusading Christian king, +fighting against the Moslem for the liberties of some sparkling city of +God. He exists in his personage, under the precipice, above the fjord, +like a rude mediaeval anchorite, who eats his locusts and wild honey in +the desert. We cannot comprehend the action of Brand by any reference +to accepted creeds and codes, because he is so remote from the religious +conventions as hardly to seem objectively pious at all. He is violent +and incoherent; he knows not clearly what it is he wants, but it must +be an upheaval of all that exists, and it must bring Man into closer +contact with God. Brand is a king of souls, but his royal dignity is +marred, and is brought sometimes within an inch of the ridiculous, by +the prosaic nature of his modern surroundings. He is harsh and cruel; he +is liable to fits of anger before which the whole world trembles; and it +is by an avalanche, brought down upon him by his own wrath, that he is +finally buried in the ruins of the Ice-Church. + +The judicious reader may like to compare the character of Brand with +that extraordinary study of violence, the _Abbé Jules_ of Octave +Mirbeau. In each we have the history of revolt, in a succession of +crises, against an invincible vocation. In each an element of weakness +is the pride of a peasant priest. But in Ibsen there is fully developed +what the cynicism of Octave Mirbeau avoids, a genuine conception of +such a rebel's ceaseless effort after personal holiness. Lammers +or Lammenais, what can it matter whether some existing priest of +insurrection did or did not set Ibsen for a moment on the track of +his colossal imagination? We may leave these discussions to the +commentators; _Brand_ is one of the great poems of the world, and +endless generations of critics will investigate its purpose and analyze +its forms. + +There is, however, another than the priestly side. The poem contains a +great deal of superficial and rather ephemeral satire of contemporary +Scandinavian life, echoes of a frightened Storthing in Christiania, of a +crafty court in Stockholm, and of Denmark stretching her bleeding hands +to her sisters in an agony of despair. There is the still slighter local +strain of irony, which lightens the middle of the third act. Here Ibsen +comes not to heal but to slay; he exposes the corpse of an exhausted +age, and will bury it quickly, with sexton's songs and peals of elfin +laughter, in some chasm of rock above a waterfall. "It is Will alone +that matters," and for the weak of purpose there is nothing but ridicule +and six feet of such waste earth as nature carelessly can spare from her +rude store of graves. Against the mountain landscape, Brand holds up his +motto "All or Nothing," persistently, almost tiresomely, like a +modern advertising agent affronting the scenery with his panacea. +More truculently still, he insists upon the worship of a deity, not +white-bearded, but as young as Hercules, a scandal to prudent Lutheran +theologians, a prototype of violent strength. + +Yet Brand's own mission remains undefined to him--if it ever takes exact +shape--until Agnes reveals it to him:-- + + Choose thy endless loss or gain! + Do thy work and bear thy pain.... + Now (he answers) I see my way aright. + In _ourselves_ is that young Earth, + Ripe for the divine new-birth. + +And it is in Agnes--as the marvellous fourth act opens where her love +for the little dear dead child is revealed, and where her patience +endures all the cruelties of her husband's fanaticism--it is in Agnes +that Ibsen's genius for the first time utters the clear, unembittered +note of full humanity. He has ceased now to be parochial; he is a +nursling of the World and Time. If the harsh Priest be, in a measure, +Ibsen as Norway made him, Agnes and Einar, and perhaps Gerd also, are +the delicate offspring of Italy. + +Considerable postponements delayed the publication of _Brand_, which +saw the light at length, in Copenhagen, in March, 1866. It was at once +welcomed by the Danish press, which had hitherto known little of Ibsen, +and the poet's audience was thus very considerably widened. The satire +of the poem awakened an eager polemic; the popular priest Wexels +preached against its tendency. A novel was published, called _The +Daughters of Brand_, in which the results of its teaching were analyzed. +Ibsen enjoyed, what he had never experienced before, the light and +shade of a disputed but durable popular success. Four large editions of +_Brand_ were exhausted within the year of its publication, and it took +its place, of course, in more leisurely progress, among the few books +which continued, and still continue, steadily to sell. It has always +been, in the countries of Scandinavia, the best known and the most +popular of all Ibsen's writings. + +This success, however, was largely one of sentiment, not of pecuniary +fortune. The total income from four editions of a poem like _Brand_, in +the conditions of Northern literary life forty years ago, would not much +exceed £100. Hardly had Ibsen become the object of universal discussion +than he found himself assailed, as never before, by the paralysis of +poverty. He could not breathe, he could not move; he could not afford to +buy postage stamps to stick upon his business letters. He was threatened +with the absolute extinction of his resources. At the very time when +Copenhagen was ringing with his praise Ibsen was borrowing money for his +modest food and rent from the Danish Consul in Rome. + +In the winter of 1865 he fell into a highly nervous condition, in the +midst of which he was assailed by a malarious fever which brought him +within sight of the grave. To the agony of his devoted wife, he lay for +some time between life and death, and the extreme poverty from which +they suffered made it difficult, and even impossible, for her to +provide for him the alleviations which his state demanded. He gradually +recovered, however, thanks to his wife's care and to his own magnificent +constitution, but the springs of courage seemed to have snapped within +his breast. + +In March, 1866, worn out with illness, poverty and suspense, he wrote a +letter to Björnson, "my one and only friend," which is one of the most +heart-rending documents in the history of literature. Few great spirits +have been nearer the extinction of despair than Ibsen was, now in his +thirty-ninth year. His admirers, at their wits' end to know what to +advise, urged him to write directly to Carl, King of Sweden and Norway, +describing his condition, and asking for support. Simultaneously came +the manifest success of _Brand_, and, for the first time, the Norwegian +press recognized the poet's merit. There was a general movement in his +favor; King Carl graciously received his petition of April 15, and +on May 10 the Storthing, almost unanimously, voted Ibsen a "poet's +pension," restricted in amount but sufficient for his modest needs. + +The first use he made of his freedom was to move out of Rome, where he +found it impossible to write, and to settle at Frascati among the hills. +He hired a nest of cheap rooms in the Palazzo Gratiosi, two thousand +feet above the sea. Thither he came, with his wife and his little son, +and there he fitted himself up a study; setting his writing table at a +window that overlooked an immensity of country, and Mont Soracté closing +the horizon with its fiery pyramid. In his correspondence of this time +there are suddenly noticeable a gayety and an insouciance which are +elements wholly new in his letters. The dreadful burden was lifted; the +dreadful fear of sinking in a sea of troubles and being lost for ever, +the fear which animates his painful letter to King Carl, was blown away +like a cloud and the heaven of his temper was serene. At Frascati he +knew not what to be at; he tried that subject, and this, waiting for the +heavenly spark to fall. It seems to have been at Tusculum, and in the +autumn of 1866, that the subject he was looking for descended upon him. +He hurried back to Rome, and putting all other schemes aside, he devoted +himself heart and soul to the composition of _Peer Gynt_, which he +described as to be "a long dramatic poem, having as its chief figure one +of the half-mythical and fantastical personages from the peasant life of +_modern_ Norway." + +He wrote this work slowly, more slowly than was his wont, and it was +a whole year on the stocks. It was in the summer that Ibsen habitually +composed with the greatest ease, and _Peer Gynt_ did not trove smoothly +until the poet settled in the Villa Pisani, at Casamicciola, on the +island of Ischia. His own account was: "After _Brand_ came _Peer Gynt_, +as though of itself. It was written in Southern Italy, in Ischia and at +Sorrento. So far away from one's readers one becomes reckless. This poem +contains much that has its origin in the circumstances of my own youth. +My own mother--with the necessary exaggeration--served as the model for +Ase." _Peer Gynt_ was finished before Ibsen left Sorrento at the end of +the autumn, and the MS. was immediately posted to Copenhagen. None +of the delays which had interfered with the appearance of _Brand_ now +afflicted the temper of the poet, and _Peer Gynt_ was published in +November, 1867. + +In spite of the plain speaking of Ibsen himself, who declared that _Peer +Gynt_ was diametrically opposed in spirit to _Brand_, and that it made +no direct attack upon social questions, the critics of the later +poem have too often persisted in darkening it with their educational +pedantries. Ibsen did well to be angry with his commentators. "They have +discovered," he said, "much more satire in _Peer Gynt_ than was intended +by me. Why can they not read the book as a poem? For as such I +wrote it." It has been, however, the misfortune of Ibsen that he has +particularly attracted the attention of those who prefer to see anything +in a poem except its poetry, and who treat all tulips and roses as +if they were cabbages for the pot of didactic morality. Yet it is +surprising that after all that the author said, and with the lovely +poem shaking the bauble of its fool's cap at them, there can still be +commentators who see nothing in _Peer Gynt_ but the "awful interest +of the universal problems with which it deals." This obsession of the +critic to discover "problems" in the works of Ibsen has been one of the +main causes of that impatience and even downright injustice with which +his writings have been received by a large section of those readers who +should naturally have enjoyed them. He is a poet, of fantastic wit and +often reckless imagination, and he has been travestied in a long +black coat and white choker, as though he were an embodiment of the +Nonconformist conscience. + +Casting aside, therefore, the spurious "lessons" and supposititious +"problems" of this merry and mundane drama, we may recognize among +its irregularities and audacities two main qualities of merit. Above +everything else which we see in _Peer Gynt_ we see its fun and its +picturesqueness. Written at different times and in different moods, +there is an incoherency in its construction which its most whole-hearted +admirers cannot explain away. The first act is an inimitable burst of +lyrical high spirits, tottering on the verge of absurdity, carried +along its hilarious career with no less peril and with no less brilliant +success than Peer fables for himself and the reindeer in their ride +along the vertiginous blade of the Gjende. In the second act, satire and +fantasy become absolutely unbridled; the poet's genius sings and dances +under him, like a strong ship in a storm, but the vessel is rudderless +and the pilot an emphatic libertine. The wild impertinence of fancy, in +this act, from the moment when Peer and the Girl in the Green Gown +ride off upon the porker, down to the fight with the Böig, gigantic +gelatinous symbol of self deception, exceeds in recklessness anything +else written since the second part of _Faust_. The third act, +culminating with the drive to Soria Moria Castle and the death of Ase, +is of the very quintessence of poetry, and puts Ibsen in the first rank +of creators. In the fourth act, the introduction of which is abrupt and +grotesque, we pass to a totally different and, I think, a lower order of +imagination. The fifth act, an amalgam of what is worst and best in the +poem, often seems divided from it in tone, style and direction, and is +more like a symbolic or mythical gloss upon the first three acts than a +contribution to the growth of the general story. + +Throughout this tangled and variegated scene the spirits of the author +remain almost preposterously high. If it were all hilarity and sardonic +laughter, we should weary of the strain. But physical beauty of the most +enchanting order is liberally provided to temper the excess of irony. +It is, I think, no exaggeration to say that nowhere to the dramatic +literature of the world, not by Shakespeare himself, is there introduced +into a play so much loveliness of scenery, and such varied and exquisite +appeal to the eyes, as there is in _Peer Gynt_. The fifth act contains +much which the reader can hardly enjoy, but it opens with a scene so +full of the glory of the mountains and the sea that I know nothing else +in drama to compare with it. This again is followed by one of the finest +shipwrecks in all poetry. Scene after scene, the first act portrays the +cold and solemn beauty of Norwegian scenery as no painter's brush has +contrived to do it. For the woodland background of the Saeter Girls +there is no parallel in plastic art but the most classic of Norwegian +paintings, Dahl's "Birch in a Snow Storm." Pages might be filled with +praise of the picturesqueness of tableau after tableau in each act of +_Peer Gynt_. + +The hero is the apotheosis of selfish vanity, and he is presented to us, +somewhat indecisively, as the type of one who sets at defiance his own +life's design. But is Peer Gynt designed to be a useful, a good, or even +a successful man? Certainly Ibsen had not discovered it when he wrote +the first act, in which scarcely anything is observable except a study, +full of merriment and sarcasm, of the sly, lazy and parasitical class +of peasant rogue. This type was not of Ibsen's invention; he found it in +those rustic tales, inimitably resumed by Asbjörnson and Moe, in which +he shows us that his memory was steeped. Here, too, he found the Böig, +a monster of Norse superstition, vast and cold, slippery and invisible, +capable of infinite contraction and expansion. The conception that +this horror would stand in symbol for a certain development of selfish +national instability seems to have seized him later, and _Peer Gynt_, +which began as a farce, continued as a fable. The nearest approach to +a justification of the moral or "problem" purpose, which Ibsen's graver +prophets attribute to him, is found in the sixth scene of the fifth act, +where, quite in the manner of Goethe, thoughts and watchwords and songs +and tears take corporeal form and assail the aged _Peer Gynt_ with their +reproaches. + +_Peer Gynt_ was received in the North with some critical bewilderment, +and it has never been so great a favorite with the general public as +_Brand_. But Ibsen, with triumphant arrogance, when he was told that it +did not conform to the rules of poetic art, asserted that the rules must +be altered, not _Peer Gynt_. "My book," he wrote, "_is_ poetry; and if +it is not, then it shall be. The Norwegian conception of what poetry +is shall be made to fit my book." There was a struggle at first against +this assumption, but the drama has become a classic, and it is now +generally allowed, that so long as poetry is a term wide enough to +include _The Clouds_ and the Second Part of _Faust_, it must be made +wide enough to take in a poem as unique as they are in its majestic +intellectual caprices. + +[Note.--By far the most exhaustive analysis of _Peer Gynt_ which has +hitherto been given to the world is that published, as I send these +pages to the press, by the executors of Otto Weininger, in his +posthumous _Ueber die letzte Dinge_ (1907). This extraordinary young +man, who shot himself on October 4, 1903, in the house at Vienna where +Beethoven died, was only twenty-three years of age when he violently +deprived philosophical literature in Europe of by far its most promising +and remarkable recruit. If I confess myself unable to see in _Peer Gynt_ +all that Weininger saw in it, the fault is doubtless mine. But in +Ibsen, unquestionably, time will _create_ profundities, as it has in +Shakespeare. The greatest works grow in importance, as trees do after +the death of the mortal men who planted them.] + +CHAPTER V + +1868-75 + +Ibsen's four years in Italy were years of rest, of solitude, of calm. +The attitude of Ibsen to Italy was totally distinct from that of other +illustrious exiles of his day and generation. The line of pilgrims from +Stendhal and Lamartine down to Ruskin and the Brownings had brought +with them a personal interest in Italian affairs; Italian servitude had +roused some of them to anger or irony; they had spent nights of insomnia +dreaming of Italian liberty. _Casa Guidi Windows_ may be taken as the +extreme type of the way in which Italy did not impress Ibsen. He sought +there, and found, under the transparent azure of the Alban sky, in the +harmonious murmurs of the sea, in the violet shadows of the mountains, +above all in the gray streets of Rome, that rest of the brain, that +ripening of the spiritual faculties, which he needed most after his +rough and prolonged adolescence in Norway. In his attitude of passive +appreciation he was, perhaps, more like Landor than like any other of +the illustrious exiles--Landor, who died in Florence a few days after +Ibsen settled in Rome. There was a side of character, too, on which the +young Norwegian resembled that fighting man of genius. + +When, therefore, on September 8, 1867, Garibaldi, at Genoa, announced +his intention of marching upon Rome, an echo woke in many a poet's +heart "by rose hung river and light-foot rill," but left Ibsen simply +disconcerted. If Rome was to be freed from Papal slavery, it would no +longer be the somnolent and unupbraiding haunt of quietness which +the Norwegian desired for the healing of his spleen and his moral +hypochondria. In October the heralds of liberty crossed the Papal +frontier; on the 30th, by a slightly prosaic touch, it was the French +who entered Rome. Of Ibsen, in these last months of his disturbed +sojourn--for he soon determined that if there was going to be civil +war in Italy that country was no home for him--we hear but little. This +autumn, however, we find him increasingly observant of the career of +Georg Brandes, the brilliant and revolutionary Danish critic, in whom +he was later on to find his first great interpreter. And we notice +the beginnings of a difference with Björnson, lamentable and hardly +explicable, starting, it would vaguely seem, out of a sense that +Björnson did not appreciate the poetry of _Peer Gynt_ at its due value. +Clemens Petersen, who, since the decease of Heiberg, had been looked +upon as the _doyen_ of Danish critics--had pronounced against the poetry +of _Peer Gynt_, and Ibsen, in one of his worst moods, in a bearish +letter, had thrown the blame of this judgment upon Björnson. + +All through these last months in Rome we find Ibsen in the worst of +humors. If it be admissible to compare him with an animal, he seems the +badger among the writers of his time, nocturnal, inoffensive, solitary, +but at the rumor of disturbance apt to rush out of its burrow and bite +with terrific ferocity. The bite of Ibsen was no joke, and in moments +of exasperation he bit, without selection, friend and foe alike. Among +other snaps of the pen, he told Björnson that if he was not taken +seriously as a poet, he should try his "fate as a photographer." +Björnson, genially and wittily, took this up at once, and begged him to +put his photography into the form of a comedy. But the devil, as Ibsen +himself said, was throwing his shadow between the friends, and all +the benefits and all the affection of the old dark days were rapidly +forgotten. They quarrelled, too, rather absurdly, about decorations +from kings and ministers; Björnson having determined to reject all such +gewgaws, Ibsen announced his intention of accepting (and wearing) every +cross and star that was offered to him. At this date, no doubt, the +temptation was wholly problematical in both cases, yet each poet acted +on his determination to the end. But Björnson's hint about the comedy +seems to have been, for some years, the last flicker of friendship +between the two. On this Ibsen presently acted in a manner very +offensive to Björnson. + +In March, 1868, Ibsen was beginning to be very much indeed incensed +with things in general. "What Norway wants is a national disaster," he +amiably snarled. It was high time that the badger should seek shelter in +a new burrow, and in May we find him finally quitting Rome. There was a +farewell banquet, at which Julius Lange, who was present, remarks that +Ibsen showed a spice of the devil, but "was very witty and amiable." He +went to Florence for June, then quitted Italy altogether, settling for +three months at Berchtesgaden, the romantic little "sunbath" in the +Salzburg Alps, then still very quiet and unfashionable. There he started +his five-act comedy, _The League of Youth_. All September he spent in +Munich, and in October, 1868, took root once more, this time at Dresden, +which became his home for a considerable number of years. Almost at once +he sank down again into his brooding mood of isolation and quietism, +roaming about the streets of Dresden, as he hail haunted those of Rome, +by night or at unfrequented hours, very solitary, seeing few visitors, +writing few letters, slowly finishing his "photographic" comedy, which +he did not get off his hands until March, 1869. Although he was still +very poor, he refused all solicitations from editors to write for +journals or magazines; he preferred to appear before the public at long +intervals, with finished works of importance. + +It is impossible for a critic who is not a Norwegian, or not closely +instructed in the politics and manners of the North, to take much +interest in _The League of Youth_, which is the most provincial of all +Ibsen's mature works. There is a cant phrase minted in the course of +it, _de lokale forhold_, which we may awkwardly translate as "the local +conditions" or "situation." The play is all concerned with _de lokale +forhold_, and there is an overwhelming air of Little Pedlington about +the intrigue. This does not prevent _The League of Youth_ from being, +as Mr. Archer has said, "the first prose comedy of any importance in +Norwegian literature," [Note: It is to be supposed that Mr. Archer +deliberately prefers _The League of Youth_ to Björnson's _The Newly +Married Couple_ (1865), a slighter, but, as it seems to me, a more +amusing comedy.] but it excludes it from the larger European view. Oddly +enough, Ibsen believed, or pretended to believe, that _The League of +Youth_ was a "placable" piece of foolery, which could give no annoyance +to the worst of offenders by its innocent and indulgent banter. Perhaps, +like many strenuous writers, he underestimated the violence of his own +language; perhaps, living so long at a distance from Norway and catching +but faintly the reverberations of its political turmoil, he did not +realize how sensitive the native patriot must be to any chaff of "de +lokale forhold." When he found that the Norwegians were seriously angry, +Ibsen bluntly told them that he had closely studied the ways and the +manners of their "pernicious and lie-steeped clique." He was always +something of a snake in the grass to his poetic victims. + +Mr. Archer, whose criticism of this play is extraordinarily brilliant, +does his best to extenuate the stiffness of it. But to my own ear, as I +read it again after a quarter of a century, there rise the tones of the +stilted, the unsmiling, the essentially provincial and boringly solemn +society of Christiania as it appeared to a certain young pilgrim in +the early seventies, condensing, as it then seemed to do, all the +sensitiveness, the arrogance, the crudity which made communication with +the excellent and hospitable Norwegians of that past epoch so difficult +for an outsider--so difficult, in particular, for one coming freshly +from the grace and sweetness, the delicate, cultivated warmth of +Copenhagen. The political conditions which led to the writing of _The +League of Youth_ are old history now. There was the "liberal" element in +Norwegian politics, which was in 1868 becoming rapidly stronger and more +hampering to the Government, and there was the increasing influence of +Sören Jaabaek (1814-94), a peasant farmer of ultra-socialistic views, +who had, almost alone, opposed in the Storthing the grant of any +pensions to poets, and whose name was an abomination to Ibsen. + +Now Björnson, in the development of his career as a political publicist, +had been flirting more and more outrageously with these extreme ideas +and this truculent peasant party. He had even burned incense before +Jaabaek, who was the accursed Thing. Ibsen, from the perspective of +Dresden, genuinely believed that Björnson, with his ardor and his energy +and his eloquence, war, becoming a national danger. We have seen that +Björnson had piqued Ibsen's vanity about _Peer Gynt_, and nothing +exasperates a friendship more fatally than public principle grafted on +a private slight. Moreover, the whole nature of Björnson was gregarious, +that of Ibsen solitary; Björnson must always be leading the majority, +Ibsen had scuples of conscience if ten persons agreed with him. They +were doomed to disagreement. Meanwhile, Ibsen burned his ships by +creating the figure of Stensgaard, in _The League of Youth_, a frothy +and mischievous demagogue whose rhetoric irresistibly reminded every +one of Björnson's rolling oratory. What Björnson, not without dignity, +objected to was not so much the personal attack, as that the whole play +attempted "to paint our young party of liberty as a troop of pushing, +phrase-mongering adventurers, whose patriotism lay solely in their +words." Ibsen acknowledged that that was exactly his opinion of them, +and what could follow for such a disjointed friendship but anger and +silence? + +The year 1869, which we now enter, is remarkable in the career of Ibsen +as being that in which he travelled most, and appeared on the surface of +society in the greatest number of capacities. He was enabled to do this +by a considerable increase in his pension. First of all, he was induced +to pay a visit of some months to Stockholm, being seized with a sudden +strong desire to study conditions in Sweden, a country which he had +hitherto professed to dislike. He had a delightful stay of two months, +received from King Carl the order of the Wasa, was feted at banquets, +renewed his acquaintance with Snoilsky, and was treated everywhere with +the highest distinction. Ibsen and Björnson were how beginning to be +recognized as the two great writers of Norway, and their droll balance +as the Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat of letters was already becoming defined. +It was doubtless Björnson's emphatic attacks on Sweden that at this +moment made Ibsen so loving to the Swedes and so beloved. He was in such +clover at Stockholm that he might have lingered on there indefinitely, +if the Khedive had not invited him, in September, to be his guest at +the opening of the Suez Canal. This sudden incursion of an Oriental +potentate into the narrative seems startling until we recollect that +illustrious persons were invited from all countries to this ceremony. +The interesting thing is to see that Ibsen was now so fatuous as to be +naturally so selected; the only other Norwegian guest being Professor J. +D. C. Lieblein, the Egyptologist. + +The poet started for Egypt, by Dresden and Paris, on September 28. +_The League of Youth_ was published on the 29th, and first performed on +October 18; Ibsen, therefore, just missed the scandal and uproar caused +by the play in Norway. In company with eighty-five other people, all +illustrious guests of the Khedive, and under the care of Mariette Bey, +Ibsen made a twenty-four days' expedition up the Nile into Nubia, and +then back to Cairo and Port Said. There, on November 17, in the company +of an empress and several princes of the blood, he saw the Canal +formally opened and graced a grand processional fleet that sailed out +from Port Said towards Ismaila. But on the quay at Port Said Ibsen's +Norwegian mail was handed to him, and letters and newspapers alike were +full of the violent scenes in the course of which _The League of Youth_ +had been hissed down at Christiania. Then and there he sent his defiance +back to Norway in _At Port Saïd_, one of the most pointed and effective +of all his polemical lyrics. A version in literal prose must suffice, +though it does cruel injustice to the venomous melody of the original: + + The dawn of the Eastern Land + Over the haven glittered; + Flags from all corners of the globe + Quivered from the masts. + Voices in music + Bore onward the cantata; + A thousand cannon + Christened the Canal. + + The steamers passed on + By the obelisk. + In the language of my home + Came to me the chatter of news. + The mirror-poem which I had polished + For masculine minxes + Had been smeared at home + By splutterings from penny whistles. + + The poison-fly stung; + It made my memories loathsome. + Stars, be thanked!-- + My home is what is ancient! + We hailed the frigate + From the roof of the river-boat; + I waved my hat + And saluted the flag. + + To the feast, to the feast, + In spite of the fangs of venomous reptiles! + A selected guest + Across the Lakes of Bitterness! + At the close of day + Dreaming, I shall slumber + Where Pharaoh was drowned-- + And when Moses passed over. + +In this mood of defiance, with rage unabated, Ibsen returned home by +Alexandria and Paris, and was in Dresden again in December. + +The year of 1870 drove him out of Dresden, as the French occupation had +driven him out of Rome. It was essential for him to be at rest in the +midst of a quiet and alien population. He was drawn towards Denmark, +partly for the sake of talk with Brandes, who had now become a factor +in his life, partly to arrange about the performance of one of his early +works, and in particular of _The Pretenders_. No definite plan, however, +had been formed, when, in the middle of June, war was declared between +Germany and France; but a fortnight later Ibsen quitted Saxony, +and settled for three months in Copenhagen, where his reception was +charmingly sympathetic. By the beginning of October, after the fall of +Strasburg and the hemming in of Metz, however, it was plain on which +side the fortunes of the war would lie, and Ibsen returned "as from +a rejuvenating bath" of Danish society to a Dresden full of French +prisoners, a Dresden, too, suffering terribly from the paralysis of +trade, and showing a plentiful lack of enthusiasm for Prussia. + +Ibsen turned his back on all such vexatious themes, and set himself to +the collecting and polishing of a series of lyrical poems, the _Digte_ +of 1871, the earliest, and, indeed, the only such collection that he +published. We may recollect that, at the very same moment, with far less +cause to isolate himself from the horrors of war, Théophile Gautier was +giving the last touches to _Emaux et Camées_. In December, 1870, Ibsen +addressed to Fru Limnell, a lady in Stockholm, his "Balloon-Letter," a +Hudibrastic rhymed epistle in nearly 400 lines, containing, with a good +deal that is trivial, some striking symbolical reminiscences of his trip +through Egypt, and some powerful ironic references to the caravan of +German invaders, with its Hathor and its Horus, which was then rushing +to the assault of Paris under the doleful colors of the Prussian flag. +Ibsen's sarcasms are all at the ugliness and prosaic utilitarianism of +the Germans; "Moltke," he says, "has killed the poetry of battles." + +Ibsen was now greatly developing and expanding his views, and forming +a world-policy of his own. The success of German discipline deeply +impressed him, and he thought that the day had probably dawned which +would be fatal to all revolt and "liberal rebellion" for the future. +More than ever he dreaded the revolutionary doctrines of men like +Jaabaek and Björnson, which would lead, he thought, to bloodshed and +national disaster. The very same events were impressing Goldwin Smith at +the very same moment with his famous prophecy that the abolition of all +dynastic and aristocratic institutions was at hand, with "the tranquil +inauguration" of elective industrial governments throughout the world. +So history moves doggedly on, _propheten rechts, propheten links_, a +perfectly impassive _welt-kind_ in the middle of them. In Copenhagen +Ibsen had, after all, missed Brandes, delayed in Rome by a long and +dangerous illness; and all he could do was to exchange letters with this +still unseen but increasingly sympathetic and beloved young friend. To +Brandes Ibsen wrote more freely than to any one else about the great +events which were shaking the face of Europe and occupying so much of +both their thoughts:-- + +The old, illusory France has collapsed [he wrote to Brandes on December +20, 1870, two days after the engagement at Nuits]; and as soon as the +new, real Prussia does the same, we shall be with one bound in a new +age. How ideas will then come tumbling about our ears! And it is high +time they did. Up till now we have been living on nothing but the crumbs +from the revolutionary table of last century, a food out of which all +nutriment has long been chewed. The old terms require to have a new +meaning infused into them. Liberty, equality and fraternity are no +longer the things they were in the days of the late-lamented Guillotine. +This is what the politicians will not understand, and therefore, I hate +them. They want their own special revolutions--revolutions in externals, +in politics and so forth. But all this is mere trifling. What is +all-important is the revolution of the Spirit of Man. + +This revolution, as exemplified by the Commune in Paris, did not satisfy +the anticipations which Ibsen had formed, and Brandes took advantage of +this to tell him that he had not yet studied politics minutely enough +from the scientific standpoint. Ibsen replied that what he did not +possess as knowledge came to him, to a certain degree, as intuition or +instinct. "Let this be as it may, the poet's essential task is to see, +not to reflect. For me in particular there would be danger in too much +reflection." Ibsen seems, at this time, to be in an oscillating frame of +mind, now bent on forming some positive theory of life out of which +his imaginative works shall crystallize, harmoniously explanatory; at +another time, anxious to be unhampered by theories and principles, and +to represent individuals and exceptions exactly as experience presents +them to him. In neither attitude, however, is there discernible any +trace of the moral physician, and this is the central distinction +between Tolstoi and Ibsen, whose methods, at first sight, sometimes +appear so similar. Tolstoi analyzes a morbid condition, but always +with the purpose, if he can, of curing it; Ibsen gives it even closer +clinical attention, but he leaves to others the care of removing a +disease which his business is solely to diagnose. + +The _Poems_, after infinite revision, were published at length, in a +very large edition, on May 3, 1871. One reason why Ibsen was glad to +get this book off his hands was that it enabled him to concentrate his +thoughts on the great drama he had been projecting, at intervals, for +seven years past, the trilogy (as he then planned it) on the story of +Julian the Apostate. At last Brandes came to Dresden (July, 1871) and +found the tenebrous poet plunged in the study of Neander and Strauss, +Gibbon unfortunately being a sealed book to him. All through the +autumn and winter he was kept in a chronic state of irritability by +the intrigues and the menaces of a Norwegian pirate, who threatened to +reprint, for his own profit, Ibsen's early and insufficiently protected +writings. This exacerbated the poet's dislike to his own country, where +the very law courts, he thought, were hostile to him. On this subject +he used language of tiresome over-emphasis. "From Sweden, from Denmark, +from Germany, I hear nothing but what gives me pleasure; it is from +Norway that everything bad comes upon me." It was indicated to would-be +Norwegian visitors that they were not welcome at Dresden. Norwegian +friends, he said, were "a costly luxury" which he was obliged to deny +himself. + +The First Part of _Julian_ was finished on Christmas Day, but it took +over a year more before the entire work, as we now possess it, was +completed. "A Herculean labor," the author called it, when he finally +laid down a weary pen in February, 1873. The year 1872 had been very +quietly spent in unremitting literary labor, tempered by genial visits +from some illustrious Danes of the older generation, as particularly +Hans Christian Andersen and Meyer Aron Goldschmidt, and by more formal +intercourse with a few Germans such as Konrad Maurer and Paul Heyse; all +this time, let us remember, no Norwegians--"by request." The summer was +spent in long rambles over the mountains of Austria, ending up with a +month of deep repose in Berchtesgaden. The next year was like unto this, +except that its roaming, restless summer closed with several months in +Vienna; and on October 17, 1873, _nonum in annum_, after the Horatian +counsel, the prodigious masterpiece, _Emperor and Galilean_, was +published in Copenhagen at last. + +Of all the writings of Ibsen, his huge double drama on the rise and +fall of Julian is the most extensive and the most ambitious. It is not +difficult to understand what it was about the most subtle and the most +speculative of the figures which animate the decline of antiquity +that fascinated the imagination of Ibsen. Successive historians have +celebrated the flexibility of intelligence and firmness of purpose which +were combined in the brain of Julian with a passion for abstract beauty +and an enthusiasm for a restored system of pagan Hellenic worship. +There was an individuality about Julian, an absence of the common purple +convention, of the imperial rhetoric, which strongly commended him +to Ibsen, and in his perverse ascetic revolt against Christianity he +offered a fascinating originality to one who thought the modern +world all out of joint. As a revolutionary, Julian presented ideas of +character which could not but passionately attract the Norwegian poet. +His attitude to his emperor and to his God, sceptical, in each case, +in each case inspired by no vulgar motive but by a species of lofty and +melancholy fatalism, promised a theme of the most entrancing complexity. +But there are curious traces in Ibsen's correspondence of the +difficulty, very strange in his case, which he experienced in forming +a concrete idea of Julian in his own mind. He had been vaguely drawn to +the theme, and when it was too late to recede, he found himself baffled +by the paradoxes which he encountered, and by the contradictions of a +figure seen darkly through a mist of historical detraction. + +He met these difficulties as well as he could, and as a prudent dramatic +poet should, by close and observant study of the document. He endeavored +to reconcile the evident superiority of Julian with the absurd +eccentricities of his private manners and with the futility of his +public acts. He noted all the Apostate's foibles by the side of his +virtues and his magnanimities. He traced without hesitation the course +of that strange insurrection which hurled a coarse fanatic from the +throne, only to place in his room a literary pedant with inked fingers +and populous beard. He accepted everything, from the parasites to the +purple slippers. The dangers of so humble an attendance upon history +were escaped with success in the first instalment of his "world drama." +In the strong and mounting scenes of _Caesar's Apostacy_, the +rapidity with which the incidents succeed one another, their inherent +significance, the innocent splendor of Julian's mind in its first +emancipation from the chains of false faith, combine to produce an +effect of high dramatic beauty. Georg Brandes, whose instinct in such +matters was almost infallible, when he read the First Part shortly +after its composition, entreated Ibsen to give this, as it stood, to the +public, and to let _The Emperor Julian's End_ follow independently. +Had Ibsen consented to do this, _Caesar's Fall_ would certainly take a +higher place among his works than it does at present, when its effect +is somewhat amputated and its meaning threatened with incoherence by the +author's apparent _volteface_ in the Second Part. + +It was a lifelong disappointment to Ibsen that _Emperor and Galilean_, +on which he expended far more consideration and labor than on any other +of his works, was never a favorite either with the public or among the +critics. With the best will in the world, however, it is not easy to +find full enjoyment in this gigantic work, which by some caprice +of style defiant of analysis, lacks the vitality which is usually +characteristic of Ibsen's least production. The speeches put into the +mouths of antique characters are appropriate, but they are seldom vivid; +as Bentley said of the epistles of Julian's own teacher Libanius, "You +feel by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse with some +dreaming pedant, his elbow on his desk." The scheme of Ibsen's drama was +too vast for the very minute and meticulous method he chose to adopt. +What he gives us is an immense canvas, on which he has painted here +and there in miniature. It is a pity that he chose for dramatic +representation so enormous a field. It would have suited his genius far +better to have abandoned any attempt to write a conclusive history, +and have selected some critical moment in the life of Julian. He should +rather have concentrated his energies, independent of the chroniclers, +on the resuscitation of that episode, and in the course of it have +trembled less humbly under the uplifted finger of Ammianus. + +Of _Emperor and Galilean_ Ibsen afterwards said: "It was the first" (but +he might have added "the only") "poem which I have written under the +influence of German ideas." He was aware of the danger of living too +long away from his own order of thought and language. But it was always +difficult for him, once planted in a place, to pull up his roots. A +weariness took possession of him after the publication of his double +drama, and he did practically nothing for four years. This marks a +central joint in the structure of his career, what the architects call +a "channel" in it, adding to the general retrospect of Ibsen's work an +aspect of solidity and resource. During these years he revised some of +his early writings, made a closer study of the arts of sculpture and +painting, and essayed, without satisfaction, a very brief sojourn in +Norway. In the spring of 1875 he definitely moved with his family from +Dresden to Munich. + +The brief visit to Christiania in 1874 proved very unfortunate. Ibsen +was suspicious, the Norwegians of that generation were constitutionally +stiff and reserved; long years among Southern races had accustomed him +to a plenitude in gesture and emphasis. He suffered, all the brief time +he was in Norway, from an intolerable _malaise_. Ten years afterwards, +in writing to Björnson, the discomfort of that experience was still +unallayed. "I have not yet saved nearly enough," he said, "to support +myself and my family in the case of my discontinuing my literary work. +And I should be obliged to discontinue it if I lived in Christiania.... +This simply means that I should not write at all. When, ten years ago, +after an absence of ten years, I sailed up the fjord, I felt a weight +settling down on my breast, a feeling of actual physical oppression. And +this feeling lasted all the time I was at home; I was not myself under +the stare of all those cold, uncomprehending Norwegian eyes at the +windows and in the streets." + +Ibsen had now been more than ten years am exile from Norway, and his +sentiments with regard to his own people were still what they were when, +in July, 1872, he had sent home his _Ode for the Millenary Festival_. +That very striking poem, one of the most solid of Ibsen's lyrical +performances, had opened in the key of unmitigated defiance to popular +opinion at home. It was intended to show Norwegians that they must +alter their attitude towards him, as he would never change his behavior +towards them. "My countrymen," he said:-- + + My countrymen, who filled for me deep bowls + Of wholesome bitter medicine, such as gave + The poet, on the margin of his grave, + Fresh force to fight where broken twilight rolls,-- + My countrymen, who sped me o'er the wave, + An exile, with my griefs for pilgrim-soles, + My fears for burdens, doubts for staff, to roam,-- + From the wide world I send you greeting home. + + I send you thanks for gifts that help and harden, + Thanks for each hour of purifying pain; + Each plant that springs in my poetic garden + Is rooted where your harshness poured its rain; + Each shoot in which it blooms and burgeons forth + It owes to that gray weather from the North; + The sun relaxes, but the fog secures! + My country, thanks! My life's best gifts were yours. + +In spite of these sardonic acknowledgments. Ibsen's fame in Norway, +though still disputed, was now secure. In Denmark and Sweden it was +almost unchallenged, and he was a name, at least, in Germany. In +England, since 1872, he had not been without a prophet. But in Italy, +Russia, France--three countries upon the intelligence of which he was +presently to make a wide and durable impression--he was still quite +unknown. + +Meanwhile, in glancing over the general literature of Europe, we see +his figure, at the threshold of his fiftieth year, taking greater +and greater prominence. He had become, in the sudden exinction of the +illustrious old men of Denmark, the first living writer of the North. He +was to Norway what Valera was to Spain, Carducci to Italy, Swinburne or +Rossetti to England, and Leconte de Lisle to France. These were mainly +lyrical poets, but it must not be forgotten that Ibsen, down at least +till 1871, was prominently illustrious as a writer in metrical form. If, +in the second portion of his career, he resolutely deprived himself +of all indulgence in the ornament of verse, it was a voluntary act of +austerity. It was Charles V at Yuste, wilfully exchanging the crown of +jewels for the coarse brown cowl of St. Jerome. And now, after a year +or two of prayer and fasting, Ibsen began a new intellectual career. +CHAPTER VI + +1875-82 + +While Ibsen was sitting at Munich, in this climacteric stage of his +career, dreaming of wonderful things and doing nothing, there came to +him, in the early months of 1875, two new plays by his chief rival. +These were _The Editor_ and _A Bankruptcy_, in which Björnson suddenly +swooped from his sagas and his romances down into the middle of sordid +modern life. This was his first attempt at that "photography by comedy" +which he had urged on Ibsen in 1868. It is not, I think, recorded +what was Ibsen's comment on these two plays, and particularly on _A +Bankruptcy_, but it is written broadly over the surface of his own next +work. It is obvious that he perceived that Björnson had carried a very +spirited raid into his own particular province, and he was determined to +drive this audacious enemy back by means of greater audacities. + +Not at once, however; for an extraordinary languor seemed to have fallen +upon Ibsen. His isolation from society became extreme; for nearly a year +he gave no sign of life. In September, 1875, indeed, if not earlier, he +was at work on a five-act play, but what this was is unknown. It seems +to have been in the winter of 1876, after an unprecedented period of +inanimation, that he started a new comedy, _The Pillars of Society_, +which was finished in Munich in July, 1877, that summer being unique in +the fact that the Ibsens do not seem to have left town at all. + +Ibsen was now a good deal altered in the exteriors of character. With +his fiftieth year he presents himself as no more the Poet, but the Man +of Business. Molbech told me that at this time the velveteen jacket, +symbol of the dear delays of art, was discarded in favor of a +frock-coat, too tight across the chest. Ibsen was now beginning, rather +shyly, very craftily, to invest money; he even found himself in frequent +straits for ready coin from his acute impatience to set every rix-dollar +breeding. He cast the suspicion of poetry from him, and with his gold +spectacles, his Dundreary whiskers, his broadcloth bosom and his quick +staccato step, he adopted the pose of a gentleman of affairs, very +positive and with no nonsense about him. + +He had long determined on the wilful abandonment of poetic form, and the +famous statement made in a letter to myself (January 15, 1874) must be +quoted, although it is well known, since it contains the clearest of all +the explanations by which Ibsen justified his new departure:-- + +You are of opinion that the drama [_Emperor and Galilean_] ought to have +been written in verse, and that it would have gained by this. Here I +must differ from you. The play is, as you will have observed, conceived +in the most realistic style: the illusion I wished to produce is that of +reality. I wished to produce the impression on the reader that what he +was reading was something that had really happened. If I had employed +verse, I should have counteracted my own intention and prevented +the accomplishment of the task I had set myself. The many ordinary +insignificant characters whom I have intentionally introduced into +the play would have become indistinct, and indistinguishable from one +another, if I had allowed all of them to speak in one and the same +rhythmical measure. We are no longer living in the days of Shakespeare. +Among sculptors there is already talk of painting statues in the natural +colors. Much can be said both for and against this. I have no desire +to see the Venus of Milo painted, but I would rather see the head of a +negro executed in black than in white marble. Speaking generally, +the style must conform to the degree of ideality which pervades the +representation. My new drama is no tragedy in the ancient acceptation; +what I desired to depict were human beings, and therefore I would not +let them talk "the language of the Gods." + +This revolt against dramatic verse was a feature of the epoch. In 1877 +Alphonse Daudet was to write of a comedy, "Mais, hélas! cette pièce est +en vers, et l'ennui s'y promène librement entre les rimes." + +No poet, however, sacrificed so much, or held so rigidly to his +intention of reproducing the exact language of real life, as did Ibsen +in the series of plays which opens with _The Pillars of Society_. This +drama was published in Copenhagen in October, 1877, and was acted almost +immediately in Denmark, Sweden and Norway; it had the good fortune to +be taken up warmly in Germany. What Ibsen's idea was, in the new sort of +realistic drama which he was inventing, was, in fact, perceived at once +by German audiences, although it was not always approved of. He was the +guest of the theatromaniac Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and _The Pillars of +Society_ was played in many parts of Germany. In Scandinavia the book of +the play sold well, and the piece had some success on the boards, but it +did not create anything like so much excitement as the author had hoped +that it would. Danish taste pronounced it "too German." + +For the fact that _The Pillars of Society_, except in Scandinavia and +Germany, did not then, and never has since, taken a permanent hold +upon the theatre, Mr. William Archer gives a reason which cannot be +controverted, namely, that by the time the other foreign publics had +fully awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown +the phase of his development marked by _Pillars of Society_, that the +play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned. It exactly suited +the German public of the eighties; it was exactly on a level with their +theatrical intelligence. But it was above the theatrical intelligence of +the Anglo-American public, and... below that of the French public. This +is of course an exaggeration. What I mean is that there was no possible +reason why the countrymen of Augier and Dumas should take any special +interest in _Pillars of Society_. It was not obviously in advance of +these masters in technical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment +running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of +that period. + +The subject of _The Pillars of Society_ was the hollowness and +rottenness of those supports, and the severe and unornamented prose +which Ibsen now adopted was very favorable to its discussion. He was +accused, however, of having lived so long away from home as to have +fallen out of touch with real Norwegian life, which he studied in the +convex mirror of the newspapers. It is more serious objection to _The +Pillars of Society_ that in it, as little as in _The League of Youth_, +had Ibsen cut himself off from the traditions of the well-made play. +Gloomy and homely as are the earlier acts, Ibsen sees as yet no way +out of the imbroglio but that known to Scribe and the masters of the +"well-made" play. The social hypocrisy of Consul Bernick is condoned by +a sort of death-bed repentance at the close, which is very much of +the usual "bless-ye-my-children" order. The loss of the Indian Girl is +miraculously prevented, and at the end the characters are solemnized and +warned, yet are left essentially none the worse for their alarm. This, +unfortunately, is not the mode in which the sins of scheming people +find them out in real life. But to the historical critic it is +very interesting to see Björnson and Ibsen nearer one another in _A +Bankruptcy_ and _The Pillars of Society_ than they had ever been before. +They now started on a course of eager, though benevolent, rivalry which +was eminently to the advantage of each of them. + +No feature of Ibsen's personal career is more interesting than his +relation to Björnson. Great as the genius of Ibsen was, yet, rating it +as ungrudgingly as possible, we have to admit that Björnson's character +was the more magnetic and more radiant of the two. Ibsen was a citizen +of the world; he belonged, in a very remarkable degree, to the small +class of men whose intelligence lifts them above the narrowness of local +conditions, who belong to civilization at large, not to the system +of one particular nation. He was, in consequence, endowed, almost +automatically, with the instinct of regarding ideas from a central +point; if he was to be limited at all, he might be styled European, +although, perhaps, few Western citizens would have had less difficulty +than he in making themselves comprehended by a Chinese, Japanese or +Indian mind of unusual breadth and cultivation. On the other hand, in +accepting the advantages of this large mental outlook, he was forced to +abandon those of nationality. No one can say that Ibsen was, until near +the end of his life, a good Norwegian, and he failed, by his utterances, +to vibrate the local mind. But Björnson, with less originality, was the +typical patriot in literature, and what he said, and thought, and wrote +was calculated to stir the local conscience to the depths of its being. + +When, therefore, in 1867, Ibsen, who was bound by all natural +obligations and tendencies to remain on the best terms with Björnson, +allowed the old friendship between them to lapse into positive +antagonism, he was following the irresistible evolution of his fate, as +Björnson was following his. It was as inevitable that Ibsen should +grow to his full height in solitude as it was that Björnson should +pine unless he was fed by the dew and sunlight of popular meetings, +torchlight processions of students and passionate appeals to local +sentiment. Trivial causes, such as those which we have chronicled +earlier, might seem to lead up to a division, but that division was +really inherent in the growth of the two men. + +Ibsen, however, was not wholly a gainer at first even in genius, by the +separation. It cut him off from Norway too entirely, and it threw him +into the arms of Germany. There were thirteen years in which Ibsen +and Björnson were nothing to one another, and these were not years of +unmingled mental happiness for either of them. But during this long +period each of these very remarkable men "came into his kingdom," and +when there was no longer any chance that either of there could warp the +nature of the other, fate brought them once more together. + +The reconciliation began, of course, with a gracious movement from +Björnson. At the end of 1880, writing for American readers, Björnson +had the generous candor to say: "I think I have a pretty thorough +acquaintance with the dramatic literature of the world, and I have not +the slightest hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen possesses more +dramatic power than any other play-writer of our day." When we remember +that, in France alone, Augier and Dumas _fils_ and Hugo, Halévy and +Meilhac and Labiche, were all of them alive, the compliment, though a +sound, was a vivid one. Sooner or later, everything that was said about +Ibsen, though it were whispered in Choctaw behind the altar of a Burmese +temple, came round to Ibsen's ears, and this handsome tribute from +the rival produced its effect. And when, shortly afterwards, still in +America, Björnson was nearly killed in a railway accident, Ibsen +broke the long silence by writing to him a most cordial letter of +congratulation. + +The next incident was the publication of _Ghosts_, when Björnson, now +thoroughly roused, stood out almost alone, throwing the vast prestige +of his judgment into the empty scale against the otherwise unanimous +black-balling. Then the reconcilement was full and fraternal, and Ibsen +wrote from Rome (January 24, 1882), with an emotion rare indeed for him: +"The only man in Norway who has frankly, boldly and generously taken +my part is Björnson. It is just like him; he has, in truth, a great, a +kingly soul; and I shall never forget what he has done now." Six months +later, on occasion of Björnson's jubilee, Ibsen telegraphed: "My thanks +for the work done side by side with me in the service of freedom these +twenty-five years." These words wiped away all unhappy memories of the +past; they gave public recognition to the fact that, though the two +great poets had been divided for half a generation by the forces of +circumstance, they had both been fighting at wings of the same army +against the common enemy. + +This, however, takes us for the moment a little too far ahead. After the +publication of _The Pillars of Society_, Ibsen remained quiet for some +time; indeed, from this date we find him adopting the practice which was +to be regular with him henceforth, namely, that of letting his mind +lie fallow for one year after the issue of each of his works, and then +spending another year in the formation of the new play. Munich gradually +became tedious to him, and he justly observed that the pressure of +German surroundings was unfavorable to the healthy evolution of his +genius. In 1878 he went back to Rome, which, although it was no longer +the quiet and aristocratic Rome of Papal days, was still immensely +attractive to his temperament. He was now, in some measure, "a person of +means," and he made the habit of connoisseurship his hobby. He formed +a small collection of pictures, selecting works with, as he believed, +great care. The result could be seen long afterwards by those who +visited him in his final affluence, for they hung round the rooms of the +sumptuous flat in which he spent his old age and in which he died. +His taste, as far as one remembers, was for the Italian masters of the +decline, and whether he selected pictures with a good judgment must be +left for others to decide. Probably he shared with Shelley a fondness +for the Guercinos and the Guido Renis, whom we can now admire only in +defiance of Ruskin. + +In April, 1879, it is understood, a story was told him of an incident in +the Danish courts, the adventure of a young married woman in one of the +small towns of Zealand, which set his thoughts running on a new dramatic +enterprise. He was still curiously irritated by contemplating, in +his mind's eye, the "respectable, estimable narrowmindedness and +worldliness" of social conditions in Norway, where there was no +aristocracy, and where a lower middle-class took the place of a +nobility, with, as he thought, sordid results. But he was no longer +suffering from what he himself had called "the feeling of an insane man +staring at one single, hopelessly black spot." He went to Amalfi for the +summer, and in that delightful spot, so curiously out of keeping with +his present rigidly prosaic mood, he set himself to write what is +probably the most widely famous of all his works, _A Doll's House_. The +day before he started he wrote to me from Rome (in an unpublished +letter of July 4, 1879): "I have been living here with my family since +September last, and most of that time I have been occupied with the idea +of a new dramatic work, which I shall now soon finish, and which will +be published in October. It is a serious drama, really a family drama, +dealing with modern conditions and in particular with the problems which +complicate marriage." This play he finished, lingering at Amalfi, in +September, 1879. It was an engineer's experiment at turning up and +draining a corner of the moral swamp which Norwegian society seemed to +be to his violent and ironic spirit. + +_A Doll's House_ was Ibsen's first unqualified success. Not merely was +it the earliest of his plays which excited universal discussion, but +in its construction and execution it carried out much further than its +immediate precursors Ibsen's new ideal as an unwavering realist. Mr. +Arthur Symons has well said [Note: The _Quarterly Review_ for October, +1906.] that "_A Doll's House_ is the first of Ibsen's plays in which +the puppets have no visible wires." It may even be said that it was the +first modern drama in which no wires had been employed. Not that even +here the execution is perfect, as Ibsen afterwards made it. The arm +of coincidence is terribly shortened, and the early acts, clever and +entertaining as they are, are still far from the inevitability of real +life. But when, in the wonderful last act, Nora issues from her bedroom, +dressed to go out, to Helmer's and the audience's stupefaction, and when +the agitated pair sit down to "have it out," face to face across the +table, then indeed the spectator feels that a new thing has been born in +drama, and, incidentally, that the "well-made play" has suddenly become +as dead as Queen Anne. The grimness, the intensity of life, are amazing +in this final scene, where the old happy ending is completely abandoned +for the first time, and where the paradox of life is presented without +the least shuffling or evasion. + +It was extraordinary how suddenly it was realized that _A Doll's +House_ was a prodigious performance. All Scandinavia rang with Nora's +"declaration of independence." People left the theatre, night after +night, pale with excitement, arguing, quarrelling, challenging. The +inner being had been unveiled for a moment, and new catchwords were +repeated from mouth to mouth. The great statement and reply--"No man +sacrifices his honor, even for one he loves," "Hundreds of thousands of +women have done so!"--roused interminable discussion in countless family +circles. The disputes were at one time so violent as to threaten the +peace of households; a school of imitators at once sprang up to treat +the situation, from slightly different points of view, in novel, poem +and drama. [Note: The reader who desires to obtain further light on the +technical quality of _A Doll's House_ can do no better than refer to Mr. +William Archer's elaborate analysis of it (_Fortnightly Review_, July, +1906.)] + +The universal excitement which Ibsen had vainly hoped would be awakened +by _The Pillars of Society_ came, when he was not expecting it, to greet +_A Doll's House_. Ibsen was stirred by the reception of his latest play +into a mood rather different from that which he expressed at any other +period. As has often been said, he did not pose as a prophet or as a +reformer, but it did occur to him now that he might exercise a strong +moral influence, and in writing to his German translator, Ludwig +Passarge, he said (June 16, 1880): + +Everything that I have written has the closest possible connection +with what I have lived through, even if it has not been my own personal +experience; in every new poem or play I have aimed at my own spiritual +emancipation and purification--for a man shares the responsibility and +the guilt of the society to which he belongs. + +It was in this spirit of unusual gravity that he sat down to the +composition of _Ghosts_. There is little or no record of how he occupied +himself at Munich and Berchtesgaden in 1880, except that in March he +began to sketch, and then abandoned, what afterwards became _The Lady +from the Sea_. In the autumn of that year, indulging once more his +curious restlessness, he took all his household gods and goods again to +Rome. His thoughts turned away from dramatic art for a moment, and he +planned an autobiography, which was to deal with the gradual development +of his mind, and to be called _From Skien to Rome_. Whether he actually +wrote any of this seems uncertain; that he should have planned it shows +a certain sense of maturity, a suspicion that, now in his fifty-third +year, he might be nearly at the end of his resources. As a matter of +fact, he was just entering upon a new inheritance. In the summer of 1881 +he went, as usual now, to Sorrento, and there [Note: So the authorities +state: but in an unpublished letter to myself, dated Rome, November +26, 1880, I find Ibsen saying, "Just now I am beginning to exercise my +thoughts over a new drama; I hope I shall finish it in the course of +next summer." It seems to have been already his habit to meditate long +about a subject before it took any definite literary form in his mind.] +the plot of _Ghosts_ revealed itself to him. This work was composed with +more than Ibsen's customary care, and was published at the beginning of +December, in an edition of ten thousand copies. + +Before the end of 1881 Ibsen was aware of the terrific turmoil which +_Ghosts_ had begun to occasion. He wrote to Passarge: "My new play has +now appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian +press. Every day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or +praising it. I consider it absolutely impossible that any German theatre +will accept the play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to +play it in any Scandinavian country for some time to come." It was, in +fact, not acted publicly anywhere until 1883, when the Swedes ventured +to try it, and the Germans followed in 1887. The Danes resisted it much +longer. + +Ibsen declared that he was quite prepared for the hubbub; he would +doubtless have been much disappointed if it had not taken place; +nevertheless, he was disconcerted at the volume and the violence of +the attacks. Yet he must have known that in the existing condition of +society, and the limited range of what was then thought a defensible +criticism of that condition, _Ghosts_ must cause a virulent +scandal. There has been, especially in Germany, a great deal of +medico-philosophical exposure of the under-side of life since 1880. It +is hardly possible that, there, or in any really civilized country, an +analysis of the causes of what is, after all, one of the simplest and +most conventional forms of hereditary disease could again excite such +a startling revulsion of feeling. Krafft-Ebing and a crew of +investigators, Strindberg, Brieux, Hauptmann, and a score of probing +playwrights all over the Continent, have gone further and often fared +much worse than Ibsen did when he dived into the family history of +Kammerherre Alving. When we read _Ghosts_ to-day we cannot recapture the +"new shudder" which it gave us a quarter of a century ago. Yet it must +not be forgotten that the publication of it, in that hide-bound time, +was an act of extraordinary courage. Georg Brandes, always clearsighted, +was alone in being able to perceive at once that _Ghosts_ was no attack +on society, but an effort to place the responsibilities of men and women +on a wholesomer and surer footing, by direct reference to the relation +of both to the child. + +When the same eminent critic, however, went on to say that _Ghosts_ was +"a poetic treatment of the question of heredity," it was more difficult +to follow him. Now that the flash and shock of the playwright's audacity +are discounted, it is natural to ask ourselves whether, as a work of +pure art, _Ghosts_ stands high among Ibsen's writings. I confess, for my +own part, that it seems to me deprived of "poetic" treatment, that is +to say, of grace, charm and suppleness, to an almost fatal extent. It +is extremely original, extremely vivid and stimulating, but, so far as +a foreigner may judge, the dialogue seems stilted and uniform, the +characters, with certain obvious exceptions, rather types than persons. +In the old fighting days it was necessary to praise _Ghosts_ with +extravagance, because the vituperation of the enemy was so stupid and +offensive, but now that there are no serious adversaries left, cooler +judgment admits--not one word that the idiot-adversary said, but--that +there are more convincing plays than _Ghosts_ in Ibsen's repertory. + +Up to this time, Ibsen had been looked upon as the mainstay of the +Conservative party in Norway, in opposition to Björnson, who led the +Radicals. But the author of _Ghosts_, who was accused of disseminating +anarchism and nihilism, was now smartly drummed out of the Tory camp +without being welcomed among the Liberals. Each party was eager to +disown him. He was like Coriolanus, when he was deserted by nobles and +people alike, and + +suffer'd by the voice of slaves to be Whoop'd out of Rome. + +The situation gave Ibsen occasion, from the perspective of his exile, to +form some impressions of political life which were at once pungent and +dignified: + +"I am more and more confirmed" [he said, Jan, 3, 1882] "in my belief +that there is something demoralizing in politics and parties. I, at any +rate, shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its +side. Björnson says, 'The majority is always right'; and as a practical +politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, of +necessity say, 'The minority is always right.'" + +In order to place this view clearly before his countrymen, he set about +composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most +successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward +in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with +preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, which he spent at +what was now to be for many years his favorite summer resort, Gossensass +in the Tyrol, a place which is consecrated to the memory of Ibsen in the +way that Pornic belongs to Robert Browning and the Bel Alp to Tyndall, +holiday homes in foreign countries, dedicated to blissful work without +disturbance. Here, at a spot now officially named the "Ibsenplatz," he +composed _The Enemy of the People_, engrossed in his invention as was +his wont, reading nothing and thinking of nothing but of the persons +whose history he was weaving. Oddly enough, he thought that this, +too, was to be a "placable" play, written to amuse and stimulate, but +calculated to wound nobody's feelings. The fact was that Ibsen, like +some ocelot or panther of the rocks, had a paw much heavier than he +himself realized, and his "play," in both senses, was a very serious +affair, when he descended to sport with common humanity. + +Another quotation, this time from a letter to Brandes, must be given to +show what Ibsen's attitude was at this moment to his fatherland and to +his art: + +"When I think how slow and heavy and dull the general intelligence is +at home, when I notice the low standard by which everything is judged, +a deep despondency comes over me, and it often seems to me that I might +just as well end my literary activity at once. They really do not need +poetry at home; they get along so well with the party newspapers and the +_Lutheran Weekly_." + +If Ibsen thought that he was offering them "poetry" in _The Enemy of +the People_, he spoke in a Scandinavian sense. Our criticism has never +opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as +poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser +or more unqualified prose than _The Enemy of the People_, without +a tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book. It is, +nevertheless, one of the most certainly successful of its author's +writings; as a stage-play it rivets the attention; as a pamphlet it +awakens irresistible sympathy; as a specimen of dramatic art, its +construction and evolution are almost faultless. Under a transparent +allegory, it describes the treatment which Ibsen himself had received at +the hands of the Norwegian public for venturing to tell them that their +spa should be drained before visitors were invited to flock to it. +Nevertheless, the playwright has not made the mistake of identifying his +own figure with that of Dr. Stockmann, who is an entirely independent +creation. Mr. Archer has compared the hero with Colonel Newcome, whose +loquacious amicability he does share, but Stockmann's character has much +more energy and initiative than Colonel Newcome's, whom we could never +fancy rousing himself "to purge society." + +Ibsen's practical wisdom in taking the bull by the horns in his reply to +the national reception of _Ghosts_ was proved by the instant success +of _The Enemy of the People_. Presented to the public in this new and +audacious form, the problem of a "moral water-supply" struck sensible +Norwegians as less absurd and less dangerous than they had conceived it +to be. The reproof was mordant, and the worst offenders crouched under +the lash. _Ghosts_ itself was still, for some time, tabooed, but _The +Enemy of the People_ received a cordial welcome, and has remained ever +since one of the most popular of Ibsen's writings. It is still extremely +effective on the stage, and as it is lightened by more humor than the +author is commonly willing to employ, it attracts even those who are +hostile to the intrusion of anything solemn behind the footlights. +CHAPTER VII + +1883-91 + +With the appearance of _An Enemy of the People_, which was published +in November, 1882, Ibsen entered upon a new stage in his career. He had +completely broken with the Conservative party in Norway, without having +gratified or won the confidence of the Liberals. He was now in personal +relations of friendliness with Björnson, whose generous approval of his +work as a dramatist sustained his spirits, but his own individualism had +been intensified by the hostile reception of _Ghosts_. His life was now +divided between Rome in the winter and Gossensass in the summer, and +in the Italian city, as in the Tyrolese village, he wandered solitary, +taciturn, absorbed in his own thoughts. His meditations led him more and +more into a lonely state. He floated, as on a prophet's carpet, between +the political heavens and earth, capriciously refusing to ascend or +to alight. He had come to a sceptical stage in his mental evolution, +a stage in which he was to remain for a considerable time, gradually +modifying it in a conservative direction. One wonders what the +simple-minded and stalwart Björnson thought of being quietly told +(March 28, 1884) that the lower classes are nowhere liberal-minded or +self-sacrificing, and that "in the views expressed by our [Norwegian] +peasants there is not an atom more of real Liberalism than is to be +found among the ultramontane peasantry of the Tyrol." In politics +Ibsen had now become a pagan; "I do not believe," he said, "in the +emancipatory power of political measures, nor have I much confidence +in the altruism and good will of those in power." This sense of the +uselessness of effort is strongly marked in the course of the next work +on which he was engaged, the very brilliant, but saturnine and sardonic +tragi-comedy of _The Wild Duck_. The first sketch of it was made during +the spring of 1884 in Rome, but the dramatist took it to Gossensass with +him for the finishing touches, and did not perfect it until the autumn. +It is remarkable that Ibsen invariably speaks of _The Wild Duck_, when +he mentions it in his correspondence, in terms of irony. He calls it a +collection of crazy tricks or tomfooleries, _galskaber_, an expression +which carries with it, in this sense, a confession of wilful paradox. In +something of the same spirit, Robert Browning, in the old days before +he was comprehended, used to speak of "the entirely unintelligible +_Sordello_," as if, sarcastically, to meet criticism half-way. + +When _The Wild Duck_ was first circulated among Ibsen's admirers, it +was received with some bewilderment. Quite slowly the idea received +acceptance that the hitherto so serious and even angry satirist was, +to put it plainly, laughing at himself. The faithful were reluctant to +concede it. But one sees now, clearly enough, that in a sense it was so. +I have tried to show, we imagine Ibsen saying, that your hypocritical +sentimentality needs correction--you live in "A Doll's House." I have +dared to point out to you that your society is physically and morally +rotten and full of "Ghosts." You have repudiated my honest efforts as a +reformer, and called me "An Enemy of the People." Very well, then, have +it so if you please. What a fool am I to trouble about you at all. Go +down a steep place in Gadara and drown yourselves. If it amuses you, it +can amuse me also to be looked upon as Gregers Werle. _Vogue la galère_. +"But as the play is neither to deal with the Supreme Court, nor the +right of absolute veto, nor even with the removal of the sign of the +union from the flag," burning questions then and afterwards in Norwegian +politics, "it can hardly count upon arousing much interest in Norway"; +it will, however, amuse me immensely to point out the absurdity of my +caring. It is in reading _The Wild Duck_ that for the first time the +really astonishing resemblance which Ibsen bears to Euripedes becomes +apparent to us. This is partly because the Norwegian dramatist now +relinquishes any other central object than the presentation to his +audience of the clash of temperament, and partly because here at last, +and for the future always, he separates himself from everything that is +not catastrophe. More than any earlier play, more even than _Ghosts_, +_The Wild Duck_ is an avalanche which has begun to move, and with +a movement unaffected by the incidents of the plot, long before the +curtain rises. The later plays of Ibsen, unlike almost all other modern +dramas, depend upon nothing that happens while they are being exhibited, +but rush downwards to their inevitable close in obedience to a series of +long-precedent impulses. In order to gain this effect, the dramatist +has to be acquainted with everything that has ever happened to his +personages, and we are informed that Ibsen used to build up in his own +mind, for months at a time, the past history of his puppets. He was now +master of this practice. We are not surprised, therefore, to find one +of the most penetrating of dramatic critics remarking of _The Wild +Duck_ that "never before had the poet displayed such an amazing power +of fascinating and absorbing us by the gradual withdrawal of veil after +veil from the past." + +The result of a searching determination to deal with personal and not +typical forms of temperament is seen in the firmness of the portraiture +in _The Wild Duck_, where, I think, less than ever before, is to be +found a trace of that incoherency which is to be met with occasionally +in all the earlier works of Ibsen, and which seems like the effect of a +sudden caprice or change of the point of view. There is, so far as I +can judge, no trace of this in _The Wild Duck_, where the continuity of +aspect is extraordinary. Confucius assures us that if we tell him our +past, he will tell us our future, and although several of the characters +in _The Wild Duck_ are the most sordid of Ibsen's creations, the author +has made himself so deeply familiar with them that they are absolutely +lifelike. The detestable Hialmar, in whom, by the looking-glass of a +disordered liver, any man may see a picture of himself; the pitiable +Gregers Werle, perpetually thirteenth at table, with his genius for +making an utter mess of other people's lives; the vulgar Gina; the +beautiful girlish figure of the little martyred Hedvig--all are wholly +real and living persons. + +The subject of the play, of course, is one which we do not expect, +or had not hitherto expected, from Ibsen. It is the danger of "a sick +conscience" and the value of illusion. Society may be full of poisonous +vapors and be built on a framework of lies; it is nevertheless prudent +to consider whether the ideal advantages of disturbing it overweigh the +practical disadvantages, and above all to bear in mind that if you rob +the average man of his illusions, you are almost sure to rob him of his +happiness. The topsy-turvy nature of a this theme made Ibsen as nearly +"rollicking" as he ever became in his life. We can imagine than as he +wrote the third act of _The Wild Duck_, where so horrible a luncheon +party--"we'll all keep a corner"--gloats over the herring salad, he +indulged again and again in those puffs of soundless and formidable +mirth which Mr. Johan Paulsen describes as so surprising an element of +conversation with Ibsen. + +To the gossip of that amiable Boswell, too, we must turn for a valuable +impression of the solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about +this time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now +successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family +saw him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if +sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to +catch him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study, +into which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to +believe, did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his +own mind, which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast and +rich than that which lay spread around him." [Note: _Samliv med Ibsen_, +1906, p. 30.] + +And now the celebrated afternoons at the cafes had begun. In Rome Ibsen +had his favorite table, and he would sit obliquely facing a mirror +in which, half hidden by a newspaper and by the glitter of his gold +spectacles, he could command a sight of the whole restaurant, and +especially of the door into the street. Every one who entered, every +couple that conversed, every movement of the scene, gave something to +those untiring eyes. The newspaper and the cafe mirror--these were the +books which, for the future, Ibsen was almost exclusively to study; and +out of the gestures of a pair of friends at a table, out of a paragraph +in a newspaper, even out of the terms of an advertisement, he could +build up a drama. Incessant observation of real life, incessant capture +of unaffected, unconsidered phrases, actual living experience leaping +in his hands like a captive wild animal, this was now the substance +from which all Ibsen's dreams and dramas were woven. Concentration of +attention on the vital play of character, this was his one interest. + +Out of this he was roused by a sudden determination to go at last and +see for himself what life in Norway was really like. A New England wit +once denied that a certain brilliant and Europe-loving American author +was a cosmopolitan. "No," he said, "a cosmopolitan is at home even in +his own country." Ibsen began to doubt whether he was not too far off +to follow events in Norway--and these were now beginning to be very +exciting--well enough to form an independent judgment about them; and +after twenty years of exile there is no doubt that the question was +fairly put. _The Wild Duck_ had been published in November, 1884, and +had been acted everywhere in Scandinavia with great success. The critics +and the public were agreed for the first time that Ibsen was a very +great national genius, and that if Norway was not proud of him it would +make a fool of itself in the eyes of Europe. + +Ibsen had said that Norway was a barbarous country, inhabited by two +millions of cats and dogs, but so many agreeable and highly-civilized +compliments found their way to him in Rome that he began to fancy that +the human element was beginning to be introduced. At all events, +he would see for himself, and in June, 1885, instead of stopping at +Gossensass, he pushed bravely on and landed in Christiania. + +At first all went well, but from the very beginning of the visit he +observed, or thought he observed, awkward phenomena. The country was +thrilled with political excitement, and it vibrated with rhetorical +resolutions which seemed to Ibsen very empty. He had a constitutional +horror of purely theoretical questions, and these were occupying Norway +from one end to the other. The King's veto, the consular difficulty, the +Swedish emblem in the national flag, these were the subjects of frenzied +discussion, and in none of these did Ibsen take any sort of pleasure. He +was not politically far-sighted, it must be confessed, nor did he guess +what practical proportions these "theoretical questions" were to assume +in the immediate future. + +That great writer and delightful associate, the Swedish poet, Count +Snoilsky, one of the few whose company never wearied or irritated Ibsen, +joined him in the far north. They spent a pleasant, quiet time together +at Molde, that enchanting little sub-arctic town, where it looks +southward over the shining fjord, with the Romsdalhorn forever guarding +the mountainous horizon. Here no politics intruded, and Ibsen, when +Snoilsky had left him, already thinking of a new drama, lingered on at +Molde, spending hours on hours at the end of the jetty, gazing into the +clear, cold sea. His passion for the sea had never betrayed him, and at +Rome, where he had long given up going to any galleries or studios, he +still haunted the house of a Norwegian marine painter, Nils Hansteen, +whose sketches reminded him of old days and recollected waters. + +But the autumn comes on apace in these high latitudes, and Ibsen had to +return to Christiania with its torchlight processions, and late noisy +feasts, and triumphant revolutionary oratory. He disliked it extremely, +and he made up his mind to go back to the indifferent South, where +people did not worry about such things. Unfortunately, the inhabitants +of Christiania did not leave him alone. They were not content to have +him among them as a retired observer, they wanted to make him stand out +definitely on one political side or the other. He was urged, at the end +of September, to receive the inevitable torchlight procession planned +in his honor by the Union of Norwegian Students. He was astute enough to +see that this might compromise his independence, but he was probably too +self-conscious in believing that a trap was being laid for him. He said +that, not having observed that his presence gave the Union any great +pleasure, he did not care to have its expression of great joy at t his +departure. This was not polite, for it does not appear that the students +had any idea that he intended to depart. He would not address a reply to +the Union as a body, but to "my friends among the students." + +A committee called upon him to beg him to reconsider his resolution, +but he roundly told them that he knew that they were reactionaries, and +wanted to annex him to their party, and that he was not blind to their +tricks. They withdrew in confusion, and Ibsen, in an agony of nervous +ness, determined to put the sea between himself and their machinations. +Early in October he retreated, or rather fled, to Copenhagen, and thence +to Munich, where he breathed again. Meanwhile, the extreme liberal +faction among the students claimed that his action had meant that he was +heart and soul with them, as against the reactionaries. A young Mr. Ove +Rode, who had interviewed him, took upon himself to say that these were +Ibsen's real sentiments. Ibsen fairly stamped with rage, and declared, +in furious communications, that all these things were done on purpose. +"It was an opportunity to insult a poet which it would have been a +sad pity to lose," he remarked, with quivering pen. A reverberant +controversy sprang up in the Norwegian newspapers, and Ibsen, in his +Bavarian harbor of refuge, continued to vibrate all through the winter +of 1885. The exile's return to his native country had proved to be far +from a success. + +Already his new play was taking shape, and the success of his great +personal ambition, namely that his son, Sigurd, should be taken with +honor into the diplomatic service of his country, did such to calm his +spirits. Ibsen was growing rich now, as well as famous, and if only the +Norwegians would let him alone, he might well be happy. The new play +was _Rosmersholm_, and it took its impulse from a speech which Ibsen had +made during his journey, at Trondhjem, where he expounded the gospel of +individualism to a respectful audience of workingmen, and had laid +down the necessity of introducing an aristocratic strain, _et adeligt +element_, into the life of a truly democratic state, a strain which +woman and labor were to unite in developing. He said: "I am thinking, +of course, not of birth, nor of money, nor even of intellect, but of the +nobility which grows out of character. It is _character_ alone which can +make us free." This nobility of character must be fostered, mainly, by +the united efforts of motherhood and labor. This was quite a new creed +in Norway, and it bewildered his hearers, but it is remarkable to notice +how the best public feeling in Scandinavia has responded to the appeal, +and how little surprise the present generation would express at a +repetition of such sentiments. And out of this idea of "nobility" of +public character _Rosmersholm_ directly sprang. + +We are not left to conjecture in this respect. In a letter to Björn +Kristensen (February 13, 1887), Ibsen deliberately explained, while +correcting a misconception of the purpose of _Rosmersholm_, that "the +play deals with the struggle which all serious-minded human beings have +to wage with themselves in order to bring their lives into harmony with +their convictions.... Conscience is very conservative. It has its deep +roots in tradition and the past generally, and hence the conflict." When +we come to read _Rosmersholm_ it is not difficult to see how this order +of ideas dominated Ibsen's mind when he wrote it. The mansion called by +that name is typical of the ancient traditions of Norwegian bourgeois +aristocracy, which are not to be subservient to such modern and timid +conservatism as is represented by Rector Kroll, with his horror of all +things new because they are new. The Rosmer strain, in its inherent +nobility, is to be superior to a craven horror of the democracy, and is +to show, by the courage with which it fulfils its personal destiny, that +it looks above and beyond all these momentary prejudices, and accepts, +from all hands, whatever is wise and of good report. + +The misfortune is that Ibsen, in unconscious bondage to his ideas, did +not construct his drama sturdily enough on realistic lines. While not +one of his works is more suggestive than _Rosmersholm_, there is not one +which gives the unbeliever more opportunity to blaspheme. This ancestral +house of a great rich race, which is kept up by the ministrations of +a single aged female servant, stands in pure Cloud-Cuckoo Land. The +absence of practical amenities in the Rosmer family might be set down to +eccentricity, if all the other personages were not equally ill-provided. +Rebecca, glorious heroine according to some admirers, "criminal, thief +and murderess," as another admirer pleonastically describes her, is +a sort of troll; nobody can explain--and yet an explanation seems +requisite--what she does in the house of Rosmer. In his eagerness to +work out a certain sequence of philosophical ideas, the playwright +for once neglected to be plausible. It is a very remarkable feature of +_Rosmersholm_ that in it, for the first time, and almost for the last, +Ibsen, in the act of theorizing, loses his hold upon reality. He places +his ingenious, elaborate and--given the premises--inevitable dénouement +in a scene scarcely more credible than that of a Gilbert and Sullivan +opera, and not one-tenth as amusing. Following, as it does, immediately +on the heels of _The Wild Duck_, which was as remarkable a slice of real +life as was ever brought before a theatrical audience, the artificiality +of _Rosmersholm_ shows Ibsen as an artist clearly stepping backward that +he may leap the further forward. + +In other words, _Rosmersholm_ is the proof of Ibsen's desire to conquer +another field of drama. He had now for some years rejected with great +severity all temptations from the poetic spirit, which was nevertheless +ineradicable in him. He had wished to produce on the mind of the +spectator no other impression than that he was observing something which +had actually happened, exactly in the way and the words in which +it would happen. He had formulated to the actress, Lucie Wolf, the +principle that ideal dramatic poetry should be considered extinct, "like +some preposterous animal form of prehistoric times." But the soul of man +cannot be fed with a stone, and Ibsen had now discovered that perfectly +prosaic "slices of life" may be salutary and valuable on occasion, but +that sooner or later a poet asks for more. He, therefore, a poet if ever +there was one, had grown weary of the self-made law by which he had shut +himself out from Paradise. He determined, grudgingly, and hardly knowing +how to set about it, that he would once more give the spiritual and +the imaginative qualities their place in his work. These had now been +excluded for nearly twenty years, since the publication of _Peer Gynt_, +and he would not resume them so far as to write his dramas again in +verse. Verse in drama was doomed; or if not, it was at least a juvenile +and fugitive skill not to be rashly picked up again by a business-like +bard of sixty. But he would reopen the door to allegory and symbol, and +especially to fantastic beauty of landscape. + +The landscape of Rosmersholm has all, or at least much, of the old +enchantment. The scene at the mill-dam links us once more with the woods +and the waters which we had lost sight of since _Peer Gynt_. But this +element was still more evident in _The Lady from the Sea_, which was. +published in 1888. We have seen that Ibsen spent long hours, in the +summer of 1885, at the end of the pier at Molde, gazing down into the +waters, or watching the steamers arriving and departing, coming from +the great sea beyond the fjord or going towards it. As was his wont, +he stored up these impressions, making no immediate use of them. He +actually prepared _The Lady from the Sea_ in very different, although +still marine surroundings. He went to Jutland, and settled for the +summer at the pretty and ancient, but very mild little town of Saeby, +with the sands in front of him and rolling woods behind. From Saeby +it was a short journey to Frederikshavn, "which he liked very much--he +could knock about all day among the shipping, talking to the sailors, +and so forth. Besides, he found the neighborhood of the sea favorable to +contemplation and constructive thought." So Mr. Archer, who visited him +at Saeby; and I myself, a year or two later, picked up at Frederikshavn +an oral tradition of Ibsen, with his hands behind his back, and the +frock-coat tightly buttoned, stalking, stalking alone for hours on the +interminable promenade between the great harbor moles of Frederikshaven, +no one daring to break in upon his formidable contemplation. + +In several respects, though perhaps not in concentration of effect, +_The Lady from the Sea_ shows a distinct advance on _Rosmersholm_. It is +never dull, never didactic, as its predecessor too often was, and there +is thrown over the whole texture of it a glamour of romance, of mystery, +of beauty, which had not appeared in Ibsen's work since the completion +of _Peer Gynt_. Again, after the appearance of so many strenuous +tragedies, it was pleasant to welcome a pure comedy. _The Lady from +the Sea_ [Note: In the _Neue Rundschau_ for December, 1906, there was +published a first draft of _The Lady from the Sea_, dating as far back +as 1800.] is connected with the previous plays by its emphatic defence +of individuality and its statement of the imperative necessity of +developing it; but the tone is sunny, and without a tinge of pessimism. +It is in some respects the reverse of _Rosmersholm_; the bitterness +of restrained and balked individuality, which ends in death, +being contrasted with the sweetness of emancipated and gratified +individuality, which leads to health and peace. To the remarkable +estimate of _The Lady from the Sea_ formed by some critics, and in +particular by M. Jules de Gaultier, we shall return in a general +consideration of the symbolic plays, of which it is the earliest. +Enough to say here that even those who did not plunge so deeply into +its mysteries found it a remarkably agreeable spectacle, and that it has +continued to be, in Scandinavia and Germany, one of the most popular of +its author's works. + +Ibsen left his little tavern at Saeby towards the end of September, +1887, in consequence of an invitation to proceed directly to Stockholm, +where his Swedish admirers, now very numerous and enthusiastic, would +no longer be deprived of the pleasure of entertaining him publicly. +He appeared before them, the breast of his coat sparkling with foreign +stars and crosses, the Urim and Thummim of general European recognition. +He was now in his sixtieth year, and he had out lived all the obscurity +of his youth. In the three Scandinavian countries--even in recalcitrant +Norway--he was universally hailed as the greatest dramatist of the age. +In Germany his fame was greater than that of any native writer of the +sang class. In Italy and Russia he was entering on a career of high +and settled popularity. Even in France and England his work was now +discussed with that passionate interest which shows the vitality of what +is even, for the moment, misinterpreted and disliked. His admirers at +Stockholm told him that he had taken a foremost place in re-creating +their sense of life, that he was a fashioner and a builder of new social +forms, that he was, indeed, to thousands of them, the Master-Builder. +The reply he made to their enthusiasm was dignified and reserved, but it +revealed a sense of high gratification. Skule's long doubt was over; +he believed at last in his own kingdom, and that the world would be +ultimately the better for the stamp of his masterful soul upon its +surface. + +It was in an unusually happy mood that he sat dreaming through the early +part of the uneventful year 1889. But it gradually sank into melancholy +when, in the following year, he settled down to the composition of a +new play which was to treat of sad thoughts and tragic passions. He told +Snoilsky that for several reasons this work made very slow progress, +"and it robbed him of his summer holidays." From May to November, 1890, +he was uninterruptedly in Munich writing what is known to us now as +_Hedda Gabler_. He finished it at last, saying as he did so, "It has +not been my desire to deal in this play with so-called problems. What I +principally wanted to do was to depict human beings, human emotions and +human destinies, upon a groundwork of certain of the social conditions +and principles of the present day." It was a proof of the immense growth +of Ibsen's celebrity that editions of _Hedda Gabler_ were called for +almost simultaneously, in the winter of 1890, in London, New York, +St. Petersburg, Leipzig, Berlin and Moscow, as well as in Copenhagen, +Stockholm and Christiania. There was no other living author in the world +at that moment who excited so much curiosity among the intellectual +classes, and none who exercised so much influence on the younger +generation of authors and thinkers. + +In _Hedda Gabler_ Ibsen returned, for the last time, but with +concentrated vigor, to the prosaic ideal of his central period. He never +succeeded in being more objective in drama, he never kept more closely +to the bare facts of nature nor rejected more vigorously the ornaments +of romance and rhetoric than in this amazing play. There is no poetic +suggestion here, no species of symbol, white horse, or gnawing thing, or +monster from the sea. I am wholly in agreement with Mr. Archer when he +says that he finds it impossible to extract any sort of general idea +from _Hedda Gabler_, or to accept it as a satire of any condition of +society. Hedda is an individual, not a type, and it was as an individual +that she interested Ibsen. We have been told, since the poet's death, +that he was greatly struck by the case, which came under his notice at +Munich, of a German lady who poisoned herself because she was bored +with life, and had strayed into a false position. _Hedda Gabler_ is the +realization of such an individual case. At first sight, it seemed as +though Ibsen had been influenced by Dumas _fils_, which might have been +true, in spite of the marked dislike which each expressed for the other; +[Note: It is said that _La Route de Thebes_, which Dumas had begun +when he died, was to have been a deliberate attack on the methods and +influence of Ibsen. Ibsen, on his part, loathed Dumas.] but closer +examination showed that Hedda Gabler had no sort of relation with the +pamphlets of the master of Parisian problem-tragedy. + +The attempt to show that _Hedda Gabler_ "proved" anything was annoying +to Ibsen, who said, with more than his customary firmness, "It was not +my purpose to deal with what people call problems in this play. What I +chiefly tried to do was to paint human beings, human emotions and human +fate, against a background of some of the conditions and laws of society +as it exists to-day." The German critics, a little puzzled to find +a longitude and latitude for Tesman's "tastefully decorated" villa, +declared that this time Ibsen had written an "international," not a +locally Norwegian, play. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the +contrary, _Hedda Gabler_ is perhaps the most fatally local and Norwegian +of all Ibsen's plays, and it presents, not of course the highly +civilized Christiania of to-day, but the half-suburban, half-rural +little straggling town of forty years ago. When I visited Norway as a +lad, I received kind but sometimes rather stiff and raw hospitality +in several tastefully decorated villas, which were as like that of the +Tesmans as pea is like pea. Why Ibsen chose to paint a "west end of +Christiania" of 1860 rather than of 1890 I cannot guess, unless it was +that to so persistent an exile the former was far more familiar than the +latter. + +A Russian actress of extreme talent, Madame Alla Nazimova, who has had +special opportunities of studying the part of Hedda Gabler, has lately +(1907) depicted her as "aristocratic and ill-mated, ambitious and doomed +to a repulsive alliance with a man beneath her station, whom she +had mistakenly hoped would give her position and wealth. In other +circumstances, Hedda would have been a power for beauty and good." If +this ingenious theory be correct, _Hedda Gabler_ must be considered as +the leading example of Ibsen's often-repeated demonstration, that evil +is produced by circumstances and not by character. The portrait becomes +thrillingly vital if we realize that the stains upon it are the impact +of accidental conditions on a nature which might otherwise have been +useful and fleckless. Hedda Gabler is painted as Mr. Sargent might +paint a lady of the London fashionable world; his brush would divine +and emphasize, as Ibsen's pen does, the disorder of her nerves, and +the ravaging concentration of her will in a sort of barren and impotent +egotism, while doing justice to the superficial attractiveness of her +cultivated physical beauty. He would show, as Ibsen shows, and with an +equal lack of malice prepense, various detestable features which the +mask of good manners had concealed. Each artist would be called a +caricaturist because his instinctive penetration had taken him into +regions where the powder-puff and the rouge-pot lose their power. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +LAST YEARS + +With the publication of _Hedda Gabler_ Ibsen passed into what we may +call his final glory. Almost insensibly, and to an accompaniment of his +own growls of indignation, he had taken his place, not merely as the +most eminent imaginative writer of the three Scandinavian countries, but +as the type there of what literature should be and the prophet of what +it would become. In 1880, Norway, the youngest and long the rawest of +the three civilizations, was now the foremost in activity, and though +the influence of Björnson and Jonas Lie was significant, yet it was not +to be compared for breadth and complexity with that of Ibsen. The nature +of the revolution, exercised by the subject of this memoir between +1880 and 1890, that is to say from _Ghosts_ to _Hedda Gabler_, was +destructive before it was constructive. The poetry, fiction and drama +of the three Northern nations had become stagnant with commonplace +and conventional matter, lumbered with the recognized, inevitable and +sacrosanct forms of composition. This was particularly the case in +Sweden, where the influence of Ibsen now proved more violent and +catastrophic than anywhere else. Ibsen destroyed the attraction of the +old banal poetry; his spirit breathed upon it in fire, and in all its +faded elegance it withered up and vanished. + +The next event was that the new generation in the three Northern +countries, deprived of its traditional authorities, looked about for a +prophet and a father, and they found what they wanted in the exceedingly +uncompromising elderly gentleman who remained so silent in the cafes +of Rome and of Munich. The zeal of the young for this unseen and +unsympathetic personage was extraordinary, and took forms of amazing +extravagance. Ibsen's impassivity merely heightened the enthusiasm of +his countless admirers, who were found, it should be stated, almost +entirely among persons who were born after his exile from Norway. +His writings supplied a challenge to character and intelligence +which appealed to those who disliked the earlier system of morals and +aesthetics against which he had so long fought single-handed. + +Among writers in the North Ibsen began to hold very much the position +that Whistler was taking among painters and etchers in this country, +that is to say the abuse and ridicule of his works by a dwindling +group of elderly conventional critics merely stung into more frenzied +laudation an ever-widening circle of youthful admirers. Ibsen repented, +for a time almost exclusively, "serious" aims in literature, and with +those of Herbert Spencer, and in less measure of Zola, and a little +later of Nietzsche, his books were the spiritual food of all youthful +minds of any vigor or elasticity. + +In Sweden, at this time, the admiration for Ibsen took forms of almost +preposterous violence. The great Swedish novelist, Gustaf af Geijerstam, +has given a curious and amusing account of the rage for Ibsen which came +to its height about 1880. The question which every student asked his +friend, every lover his mistress, was "What do you think of Ibsen?" Not +to be a believer in the Norwegian master was a reef upon which love +or friendship might easily be shipwrecked. It was quoted gravely as +an insufferable incompatibility for the state of marriage. There was +a curious and secret symbolism running through the whole of youthful +Swedish society, from which their elders were cunningly excluded, by +which the volumes of Ibsen, passed from hand to hand, presented on +solemn occasions, became the emblems of the problems interesting to +generous youth, flags carried in the moral fight for liberty and truth. +The three Northern countries, in their long stagnation, had become +clogged and deadened with spiritual humbug, which had sealed the sources +of emotion. It seemed though, after the long frost of the seventies, +spring had come and literature had budded a at last, and that it was +Ibsen who had blown the clarion of the West Wind and heralded the +emancipation. + +The enthusiasm for the Norwegian dramatist was not always according +to knowledge, and sometimes it took grotesque forms. Much of the +abuse showered in England and France upon Ibsen at the time we are now +describing was due to echoes of the extravagance of his Scandinavian +and German idolaters. A Swedish satirist [Note: "Stella Kleve" (Mathilda +Malling, in _Framat_ 1886)] said that if Ibsen could have foreseen how +many "misunderstood" women would leave their homes in imitation of Nora, +and how many lovesick housekeepers drink poison on account of Rebecca, +he would have thrown ashes on his head and have retreated into the +deserts of Tartary. The suicide of the novelist, Ernst Ahlgren, was the +tragic circumstance where much was so purely comic. But if there were +elements of tragicomedy in the Ibsen idolatry, there were far more +important elements of vigorous and wholesome intellectual independence; +and it was during this period of Ibsen's almost hectic popularity that +the foundations of a new fiction and a new drama were laid in Sweden, +Denmark and Norway. A whole generation sucked strength and energy from +his early writings, since it is to be remarked that, from 1880 to 1890, +the great prestige of Ibsen did not depend so much on the dramas he was +then producing, as on the earlier works of his poetic youth, now reread +with an unexampled fervor. So, with us, the tardy popularity of Robert +Browning, which faintly resembles that of Ibsen, did not attract the +younger generation to the volumes which succeed _The Ring and the Book_, +but sent them back to the books which their fathers had despised, to +_Pippa Passes_ and _Men and Women_. To the generation of 1880, Ibsen was +not so much the author of the realistic social dramas as of those old +but now rediscovered miracles of poetry and wit, _The Pretenders_, +_Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_. + +In 1889 Ibsen had been made very pleasantly conscious of this strong +personal feeling in his favor among young men and women. Nor did he +find it confined to Scandinavia. He had travelled about in Germany, and +everywhere his plays were being acted. Berlin was wild about him; at +Weimar he was fêted like a conqueror. He did not settle down at Munich +until May, and here, as we have seen, he stayed all the summer, hard at +work. After the success of _Hedda Gabler_, which overpowered all adverse +comment, Ibsen began to long to be in Norway again, and this feeling +was combined, in a curious way, with a very powerful emotion which now +entered into his life. He had lived a retired and peaceful existence, +mainly a spectator at the feast, as little occupied in helping himself +to the dishes which he saw others enjoy as is an eremite in the desert +in plucking the grape-clusters of his dreams. No adventure, of any +prominent kind, had ever been seen to diversify Ibsen's perfectly +decorous and domestic career. And now he was more than sixty, and the +gray tones were gathering round him more thickly than ever, when a real +ray of vermilion descended out of the sky and filled his horizon with +color. + +In the season of 1889, among the summer boarders at Gossensass, there +appeared a young Viennese lady of eighteen, Miss Emilie Bardach. She +used to sit on a certain bench in the Pferchthal, and when the poet, +whom she adored from afar, passed by, she had the courage to smile at +him. Strange to say, her smile was returned, and soon Ibsen was on +the bench at her side. He readily discovered where she lived; no less +readily he gained an introduction to the family with whom she boarded. +There was a window-seat in the _salle à manger_; it was deep and shaded +by odorous flowering shrubs; it lent itself to endless conversation. +The episode was strange, the passion improbable, incomprehensible, +profoundly natural and true. Perhaps, until they parted in the last days +of September, neither the old man nor the young girl realized what their +relations had meant to each. Youth secured its revenge, however; Miss +Bardach soon wrote from Vienna that she was now more tranquil, more +independent, happy at last. Ibsen, on the other hand, was heart-broken, +quivering with ecstasy, overwhelmed with joy and despair. + +It was the enigma in his "princess," as he called her; that completed +Miss Bardach's sorcery over the old poet. She seems to have been no +coquette; she flung her dangerous fascinations at his feet; she broke +the thread which bound the charms of her spirit and poured them over +him. He, for his part, remaining discreet and respectful, was shattered +with happiness. To a friend of mine, a young Norwegian man of letters, +Ibsen said about this time: "Oh, you can always love, but I am happier +than the happiest, for I am beloved." Long afterwards, on his seventieth +birthday, when his own natural force was failing, he wrote to Miss +Bardach, "That summer at Gossensass was the most beautiful and the most +harmonious portion of my whole existence. I scarcely venture to think +of it, and yet I think of nothing else. Ah! forever!" He did not dare to +send her _The Master-Builder_, since her presence interpenetrated every +line of it like a perfume, and when, we are told, she sent him her +photograph, signed "Princess of Orangia," her too-bold identification +of herself with Hilda Wangel hurt him as a rough touch, that finer tact +would have avoided. There can be no doubt at all that while she was +now largely absorbed by the compliment to her own vanity, he was still +absolutely enthralled and bewitched, and that what was fun to her made +life and death to him. + +This very curious episode [Note: It was quite unknown until the +correspondence--which has not been translated into English--was +published by Georg Brandes at the desire of the lady herself (September, +1906).], which modifies in several important respects our conception +of the dramatist's character, is analogous with the apparent change +of disposition which made Renan surprise his unthinking admirers so +suddenly at the epoch of _L'Eau de Jouvence_ and _L'Abbesse de Jouarre_. +It was founded, of course, on that dangerous susceptibility to which +an elderly man of genius, whose life had been spent in labor and +reflection, may be inclined to resign himself, as he sees the sands +running out of the hour-glass, and realizes that in analyzing and +dissecting emotion he has never had time to enjoy it. Time is so short, +the nerves so fragile and so finite, the dreadful illusion, the _maia_, +so irresistible, that the old man gives way to it, and would sooner die +at once than not make one grasp at happiness. + +It will have been remarked that Ibsen's habit was to store up an +impression, but not to use it immediately on creative work. We need, +therefore, feel no surprise that there is not a trace of the Bardach +episode in _Hedda Gabler_, although the composition of that play +immediately followed the _hohes, schmerzliches Glück_ at Gossensass. He +was, too, no moonlight serenader, and his intense emotion is perfectly +compatible with the outline of some of the gossip which was repeated at +the time of his death; Ibsen being reported to have said of the Viennese +girl: "She did not get hold of me, but I got hold of her--for my +play." These things are very complex, and not to be hastily dismissed, +especially on the rough and ready English system. There would be give +and take in such a complicated situation, when the object was, as Ibsen +himself says, out of reach _unversichtbar_. There is no question that +for every pang which Hilda made her ancient lover suffer, he would +enrich his imagination with a dozen points of experience. There is no +paradox in saying that the poet was overwhelmed with a passion and yet +consciously made it serve as material for his plays. From this time +onwards every dramatic work of his bears the stamp of those hours among +the roses at Gossensass. + +To the spring of 1891 belongs Ibsen's somewhat momentous visit to +Vienna, where he was invited by Dr. Max Burckhard, the director of the +Burg Theatre, to superintend the performance of his _Pretenders_. Ibsen +had already, in strict privacy, visited Vienna, where his plays enjoyed +an increasing success, but this was his first public entrance into a +city which he admired on the whole more than any other city of Europe. +"Mein schöner Wien!" he used to murmur, with quite a clan of affection. +In April, 1891, after the triumph of his tragedy on the stage, Ibsen +was the guest at a public banquet at Vienna, when the ovations were +overwhelming and were extended until four o'clock next morning. A +performance of _The Wild Duck_ produced, what was almost as dear to +Ibsen as praise, a violent polemic, and he passed on out of a world of +storm and passion to Buda-Pesth, where he saw _A Doll's House_ acted +in Hungarian, amid thunders of applause, and where he was the guest +of Count Albert Apponyi. These were the happy and fruitful years which +consoled the heart of the poet for the bitter time when + +"Hate's decree Dwelt in his thoughts intolerable." + +In the ensuing summer, in July, 1891, Ibsen left Munich with every +intention of returning to it, but with the plan of a long summer trip +in Norway, where the triumphant success of _Hedda Gabler_ had been very +agreeable to his feelings. Once more he pushed up through the country to +Trondhjem, a city which had always attracted him and pleased him. Here +he presently embarked on one of the summer coasting-steamers, and saw +the shores of Nordland and Finmark for the first time, visiting the +North Cape itself. He came back to Christiania for the rest of the +season, with no prospect of staying. But he enjoyed a most flattering +reception; he was begged to resume his practical citizenship, and he was +assured that life in Norway would be made very pleasant to him. In the +autumn, therefore, in his abrupt way, he took an apartment in Viktoria +Terrasse, and sent to Munich for his furniture. He said to a friend +who expressed surprise at this settlement: "I may just as well make +Christiania my headquarters as Munich. The railway takes me in a very +short time wherever I want to go; and when I am bored with Norway I can +travel elsewhere." But he never felt the fatigue he anticipated, and, +but for brief visits to Copenhagen or Stockholm, he left his native +country no more after 1891, although he changed his abode in Christiania +itself. + +For the first twelve months Ibsen enjoyed the pleasures of the prodigal +returned, and fed with gusto on the fatted calf. Then, when three years +separated him from the illuminating soul-adventures of Gossensass, he +began to turn them into a play. It proved to be _The Master-Builder_, +and was published before the close of December, 1892, with the date 1893 +on the title-page. This play was running for some time in Germany and +England before it was played in Scandinavia. But on the evening of +March 8, 1893, it was simultaneously given at the National Theatre in +Christiania and at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. It was a work which +greatly puzzled the critics, and its meaning was scarcely apparent until +it had been seen on the stage, for which the oddity of its arrangements +are singularly well adapted. It was, however, almost immediately noticed +that it marked a new departure in Ibsen's writings. Here was an end of +the purely realistic and prosaic social dramas, which had reigned from +_The League of Youth_ to _Hedda Gabler_, and here was a return to the +strange and haunting beauty of the old imaginative pieces. Mr. Archer +was happily inspired when he spoke of "the pure melody" of the piece, +and the best scenes of _The Master-Builder_ were heroically and almost +recklessly poetical. + +This remarkable composition is full of what, for want of a better word, +we must call "symbolism." In the conversations between Solness and Hilda +much is introduced which is really almost unintelligible unless we take +it to be autobiographical. The Master-Builder is one who constructs, +not houses, but poems and plays. It is the poet himself who gives +expression, in the pathetic and erratic confessions of Solness, to his +doubts, his craven timidities, his selfish secrets, and his terror at +the uniformity of his "luck." It is less easy to see exactly what Ibsen +believed himself to be presenting to us in the enigmatical figure of +Hilda, so attractive and genial, so exquisitely refreshing, and yet +radically so cruel and superficial. She is perhaps conceived as a symbol +of Youth, arriving too late within the circle which Age has trodden +for its steps to walk in, and luring it too rashly, by the mirage of +happiness, into paths no longer within its physical and moral capacity. +"Hypnotism," Mr. Archer tells us, "is the first and last word of the +dramatic action"; perhaps thought-transference more exactly expresses +the idea, but I should not have stated even this quite so strongly. The +ground of the dramatic action seems to me to be the balance of Nemesis, +the fatal necessity that those who enjoy exceptional advantages in life +shall pay for them by not less exceptional, but perhaps less obvious, +disadvantages. The motto of the piece--at least of the first two of its +acts--might be the couplet of the French tragedian:-- + +C'est un ordre des dieux qui jamais ne se rompt De nous vendre bien cher +les grands biens qu'ils nous font. + +Beneath this, which we may call the transcendental aspect of the play, +we find a solid and objective study of the self-made man, the headstrong +amateur, who has never submitted to the wholesome discipline of +professional training, but who has trusted to the help of those trolls +or mascots, his native talent and his unfailing "luck." Upon such a man +descends Hilda, the disorganizer, who pierces the armor of his conceit +by a direct appeal to his passions. Solness has been the irresistible +sorcerer, through his good fortune, but he is not protected in his +climacteric against this unexpected attack upon the senses. Samson +philanders with Delila, and discovers that his strength is shorn from +him. There is no doubt that Ibsen intended in _The Master-Builder_ a +searching examination of "luck" and the tyranny of it, the terrible +effects of it on the Broviks and the Kajas whom nobody remembers, but +whose bodies lie under the wheels of its car. The dramatic situation is +here extremely interesting; it consists in the fact that Solness, who +breaks every one else, is broken by Hilda. The inherent hardness of +youth, which makes no allowances, which demands its kingdom here and now +upon the table, was never more powerfully depicted. Solness is smashed +by his impact with Hilda, as china is against a stone. In all this it +would be a mistake to see anything directly autobiographical, although +so much in the character and position of Solness may remind us, +legitimately enough, of Ibsen himself, and his adventures. + +The personal record of Ibsen in these years is almost silent. He was +growing old and set in his habits. He was growing rich, too, and he +surrounded himself with sedentary comforts. His wealth, it may here +be said, was founded entirely upon the success of his works, but was +fostered by his extreme adroitness as a man of business. Those who are +so fond of saying that any man of genius might have excelled in some +other capacity are fully justified if they like to imagine Ibsen as +the model financier. He certainly possessed a remarkable aptitude for +affairs, and we learn that his speculations were at once daring and +crafty. People who are weary of commiserating the poverty of poets may +be pleased to learn that when Ibsen died he was one of the wealthiest +private citizens of Christiania, and this was wholly in consequence of +the care he had taken in protecting his copyrights and administering his +receipts. If the melancholy couplet is correct which tells us that + + Aux petits des oiseaux Dieu donne la pature, + Mais sa bonte s'arrkete a la litterature, + +we must believe, with Ibsen's enemies, that his fortunes were not under +the divine protection. + +The actual numbers of each of his works printed since he first published +with Hegel in Copenhagen--a connection which he preserved without a +breach until the end--have been stated since his death. They contain +some points of interest. After 1876 Hegel ventured on large editions +of each new play, but they went off at first slowly. _The Lady from the +Sea_ was the earliest to appear, at once, in an issue of 10,000 copies, +which was soon exhausted. So great, however, had the public interest in +Ibsen become in 1894 that the edition of 10,000 copies of _Little Eyolf_ +was found quite inadequate to meet the first order, and it was enlarged +to 15,000, all of which were gone in a fortnight. This circulation in so +small a reading public as that of Denmark and Norway was unprecedented, +and it must be remembered that the simultaneous translations into most +of the languages of Europe are not included. + +_Little Eyolf_, which was written in Christiania during the spring and +summer of 1894, was issued, according to Ibsen's cometary custom, as the +second week of December rolled round. The reception of it was stormy, +even in Scandinavia, and led to violent outbursts of controversy. No +work from the master's pen had roused more difference of opinion among +the critics since the bluster over _Ghosts_ fourteen years before. Those +who prefer to absolute success in the creation of a work of art the +personal flavor or perfume of the artist himself were predisposed to +place _Little Eyolf_ very high among his writings. Nowhere is he more +independent of all other influences, nowhere more intensely, it may even +be said more distressingly, himself. From many points of view this play +may fairly be considered in the light of a _tour de force_. Ibsen--one +would conjecture--is trying to see to what extremities of agile +independence he can force his genius. The word "force" has escaped me; +but it may be retained as reproducing that sense of a difficulty not +quite easily or completely overcome which _Little Eyolf_ produces. +To mention but one technical matter; there are but four characters, +properly speaking, in the play--since Eyolf himself and the Rat-Wife +are but illustrations or symbolic properties--and of these four, one +(Borgheim) is wholly subsidiary. Ibsen, then, may be said to have +challenged imitation by composing a drama of passion with only three +characters in it. By a process of elimination this has been done +by Aeschylus (in the _Agamemnon_), by Racine (in _Phe*dre_ and +_Andromaque_), and in our own day by Maeterlinck (in _Pelle*as et +Me*lisande_). But Ibsen was accustomed to a wider field, and his +experiment seems not wholly successful. _Little Eyolf_, at least, is, +from all points of view, an exercise on the tight-rope. We may hazard +the conjecture that no drama gave Ibsen more satisfaction to write, +but for enjoyment the reader may prefer less prodigious agility on the +trapeze. + +If we turn from the technical virtuosity of _Little Eyolf_ to its moral +aspects, we find it a very dreadful play, set in darkness which nothing +illuminates but the twinkling sweetness of Asta. The mysterious symbol +of the Rat-Wife breaks in upon the pair whose love is turning to hate, +the man waxing cold as the wife grows hot. The Angel of God, in the +guise of an old beggar-woman, descends into their garden, and she drags +away, by an invisible chain, "the little gnawing thing," the pathetic +lame child. The effect on the pair of Eyolf's death by drowning is the +subject of the subsequent acts. In Rita jealousy is incarnate, and she +seems the most vigorous, and, it must be added, the most repulsive, +of Ibsen's feminine creations. The reckless violence of Rita's energy, +indeed, interpreted by a competent actress--played, for instance, as it +was in London most admirably by Miss Achurch--is almost too painful for +a public exhibition, and to the old criticism, "nec pueros coram populo +Medea trucidet," if a pedant chooses to press it, there teems no reply. +The sex question, as treated in _Little Eyolf_, recalls _The Kreutzer +Sonata_ (1889) of Tolstoi. When, however, I ventured to ask Ibsen +whether there was anything in this, he was displeased, and stoutly +denied it. What, an author denies, however, is not always evidence. + +Nothing further of general interest happened to Ibsen until 1896, when +he sat down to compose another drama, _John Gabriel Borkman_. This was a +study of the mental adventures of a man of high commercial imagination, +who is artificially parted from all that contact with real affairs +which keeps such energy on the track, and who goes mad with dreams of +incalculable power, a study, in fact, of financial megalomania. It was +said, at the time, that Ibsen was originally led to make this analysis +of character from reading in the Christiania newspapers a report of the +failure and trial of a notorious speculator convicted of fraud in 1895, +and sentenced to a long period of penal servitude. + +Whether this be so or not, we have in the person of John Gabriel +Borkman a prominent example of the ninteenth century type of criminous +speculator, in whom the vastness of view and the splendidly altruistic +audacity present themselves as elements which render it exceedingly +difficult to say how far the malefactor is morally responsible for +his crime. He has imagined, and to a certain point has carried out, a +monster metal "trust," for the success of which he lacks neither courage +nor knowledge nor practical administrative capacity, but only that +trifling concomitant, sufficiency of capital. To keep the fires blazing +until his vast model is molten into the mould, he helps himself to +money here, there, and everywhere, scarcely giving a thought to his +responsibilities, so certain is he of ultimate and beneficent triumph. +He will make rich beyond the dreams of avarice all these his involuntary +supporters. Unhappily, just before his scheme is ready and the metal +runs, he is stopped by the stupidity of the law, and finds himself in +prison. + +Side by side with this study of commercial madness runs a thread of that +new sense of the preciousness of vital joy which had occupied Ibsen so +much ever since the last of the summers at Gossensass. The figure of +Erhart Borkman is a very interesting one to the theatrical student. In +the ruin of the family, all hopes concentre in him. Every one claims +him, and in the bosoms of each of his shattered parents a secret hope +is born, Mrs. Borkman believing that by a brilliant career of commercial +rectitude her son will wipe out the memory of his father's crime; +Borkman, who has never given up the ambition of returning to business, +reposing his own hopes on the co-operation of his son. + +But Erhart Borkman disappoints them all. He will be himself, he will +enjoy his life, he will throw off all the burdens both of responsibility +and of restitution. He has no ambition and little natural feeling; +he simply must be happy, and he suddenly elopes, leaving all their +anticipations bankrupt, with a certain joyous Mrs. Wilton, who has +nothing but her beauty to recommend her. Deserted thus by the _ignis +fatuus_ of youth, the collapse of the three old people is complete. +Under the shock the brain of Borkman gives way, and he wanders out into +the winter's night, full of vague dreams of what he can still do in the +world, if he can only break from his bondage and shatter his dream. He +dies there in the snow, and the two old sisters, who have followed him +in an anxiety which overcomes their mutual hatred, arrive in time to +see him pass away. We leave them in the wood, "a dead man and two +shadows"--so Ella Rentheim puts it--"for _that_ is what the cold has +made of us"; the central moral of the piece being that all the errors of +humanity spring from cold-heartedness and neglect of the natural heat +of love. That Borkman embezzled money, and reduced hundreds of innocent +people to beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his +cruel bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that +is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of +obscurity, and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality, +about _John Gabriel Borkman_, but on the whole it is a work of lofty +originality and of poignant human interest. + +The veteran was now beginning to be conscious of the approaches of old +age, but they were made agreeable to him by many tokens of national +homage. + +On his seventieth birthday, March 20, 1898, Ibsen received the +felicitations of the world. It is pleasing to relate that a group of +admirers in England, a group which included Mr. Asquith, Mr. J. M. +Barrie, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. Pinero and +Mr. Bernard Shaw took part in these congratulations and sent Ibsen +a handsome set of silver plate, this being an act which, it had been +discovered, he particularly appreciated. The bearer of this gift was the +earliest of the long stream of visitors to arrive on the morning of the +poet's birthday, and he found Ibsen in company with his wife, his son, +his son's wife (Björnson's daughter), and his little grandson, Tankred. +The poet's surprise and pleasure were emphatic. A deputation from the +Storthing, headed by the Leader of the House, deputations representing +the University, the various Christiania Theatres, and other official or +academic bodies arrived at intervals during the course of the day; +and all the afternoon Ibsen was occupied in taking these hundreds of +visitors, in parties, up to the case containing the English tribute, in +showing the objects and in explaining their origin. There could be no +question that the gift gave genuine pleasure to the recipient; it +was the first, as it was to be the last, occasion on which any public +testimony to English appreciation of his genius found its way to Ibsen's +door. + +Immediately after the birthday festivities, which it was observed had +fatigued him, Ibsen started on a visit to Copenhagen, where he was +received by the aged King of Denmark, and to Stockholm, where he was +overpowered with ovations from all classes. There can be no doubt that +this triumphal progress, though deeply grateful to the aged poet's +susceptibilities, made a heavy drain upon his nervous resources. When +he returned to Norway, indeed, he was concealed from all visitors at +his physician's orders, and it is understood that he had some kind of +seizure. It was whispered that he would write no more, and the biennial +drama, due in December, 1898, did not make its appearance. His stores +of health, however, were not easily exhausted; he rested for several +months, and then he was seen once more in Carl Johans Gade, smiling; in +his usual way, and entirely recovered. It was announced that winter that +he was writing his reminiscences, but nothing more was heard of any such +book. + +He was able to take a vivid interest in the preparations for the +National Norwegian Theatre in Christiania, which was finally opened +by the King of Sweden and Norway on September 1, 1899. Early in the +morning, colossal bronze statues of Ibsen and Björnson were unveiled in +front of the theatre, and the poets, now, unfortunately, again not on +the best of terms, were seen making vast de*tours for the purpose of +satisfying their curiosity, and yet not meeting one another in flesh +or in metal. The first night, to prevent rivalry, was devoted to +antiquarianism, and to the performance of extracts from the plays of +Holberg. Ibsen and Björnson occupied the centre of the dress circle, +sitting uplifted in two gilded fauteuils and segregated by a vast +garland of red and white roses. They were the objects of universal +attention, and the King seemed never to have done smiling and bowing to +the two most famous of his Norwegian subjects. + +The next night was Ibsen's fete, and he occupied, alone, the manager's +box. A poem in his honor, by Niels Collet Vogt, was recited by the +leading actor, who retired, and then rushed down the empty stage, +with his arms extended, shouting "Long live Henrik Ibsen." The immense +audience started to its feet and repeated the words over and over again +with deafening fervor. The poet appeared to be almost overwhelmed +with emotion and pleasure; at length, with a gesture which was quite +pathetic, smiling through his tears, he seemed to beg his friends to +spare him, and the plaudits slowly ceased. _An Enemy of the People_ was +then admirably performed. At the close of every act Ibsen was called to +the front of his box, and when the performance was over, and the actors +had been thanked, the audience turned to him again with a sort of +affectionate ferocity. Ibsen was found to have stolen from his box, but +he was waylaid and forcibly carried back to it. On his reappearance, the +whole theatre rose in a roar of welcome, and it was with difficulty that +the aged poet, now painfully exhausted from the strain of an evening +of such prolonged excitement, could persuade the public to allow him +to withdraw. At length he left the theatre, walking slowly, bowing and +smiling, down a lane cleared for him, far into the street, through the +dense crowd of his admirers. This astonishing night, September 2, 1899, +was the climax of Ibsen's career. + +During all this time Ibsen was secretly at work on another drama, which +he intended as the epilogue to his earlier dramatic work, or at least to +all that he had written since _The Pillars of Society_. This play, which +was his latest, appeared, under the title of _When We Dead Awaken_, +in December, 1899 (with 1900 on the title-page). It was simultaneously +published, in very large editions, in all the principal languages +of Europe, and it was acted also, but it is impossible to deny that, +whether in the study or on the boards, it proved a disappointment. +It displayed, especially in its later acts, many obvious signs of the +weakness incident on old age. + +When it is said that _When We Dead Awaken_ was not worthy of its +predecessors, it should be explained that no falling off was visible in +the technical cleverness with which the dialogue was built up, nor in +the wording of particular sentences. Nothing more natural or amusing, +nothing showing greater, command of the resources of the theatre, had +ever been published by Ibsen himself than the opening act of _When +We Dead Awaken_. But there was certainly in the whole conception a +cloudiness, an ineffectuality, which was very little like anything +that Ibsen had displayed before. The moral of the piece was vague, the +evolution of it incoherent, and indeed in many places it seemed a parody +of his earlier manner. Not Mr. Anstey Guthrie's inimitable scenes +in _Mr. Punch's Ibsen_ were more preposterous than almost all the +appearances of Irene after the first act of _When We Dead Awaken_. + +It is Irene who describes herself as dead, but awakening in the society +of Rubek, whilst Maia, the little gay soulless creature whom the great +sculptor has married, and has got heartily tired of, goes up to the +mountains with Ulpheim the hunter, in pursuit of the free joy of life. +At the close, the assorted couples are caught on the summit of an +exceeding high mountain by a snowstorm, which opens to show Rubek and +Irene "whirled along with the masses of snow, and buried in them," while +Maia and her bear-hunter escape in safety to the plains. Interminable, +and often very sage and penetrating, but always essentially rather +maniacal, conversation fills up the texture of the play, which is +certainly the least successful of Ibsen's mature compositions. The +boredom of Rubek in the midst of his eminence and wealth, and his +conviction that by working in such concentration for the purity of art +he merely wasted his physical life, inspire the portions of the play +which bring most conviction and can be read with fullest satisfaction. +It is obvious that such thoughts, such faint and unavailing regrets, +pursued the old age of Ibsen; and the profound wound that his heart had +received so long before at Gossensass was unhealed to his last moments +of consciousness. An excellent French critic, M. P. G. La Chesnais, +has ingeniously considered the finale of this play as a confession that +Ibsen, at this end of his career, was convinced of the error of his +earlier rigor, and, having ceased to believe in his mission, regretted +the complete sacrifice of his life to his work. But perhaps it is not +necessary to go into such subtleties. _When We Dead Awaken_ is +the production of a very tired old man, whose physical powers were +declining. + +In the year 1900, during our South African War, sentiment in the +Scandinavian countries was very generally ranged on the side of the +Boers. Ibsen, however, expressed himself strongly and publicly in favor +of the English position. In an interview (November 24, 1900), which +produced a considerable sensation, he remarked that the Boers were but +half-cultivated, and had neither the will nor the power to advance +the cause of civilization. Their sole object had come to be a jealous +exclusion of all the higher forms of culture. The English were merely +taking what the Boers themselves had stolen from an earlier race; the +Boers had pitilessly hunted their precursors out of house and home, and +now they were tasting the same cup themselves. These were considerations +which had not occurred to generous sentimentalists in Norway, and +Ibsen's defence of England, which he supported in further communications +with irony and courage, made a great sensation, and threw cold water on +the pro-Boer sentimentalists. In Holland, where Ibsen had a wide +public, this want of sympathy for Dutch prejudice raised a good deal of +resentment, and Ibsen's statements were replied to by the fiery young +journalist, Cornelius Karel Elout, who even published a book on the +subject. Ibsen took dignified notice of Elout's attacks (December 9, +1900), repeating his defence of English policy, and this was the latest +of his public appearances. + +He took an interest, however, in the preparation of the great edition of +his _Collected Works_, which appeared in Copenhagen in 1901 and 1902, +in ten volumes. Before the publication of the latest of these, however, +Ibsen had suffered from an apoplectic stroke, from which he never wholly +recovered. It was believed that any form of mental fatigue might now be +fatal to him, and his life was prolonged by extreme medical care. He was +contented in spirit and even cheerful, but from this time forth he was +more and more completely withdrawn from consecutive interest in what was +going on in the world without. The publication, in succession, of his +juvenile works (_Kaempehöjen_, _Olaf Liljekrans_, both edited by Halvdan +Koht, in 1902), of his _Correspondence_, edited by Koht and Julius +Elias, in 1904, of the bibliographical edition of his collected works by +Carl Naerup, in 1902, left him indifferent and scarcely conscious. The +gathering darkness was broken, it is said, by a gleam of light in +1905; when the freedom of Norway and the accession of King Håkon were +explained to him, he was able to express his joyful approval before the +cloud finally sank upon his intelligence. + +During his long illness Ibsen was troubled by aphasia, and he expressed +himself painfully, now in broken Norwegian, now in still more broken +German. His unhappy hero, Oswald Alving, in _Ghosts_, had thrilled the +world by his cry, "Give me the sun, Mother!" and now Ibsen, with glassy +eyes, gazed at the dim windows, murmuring "Keine Sonne, keine Sonne, +keine Sonne!" At the table where all the works of his maturity had +been written the old man sat, persistently learning and forgetting the +alphabet. "Look!" he said to Julius Elias, pointing to his mournful +pothooks, "See what I am doing! I am sitting here and learning my +letters--my _letters_! I who was once a Writer!" Over this shattered +image of what Ibsen had been, over this dying lion, who could not die, +Mrs. Ibsen watched with the devotion of wife, mother and nurse in one, +through six pathetic years. She was rewarded, in his happier moments, +by the affection and tender gratitude of her invalid, whose latest +articulate words were addressed to her--"_min söde, kjaere, snille +frue_" (my sweet, dear, good wife); and she taught to adore their +grandfather the three children of a new generation, Tankred, Irene, +Eleonora. + +Ibsen preserved the habit of walking about his room, or standing for +hours staring out of window, until the beginning of May, 1906. Then +a more complete decay confined him to his bed. After several days of +unconsciousness, he died very peacefully in his house on Drammensvej, +opposite the Royal Gardens of Christiania, at half-past two in the +afternoon of May 23, 1906, being in his seventy-ninth year. By a +unanimous vote of the he was awarded a public funeral, which the King of +Norway attended in person, while King Edward VII was represented there +by the British Minister. The event was regarded through out Norway as a +national ceremony of the highest solemnity and importance, and the poet +who had suffered such bitter humiliation and neglect in his youth was +carried to his grave in solemn splendor, to the sound of a people's +lamentation. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS + +During the latest years of his life, which were spent as a wealthy and +prosperous citizen of Christiania, the figure of Ibsen took forms +of legendary celebrity which were equalled by no other living man of +letters, not even by Tolstoi, and which had scarcely been surpassed, +among the dead, by Victor Hugo. When we think of the obscurity of his +youth and middle age, and of his consistent refusal to advertise himself +by any of the little vulgar arts of self-exhibition, this extreme +publicity is at first sight curious, but it can be explained. Norway +is a small and a new country, inordinately, perhaps, but justly and +gracefully proud of those--an Ole Bull, a Frithjof Nansen, an Edvard +Grieg--who spread through the world evidences of its spiritual life. But +the one who was more original, more powerful, more interesting than any +other of her sons, had persistently kept aloof from the soil of Norway, +and was at length recaptured and shut up in a golden cage with more +expenditure of delicate labor than any perverse canary or escaped +macaw had ever needed. Ibsen safely housed in Christiania!--it was the +recovery of an important national asset, the resumption, after years of +vexation and loss, of the intellectual regalia of Norway. + +Ibsen, then--recaptured, though still in a frame of mind which left the +captors nervous--was naturally an object of pride. For the benefit of +the hundreds of tourists who annually pass through Christiania, it was +more than tempting, it was irresistible to point out, in slow advance +along Carl Johans Gade, in permanent silence at a table in the Grand +Cafe, "our greatest citizen." To this species of demonstration Ibsen +unconsciously lent himself by his immobility, his regularity of habits, +his solemn taciturnity. He had become more like a strange physical +object than like a man among men. He was visible broadly and quietly, +not conversing, rarely moving, quite isolated and self-contained, a +recognized public spectacle, delivered up, as though bound hand and +foot, to the kodak-hunter and the maker of "spicy" paragraphs. That +Ibsen was never seen to do anything, or heard to say anything, that +those who boasted of being intimate with him obviously lied in their +teeth--all this prepared him for sacrifice. Christiania is a hot-bed +of gossip, and its press one of the most "chatty" in the world. Our +"greatest living author" was offered up as a wave-offering, and he +smoked daily on the altar of the newspapers. + +It will be extremely rash of the biographers of the future to try to +follow Ibsen's life day by day in the Christiania press from, let +us say, 1891 to 1901. During that decade he occupied the reporters +immensely, and he was particularly useful to the active young men who +telegraph "chat" to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Berlin. +Snapshots of Ibsen, dangerous illness of the playwright, quaint habits +of the Norwegian dramatist, a poet's double life, anecdotes of Ibsen and +Mrs.----, rumors of the King's attitude to Ibsen--this pollenta, dressed +a dozen ways, was the standing dish at every journalist's table. If a +space needed filling, a very rude reply to some fatuous question might +be fitted in and called "Instance of Ibsen's Wit." The crop of fable was +enormous, and always seemed to find a gratified public, for whom nothing +was too absurd if it was supposed to illustrate "our great national +poet." Ibsen, meanwhile, did nothing at all. He never refuted a calumny, +never corrected a story, but he threw an ironic glance through his +gold-rimmed spectacles as he strolled down Carl Johan with his hands +behind his back. + +His personal appearance, it must be admitted, formed a tempting +basis upon which to build a legend. His force of will had gradually +transfigured his bodily forms until he thoroughly looked the part which +he was expected to fill. At the age of thirty, to judge by the early +photographs, he had been a commonplace-looking little man, with a shock +of coal-black hair and a full beard, one of those hirsute types common +in the Teutonic races, which may prove, on inquiry, to be painter, +musician, or engraver, or possibly engineer, but less probably poet. +Then came the exile from Norway, and the residence in Rome, marked by a +little bust which stands before me now, where the beard is cut away into +two round whiskers so as to release the firm round chin, and the long +upper lip is clean-shaved. Here there is more liveliness, but still no +distinction. Then comes a further advance--a photograph (in which I feel +a tender pride, for it was made to please me) taken in Dresden (October +15, 1873), where the brow, perfectly smooth and white, has widened out, +the whiskers have become less chubby, and the small, scrutinizing eyes +absolutely sparkle with malice. Here, you say at last, is no poet, +indeed, but an unusually cultivated banker or surprisingly adroit +solicitor. Here the hair, retreating from the great forehead, begins to +curl and roll with a distinguished wildness; here the long mouth, like +a slit in the face, losing itself at each end in whisker, is a symbol of +concentrated will power, a drawer in some bureau, containing treasures, +firmly locked up. + +Then came Munich, where Ibsen's character underwent very considerable +changes, or rather where its natural features became fixed and +emphasized. We are not left without precious indication of his gestures +and his looks at this time, when he was a little past the age of +fifty. Where so much has been extravagantly written, or described in +a journalistic key of false emphasis, great is the value of a quiet +portrait by one of those who has studied Ibsen most intelligently. It is +perhaps the most careful pen-sketch of him in any language. + +Mr. William Archer, then, has given the following account of his first +meeting with Ibsen. It was in the Scandinavia Club, in Rome, at the +close of 1881:-- + +I had been about a quarter of an hour in the room, and was standing +close to the door, when it opened, and in glided an undersized man with +very broad shoulders and a large, leonine head, wearing a long black +frock-coat with very broad lapels, on one of which a knot of red ribbon +was conspicuous. I knew him at once, but was a little taken aback by his +low stature. In spite of all the famous instances to the contrary, one +instinctively associates greatness with size. His natural height was +even somewhat diminished by a habit of bending forward slightly from the +waist, begotten, no doubt, of short-sightedness, and the need to peer +into things. He moved very slowly and noiselessly, with his hands +behind his back--an unobtrusive personality, which would have been +insignificant had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest +of the frame. But there was nothing insignificant about the high and +massive forehead, crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the +small and pale but piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or +the thin lipped mouth, depressed at the corners into a curve indicative +of iron will, and set between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as +the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power and +character in the head; yet one would scarcely have guessed it to be the +power of a poet, the character of a prophet. Misled, perhaps, by the +ribbon at the buttonhole, and by an expression of reserve, almost of +secretiveness, in the lines of the tight-shut mouth, one would rather +have supposed one's self face to face with an eminent statesman or +diplomatist. + +With the further advance of years all that was singular in Ibsen's +appearance became accentuated. The hair and beard turned snowy white; +the former rose in a fierce sort of Oberland, the latter was kept square +and full, crossing underneath the truculent chin that escaped from it. +As Ibsen walked to a banquet in Christiania, he looked quite small +under the blaze of crosses, stars and belts which he displayed when he +unbuttoned the long black overcoat which enclosed him tightly. Never +was he seen without his hands behind him, and the poet Holger Drachmann +started a theory that as Ibsen could do nothing in the world but write, +the Muse tied his wrists together at the small of his back whenever they +were not actually engaged in composition. His regularity in all habits, +his mechanical ways, were the subject of much amusement. He must sit day +after day in the same chair, at the same table, in the same corner +of the cafe, and woe to the ignorant intruder who was accidentally +beforehand with him. No word was spoken, but the indignant poet stood +at a distance, glaring, until the stranger should be pierced with +embarrassment, and should rise and flee away. + +Ibsen had the reputation of being dangerous and difficult of access. +But the evidence of those who knew him best point to his having +been phlegmatic rather than morose. He was "umbrageous," ready to be +discomposed by the action of others, but, if not vexed or startled, +he was elaborately courteous. He had a great dislike of any abrupt +movement, and if he was startled, he had the instinct of a wild animal, +to bite. It was a pain to him to have the chain of his thoughts suddenly +broken, and he could not bear to be addressed by chance acquaintances +in street or café. When he was resident in Munich and Dresden, the +difficulty of obtaining an interview with Ibsen was notorious. His wife +protected him from strangers, and if her defences broke down, and the +stranger contrived to penetrate the inner fastness, Ibsen might suddenly +appear in the doorway, half in a rage, half quivering with distress, and +say, in heartrending tones, "Bitte um Arbeitsruhe"--"Please let me work +in peace!" They used to tell how in Munich a rich baron, who was the +local Maecenas of letters, once bored Ibsen with a long recital of his +love affairs, and ended by saying, with a wonderful air of fatuity, +"To you, Master, I come, because of your unparalleled knowledge of +the female heart. In your hands I place my fate. Advise me, and I will +follow your advice." Ibsen snapped his mouth and glared through his +spectacles; then in a low voice of concentrated fury he said: "Get +home, and--go to bed!" whereat his noble visitor withdrew, clothed with +indignation as with a garment. + +His voice was uniform, soft and quiet. The bitter things he said seemed +the bitterer for his gentle way of saying them. As his shape grew burly +and his head of hair enormous, the smallness of his extremities became +accentuated. His little hands were always folded away as he tripped upon +his tiny feet. His movements were slow and distrait. He wasted few words +on the current incidents of life, and I was myself the witness, in +1899, of his _sang-froid_ under distressing circumstances. Ibsen was +descending a polished marble staircase when his feet slipped and he fell +swiftly, precipitately, downward. He must have injured himself severely, +he might have been killed, if two young gentlemen had not darted forward +below and caught him in their arms. Once more set the right way up, +Ibsen softly thanked his saviours with much frugality of phrase--"Tak, +mine Herrer!"--tenderly touched an abraded surface of his top-hat, and +marched forth homeward, unperturbed. + +His silence had a curious effect on those in whose company he feasted; +it seemed to hypnotise them. The great Danish actress, Mrs. Heiberg, +herself the wittiest of talkers, said that to sit beside Ibsen was to +peer into a gold-mine and not catch a glitter from the hidden treasure. +But his dumbness was not so bitterly ironical as it was popularly +supposed to be. It came largely from a very strange passivity which +made definite action unwelcome to him. He could never be induced to pay +visits, yet he would urge his wife and his son to accept invitations, +and when they returned he would insist on being told every +particular--who was there, what was said, even what everybody wore. +He never went to a theatre or concert-room, except on the very rare +occasions when he could be induced to be present at the performance of +his own plays. But he was extremely fond of hearing about the stage. He +had a memory for little things and an observation of trifles which was +extraordinary. He thought it amazing that people could go into a room +and not notice the pattern of the carpet, the color of the curtains, +the objects on the walls; these being details which he could not help +observing and retaining. This trait comes out in his copious and minute +stage directions. + +Ibsen was simplicity itself; no man was ever less affected. But his +character was closed; he was perpetually on the defensive. He was seldom +confidential, he never "gave way"; his emotions and his affections +were genuine, but his heart was a fenced city. He had little sense of +domestic comfort; his rooms were bare and neat, with no personal objects +save those which belonged to his wife. Even in the days of his wealth, +in the fine house on Drammensvej, there was a singular absence of +individuality about his dwelling rooms. They might have been prepared +for a rich American traveller in some hotel. Through a large portion of +his career in Germany he lived in furnished rooms, not because he did +not possess furniture of his own, which was stored up, but because he +paid no sort of homage to his own penates. He had friends, but he did +not cultivate them; he rather permitted them, at intervals, to cultivate +him. To Georg Brandes (March 6, 1870) he wrote: "Friends are a costly +luxury; and when one has devoted one's self wholly to a profession and +a mission here in life, there is no place left for friends." The very +charming story of Ibsen's throwing his arms round old Hans Christian +Andersen's neck, and forcing him to be genial and amiable, [Note: +_Samliv med Ibsen._] is not inconsistent with the general rule of +passivity and shyness which he preserved in matters of friendship. + +Ibsen's reading was singularly limited. In his fine rooms on Drammensvej +I remember being struck by seeing no books at all, except the large +Bible which always lay at his side, and formed his constant study. He +disliked having his partiality for the Bible commented on, and if, as +would sometimes be the case, religious people expressed pleasure at +finding him deep in the sacred volume, Ibsen would roughly reply: "It is +only for the sake of the language." He was the enemy of anything which +seemed to approach cant and pretension, and he concealed his own views +as closely as he desired to understand the views of others. He possessed +very little knowledge of literature. The French he despised and +repudiated, although he certainly had studied Voltaire with advantage; +of the Italians he knew only Dante and of the English only Shakespeare, +both of whom he had studied in translations. In Danish he read and +reread Holberg, who throughout his life unquestionably remained Ibsen's +favorite author; he preserved a certain admiration for the Danish +classics of his youth: Heiberg, Hertz, Schack-Steffelt. In German, the +foreign language which he read most currently, he was strangely ignorant +of Schiller and Heine, and hostile to Goethe, although _Brand_ and _Peer +Gynt_ must owe something of their form to _Faust_. But the German poets +whom he really enjoyed were two dramatists of the age preceding his +own, Otto Ludwig (1813-65) and Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). Each of these +playwrights had been occupied in making certain reforms, of a realistic +tendency, in the existing tradition of the stage, and each of them +dealt, before any one else in Europe did so, with "problems" on the +stage. These two German poets, but Hebbel particularly, passed from +romanticism to realism, and so on to mysticism, in a manner fascinating +to Ibsen, whom it is possible that they influenced. [Note: It would +be interesting to compare _Die Niebelungen_, the trilogy which Hebbel +published in 1862, in which the struggle between pagan and Christian +ideals of conduct is analyzed, with Ibsen's _Emperor and Galilean_.] He +remained, in later years, persistently ignorant of Zola, and of Tolstoi +he had read, with contemptuous disapproval, only some of the polemical +pamphlets. He said to me, in 1899, of the great Russian: "Tolstoi?--he +is mad!" with a screwing up of the features such as a child makes at the +thought of a black draught. + +If he read at all, it was poetry. His indifference to music was +complete; he had, in fact, no ear whatever, and could not distinguish +one tune from another. His efforts to appreciate the music which +Grieg made for _Peer Gynt_ were pathetic. But for verse his sense was +exceedingly delicate, and the sound of poetry gave him acute pleasure. +At times, when his nerves were overstrained, he was fatigued by the riot +of rhymes which pursued him through his dreams, and which his memory +vainly strove to recapture. For academic philosophy and systems of +philosophic thought he had a great impatience. The vexed question of +what he owed to the eminent Danish philosopher, Sören Kierkegaard, has +never been solved. Brandes has insisted, again and again, on the +close relation between _Brand_ and other works of Ibsen and the famous +_Either-Or_ of Kierkegaard; "it actually seems," he says, "as though +Ibsen had aspired to the honor of being called Kierkegaard's poet." +Ibsen, however, aspired to no such honor, and, while he never actually +denied the influence, the relation between him and the philosopher seems +to be much rather one of parallelism than of imitation. Ibsen was a +poetical psychologist of the first order, but he could not bring himself +to read the prose of the professional thinkers. + +In his attitude both to philosophical and poetical literature Ibsen is +with such apparently remote figures as Guy de Maupassant and Shelley; in +his realism and his mysticism he is unrelated to immediate predecessors, +and has no wish to be a disciple of the dead. His extreme interest in +the observation of ethical problems is not identified with any curiosity +about what philosophical writers have said on similar subjects. +Weininger has pointed out that Ibsen's philosophy is radically the same +as that of Kant, yet there is no evidence that Ibsen had ever studied or +had even turned over the pages of the _Criticism of Pure Reason_. It is +not necessary to suppose that he had done so. The peculiar aspect of +the Ego as the principal and ultimately sole guide to truth was revealed +anew to the Norwegian poet, and references to Kant, or to Fichte, or to +Kierkegaard, seem, therefore, to be beside the mark. The watchword of +_Brand_, with his cry of "All or Nothing," his absolute repudiation of +compromise, was not a literary conception, but was founded, without the +help of books, on a profound contemplation of human nature, mainly, no +doubt, as Ibsen found it in himself. But in these days of the tyranny +of literature it is curious to meet with an author of the first rank who +worked without a library. + +Ibsen's study of women was evidently so close, and what he writes about +them is usually so penetrating, that many legends have naturally sprung +up about the manner in which he gained his experience. Of these, most +are pure fiction. As a matter of fact, Ibsen was shy with women, and +unless they took the initiative, he contented himself with watching them +from a distance: and noting their ways in silence. The early flirtation +with Miss Rikke Hoist at Bergen, which takes so prominent a place in +Ibsen's story mainly because such incidents were extremely rare in it, +is a typical instance. If this young girl of sixteen had not taken +the matter into her own hands, running up the steps of the hotel and +flinging her posy of flowers into the face of the young poet, the +incident would have closed in his watching her down the street, +while the fire smouldered in his eyes. It was not until her fresh +field-blossoms had struck him on the cheek that he was emboldened to +follow her and to send her the lyrical roses and auriculas which live +forever in his poems. If we wish to note the difference of temperament, +we have but to contrast Ibsen's affair with Rikke Holst with Goethe's +attitude to Christiana Vulpius; in doing so, we bring the passive and +the active lover face to face. + +Ibsen would gladly have married his flower of the field, a vision of +whose bright, untrammelled adolescence reappears again and again in +his works, and plainly in _The Master-Builder_. But he escaped a great +danger in failing to secure her as his wife, for Rikke Holst, when she +had lost her girlish freshness, would probably have had little character +and no culture to fall back upon. He waited, fortunately for his +happiness, until he secured Susannah Thoresen. Mrs. Ibsen, his faithful +guide, guardian and companion for half a century, will live among the +entirely successful wives of difficult men of genius. In the midst +of the spiteful gossip of Christiania she had to traverse her _via +dolorosa_, for it was part of the fun of the journalists to represent +this husband and wife as permanently alienated. That Ibsen was easy to +live with is not probable, but his wife not merely contrived to do it, +but by her watchfulness, her adroitness, and, when necessary, by her +firmness of decision, she smoothed the path for the great man whom +she adored, and who was to her a great wilful child to be cajoled and +circumvented. He was absolutely dependent on her, although he affected +amusing airs of independence; and if she absented herself, there were +soon cries in the house of "My Cat, My Cat!" the pet name by which he +called his wife. Of their domestic ways little is yet known in detail, +but everything can be imagined. + +To the enigma of Ibsen's character it was believed that his private +correspondence might supply a key. His letters were collected and +arranged while he was still alive, but he was not any longer in a +mental condition which permitted him to offer any help in comment to +his editors. His son, Mr. Sigurd Ibsen, superintended the work, and two +careful bibliographers, Mr. Halvdan Koht and Mr. Julius Elias, +carried out the scheme in two volumes [Note: _Breve fra Henrik Ibsen_, +Gyldendalske Boghadel, 1904.], with the execution of which no fault can +be suggested. But the enigma remained unsolved; the sphinx spoke much, +but failed to answer the questions we had been asking. These letters, +in the first place, suffer from the fact that Ibsen was a relentless +destroyer of documents; they are all written by him; not one single +example had been preserved of the correspondence to which this is +the reply. Then Ibsen's letters, as revealers of the unseen mood, are +particularly unsatisfactory. With rare exceptions, he remains throughout +them tightly buttoned up in his long and legendary frock-coat. There is +no laughter and no tears in his letters; he is occasionally extremely +angry, and exudes drops of poison, like the captive scorpion which he +caught when he was in Italy, and loved to watch and tease. But there +is no self-abandonment, and very little emotion; the letters are +principally historical and critical, "finger-posts for commentators." +They give valuable information about the genius of his works, but they +tell almost less about his inner moral nature than do his imaginative +writings. + +In his youth the scorpion in Ibsen's heart seems to have stung him +occasionally to acts which afterwards filled him with embarrassment. We +hear that in his Bergen days he sent to Lading, his fellow-teacher +at the theatre, a challenge of which, when the mood was over, he was +greatly ashamed. It is said that on another occasion, under the pressure +of annoyance, maddened with fear and insomnia, he sprang out of bed in +his shirt and tried to throw himself into the sea off one of the quays +in the harbor. Such performances were futile and ridiculous, and they +belong only to his youth. It seems certain that he schooled himself +to the suppression of such evidences of his anger, and that he did so +largely by shutting up within his breast all the fire that rose there. +The _Correspondence_--dark lantern as it is--seems to illuminate this +condition of things; we see before us Ibsen with his hands clenched, his +mouth tightly shut, rigid with determination not to "let himself go," +the eyes alone blazing behind the gleaming spectacles. + +An instance of his suppression of personal feeling may be offered. The +lengthiest of all Ibsen's published letters describes to Brandes (April +25, 1866) the suicide, at Rome, of a young Danish lawyer, Ludvig David, +of whom Ibsen had seen a good deal. The lad threw himself head-foremost +out of window, in a crisis of fever. Ibsen writes down all the minutest +details with feeling and refinement, but with as little sympathetic +emotion as if he was drawing up a report for the police. With this trait +may be compared his extreme interest in the detailed accounts of public +trials; he liked to read exactly what the prisoner said, and all the +evidence of the witnesses. In this Ibsen resembled Robert Browning, +whose curiosity about the small incidents surrounding a large event was +boundless. When Ibsen, in the course of such an investigation, found the +real purpose of some strange act dawn upon him, he exhibited an almost +childish pleasure; and this was doubled when the interpretation was one +which had not presented itself to the conventional legal authorities. + +In everything connected with the execution of his own work there was +no limit to the pains which he was willing to take. His handwriting +had always been neat, but it was commonplace in his early years. The +exquisite calligraphy which he ultimately used on every occasion, and +the beauty of which was famous far and wide, he adopted deliberately +when he was in Rome in 1862. To the end of his life, although in the +latest years the letters lost, from the shakiness of his hand, some of +their almost Chinese perfection, he wrote his smallest notes in this +character. His zeal for elaboration as an artist led him to collect a +mass of consistent imaginary information about the personages in his +plays, who became to him absolutely real. It is related how, some one +happening to say that Nora, in _A Doll's House_, had a curious name, +Ibsen immediately replied, "Oh! her full name was Leonora; but that was +shortened to Nora when she was quite a little girl. Of course, you know, +she was terribly spoilt by her parents." Nothing of this is revealed in +the play itself, but Ibsen was familiar with the past history of all the +characters he created. All through his career he seems to have been long +haunted by the central notion of his pieces, and to have laid it +aside, sometimes for many years, until a set of incidents spontaneously +crystallized around it. When the medium in which he was going to work +became certain he would put himself through a long course of study in +the technical phraseology appropriate to the subject. No pains were too +great to prepare him for the final task. + +When Mr. Archer visited Ibsen in the Harmonien Hotel at Saeby in 1887 +he extracted some valuable evidence from him as to his methods of +composition:-- + +It seems that the _idea_ of a piece generally presents itself before +the characters and incidents, though, when I put this to him flatly, he +denied it. It seems to follow, however, from his saying that there is a +certain stage in the incubation of a play when it might as easily turn +into all essay as into a drama. He has to incarnate the ideas, as it +were, in character and incident, before the actual work of creation +can be said to have fairly begun. Different plans and ideas, he admits, +often flow together, and the play he ultimately produces is sometimes +very unlike the intention with which he set out. He writes and rewrites, +scribbles and destroys, an enormous amount before he makes the exquisite +fair copy he sends to Copenhagen. + +He altered, as we have said, the printed text of his earlier works, in +order to bring them into harmony with his finished style, but he did not +do this, so far as I remember, after the publication of _Brand_. In the +case of all the dramas of his maturity he modified nothing when the work +had once been given to the world. + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + +Having accustomed ourselves to regard Ibsen as a disturbing and +revolutionizing force, which met with the utmost resistance at the +outset, and was gradually accepted before the close of his career, we +may try to define what the nature of his revolt was, and what it was, +precisely, that he attacked. It may be roughly said that what peculiarly +roused the animosity of Ibsen was the character which has become +stereotyped in one order of ideas, good in themselves but gradually +outworn by use, and which cannot admit ideas of a new kind. Ibsen +meditated upon the obscurantism of the old régime until he created +figures like Rosmer, in whom the characteristics of that school are +crystallized. From the point of view which would enter sympathetically +into the soul of Ibsen and look out on the world from his eyes, there +is no one of his plays more valuable in its purely theoretic way than +_Rosmersholm_. It dissects the decrepitude of ancient formulas, it +surveys the ruin of ancient faiths. The curse of heredity lies upon +Rosmer, who is highly intelligent up to a certain point, but who can go +no further. Even if he is persuaded that a new course of action would be +salutary, he cannot move--he is bound in invisible chains. It is useless +to argue with Rosmer; his reason accepts the line of logic, but he +simply cannot, when it comes to action, cross the bridge where Beate +threw herself into the torrent. + +But Ibsen had not the ardor of the fighting optimist. He was one who +"doubted clouds would break," who dreamed, since "right was worsted, +wrong would triumph." With Robert Browning he had but this one thing in +common, that both were fighters, both "held we fall to rise, are baffled +to fight better," but the dark fatalism of the Norwegian poet was in +other things in entire opposition to the sunshiny hopefulness of the +English one. Browning and Ibsen alike considered that the race must be +reformed periodically or it would die. The former anticipated reform +as cheerily as the sower expects harvest. Ibsen had no such happy +certainty. He was convinced of the necessity of breaking up the old +illusions, the imaginative call for revolt, but his faith wavered as to +the success of the new movements. The old order, in its resistance to +all change, is very strong. It may be shaken, but it is the work of +a blind Sampson, and no less, to bring it rattling to the ground. +In _Rosmersholm_, all the modern thought, all the vitality, all the +lucidity belong to Rebecca, but the decrepit formulas are stoutly +intrenched. In the end it is not the new idea who conquers; it is the +antique house, with its traditions, its avenging vision of white horses, +which breaks the too-clairvoyant Rebecca. + +This doubt of the final success of intelligence, this obstinate question +whether, after all, as we so glibly intimate, the old order changeth at +all, whether, on the contrary, it has not become a Juggernaut car that +crushes all originality and independence out of action, this breathes +more and more plainly out of the progressing work of Ibsen. Hedda Gabler +condemns the old order, in its dulness, its stifling mediocrity, but she +is unable to adapt her energy to any wholesome system of new ideas, and +she sinks into deeper moral dissolution. She hates all that has been +done, yet can herself do nothing, and she represents, in symbol, that +detestable condition of spirit which cannot create, though it sees +the need of creation, and can only show the irritation which its own +sterility awakens within it by destruction. All Hedda can actually do, +to assert her energy, is to burn the MS. of Lövborg, and to kill herself +with General Gabler's pistol. The race must be reformed or die; the +Hedda Gablers which adorn its latest phase do best to die. + +We have seen that Ibsen's theory was that love of self is the +fundamental principle of all activity. It is the instinct of +self-preservation and self-amelioration which leads to every +manifestation of revolt against stereotyped formulas of conduct. Between +the excessive ideality of Rebecca and the decadent sterility of Hedda +Gabler comes another type, perhaps more sympathetic than either, the +master-builder Solness. He, too, is led to condemn the old order, but in +the act of improving it he is overwhelmed upon his pinnacle, and swoons +to death, "dizzy, lost, yet unupbraiding." Ibsen's exact meaning in the +detail of these symbolic plays will long be discussed, but they repay +the closest and most reiterated study. Perhaps the most curious of all +is _The Lady from the Sea_, which has been examined from the technically +psychological view by a learned French philosopher, M. Jules de +Gaultier. For M. de Gaultier the interest which attaches to Ibsen's +conception of human life, with its conflicting instincts and +responsibilities, is more fully centred in _The Lady from the Sea_ than +in any other of his productions. + +The theory of the French writer is that Ibsen's constant aim is to +reconcile and to conciliate the two biological hypotheses which +have divided opinion in the nineteenth century, and which are known +respectively by the names of Cuvier and Lamarck; namely, that of the +invariability of species and that of the mutability of organic forms. +In the reconciliation of these hypotheses Ibsen finds the only process +which is truly encouraging to life. According to this theory, all the +trouble, all the weariness, all the waste of moral existences around +us comes from the neglect of one or other of these principles, and +true health, social or individual, is impossible without the harmonious +application of them both. According to this view, the apotheosis of +Ibsen's genius, or at least the most successful elucidation of his +scheme of ideological drama, is reached in the scene in _The Lady from +the Sea_ where Wangel succeeds in winning the heart of Ellida back from +the fascination of the Stranger. It is certainly in this mysterious and +strangely attractive play that Ibsen has insisted, more than anywhere +else, on the necessity of taking physiology into consideration in every +discussion of morals. He refers, like a zoölogist, to the laws which +regulate the formation and the evolution of species, and the decision +of Ellida, on which so much depends, is an amazing example of +the limitation of the power of change produced by heredity. The +extraordinary ingenuity of M. de Gaultier's analysis of this play +deserves recognition; whether it can quite be accepted, as embraced by +Ibsen's intention, may be doubtful. At the same time, let us recollect +that, however subtle our refinements become, the instinct of Ibsen was +probably subtler still. + +In 1850, when Ibsen first crept forward, with the glimmering taper of +his Catilina, there was but one person in the world who fancied that +the light might pass from lamp to lamp and in half a century form an +important part of the intellectual illumination of Europe. The one +person who did suspect it was, of course, Ibsen himself. Against +all probability and common-sense, this apothecary's assistant, this +ill-educated youth who had just been plucked in his preliminary +examination, who positively was, and remained, unable to pass the first +tests and become a student at the University, maintained in his +inmost soul the belief that he was born to be "a king of thought." The +impression is perhaps not uncommon among ill-educated lads; what makes +the case unique, and defeats our educational formulas, is that it +happened to be true. But the impact of Ibsen with the social order of +his age was unlucky, we see, from the first; it was perhaps more unlucky +than that of any other great man of the same class with whose biography +we have been made acquainted. He was at daggers drawn with all that +was successful and respectable and "nice" from the outset of his career +until near the end of it. + +Hence we need not be surprised if in the tone of his message to the +world there is something acrimonious, something that tastes in the +mouth like aloes. He prepared a dose for a sick world, and he made it as +nauseous and astringent as he could, for he was not inclined to be one +of those physicians who mix jam with their julep. There was no other +writer of genius in the nineteenth century who was so bitter in dealing +with human frailty as Ibsen was. By the side of his cruel clearness the +satire of Carlyle is bluster, the diatribes of Leopardi shrill and +thin. All other reformers seem angry and benevolent by turns, Ibsen is +uniformly and impartially stern. That he probed deeper into the problems +of life than any other modern dramatist is acknowledged, but it was +his surgical calmness which enabled him to do it. The problem-plays of +Alexandre Dumas _fils_ flutter with emotion, with prejudice and pardon. +But Ibsen, without impatience, examines under his microscope all the +protean forms of organic social life and coldly draws up his diagnosis +like a report. We have to think of him as thus ceaselessly occupied. We +have seen that, long before a sentence was written, he had invented and +studied, in its remotest branches, the life-history of the characters +who were to move in his play. Nothing was unknown to him of their +experience, and for nearly two years, like a coral-insect, he was +building up the scheme of them in silence. Odd little objects, fetiches +which represented people to him, stood arranged on his writing table, +and were never to be touched. He gazed at them until, as if by some +feat of black magic, he turned them into living persons, typical and yet +individual. + +We have recorded that the actual writing down of the dialogue was often +swift and easy, when the period of incubation was complete. Each of +Ibsen's plays presupposes a long history behind it; each starts like an +ancient Greek tragedy, in the full process of catastrophe. This +method of composition was extraordinary, was perhaps, in modern +times, unparalleled. It accounted in measure for the coherency, the +inevitability, of all the detail, but it also accounted for some of the +difficulties which meet us in the task of interpretation. Ibsen calls +for an expositor, and will doubtless give occupation to an endless +series of scholiasts. They will not easily exhaust their theme, and to +the last something will escape, something will defy their most careful +examination. It is not disrespectful to his memory to claim that Ibsen +sometimes packed his stuff too closely. Criticism, when it marvels most +at the wonder of his genius, is constrained to believe that he sometimes +threw too much of his soul into his composition, that he did not stand +far enough away from it always to command its general effect. The +result, especially in the later symbolical plays, is too vibratory, and +excites the spectator too much. + +One very curious example of Ibsen's minute care is found in the +copiousness of his stage directions. Later playwrights have imitated +him in this, and we have grown used to it; but thirty years ago such +minuteness seemed extravagant and needless. As a fact, it was essential +to the absolutely complete image which Ibsen desired to produce. The +stage directions in his plays cannot be "skipped" by any reader who +desires to follow the dramatist's thought step by step without losing +the least link. These notes of his intention will be of ever-increasing +value as the recollection of his personal wishes is lost. In 1899 Ibsen +remarked to me that it was almost useless for actors nowadays to try to +perform the comedies of Holberg, because there were no stage directions +and the tradition was lost. Of his own work, fortunately, that can never +be said. Dr. Verrall, in his brilliant and penetrating studies of the +Greek Tragedies, has pointed out more than once the "undesigned and +unforeseen defect with which, in studying ancient drama, we must +perpetually reckon," namely, the loss of the action and of the +equivalent stage directions. It is easy to imagine "what problems +Shakespeare would present if he were printed like the _Poetae Scenici +Graeci_," and not more difficult to realize how many things there would +be to puzzle us in _Ghosts_ and _The Wild Duck_ if we possessed nothing +but the bare text. + +The body of work so carefully conceived, so long maintained, so +passionately executed, was far too disturbing in its character to be +welcome at first. In the early eighties the name of Ibsen was loathed in +Norway, and the attacks on him which filled the press were often of an +extravagant character. At the present moment any one conversant with +Norwegian society who will ask a priest or a schoolmaster, an officer +or a doctor, what has been the effect of Ibsen's influence, will be +surprised at the unanimity of the reply. Opinions may differ as to the +attractiveness of the poet's art or of its skill, but there is an almost +universal admission of its beneficial tendency. Scarcely will a voice be +found to demur to the statement that Ibsen let fresh air and light into +the national life, that he roughly but thoroughly awakened the national +conscience, that even works like _Ghosts_, which shocked, and works like +_Rosmersholm_, which insulted the prejudices of his countrymen, were +excellent in their result. The conquest of Norway by this dramatist, who +reviled and attacked and abandoned his native land, who railed at +every national habit and showed a worm at the root of every national +tradition, is amazing. The fierce old man lived long enough to be +accompanied to his grave "to the noise of the mourning of a nation," and +he who had almost starved in exile to be conducted to the last resting +place by a Parliament and a King. + +It must always be borne in mind that, although Ibsen's appeal is to the +whole world--his determination to use prose aiding him vastly in this +dissemination--yet it is to Norway that he belongs, and it is at home +that he is best understood. No matter how acrid his tone, no matter how +hard and savage the voice with which he prophesied, the accord between +his country and himself was complete long before the prophet died. As he +walked about, the strange, picturesque little old man, in the streets +of Christiania, his fellow-citizens gazed at him with a little fear, +but with some affection and with unbounded reverence. They understood +at last what the meaning of his message had been, and how closely it +applied to themselves, and how much the richer and healthier for it +their civic atmosphere had become. They would say, as the soul of Dante +said in the _New Life_:-- + +è costui Che viene a consolar la nostra mente, Ed è la sua tanto +possente, Ch'altro pensier non lascia star con nui. + +No words, surely, could better express the intensity with which +Ibsen had pressed his moral quality, his _virtù_, upon the Norwegian +conscience, not halting in his pursuit till he had captured it and had +banished from it all other ideals of conduct. No one who knows will +doubt that the recent events in which Norway has taken so chivalric, and +at the same time so winning and gracious, an attitude in the eyes of the +world, owe not a little to their being the work of a generation nurtured +in that new temper of mind, that _spiritel nuovo d'amore_ which was +inculcated by the whole work of Ibsen. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + +***** This file should be named 8152-8.txt or 8152-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/1/5/8152/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/8152-8.zip b/8152-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c457506 --- /dev/null +++ b/8152-8.zip diff --git a/8152-h.zip b/8152-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..586ed26 --- /dev/null +++ b/8152-h.zip diff --git a/8152-h/8152-h.htm b/8152-h/8152-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed39aa4 --- /dev/null +++ b/8152-h/8152-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6055 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <title> + HENRIK IBSEN, By Edmund Gosse + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Henrik Ibsen + +Author: Edmund Gosse + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8152] +Last Updated: February 4, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + HENRIK IBSEN + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Edmund Gosse + </h2> + <p> + <a name="linki1" id="linki1"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:60%"> + <img alt="bust2.jpg (50K)" src="images/bust2.jpg" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#linkc1">CHAPTER I: CHILDHOOD AND + YOUTH</a><br /> <a href="#linkc2">CHAPTER II: EARLY + INFLUENCES</a><br /> <a href="#linkc3">CHAPTER III: LIFE + IN BERGEN (1852-57)</a><br /> <a href="#linkc4">CHAPTER IV: THE + SATIRES (1857-67)</a><br /> <a href="#linkc5">CHAPTER V: 1868-75</a><br /> + <a href="#linkc6">CHAPTER VI: 1875-82</a><br /> <a + href="#linkc7">CHAPTER VII: 1883-91</a><br /> <a href="#linkc8">CHAPTER + VIII: LAST YEARS</a><br /> <a href="#linkc9">CHAPTER IX: PERSONAL + CHARACTERISTICS</a><br /> <a href="#linkc10">CHAPTER X: INTELLECTUAL + CHARACTERISTICS</a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>ILLUSTRATIONS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#linki1">Bust of Ibsen, about 1865</a><br /> <a href="#linki2">Facsimile + of Ibsen's Handwriting</a><br /> <a href="#linki3">Ibsen in 1868</a><br /> + <a href="#linki5">Ibsen in Dresden, October, 1873</a><br /> <a + href="#linki4">Henrik Ibsen</a><br /> <a href="#linki6">From a drawing by + Gustav Laerum</a><br /> <a href="#linki7">Ibsen. From the painting by + Eilif Petersen</a><br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Numerous and varied as have been the analyses of Ibsen's works published, + in all languages, since the completion of his writings, there exists no + biographical study which brings together, on a general plan, what has been + recorded of his adventures as an author. Hitherto the only accepted Life + of Ibsen has been <i>Et literaert Livsbillede</i>, published in 1888 by + Henrik Jaeger; of this an English translation was issued in 1890. Henrik + Jaeger (who must not be confounded with the novelist, Hans Henrik Jaeger) + was a lecturer and dramatic critic, residing near Bergen, whose book would + possess little value had he not succeeded in persuading Ibsen to give him + a good deal of valuable information respecting his early life in that + city. In its own day, principally on this account, Jaeger's volume was + useful, supplying a large number of facts which were new to the public. + But the advance of Ibsen's activity, and the increase of knowledge since + his death, have so much extended and modified the poet's history that <i>Et + literaert Livsbillede</i> has become obsolete. + </p> + <p> + The principal authorities of which I have made use in the following pages + are the minute bibliographical <i>Oplysninger</i> of J. B. Halvorsen, + marvels of ingenious labor, continued after Halvorsen's death by Sten + Konow (1901); the <i>Letters of Henrik Ibsen</i>, published in two + volumes, by H. Koht and J. Elias, in 1904, and now issued in an English + translation (Hodder & Stoughton); the recollections and notes of + various friends, published in the periodicals of Scandinavia and Germany + after his death; T. Blanc's <i>Et Bidrag til den Ibsenskte Digtnings + Scenehistorie</i> (1906); and, most of all, the invaluable <i>Samliv med + Ibsen</i> (1906) of Johan Paulsen. This last-mentioned writer aspires, in + measure, to be Ibsen's Boswell, and his book is a series of chapters + reminiscent of the dramatist's talk and manners, chiefly during those + central years of his life which he spent in Germany. It is a trivial, + naive and rather thin production, but it has something of the true + Boswellian touch, and builds up before us a lifelike portrait. + </p> + <p> + From the materials, too, collected for many years past by Mr. William + Archer, I have received important help. Indeed, of Mr. Archer it is + difficult for an English student of Ibsen to speak with moderation. It is + true that thirty-six years ago some of Ibsen's early metrical writings + fell into the hands of the writer of this little volume, and that I had + the privilege, in consequence, of being the first person to introduce + Ibsen's name to the British public. Nor will I pretend for a moment that + it is not a gratification to me, after so many years and after such + surprising developments, to know that this was the fact. But, save for + this accident of time, it was Mr. Archer and no other who was really the + introducer of Ibsen to English readers. For a quarter of a century he was + the protagonist in the fight against misconstruction and stupidity; with + wonderful courage, with not less wonderful good temper and persistency, he + insisted on making the true Ibsen take the place of the false, and on + securing for him the recognition due to his genius. Mr. William Archer has + his reward; his own name is permanently attached to the intelligent + appreciation of the Norwegian playwright in England and America. + </p> + <p> + In these pages, where the space at my disposal was so small, I have not + been willing to waste it by repeating the plots of any of those plays of + Ibsen which are open to the English reader. It would please me best if + this book might be read in connection with the final edition of <i>Ibsen's + Complete Dramatic Works</i>, now being prepared by Mr. Archer in eleven + volumes (W. Heinemann, 1907). If we may judge of the whole work by those + volumes of it which have already appeared, I have little hesitation in + saying that no other foreign author of the second half of the nineteenth + century has been so ably and exhaustively edited in English as Ibsen has + been in this instance. + </p> + <p> + The reader who knows the Dano-Norwegian language may further be + recommended to the study of Carl Naerup's <i>Norsk Litteraturhistories + siste Tidsrum</i> (1905), a critical history of Norwegian literature since + 1890, which is invaluable in giving a notion of the effect of modern ideas + on the very numerous younger writers of Norway, scarcely one of whom has + not been influenced in one direction or another by the tyranny of Ibsen's + personal genius. What has been written about Ibsen in England and France + has often missed something of its historical value by not taking into + consideration that movement of intellectual life in Norway which has + surrounded him and which he has stimulated. Perhaps I may be allowed to + say of my little book that this side of the subject has been particularly + borne in mind in the course of its composition. + </p> + <p> + E. G. + </p> + <p> + KLOBENSTEIN. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> <a name="linki2" id="linki2"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:60%"> + <img alt="handwriting2.jpg (72K)" src="images/handwriting2.jpg" + width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <a name="linkc1" id="linkc1"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The parentage of the poet has been traced back to a certain Danish + skipper, Peter Ibsen, who, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, + made his way over from Stege, the capital of the island of Möen, and + became a citizen of Bergen. From that time forth the men of the family, + all following the sea in their youth, jovial men of a humorous + disposition, continued to haunt the coasts of Norway, marrying sinister + and taciturn wives, who, by the way, were always, it would seem, Danes or + Germans or Scotswomen, so that positively the poet had, after a hundred + years and more of Norwegian habitation, not one drop of pure Norse blood + to inherit from his parents. His grandfather, Henrik, was wrecked in 1798 + in his own ship, which went down with all souls lost on Hesnaes, near + Grimstad; this reef is the scene of Ibsen's animated poem of Terje Viken. + His father, Knud, who was born in 1797, married in 1825 a German, Marichen + Cornelia Martie Altenburg, of the same town of Skien; she was one year his + senior, and the daughter of a merchant. It was in 1771 that the Ibsens, + leaving Bergen, had settled in Skien, which was, and still is, an + important centre of the timber and shipping trades on the south-east shore + of the country. + </p> + <p> + It may be roughly said that Skien, in the Danish days, was a sort of Poole + or Dartmouth, existing solely for purposes of marine merchandise, and + depending for prosperity, and life itself, on the sea. Much of a + wire-drawn ingenuity has been conjectured about the probable strains of + heredity which met in Ibsen. It is not necessary to do more than to + recognize the slight but obstinate exoticism, which kept all his forbears + more or less foreigners still in their Norwegian home; and to insist on + the mixture of adventurousness and plain common sense which marked their + movements by sea and shore. The stock was intensely provincial, intensely + unambitious; it would be difficult to find anywhere a specimen of the + lower middle class more consistent than the Ibsens had been in preserving + their respectable dead level. Even in that inability to resist the call of + the sea, generation after generation, if there was a little of the + dare-devil there was still more of the conventional citizen. It is, in + fact, a vain attempt to detect elements of his ancestors in the extremely + startling and unprecedented son who was born to Knud and Marichen Ibsen + two years and three months after their marriage. + </p> + <p> + This son, who was baptized Henrik Johan, although he never used the second + name, was born in a large edifice known as the Stockmann House, in the + centre of the town of Skien, on March 20, The house stood on one side of a + large, open square; the town pillory was at the right of and the + mad-house, the lock-up and other amiable urban institutions to the left; + in front was Latin school and the grammar school, while the church + occupied the middle of the square. Over this stern prospect the tourist + can no longer sentimentalize, for the whole of this part of Skien was + burned down in 1886, to the poet's unbridled satisfaction. "The + inhabitants of Skien," he said with grim humor, "were quite unworthy to + possess my birthplace." + </p> + <p> + He declared that the harsh elements of landscape, mentioned above, were + those which earliest captivated his infant attention, and he added that + the square space, with the church in the midst of it, was filled all day + long with the dull and droning sound of many waterfalls, while from dawn + to dusk this drone of waters was constantly cut through by a sound that + was like the sharp screaming and moaning of women. This was caused by + hundreds of saws at work beside the waterfalls, taking advantage of that + force. "Afterwards, when I read about the guillotine, I always thought of + those saws," said the poet, whose earliest flight of fancy seems to have + been this association of womanhood with the shriek of the sawmill. + </p> + <p> + In 1888, just before his sixtieth birthday, Ibsen wrote out for Henrik + Jaeger certain autobiographical recollections of his childhood. It is from + these that the striking phrase about the scream of the saws is taken, and + that is perhaps the most telling of these infant memories, many of which + are slight and naive. It is interesting, however, to find that his + earliest impressions of life at home were of an optimistic character. + "Skien," he says, "in my young days, was an exceedingly lively and + sociable place, quite unlike what it afterwards became. Several highly + cultivated and wealthy families lived in the town itself or close by on + their estates. Most of these families were more or less closely related, + and dances, dinners and music parties followed each other, winter and + summer, in almost unbroken sequence. Many travellers, too, passed through + the town, and, as there were as yet no regular inns, they lodged with + friends or connections. We almost always had guests in our large, roomy + house, especially at Christmas and Fair-time, when the house was full, and + we kept open table from morning till night." The mind reverts to the + majestic old wooden mansions which play so prominent a part in Thomas + Krag's novels, or to the house of Mrs. Solness' parents, the burning down + of which started the Master-Builder's fortunes. Most of these grand old + timber houses in Norway have indeed, by this time, been so burned down. + </p> + <p> + We may speculate on what the effect of this genial open-handedness might + have been, had it lasted, on the genius of the poet. But fortune had + harsher views of what befitted the training of so acrid a nature. When + Ibsen was eight years of age, his father's business was found to be in + such disorder that everything had to be sold to meet his creditors. The + only piece of property left when this process had been gone through was a + little broken-down farmhouse called Venstöb, in the outskirts of + Skien. Ibsen afterwards stated that those who had taken most advantage of + his parents' hospitality in their prosperous days were precisely those who + now most markedly turned a cold shoulder on them. It is likely enough that + this may have been the case, but one sees how inevitably Ibsen would, in + after years, be convinced that it was. He believed himself to have been, + personally, much mortified and humiliated in childhood by the change in + the family status. Already, by all accounts, he had begun to live a life + of moral isolation. His excellent sister long afterwards described him as + an unsociable child, never a pleasant companion, and out of sympathy with + all the rest of the family. + </p> + <p> + We recollect, in <i>The Wild Duck</i>, the garret which was the domain of + Hedvig and of that symbolic bird. At Venstöb, the infant Ibsen + possessed a like retreat, a little room near the back entrance, which was + sacred to him and into the fastness of which he was accustomed to bolt + himself. Here were some dreary old books, among others Harrison's folio <i>History + of the City of London</i>, as well as a paint-box, an hour-glass, an + extinct eight-day clock, properties which were faithfully introduced, half + a century later, into <i>The Wild Duck</i>. His sister says that the only + outdoor amusement he cared for as a boy was building, and she describes + the prolonged construction of a castle, in the spirit of <i>The + Master-Builder</i>. + </p> + <p> + Very soon he began to go to school, but to neither of the public + institutions in the town. He attended what is described as a "small + middle-class school," kept by a man called Johan Hansen, who was the only + person connected with his childhood, except his sister, for whom the poet + retained in after life any agreeable sentiment. "Johan Hansen," he says, + "had a mild, amiable temper, like that of a child," and when he died, in + 1865, Ibsen mourned him. The sexton at Skien, who helped in the lessons, + described the poet afterwards as "a quiet boy with a pair of wonderful + eyes, but with no sort of cleverness except an unusual gift for drawing." + Hansen taught Ibsen Latin and theology, gently, perseveringly, without any + striking results; that the pupil afterwards boasted of having successfully + perused Phaedrus in the original is in itself significant. So little was + talent expected from him that when, at the age of about fifteen, he + composed a rather melodramatic description of a dream, the schoolmaster + looked at him gloomily, and said he must have copied it out of some book! + One can imagine the shocked silence of the author, "passive at the nadir + of dismay." + </p> + <p> + No great wild swan of the flocks of Phoebus ever began life as a more + ungainly duckling than Ibsen did. The ingenuity of biographers has done + its best to brighten up the dreary record of his childhood with anecdotes, + yet the sum of them all is but a dismal story. The only talent which was + supposed to lurk in the napkin was that for painting. A little while + before he left school, he was found to have been working hard with + water-colors. Various persons have recalled finished works of the young + Ibsen—a romantic landscape of the ironworks at Fossum, a view from + the windows at Venstöb, a boy in peasant dress seated on a rock, the + latter described by a dignitary of the church as "awfully splendid," + overmaade praegtigt. One sees what kind of painting this must have been, + founded on some impression of Fearnley and Tidemann, a far-away following + of the new "national" art of the praiseworthy "patriot- painters" of the + school of Dahl. + </p> + <p> + It is interesting to remember that Pope, who had considerable intellectual + relationship with Ibsen, also nourished in childhood the ambition to be a + painter, and drudged away at his easel for weeks and months. As he to the + insipid Jervases and Knellers whom he copied, so Ibsen to the + conscientious romantic artists of Norway's prime. In neither case do we + wish that an Ibsen or a Pope should be secured for the National Gallery, + but it is highly significant that such earnest students of precise + excellence in another art should first of all have schooled their eyes to + exactitude by grappling with form and color. + </p> + <p> + In 1843, being fifteen years of age, Ibsen was confirmed and taken away + from school. These events marked the beginning of adolescence with a young + middle-class Norwegian of those days, for whom the future proposed no task + in life demanding a more elaborate education than the local schoolmaster + could give. Ibsen announced his wish to be a professional artist, but that + was one which could not be indulged. Until a later date than this, every + artist in Norway was forced abroad for the necessary technical training: + as a rule, students went to Dresden, because J. C. Dahl was there; but + many settled in Düsseldorf, where the teaching attracted them. In any + case, the adoption of a plastic profession meant a long and serious + expenditure of money, together with a very doubtful prospect of ultimate + remuneration. Fearnley, who had seemed the very genius of Norwegian art, + had just (1842) died, having scarcely begun to sell his pictures, at the + age of forty. It is not surprising that Knud Ibsen, whose to were in a + worse condition than ever, refused even to consider a course of life which + would entail a heavy and long-continued expense. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen hung about at home for a few months, then, shortly before his + sixteenth birthday, he apprenticed to an apothecary of the name of Mann, + at the little town of Grimstad, between Arendal and Christianssand, on the + extreme south-east corner of the Norwegian coast. This was his home for + more than five years; here he became a poet, and here the peculiar color + and tone of his temperament were developed. So far as the genius of a very + great man is influenced by his surroundings, and by his physical condition + in those surroundings, it was the atmosphere of Grimstad and of its + drug-store which moulded the character of Ibsen. Skien and his father's + house dropped from him like an old suit of clothes. He left his parents, + whom he scarcely knew, the town which he hated, the schoolmates and + schoolmasters to whom he seemed a surly dunce. We find him next, with an + apron round his middle and a pestle in his hand, pounding drugs in a + little apothecary's shop in Grimstad. What Blackwood's so basely + insinuated of Keats—"Back to the shop, Mr. John, stick to plasters, + pills and ointment-boxes," inappropriate to the author of <i>Endymion</i>, + was strictly true of the author of <i>Peer Gynt</i>. + </p> + <p> + Curiosity and hero-worship once took the author of these lines to + Grimstad. It is a marvellous object-lesson on the development of genius. + For nearly six years (from 1844 to 1850), and those years the most + important of all in the moulding of character and talent, one of the most + original and far-reaching imaginations which Europe has seen for a century + was cooped up here among ointment-boxes, pills and plasters. Grimstad is a + small, isolated, melancholy place, connected with nothing at all, + visitable only by steamer. Featureless hills surround it, and it looks out + into the east wind, over a dark bay dotted with naked rocks. No industry, + no objects of interest in the vicinity, a perfect uniformity of little red + houses where nobody seems to be doing anything; in Ibsen's time there are + said to have been about five hundred of these apathetic inhabitants. Here, + then, for six interminable years, one of the acutest brains in Europe had + to interest itself in fraying ipecacuanha and mixing black draughts behind + an apothecary's counter. + </p> + <p> + For several years nothing is recorded, and there was probably very little + that demanded record, of Ibsen's life at Grimstad. His own interesting + notes, it is obvious, refer only to the closing months of the period. Ten + years before the birth of Ibsen of the greatest poets of Europe had + written words which seem meant to characterize an adolescence such as his. + "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man + is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in + a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the + ambition thick-sighted; thence proceed mawkishness and a thousand + bitters." + </p> + <p> + It is easy to discover that Ibsen, from his sixth to his twentieth year, + suffered acutely from moral and intellectual distemper. He was at war— + the phrase is his own—with the little community in which he lived. + And yet it seems to have been, in its tiny way, a tolerant and even + friendly little community. It is difficult for us to realize what life in + a remote coast-town of Norway would be sixty years ago. Connection with + the capital would be rare and difficult, and, when achieved, the capital + was as yet little more than we should call a village. There would, + perhaps, be a higher uniformity of education among the best inhabitants of + Grimstad than we are prepared to suppose. A certain graceful veneer of + culture, an old-fashioned Danish elegance reflected from Copenhagen, would + mark the more conservative citizens, male and female. A fierier generation—not + hot enough, however, to set the fjord on flame—would celebrate the + comparatively recent freedom of the country in numerous patriotic forms. + It is probable that a dark boy like Ibsen would, on the whole, prefer the + former type, but he would despise them both. + </p> + <p> + He was poor, excruciatingly poor, with a poverty that excluded all + indulgence, beyond the bare necessities, in food and clothes and books. We + can conceive the meagre advance of his position, first a mere apprentice, + then an assistant, finally buoyed up by the advice of friends to study + medicine and pharmacy, in the hope of being, some bright day, himself no + less than the owner of a drug-store. Did Mr. Anstey know this, or was it + the sheer adventure of genius, when he contrasted the qualities of the + master into "Pill-Doctor Herdal," compounding "beautiful rainbow-colored + powders that will give one a real grip on the world"? Ibsen, it is + allowable to think, may sometimes have dreamed of a pill, "with arsenic in + it, Hilda, and digitalis, too, and strychnine and the best beetle-killer," + which would decimate the admirable inhabitants of Grimstad, strewing the + rocks with their bodies in their go-to-meeting coats and dresses. He had + in him that source of anger, against which all arguments are useless, + which bubbles up in the heart of youth who vaguely feels himself possessed + of native energy, and knows not how to stir a hand or even formulate a + wish. He was savage in manners, unprepossessing in appearance, and, as he + himself has told us with pathetic naïveté, unable to express + the real gratitude he felt to the few who would willingly have extended + friendship to him if he had permitted it. + </p> + <p> + As he advanced in age, he does not seem to have progressed in grace. By + the respectable citizens of Grimstad—and even Grimstad had its + little inner circle of impenetrable aristocracy—he regarded as "not + quite nice." The apothecary's assistant was a bold young man, who did not + seem to realize his menial position. He was certainly intelligent, and + Grimstad would have overlooked the pills and ointments if his manners had + been engaging, but he was rude, truculent and contradictory. The youthful + female sex is not in the habit of sharing the prejudices of its elders in + this respect, and many a juvenile Orson has, in such conditions, enjoyed + substantial successes. But young Ibsen was not a favorite even with the + girls, whom he alarmed and disconcerted. One of the young ladies of + Grimstad in after years attempted to describe the effect which the poet + made upon them. They had none of them liked him, she said, "because"—she + hesitated for the word—"because he was so <i>spectral</i>." This + gives us just the flash we want; it reveals to us for a moment the + distempered youth, almost incorporeal, displayed wandering about at + twilight and in lonely places, held in common esteem to be malevolent, and + expressing by gestures rather than by words sentiments of a nature far + from complimentary or agreeable. + </p> + <p> + Thus life at Grimstad seems to have proceeded until Ibsen reached his + twenty-first year. In this quiet backwater of a seaport village the + passage of time was deliberate, and the development of hard-worked + apothecaries was slow. Ibsen's nature was not in any sense precocious, and + even if he had not languished in so lost a corner of society, it is + unlikely that he would have started prematurely in life or literature. The + actual waking up, when it came at last, seems to have been almost an + accident. There had been some composing of verses, now happily lost, and + some more significant distribution of "epigrams" and "caricatures" to the + vexation of various worthy persons. The earliest trace of talent seems to + been in this direction, in the form of lampoons or "characters," as people + called them in the seventeenth century, sarcastic descriptions of types in + which certain individuals could be recognized. No doubt if these could be + recovered, we should find them rough and artless, but containing germs of + the future keenness of portraiture. They were keen enough, it seems, to + rouse great resentment in Grimstad. + </p> + <p> + There is evidence to show that the lad had docility enough, at all events, + to look about for some aid in the composition of Norwegian prose. We + should know nothing of it but for a passage in Ibsen's later polemic with + Paul Jansenius Stub of Bergen. In 1848 Stub was an invalid schoolmaster, + who, it appears, eked out his income by giving instruction, by + correspondence, in style. How Ibsen heard of him does not seem to be + known, but when, in 1851, Ibsen entered, with needless acrimony, into a + controversy with his previous teacher about the theatre, Stub complained + of his ingratitude, since he had "taught the boy to write." Stub's + intervention in the matter, doubtless, was limited to the correction of a + few exercises. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen's own theory was that his intellect and character were awakened by + the stir of revolution throughout Europe. The first political event which + really interested him was the proclamation of the French Republic, which + almost coincided with his twentieth birthday. He was born again, a child + of '48. There were risings in Vienna, in Milan, in Rome. Venice was + proclaimed a republic, the Pope fled to Gaeta, the streets of Berlin ran + with the blood of the populace. The Magyars rose against Jellalic and his + Croat troops; the Czechs demanded their autonomy; in response to the + revolutionary feeling in Germany, Schleswig-Holstein was up in arms. + </p> + <p> + Each of these events, and others like them, and all occurring in the rapid + months of that momentous year, smote like hammers on the door of Ibsen's + brain, till it quivered with enthusiasm and excitement. The old brooding + languor was at an end, and with surprising clearness and firmness he saw + his pathway cut out before him as a poet and as a man. The old clouds + vanished, and though the social difficulties which hemmed in his career + were as gross as ever, he himself no longer doubted what was to be his aim + in life. The cry of revolution came to him, of revolution faint indeed and + broken, the voice of a minority appealing frantically and for a moment + against the overwhelming forces of a respectable majority, but it came to + him just at the moment when his young spirit was prepared to receive it + with faith and joy. The effect on Ibsen's character was sudden and it was + final: + </p> + <p> + Then he stood up, and trod to dust<br /> Fear and + desire, mistrust and trust,<br /> And dreams of + bitter sleep and sweet,<br /> And bound for sandals + on his feet<br /> Knowledge and patience of what must<br /> + And what things maybe, in the heat<br /> And + cold of years that rot and rust<br /> And alter; + and his spirit's meat<br /> Was freedom, and his staff was + wrought<br /> Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + We are not left to conjecture on the subject; in a document of extreme + interest, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of his + commentators, the preface to the second (1876) edition of <i>Catilina</i>, + he has described what the influences were which roused him out of the + wretchedness of Grimstad; they were precisely the revolution of February, + the risings in Hungary, the first Schleswig war. He wrote a series of + sonnets, now apparently lost, to King Oscar, imploring him to take up arms + for the help of Denmark, and of nights, when all his duties were over at + last, and the shop shut up, he would creep to the garret where he slept, + and dream himself fighting at the centre of the world, instead of lost on + its extreme circumference. And here he began his first drama, the opening + lines of which, + </p> + <p> + "I must, I must; a voice is crying to me<br /> + From my soul's depth, and I will follow it," + </p> + <p> + might be taken as the epigraph of Ibsen's whole life's work. + </p> + <p> + In one of his letters to Georg Brandes he has noted, with that + clairvoyance which marks some of his utterances about himself, the + "full-blooded egotism" which developed in him during his last year of + mental and moral starvation at Grimstad. Through the whole series of his + satiric dramas we see the little narrow-minded borough, with its + ridiculous officials, its pinched and hypocritical social order, its + intolerable laws and ordinances, modified here and there, expanded + sometimes, modernized and brought up to date, but always recurrent in the + poet's memory. To the last, the images and the rebellions which were + burned into his soul at Grimstad were presented over and over again to his + readers. + </p> + <p> + But the necessity of facing the examination at Christiania now presented + itself. He was so busily engaged in the shop that he had, as he says, to + steal his hours for study. He still inhabited the upper room, which he + calls a garret; it would not seem that the alteration in his status, + assistant now and no longer apprentice, had increased his social + conveniences. He was still the over-worked apothecary, pounding drugs with + a pestle and mortar from morning till night. Someone has pointed out the + odd circumstance that almost every scene in the drama of <i>Catilina</i> + takes place in the dark. This was the unconscious result of the fact that + all the attention which the future realist could give to the story had to + be given in the night hours. When he emerged from the garret, it was to + read Latin with a candidate in theology, a Mr. Monrad, brother of the + afterwards famous professor. By a remarkable chance, the subject given by + the University for examination was the Conspiracy of Catiline, to be + studied in the history of Sallust and the oration of Cicero. + </p> + <p> + No theme could have been more singularly well fitted to fire the + enthusiasm of Ibsen. At no time of his life a linguist, or much interested + in history, it is probable that the difficulty of concentrating his + attention on a Latin text would have been insurmountable had the subject + been less intimately sympathetic to him. But he tells us that he had no + sooner perceived the character of the man against whom these diatribes are + directed than he devoured them greedily (<i>jeg slugte disse skrifter</i>). + The opening words of Sallust, which every schoolboy has to read—we + can imagine with what an extraordinary force they would strike upon the + resounding emotion of such a youth as Ibsen. <i>Lucius Catilina nobili + genere natus, magna vi et animi et corporis, sed ingenio malo pravoque</i>—how + does this at once bring up an image of the arch-rebel, of Satan himself, + as the poets have conceived him, how does it attract, with its effects of + energy, intelligence and pride, the curiosity of one whose way of life, as + Keats would say, is still undecided, his ambition still thick-sighted! + </p> + <p> + It was Sallust's picture more than Cicero's that absorbed Ibsen. Criticism + likes to trace a predecessor behind every genius, a Perugino for + Raffaelle, a Marlowe for Shakespeare. If we seek for the master-mind that + started Ibsen, it is not to be found among the writers of his age or of + his language. The real master of Ibsen was Sallust. There can be no doubt + that the cold and bitter strength of Sallust; his unflinching method of + building up his edifice of invective, stone by stone; his close, + unidealistic, dry penetration into character; his clinical attitude, + unmoved at the death-bed of a reputation; that all these qualities were + directly operative on the mind and intellectual character of Ibsen, and + went a long way to mould it while moulding was still possible. + </p> + <p> + There is no evidence to show that the oration of Cicero moved him nearly + so much as the narratives of Sallust. After all, the object of Cicero was + to crush the conspiracy, but what Ibsen was interested in was the + character of Catiline, and this was placed before him in a more thrilling + way by the austere reserve of the historian. No doubt, to a young poet, + when that poet was Ibsen, there would be something deeply attractive in + the sombre, archaic style, and icy violence of Sallust. How thankful we + ought to be that the historian, with his long sonorous words—<i>flagitiosorum + ac facinorosorum</i>—did not make of our perfervid apothecary a mere + tub-thumper of Corinthian prose! + </p> + <p> + Ibsen now formed the two earliest friendships of his life. He had reached + the age of twenty without, as it would seem, having been able to make his + inner nature audible to those around him. He had been to the inhabitants + of Grimstad a stranger within their gates, not speaking their language; + or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at all, but indulging + in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like Caliban, and tamed, + and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship. One of those who thus + interpreted him was a young musician, Due, who held a post in the + custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud (1827-59), who deserves a + cordial acknowledgment from every admirer of Ibsen. He also was in the + receipt of custom, and a young man of small independent means. To + Schulerud and to Due, Ibsen revealed his poetic plans, and he seems to + have found in them both sympathizers with his republican enthusiasms and + transcendental schemes for the liberation of the peoples. It was a + stirring time, in 1848, and all generous young blood was flowing fast in + the same direction. + </p> + <p> + Since Ibsen's death, Due has published a very lively paper of + recollections of the old Grimstad days. He says: + </p> + <p> + His daily schedule admitted few intervals for rest or sleep. Yet I never + heard Ibsen complain of being tired. His health was uniformly good. He + must have had an exceptionally strong constitution, for when his financial + conditions compelled him to practice the most stringent economy, he tried + to do without underclothing, and finally even without stockings. In these + experiments he succeeded; and in winter he went without an overcoat; yet + without being troubled by colds or other bodily ills. + </p> + <p> + We have seen that Ibsen was so busy that he had to steal from his duties + the necessary hours for study. But out of these hours, he tells us, he + stole moments for the writing of poetry, of the revolutionary poetry of + which we have spoken, and for a great quantity of lyrics of a sentimental + and fanciful kind. Due was the confidant to whom he recited the latter, + and one at least of these early pieces survives, set to music by this + friend. But to Schulerud a graver secret was intrusted, no less than that + in the night hours of 1848-49 there was being composed in the garret over + the apothecary's shop a three-act tragedy in blank verse, on the + conspiracy of Catiline. With his own hand, when the first draft was + completed, Schulerud made a clean copy of the drama, and in the autumn of + 1849 he went to Christiania with the double purpose of placing <i>Catilina</i> + at the theatre and securing a publisher for it. A letter (October 15, + 1849) from Ibsen, first printed in 1904—the only document we possess + of this earliest period—displays to a painful degree the torturing + anxiety with which the poet awaited news of his play, and, incidentally, + exposes his poverty. With all Schulerud's energy, he found it impossible + to gain attention for <i>Catilina</i> at the theatre, and in January, + 1850, Ibsen received what he called its "death warrant," but it was + presently brought out as a volume, under the pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme, + at Schulerud's expense. Of <i>Catilina</i> about thirty copies were sold, + and it attracted no notice whatever from the press. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, left alone in Grimstad, since Due was now with Schulerud in + Christiania, Ibsen had been busy with many literary projects. He had been + writing an abundance of lyrics, he had begun a one-act drama called "The + Normans," afterwards turned into <i>Kaempehöjen</i>; he was planning + a romance, <i>The Prisoner at Akershus</i> (this was to deal with the + story of Christian Lofthus); and above all he was busy writing a tragedy + of <i>Olaf Trygvesö</i>n. [Note: On the authority of the Breve, pp. + 59, 59, where Halvdan Koht prints "Olaf Tr." and "Olaf T." expanding these + to Tr[ygvesön]. But is it quite certain that what Ibsen wrote in + these letters was not "Olaf Li." and "Olaf L.," and that the reference is + not to Olaf Liljekrans, which was certainly begun at Grimstad? Is there + any other evidence that Ibsen ever started an Olaf Trygvesön? + </p> + <p> + One of his poems had already been printed in a Christiania newspaper. The + call was overwhelming; he could endure Grimstad and the gallipots no + longer. In March, 1850, at the age of twenty-one, Ibsen stuck a few + dollars in his pocket and went off to try his fortune in the capital. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> <a name="linkc2" id="linkc2"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + EARLY INFLUENCES + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + In middle life Ibsen, who suppressed for as long a time as he could most + of his other juvenile works, deliberately lifted <i>Catilina</i> from the + oblivion into which it had fallen, and replaced it in the series of his + writings. This is enough to indicate to us that he regarded it as of + relative importance, and imperfect as it is, and unlike his later plays, + it demands some critical examination. I not know whether any one ever + happened to ask Ibsen whether he had been aware that Alexandre Dumas + produced in Paris a five-act drama of <i>Catiline</i> at the very moment + (October, 1848) when Ibsen started the composition of his. It is quite + possible that the young Norwegian saw this fact noted in a newspaper, and + immediately determined to try what he could make of the same subject. In + Dumas' play Catiline is presented merely as a demagogue; he is the red + Flag personified, and the political situation in France is discussed under + a slight veil of Roman history. Catiline is simply a sort of Robespierre + brought up to date. There is no trace of all this in Ibsen. + </p> + <p> + Oddly enough, though the paradox is easily explained, we find much more + similarity when we compare the Norwegian drama with that tragedy of <i>Catiline</i> + which Ben Jonson published in 1611. Needless to state, Ibsen had never + read the old English play; it would be safe to lay a wager that, when he + died, Ibsen had never heard or seen the name of Ben Jonson. Yet there is + an odd sort of resemblance, founded on the fact that each poet keeps very + close to the incidents recorded by the Latins. Neither of them takes + Sallust's presentment of the character of Catiline as if it were gospel, + but, while holding exact touch with the narrative, each contrives to add a + native grandeur to the character of the arch- conspirator, such as his + original detractors denied him. In both poems, Ben Jonson's and Ibsen's, + Catiline is— + </p> + <p> + Armed with a glory high as his despair. + </p> + <p> + Another resemblance between the old English and the modern Norwegian + dramatist is that each has felt the solid stuff of the drama to require + lightening, and has attempted to provide this by means, in Ben Jonson's + case, of solemn "choruses," in Ibsen's of lyrics. In the latter instance + the tragedy ends in rolling and rhymed verse, little suited to the stage. + </p> + <p> + This is a very curious example, among many which might be brought forward, + of Ibsen's native partiality for dramatic rhyme. In all his early plays, + his tendency is to slip into the lyrical mood. This tendency reached its + height nearly twenty years later in <i>Brand</i> and <i>Peer Gynt</i>, and + the truth about the austere prose which he then adopted for his dramas is + probably this, not that the lyrical faculty had quitted him, but that he + found it to be hampering his purely dramatic expression, and that he + determined, by a self-denying ordinance, to tear it altogether off his + shoulders, like an embroidered mantle, which is in itself very ornamental, + but which checks an actor's movements. + </p> + <p> + The close of Ibsen's <i>Catalina</i> is, as we have said, composed + entirely in rhyme, and the effect of this curious. It is as though the + young poet could not restrain the rhythm bubbling up in him, and was + obliged to start running, although the moment was plainly one for walking. + Here is a fragment. Catiline has stabbed Aurelia, and left her in the tent + for dead. But while he was soliloquizing at the door of the tent, Fulvia + has stabbed him. He lies dying at the foot of a tree, and makes a speech + which ends thus:— + </p> + <p> + See, the pathway breaks, divided! I will wander, dumb, To the left hand. + </p> + <p> + AURELIA + (appearing, blood-stained, at the door of + the tent). Nay! the right + hand! Towards Elysium. + </p> + <p> + CATILINE + (greatly + alarmed). O yon pallid apparition, how it fills me with remorse. 'Tis + herself! Aurelia! tell me, art thou living? not a corse? + </p> + <p> + AURELIA. + Yes, I live that I may full thy sea of sorrows, and may lie With my bosom + pressed a moment to thy bosom, and then die. + </p> + <p> + CATILINE + (bewildered). + What? thou livest? + </p> + <p> + AURELIA. + Death's pale herald o'er my + senses threw a pall, But my dulled eye tracked thy footsteps, and I saw, I + saw it all, And my passion a wife's forces to my wounded body gave; Breast + to breast, my Catiline, let us sink into our grave. + </p> + <p> + [Note: In 1875 Ibsen practically rewrote the whole of this part of <i>Catilina</i>, + without, however, improving it. Why will great authors confuse the history + of literature by tampering with their early texts?] + </p> + <p> + He had slipped far out of the sobriety of Sallust when he floundered, in + this way, in the deep waters of romanticism. In the isolation of Grimstad + he had but himself to consult, and the mind of a young poet who has not + yet enjoyed any generous communication with life is invariably sentimental + and romantic. The critics of the North have expended a great deal of + ingenuity in trying to prove that Ibsen exposed his own temperament and + character in the course of <i>Catilina</i>. No doubt there is a great + temptation to indulge in this species of analysis, but it is amusing to + note that some of the soliloquies which have been pointed out as + particularly self-revealing are translated almost word for word out of + Sallust. Perhaps the one passage in the play which is really significant + is that in which the hero says:— + </p> + <p> + If but for one brief moment I could flame And blaze through space, and be + a falling star; If only once, and by one glorious deed, I could but knit + the name of Catiline With glory and with deathless high renown,— + Then should I blithely, in the hour of conquest, Leave all, and hie me to + an alien shore, Press the keen dagger gayly to my heart, And die; for then + I should have lived indeed. + </p> + <p> + This has its personal interest, since we know, on the evidence of his + sister, that such was the tenor of Ibsen's private talk about himself at + that precise time. + </p> + <p> + Very imperfect as <i>Catilina</i> is in dramatic art, and very primitive + as is the development of plot in it, it presents one aspect, as a literary + work, which is notable. That it should exist at all is curious, since, + surprising as it seems, it had no precursor. Although, during the + thirty-five years of Norwegian independence, various classes of literature + had been cultivated with extreme diligence, the drama had hitherto been + totally neglected. With the exception of a graceful opera by Bjerregaard, + which enjoyed a success sustained over a quarter of a century, the only + writings in dramatic form produced in Norway between 1815 and 1850 were + the absurd lyrical farces of Wergeland, which were devoid of all + importance. Such a thing as a three-act tragedy in blank verse was unknown + in modern Norway, so that the youthful apothecary in Grimstad, whatever he + was doing, was not slavishly copying the fashions of his own countrymen. + </p> + <p> + The principal, if not the only influence which acted upon Ibsen at this + moment, was that of the great Danish tragedian, Adam Oehlenschläger. + It might be fantastically held that the leading romantic luminary of + Scandinavia withdrew on purpose to make room for his realistic successor, + since Oehlenschläger's latest play, <i>Kiartan and Gudrun</i>, + appeared just when Ibsen was planning <i>Catilina</i>, while the death of + the Danish poet (January 20, 1850) was practically simultaneous with + Ibsen's arrival in Christiania. In later years, Ibsen thought that Holberg + and Oehlenschläger were the only dramatists he had read when his own + first play was written; he was sure that he knew nothing of Schiller, + Shakespeare or the French. Of the rich and varied dramatic literature of + Denmark, in the generation between Oehlenschläger's and his own, he + must also for the present have known nothing. The influence of Heiberg and + of Hertz, presently to be so potent, had evidently not yet begun. But it + is important to perceive that already Norway, and Norwegian taste and + opinion, were nothing to him in his selection of themes and forms. + </p> + <p> + It is not to be supposed that the taste for dramatic performances did not + exist in Norway, because no Norwegian plays were written. On the contrary, + in most of the large towns there were, and had long been, private theatres + or rooms which could be fitted up with a stage, at which wandering troupes + of actors gave performances that were eagerly attended by "the best + people." These actors, however, were exclusively Danes, and there was an + accepted tradition that Norwegians could not act. If they attempted to do + so, their native accents proved disagreeable to their fellow-citizens, who + demanded, as an imperative condition, the peculiar intonation and + pronunciation cultivated at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, as well as an + absence of all native peculiarities of language. The stage, therefore—and + this is very important in a consideration of the career of Ibsen—had + come to be the symbol of a certain bias in political feeling. Society in + Norway was divided into two classes, the "Danomaniacs" and the "Patriots." + Neither of these had any desire to alter the constitutional balance of + power, but while the latter wished Norway to be intellectually + self-productive, and leaned to a further isolation in language, + literature, art and manners, the former thought that danger of barbarism + lay in every direction save that of keeping close to the tradition of + Denmark, from which all that was witty, graceful and civilized had + proceeded. + </p> + <p> + Accordingly the theatre, at which exclusively Danish plays were acted, in + the Danish style, by Danish actors and actresses, was extremely popular + with the conservative class, who thought, by attendance on these + performances, to preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of + "high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the + patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave + suspicion as likely to undermine the purity of national feeling. + </p> + <p> + The earliest attempt at the opening of a National Theatre had been made at + Christiania by the Swede, J. P. Strömberg, in 1827; this was not + successful, and his theatre was burned down in 1835. In it some effort had + been made to use the Norwegian idiom and to train native actors, but it + had been to no avail. The play-going public liked their plays to be + Danish, and even nationalists of a pronounced species could not deny that + dramas, like the great historical tragedies of Oehlenschläger, many + of which dealt enthusiastically with legends that were peculiarly + Norwegian, were as national as it was possible for poems by a foreign poet + to be. All this time, it must be remembered, Christiania was to Copenhagen + as Dublin till lately was to London, or as New York was half a century + ago. It is in the arts that the old colonial instinct of dependence is + most loath to disappear. + </p> + <p> + The party of the nationalists, however, had been steadily increasing in + activity, and the universal quickening of patriotic pulses in 1848 had not + been without its direct action upon Norway. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, for various reasons of internal policy, there was perhaps no + country in Europe where this period of seismic disturbance led to less + public turmoil than precisely here in the North. The accession of a new + king, Oscar I, in 1844, had been followed by a sense of renewed national + security; the peasants were satisfied that the fresh reign would be + favorable to their rights and liberties; and the monarch showed every + inclination to leave his country of Norway as much as possible to its own + devices. The result of all this was that '48 left no mark on the internal + history of the country, and the fever which burned in youthful bosoms was + mainly, if not entirely, intellectual and transcendental. The young + Catiline from Grimstad, therefore, met with several sympathetic rebels, + but found nobody willing to conspire. But what he did find is so important + in the consideration of his future development that it is needful briefly + to examine it. + </p> + <p> + Norway had, in 1850, been independent of Denmark for thirty-six years. + During the greater part of that time the fiery excitements of a struggle + for politic existence had fairly exhausted her mental resources, and had + left her powerless to inaugurate a national literature. Meanwhile, there + was no such discontinuity in the literary and scientific relations of the + two countries as that which had broken their constitutional union. A + tremendous effort was made by certain patriots to discover the basis of an + entirely independent intellectual life, something that should start like + the phoenix from the ashes of the old régime, and should offer no + likeness with what continued to flourish south of the Skagarak. But all + the efforts of the University of Christiania were vain to prevent the + cultivated classes from looking to Copenhagen as their centre of light. + Such authors as there were, and they were few indeed, followed humbly in + the footsteps of their Danish brethren. + </p> + <p> + Patriotic historians of literature are not always to be trusted, and those + who study native handbooks of Norwegian criticism must be on their guard + when these deal with the three poets who "inaugurated in song the young + liberties of Norway." The writings of the three celebrated lyric patriots, + Schwach, Bjerregaard and Hansen, will not bear to have the blaze of + European experience cast upon them; their tapers dwindle to sparks in the + light of day. They gratified the vanity of the first generation after + 1815, but they deserve no record in the chronicles of poetic art. If Ibsen + ever read these rhymes of circumstance, it must have been to treat them + with contempt. + </p> + <p> + Twenty years after the Union, however, and in Ibsen's early childhood, an + event occurred which was unique in the history of Norwegian literature, + and the consequences of which were far-reaching. As is often the case in + countries where the art of verse is as yet little exercised, there grew up + about 1830 a warm and general, but uncritical, delight in poetry. This + instinct was presently satisfied by the effusion of a vast quantity of + metrical writing, most of it very bad, and was exasperated by a violent + personal feud which for a while interested all educated persons in Norway + to a far greater degree than any other intellectual or, for the time + being, even political question. From 1834 to 1838 the interests of all + cultivated people centred around what was called the "Twilight Feud" (<i>Daemringsfejden</i>), + and no record of Ibsen's intellectual development can be complete without + a reference to this celebrated controversy, the results of which long + outlived the popularity of its skits and pamphlets. + </p> + <p> + Modern Norwegian literature began with this great fight. The protagonists + were two poets of undoubted talent, whose temperaments and tendencies were + so diametrically opposed that it seemed as though Providence must have set + them down in that raw and inflammable civilization for the express purpose + of setting the standing corn of thought on fire. Henrik Wergeland + (1808-45) was a belated son of the French Revolution; ideas, fancies, + melodies and enthusiasms fermented in his ill-regulated brain, and he + poured forth verses in a violent and endless stream. It is difficult, from + the sources of Scandinavian opinion, to obtain a sensible impression of + Wergeland. The critics of Norway as persistently overrate his talents as + those of Denmark neglect and ridicule his pretensions. The Norwegians + still speak of him as <i>himmelstraevende sublim</i> ("sublime in his + heavenly aspiration"); the Danes will have it that he was an hysterical + poetaster. Neither view commends itself to a foreign reader of the poet. + </p> + <p> + The fact, internationally stated, seems rather to be this. In Wergeland we + have a typical example of the effects of excess of fancy in a violently + productive but essential uncritical nature. He was ecstatic, unmeasured, a + reckless improvisatore. In his ideas he was preposterously humanitarian; a + prodigious worker, his vigor of mind seemed never exhausted by his labors; + in theory an idealist, in his private life he was charged with being + scandalously sensual. He was so much the victim of his inspiration that it + would come upon him like a descending wind, and leave him physically + prostrate. In Wergeland we see an instance of the poetical temper in its + most unbridled form. A glance through the enormous range of his collected + works is like an excursion into chaos. We are met almost at the threshold + by a colossal epic, <i>Creation, Man and the Messiah</i> (1830); by songs + that turn into dithyrambic odes, by descriptive pieces which embrace the + universe, by all the froth and roar and turbidity of genius, with none of + its purity and calm. The genius is there; it is idle to deny it; but it is + in a state of violent turmoil. + </p> + <p> + It is when the ruling talent of an age is of the character of Wergeland's— + </p> + <p> + Thundering and + bursting,<br /> In + torrents, in waves,<br /> Carolling + and shouting<br /> Over + tombs, over graves— + </p> + <p> + that delicate spirits, as in Matthew Arnold's poem, sigh for the silence + and the hush, and rise at length in open rebellion against Iacchus and his + maenads, who destroy all the quiet of life and who madden innocent blood + with their riot. Johan Sebastian Welhaven (1807-73) was a student at the + University with Wergeland, and he remained silent while the latter made + the welkin ring louder and louder with his lyric shrieks. Welhaven endured + the rationalist and republican rhetoric of Wergeland as long as he could, + although with growing exasperation, until the rhapsodical author of <i>Creation</i>, + transgressing all moderation, accused those who held reasonable views in + literature and politics of being traitors. Then it became necessary to + deal with this raw and local parody of Victor Hugo. When, in the words of + <i>The Cask of Amontillado</i>, Wergeland "ventured upon insult," Welhaven + "vowed he would be avenged." + </p> + <p> + Welhaven formed as complete a contrast to his antagonist as could be + imagined. He was of the class of Sully Prudhomme, of Matthew Arnold, of + Lowell, to name three of his younger contemporaries. In his nature all was + based upon equilibrium; his spirit, though full of graceful and + philosophical intuitions, was critical rather than creative. He wrote + little, and with difficulty, and in exquisite form. His life was as + blamelessly correct as his literary art was harmonious. Wergeland knew + nothing of the Danish tradition of his day, which he treated with violent + and bitter contempt. Welhaven, who had moved in the circle of the friends + of Rahbek, instinctively referred every literary problem to the tribunal + of Danish taste. He saw that with the enthusiasm with which the poetry of + Wergeland was received in Norway was connected a suspicion of mental + discipline, a growing worship of the peasant and a hatred and scorn of + Denmark, with all of which he had no sympathy. He thought the time had + come for better things; that the national temper ought to be mollified + with the improved economic situation of the country; that the students, + who were taking a more and more prominent place, ought to be on the side + of the angels. It was not unnatural that Welhaven should look upon the + corybantic music of Wergeland as the source and origin of an evil of which + it was really the symptom; he gathered his powers together to crush it, + and he published a thunderbolt of sonnets. + </p> + <p> + The English reader, familiar with the powerlessness of even the best verse + to make any impression upon Anglo-Saxon opinion, may smile to think of a + great moral and ethical attack conducted with no better weapon than a + paper of sonnets. But the scene of the fight was a small, intensely local, + easily agitated society of persons, all keenly though narrowly educated, + and all accustomed to be addressed in verse. Welhaven's pamphlet was + entitled <i>The Twilight of Norway</i> (1834), and the sonnets of which it + consisted were highly polished in form, filled with direct and pointed + references to familiar persons and events and absolutely unshrinking in + attack. No poetry of equal excellence had been produced in Norway since + the Union. It is not surprising that this invective against the tendencies + of the youthful bard over whose rhapsodies all Norway was growing crazy + with praise should arrest universal attention, although in the <i>Twilight</i> + Welhaven adroitly avoided mentioning Wergeland by name. Fanaticism + gathered in an angry army around the outraged standard of the republican + poet, but the lovers of order and discipline had found a voice, and they + clustered about Welhaven with their support. Language was not minced by + the assailants, and still less by the defenders. The lovers of Wergeland + were told that politics and brandy were their only pleasures, but those of + Welhaven were warned that they were known to be fed with bribes from + Copenhagen. Meanwhile Welhaven himself, in successive publications, calmly + analyzed the writings of his antagonist, and proved them to be "in + complete rebellion against sound thought and the laws of beauty." The feud + raged from 1834 to 1838, and left Norway divided into two rival camps of + taste. + </p> + <p> + Although the "Twilight Feud" had passed away before Ibsen ceased to be a + boy, the effect of it was too widely spread not to affect him. In point of + fact, we see by the earliest of his lyric poems that while he was at + Grimstad he had fully made up his mind. His early songs and complimentary + pieces are all in the Danish taste, and if they show any native influence + at all, it is that of Welhaven. The extreme superficiality of Wergeland + would naturally be hateful to so arduous a craftsman as Ibsen, and it is a + fact that so far as his writings reveal his mind to us, the all-popular + poet of his youth appears to be absolutely unknown to him. What this + signifies may be realized if we say that it is as though a great English + or French poet of the second half of the nineteenth century should seem to + have never heard of Tennyson or Victor Hugo. On the other hand, at one + crucial point of a late play, <i>Little Eyolf</i>, Ibsen actually pauses + to quote Welhaven. + </p> + <p> + In critical history the absence of an influence is sometimes as + significant as the presence of it. The looseness of Wergeland's style, its + frothy abundance, its digressions and parentheses, its slipshod violence, + would be to Ibsen so many beacons of warning, to be viewed with horror and + alarm. A poem of three stanzas, "To the Poets of Norway," only recently + printed, dates from his early months in Christiania, and shows that even + in 1850 Ibsen was impatient with the conventional literature of his day. + "Less about the glaciers and the pine-forests," he cries, "less about the + dusty legends of the past, and more about what is going on in the silent + hearts of your brethren!" Here already is sounded the note which was + ultimately to distinguish him from all the previous writers of the North. + </p> + <p> + No letters have been published which throw light on Ibsen's first two + years in the capital. We know that he did not communicate with his + parents, whose poverty was equalled by his own. He could receive no help + from them, nor offer them any, and he refrained, as they refrained, from + letter writing. This separation from his family, begun in this way, grew + into a habit, so that when his father died in 1877 no word had passed + between him and his son for nearly thirty years. When Ibsen reached + Christiania, in March, 1850, his first act was to seek out his friend + Schulerud, who was already a student. For some time he shared the room of + Schulerud and his thrifty meals; later on the two friends, in company with + Theodor Abildgaard, a young revolutionary journalist, lived in lodgings + kept by a certain Mother Saether. + </p> + <p> + Schulerud received a monthly allowance which was "not enough for one, and + starvation for two"; but Ibsen's few dollars soon came to an end, and he + seems to have lived on the kindness of Schulerud to their great mutual + privation. Both young men attended the classes of a celebrated "crammer" + of that day, H. A. S. Heltberg, who had opened in 1843 a Latin school + where elder pupils came for a two-years' course to prepare them for taking + their degree. This place, known familiarly as "the Student Factory," holds + quite a prominent place in Norwegian literary history, Ibsen, Björnson, + Vinje and Jonas Lie having attended its classes and passed from it to the + University. + </p> + <p> + Between these young men, the leading force of literature in the coming + age, a generous friendship sprang up, despite the disparity in their ages. + Vinje, a peasant from Thelemark, was thirty-two; he had been a village + schoolmaster and had only now, in 1850, contrived to reach the University. + With Vinje, the founder of the movement for writing exclusively in + Norwegian patois, Ibsen had a warm personal sympathy, while he gave no + intellectual adherence to his theories. Between the births of Vinje and Björnson + there stretched a period of fourteen years, yet Björnson was a + student before either Ibsen or Vinje. That Ibsen immediately formed Björnson's + acquaintance seems to be proved from the fact that they both signed a + protest against the deportation of a Dane called Harring on May 29, 1850. + It was a fortunate chance which threw Ibsen thus suddenly into the midst + of a group of those in whom the hopes of the new generation were centred. + But we are left largely to conjecture in what manner their + acquaintanceship acted upon his mind. + </p> + <p> + His material life during the next year is obscure. Driven by the extremity + of need, it is plain that he adopted every means open to him by which he + could add a few dollars to Schulerud's little store. He wrote for the poor + and fugitive journals of the day, in prose and verse; but the payment of + the Norwegian press in those days was almost nothing. It is difficult to + know how he subsisted, yet he continued to exist. Although none of his + letters of this period seem to have been preserved, a few landmarks are + left us. The little play called <i>Kaempehöien</i> (The Warrior's + Barrow), which he had brought unfinished with him from Grimstad, was + completed and put into shape in May, 1850, accepted at the Christiania + Theatre, and acted three times during the following autumn. Perhaps the + most interesting fact connected with this performance was that the only + female part, that of Blanka, was taken by a young débutante, Laura + Svendsen; this was the actress afterwards to rise to the height of + eminence as the celebrated Mrs. Gundersen, no doubt the most gifted of all + Ibsen's original interpreters. + </p> + <p> + It was a matter of course that the poet was greatly cheered by the + acceptance of his play, and he immediately set to work on another, <i>Olaf + Liljekrans</i>; but this he put aside when <i>Kaempehöien</i> + practically failed. He wrote a satirical comedy called <i>Norma</i>. He + endeavored to get certain of his works, dramatic and lyric, published in + Christiania, but all the schemes fell through. It is certain that 1851 + began darkly for the young man, and that his misfortunes encouraged in him + a sour and rebellious temper. For the first and only time in his life he + meddled with practical politics. Vinje and he—in company with a + charming person, Paul Botten-Hansen (1824-69), who flits very pleasantly + through the literary history of this time—founded a newspaper called + <i>Andhrimner</i>, which lasted for nine months. + </p> + <p> + One of the contributors was Abildgaard, who, as we have seen, lived in the + same house with Ibsen. He was a wild being, who had adopted the republican + theories of the day in their crudest form. He posed as the head of a + little body whose object was to dethrone the king, and to found a + democracy in Norway. On July 7, 1851, the police made a raid upon these + childish conspirators, the leaders being arrested and punished with a long + imprisonment. The poet escaped, as by the skin of his teeth, and the + warning was a lifelong one. He never meddled with politics any more. This + was, indeed, as perhaps he felt, no time for rebellion; all over Europe + the eruption of socialism had spent itself, and the docility of the + populations had become wonderful. + </p> + <p> + The discomfort and uncertainty of Ibsen's position in Christiania made him + glad to fill a post which the violinist, Ole Bull, offered him during + autumn. The newly constituted National Theatre in Bergen (opened Jan. 2, + 1850) had accepted a prologue written for an occasion by the young poet, + and on November 6, 1851, Ibsen entered into a contract by which he bound + himself go to Bergen "to assist the theatre as dramatic author." The + salary was less than £70 a year, but it was eked out by travelling + grants, and little as it might be, it was substantially more than the + nothing-at-all which Ibsen had been enjoying in Christiania. + </p> + <p> + It is difficult to imagine what asset could be bought to the treasuries of + a public theatre by a youth of three and twenty so ill-educated, so empty + of experience and so ill-read as Ibsen was in 1851. His crudity, we may be + sure, passed belief. He was the novice who has not learned his business, + the tyro to whom the elements of his occupation are unknown. We have seen + that when he wrote <i>Catilina</i> he had neither sat through nor read any + of the plays of the world, whether ancient or modern. The pieces which + belong to his student years reveal a preoccupation with Danish dramas of + the older school, Oehlenschläger and (if we may guess what <i>Norma</i> + was) Holberg, but with nothing else. Yet Ole Bull, one of the most + far-sighted men of his time, must have perceived the germs of theatrical + genius in him, and it is probable that Ibsen owed his appointment more to + what this wise patron felt in his future than what Ole Bull or any one + else could possibly point to as yet accomplished. Unquestionably, a rude + theatrical penetration could already he divined in his talk about the + stage, vague and empirical as that must have been. + </p> + <p> + At all events, to Bergen he went, as a sort of literary manager, as a + Claretie or Antoine, to compare a small thing with great ones, and the + fact was of inestimable value. It may even be held, without fear of + paradox, that this was the turning-point of Ibsen's life, that this blind + step in the dark, taken in the magnificent freedom of youth, was what made + him what he became. No Bergen in 1851, we may say, and no <i>Doll's House</i> + or <i>Hedda Gabler</i> ultimately to follow. For what it did was to force + this stubborn genius, which might so easily have slipped into sinister and + abnormal paths, and have missed the real humanity of the stage, to take + the tastes of the vulgar into due consideration and to acquaint himself + with the necessary laws of play-composition. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen may seem to have little relation with the drama of the world, but in + reality he is linked with it at every step. There is something of + Shakespeare in <i>John Gabriel Borkman</i>, something Molière in <i>Ghosts</i>, + something of Goethe in <i>Peer Gynt</i>. We may go further and say, though + it would have made Ibsen wince, that there is something of Scribe in <i>An + Enemy of the People</i>. Is very doubtful whether, without the discipline + which forced him to put on the stage, at Bergen and in Christiania, plays + evidently unsympathetic to his own taste, which obliged him to do his best + for the popular reception of those plays, and which forced him minutely to + analyze their effects, he would ever have been the world- moving dramatist + which, as all sane critics must admit, he at length became. + </p> + <p> + He made some mistakes at first; how could he fail to do so? It was the + recognition of these blunders, and perhaps the rough censure of them the + local press, which induced the Bergen theatre to scrape a few dollars + together and send him, in charge of some of the leading actors and + actresses, to Copenhagen and Dresden for instruction. To go from Bergen to + Copenhagen was like travelling from Abdera to Athens, and to find a + species of Sophocles in J. A. Heiberg, who had since 1849 been sole + manager of the Royal Theatre. Here the drama of the world, all the + salutary names, all the fine traditions, burst upon the pilgrims from the + North. Heiberg, the gracious and many-sided, was the centre of light in + those days; no one knew the stage as he knew no one interpreted it with + such splendid intelligence, and he received the crude Norwegian + "dramatist-manager" with the utmost elegance of cordiality. Among the + teachers of Ibsen, Heiberg ranks as the foremost. We may farther and say + that he was the last. When Ibsen had learned the lesson of Heiberg, only + nature and his own genius had anything more to teach him. [See Note below] + In August, 1852, rich with the spoils of time, but otherwise poor indeed, + Ibsen made his way back to his duties in Bergen. + </p> + <p> + [Note: Perhaps no author, during the whole of his career, more deeply + impressed Ibsen with reverence and affection than Johan Ludvig Heiberg + did. When the great Danish poet died (at Bonderup, August 25, 1860), Ibsen + threw on his tomb the characteristic bunch of bitter herbs called <i>Til + de genlevende</i>—"To the Survivors," in which he expressed the + faintest appreciation of those who lavished posthumous honor on Heiberg in + Denmark: + </p> + <p> + In your land a torch he lifted;<br /> + With its flame ye scorched his + forehead. + </p> + <p> + How to swing the sword he taught you,<br /> + And,—ye plunged it in his bosom. + </p> + <p> + While he routed trolls of darkness,—<br /> + With your shields you tripped and + bruised him. + </p> + <p> + But his glittering star of conquest<br /> + Ye must guard, since he has left you: + </p> + <p> + Try, at least, to keep it shining,<br /> + While the thorn-crowned conqueror + slumbers.] + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> <a name="linkc3" id="linkc3"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Ibsen's native biographers have not found much to record, and still less + that deserves to recorded, about his life during the next five years. He + remained in Bergen, cramped by want of means in his material condition, + and much harassed and worried by the little pressing requirements of the + theatre. It seems that every responsibility fell upon his shoulders, and + that there was no part of stage-life that it was not his duty to look + after. The dresses of the actresses, the furniture, the scene-painting, + the instruction of raw Norwegian actors and actresses, the selection of + plays, now to please himself, now to please the bourgeois of Bergen, all + this must be done by the poet or not done at all. Just so, two hundred + years earlier, we may imagine Molière, at Carcassonne or Albi, + bearing up in his arms, a weary Titan, all the frivolities and anxieties + and misdeeds of a whole company of comedians. + </p> + <p> + So far as our very scanty evidence goes, we find the poet isolated from + his fellows, so far as isolation was possible, during his long stay at + Bergen. He was not accused, and if there had been a chance he would have + been accused, of dereliction. No doubt he pushed through the work of the + theatre doggedly, but certainly not in a convivial spirit. The Norwegians + are a hospitable and festal people, and there is no question that the + manager of the theatre would have unusual opportunities of being jolly + with his friends. But it does not appear that Ibsen made friends; if so, + they were few, and they were as quiet as himself. Even in these early + years he did not invite confidences, and no one found him wearing his + heart upon his sleeve. He went through his work without effusion, and + there is no doubt that what leisure he enjoyed he spent in study, mainly + of dramatic literature. + </p> + <p> + His reading must have been limited by his insensibility to foreign + languages. All through his life he forgot the tongues of other countries + almost faster than he gained them. Probably, at this time, he had begun to + know German, a language in which he did ultimately achieve a fluency which + was, it appears, always ungrammatical. But, as is not unfrequent with a + man who is fond of reading but no linguist, Ibsen's French and English + came and went in a trembling uncertainty. As time passed on, he gave up + the effort to read, even a newspaper, in either language. + </p> + <p> + The mile-stones in this otherwise blank time are the original plays which, + perhaps in accordance with some clause in his agreement, he produced at + his theatre in the first week of January in each year. A list of them + cannot be spared in this place to the most indolent of readers, since it + offers, in a nutshell, a résumé of what the busy imagination + of Ibsen was at work upon up to his thirtieth year. His earliest + new-year's gift to the play-goers of Bergen was <i>St. John's Night</i>, + 1853, a piece which has not been printed; in 1854 he revived <i>The + Warrior's Barrow</i>; in 1855 he made an immense although irregular + advance with <i>Lady Inger at Östraat</i>; in 1856 he produced <i>The + Feast at Solhoug</i>; in 1857 a rewritten version of the early <i>Olaf + Liljekrans</i>. These are the juvenile works of Ibsen, which are scarcely + counted in the recognized canon of his writings. None of them is + completely representative of his genius, and several are not yet within + reach of the English reader. Yet they have a considerable importance, and + must detain us for a while. They are remarkable as showing the vigor of + the effort by which he attempted to create an independent style for + himself, no less than the great difficulties which he encountered in + following this admirable aim. + </p> + <p> + <i>Lady Inger at Östraat</i>, written in the winter of 1854 but not + published until 1857, is unique among Ibsen's works as a romantic exercise + in the manner of Scribe. It is the sole example of a theme taken by him + directly from comparatively modern history, and treated purely for its + value as a study of contemporary intrigue. From this point of view it + curiously exemplifies a remark of Hazlitt: "The progress of manners and + knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps destroy + both tragedy and comedy. ... At last, there will be nothing left, good nor + bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real life." + </p> + <p> + When Ibsen undertook to write about Inger Gyldenlöve, he was but + little acquainted with the particulars of her history. He conceived her, + as he found her in the incomplete chronicles he consulted, as a Matriarch, + a wonderful and heroic elderly woman around whom all the hopes of an + embittered patriotism were legitimately centred. Unfortunately, "the + progress of knowledge," as Hazlitt would say, exposed the falsity of this + conception. A closer inspection of the documents, and further analysis of + the condition of Norway in 1528, destroyed the fair illusion, and showed + Ibsen in the light of an indulgent idealist. + </p> + <p> + Here is what Jaeger [Note: In <i>En literaert Livsbillede</i>] has to give + us of the disconcerting results of research: + </p> + <p> + In real life Lady Inger was not a woman formed upon so grand a plan. She + was the descendant of an old and noble family which had preserved its + dignity, and she consequently was the wealthiest landowner in the country. + This, and this alone, gives her a right to a place in history. If we study + her life, we find no reason to suppose that patriotic considerations ever + affected her conduct. The motive power of her actions was on a far lower + plane, and seems to have consisted mainly in an amazingly strong instinct + for adding to her wealth and her status. We find her, for instance, on one + occasion seizing the estates of a neighbor, and holding them till she was + actually forced to resign them. When she gave her daughters in marriage to + Danish noblemen, it was to secure direct advantage from alliance with the + most high-born sons-in- law procurable. When she took a convent under her + protection, she contrived to extort a rent which well repaid her. Even for + a good action she exacted a return, and when she offered harbor to the + persecuted Chancellor, she had the adroitness to be well rewarded by a + large sum in rose-nobles and Hungarian gulden. + </p> + <p> + All this could not fail to be highly exasperating to Ibsen, who had set + out to be a realist, and was convicted by the spiteful hand of history of + having been an idealist of the rose-water class. No wonder that he never + touched the sequence of modern events any more. + </p> + <p> + There is some slight, but of course unconscious, resemblance to <i>Macbeth</i> + in the external character of <i>Lady Inger</i>. This play has something of + the roughness of a mediaeval record, and it depicts a condition of life + where barbarism uncouthly mingles with a certain luxury of condition. + There is, however, this radical difference that in <i>Lady Inger</i> there + is nothing preternatural, and it is, indeed, in this play that Ibsen seems + first to appreciate the value of a stiff attention to realism. The + romantic elements of the story, however, completely dominate his + imagination, and when we have read the play carefully what remains with us + most vividly is the picturesqueness and unity of the scene. The action, + vehement and tumultuous as it is, takes place entirely within the walls of + Östraat castle, a mysterious edifice, sombre and ancient, built on a + crag over the ocean, and dimly lighted by + </p> + <p> + Magic casements opening on the foam<br /> + Of perilous seas in fairy lands + forlorn. + </p> + <p> + The action is exclusively nocturnal, and so large a place in it is taken + by huge and portable candlesticks that it might be called the Tragedy of + the Candelabra. Through the windows, on the landward side, a procession of + mysterious visitors go by in the moonlight, one by one, each fraught with + the solemnity of fate. The play is full of striking pictures, groups in + light and shade, pictorial appeals to terror and pity. + </p> + <p> + The fault of the drama lies in the uncertain conception of the characters, + and particularly of that of the Matriarch herself. Inger is described to + us as the Mother of the Norwegian People, as the one strong, inflexible + and implacable brain moving in a world of depressed and irritated men. + "Now there is no knight left in our land," says Finn, but—and this + is the point from which the play starts—there is Inger Gyldenlöve. + We have approached the moment of crisis when the fortunes and the fates of + Norway rest upon the firmness of this majestic woman. Inger is driven + forward on the tide of circumstance, and, however she may ultimately fail, + we demand evidence of her inherent greatness. This, however, we fail to + receive, and partly, no doubt, because Ibsen was still distracted at the + division of the ways. + </p> + <p> + Oehlenschläger, if he had attempted this theme, would have made no + attempt after subtlety of character painting and still less after + correctness of historic color. He would have given small shrift to Olaf + Skaktavl, the psychological outlaw. But he would have drawn Inger, the + Mother of her People, in majestic strokes, and we should have had a great + simplicity, a noble outline with none of the detail put in. Ibsen, + already, cannot be satisfied with this; to him the detail is every thing, + and the result is a hopeless incongruity between the cartoon and the + finished work. + </p> + <p> + Lady Inger, in Ibsen's play, fails to impress us with greatness. "The deed + no less than the attempt confounds" her. She displays, from the opening + scene, a weakness that is explicable, but excludes all evidence of her + energy. The ascendency of Nils Lykke, over herself and over her singularly + and unconvincingly modern daughter, Elima, in what does it consist? In a + presentation of a purely physical attractiveness; Nils Lykke is simply a + voluptuary, pursuing his good fortunes, with impudent ease, in the home of + his ancestral enemies. In his hands, and not in his only, the majestic + Inger is reduced from a queen to a pawn. All manhood, we are told, is dead + in Norway; if this be so, then what a field is cleared where a heroine + like Inger, not young and a victim to her passions, nor old and delivered + to decrepit fears, may show us how a woman of intellect and force can take + the place of man. Instead of this, one disguised and anonymous adventurer + after another comes forth out of the night, and confuses her with + pretensions and traps her with deceits against which her intellect + protests but her will is powerless to contend. + </p> + <p> + Another feature in the conduct of <i>Lady Inger</i> portrays the ambitious + but the inexperienced dramatist. No doubt a pious commentator can + successfully unravel all the threads of the plot, but the spectator + demands that a play should be clearly and easily intelligible. The + audience, however, is sorely puzzled by the events of this awful third + night after Martinmas, and resents the obscurity of all this intrigue by + candlelight. Why do the various persons meet at Östraat? Who sends + them? Whence do they come and whither do they go? To these questions, no + doubt, an answer can be found, and it is partly given, and very awkwardly, + by the incessant introduction of narrative. The confused and melodramatic + scene in the banquet-hall between Nils Lykke and Skaktavl is of central + importance, but what is it about? The business with Lucia's coffin is a + kind of nightmare, in the taste of Webster or of Cyril Tourneur. All these + shortcomings are slurred over by the enthusiastic critics of Scandinavia, + yet they call for indulgence. The fact is that <i>Lady Inger</i> is a + brilliant piece of romantic extravagance, which is extremely interesting + in illuminating the evolution of Ibsen's genius, and particularly as + showing him in the act of emancipating himself from Danish traditions, but + which has little positive value as a drama. + </p> + <p> + The direct result of the failure of <i>Lady Inger</i>—for it did not + please the play-goers of Bergen and but partly satisfied its author—was, + however, to send him back, for the moment, more violently than ever to the + Danish tradition. Any record of this interesting phase in Ibsen's career + is, however, complicated by the fact that late in his life (in 1883) he + did what was very unusual with him: he wrote a detailed account of the + circumstances of his poetical work in 1855 and 1856. He denied, in short, + that he had undergone any influence from the Danish poet whom he had been + persistently accused of imitating, and he traced the movement of his mind + to purely Norwegian sources. During the remainder of his lifetime, of + course, this statement greatly confounded criticism, and there is still a + danger of Ibsen's disclaimer being accepted for gospel. However, literary + history must be built on the evidence before it, and the actual text of <i>The + Feast at Solhoug</i>, and of <i>Olaf Liljekrans</i> must be taken in spite + of anything their author chose to say nearly thirty years afterwards. + Great poets, without the least wish to mystify, often, in the cant phrase, + "cover their tracks." Tennyson, in advanced years, denied that he had ever + been influenced by Shelley or Keats. So Ibsen disclaimed any effect upon + his style of the lyrical dramas of Hertz. But we must appeal from the + arrogance of old age to the actual works of youth. + </p> + <p> + Henrik Hertz (1798-1870) was the most exquisite, the most delicate, of the + Danish writers of his age. He was deeply impressed with the importance of + form in drama, and at the height of his powers he began to compose rhymed + plays which were like old ballads put into dialogue. His comedy of <i>Cupid's + Strokes of Genius</i> (1830) began a series of tragi- comedies which + gradually deepened in passion and melody, till they culminated in two of + the acknowledged masterpieces of the Danish stage, <i>Svend Dyring's House</i> + (1837) and <i>King René's Daughter</i> (1845). The genius of Hertz + was diametrically opposed to that of Ibsen; in all Europe there were not + two authors less alike. Hertz would have pleased Kenelm Digby, and if that + romantic being had read Danish, the poet of chivalry must have had a niche + in <i>The Broad Stone of Honour</i>. Hertz's style is delicate to the + verge of sweetness; his choice of words is fantastically exquisite, yet so + apposite as to give an impression of the inevitable. He cares very little + for psychological exactitude or truth of observation; but he is the very + type of what we mean by a verbal artist. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen made acquaintance with the works, and possibly with the person, of + Hertz, when he was in Copenhagen in 1852. There can be no doubt whatever + that, while he was anxiously questioning his own future, and conscious of + crude faults in <i>Lady Inger</i>, he set himself, as a task, to write in + the manner of Hertz. It is difficult to doubt that it was a deliberate + exercise, and we see the results in <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i> and in <i>Olaf + Liljekrans</i>. These two plays are in ballad-rhyme and prose, like + Hertz's romantic dramas; there is the same determination to achieve the + chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. + Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without + an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that he + has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of + metrical writing, but breaks down surprisingly at awkward intervals, and + displays a hopeless inconsistency between his own nature and the medium in + which he is forcing himself to write. As a proof that the similarity + between <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i> and <i>Svend Dyring's House</i> is + accidental, it has been pointed out that Ibsen produced his own play on + the Bergen stage in January, 1856, and revived Hertz's a month later. It + might, surely, be more sensibly urged that this fact shows how much he was + captivated by the charm of the Danish dramatist. + </p> + <p> + The sensible thing, in spite of Ibsen's late disclaimer, is to suppose + that, in the consciousness of his crudity and inexperience as a writer, he + voluntarily sat at the feet of the one great poet whom he felt had most to + teach him. On the boards at Bergen, <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i> was a + success, while <i>Olaf Liljekrans</i> was a failure; but neither incident + could have meant very much to Ibsen, who, if there ever was a poet who + lived in the future, was waiting and watching for the development of his + own genius. Slowly, without precocity, without even that joy in strength + of maturity which comes to most great writers before the age of thirty, he + toiled on in a sort of vacuum. His youth was one of unusual darkness, + because he had not merely poverty, isolation, citizenship of a remote and + imperfectly civilized country to contend against, but because his critical + sense was acute enough to teach him that he himself was still unripe, + still unworthy of the fame that he thirsted for. He had not even the + consolation which a proud confidence in themselves gives to the + unappreciated young, for in his heart of hearts he knew that he had as yet + done nothing which deserved the highest praise. But his imagination was + expanding with a steady sureness, and the long years of his apprenticeship + were drawing to a close. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen was now, like other young Norwegian poets, and particularly Björnson, + coming into the range of that wind of nationalistic inspiration which had + begun to blow down from the mountains and to fill every valley with music. + The Norwegians were discovering that they possessed a wonderful hidden + treasure in their own ancient poetry and legend. It was a gentle, + clerically minded poet—himself the son of a peasant—Jörgen + Moe (1813-82), long afterwards Bishop of Christianssand, who, as far back + as 1834, began to collect from peasants the folk-tales of Norway. The + childlike innocence and playful humor of these stories were charming to + the mind of Moe, who was fortunately joined by a stronger though less + delicate spirit in the person of Peter Christian Asbjörnsen. Their + earliest collection of folk-lore in collaboration appeared in 1841, but it + was the full edition of 1856 which produced a national sensation, and + doubtless awakened Ibsen in Bergen. Meanwhile, in 1853, M. B. Landstad had + published the earliest of his collections of the folkeviser, or national + songs, while L. M. Lindeman in the same years (1853-59) was publishing, in + installments, the peasant melodies of Norway. Moreover, Ibsen, who read no + Icelandic, was studying the ancient sagas in the faithful and vigorous + paraphrase of Petersen, and all combined to determine him to make an + experiment in a purely national and archaistic direction. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen, whose practice is always better than his theory, has given rather a + confused account of the circumstances that led to the composition of his + next play, <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>. But it is clear that in + looking through Petersen for a subject which would display, in broad and + primitive forms, the clash of character in an ancient Norwegian family, he + fell upon "Volsungasaga," and somewhat rashly responded to its vigorous + appeal. He thought that in this particular episode, "the titanic + conditions and occurrences of the 'Nibelungenlied'" and other + pro-mediaeval legends had "been reduced to human dimensions." He believed + that to dramatize such a story would lift what he called "our national + epic material" to a higher plane. There is one phrase in his essay which + is very interesting, in the light it throws upon the object which the + author had before him in writing <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>. He says + clearly—and this was intended as a revolt against the tradition of + Oehlenschläger—"it was not my aim to present our mythic world, + but simply our life in primitive times." Brandes says of this departure + that it is "indeed a new conquest, but, like so many conquests, associated + with very extensive plundering." + </p> + <p> + In turning to an examination of <i>The Vikings</i>, the first point which + demands notice is that Ibsen has gained a surprising mastery over the arts + of theatrical writing since we met with him last. There is nothing of the + lyrical triviality of the verse in <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i> about the + trenchant prose of <i>The Vikings</i>, and the crepuscular dimness of <i>Lady + Inger</i> is exchanged for a perfect lucidity and directness. Whatever we + may think about the theatrical propriety of the conductor of the vikings, + there is no question at all as to what it is they do and mean. Ibsen has + gained, and for good, that master quality of translucent presentation + without which all other stage gifts are shorn of their value. When we + have, however, praised the limpidity of <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>, + we have, in honesty, to make several reservations in our criticism of the + author's choice of a subject. It is valuable to compare Ibsen's treatment + of Icelandic family-saga with that of William Morris; let us say, in <i>The + Lovers of Gudrun</i>. That enchanting little epic deals with an episode + from one of the great Iceland narratives, and follows it much more closely + than Ibsen's does. But we are conscious of a less painful effort and of a + more human result. Morris does successfully what Ibsen unsuccessfully + aimed at doing: he translates the heroic and half- fabulous action into + terms that are human and credible. + </p> + <p> + It was, moreover, an error of judgment on the part of the Norwegian + playwright to make his tragedy a mosaic of effective bits borrowed hither + and thither from the Sagas. Scandinavian bibliography has toiled to show + his indebtedness to this tale and to that, and he has been accused of + concealing his plagiarisms. But to say this is to miss the mark. A poet is + at liberty to steal what he will, if only he builds his thefts up into a + living structure of his own. For this purpose, however, it is practically + found that, owing perhaps to the elastic consistency of individual human + nature, it is safest to stick to one story, embroidering and developing it + along its own essential lines. + </p> + <p> + There is great vigor, however, in many of the scenes in <i>The Vikings</i>. + The appearance of Hiördis on the stage, in the opening act, marks, + perhaps, the first occasion on which Ibsen had put forth his full strength + as a playwright. This entrance of Hiördis ought to be extremely + effective; in fact, we understand, it rarely is. The cause of this + disappointment can easily be discovered. It is the misfortune of The + Vikings that it is hardly to be acted by mortal men. Hiördis herself + is superhuman; she has eaten the heart of a wolf, she claims direct + descent from a race of fighting giants. There is a grandeur about the + conception of her form and character, but it is a grandeur which might + well daunt a human actress. One can faintly imagine the part being played + by Mrs. Siddons, with such an extremity of fierceness and terror that + ladies and gentlemen would be carried out of the theatre in hysterics, as + in the days of Byron. Where Hiördis insults her guests, and contrives + the horrid murder of the boy Thorolf before their eyes, we have a stage- + dilemma presented to us-either the actress must treat the scene + inadequately, or else intolerably. <i>Ne pueros coram populo Medea + trucidet</i>, and we shrink from Hiördis with a physical disgust. Her + great hands and shrieking mouth are like Bellona's, and they smell of + blood. + </p> + <p> + What is true of Hiördis is true in less degree of all the characters + in <i>The Vikings</i>. They are "great beautiful half-witted men," as Mr. + Chesterton would say: + </p> + <p> + Our sea was dark with dreadful ships<br /> Full + of strange spoil and fire,<br /> And hairy men, as + strange as sin,<br /> With horrid heads, came + wading in<br /> Through the long low + sea-mire. + </p> + <p> + This is the other side of the picture; this is how Örnulf and his + seven terrible sons must have appeared to Kaare the peasant, and this is + how, to tell the truth, they would in real life appear to us. The persons + in <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i> are so primitive that they scarcely + appeal to our sense of reality. In spite of all the romantic color that + the poet has lavished upon them, and the majestic sentiments which he has + put into their mouths, we feel that the inhabitants of Helgeland must have + regarded them as those of Surbiton regarded the beings who were shot down + from Mars in Mr. Wells' blood-curdling story. + </p> + <p> + <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i> is a work of extraordinary violence and + agitation. The personages bark at one another like seals and roar like + sea-lions; they "cry for blood, like beasts at night." Örnulf, the + aged father of a grim and speechless clan, is sorely wounded at the + beginning of the play, but it makes no difference to him; no one binds up + his arm, but he talks, fights, travels as before. We may see here + foreshadowed various features of Ibsen's more mannered work. Here is his + favorite conventional tame man, since, among the shouting heroes, Gunnar + whimpers like a Tesman. Here is Ibsen's favorite trick of unrequited self- + sacrifice; it is Sigurd, in Gunnar's armor, who kills the mystical white + bear, but it is Gunnar who reaps the advantage. It is only fair to say + that there is more than this to applaud in <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>; + it moves on a consistent and high level of austere romantic beauty. Mr. + William Archer, who admires the play more than any Scandinavian critic has + done, justly draws attention to the nobility of Örnulf's entrance in + the third act. Yet, on the whole, I confess myself unable to be surprised + at the severity with which Heiberg judged <i>The Vikings</i> at its first + appearance, a severity which must have wounded Ibsen to the quick. + </p> + <p> + The year 1857 was one of unsettlement in Ibsen's condition. The period for + which he had undertaken to manage the theatre at Bergen had now come to a + close, and he was not anxious to prolong it. He had had enough of Bergen, + to which only one chain now bound him. Those who read the incidents of a + poet's life into the pages of his works may gratify their tendency by + seeing in the discussions between Dagny and Hiördis some echo of the + thoughts which were occupying Ibsen's mind in relation to the married + state. Since his death, the story has been told of his love- affair with a + very young girl, Rikke Holst, who had attracted his notice by throwing a + bunch of wild flowers in his face, and whom he followed and desired to + marry. Her father had rejected the proposal with indignation. Ibsen had + suffered considerably, but this was, after all, an early and a very + fugitive sentiment, which made no deep impression on his heart, although + it seems to have always lingered in his memory. + </p> + <p> + There had followed a sentiment much deeper and much more emphatic. A + charming, though fragmentary, set of verses, addressed in January, 1856, + to Miss Susannah Thoresen, show that already for a long while he had come + to regard this girl of twenty as "the young dreaming enigma," the possible + solution of which interested him more than that of any other living + problem. It was more than the conversation of a versifying lover which + made Ibsen speak of Miss Thoresen's "blossoming child-soul" as the bourne + of his ambitions. In his dark way, he was already violently in love with + her. + </p> + <p> + The household of her father, Hans Conrad Thoresen, was the most cultivated + in Bergen. He himself, the rector of Holy Cross, was a bookish, meditative + man of no particular initiative, but he had married, as his third wife, + Anna Maria Kragh, a Dane by birth, and for a long time, with the possible + exception of Camilla Collett, Wergeland's sister, the most active woman of + letters in Norway. Mrs. Thoresen was the step-mother of Susannah, the only + child of her husband's second marriage. Between Magdalene Thoresen and + Ibsen a strong friendship had sprung up, which lasted to the end of their + lives, and some of Ibsen's best letters are those written to his wife's + step-mother. She worked hard for him at the Bergen theatre, translating + plays from the French, and it was during Ibsen's management of the theatre + that several of her own pieces were produced. Her prose stories, in + connection with which her name lives in Norwegian literature, were not yet + written; so long as Ibsen was at her side, her ideas seem to have been + concentrated on the stage. Constant communication with this charming woman + only nine years his senior, and much his superior in conventional culture, + must have been a school of refinement to the crude and powerful young + poet. And now the wise Magdalene appeared to him in a new light, + dedicating to him the best treasure of the family circle, the gay and yet + mysterious Susannah. + </p> + <p> + While he was writing <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>, and courting + Susannah Thoresen, Ibsen received what seemed a timely invitation to + settle in Christiania as director of the Norwegian Theatre; he returned, + thereupon, to the capital in the summer of 1857, after an absence of six + years. Now began another period of six years more, these the most painful + in Ibsen's life, when, as Halvorsen has said, he had to fight not merely + for the existence of himself and his family, but for the very existence of + Norwegian poetry and the Norwegian stage. This struggle was an excessively + distressing one. He had left Bergen crippled with debts, and his marriage + (June 26, 1856) weighed him down with further responsibilities. The + Norwegian Theatre at Christiania was, a secondary house, ill-supported by + its patrons, often tottering at the brink of bankruptcy, and so primitive + was the situation of literature in the country that to attempt to live by + poetry and drama was to court starvation. His slender salary was seldom + paid, and never in full. The only published volume of Ibsen's which had + (up to 1863) sold at all was <i>The Warriors</i>, by which he had made in + all 227 specie dollars (or about £25). + </p> + <p> + The Christiania he had come to, however, was not that which he had left. + In many directions it had developed rapidly. From an intellectual point of + view, the labors of the nationalists had made themselves felt; the + folk-lore of Landstad, Moe and Asbjörnsen had impressed young + imaginations. In some of its forms the development was unpleasing and + discouraging to Ibsen; the success of the blank-verse tragedies of Andreas + Munch (<i>Salomon de Caus</i>, 1855; <i>Lord William Russell</i>, 1857) + was, for instance, an irritating step in the wrong direction. The new- + born school of prose fiction, with Björnson as its head (<i>Synnöve + Solbakken</i>, 1857; <i>Arne</i>, 1858), with Camilla Collett's <i>Prefect's + Daughters</i>, 1855, as its herald; with Östgaard's sketches of + peasant life and humors in the mountains (1852)—all this was a + direct menace to the popularity of the national stage, offering an easy + and alluring alternative for home-loving citizens. Was it certain that the + classic Danish, which alone Ibsen cared to write, would continue to be the + language of the cultivated classes in Norway? Here was Ivar Aasen (in + 1853) showing that the irritating landsmaal could be used for prose and + verse. + </p> + <p> + Wherever he turned Ibsen saw increased vitality, but in shapes that were + either useless or antagonistic to himself, and all that was harsh and + saturnine in his nature awakened. We see Ibsen, at this moment of his + life, like Shakespeare in his darkest hour, "in disgrace with fortune and + men's eyes," unappreciated and ready to doubt the reality of his own + genius; and murmuring to himself:— + </p> + <p> + Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,<br /> + Featured like him, like him with + friends possess'd,<br /> Desiring this man's art, + and that man's scope.<br /> With what I + most enjoy contented least. + </p> + <p> + How little his greatness was perceived in the Christiania literary + coteries may be gathered from the little fact that the species of official + anthology of <i>Modern Norwegian Poets</i>, published in 1859, though it + netted the shallows of national song very closely, contained not a line by + the author of the lovely lyrics in <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i>. It was at + this low and miserable moment that Ibsen's talent suddenly took wings; he + conceived, in the summer of 1858, what finally became, five years later, + his first acknowledged masterpiece, and perhaps the most finished of all + his writings, the sculptural tragedy of <i>The Pretenders</i>. + </p> + <p> + <i>The Pretenders</i> (<i>Kongsemnerne</i>, properly stuff from which + Kings can be made) is the earliest of the plays of Ibsen in which the + psychological interest is predominant, and in which there is no attempt to + disguise the fact. Nothing that has since been written about this drama, + the very perfection of which is baffling to criticism, has improved upon + the impression which Georg Brandes received from it when he first read it + forty years ago. The passage is classic, and deserves to be cited, if only + as perhaps the very earliest instance in which the genius of Ibsen was + rewarded by the analysis of a great critic. Brandes wrote (in 1867):— + </p> + <p> + What is it that The Pretenders treats of? Looked at simply, it is an old + story. We all know the tale of Aladdin and Nureddin, the simple legend in + the Arabian Nights, and our great poet's [Oehlenschläger's] + incomparable poem. In <i>The Pretenders</i> two figures again stand + opposed to one another as the superior and the inferior being, an Aladdin + and a Nureddin nature. It is towards this contrast that Ibsen has hitherto + unconsciously directed his endeavors, just as Nature feels her way in her + blind preliminary attempts to form her types. Håkon and Skule are + pretenders to the same throne, scions of royalty out of whom a king may be + made. But the first is the incarnation of fortune, victory, right and + confidence; the second—the principal figure in the play, masterly in + its truth and originality—is the brooder, a prey to inward struggle + and endless distrust, brave and ambitious, with perhaps every + qualification and claim to be king, but lacking the inexpressible, + impalpable somewhat that would give a value to all the rest—the + wonderful Lamp. "I am a king's arm," he says, "mayhap a king's brain as + well; but Håkon is the whole king." "You have wisdom and courage, + and all noble gifts of the mind," says Håkon to him; "you are born + to stand nearest a king, but not to be a king yourself." + </p> + <p> + To a poet the achievements of his greatest contemporaries in their common + art have all the importance of high deeds in statesmanship and war. It is, + therefore, by no means extravagant to see in the noble emulation of the + two dukes in <i>The Pretenders</i> some reflection of Ibsen's attitude to + the youthful and brilliant Björnson. The luminous self-reliance, the + ardor and confidence and good fortune of Björnson- Håkon could + not but offer a violent contrast with the gloom and hesitation, the sick + revulsions of hope and final lack of conviction, of Ibsen-Skule. It was Björnson's + "belt of strength," as it was Håkon's, that he had utter belief in + himself, and with this his rival could not yet girdle himself. "The + luckiest man is the greatest man," says Bishop Nicholas in the play, and + Björnson seemed in these melancholy years as lucky as Ibsen was + unlucky. But the Bishop's views were not wide enough, and the end was not + yet. + </p> + <p> + <a name="linki3" id="linki3"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:60%"> + <img alt="1868.jpg (90K)" src="images/1868.jpg" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <a name="linkc4" id="linkc4"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + THE SATIRES (1857-67) + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Temperament and environment combined at the period we have now reached to + turn Ibsen into a satirist. It was during his time of <i>Sturm und Drang</i>, + from 1857 to 1864, that the harshest elements in his nature were awakened, + and that he became one who loved to lash the follies of his age. With the + advent of prosperity and recognition this phase melted away, leaving Ibsen + without illusions and without much pity, but no longer the scourge of his + fellow-citizens. Although <i>The Pretenders</i>, a work of dignified and + polished aloofness, was not completed until 1863, it really belongs to the + earlier and more experimental section of Ibsen's works, and is so + completely the outcome and the apex of his national studies that it has + seemed best to consider it with <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>, in spite + of its immense advance upon that drama. But we must now go back a year, + and take up an entirely new section which overlaps the old, namely, that + of Ibsen's satires in dramatic rhyme. + </p> + <p> + With regard to the adoption of that form of poetic art, a great difference + existed between Norwegian and English taste, and this must be borne in + mind. Almost exactly at the date when Ibsen was inditing the sharp + couplets of his <i>Love's Comedy</i>, Tennyson, in <i>Sea Dreams</i>, was + giving voice to the English abandonment of satire—which had been + rampant in the generation of Byron—in the famous words:— + </p> + <p> + I loathe it: he had never kindly heart,<br /> + Nor ever cared to better his own kind,<br /> Who + first wrote satire, with no pity in it. + </p> + <p> + What England repudiated, Norway comprehended, and in certain hands + enjoyed. Polemical literature, if seldom of a high class, was abundant and + was much appreciated. The masterpiece of modern Norwegian poetry was, + still, the satiric cycle of Welhaven. In ordinary controversy, the tone + was more scathing, the bludgeon was whirled more violently, than English + taste at that period could endure. Those whom Ibsen designed to crush had + not minced their own words. The press was violence itself, and was not + tempered with justice; when the poet looked round he saw "afflicted virtue + insolently stabbed with all manner of reproaches," as Dryden said. + </p> + <p> + Yet it was not an age of gross and open vices; manners were not + flagitious, they were merely of a nauseous insipidity. Ibsen, flown with + anger as with wine, could find no outrageous offences to lash, and all he + could invite the age to do was to laugh at certain conventions and to + reconsider some prejudicated opinions. He had to be pungent, not openly + ferocious; he had to be sarcastic and to treat the current code of morals + as a jest. He found the society around him excessively distasteful to him, + but there were no crying evils of a political or ethical kind to be + stigmatized. What was open to him was what an old writer of our own + defined as "a sharp, well-mannered way of laughing a folly out of + countenance." + </p> + <p> + Unfortunately, the people laughed at will never consent to think the way + well mannered, and Ibsen was bitterly blamed for "want of taste," that + vaguest and most insidious of accusations. We are told that he began his + enterprise in prose [Note: "<i>Svanhild</i>: a Comedy in three acts and in + prose: 1860," is understood to exist still in manuscript], but found that + too stiff and bald a medium for a satire on the social crudity of Norway. + In writing satire, it is all-important that the form should be adequate, + and at this time Ibsen had not reached the impeccable perfection of his + later colloquial prose. He started <i>Love's Comedy</i>, therefore, anew, + and he wrote it as a pamphlet in rhyme. It is not certain that he had any + very definite idea of the line which his attack should take. He was very + poor, very sore, very uncomfortable, and he was easily convinced that the + times were out of joint. Then he observed that if there was anything that + the Norwegian upper classes prided themselves upon it was their conduct of + betrothal and marriage. Plato had said that the familiarity of young + persons before marriage prevented enmity and disappointment in later + years, that it was useful to know the peculiarities of temperament + beforehand, and so, being accustomed to them, to discount them. But Ibsen + was not of this opinion, or rather, perhaps, he did not choose to be. The + extremely slow and public method of betrothal in the North gave him his + first opportunity. + </p> + <p> + It is with a song, in the original one of the most delicious of his + lyrics, that he opens the campaign. To a miscellaneous party of + Philistines circled around the tea table, "all sober and all ——" + the rebellious hero sings:— + </p> + <p> + In the sunny orchard-closes,<br /> While + the warblers sing and swing,<br /> Care not whether + blustering Autumn<br /> Break the + promises of Spring;<br /> Rose and white the + apple-blossom<br /> Hides you from the + sultry sky;<br /> Let it flutter, blown and + scattered,<br /> On the meadow by and + by. + </p> + <p> + In the sexual struggle, that is to say, the lovers should not pause to + consider the worldly advantages of their match, but should fly in secret + to each other's arms. By the law of battle, the female should be snatched + to the conqueror's saddle-bow, and ridden away with into the night, not + subjected to the jokes and the good advice and the impertinent + congratulations of the clan. Young Lochinvar does not wait to ask the + counsel of the bride's cousins, nor to run the gantlet of her aunts; he + fords the Esk river with her, where ford there is none. Ibsen is in favor + of the <i>mariage de convenance</i>, which suppresses, without favor, the + absurdity of love-matches. Above all, anything is better than the + publicity, the meddling and long-drawn exposure of betrothal, which kills + the fine delicacy of love, as birds are apt to break their own eggs if + intruding hands have touched them. + </p> + <p> + This is the central point in <i>Love's Comedy</i>, but there is much + beside this in its reckless satire on the "sanctities" of domestic life. + The burden of monogamy is frivolously dealt with, and the impertinent poet + touches with levity upon the question of the duration of marriage: + </p> + <p> + With my living, with my singing,<br /> I + will tear the hedges down!<br /> Sweep the grass + and heap the blossom!<br /> Let it + shrivel, pale and blown!<br /> Throw the wicket + wide! Sheep, cattle,<br /> Let them + browse among the best<br />! <i>I</i> broke off the + flowers; what matter<br /> Who may + graze among the rest! + </p> + <p> + <i>Love's Comedy</i> is perhaps the most diverting of Ibsen's works; it is + certainly the most impertinent. If there was one class in Norwegian + society which was held to be above criticism it was the clerical. A + prominent character in Ibsen's comedy is the Rev. Mr. Strawman, a gross, + unctuous and uxorious priest, blameless and dull, upon whose inert body + the arrows of satire converge. This was never forgotten and long was + unforgiven. As late as 1866 the Storthing refused a grant to Ibsen + definitely on the ground of the scandal caused by his sarcastic portrait + of Pastor Strawman. But the gentler sex, to which every poet looks for an + audience, was not less deeply outraged by the want of indulgence which he + had shown for all forms of amorous sentiment, although Ibsen had really, + through his satire on the methods of betrothal, risen to something like a + philosophical examination of the essence of love itself. + </p> + <p> + To Brandes, who reproached him for not recording the history of ideal + engagements, and who remarked, "You know, there are sound potatoes and + rotten potatoes in this world," Ibsen cynically replied, "I am afraid none + of the sound ones have come under my notice"; and when Guldstad proves to + the beautiful Svanhild the paramount importance of creature comforts, the + last word of distrust in the sustaining power of love had been said. The + popular impression of Ibsen as an "immoral" writer seems to be primarily + founded on the paradox and fireworks of <i>Love's Comedy</i>. + </p> + <p> + Much might be forgiven to a man so wretched as Ibsen was in 1862, and more + to a poet so lively, brilliant and audacious in spite of his misfortunes. + These now gathered over his head and threatened to submerge him + altogether. He was perhaps momentarily saved by the publication of <i>Terje + Vigen</i>, which enjoyed a solid popularity. This is the principal and, + indeed, almost the only instance in Ibsen's works of what the Northern + critics call "epic," but what we less ambitiously know as the tale in + verse. <i>Terje Figen</i> will never be translated successfully into + English, for it is written, with brilliant lightness and skill, in an + adaptation of the Norwegian ballad-measure which it is impossible to + reproduce with felicity in our language. + </p> + <p> + Among Ibsen's writings <i>Terje Vigen</i> is unique as a piece of pure + sentimentality carried right rough without one divagation into irony or + pungency. It is the story of a much-injured and revengeful Norse pilot, + who, having the chance to drown his old enemies, Milord and Milady, saves + them at the mute appeal of their blue-eyed English baby. <i>Terje Vigen</i> + is a masterpiece of what we may define as the "dash-away-a-manly- tear" + class of narrative. It is extremely well written and picturesque, but the + wonder is that, of all people in the world, Ibsen should have written it. + </p> + <p> + His short lyric poems of this period betray much more clearly the real + temper of the man. They are filled full and brimming over with longing and + impatience, with painful passion and with hope deferred. It is in the + strident lyrics Ibsen wrote between 1857 and 1863 that we can best read + the record of his mind, and share its exasperations, and wonder at its + elasticity. The series of sonnets <i>In a Picture Gallery</i> is a + strangely violent confession of distrust in his own genius; the <i>Epistle + to H. O. Blom</i> a candid admission of his more than distrust in the + talent and honesty of others. It was the peculiarity and danger of Ibsen's + position that he represented no one but himself. For instance, the liberty + of many of the expressions in <i>Love's Comedy</i> led those who were + beginning a movement in favor of the emancipation of women to believe that + Ibsen was in sympathy with them, but he was not. All through his life, + although his luminous penetration into character led him to be + scrupulously fair in his analysis of female character, he was never a + genuine supporter of the extension of public responsibility to the sex. A + little later (in 1869), when John Stuart Mill's <i>Subjection of Women</i> + produced a sensation in Scandinavia, and met with many enthusiastic + supporters, Ibsen coldly reserved his opinion. He was always an observer, + always a clinical analyst at the bedside of society, never a prophet, + never a propagandist. + </p> + <p> + His troubles gathered upon him. Neither theatre consented to act <i>Love's + Comedy</i>, and it would not even have been printed but for the zeal of + the young novelist Jonas Lie, who, to his great honor, bought for about + £35 the right to publish it as a supplement to a newspaper that he + was editing. Then the storm broke out; the press was unanimously adverse, + and in private circles abuse amounted almost to a social taboo. In 1862 + the second theatre became bankrupt, and Ibsen was thrown on the world, the + most unpopular man of his day, and crippled with debts. It is true that he + was engaged at the Christiania Theatre at a nominal salary of about a + pound a week, but he could not live on that. In August, 1860, he had made + a pathetic appeal to the Government for a <i>digter-gage</i>, a payment to + a poet, such as is freely given to talent in the Northern countries. Sums + were voted to Björnson and Vinje, but to Ibsen not a penny. By some + influence, however, for he was not without friends, he was granted in + March, 1862, a travelling grant of less than £20 to enable him to + wander for two months in western Hardanger and the districts around the + Sognefjord for the purpose of collecting folk-songs and legends. The + results of this journey were prepared for publication, but never appeared. + This interesting excursion, however, has left its mark stamped broadly + upon <i>Brand</i> and <i>Peer Gynt</i>. + </p> + <p> + All through 1863 his condition was critical. He determined that his only + hope was to exile himself definitely from Norway, which had become too hot + to hold him. Various private friends generously helped him over this + dreadful time of adversity, earning a gratitude which, if it was not + expansive, was lifelong. Very grudging recognition of his gifts was at + length made by the Government in the shape of another trifling travelling + grant (March, 1863), again a handsome sum being awarded to Björnson, + his popular rival. In May Ibsen applied, in despair, to the King himself, + who conferred upon him a small pension of £90 a year, which for the + immediate future stood between this great poet and starvation. The news of + it was received in Christiania by the press in terms of despicable insult. + </p> + <p> + But in June of this <i>année terrible</i> Ibsen had a flash of + happiness. He was invited down to Bergen to the fifth great "Festival of + Song," a national occurrence, and he and his poems met with a warm + reception. Moreover, he found his brilliant antagonist, Björnson, at + Bergen on a like errand, and renewed an old friendship with this + warm-hearted and powerful man of genius, destined to play through life the + part of Håkon to Ibsen's Skule. They spent much of the subsequent + winter together. As Halvdan Koht has excellently said: "Their intercourse + brought them closer to each other than they had ever been before. They + felt that they were inspired by the same ideas and the same hopes, and + they suffered the same bitter disappointments. With anguish they watched + the Danish brother-nation's desperate struggle against the superior power + of Germany, and save a province with a population of Scandinavian race and + speech taken from Denmark and incorporated in a foreign kingdom, whilst + the Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen, in spite of solemn promises, refrained + from yielding any assistance." An attack on Holstein (December 22, 1863) + had introduced the Second Danish War, to which a disastrous and + humiliating termination was brought in the following August. + </p> + <p> + In April, 1864, Ibsen took the momentous step of quitting his native + country. He entered Copenhagen at the dark hour when Schleswig as well as + Holstein had been abandoned, and when the citadel of Düpper alone + stood between Denmark and ruin. His agonized sympathy may be read in the + indignant lyrics of that spring. A fortnight later he set out, by Lübeck + and Trieste, for Rome, where he had now determined to reside. He reached + that city in due time, and sank with ineffable satisfaction into the arms + of its antique repose. "Here at last," he wrote to Björnson, "there + is blessed peace," and he settled himself down to the close contemplation + of poetry. + </p> + <p> + The change from the severities of an interminable Northern winter to the + glow and splendor of Italy acted on the poet's spirit like an enchantment. + Ibsen came, another Pilgrim of Eternity, to Rome's "azure sky, flowers, + ruins, statues, music," and at first the contrast between the crudity he + had left and the glory he had found was almost intolerable. He could not + work; all he did was to lie in the flushed air and become as a little + child. There has scarcely been another example of a writer of the first + class who, deeply solicitous about beauty, but debarred from all enjoyment + of it until his thirty-seventh year, has been suddenly dipped, as if into + a magic fountain, into the heart of unclouded loveliness without + transition or preparation. Shelley and Keats were dead long before they + reached the age at which Ibsen broke free from his prison-house of ice, + while Byron, in the same year of his life, was closing his romantic + career. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen's earliest impressions of what these poets had become accustomed to + at a ductile age were contradictory and even incoherent. The passion of + pagan antiquity for a long while bewildered him. He wandered among the + vestiges of antique art, unable to perceive their relation to modern life, + or their original significance. He missed the impress of the individual on + classic sculpture, as he had missed it—the parallel is strange, but + his own—on the Eddaic poems of ancient Iceland. He liked a lyric or + a statue to speak to him of the man who made it. He felt more at home with + Bernini among sculptors and with Bramante among architects than with + artists of a more archaic type. Shelley, we may remember, labored under a + similar heresy; to each of these poets the attractiveness of individual + character overpowered the languid flavor of the age in which the artist + had flourished. Ibsen's admiration of a certain overpraised monument of + Italian architecture would not be worth recording but for the odd vigor + with which he adds that the man who made that might have made the moon in + his leisure moments. + </p> + <p> + During the first few months of Ibsen's life in Rome all was chaos in his + mind. He was plunged in stupefaction at the beauties of nature, the + amenities of mankind, the interpenetration of such a life with such an art + as he had never dreamed of and could yet but dimly comprehend. In + September, 1864, he tells Björnson that he is at work on a poem of + considerable length. This must have been the first draft of <i>Brand</i>, + which was begun, we know, as a narrative, or as the Northerns call it, an + "epic" poem; although a sketch for the <i>Julianus Apostata</i> was + already forming in the back of his head, as a subject which would, sooner + or later, demand poetic treatment. He had left his wife and little son in + Copenhagen, but at the beginning of October they joined him in Rome. The + family lived on an income which seems almost incredibly small, a maximum + of 40 scudi a month. But it was a different thing to be hungry in + Christiania and in Rome, and Ibsen makes no complaints. A sort of blessed + languor had fallen upon him after all his afflictions. He would loll + through half his days among the tombs on the Via Latina, or would loiter + for hours and hours along the Appian Way. It took him weeks to summon + energy to visit S. Pietro in Vincoli, although he knew that Michelangelo's + "Moses" was there, and though he was weary with longing to see it. All the + tense chords of Ibsen's nature were loosened. His soul was recovering, + through a long and blissful convalescence, from the aching maladies of its + youth. + </p> + <p> + He took some part in the society of those Scandinavian writers, painters + and sculptors who gathered in Rome through the years of their distress. + But only one of them attracted him strongly, the young Swedish lyrical + poet, Count Carl Snoilsky, then the hope and already even the glory of his + country. There was some quaint diversity between the rude and gloomy + Norwegian dramatist, already middle-aged, and the full-blooded, sparkling + Swedish diplomatist of twenty-three, rich, flattered, and already as + famous for his fashionable <i>bonnes fortunes</i> as Byron. But two things + Snoilsky and Ibsen had in common, a passionate enthusiasm for their art, + and a rebellious attitude towards their immediate precursors in it. Each, + in his own way, was the leader of a new school. The friendship of Ibsen + and Snoilsky was a permanent condition for the rest of their lives, for it + was founded on a common basis. + </p> + <p> + A few years later the writer of these pages received an amusing impression + of Ibsen at this period from the Danish poet, Christian Molbech, who was + also in Rome in 1865 and onwards. Ibsen wandering silently about the + streets, his hands plunged far into the pockets of his invariable jacket + of faded velveteen, Ibsen killing conversation by his sudden moody + appearances at the Scandinavian Club, Ibsen shattering the ideals of the + painters and the enthusiasms of the antiquaries by a running fire of + sarcastic paradox, this is mainly what the somewhat unsympathetic Molbech + was not unwilling to reproduce. He painted a more agreeable Ibsen when he + spoke of his summer flights to the Alban Hills, planned on terms of the + most prudent reference to resources which seemed ever to be expected and + never to arrive. Nevertheless, under the vines in front of some inn at + Genzano or Albano, Ibsen would duly be discovered, placid and dreamy, + always self-sufficient and self- contained, but not unwilling to exchange, + over a flask of thin wine, commonplaces with a Danish friend. It was at + Ariccia, in one of these periods of <i>villegiatura</i>, during the summer + and autumn of 1865, that <i>Brand</i>, which had long been under + considerature, suddenly took final shape, and was written throughout, + without pause or hesitation. In July the poet put everything else aside to + begin it, and before the end of September he had completed it. + </p> + <p> + <i>Brand</i> placed Ibsen at a bound among the greatest European poets of + his age. The advance over the sculptural perfection of <i>The Pretenders</i> + and the graceful wit of <i>Love's Comedy</i> was so great as to be + startling. Nothing but the veil of a foreign language, which the best + translations are powerless to tear away from noble verse, prevented this + mastery from being perceived at once. In Scandinavia, where that veil did + not exist, for those who had eyes to see, and who were not blinded by + prejudice, it was plain that a very great writer had arisen in Norway at + last. Björnson had seemed to slip ahead of Ibsen; his <i>Sigurd + Slembe</i> (1862) was a riper work than the elder friend had produced; but + <i>Mary Stuart in Scotland</i> (1864) had marked a step backward, and now + Ibsen had once more shot far ahead of his rival. When we have admitted + some want of clearness in the symbolism which runs through <i>Brand</i>, + and some shifting of the point of view in the two last acts, an + incoherency and a turbidity which are natural in the treatment of so + colossal a theme, there is very little but praise to be given to a poem + which is as manifold in its emotion and as melodious in its versification + as it is surprising in its unchallenged originality. In the literatures of + Scandinavia it has not merely been unsurpassed, but in its own peculiar + province it has not been approached. It bears some remote likeness to <i>Faust</i>, + but with that exception there is perhaps nothing in the literature of the + world which can be likened to <i>Brand</i>, except, of course, <i>Peer + Gynt</i>. + </p> + <p> + For a long while it was supposed that the difficulties in the way of + performing <i>Brand</i> on the public stage were too great to be overcome. + But the task was attempted at length, first in Stockholm in 1895; and + within the last few years this majestic spectacle has been drawn in full + before the eyes of enraptured audiences in Copenhagen, Berlin, Moscow and + elsewhere. In spite of the timid reluctance of managers, wherever this + play is adequately presented, it captures an emotional public at a run. It + is an appeal against moral apathy which arouses the languid. It is a clear + and full embodiment of the gospel of energy which awakens and upbraids the + weak. In the original, its rush of rhymes produces on the nerves an almost + delirious excitement. If it is taken as an oration, it is responded to as + a great civic appeal; if as a sermon, it is sternly religious, and fills + the heart with tears. In the solemn mountain air, with vague bells ringing + high up among the glaciers, no one asks exactly what <i>Brand</i> + expounds, nor whether it is perfectly coherent. Witnessed on the living + stage, it takes the citadel of the soul by storm. When it is read, the + critical judgment becomes cooler. + </p> + <p> + Carefully examined, <i>Brand</i> is found to present a disconcerting + mixture of realism and mysticism. Two men seem at work in the writing of + it, and their effects are sometimes contradictory. It has constantly been + asked, and it was asked at one, "Is <i>Brand</i> the expression of Ibsen's + own nature?" Yes, and no. He threw much of himself into his hero, and yet + he was careful to remain outside. Ibsen, as we have already pointed out, + was ready in later life to discuss his own writings, and what he said + about them is often dangerously mystifying. He told Georg Brandes that the + religious vocation of Brand was not essential. "I could have applied the + whole syllogism just as well to a sculptor, or a politician, as to a + priest." (He was to deal with each of these alternations later on, but + with what a difference!) "I could quite as well," he persisted, "have + worked out the impulse which drove me to write, by taking Galileo, for + instance, as my hero—assuming, of course, that Galileo should stand + firm and never concede the fixity of the earth—or you yourself in + your struggle with the Danish reactionaries." This is not to the point, + since in fact neither Georg Brandes nor Galileo, as hero of a mystical + drama, could have produced such a capacity for evolution as is presented + by the stern priest whose absolute certitude, although founded, one + admits, on no rational theory of theology, is yet of the very essence of + religion. + </p> + <p> + Brand becomes intelligible when we regard him as a character of the + twelfth century transferred to the nineteenth. He has something of Peter + the Hermit in him. He ought to have been a crusading Christian king, + fighting against the Moslem for the liberties of some sparkling city of + God. He exists in his personage, under the precipice, above the fjord, + like a rude mediaeval anchorite, who eats his locusts and wild honey in + the desert. We cannot comprehend the action of Brand by any reference to + accepted creeds and codes, because he is so remote from the religious + conventions as hardly to seem objectively pious at all. He is violent and + incoherent; he knows not clearly what it is he wants, but it must be an + upheaval of all that exists, and it must bring Man into closer contact + with God. Brand is a king of souls, but his royal dignity is marred, and + is brought sometimes within an inch of the ridiculous, by the prosaic + nature of his modern surroundings. He is harsh and cruel; he is liable to + fits of anger before which the whole world trembles; and it is by an + avalanche, brought down upon him by his own wrath, that he is finally + buried in the ruins of the Ice-Church. + </p> + <p> + The judicious reader may like to compare the character of Brand with that + extraordinary study of violence, the <i>Abbé Jules</i> of Octave + Mirbeau. In each we have the history of revolt, in a succession of crises, + against an invincible vocation. In each an element of weakness is the + pride of a peasant priest. But in Ibsen there is fully developed what the + cynicism of Octave Mirbeau avoids, a genuine conception of such a rebel's + ceaseless effort after personal holiness. Lammers or Lammenais, what can + it matter whether some existing priest of insurrection did or did not set + Ibsen for a moment on the track of his colossal imagination? We may leave + these discussions to the commentators; <i>Brand</i> is one of the great + poems of the world, and endless generations of critics will investigate + its purpose and analyze its forms. + </p> + <p> + There is, however, another than the priestly side. The poem contains a + great deal of superficial and rather ephemeral satire of contemporary + Scandinavian life, echoes of a frightened Storthing in Christiania, of a + crafty court in Stockholm, and of Denmark stretching her bleeding hands to + her sisters in an agony of despair. There is the still slighter local + strain of irony, which lightens the middle of the third act. Here Ibsen + comes not to heal but to slay; he exposes the corpse of an exhausted age, + and will bury it quickly, with sexton's songs and peals of elfin laughter, + in some chasm of rock above a waterfall. "It is Will alone that matters," + and for the weak of purpose there is nothing but ridicule and six feet of + such waste earth as nature carelessly can spare from her rude store of + graves. Against the mountain landscape, Brand holds up his motto "All or + Nothing," persistently, almost tiresomely, like a modern advertising agent + affronting the scenery with his panacea. More truculently still, he + insists upon the worship of a deity, not white- bearded, but as young as + Hercules, a scandal to prudent Lutheran theologians, a prototype of + violent strength. + </p> + <p> + Yet Brand's own mission remains undefined to him—if it ever takes + exact shape—until Agnes reveals it to him:— + </p> + <p> + Choose thy endless + loss or gain!<br /> Do + thy work and bear thy pain. ...<br /> Now + (he answers) I see my way aright.<br /> In + <i>ourselves</i> is that young Earth,<br /> Ripe + for the divine new-birth. + </p> + <p> + And it is in Agnes—as the marvellous fourth act opens where her love + for the little dear dead child is revealed, and where her patience endures + all the cruelties of her husband's fanaticism—it is in Agnes that + Ibsen's genius for the first time utters the clear, unembittered note of + full humanity. He has ceased now to be parochial; he is a nursling of the + World and Time. If the harsh Priest be, in a measure, Ibsen as Norway made + him, Agnes and Einar, and perhaps Gerd also, are the delicate offspring of + Italy. + </p> + <p> + Considerable postponements delayed the publication of <i>Brand</i>, which + saw the light at length, in Copenhagen, in March, 1866. It was at once + welcomed by the Danish press, which had hitherto known little of Ibsen, + and the poet's audience was thus very considerably widened. The satire of + the poem awakened an eager polemic; the popular priest Wexels preached + against its tendency. A novel was published, called <i>The Daughters of + Brand</i>, in which the results of its teaching were analyzed. Ibsen + enjoyed, what he had never experienced before, the light and shade of a + disputed but durable popular success. Four large editions of <i>Brand</i> + were exhausted within the year of its publication, and it took its place, + of course, in more leisurely progress, among the few books which + continued, and still continue, steadily to sell. It has always been, in + the countries of Scandinavia, the best known and the most popular of all + Ibsen's writings. + </p> + <p> + This success, however, was largely one of sentiment, not of pecuniary + fortune. The total income from four editions of a poem like <i>Brand</i>, + in the conditions of Northern literary life forty years ago, would not + much exceed £100. Hardly had Ibsen become the object of universal + discussion than he found himself assailed, as never before, by the + paralysis of poverty. He could not breathe, he could not move; he could + not afford to buy postage stamps to stick upon his business letters. He + was threatened with the absolute extinction of his resources. At the very + time when Copenhagen was ringing with his praise Ibsen was borrowing money + for his modest food and rent from the Danish Consul in Rome. + </p> + <p> + In the winter of 1865 he fell into a highly nervous condition, in the + midst of which he was assailed by a malarious fever which brought him + within sight of the grave. To the agony of his devoted wife, he lay for + some time between life and death, and the extreme poverty from which they + suffered made it difficult, and even impossible, for her to provide for + him the alleviations which his state demanded. He gradually recovered, + however, thanks to his wife's care and to his own magnificent + constitution, but the springs of courage seemed to have snapped within his + breast. + </p> + <p> + In March, 1866, worn out with illness, poverty and suspense, he wrote a + letter to Björnson, "my one and only friend," which is one of the + most heart-rending documents in the history of literature. Few great + spirits have been nearer the extinction of despair than Ibsen was, now in + his thirty-ninth year. His admirers, at their wits' end to know what to + advise, urged him to write directly to Carl, King of Sweden and Norway, + describing his condition, and asking for support. Simultaneously came the + manifest success of <i>Brand</i>, and, for the first time, the Norwegian + press recognized the poet's merit. There was a general movement in his + favor; King Carl graciously received his petition of April 15, and on May + 10 the Storthing, almost unanimously, voted Ibsen a "poet's pension," + restricted in amount but sufficient for his modest needs. + </p> + <p> + The first use he made of his freedom was to move out of Rome, where he + found it impossible to write, and to settle at Frascati among the hills. + He hired a nest of cheap rooms in the Palazzo Gratiosi, two thousand feet + above the sea. Thither he came, with his wife and his little son, and + there he fitted himself up a study; setting his writing table at a window + that overlooked an immensity of country, and Mont Soracté closing + the horizon with its fiery pyramid. In his correspondence of this time + there are suddenly noticeable a gayety and an insouciance which are + elements wholly new in his letters. The dreadful burden was lifted; the + dreadful fear of sinking in a sea of troubles and being lost for ever, the + fear which animates his painful letter to King Carl, was blown away like a + cloud and the heaven of his temper was serene. At Frascati he knew not + what to be at; he tried that subject, and this, waiting for the heavenly + spark to fall. It seems to have been at Tusculum, and in the autumn of + 1866, that the subject he was looking for descended upon him. He hurried + back to Rome, and putting all other schemes aside, he devoted himself + heart and soul to the composition of <i>Peer Gynt</i>, which he described + as to be "a long dramatic poem, having as its chief figure one of the + half-mythical and fantastical personages from the peasant life of <i>modern</i> + Norway." + </p> + <p> + He wrote this work slowly, more slowly than was his wont, and it was a + whole year on the stocks. It was in the summer that Ibsen habitually + composed with the greatest ease, and <i>Peer Gynt</i> did not trove + smoothly until the poet settled in the Villa Pisani, at Casamicciola, on + the island of Ischia. His own account was: "After <i>Brand</i> came <i>Peer + Gynt</i>, as though of itself. It was written in Southern Italy, in Ischia + and at Sorrento. So far away from one's readers one becomes reckless. This + poem contains much that has its origin in the circumstances of my own + youth. My own mother—with the necessary exaggeration—served as + the model for Ase." <i>Peer Gynt</i> was finished before Ibsen left + Sorrento at the end of the autumn, and the MS. was immediately posted to + Copenhagen. None of the delays which had interfered with the appearance of + <i>Brand</i> now afflicted the temper of the poet, and <i>Peer Gynt</i> + was published in November, 1867. + </p> + <p> + In spite of the plain speaking of Ibsen himself, who declared that <i>Peer + Gynt</i> was diametrically opposed in spirit to <i>Brand</i>, and that it + made no direct attack upon social questions, the critics of the later poem + have too often persisted in darkening it with their educational + pedantries. Ibsen did well to be angry with his commentators. "They have + discovered," he said, "much more satire in <i>Peer Gynt</i> than was + intended by me. Why can they not read the book as a poem? For as such I + wrote it." It has been, however, the misfortune of Ibsen that he has + particularly attracted the attention of those who prefer to see anything + in a poem except its poetry, and who treat all tulips and roses as if they + were cabbages for the pot of didactic morality. Yet it is surprising that + after all that the author said, and with the lovely poem shaking the + bauble of its fool's cap at them, there can still be commentators who see + nothing in <i>Peer Gynt</i> but the "awful interest of the universal + problems with which it deals." This obsession of the critic to discover + "problems" in the works of Ibsen has been one of the main causes of that + impatience and even downright injustice with which his writings have been + received by a large section of those readers who should naturally have + enjoyed them. He is a poet, of fantastic wit and often reckless + imagination, and he has been travestied in a long black coat and white + choker, as though he were an embodiment of the Nonconformist conscience. + </p> + <p> + Casting aside, therefore, the spurious "lessons" and supposititious + "problems" of this merry and mundane drama, we may recognize among its + irregularities and audacities two main qualities of merit. Above + everything else which we see in <i>Peer Gynt</i> we see its fun and its + picturesqueness. Written at different times and in different moods, there + is an incoherency in its construction which its most whole-hearted + admirers cannot explain away. The first act is an inimitable burst of + lyrical high spirits, tottering on the verge of absurdity, carried along + its hilarious career with no less peril and with no less brilliant success + than Peer fables for himself and the reindeer in their ride along the + vertiginous blade of the Gjende. In the second act, satire and fantasy + become absolutely unbridled; the poet's genius sings and dances under him, + like a strong ship in a storm, but the vessel is rudderless and the pilot + an emphatic libertine. The wild impertinence of fancy, in this act, from + the moment when Peer and the Girl in the Green Gown ride off upon the + porker, down to the fight with the Böig, gigantic gelatinous symbol + of self deception, exceeds in recklessness anything else written since the + second part of <i>Faust</i>. The third act, culminating with the drive to + Soria Moria Castle and the death of Ase, is of the very quintessence of + poetry, and puts Ibsen in the first rank of creators. In the fourth act, + the introduction of which is abrupt and grotesque, we pass to a totally + different and, I think, a lower order of imagination. The fifth act, an + amalgam of what is worst and best in the poem, often seems divided from it + in tone, style and direction, and is more like a symbolic or mythical + gloss upon the first three acts than a contribution to the growth of the + general story. + </p> + <p> + Throughout this tangled and variegated scene the spirits of the author + remain almost preposterously high. If it were all hilarity and sardonic + laughter, we should weary of the strain. But physical beauty of the most + enchanting order is liberally provided to temper the excess of irony. It + is, I think, no exaggeration to say that nowhere to the dramatic + literature of the world, not by Shakespeare himself, is there introduced + into a play so much loveliness of scenery, and such varied and exquisite + appeal to the eyes, as there is in <i>Peer Gynt</i>. The fifth act + contains much which the reader can hardly enjoy, but it opens with a scene + so full of the glory of the mountains and the sea that I know nothing else + in drama to compare with it. This again is followed by one of the finest + shipwrecks in all poetry. Scene after scene, the first act portrays the + cold and solemn beauty of Norwegian scenery as no painter's brush has + contrived to do it. For the woodland background of the Saeter Girls there + is no parallel in plastic art but the most classic of Norwegian paintings, + Dahl's "Birch in a Snow Storm." Pages might be filled with praise of the + picturesqueness of tableau after tableau in each act of <i>Peer Gynt</i>. + </p> + <p> + The hero is the apotheosis of selfish vanity, and he is presented to us, + somewhat indecisively, as the type of one who sets at defiance his own + life's design. But is Peer Gynt designed to be a useful, a good, or even a + successful man? Certainly Ibsen had not discovered it when he wrote the + first act, in which scarcely anything is observable except a study, full + of merriment and sarcasm, of the sly, lazy and parasitical class of + peasant rogue. This type was not of Ibsen's invention; he found it in + those rustic tales, inimitably resumed by Asbjörnson and Moe, in + which he shows us that his memory was steeped. Here, too, he found the Böig, + a monster of Norse superstition, vast and cold, slippery and invisible, + capable of infinite contraction and expansion. The conception that this + horror would stand in symbol for a certain development of selfish national + instability seems to have seized him later, and <i>Peer Gynt</i>, which + began as a farce, continued as a fable. The nearest approach to a + justification of the moral or "problem" purpose, which Ibsen's graver + prophets attribute to him, is found in the sixth scene of the fifth act, + where, quite in the manner of Goethe, thoughts and watchwords and songs + and tears take corporeal form and assail the aged <i>Peer Gynt</i> with + their reproaches. + </p> + <p> + <i>Peer Gynt</i> was received in the North with some critical + bewilderment, and it has never been so great a favorite with the general + public as <i>Brand</i>. But Ibsen, with triumphant arrogance, when he was + told that it did not conform to the rules of poetic art, asserted that the + rules must be altered, not <i>Peer Gynt</i>. "My book," he wrote, "<i>is</i> + poetry; and if it is not, then it shall be. The Norwegian conception of + what poetry is shall be made to fit my book." There was a struggle at + first against this assumption, but the drama has become a classic, and it + is now generally allowed, that so long as poetry is a term wide enough to + include <i>The Clouds</i> and the Second Part of <i>Faust</i>, it must be + made wide enough to take in a poem as unique as they are in its majestic + intellectual caprices. + </p> + <p> + [Note.—By far the most exhaustive analysis of <i>Peer Gynt</i> which + has hitherto been given to the world is that published, as I send these + pages to the press, by the executors of Otto Weininger, in his posthumous + <i>Ueber die letzte Dinge</i> (1907). This extraordinary young man, who + shot himself on October 4, 1903, in the house at Vienna where Beethoven + died, was only twenty-three years of age when he violently deprived + philosophical literature in Europe of by far its most promising and + remarkable recruit. If I confess myself unable to see in <i>Peer Gynt</i> + all that Weininger saw in it, the fault is doubtless mine. But in Ibsen, + unquestionably, time will <i>create</i> profundities, as it has in + Shakespeare. The greatest works grow in importance, as trees do after the + death of the mortal men who planted them.] + </p> + <p> + <a name="linki5" id="linki5"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:60%"> + <img alt="dresden.jpg (71K)" src="images/dresden.jpg" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <a name="linkc5" id="linkc5"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + 1868-75 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Ibsen's four years in Italy were years of rest, of solitude, of calm. The + attitude of Ibsen to Italy was totally distinct from that of other + illustrious exiles of his day and generation. The line of pilgrims from + Stendhal and Lamartine down to Ruskin and the Brownings had brought with + them a personal interest in Italian affairs; Italian servitude had roused + some of them to anger or irony; they had spent nights of insomnia dreaming + of Italian liberty. <i>Casa Guidi Windows</i> may be taken as the extreme + type of the way in which Italy did not impress Ibsen. He sought there, and + found, under the transparent azure of the Alban sky, in the harmonious + murmurs of the sea, in the violet shadows of the mountains, above all in + the gray streets of Rome, that rest of the brain, that ripening of the + spiritual faculties, which he needed most after his rough and prolonged + adolescence in Norway. In his attitude of passive appreciation he was, + perhaps, more like Landor than like any other of the illustrious exiles—Landor, + who died in Florence a few days after Ibsen settled in Rome. There was a + side of character, too, on which the young Norwegian resembled that + fighting man of genius. + </p> + <p> + When, therefore, on September 8, 1867, Garibaldi, at Genoa, announced his + intention of marching upon Rome, an echo woke in many a poet's heart "by + rose hung river and light-foot rill," but left Ibsen simply disconcerted. + If Rome was to be freed from Papal slavery, it would no longer be the + somnolent and unupbraiding haunt of quietness which the Norwegian desired + for the healing of his spleen and his moral hypochondria. In October the + heralds of liberty crossed the Papal frontier; on the 30th, by a slightly + prosaic touch, it was the French who entered Rome. Of Ibsen, in these last + months of his disturbed sojourn—for he soon determined that if there + was going to be civil war in Italy that country was no home for him—we + hear but little. This autumn, however, we find him increasingly observant + of the career of Georg Brandes, the brilliant and revolutionary Danish + critic, in whom he was later on to find his first great interpreter. And + we notice the beginnings of a difference with Björnson, lamentable + and hardly explicable, starting, it would vaguely seem, out of a sense + that Björnson did not appreciate the poetry of <i>Peer Gynt</i> at + its due value. Clemens Petersen, who, since the decease of Heiberg, had + been looked upon as the <i>doyen</i> of Danish critics—had + pronounced against the poetry of <i>Peer Gynt</i>, and Ibsen, in one of + his worst moods, in a bearish letter, had thrown the blame of this + judgment upon Björnson. + </p> + <p> + All through these last months in Rome we find Ibsen in the worst of + humors. If it be admissible to compare him with an animal, he seems the + badger among the writers of his time, nocturnal, inoffensive, solitary, + but at the rumor of disturbance apt to rush out of its burrow and bite + with terrific ferocity. The bite of Ibsen was no joke, and in moments of + exasperation he bit, without selection, friend and foe alike. Among other + snaps of the pen, he told Björnson that if he was not taken seriously + as a poet, he should try his "fate as a photographer." Björnson, + genially and wittily, took this up at once, and begged him to put his + photography into the form of a comedy. But the devil, as Ibsen himself + said, was throwing his shadow between the friends, and all the benefits + and all the affection of the old dark days were rapidly forgotten. They + quarrelled, too, rather absurdly, about decorations from kings and + ministers; Björnson having determined to reject all such gewgaws, + Ibsen announced his intention of accepting (and wearing) every cross and + star that was offered to him. At this date, no doubt, the temptation was + wholly problematical in both cases, yet each poet acted on his + determination to the end. But Björnson's hint about the comedy seems + to have been, for some years, the last flicker of friendship between the + two. On this Ibsen presently acted in a manner very offensive to Björnson. + </p> + <p> + In March, 1868, Ibsen was beginning to be very much indeed incensed with + things in general. "What Norway wants is a national disaster," he amiably + snarled. It was high time that the badger should seek shelter in a new + burrow, and in May we find him finally quitting Rome. There was a farewell + banquet, at which Julius Lange, who was present, remarks that Ibsen showed + a spice of the devil, but "was very witty and amiable." He went to + Florence for June, then quitted Italy altogether, settling for three + months at Berchtesgaden, the romantic little "sunbath" in the Salzburg + Alps, then still very quiet and unfashionable. There he started his + five-act comedy, <i>The League of Youth</i>. All September he spent in + Munich, and in October, 1868, took root once more, this time at Dresden, + which became his home for a considerable number of years. Almost at once + he sank down again into his brooding mood of isolation and quietism, + roaming about the streets of Dresden, as he hail haunted those of Rome, by + night or at unfrequented hours, very solitary, seeing few visitors, + writing few letters, slowly finishing his "photographic" comedy, which he + did not get off his hands until March, 1869. Although he was still very + poor, he refused all solicitations from editors to write for journals or + magazines; he preferred to appear before the public at long intervals, + with finished works of importance. + </p> + <p> + It is impossible for a critic who is not a Norwegian, or not closely + instructed in the politics and manners of the North, to take much interest + in <i>The League of Youth</i>, which is the most provincial of all Ibsen's + mature works. There is a cant phrase minted in the course of it, <i>de + lokale forhold</i>, which we may awkwardly translate as "the local + conditions" or "situation." The play is all concerned with <i>de lokale + forhold</i>, and there is an overwhelming air of Little Pedlington about + the intrigue. This does not prevent <i>The League of Youth</i> from being, + as Mr. Archer has said, "the first prose comedy of any importance in + Norwegian literature," [Note: It is to be supposed that Mr. Archer + deliberately prefers <i>The League of Youth</i> to Björnson's <i>The + Newly Married Couple</i> (1865), a slighter, but, as it seems to me, a + more amusing comedy.] but it excludes it from the larger European view. + Oddly enough, Ibsen believed, or pretended to believe, that <i>The League + of Youth</i> was a "placable" piece of foolery, which could give no + annoyance to the worst of offenders by its innocent and indulgent banter. + Perhaps, like many strenuous writers, he underestimated the violence of + his own language; perhaps, living so long at a distance from Norway and + catching but faintly the reverberations of its political turmoil, he did + not realize how sensitive the native patriot must be to any chaff of "de + lokale forhold." When he found that the Norwegians were seriously angry, + Ibsen bluntly told them that he had closely studied the ways and the + manners of their "pernicious and lie-steeped clique." He was always + something of a snake in the grass to his poetic victims. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Archer, whose criticism of this play is extraordinarily brilliant, + does his best to extenuate the stiffness of it. But to my own ear, as I + read it again after a quarter of a century, there rise the tones of the + stilted, the unsmiling, the essentially provincial and boringly solemn + society of Christiania as it appeared to a certain young pilgrim in the + early seventies, condensing, as it then seemed to do, all the + sensitiveness, the arrogance, the crudity which made communication with + the excellent and hospitable Norwegians of that past epoch so difficult + for an outsider—so difficult, in particular, for one coming freshly + from the grace and sweetness, the delicate, cultivated warmth of + Copenhagen. The political conditions which led to the writing of <i>The + League of Youth</i> are old history now. There was the "liberal" element + in Norwegian politics, which was in 1868 becoming rapidly stronger and + more hampering to the Government, and there was the increasing influence + of Sören Jaabaek (1814-94), a peasant farmer of ultra-socialistic + views, who had, almost alone, opposed in the Storthing the grant of any + pensions to poets, and whose name was an abomination to Ibsen. + </p> + <p> + Now Björnson, in the development of his career as a political + publicist, had been flirting more and more outrageously with these extreme + ideas and this truculent peasant party. He had even burned incense before + Jaabaek, who was the accursed Thing. Ibsen, from the perspective of + Dresden, genuinely believed that Björnson, with his ardor and his + energy and his eloquence, war, becoming a national danger. We have seen + that Björnson had piqued Ibsen's vanity about <i>Peer Gynt</i>, and + nothing exasperates a friendship more fatally than public principle + grafted on a private slight. Moreover, the whole nature of Björnson + was gregarious, that of Ibsen solitary; Björnson must always be + leading the majority, Ibsen had scuples of conscience if ten persons + agreed with him. They were doomed to disagreement. Meanwhile, Ibsen burned + his ships by creating the figure of Stensgaard, in <i>The League of Youth</i>, + a frothy and mischievous demagogue whose rhetoric irresistibly reminded + every one of Björnson's rolling oratory. What Björnson, not + without dignity, objected to was not so much the personal attack, as that + the whole play attempted "to paint our young party of liberty as a troop + of pushing, phrase-mongering adventurers, whose patriotism lay solely in + their words." Ibsen acknowledged that that was exactly his opinion of + them, and what could follow for such a disjointed friendship but anger and + silence? + </p> + <p> + The year 1869, which we now enter, is remarkable in the career of Ibsen as + being that in which he travelled most, and appeared on the surface of + society in the greatest number of capacities. He was enabled to do this by + a considerable increase in his pension. First of all, he was induced to + pay a visit of some months to Stockholm, being seized with a sudden strong + desire to study conditions in Sweden, a country which he had hitherto + professed to dislike. He had a delightful stay of two months, received + from King Carl the order of the Wasa, was feted at banquets, renewed his + acquaintance with Snoilsky, and was treated everywhere with the highest + distinction. Ibsen and Björnson were how beginning to be recognized + as the two great writers of Norway, and their droll balance as the Mr. and + Mrs. Jack Sprat of letters was already becoming defined. It was doubtless + Björnson's emphatic attacks on Sweden that at this moment made Ibsen + so loving to the Swedes and so beloved. He was in such clover at Stockholm + that he might have lingered on there indefinitely, if the Khedive had not + invited him, in September, to be his guest at the opening of the Suez + Canal. This sudden incursion of an Oriental potentate into the narrative + seems startling until we recollect that illustrious persons were invited + from all countries to this ceremony. The interesting thing is to see that + Ibsen was now so fatuous as to be naturally so selected; the only other + Norwegian guest being Professor J. D. C. Lieblein, the Egyptologist. + </p> + <p> + The poet started for Egypt, by Dresden and Paris, on September 28. <i>The + League of Youth</i> was published on the 29th, and first performed on + October 18; Ibsen, therefore, just missed the scandal and uproar caused by + the play in Norway. In company with eighty-five other people, all + illustrious guests of the Khedive, and under the care of Mariette Bey, + Ibsen made a twenty-four days' expedition up the Nile into Nubia, and then + back to Cairo and Port Said. There, on November 17, in the company of an + empress and several princes of the blood, he saw the Canal formally opened + and graced a grand processional fleet that sailed out from Port Said + towards Ismaila. But on the quay at Port Said Ibsen's Norwegian mail was + handed to him, and letters and newspapers alike were full of the violent + scenes in the course of which <i>The League of Youth</i> had been hissed + down at Christiania. Then and there he sent his defiance back to Norway in + <i>At Port Saïd</i>, one of the most pointed and effective of all his + polemical lyrics. A version in literal prose must suffice, though it does + cruel injustice to the venomous melody of the original: + </p> + <p> + The dawn of the Eastern + Land<br /> Over the haven + glittered;<br /> Flags from + all corners of the globe<br /> Quivered + from the masts.<br /> Voices + in music<br /> Bore onward + the cantata;<br /> A + thousand cannon<br /> Christened + the Canal. + </p> + <p> + The steamers passed on<br /> + By the obelisk.<br /> + In the language of my home<br /> + Came to me the chatter of + news.<br /> The mirror-poem + which I had polished<br /> For + masculine minxes<br /> Had + been smeared at home<br /> By + splutterings from penny whistles. + </p> + <p> + The poison-fly stung;<br /> + It made my memories + loathsome.<br /> Stars, be + thanked!—<br /> My + home is what is ancient!<br /> We + hailed the frigate<br /> From + the roof of the river-boat;<br /> I + waved my hat<br /> And + saluted the flag. + </p> + <p> + To the feast, to the + feast,<br /> In spite of + the fangs of venomous reptiles!<br /> A + selected guest<br /> Across + the Lakes of Bitterness!<br /> At + the close of day<br /> Dreaming, + I shall slumber<br /> Where + Pharaoh was drowned—<br /> And + when Moses passed over. + </p> + <p> + In this mood of defiance, with rage unabated, Ibsen returned home by + Alexandria and Paris, and was in Dresden again in December. + </p> + <p> + The year of 1870 drove him out of Dresden, as the French occupation had + driven him out of Rome. It was essential for him to be at rest in the + midst of a quiet and alien population. He was drawn towards Denmark, + partly for the sake of talk with Brandes, who had now become a factor in + his life, partly to arrange about the performance of one of his early + works, and in particular of <i>The Pretenders</i>. No definite plan, + however, had been formed, when, in the middle of June, war was declared + between Germany and France; but a fortnight later Ibsen quitted Saxony, + and settled for three months in Copenhagen, where his reception was + charmingly sympathetic. By the beginning of October, after the fall of + Strasburg and the hemming in of Metz, however, it was plain on which side + the fortunes of the war would lie, and Ibsen returned "as from a + rejuvenating bath" of Danish society to a Dresden full of French + prisoners, a Dresden, too, suffering terribly from the paralysis of trade, + and showing a plentiful lack of enthusiasm for Prussia. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen turned his back on all such vexatious themes, and set himself to the + collecting and polishing of a series of lyrical poems, the <i>Digte</i> of + 1871, the earliest, and, indeed, the only such collection that he + published. We may recollect that, at the very same moment, with far less + cause to isolate himself from the horrors of war, Théophile Gautier + was giving the last touches to <i>Emaux et Camées</i>. In December, + 1870, Ibsen addressed to Fru Limnell, a lady in Stockholm, his + "Balloon-Letter," a Hudibrastic rhymed epistle in nearly 400 lines, + containing, with a good deal that is trivial, some striking symbolical + reminiscences of his trip through Egypt, and some powerful ironic + references to the caravan of German invaders, with its Hathor and its + Horus, which was then rushing to the assault of Paris under the doleful + colors of the Prussian flag. Ibsen's sarcasms are all at the ugliness and + prosaic utilitarianism of the Germans; "Moltke," he says, "has killed the + poetry of battles." + </p> + <p> + Ibsen was now greatly developing and expanding his views, and forming a + world-policy of his own. The success of German discipline deeply impressed + him, and he thought that the day had probably dawned which would be fatal + to all revolt and "liberal rebellion" for the future. More than ever he + dreaded the revolutionary doctrines of men like Jaabaek and Björnson, + which would lead, he thought, to bloodshed and national disaster. The very + same events were impressing Goldwin Smith at the very same moment with his + famous prophecy that the abolition of all dynastic and aristocratic + institutions was at hand, with "the tranquil inauguration" of elective + industrial governments throughout the world. So history moves doggedly on, + <i>propheten rechts, propheten links</i>, a perfectly impassive <i>welt-kind</i> + in the middle of them. In Copenhagen Ibsen had, after all, missed Brandes, + delayed in Rome by a long and dangerous illness; and all he could do was + to exchange letters with this still unseen but increasingly sympathetic + and beloved young friend. To Brandes Ibsen wrote more freely than to any + one else about the great events which were shaking the face of Europe and + occupying so much of both their thoughts:— + </p> + <p> + The old, illusory France has collapsed [he wrote to Brandes on December + 20, 1870, two days after the engagement at Nuits]; and as soon as the new, + real Prussia does the same, we shall be with one bound in a new age. How + ideas will then come tumbling about our ears! And it is high time they + did. Up till now we have been living on nothing but the crumbs from the + revolutionary table of last century, a food out of which all nutriment has + long been chewed. The old terms require to have a new meaning infused into + them. Liberty, equality and fraternity are no longer the things they were + in the days of the late-lamented Guillotine. This is what the politicians + will not understand, and therefore, I hate them. They want their own + special revolutions—revolutions in externals, in politics and so + forth. But all this is mere trifling. What is all-important is the + revolution of the Spirit of Man. + </p> + <p> + This revolution, as exemplified by the Commune in Paris, did not satisfy + the anticipations which Ibsen had formed, and Brandes took advantage of + this to tell him that he had not yet studied politics minutely enough from + the scientific standpoint. Ibsen replied that what he did not possess as + knowledge came to him, to a certain degree, as intuition or instinct. "Let + this be as it may, the poet's essential task is to see, not to reflect. + For me in particular there would be danger in too much reflection." Ibsen + seems, at this time, to be in an oscillating frame of mind, now bent on + forming some positive theory of life out of which his imaginative works + shall crystallize, harmoniously explanatory; at another time, anxious to + be unhampered by theories and principles, and to represent individuals and + exceptions exactly as experience presents them to him. In neither + attitude, however, is there discernible any trace of the moral physician, + and this is the central distinction between Tolstoi and Ibsen, whose + methods, at first sight, sometimes appear so similar. Tolstoi analyzes a + morbid condition, but always with the purpose, if he can, of curing it; + Ibsen gives it even closer clinical attention, but he leaves to others the + care of removing a disease which his business is solely to diagnose. + </p> + <p> + The <i>Poems</i>, after infinite revision, were published at length, in a + very large edition, on May 3, 1871. One reason why Ibsen was glad to get + this book off his hands was that it enabled him to concentrate his + thoughts on the great drama he had been projecting, at intervals, for + seven years past, the trilogy (as he then planned it) on the story of + Julian the Apostate. At last Brandes came to Dresden (July, 1871) and + found the tenebrous poet plunged in the study of Neander and Strauss, + Gibbon unfortunately being a sealed book to him. All through the autumn + and winter he was kept in a chronic state of irritability by the intrigues + and the menaces of a Norwegian pirate, who threatened to reprint, for his + own profit, Ibsen's early and insufficiently protected writings. This + exacerbated the poet's dislike to his own country, where the very law + courts, he thought, were hostile to him. On this subject he used language + of tiresome over-emphasis. "From Sweden, from Denmark, from Germany, I + hear nothing but what gives me pleasure; it is from Norway that everything + bad comes upon me." It was indicated to would-be Norwegian visitors that + they were not welcome at Dresden. Norwegian friends, he said, were "a + costly luxury" which he was obliged to deny himself. + </p> + <p> + The First Part of <i>Julian</i> was finished on Christmas Day, but it took + over a year more before the entire work, as we now possess it, was + completed. "A Herculean labor," the author called it, when he finally laid + down a weary pen in February, 1873. The year 1872 had been very quietly + spent in unremitting literary labor, tempered by genial visits from some + illustrious Danes of the older generation, as particularly Hans Christian + Andersen and Meyer Aron Goldschmidt, and by more formal intercourse with a + few Germans such as Konrad Maurer and Paul Heyse; all this time, let us + remember, no Norwegians—"by request." The summer was spent in long + rambles over the mountains of Austria, ending up with a month of deep + repose in Berchtesgaden. The next year was like unto this, except that its + roaming, restless summer closed with several months in Vienna; and on + October 17, 1873, <i>nonum in annum</i>, after the Horatian counsel, the + prodigious masterpiece, <i>Emperor and Galilean</i>, was published in + Copenhagen at last. + </p> + <p> + Of all the writings of Ibsen, his huge double drama on the rise and fall + of Julian is the most extensive and the most ambitious. It is not + difficult to understand what it was about the most subtle and the most + speculative of the figures which animate the decline of antiquity that + fascinated the imagination of Ibsen. Successive historians have celebrated + the flexibility of intelligence and firmness of purpose which were + combined in the brain of Julian with a passion for abstract beauty and an + enthusiasm for a restored system of pagan Hellenic worship. There was an + individuality about Julian, an absence of the common purple convention, of + the imperial rhetoric, which strongly commended him to Ibsen, and in his + perverse ascetic revolt against Christianity he offered a fascinating + originality to one who thought the modern world all out of joint. As a + revolutionary, Julian presented ideas of character which could not but + passionately attract the Norwegian poet. His attitude to his emperor and + to his God, sceptical, in each case, in each case inspired by no vulgar + motive but by a species of lofty and melancholy fatalism, promised a theme + of the most entrancing complexity. But there are curious traces in Ibsen's + correspondence of the difficulty, very strange in his case, which he + experienced in forming a concrete idea of Julian in his own mind. He had + been vaguely drawn to the theme, and when it was too late to recede, he + found himself baffled by the paradoxes which he encountered, and by the + contradictions of a figure seen darkly through a mist of historical + detraction. + </p> + <p> + He met these difficulties as well as he could, and as a prudent dramatic + poet should, by close and observant study of the document. He endeavored + to reconcile the evident superiority of Julian with the absurd + eccentricities of his private manners and with the futility of his public + acts. He noted all the Apostate's foibles by the side of his virtues and + his magnanimities. He traced without hesitation the course of that strange + insurrection which hurled a coarse fanatic from the throne, only to place + in his room a literary pedant with inked fingers and populous beard. He + accepted everything, from the parasites to the purple slippers. The + dangers of so humble an attendance upon history were escaped with success + in the first instalment of his "world drama." In the strong and mounting + scenes of <i>Caesar's Apostacy</i>, the rapidity with which the incidents + succeed one another, their inherent significance, the innocent splendor of + Julian's mind in its first emancipation from the chains of false faith, + combine to produce an effect of high dramatic beauty. Georg Brandes, whose + instinct in such matters was almost infallible, when he read the First + Part shortly after its composition, entreated Ibsen to give this, as it + stood, to the public, and to let <i>The Emperor Julian's End</i> follow + independently. Had Ibsen consented to do this, <i>Caesar's Fall</i> would + certainly take a higher place among his works than it does at present, + when its effect is somewhat amputated and its meaning threatened with + incoherence by the author's apparent <i>volteface</i> in the Second Part. + </p> + <p> + It was a lifelong disappointment to Ibsen that <i>Emperor and Galilean</i>, + on which he expended far more consideration and labor than on any other of + his works, was never a favorite either with the public or among the + critics. With the best will in the world, however, it is not easy to find + full enjoyment in this gigantic work, which by some caprice of style + defiant of analysis, lacks the vitality which is usually characteristic of + Ibsen's least production. The speeches put into the mouths of antique + characters are appropriate, but they are seldom vivid; as Bentley said of + the epistles of Julian's own teacher Libanius, "You feel by the emptiness + and deadness of them, that you converse with some dreaming pedant, his + elbow on his desk." The scheme of Ibsen's drama was too vast for the very + minute and meticulous method he chose to adopt. What he gives us is an + immense canvas, on which he has painted here and there in miniature. It is + a pity that he chose for dramatic representation so enormous a field. It + would have suited his genius far better to have abandoned any attempt to + write a conclusive history, and have selected some critical moment in the + life of Julian. He should rather have concentrated his energies, + independent of the chroniclers, on the resuscitation of that episode, and + in the course of it have trembled less humbly under the uplifted finger of + Ammianus. + </p> + <p> + Of <i>Emperor and Galilean</i> Ibsen afterwards said: "It was the first" + (but he might have added "the only") "poem which I have written under the + influence of German ideas." He was aware of the danger of living too long + away from his own order of thought and language. But it was always + difficult for him, once planted in a place, to pull up his roots. A + weariness took possession of him after the publication of his double + drama, and he did practically nothing for four years. This marks a central + joint in the structure of his career, what the architects call a "channel" + in it, adding to the general retrospect of Ibsen's work an aspect of + solidity and resource. During these years he revised some of his early + writings, made a closer study of the arts of sculpture and painting, and + essayed, without satisfaction, a very brief sojourn in Norway. In the + spring of 1875 he definitely moved with his family from Dresden to Munich. + </p> + <p> + The brief visit to Christiania in 1874 proved very unfortunate. Ibsen was + suspicious, the Norwegians of that generation were constitutionally stiff + and reserved; long years among Southern races had accustomed him to a + plenitude in gesture and emphasis. He suffered, all the brief time he was + in Norway, from an intolerable <i>malaise</i>. Ten years afterwards, in + writing to Björnson, the discomfort of that experience was still + unallayed. "I have not yet saved nearly enough," he said, "to support + myself and my family in the case of my discontinuing my literary work. And + I should be obliged to discontinue it if I lived in Christiania. ... This + simply means that I should not write at all. When, ten years ago, after an + absence of ten years, I sailed up the fjord, I felt a weight settling down + on my breast, a feeling of actual physical oppression. And this feeling + lasted all the time I was at home; I was not myself under the stare of all + those cold, uncomprehending Norwegian eyes at the windows and in the + streets." + </p> + <p> + Ibsen had now been more than ten years am exile from Norway, and his + sentiments with regard to his own people were still what they were when, + in July, 1872, he had sent home his <i>Ode for the Millenary Festival</i>. + That very striking poem, one of the most solid of Ibsen's lyrical + performances, had opened in the key of unmitigated defiance to popular + opinion at home. It was intended to show Norwegians that they must alter + their attitude towards him, as he would never change his behavior towards + them. "My countrymen," he said:— + </p> + <p> + My countrymen, who filled for me deep bowls<br /> + Of wholesome bitter medicine, such as + gave<br /> The poet, on the margin of + his grave,<br /> Fresh force to fight where broken + twilight rolls,—<br /> My + countrymen, who sped me o'er the wave,<br /> An + exile, with my griefs for pilgrim-soles,<br /> My + fears for burdens, doubts for staff, to roam,—<br /> From + the wide world I send you greeting home. + </p> + <p> + I send you thanks for gifts that help and harden,<br /> + Thanks for each hour of purifying + pain;<br /> Each plant that springs in my poetic + garden<br /> Is rooted where your + harshness poured its rain;<br /> Each shoot in + which it blooms and burgeons forth<br /> It owes to + that gray weather from the North;<br /> The sun + relaxes, but the fog secures!<br /> My country, + thanks! My life's best gifts were yours. + </p> + <p> + In spite of these sardonic acknowledgments. Ibsen's fame in Norway, though + still disputed, was now secure. In Denmark and Sweden it was almost + unchallenged, and he was a name, at least, in Germany. In England, since + 1872, he had not been without a prophet. But in Italy, Russia, France—three + countries upon the intelligence of which he was presently to make a wide + and durable impression—he was still quite unknown. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, in glancing over the general literature of Europe, we see his + figure, at the threshold of his fiftieth year, taking greater and greater + prominence. He had become, in the sudden exinction of the illustrious old + men of Denmark, the first living writer of the North. He was to Norway + what Valera was to Spain, Carducci to Italy, Swinburne or Rossetti to + England, and Leconte de Lisle to France. These were mainly lyrical poets, + but it must not be forgotten that Ibsen, down at least till 1871, was + prominently illustrious as a writer in metrical form. If, in the + second portion of his career, he resolutely deprived himself of all + indulgence in the ornament of verse, it was a voluntary act of austerity. + It was Charles V at Yuste, wilfully exchanging the crown of jewels for the + coarse brown cowl of St. Jerome. And now, after a year or two of prayer + and fasting, Ibsen began a new intellectual career. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> <a name="linkc6" id="linkc6"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + 1875-82 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + While Ibsen was sitting at Munich, in this climacteric stage of his + career, dreaming of wonderful things and doing nothing, there came to him, + in the early months of 1875, two new plays by his chief rival. These were + <i>The Editor</i> and <i>A Bankruptcy</i>, in which Björnson suddenly + swooped from his sagas and his romances down into the middle of sordid + modern life. This was his first attempt at that "photography by comedy" + which he had urged on Ibsen in 1868. It is not, I think, recorded what was + Ibsen's comment on these two plays, and particularly on <i>A Bankruptcy</i>, + but it is written broadly over the surface of his own next work. It is + obvious that he perceived that Björnson had carried a very spirited + raid into his own particular province, and he was determined to drive this + audacious enemy back by means of greater audacities. + </p> + <p> + Not at once, however; for an extraordinary languor seemed to have fallen + upon Ibsen. His isolation from society became extreme; for nearly a year + he gave no sign of life. In September, 1875, indeed, if not earlier, he + was at work on a five-act play, but what this was is unknown. It seems to + have been in the winter of 1876, after an unprecedented period of + inanimation, that he started a new comedy, <i>The Pillars of Society</i>, + which was finished in Munich in July, 1877, that summer being unique in + the fact that the Ibsens do not seem to have left town at all. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen was now a good deal altered in the exteriors of character. With his + fiftieth year he presents himself as no more the Poet, but the Man of + Business. Molbech told me that at this time the velveteen jacket, symbol + of the dear delays of art, was discarded in favor of a frock- coat, too + tight across the chest. Ibsen was now beginning, rather shyly, very + craftily, to invest money; he even found himself in frequent straits for + ready coin from his acute impatience to set every rix-dollar breeding. He + cast the suspicion of poetry from him, and with his gold spectacles, his + Dundreary whiskers, his broadcloth bosom and his quick staccato step, he + adopted the pose of a gentleman of affairs, very positive and with no + nonsense about him. + </p> + <p> + He had long determined on the wilful abandonment of poetic form, and the + famous statement made in a letter to myself (January 15, 1874) must be + quoted, although it is well known, since it contains the clearest of all + the explanations by which Ibsen justified his new departure:— + </p> + <p> + You are of opinion that the drama [<i>Emperor and Galilean</i>] ought to + have been written in verse, and that it would have gained by this. Here I + must differ from you. The play is, as you will have observed, conceived in + the most realistic style: the illusion I wished to produce is that of + reality. I wished to produce the impression on the reader that what he was + reading was something that had really happened. If I had employed verse, I + should have counteracted my own intention and prevented the accomplishment + of the task I had set myself. The many ordinary insignificant characters + whom I have intentionally introduced into the play would have become + indistinct, and indistinguishable from one another, if I had allowed all + of them to speak in one and the same rhythmical measure. We are no longer + living in the days of Shakespeare. Among sculptors there is already talk + of painting statues in the natural colors. Much can be said both for and + against this. I have no desire to see the Venus of Milo painted, but I + would rather see the head of a negro executed in black than in white + marble. Speaking generally, the style must conform to the degree of + ideality which pervades the representation. My new drama is no tragedy in + the ancient acceptation; what I desired to depict were human beings, and + therefore I would not let them talk "the language of the Gods." + </p> + <p> + This revolt against dramatic verse was a feature of the epoch. In 1877 + Alphonse Daudet was to write of a comedy, "Mais, hélas! cette pièce + est en vers, et l'ennui s'y promène librement entre les rimes." + </p> + <p> + No poet, however, sacrificed so much, or held so rigidly to his intention + of reproducing the exact language of real life, as did Ibsen in the series + of plays which opens with <i>The Pillars of Society</i>. This drama was + published in Copenhagen in October, 1877, and was acted almost immediately + in Denmark, Sweden and Norway; it had the good fortune to be taken up + warmly in Germany. What Ibsen's idea was, in the new sort of realistic + drama which he was inventing, was, in fact, perceived at once by German + audiences, although it was not always approved of. He was the guest of the + theatromaniac Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and <i>The Pillars of Society</i> + was played in many parts of Germany. In Scandinavia the book of the play + sold well, and the piece had some success on the boards, but it did not + create anything like so much excitement as the author had hoped that it + would. Danish taste pronounced it "too German." + </p> + <p> + For the fact that <i>The Pillars of Society</i>, except in Scandinavia and + Germany, did not then, and never has since, taken a permanent hold upon + the theatre, Mr. William Archer gives a reason which cannot be + controverted, namely, that by the time the other foreign publics had fully + awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown the + phase of his development marked by <i>Pillars of Society</i>, that the + play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned. It exactly suited the + German public of the eighties; it was exactly on a level with their + theatrical intelligence. But it was above the theatrical intelligence of + the Anglo-American public, and ... below that of the French public. This + is of course an exaggeration. What I mean is that there was no possible + reason why the countrymen of Augier and Dumas should take any special + interest in <i>Pillars of Society</i>. It was not obviously in advance of + these masters in technical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment + running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of that + period. + </p> + <p> + The subject of <i>The Pillars of Society</i> was the hollowness and + rottenness of those supports, and the severe and unornamented prose which + Ibsen now adopted was very favorable to its discussion. He was accused, + however, of having lived so long away from home as to have fallen out of + touch with real Norwegian life, which he studied in the convex mirror of + the newspapers. It is more serious objection to <i>The Pillars of Society</i> + that in it, as little as in <i>The League of Youth</i>, had Ibsen cut + himself off from the traditions of the well-made play. Gloomy and homely + as are the earlier acts, Ibsen sees as yet no way out of the imbroglio but + that known to Scribe and the masters of the "well- made" play. The social + hypocrisy of Consul Bernick is condoned by a sort of death-bed repentance + at the close, which is very much of the usual "bless-ye-my-children" + order. The loss of the Indian Girl is miraculously prevented, and at the + end the characters are solemnized and warned, yet are left essentially + none the worse for their alarm. This, unfortunately, is not the mode in + which the sins of scheming people find them out in real life. But to the + historical critic it is very interesting to see Björnson and Ibsen + nearer one another in <i>A Bankruptcy</i> and <i>The Pillars of Society</i> + than they had ever been before. They now started on a course of eager, + though benevolent, rivalry which was eminently to the advantage of each of + them. + </p> + <p> + No feature of Ibsen's personal career is more interesting than his + relation to Björnson. Great as the genius of Ibsen was, yet, rating + it as ungrudgingly as possible, we have to admit that Björnson's + character was the more magnetic and more radiant of the two. Ibsen was a + citizen of the world; he belonged, in a very remarkable degree, to the + small class of men whose intelligence lifts them above the narrowness of + local conditions, who belong to civilization at large, not to the system + of one particular nation. He was, in consequence, endowed, almost + automatically, with the instinct of regarding ideas from a central point; + if he was to be limited at all, he might be styled European, although, + perhaps, few Western citizens would have had less difficulty than he in + making themselves comprehended by a Chinese, Japanese or Indian mind of + unusual breadth and cultivation. On the other hand, in accepting the + advantages of this large mental outlook, he was forced to abandon those of + nationality. No one can say that Ibsen was, until near the end of his + life, a good Norwegian, and he failed, by his utterances, to vibrate the + local mind. But Björnson, with less originality, was the typical + patriot in literature, and what he said, and thought, and wrote was + calculated to stir the local conscience to the depths of its being. + </p> + <p> + When, therefore, in 1867, Ibsen, who was bound by all natural obligations + and tendencies to remain on the best terms with Björnson, allowed the + old friendship between them to lapse into positive antagonism, he was + following the irresistible evolution of his fate, as Björnson was + following his. It was as inevitable that Ibsen should grow to his full + height in solitude as it was that Björnson should pine unless he was + fed by the dew and sunlight of popular meetings, torchlight processions of + students and passionate appeals to local sentiment. Trivial causes, such + as those which we have chronicled earlier, might seem to lead up to a + division, but that division was really inherent in the growth of the two + men. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen, however, was not wholly a gainer at first even in genius, by the + separation. It cut him off from Norway too entirely, and it threw him into + the arms of Germany. There were thirteen years in which Ibsen and Björnson + were nothing to one another, and these were not years of unmingled mental + happiness for either of them. But during this long period each of these + very remarkable men "came into his kingdom," and when there was no longer + any chance that either of there could warp the nature of the other, fate + brought them once more together. + </p> + <p> + The reconciliation began, of course, with a gracious movement from Björnson. + At the end of 1880, writing for American readers, Björnson had the + generous candor to say: "I think I have a pretty thorough acquaintance + with the dramatic literature of the world, and I have not the slightest + hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen possesses more dramatic power than + any other play-writer of our day." When we remember that, in France alone, + Augier and Dumas <i>fils</i> and Hugo, Halévy and Meilhac and + Labiche, were all of them alive, the compliment, though a sound, was a + vivid one. Sooner or later, everything that was said about Ibsen, though + it were whispered in Choctaw behind the altar of a Burmese temple, came + round to Ibsen's ears, and this handsome tribute from the rival produced + its effect. And when, shortly afterwards, still in America, Björnson + was nearly killed in a railway accident, Ibsen broke the long silence by + writing to him a most cordial letter of congratulation. + </p> + <p> + The next incident was the publication of <i>Ghosts</i>, when Björnson, + now thoroughly roused, stood out almost alone, throwing the vast prestige + of his judgment into the empty scale against the otherwise unanimous + black- balling. Then the reconcilement was full and fraternal, and Ibsen + wrote from Rome (January 24, 1882), with an emotion rare indeed for him: + "The only man in Norway who has frankly, boldly and generously taken my + part is Björnson. It is just like him; he has, in truth, a great, a + kingly soul; and I shall never forget what he has done now." Six months + later, on occasion of Björnson's jubilee, Ibsen telegraphed: "My + thanks for the work done side by side with me in the service of freedom + these twenty- five years." These words wiped away all unhappy memories of + the past; they gave public recognition to the fact that, though the two + great poets had been divided for half a generation by the forces of + circumstance, they had both been fighting at wings of the same army + against the common enemy. + </p> + <p> + This, however, takes us for the moment a little too far ahead. After the + publication of <i>The Pillars of Society</i>, Ibsen remained quiet for + some time; indeed, from this date we find him adopting the practice which + was to be regular with him henceforth, namely, that of letting his mind + lie fallow for one year after the issue of each of his works, and then + spending another year in the formation of the new play. Munich gradually + became tedious to him, and he justly observed that the pressure of German + surroundings was unfavorable to the healthy evolution of his genius. In + 1878 he went back to Rome, which, although it was no longer the quiet and + aristocratic Rome of Papal days, was still immensely attractive to his + temperament. He was now, in some measure, "a person of means," and he made + the habit of connoisseurship his hobby. He formed a small collection of + pictures, selecting works with, as he believed, great care. The result + could be seen long afterwards by those who visited him in his final + affluence, for they hung round the rooms of the sumptuous flat in which he + spent his old age and in which he died. His taste, as far as one + remembers, was for the Italian masters of the decline, and whether he + selected pictures with a good judgment must be left for others to decide. + Probably he shared with Shelley a fondness for the Guercinos and the Guido + Renis, whom we can now admire only in defiance of Ruskin. + </p> + <p> + In April, 1879, it is understood, a story was told him of an incident in + the Danish courts, the adventure of a young married woman in one of the + small towns of Zealand, which set his thoughts running on a new dramatic + enterprise. He was still curiously irritated by contemplating, in his + mind's eye, the "respectable, estimable narrowmindedness and worldliness" + of social conditions in Norway, where there was no aristocracy, and where + a lower middle-class took the place of a nobility, with, as he thought, + sordid results. But he was no longer suffering from what he himself had + called "the feeling of an insane man staring at one single, hopelessly + black spot." He went to Amalfi for the summer, and in that delightful + spot, so curiously out of keeping with his present rigidly prosaic mood, + he set himself to write what is probably the most widely famous of all his + works, <i>A Doll's House</i>. The day before he started he wrote to me + from Rome (in an unpublished letter of July 4, 1879): "I have been living + here with my family since September last, and most of that time I have + been occupied with the idea of a new dramatic work, which I shall now soon + finish, and which will be published in October. It is a serious drama, + really a family drama, dealing with modern conditions and in particular + with the problems which complicate marriage." This play he finished, + lingering at Amalfi, in September, 1879. It was an engineer's experiment + at turning up and draining a corner of the moral swamp which Norwegian + society seemed to be to his violent and ironic spirit. + </p> + <p> + <i>A Doll's House</i> was Ibsen's first unqualified success. Not merely + was it the earliest of his plays which excited universal discussion, but + in its construction and execution it carried out much further than its + immediate precursors Ibsen's new ideal as an unwavering realist. Mr. + Arthur Symons has well said [Note: The <i>Quarterly Review</i> for + October, 1906.] that "<i>A Doll's House</i> is the first of Ibsen's plays + in which the puppets have no visible wires." It may even be said that it + was the first modern drama in which no wires had been employed. Not that + even here the execution is perfect, as Ibsen afterwards made it. The arm + of coincidence is terribly shortened, and the early acts, clever and + entertaining as they are, are still far from the inevitability of real + life. But when, in the wonderful last act, Nora issues from her bedroom, + dressed to go out, to Helmer's and the audience's stupefaction, and when + the agitated pair sit down to "have it out," face to face across the + table, then indeed the spectator feels that a new thing has been born in + drama, and, incidentally, that the "well-made play" has suddenly become as + dead as Queen Anne. The grimness, the intensity of life, are amazing in + this final scene, where the old happy ending is completely abandoned for + the first time, and where the paradox of life is presented without the + least shuffling or evasion. + </p> + <p> + It was extraordinary how suddenly it was realized that <i>A Doll's House</i> + was a prodigious performance. All Scandinavia rang with Nora's + "declaration of independence." People left the theatre, night after night, + pale with excitement, arguing, quarrelling, challenging. The inner being + had been unveiled for a moment, and new catchwords were repeated from + mouth to mouth. The great statement and reply—"No man sacrifices his + honor, even for one he loves," "Hundreds of thousands of women have done + so!"—roused interminable discussion in countless family circles. The + disputes were at one time so violent as to threaten the peace of + households; a school of imitators at once sprang up to treat the + situation, from slightly different points of view, in novel, poem and + drama. [Note: The reader who desires to obtain further light on the + technical quality of <i>A Doll's House</i> can do no better than refer to + Mr. William Archer's elaborate analysis of it (<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, + July, 1906.)] + </p> + <p> + The universal excitement which Ibsen had vainly hoped would be awakened by + <i>The Pillars of Society</i> came, when he was not expecting it, to greet + <i>A Doll's House</i>. Ibsen was stirred by the reception of his latest + play into a mood rather different from that which he expressed at any + other period. As has often been said, he did not pose as a prophet or as a + reformer, but it did occur to him now that he might exercise a strong + moral influence, and in writing to his German translator, Ludwig Passarge, + he said (June 16, 1880): + </p> + <p> + Everything that I have written has the closest possible connection with + what I have lived through, even if it has not been my own personal + experience; in every new poem or play I have aimed at my own spiritual + emancipation and purification—for a man shares the responsibility + and the guilt of the society to which he belongs. + </p> + <p> + It was in this spirit of unusual gravity that he sat down to the + composition of <i>Ghosts</i>. There is little or no record of how he + occupied himself at Munich and Berchtesgaden in 1880, except that in March + he began to sketch, and then abandoned, what afterwards became <i>The Lady + from the Sea</i>. In the autumn of that year, indulging once more his + curious restlessness, he took all his household gods and goods again to + Rome. His thoughts turned away from dramatic art for a moment, and he + planned an autobiography, which was to deal with the gradual development + of his mind, and to be called <i>From Skien to Rome</i>. Whether he + actually wrote any of this seems uncertain; that he should have planned it + shows a certain sense of maturity, a suspicion that, now in his + fifty-third year, he might be nearly at the end of his resources. As a + matter of fact, he was just entering upon a new inheritance. In the summer + of 1881 he went, as usual now, to Sorrento, and there [Note: So the + authorities state: but in an unpublished letter to myself, dated Rome, + November 26, 1880, I find Ibsen saying, "Just now I am beginning to + exercise my thoughts over a new drama; I hope I shall finish it in the + course of next summer." It seems to have been already his habit to + meditate long about a subject before it took any definite literary form in + his mind.] the plot of <i>Ghosts</i> revealed itself to him. This work was + composed with more than Ibsen's customary care, and was published at the + beginning of December, in an edition of ten thousand copies. + </p> + <p> + Before the end of 1881 Ibsen was aware of the terrific turmoil which <i>Ghosts</i> + had begun to occasion. He wrote to Passarge: "My new play has now + appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian press. + Every day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or praising + it. I consider it absolutely impossible that any German theatre will + accept the play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to play + it in any Scandinavian country for some time to come." It was, in fact, + not acted publicly anywhere until 1883, when the Swedes ventured to try + it, and the Germans followed in 1887. The Danes resisted it much longer. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen declared that he was quite prepared for the hubbub; he would + doubtless have been much disappointed if it had not taken place; + nevertheless, he was disconcerted at the volume and the violence of the + attacks. Yet he must have known that in the existing condition of society, + and the limited range of what was then thought a defensible criticism of + that condition, <i>Ghosts</i> must cause a virulent scandal. There has + been, especially in Germany, a great deal of medico- philosophical + exposure of the under-side of life since 1880. It is hardly possible that, + there, or in any really civilized country, an analysis of the causes of + what is, after all, one of the simplest and most conventional forms of + hereditary disease could again excite such a startling revulsion of + feeling. Krafft-Ebing and a crew of investigators, Strindberg, Brieux, + Hauptmann, and a score of probing playwrights all over the Continent, have + gone further and often fared much worse than Ibsen did when he dived into + the family history of Kammerherre Alving. When we read <i>Ghosts</i> + to-day we cannot recapture the "new shudder" which it gave us a quarter of + a century ago. Yet it must not be forgotten that the publication of it, in + that hide-bound time, was an act of extraordinary courage. Georg Brandes, + always clearsighted, was alone in being able to perceive at once that <i>Ghosts</i> + was no attack on society, but an effort to place the responsibilities of + men and women on a wholesomer and surer footing, by direct reference to + the relation of both to the child. + </p> + <p> + When the same eminent critic, however, went on to say that <i>Ghosts</i> + was "a poetic treatment of the question of heredity," it was more + difficult to follow him. Now that the flash and shock of the playwright's + audacity are discounted, it is natural to ask ourselves whether, as a work + of pure art, <i>Ghosts</i> stands high among Ibsen's writings. I confess, + for my own part, that it seems to me deprived of "poetic" treatment, that + is to say, of grace, charm and suppleness, to an almost fatal extent. It + is extremely original, extremely vivid and stimulating, but, so far as a + foreigner may judge, the dialogue seems stilted and uniform, the + characters, with certain obvious exceptions, rather types than persons. In + the old fighting days it was necessary to praise <i>Ghosts</i> with + extravagance, because the vituperation of the enemy was so stupid and + offensive, but now that there are no serious adversaries left, cooler + judgment admits—not one word that the idiot-adversary said, but—that + there are more convincing plays than <i>Ghosts</i> in Ibsen's repertory. + </p> + <p> + Up to this time, Ibsen had been looked upon as the mainstay of the + Conservative party in Norway, in opposition to Björnson, who led the + Radicals. But the author of <i>Ghosts</i>, who was accused of + disseminating anarchism and nihilism, was now smartly drummed out of the + Tory camp without being welcomed among the Liberals. Each party was eager + to disown him. He was like Coriolanus, when he was deserted by nobles and + people alike, and + </p> + <p> + suffer'd by the voice of slaves to be Whoop'd out of Rome. + </p> + <p> + The situation gave Ibsen occasion, from the perspective of his exile, to + form some impressions of political life which were at once pungent and + dignified: + </p> + <p> + "I am more and more confirmed" [he said, Jan, 3, 1882] "in my belief that + there is something demoralizing in politics and parties. I, at any rate, + shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its side. Björnson + says, 'The majority is always right'; and as a practical politician he is + bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, of necessity say, 'The + minority is always right.'" + </p> + <p> + In order to place this view clearly before his countrymen, he set about + composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most + successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward + in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with + preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, which he spent at what + was now to be for many years his favorite summer resort, Gossensass in the + Tyrol, a place which is consecrated to the memory of Ibsen in the way that + Pornic belongs to Robert Browning and the Bel Alp to Tyndall, holiday + homes in foreign countries, dedicated to blissful work without + disturbance. Here, at a spot now officially named the "Ibsenplatz," he + composed <i>The Enemy of the People</i>, engrossed in his invention as was + his wont, reading nothing and thinking of nothing but of the persons whose + history he was weaving. Oddly enough, he thought that this, too, was to be + a "placable" play, written to amuse and stimulate, but calculated to wound + nobody's feelings. The fact was that Ibsen, like some ocelot or panther of + the rocks, had a paw much heavier than he himself realized, and his + "play," in both senses, was a very serious affair, when he descended to + sport with common humanity. + </p> + <p> + Another quotation, this time from a letter to Brandes, must be given to + show what Ibsen's attitude was at this moment to his fatherland and to his + art: + </p> + <p> + "When I think how slow and heavy and dull the general intelligence is at + home, when I notice the low standard by which everything is judged, a deep + despondency comes over me, and it often seems to me that I might just as + well end my literary activity at once. They really do not need poetry at + home; they get along so well with the party newspapers and the <i>Lutheran + Weekly</i>." + </p> + <p> + If Ibsen thought that he was offering them "poetry" in <i>The Enemy of the + People</i>, he spoke in a Scandinavian sense. Our criticism has never + opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as + poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser or + more unqualified prose than <i>The Enemy of the People</i>, without a + tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book. It is, + nevertheless, one of the most certainly successful of its author's + writings; as a stage-play it rivets the attention; as a pamphlet it + awakens irresistible sympathy; as a specimen of dramatic art, its + construction and evolution are almost faultless. Under a transparent + allegory, it describes the treatment which Ibsen himself had received at + the hands of the Norwegian public for venturing to tell them that their + spa should be drained before visitors were invited to flock to it. + Nevertheless, the playwright has not made the mistake of identifying his + own figure with that of Dr. Stockmann, who is an entirely independent + creation. Mr. Archer has compared the hero with Colonel Newcome, whose + loquacious amicability he does share, but Stockmann's character has much + more energy and initiative than Colonel Newcome's, whom we could never + fancy rousing himself "to purge society." + </p> + <p> + Ibsen's practical wisdom in taking the bull by the horns in his reply to + the national reception of <i>Ghosts</i> was proved by the instant success + of <i>The Enemy of the People</i>. Presented to the public in this new and + audacious form, the problem of a "moral water-supply" struck sensible + Norwegians as less absurd and less dangerous than they had conceived it to + be. The reproof was mordant, and the worst offenders crouched under the + lash. <i>Ghosts</i> itself was still, for some time, tabooed, but <i>The + Enemy of the People</i> received a cordial welcome, and has remained ever + since one of the most popular of Ibsen's writings. It is still extremely + effective on the stage, and as it is lightened by more humor than the + author is commonly willing to employ, it attracts even those who are + hostile to the intrusion of anything solemn behind the footlights. + </p> + <p> + <a name="linki4" id="linki4"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:60%"> + <img alt="ibsen2.jpg (22K)" src="images/ibsen2.jpg" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <a name="linkc7" id="linkc7"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + 1883-91 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + With the appearance of <i>An Enemy of the People</i>, which was published + in November, 1882, Ibsen entered upon a new stage in his career. He had + completely broken with the Conservative party in Norway, without having + gratified or won the confidence of the Liberals. He was now in personal + relations of friendliness with Björnson, whose generous approval of + his work as a dramatist sustained his spirits, but his own individualism + had been intensified by the hostile reception of <i>Ghosts</i>. His life + was now divided between Rome in the winter and Gossensass in the summer, + and in the Italian city, as in the Tyrolese village, he wandered solitary, + taciturn, absorbed in his own thoughts. His meditations led him more and + more into a lonely state. He floated, as on a prophet's carpet, between + the political heavens and earth, capriciously refusing to ascend or to + alight. He had come to a sceptical stage in his mental evolution, a stage + in which he was to remain for a considerable time, gradually modifying it + in a conservative direction. One wonders what the simple- minded and + stalwart Björnson thought of being quietly told (March 28, 1884) that + the lower classes are nowhere liberal-minded or self- sacrificing, and + that "in the views expressed by our [Norwegian] peasants there is not an + atom more of real Liberalism than is to be found among the ultramontane + peasantry of the Tyrol." In politics Ibsen had now become a pagan; "I do + not believe," he said, "in the emancipatory power of political measures, + nor have I much confidence in the altruism and good will of those in + power." This sense of the uselessness of effort is strongly marked in the + course of the next work on which he was engaged, the very brilliant, but + saturnine and sardonic tragi-comedy of <i>The Wild Duck</i>. The first + sketch of it was made during the spring of 1884 in Rome, but the dramatist + took it to Gossensass with him for the finishing touches, and did not + perfect it until the autumn. It is remarkable that Ibsen invariably speaks + of <i>The Wild Duck</i>, when he mentions it in his correspondence, in + terms of irony. He calls it a collection of crazy tricks or tomfooleries, + <i>galskaber</i>, an expression which carries with it, in this sense, a + confession of wilful paradox. In something of the same spirit, Robert + Browning, in the old days before he was comprehended, used to speak of + "the entirely unintelligible <i>Sordello</i>," as if, sarcastically, to + meet criticism half-way. + </p> + <p> + When <i>The Wild Duck</i> was first circulated among Ibsen's admirers, it + was received with some bewilderment. Quite slowly the idea received + acceptance that the hitherto so serious and even angry satirist was, to + put it plainly, laughing at himself. The faithful were reluctant to + concede it. But one sees now, clearly enough, that in a sense it was so. I + have tried to show, we imagine Ibsen saying, that your hypocritical + sentimentality needs correction—you live in "A Doll's House." I have + dared to point out to you that your society is physically and morally + rotten and full of "Ghosts." You have repudiated my honest efforts as a + reformer, and called me "An Enemy of the People." Very well, then, have it + so if you please. What a fool am I to trouble about you at all. Go down a + steep place in Gadara and drown yourselves. If it amuses you, it can amuse + me also to be looked upon as Gregers Werle. <i>Vogue la galère</i>. + "But as the play is neither to deal with the Supreme Court, nor the right + of absolute veto, nor even with the removal of the sign of the union from + the flag," burning questions then and afterwards in Norwegian politics, + "it can hardly count upon arousing much interest in Norway"; it will, + however, amuse me immensely to point out the absurdity of my caring. It is + in reading <i>The Wild Duck</i> that for the first time the really + astonishing resemblance which Ibsen bears to Euripedes becomes apparent to + us. This is partly because the Norwegian dramatist now relinquishes any + other central object than the presentation to his audience of the clash of + temperament, and partly because here at last, and for the future always, + he separates himself from everything that is not catastrophe. More than + any earlier play, more even than <i>Ghosts</i>, <i>The Wild Duck</i> is an + avalanche which has begun to move, and with a movement unaffected by the + incidents of the plot, long before the curtain rises. The later plays of + Ibsen, unlike almost all other modern dramas, depend upon nothing that + happens while they are being exhibited, but rush downwards to their + inevitable close in obedience to a series of long-precedent impulses. In + order to gain this effect, the dramatist has to be acquainted with + everything that has ever happened to his personages, and we are informed + that Ibsen used to build up in his own mind, for months at a time, the + past history of his puppets. He was now master of this practice. We are + not surprised, therefore, to find one of the most penetrating of dramatic + critics remarking of <i>The Wild Duck</i> that "never before had the poet + displayed such an amazing power of fascinating and absorbing us by the + gradual withdrawal of veil after veil from the past." + </p> + <p> + The result of a searching determination to deal with personal and not + typical forms of temperament is seen in the firmness of the portraiture in + <i>The Wild Duck</i>, where, I think, less than ever before, is to be + found a trace of that incoherency which is to be met with occasionally in + all the earlier works of Ibsen, and which seems like the effect of a + sudden caprice or change of the point of view. There is, so far as I can + judge, no trace of this in <i>The Wild Duck</i>, where the continuity of + aspect is extraordinary. Confucius assures us that if we tell him our + past, he will tell us our future, and although several of the characters + in <i>The Wild Duck</i> are the most sordid of Ibsen's creations, the + author has made himself so deeply familiar with them that they are + absolutely lifelike. The detestable Hialmar, in whom, by the looking-glass + of a disordered liver, any man may see a picture of himself; the pitiable + Gregers Werle, perpetually thirteenth at table, with his genius for making + an utter mess of other people's lives; the vulgar Gina; the beautiful + girlish figure of the little martyred Hedvig—all are wholly real and + living persons. + </p> + <p> + The subject of the play, of course, is one which we do not expect, or had + not hitherto expected, from Ibsen. It is the danger of "a sick conscience" + and the value of illusion. Society may be full of poisonous vapors and be + built on a framework of lies; it is nevertheless prudent to consider + whether the ideal advantages of disturbing it overweigh the practical + disadvantages, and above all to bear in mind that if you rob the average + man of his illusions, you are almost sure to rob him of his happiness. The + topsy-turvy nature of a this theme made Ibsen as nearly "rollicking" as he + ever became in his life. We can imagine than as he wrote the third act of + <i>The Wild Duck</i>, where so horrible a luncheon party—"we'll all + keep a corner"—gloats over the herring salad, he indulged again and + again in those puffs of soundless and formidable mirth which Mr. Johan + Paulsen describes as so surprising an element of conversation with Ibsen. + </p> + <p> + To the gossip of that amiable Boswell, too, we must turn for a valuable + impression of the solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about this + time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now + successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family saw + him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if + sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to catch + him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study, into + which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to believe, + did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his own mind, + which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast and rich than + that which lay spread around him." [Note: <i>Samliv med Ibsen</i>, 1906, + p. 30.] + </p> + <p> + And now the celebrated afternoons at the cafes had begun. In Rome Ibsen + had his favorite table, and he would sit obliquely facing a mirror in + which, half hidden by a newspaper and by the glitter of his gold + spectacles, he could command a sight of the whole restaurant, and + especially of the door into the street. Every one who entered, every + couple that conversed, every movement of the scene, gave something to + those untiring eyes. The newspaper and the cafe mirror—these were + the books which, for the future, Ibsen was almost exclusively to study; + and out of the gestures of a pair of friends at a table, out of a + paragraph in a newspaper, even out of the terms of an advertisement, he + could build up a drama. Incessant observation of real life, incessant + capture of unaffected, unconsidered phrases, actual living experience + leaping in his hands like a captive wild animal, this was now the + substance from which all Ibsen's dreams and dramas were woven. + Concentration of attention on the vital play of character, this was his + one interest. + </p> + <p> + Out of this he was roused by a sudden determination to go at last and see + for himself what life in Norway was really like. A New England wit once + denied that a certain brilliant and Europe-loving American author was a + cosmopolitan. "No," he said, "a cosmopolitan is at home even in his own + country." Ibsen began to doubt whether he was not too far off to follow + events in Norway—and these were now beginning to be very exciting—well + enough to form an independent judgment about them; and after twenty years + of exile there is no doubt that the question was fairly put. <i>The Wild + Duck</i> had been published in November, 1884, and had been acted + everywhere in Scandinavia with great success. The critics and the public + were agreed for the first time that Ibsen was a very great national + genius, and that if Norway was not proud of him it would make a fool of + itself in the eyes of Europe. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen had said that Norway was a barbarous country, inhabited by two + millions of cats and dogs, but so many agreeable and highly-civilized + compliments found their way to him in Rome that he began to fancy that the + human element was beginning to be introduced. At all events, he would see + for himself, and in June, 1885, instead of stopping at Gossensass, he + pushed bravely on and landed in Christiania. + </p> + <p> + At first all went well, but from the very beginning of the visit he + observed, or thought he observed, awkward phenomena. The country was + thrilled with political excitement, and it vibrated with rhetorical + resolutions which seemed to Ibsen very empty. He had a constitutional + horror of purely theoretical questions, and these were occupying Norway + from one end to the other. The King's veto, the consular difficulty, the + Swedish emblem in the national flag, these were the subjects of frenzied + discussion, and in none of these did Ibsen take any sort of pleasure. He + was not politically far-sighted, it must be confessed, nor did he guess + what practical proportions these "theoretical questions" were to assume in + the immediate future. + </p> + <p> + That great writer and delightful associate, the Swedish poet, Count + Snoilsky, one of the few whose company never wearied or irritated Ibsen, + joined him in the far north. They spent a pleasant, quiet time together at + Molde, that enchanting little sub-arctic town, where it looks southward + over the shining fjord, with the Romsdalhorn forever guarding the + mountainous horizon. Here no politics intruded, and Ibsen, when Snoilsky + had left him, already thinking of a new drama, lingered on at Molde, + spending hours on hours at the end of the jetty, gazing into the clear, + cold sea. His passion for the sea had never betrayed him, and at Rome, + where he had long given up going to any galleries or studios, he still + haunted the house of a Norwegian marine painter, Nils Hansteen, whose + sketches reminded him of old days and recollected waters. + </p> + <p> + But the autumn comes on apace in these high latitudes, and Ibsen had to + return to Christiania with its torchlight processions, and late noisy + feasts, and triumphant revolutionary oratory. He disliked it extremely, + and he made up his mind to go back to the indifferent South, where people + did not worry about such things. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of + Christiania did not leave him alone. They were not content to have him + among them as a retired observer, they wanted to make him stand out + definitely on one political side or the other. He was urged, at the end of + September, to receive the inevitable torchlight procession planned in his + honor by the Union of Norwegian Students. He was astute enough to see that + this might compromise his independence, but he was probably too + self-conscious in believing that a trap was being laid for him. He said + that, not having observed that his presence gave the Union any great + pleasure, he did not care to have its expression of great joy at t his + departure. This was not polite, for it does not appear that the students + had any idea that he intended to depart. He would not address a reply to + the Union as a body, but to "my friends among the students." + </p> + <p> + A committee called upon him to beg him to reconsider his resolution, but + he roundly told them that he knew that they were reactionaries, and wanted + to annex him to their party, and that he was not blind to their tricks. + They withdrew in confusion, and Ibsen, in an agony of nervous ness, + determined to put the sea between himself and their machinations. Early in + October he retreated, or rather fled, to Copenhagen, and thence to Munich, + where he breathed again. Meanwhile, the extreme liberal faction among the + students claimed that his action had meant that he was heart and soul with + them, as against the reactionaries. A young Mr. Ove Rode, who had + interviewed him, took upon himself to say that these were Ibsen's real + sentiments. Ibsen fairly stamped with rage, and declared, in furious + communications, that all these things were done on purpose. "It was an + opportunity to insult a poet which it would have been a sad pity to lose," + he remarked, with quivering pen. A reverberant controversy sprang up in + the Norwegian newspapers, and Ibsen, in his Bavarian harbor of refuge, + continued to vibrate all through the winter of 1885. The exile's return to + his native country had proved to be far from a success. + </p> + <p> + Already his new play was taking shape, and the success of his great + personal ambition, namely that his son, Sigurd, should be taken with honor + into the diplomatic service of his country, did such to calm his spirits. + Ibsen was growing rich now, as well as famous, and if only the Norwegians + would let him alone, he might well be happy. The new play was <i>Rosmersholm</i>, + and it took its impulse from a speech which Ibsen had made during his + journey, at Trondhjem, where he expounded the gospel of individualism to a + respectful audience of workingmen, and had laid down the necessity of + introducing an aristocratic strain, <i>et adeligt element</i>, into the + life of a truly democratic state, a strain which woman and labor were to + unite in developing. He said: "I am thinking, of course, not of birth, nor + of money, nor even of intellect, but of the nobility which grows out of + character. It is <i>character</i> alone which can make us free." This + nobility of character must be fostered, mainly, by the united efforts of + motherhood and labor. This was quite a new creed in Norway, and it + bewildered his hearers, but it is remarkable to notice how the best public + feeling in Scandinavia has responded to the appeal, and how little + surprise the present generation would express at a repetition of such + sentiments. And out of this idea of "nobility" of public character <i>Rosmersholm</i> + directly sprang. + </p> + <p> + We are not left to conjecture in this respect. In a letter to Björn + Kristensen (February 13, 1887), Ibsen deliberately explained, while + correcting a misconception of the purpose of <i>Rosmersholm</i>, that "the + play deals with the struggle which all serious-minded human beings have to + wage with themselves in order to bring their lives into harmony with their + convictions. ... Conscience is very conservative. It has its deep roots in + tradition and the past generally, and hence the conflict." When we come to + read <i>Rosmersholm</i> it is not difficult to see how this order of ideas + dominated Ibsen's mind when he wrote it. The mansion called by that name + is typical of the ancient traditions of Norwegian bourgeois aristocracy, + which are not to be subservient to such modern and timid conservatism as + is represented by Rector Kroll, with his horror of all things new because + they are new. The Rosmer strain, in its inherent nobility, is to be + superior to a craven horror of the democracy, and is to show, by the + courage with which it fulfils its personal destiny, that it looks above + and beyond all these momentary prejudices, and accepts, from all hands, + whatever is wise and of good report. + </p> + <p> + The misfortune is that Ibsen, in unconscious bondage to his ideas, did not + construct his drama sturdily enough on realistic lines. While not one of + his works is more suggestive than <i>Rosmersholm</i>, there is not one + which gives the unbeliever more opportunity to blaspheme. This ancestral + house of a great rich race, which is kept up by the ministrations of a + single aged female servant, stands in pure Cloud-Cuckoo Land. The absence + of practical amenities in the Rosmer family might be set down to + eccentricity, if all the other personages were not equally ill-provided. + Rebecca, glorious heroine according to some admirers, "criminal, thief and + murderess," as another admirer pleonastically describes her, is a sort of + troll; nobody can explain—and yet an explanation seems requisite—what + she does in the house of Rosmer. In his eagerness to work out a certain + sequence of philosophical ideas, the playwright for once neglected to be + plausible. It is a very remarkable feature of <i>Rosmersholm</i> that in + it, for the first time, and almost for the last, Ibsen, in the act of + theorizing, loses his hold upon reality. He places his ingenious, + elaborate and—given the premises—inevitable dénouement + in a scene scarcely more credible than that of a Gilbert and Sullivan + opera, and not one-tenth as amusing. Following, as it does, immediately on + the heels of <i>The Wild Duck</i>, which was as remarkable a slice of real + life as was ever brought before a theatrical audience, the artificiality + of <i>Rosmersholm</i> shows Ibsen as an artist clearly stepping backward + that he may leap the further forward. + </p> + <p> + In other words, <i>Rosmersholm</i> is the proof of Ibsen's desire to + conquer another field of drama. He had now for some years rejected with + great severity all temptations from the poetic spirit, which was + nevertheless ineradicable in him. He had wished to produce on the mind of + the spectator no other impression than that he was observing something + which had actually happened, exactly in the way and the words in which it + would happen. He had formulated to the actress, Lucie Wolf, the principle + that ideal dramatic poetry should be considered extinct, "like some + preposterous animal form of prehistoric times." But the soul of man cannot + be fed with a stone, and Ibsen had now discovered that perfectly prosaic + "slices of life" may be salutary and valuable on occasion, but that sooner + or later a poet asks for more. He, therefore, a poet if ever there was + one, had grown weary of the self-made law by which he had shut himself out + from Paradise. He determined, grudgingly, and hardly knowing how to set + about it, that he would once more give the spiritual and the imaginative + qualities their place in his work. These had now been excluded for nearly + twenty years, since the publication of <i>Peer Gynt</i>, and he would not + resume them so far as to write his dramas again in verse. Verse in drama + was doomed; or if not, it was at least a juvenile and fugitive skill not + to be rashly picked up again by a business-like bard of sixty. But he + would reopen the door to allegory and symbol, and especially to fantastic + beauty of landscape. + </p> + <p> + The landscape of Rosmersholm has all, or at least much, of the old + enchantment. The scene at the mill-dam links us once more with the woods + and the waters which we had lost sight of since <i>Peer Gynt</i>. But this + element was still more evident in <i>The Lady from the Sea</i>, which was. + published in 1888. We have seen that Ibsen spent long hours, in the summer + of 1885, at the end of the pier at Molde, gazing down into the waters, or + watching the steamers arriving and departing, coming from the great sea + beyond the fjord or going towards it. As was his wont, he stored up these + impressions, making no immediate use of them. He actually prepared <i>The + Lady from the Sea</i> in very different, although still marine + surroundings. He went to Jutland, and settled for the summer at the pretty + and ancient, but very mild little town of Saeby, with the sands in front + of him and rolling woods behind. From Saeby it was a short journey to + Frederikshavn, "which he liked very much—he could knock about all + day among the shipping, talking to the sailors, and so forth. Besides, he + found the neighborhood of the sea favorable to contemplation and + constructive thought." So Mr. Archer, who visited him at Saeby; and I + myself, a year or two later, picked up at Frederikshavn an oral tradition + of Ibsen, with his hands behind his back, and the frock-coat tightly + buttoned, stalking, stalking alone for hours on the interminable promenade + between the great harbor moles of Frederikshaven, no one daring to break + in upon his formidable contemplation. + </p> + <p> + In several respects, though perhaps not in concentration of effect, <i>The + Lady from the Sea</i> shows a distinct advance on <i>Rosmersholm</i>. It + is never dull, never didactic, as its predecessor too often was, and there + is thrown over the whole texture of it a glamour of romance, of mystery, + of beauty, which had not appeared in Ibsen's work since the completion of + <i>Peer Gynt</i>. Again, after the appearance of so many strenuous + tragedies, it was pleasant to welcome a pure comedy. <i>The Lady from the + Sea</i> [Note: In the <i>Neue Rundschau</i> for December, 1906, there was + published a first draft of <i>The Lady from the Sea</i>, dating as far + back as 1800.] is connected with the previous plays by its emphatic + defence of individuality and its statement of the imperative necessity of + developing it; but the tone is sunny, and without a tinge of pessimism. It + is in some respects the reverse of <i>Rosmersholm</i>; the bitterness of + restrained and balked individuality, which ends in death, being contrasted + with the sweetness of emancipated and gratified individuality, which leads + to health and peace. To the remarkable estimate of <i>The Lady from the + Sea</i> formed by some critics, and in particular by M. Jules de Gaultier, + we shall return in a general consideration of the symbolic plays, of which + it is the earliest. Enough to say here that even those who did not plunge + so deeply into its mysteries found it a remarkably agreeable spectacle, + and that it has continued to be, in Scandinavia and Germany, one of the + most popular of its author's works. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen left his little tavern at Saeby towards the end of September, 1887, + in consequence of an invitation to proceed directly to Stockholm, where + his Swedish admirers, now very numerous and enthusiastic, would no longer + be deprived of the pleasure of entertaining him publicly. He appeared + before them, the breast of his coat sparkling with foreign stars and + crosses, the Urim and Thummim of general European recognition. He was now + in his sixtieth year, and he had out lived all the obscurity of his youth. + In the three Scandinavian countries—even in recalcitrant Norway—he + was universally hailed as the greatest dramatist of the age. In Germany + his fame was greater than that of any native writer of the sang class. In + Italy and Russia he was entering on a career of high and settled + popularity. Even in France and England his work was now discussed with + that passionate interest which shows the vitality of what is even, for the + moment, misinterpreted and disliked. His admirers at Stockholm told him + that he had taken a foremost place in re-creating their sense of life, + that he was a fashioner and a builder of new social forms, that he was, + indeed, to thousands of them, the Master-Builder. The reply he made to + their enthusiasm was dignified and reserved, but it revealed a sense of + high gratification. Skule's long doubt was over; he believed at last in + his own kingdom, and that the world would be ultimately the better for the + stamp of his masterful soul upon its surface. + </p> + <p> + It was in an unusually happy mood that he sat dreaming through the early + part of the uneventful year 1889. But it gradually sank into melancholy + when, in the following year, he settled down to the composition of a new + play which was to treat of sad thoughts and tragic passions. He told + Snoilsky that for several reasons this work made very slow progress, "and + it robbed him of his summer holidays." From May to November, 1890, he was + uninterruptedly in Munich writing what is known to us now as <i>Hedda + Gabler</i>. He finished it at last, saying as he did so, "It has not been + my desire to deal in this play with so-called problems. What I principally + wanted to do was to depict human beings, human emotions and human + destinies, upon a groundwork of certain of the social conditions and + principles of the present day." It was a proof of the immense growth of + Ibsen's celebrity that editions of <i>Hedda Gabler</i> were called for + almost simultaneously, in the winter of 1890, in London, New York, St. + Petersburg, Leipzig, Berlin and Moscow, as well as in Copenhagen, + Stockholm and Christiania. There was no other living author in the world + at that moment who excited so much curiosity among the intellectual + classes, and none who exercised so much influence on the younger + generation of authors and thinkers. + </p> + <p> + In <i>Hedda Gabler</i> Ibsen returned, for the last time, but with + concentrated vigor, to the prosaic ideal of his central period. He never + succeeded in being more objective in drama, he never kept more closely to + the bare facts of nature nor rejected more vigorously the ornaments of + romance and rhetoric than in this amazing play. There is no poetic + suggestion here, no species of symbol, white horse, or gnawing thing, or + monster from the sea. I am wholly in agreement with Mr. Archer when he + says that he finds it impossible to extract any sort of general idea from + <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, or to accept it as a satire of any condition of + society. Hedda is an individual, not a type, and it was as an individual + that she interested Ibsen. We have been told, since the poet's death, that + he was greatly struck by the case, which came under his notice at Munich, + of a German lady who poisoned herself because she was bored with life, and + had strayed into a false position. <i>Hedda Gabler</i> is the realization + of such an individual case. At first sight, it seemed as though Ibsen had + been influenced by Dumas <i>fils</i>, which might have been true, in spite + of the marked dislike which each expressed for the other; [Note: It is + said that <i>La Route de Thebes</i>, which Dumas had begun when he died, + was to have been a deliberate attack on the methods and influence of + Ibsen. Ibsen, on his part, loathed Dumas.] but closer examination showed + that Hedda Gabler had no sort of relation with the pamphlets of the master + of Parisian problem-tragedy. + </p> + <p> + The attempt to show that <i>Hedda Gabler</i> "proved" anything was + annoying to Ibsen, who said, with more than his customary firmness, "It + was not my purpose to deal with what people call problems in this play. + What I chiefly tried to do was to paint human beings, human emotions and + human fate, against a background of some of the conditions and laws of + society as it exists to-day." The German critics, a little puzzled to find + a longitude and latitude for Tesman's "tastefully decorated" villa, + declared that this time Ibsen had written an "international," not a + locally Norwegian, play. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the + contrary, <i>Hedda Gabler</i> is perhaps the most fatally local and + Norwegian of all Ibsen's plays, and it presents, not of course the highly + civilized Christiania of to-day, but the half-suburban, half-rural little + straggling town of forty years ago. When I visited Norway as a lad, I + received kind but sometimes rather stiff and raw hospitality in several + tastefully decorated villas, which were as like that of the Tesmans as pea + is like pea. Why Ibsen chose to paint a "west end of Christiania" of 1860 + rather than of 1890 I cannot guess, unless it was that to so persistent an + exile the former was far more familiar than the latter. + </p> + <p> + A Russian actress of extreme talent, Madame Alla Nazimova, who has had + special opportunities of studying the part of Hedda Gabler, has lately + (1907) depicted her as "aristocratic and ill-mated, ambitious and doomed + to a repulsive alliance with a man beneath her station, whom she had + mistakenly hoped would give her position and wealth. In other + circumstances, Hedda would have been a power for beauty and good." If this + ingenious theory be correct, <i>Hedda Gabler</i> must be considered as the + leading example of Ibsen's often-repeated demonstration, that evil is + produced by circumstances and not by character. The portrait becomes + thrillingly vital if we realize that the stains upon it are the impact of + accidental conditions on a nature which might otherwise have been useful + and fleckless. Hedda Gabler is painted as Mr. Sargent might paint a lady + of the London fashionable world; his brush would divine and emphasize, as + Ibsen's pen does, the disorder of her nerves, and the ravaging + concentration of her will in a sort of barren and impotent egotism, while + doing justice to the superficial attractiveness of her cultivated physical + beauty. He would show, as Ibsen shows, and with an equal lack of malice + prepense, various detestable features which the mask of good manners had + concealed. Each artist would be called a caricaturist because his + instinctive penetration had taken him into regions where the powder-puff + and the rouge-pot lose their power. + </p> + <p> + <a name="linki6" id="linki6"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:60%"> + <img alt="laerum.jpg (64K)" src="images/laerum.jpg" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <a name="linkc8" id="linkc8"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + LAST YEARS + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + With the publication of <i>Hedda Gabler</i> Ibsen passed into what we may + call his final glory. Almost insensibly, and to an accompaniment of his + own growls of indignation, he had taken his place, not merely as the most + eminent imaginative writer of the three Scandinavian countries, but as the + type there of what literature should be and the prophet of what it would + become. In 1880, Norway, the youngest and long the rawest of the three + civilizations, was now the foremost in activity, and though the influence + of Björnson and Jonas Lie was significant, yet it was not to be + compared for breadth and complexity with that of Ibsen. The nature of the + revolution, exercised by the subject of this memoir between 1880 and 1890, + that is to say from <i>Ghosts</i> to <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, was destructive + before it was constructive. The poetry, fiction and drama of the three + Northern nations had become stagnant with commonplace and conventional + matter, lumbered with the recognized, inevitable and sacrosanct forms of + composition. This was particularly the case in Sweden, where the influence + of Ibsen now proved more violent and catastrophic than anywhere else. + Ibsen destroyed the attraction of the old banal poetry; his spirit + breathed upon it in fire, and in all its faded elegance it withered up and + vanished. + </p> + <p> + The next event was that the new generation in the three Northern + countries, deprived of its traditional authorities, looked about for a + prophet and a father, and they found what they wanted in the exceedingly + uncompromising elderly gentleman who remained so silent in the cafes of + Rome and of Munich. The zeal of the young for this unseen and + unsympathetic personage was extraordinary, and took forms of amazing + extravagance. Ibsen's impassivity merely heightened the enthusiasm of his + countless admirers, who were found, it should be stated, almost entirely + among persons who were born after his exile from Norway. His writings + supplied a challenge to character and intelligence which appealed to those + who disliked the earlier system of morals and aesthetics against which he + had so long fought single-handed. + </p> + <p> + Among writers in the North Ibsen began to hold very much the position that + Whistler was taking among painters and etchers in this country, that is to + say the abuse and ridicule of his works by a dwindling group of elderly + conventional critics merely stung into more frenzied laudation an + ever-widening circle of youthful admirers. Ibsen repented, for a time + almost exclusively, "serious" aims in literature, and with those of + Herbert Spencer, and in less measure of Zola, and a little later of + Nietzsche, his books were the spiritual food of all youthful minds of any + vigor or elasticity. + </p> + <p> + In Sweden, at this time, the admiration for Ibsen took forms of almost + preposterous violence. The great Swedish novelist, Gustaf af Geijerstam, + has given a curious and amusing account of the rage for Ibsen which came + to its height about 1880. The question which every student asked his + friend, every lover his mistress, was "What do you think of Ibsen?" Not to + be a believer in the Norwegian master was a reef upon which love or + friendship might easily be shipwrecked. It was quoted gravely as an + insufferable incompatibility for the state of marriage. There was a + curious and secret symbolism running through the whole of youthful Swedish + society, from which their elders were cunningly excluded, by which the + volumes of Ibsen, passed from hand to hand, presented on solemn occasions, + became the emblems of the problems interesting to generous youth, flags + carried in the moral fight for liberty and truth. The three Northern + countries, in their long stagnation, had become clogged and deadened with + spiritual humbug, which had sealed the sources of emotion. It seemed + though, after the long frost of the seventies, spring had come and + literature had budded a at last, and that it was Ibsen who had blown the + clarion of the West Wind and heralded the emancipation. + </p> + <p> + The enthusiasm for the Norwegian dramatist was not always according to + knowledge, and sometimes it took grotesque forms. Much of the abuse + showered in England and France upon Ibsen at the time we are now + describing was due to echoes of the extravagance of his Scandinavian and + German idolaters. A Swedish satirist [Note: "Stella Kleve" (Mathilda + Malling, in <i>Framat</i> 1886)] said that if Ibsen could have foreseen + how many "misunderstood" women would leave their homes in imitation of + Nora, and how many lovesick housekeepers drink poison on account of + Rebecca, he would have thrown ashes on his head and have retreated into + the deserts of Tartary. The suicide of the novelist, Ernst Ahlgren, was + the tragic circumstance where much was so purely comic. But if there were + elements of tragicomedy in the Ibsen idolatry, there were far more + important elements of vigorous and wholesome intellectual independence; + and it was during this period of Ibsen's almost hectic popularity that the + foundations of a new fiction and a new drama were laid in Sweden, Denmark + and Norway. A whole generation sucked strength and energy from his early + writings, since it is to be remarked that, from 1880 to 1890, the great + prestige of Ibsen did not depend so much on the dramas he was then + producing, as on the earlier works of his poetic youth, now reread with an + unexampled fervor. So, with us, the tardy popularity of Robert Browning, + which faintly resembles that of Ibsen, did not attract the younger + generation to the volumes which succeed <i>The Ring and the Book</i>, but + sent them back to the books which their fathers had despised, to <i>Pippa + Passes</i> and <i>Men and Women</i>. To the generation of 1880, Ibsen was + not so much the author of the realistic social dramas as of those old but + now rediscovered miracles of poetry and wit, <i>The Pretenders</i>, <i>Brand</i> + and <i>Peer Gynt</i>. + </p> + <p> + In 1889 Ibsen had been made very pleasantly conscious of this strong + personal feeling in his favor among young men and women. Nor did he find + it confined to Scandinavia. He had travelled about in Germany, and + everywhere his plays were being acted. Berlin was wild about him; at + Weimar he was fêted like a conqueror. He did not settle down at + Munich until May, and here, as we have seen, he stayed all the summer, + hard at work. After the success of <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, which overpowered + all adverse comment, Ibsen began to long to be in Norway again, and this + feeling was combined, in a curious way, with a very powerful emotion which + now entered into his life. He had lived a retired and peaceful existence, + mainly a spectator at the feast, as little occupied in helping himself to + the dishes which he saw others enjoy as is an eremite in the desert in + plucking the grape-clusters of his dreams. No adventure, of any prominent + kind, had ever been seen to diversify Ibsen's perfectly decorous and + domestic career. And now he was more than sixty, and the gray tones were + gathering round him more thickly than ever, when a real ray of vermilion + descended out of the sky and filled his horizon with color. + </p> + <p> + In the season of 1889, among the summer boarders at Gossensass, there + appeared a young Viennese lady of eighteen, Miss Emilie Bardach. She used + to sit on a certain bench in the Pferchthal, and when the poet, whom she + adored from afar, passed by, she had the courage to smile at him. Strange + to say, her smile was returned, and soon Ibsen was on the bench at her + side. He readily discovered where she lived; no less readily he gained an + introduction to the family with whom she boarded. There was a window-seat + in the <i>salle à manger</i>; it was deep and shaded by odorous + flowering shrubs; it lent itself to endless conversation. The episode was + strange, the passion improbable, incomprehensible, profoundly natural and + true. Perhaps, until they parted in the last days of September, neither + the old man nor the young girl realized what their relations had meant to + each. Youth secured its revenge, however; Miss Bardach soon wrote from + Vienna that she was now more tranquil, more independent, happy at last. + Ibsen, on the other hand, was heart-broken, quivering with ecstasy, + overwhelmed with joy and despair. + </p> + <p> + It was the enigma in his "princess," as he called her; that completed Miss + Bardach's sorcery over the old poet. She seems to have been no coquette; + she flung her dangerous fascinations at his feet; she broke the thread + which bound the charms of her spirit and poured them over him. He, for his + part, remaining discreet and respectful, was shattered with happiness. To + a friend of mine, a young Norwegian man of letters, Ibsen said about this + time: "Oh, you can always love, but I am happier than the happiest, for I + am beloved." Long afterwards, on his seventieth birthday, when his own + natural force was failing, he wrote to Miss Bardach, "That summer at + Gossensass was the most beautiful and the most harmonious portion of my + whole existence. I scarcely venture to think of it, and yet I think of + nothing else. Ah! forever!" He did not dare to send her <i>The + Master-Builder</i>, since her presence interpenetrated every line of it + like a perfume, and when, we are told, she sent him her photograph, signed + "Princess of Orangia," her too-bold identification of herself with Hilda + Wangel hurt him as a rough touch, that finer tact would have avoided. + There can be no doubt at all that while she was now largely absorbed by + the compliment to her own vanity, he was still absolutely enthralled and + bewitched, and that what was fun to her made life and death to him. + </p> + <p> + This very curious episode [Note: It was quite unknown until the + correspondence—which has not been translated into English—was + published by Georg Brandes at the desire of the lady herself (September, + 1906).], which modifies in several important respects our conception of + the dramatist's character, is analogous with the apparent change of + disposition which made Renan surprise his unthinking admirers so suddenly + at the epoch of <i>L'Eau de Jouvence</i> and <i>L'Abbesse de Jouarre</i>. + It was founded, of course, on that dangerous susceptibility to which an + elderly man of genius, whose life had been spent in labor and reflection, + may be inclined to resign himself, as he sees the sands running out of the + hour-glass, and realizes that in analyzing and dissecting emotion he has + never had time to enjoy it. Time is so short, the nerves so fragile and so + finite, the dreadful illusion, the <i>maia</i>, so irresistible, that the + old man gives way to it, and would sooner die at once than not make one + grasp at happiness. + </p> + <p> + It will have been remarked that Ibsen's habit was to store up an + impression, but not to use it immediately on creative work. We need, + therefore, feel no surprise that there is not a trace of the Bardach + episode in <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, although the composition of that play + immediately followed the <i>hohes, schmerzliches Glück</i> at + Gossensass. He was, too, no moonlight serenader, and his intense emotion + is perfectly compatible with the outline of some of the gossip which was + repeated at the time of his death; Ibsen being reported to have said of + the Viennese girl: "She did not get hold of me, but I got hold of her—for + my play." These things are very complex, and not to be hastily dismissed, + especially on the rough and ready English system. There would be give and + take in such a complicated situation, when the object was, as Ibsen + himself says, out of reach <i>unversichtbar</i>. There is no question that + for every pang which Hilda made her ancient lover suffer, he would enrich + his imagination with a dozen points of experience. There is no paradox in + saying that the poet was overwhelmed with a passion and yet consciously + made it serve as material for his plays. From this time onwards every + dramatic work of his bears the stamp of those hours among the roses at + Gossensass. + </p> + <p> + To the spring of 1891 belongs Ibsen's somewhat momentous visit to Vienna, + where he was invited by Dr. Max Burckhard, the director of the Burg + Theatre, to superintend the performance of his <i>Pretenders</i>. Ibsen + had already, in strict privacy, visited Vienna, where his plays enjoyed an + increasing success, but this was his first public entrance into a city + which he admired on the whole more than any other city of Europe. "Mein + schöner Wien!" he used to murmur, with quite a clan of affection. In + April, 1891, after the triumph of his tragedy on the stage, Ibsen was the + guest at a public banquet at Vienna, when the ovations were overwhelming + and were extended until four o'clock next morning. A performance of <i>The + Wild Duck</i> produced, what was almost as dear to Ibsen as praise, a + violent polemic, and he passed on out of a world of storm and passion to + Buda-Pesth, where he saw <i>A Doll's House</i> acted in Hungarian, amid + thunders of applause, and where he was the guest of Count Albert Apponyi. + These were the happy and fruitful years which consoled the heart of the + poet for the bitter time when + </p> + <p> + "Hate's decree Dwelt in his thoughts intolerable." + </p> + <p> + In the ensuing summer, in July, 1891, Ibsen left Munich with every + intention of returning to it, but with the plan of a long summer trip in + Norway, where the triumphant success of <i>Hedda Gabler</i> had been very + agreeable to his feelings. Once more he pushed up through the country to + Trondhjem, a city which had always attracted him and pleased him. Here he + presently embarked on one of the summer coasting-steamers, and saw the + shores of Nordland and Finmark for the first time, visiting the North Cape + itself. He came back to Christiania for the rest of the season, with no + prospect of staying. But he enjoyed a most flattering reception; he was + begged to resume his practical citizenship, and he was assured that life + in Norway would be made very pleasant to him. In the autumn, therefore, in + his abrupt way, he took an apartment in Viktoria Terrasse, and sent to + Munich for his furniture. He said to a friend who expressed surprise at + this settlement: "I may just as well make Christiania my headquarters as + Munich. The railway takes me in a very short time wherever I want to go; + and when I am bored with Norway I can travel elsewhere." But he never felt + the fatigue he anticipated, and, but for brief visits to Copenhagen or + Stockholm, he left his native country no more after 1891, although he + changed his abode in Christiania itself. + </p> + <p> + For the first twelve months Ibsen enjoyed the pleasures of the prodigal + returned, and fed with gusto on the fatted calf. Then, when three years + separated him from the illuminating soul-adventures of Gossensass, he + began to turn them into a play. It proved to be <i>The Master-Builder</i>, + and was published before the close of December, 1892, with the date 1893 + on the title-page. This play was running for some time in Germany and + England before it was played in Scandinavia. But on the evening of March + 8, 1893, it was simultaneously given at the National Theatre in + Christiania and at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. It was a work which + greatly puzzled the critics, and its meaning was scarcely apparent until + it had been seen on the stage, for which the oddity of its arrangements + are singularly well adapted. It was, however, almost immediately noticed + that it marked a new departure in Ibsen's writings. Here was an end of the + purely realistic and prosaic social dramas, which had reigned from <i>The + League of Youth</i> to <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, and here was a return to the + strange and haunting beauty of the old imaginative pieces. Mr. Archer was + happily inspired when he spoke of "the pure melody" of the piece, and the + best scenes of <i>The Master-Builder</i> were heroically and almost + recklessly poetical. + </p> + <p> + This remarkable composition is full of what, for want of a better word, we + must call "symbolism." In the conversations between Solness and Hilda much + is introduced which is really almost unintelligible unless we take it to + be autobiographical. The Master-Builder is one who constructs, not houses, + but poems and plays. It is the poet himself who gives expression, in the + pathetic and erratic confessions of Solness, to his doubts, his craven + timidities, his selfish secrets, and his terror at the uniformity of his + "luck." It is less easy to see exactly what Ibsen believed himself to be + presenting to us in the enigmatical figure of Hilda, so attractive and + genial, so exquisitely refreshing, and yet radically so cruel and + superficial. She is perhaps conceived as a symbol of Youth, arriving too + late within the circle which Age has trodden for its steps to walk in, and + luring it too rashly, by the mirage of happiness, into paths no longer + within its physical and moral capacity. "Hypnotism," Mr. Archer tells us, + "is the first and last word of the dramatic action"; perhaps + thought-transference more exactly expresses the idea, but I should not + have stated even this quite so strongly. The ground of the dramatic action + seems to me to be the balance of Nemesis, the fatal necessity that those + who enjoy exceptional advantages in life shall pay for them by not less + exceptional, but perhaps less obvious, disadvantages. The motto of the + piece—at least of the first two of its acts—might be the + couplet of the French tragedian:— + </p> + <p> + C'est un ordre des dieux qui jamais ne se rompt De nous vendre bien cher + les grands biens qu'ils nous font. + </p> + <p> + Beneath this, which we may call the transcendental aspect of the play, we + find a solid and objective study of the self-made man, the headstrong + amateur, who has never submitted to the wholesome discipline of + professional training, but who has trusted to the help of those trolls or + mascots, his native talent and his unfailing "luck." Upon such a man + descends Hilda, the disorganizer, who pierces the armor of his conceit by + a direct appeal to his passions. Solness has been the irresistible + sorcerer, through his good fortune, but he is not protected in his + climacteric against this unexpected attack upon the senses. Samson + philanders with Delila, and discovers that his strength is shorn from him. + There is no doubt that Ibsen intended in <i>The Master-Builder</i> a + searching examination of "luck" and the tyranny of it, the terrible + effects of it on the Broviks and the Kajas whom nobody remembers, but + whose bodies lie under the wheels of its car. The dramatic situation is + here extremely interesting; it consists in the fact that Solness, who + breaks every one else, is broken by Hilda. The inherent hardness of youth, + which makes no allowances, which demands its kingdom here and now upon the + table, was never more powerfully depicted. Solness is smashed by his + impact with Hilda, as china is against a stone. In all this it would be a + mistake to see anything directly autobiographical, although so much in the + character and position of Solness may remind us, legitimately enough, of + Ibsen himself, and his adventures. + </p> + <p> + The personal record of Ibsen in these years is almost silent. He was + growing old and set in his habits. He was growing rich, too, and he + surrounded himself with sedentary comforts. His wealth, it may here be + said, was founded entirely upon the success of his works, but was fostered + by his extreme adroitness as a man of business. Those who are so fond of + saying that any man of genius might have excelled in some other capacity + are fully justified if they like to imagine Ibsen as the model financier. + He certainly possessed a remarkable aptitude for affairs, and we learn + that his speculations were at once daring and crafty. People who are weary + of commiserating the poverty of poets may be pleased to learn that when + Ibsen died he was one of the wealthiest private citizens of Christiania, + and this was wholly in consequence of the care he had taken in protecting + his copyrights and administering his receipts. If the melancholy couplet + is correct which tells us that + </p> + <p> + Aux petits des oiseaux Dieu donne la pature, Mais sa bonte s'arrkete a la + litterature, + </p> + <p> + we must believe, with Ibsen's enemies, that his fortunes were not under + the divine protection. + </p> + <p> + The actual numbers of each of his works printed since he first published + with Hegel in Copenhagen—a connection which he preserved without a + breach until the end—have been stated since his death. They contain + some points of interest. After 1876 Hegel ventured on large editions of + each new play, but they went off at first slowly. <i>The Lady from the Sea</i> + was the earliest to appear, at once, in an issue of 10,000 copies, which + was soon exhausted. So great, however, had the public interest in Ibsen + become in 1894 that the edition of 10,000 copies of <i>Little Eyolf</i> + was found quite inadequate to meet the first order, and it was enlarged to + 15,000, all of which were gone in a fortnight. This circulation in so + small a reading public as that of Denmark and Norway was unprecedented, + and it must be remembered that the simultaneous translations into most of + the languages of Europe are not included. + </p> + <p> + <i>Little Eyolf</i>, which was written in Christiania during the spring + and summer of 1894, was issued, according to Ibsen's cometary custom, as + the second week of December rolled round. The reception of it was stormy, + even in Scandinavia, and led to violent outbursts of controversy. No work + from the master's pen had roused more difference of opinion among the + critics since the bluster over <i>Ghosts</i> fourteen years before. Those + who prefer to absolute success in the creation of a work of art the + personal flavor or perfume of the artist himself were predisposed to place + <i>Little Eyolf</i> very high among his writings. Nowhere is he more + independent of all other influences, nowhere more intensely, it may even + be said more distressingly, himself. From many points of view this play + may fairly be considered in the light of a <i>tour de force</i>. Ibsen—one + would conjecture—is trying to see to what extremities of agile + independence he can force his genius. The word "force" has escaped me; but + it may be retained as reproducing that sense of a difficulty not quite + easily or completely overcome which <i>Little Eyolf</i> produces. To + mention but one technical matter; there are but four characters, properly + speaking, in the play—since Eyolf himself and the Rat-Wife are but + illustrations or symbolic properties—and of these four, one + (Borgheim) is wholly subsidiary. Ibsen, then, may be said to have + challenged imitation by composing a drama of passion with only three + characters in it. By a process of elimination this has been done by + Aeschylus (in the <i>Agamemnon</i>), by Racine (in <i>Phe*dre</i> and <i>Andromaque</i>), + and in our own day by Maeterlinck (in <i>Pelle*as et Me*lisande</i>). But + Ibsen was accustomed to a wider field, and his experiment seems not wholly + successful. <i>Little Eyolf</i>, at least, is, from all points of view, an + exercise on the tight-rope. We may hazard the conjecture that no drama + gave Ibsen more satisfaction to write, but for enjoyment the reader may + prefer less prodigious agility on the trapeze. + </p> + <p> + If we turn from the technical virtuosity of <i>Little Eyolf</i> to its + moral aspects, we find it a very dreadful play, set in darkness which + nothing illuminates but the twinkling sweetness of Asta. The mysterious + symbol of the Rat-Wife breaks in upon the pair whose love is turning to + hate, the man waxing cold as the wife grows hot. The Angel of God, in the + guise of an old beggar-woman, descends into their garden, and she drags + away, by an invisible chain, "the little gnawing thing," the pathetic lame + child. The effect on the pair of Eyolf's death by drowning is the subject + of the subsequent acts. In Rita jealousy is incarnate, and she seems the + most vigorous, and, it must be added, the most repulsive, of Ibsen's + feminine creations. The reckless violence of Rita's energy, indeed, + interpreted by a competent actress—played, for instance, as it was + in London most admirably by Miss Achurch—is almost too painful for a + public exhibition, and to the old criticism, "nec pueros coram populo + Medea trucidet," if a pedant chooses to press it, there teems no reply. + The sex question, as treated in <i>Little Eyolf</i>, recalls <i>The + Kreutzer Sonata</i> (1889) of Tolstoi. When, however, I ventured to ask + Ibsen whether there was anything in this, he was displeased, and stoutly + denied it. What, an author denies, however, is not always evidence. + </p> + <p> + Nothing further of general interest happened to Ibsen until 1896, when he + sat down to compose another drama, <i>John Gabriel Borkman</i>. This was a + study of the mental adventures of a man of high commercial imagination, + who is artificially parted from all that contact with real affairs which + keeps such energy on the track, and who goes mad with dreams of + incalculable power, a study, in fact, of financial megalomania. It was + said, at the time, that Ibsen was originally led to make this analysis of + character from reading in the Christiania newspapers a report of the + failure and trial of a notorious speculator convicted of fraud in 1895, + and sentenced to a long period of penal servitude. + </p> + <p> + Whether this be so or not, we have in the person of John Gabriel Borkman a + prominent example of the ninteenth century type of criminous speculator, + in whom the vastness of view and the splendidly altruistic audacity + present themselves as elements which render it exceedingly difficult to + say how far the malefactor is morally responsible for his crime. He has + imagined, and to a certain point has carried out, a monster metal "trust," + for the success of which he lacks neither courage nor knowledge nor + practical administrative capacity, but only that trifling concomitant, + sufficiency of capital. To keep the fires blazing until his vast model is + molten into the mould, he helps himself to money here, there, and + everywhere, scarcely giving a thought to his responsibilities, so certain + is he of ultimate and beneficent triumph. He will make rich beyond the + dreams of avarice all these his involuntary supporters. Unhappily, just + before his scheme is ready and the metal runs, he is stopped by the + stupidity of the law, and finds himself in prison. + </p> + <p> + Side by side with this study of commercial madness runs a thread of that + new sense of the preciousness of vital joy which had occupied Ibsen so + much ever since the last of the summers at Gossensass. The figure of + Erhart Borkman is a very interesting one to the theatrical student. In the + ruin of the family, all hopes concentre in him. Every one claims him, and + in the bosoms of each of his shattered parents a secret hope is born, Mrs. + Borkman believing that by a brilliant career of commercial rectitude her + son will wipe out the memory of his father's crime; Borkman, who has never + given up the ambition of returning to business, reposing his own hopes on + the co-operation of his son. + </p> + <p> + But Erhart Borkman disappoints them all. He will be himself, he will enjoy + his life, he will throw off all the burdens both of responsibility and of + restitution. He has no ambition and little natural feeling; he simply must + be happy, and he suddenly elopes, leaving all their anticipations + bankrupt, with a certain joyous Mrs. Wilton, who has nothing but her + beauty to recommend her. Deserted thus by the <i>ignis fatuus</i> of + youth, the collapse of the three old people is complete. Under the shock + the brain of Borkman gives way, and he wanders out into the winter's + night, full of vague dreams of what he can still do in the world, if he + can only break from his bondage and shatter his dream. He dies there in + the snow, and the two old sisters, who have followed him in an anxiety + which overcomes their mutual hatred, arrive in time to see him pass away. + We leave them in the wood, "a dead man and two shadows"— so Ella + Rentheim puts it—"for <i>that</i> is what the cold has made of us"; + the central moral of the piece being that all the errors of humanity + spring from cold-heartedness and neglect of the natural heat of love. That + Borkman embezzled money, and reduced hundreds of innocent people to + beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his cruel + bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that is the + unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of obscurity, + and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality, about <i>John + Gabriel Borkman</i>, but on the whole it is a work of lofty originality + and of poignant human interest. + </p> + <p> + The veteran was now beginning to be conscious of the approaches of old + age, but they were made agreeable to him by many tokens of national + homage. + </p> + <p> + On his seventieth birthday, March 20, 1898, Ibsen received the + felicitations of the world. It is pleasing to relate that a group of + admirers in England, a group which included Mr. Asquith, Mr. J. M. Barrie, + Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. Pinero and Mr. Bernard Shaw + took part in these congratulations and sent Ibsen a handsome set of silver + plate, this being an act which, it had been discovered, he particularly + appreciated. The bearer of this gift was the earliest of the long stream + of visitors to arrive on the morning of the poet's birthday, and he found + Ibsen in company with his wife, his son, his son's wife (Björnson's + daughter), and his little grandson, Tankred. The poet's surprise and + pleasure were emphatic. A deputation from the Storthing, headed by the + Leader of the House, deputations representing the University, the various + Christiania Theatres, and other official or academic bodies arrived at + intervals during the course of the day; and all the afternoon Ibsen was + occupied in taking these hundreds of visitors, in parties, up to the case + containing the English tribute, in showing the objects and in explaining + their origin. There could be no question that the gift gave genuine + pleasure to the recipient; it was the first, as it was to be the last, + occasion on which any public testimony to English appreciation of his + genius found its way to Ibsen's door. + </p> + <p> + Immediately after the birthday festivities, which it was observed had + fatigued him, Ibsen started on a visit to Copenhagen, where he was + received by the aged King of Denmark, and to Stockholm, where he was + overpowered with ovations from all classes. There can be no doubt that + this triumphal progress, though deeply grateful to the aged poet's + susceptibilities, made a heavy drain upon his nervous resources. When he + returned to Norway, indeed, he was concealed from all visitors at his + physician's orders, and it is understood that he had some kind of seizure. + It was whispered that he would write no more, and the biennial drama, due + in December, 1898, did not make its appearance. His stores of health, + however, were not easily exhausted; he rested for several months, and then + he was seen once more in Carl Johans Gade, smiling; in his usual way, and + entirely recovered. It was announced that winter that he was writing his + reminiscences, but nothing more was heard of any such book. + </p> + <p> + He was able to take a vivid interest in the preparations for the National + Norwegian Theatre in Christiania, which was finally opened by the King of + Sweden and Norway on September 1, 1899. Early in the morning, colossal + bronze statues of Ibsen and Björnson were unveiled in front of the + theatre, and the poets, now, unfortunately, again not on the best of + terms, were seen making vast de*tours for the purpose of satisfying their + curiosity, and yet not meeting one another in flesh or in metal. The first + night, to prevent rivalry, was devoted to antiquarianism, and to the + performance of extracts from the plays of Holberg. Ibsen and Björnson + occupied the centre of the dress circle, sitting uplifted in two gilded + fauteuils and segregated by a vast garland of red and white roses. They + were the objects of universal attention, and the King seemed never to have + done smiling and bowing to the two most famous of his Norwegian subjects. + </p> + <p> + The next night was Ibsen's fete, and he occupied, alone, the manager's + box. A poem in his honor, by Niels Collet Vogt, was recited by the leading + actor, who retired, and then rushed down the empty stage, with his arms + extended, shouting "Long live Henrik Ibsen." The immense audience started + to its feet and repeated the words over and over again with deafening + fervor. The poet appeared to be almost overwhelmed with emotion and + pleasure; at length, with a gesture which was quite pathetic, smiling + through his tears, he seemed to beg his friends to spare him, and the + plaudits slowly ceased. <i>An Enemy of the People</i> was then admirably + performed. At the close of every act Ibsen was called to the front of his + box, and when the performance was over, and the actors had been thanked, + the audience turned to him again with a sort of affectionate ferocity. + Ibsen was found to have stolen from his box, but he was waylaid and + forcibly carried back to it. On his reappearance, the whole theatre rose + in a roar of welcome, and it was with difficulty that the aged poet, now + painfully exhausted from the strain of an evening of such prolonged + excitement, could persuade the public to allow him to withdraw. At length + he left the theatre, walking slowly, bowing and smiling, down a lane + cleared for him, far into the street, through the dense crowd of his + admirers. This astonishing night, September 2, 1899, was the climax of + Ibsen's career. + </p> + <p> + During all this time Ibsen was secretly at work on another drama, which he + intended as the epilogue to his earlier dramatic work, or at least to all + that he had written since <i>The Pillars of Society</i>. This play, which + was his latest, appeared, under the title of <i>When We Dead Awaken</i>, + in December, 1899 (with 1900 on the title-page). It was simultaneously + published, in very large editions, in all the principal languages of + Europe, and it was acted also, but it is impossible to deny that, whether + in the study or on the boards, it proved a disappointment. It displayed, + especially in its later acts, many obvious signs of the weakness incident + on old age. + </p> + <p> + When it is said that <i>When We Dead Awaken</i> was not worthy of its + predecessors, it should be explained that no falling off was visible in + the technical cleverness with which the dialogue was built up, nor in the + wording of particular sentences. Nothing more natural or amusing, nothing + showing greater, command of the resources of the theatre, had ever been + published by Ibsen himself than the opening act of <i>When We Dead Awaken</i>. + But there was certainly in the whole conception a cloudiness, an + ineffectuality, which was very little like anything that Ibsen had + displayed before. The moral of the piece was vague, the evolution of it + incoherent, and indeed in many places it seemed a parody of his earlier + manner. Not Mr. Anstey Guthrie's inimitable scenes in <i>Mr. Punch's Ibsen</i> + were more preposterous than almost all the appearances of Irene after the + first act of <i>When We Dead Awaken</i>. + </p> + <p> + It is Irene who describes herself as dead, but awakening in the society of + Rubek, whilst Maia, the little gay soulless creature whom the great + sculptor has married, and has got heartily tired of, goes up to the + mountains with Ulpheim the hunter, in pursuit of the free joy of life. At + the close, the assorted couples are caught on the summit of an exceeding + high mountain by a snowstorm, which opens to show Rubek and Irene "whirled + along with the masses of snow, and buried in them," while Maia and her + bear-hunter escape in safety to the plains. Interminable, and often very + sage and penetrating, but always essentially rather maniacal, conversation + fills up the texture of the play, which is certainly the least successful + of Ibsen's mature compositions. The boredom of Rubek in the midst of his + eminence and wealth, and his conviction that by working in such + concentration for the purity of art he merely wasted his physical life, + inspire the portions of the play which bring most conviction and can be + read with fullest satisfaction. It is obvious that such thoughts, such + faint and unavailing regrets, pursued the old age of Ibsen; and the + profound wound that his heart had received so long before at Gossensass + was unhealed to his last moments of consciousness. An excellent French + critic, M. P. G. La Chesnais, has ingeniously considered the finale of + this play as a confession that Ibsen, at this end of his career, was + convinced of the error of his earlier rigor, and, having ceased to believe + in his mission, regretted the complete sacrifice of his life to his work. + But perhaps it is not necessary to go into such subtleties. <i>When We + Dead Awaken</i> is the production of a very tired old man, whose physical + powers were declining. + </p> + <p> + In the year 1900, during our South African War, sentiment in the + Scandinavian countries was very generally ranged on the side of the Boers. + Ibsen, however, expressed himself strongly and publicly in favor of the + English position. In an interview (November 24, 1900), which produced a + considerable sensation, he remarked that the Boers were but + half-cultivated, and had neither the will nor the power to advance the + cause of civilization. Their sole object had come to be a jealous + exclusion of all the higher forms of culture. The English were merely + taking what the Boers themselves had stolen from an earlier race; the + Boers had pitilessly hunted their precursors out of house and home, and + now they were tasting the same cup themselves. These were considerations + which had not occurred to generous sentimentalists in Norway, and Ibsen's + defence of England, which he supported in further communications with + irony and courage, made a great sensation, and threw cold water on the + pro-Boer sentimentalists. In Holland, where Ibsen had a wide public, this + want of sympathy for Dutch prejudice raised a good deal of resentment, and + Ibsen's statements were replied to by the fiery young journalist, + Cornelius Karel Elout, who even published a book on the subject. Ibsen + took dignified notice of Elout's attacks (December 9, 1900), repeating his + defence of English policy, and this was the latest of his public + appearances. + </p> + <p> + He took an interest, however, in the preparation of the great edition of + his <i>Collected Works</i>, which appeared in Copenhagen in 1901 and 1902, + in ten volumes. Before the publication of the latest of these, however, + Ibsen had suffered from an apoplectic stroke, from which he never wholly + recovered. It was believed that any form of mental fatigue might now be + fatal to him, and his life was prolonged by extreme medical care. He was + contented in spirit and even cheerful, but from this time forth he was + more and more completely withdrawn from consecutive interest in what was + going on in the world without. The publication, in succession, of his + juvenile works (<i>Kaempehöjen</i>, <i>Olaf Liljekrans</i>, both + edited by Halvdan Koht, in 1902), of his <i>Correspondence</i>, edited by + Koht and Julius Elias, in 1904, of the bibliographical edition of his + collected works by Carl Naerup, in 1902, left him indifferent and scarcely + conscious. The gathering darkness was broken, it is said, by a gleam of + light in 1905; when the freedom of Norway and the accession of King Håkon + were explained to him, he was able to express his joyful approval before + the cloud finally sank upon his intelligence. + </p> + <p> + During his long illness Ibsen was troubled by aphasia, and he expressed + himself painfully, now in broken Norwegian, now in still more broken + German. His unhappy hero, Oswald Alving, in <i>Ghosts</i>, had thrilled + the world by his cry, "Give me the sun, Mother!" and now Ibsen, with + glassy eyes, gazed at the dim windows, murmuring "Keine Sonne, keine + Sonne, keine Sonne!" At the table where all the works of his maturity had + been written the old man sat, persistently learning and forgetting the + alphabet. "Look!" he said to Julius Elias, pointing to his mournful + pothooks, "See what I am doing! I am sitting here and learning my letters + —my <i>letters</i>! I who was once a Writer!" Over this shattered + image of what Ibsen had been, over this dying lion, who could not die, + Mrs. Ibsen watched with the devotion of wife, mother and nurse in one, + through six pathetic years. She was rewarded, in his happier moments, by + the affection and tender gratitude of her invalid, whose latest articulate + words were addressed to her—"<i>min söde, kjaere, snille frue</i>" + (my sweet, dear, good wife); and she taught to adore their grandfather the + three children of a new generation, Tankred, Irene, Eleonora. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen preserved the habit of walking about his room, or standing for hours + staring out of window, until the beginning of May, 1906. Then a more + complete decay confined him to his bed. After several days of + unconsciousness, he died very peacefully in his house on Drammensvej, + opposite the Royal Gardens of Christiania, at half-past two in the + afternoon of May 23, 1906, being in his seventy-ninth year. By a unanimous + vote of the he was awarded a public funeral, which the King of Norway + attended in person, while King Edward VII was represented there by the + British Minister. The event was regarded through out Norway as a national + ceremony of the highest solemnity and importance, and the poet who had + suffered such bitter humiliation and neglect in his youth was carried to + his grave in solemn splendor, to the sound of a people's lamentation. + </p> + <p> + <a name="linki7" id="linki7"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:60%"> + <img alt="peterson.jpg (95K)" src="images/peterson.jpg" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <a name="linkc9" id="linkc9"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + During the latest years of his life, which were spent as a wealthy and + prosperous citizen of Christiania, the figure of Ibsen took forms of + legendary celebrity which were equalled by no other living man of letters, + not even by Tolstoi, and which had scarcely been surpassed, among the + dead, by Victor Hugo. When we think of the obscurity of his youth and + middle age, and of his consistent refusal to advertise himself by any of + the little vulgar arts of self-exhibition, this extreme publicity is at + first sight curious, but it can be explained. Norway is a small and a new + country, inordinately, perhaps, but justly and gracefully proud of those—an + Ole Bull, a Frithjof Nansen, an Edvard Grieg—who spread through the + world evidences of its spiritual life. But the one who was more original, + more powerful, more interesting than any other of her sons, had + persistently kept aloof from the soil of Norway, and was at length + recaptured and shut up in a golden cage with more expenditure of delicate + labor than any perverse canary or escaped macaw had ever needed. Ibsen + safely housed in Christiania!—it was the recovery of an important + national asset, the resumption, after years of vexation and loss, of the + intellectual regalia of Norway. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen, then—recaptured, though still in a frame of mind which left + the captors nervous—was naturally an object of pride. For the + benefit of the hundreds of tourists who annually pass through Christiania, + it was more than tempting, it was irresistible to point out, in slow + advance along Carl Johans Gade, in permanent silence at a table in the + Grand Cafe, "our greatest citizen." To this species of demonstration Ibsen + unconsciously lent himself by his immobility, his regularity of habits, + his solemn taciturnity. He had become more like a strange physical object + than like a man among men. He was visible broadly and quietly, not + conversing, rarely moving, quite isolated and self-contained, a recognized + public spectacle, delivered up, as though bound hand and foot, to the + kodak-hunter and the maker of "spicy" paragraphs. That Ibsen was never + seen to do anything, or heard to say anything, that those who boasted of + being intimate with him obviously lied in their teeth—all this + prepared him for sacrifice. Christiania is a hot-bed of gossip, and its + press one of the most "chatty" in the world. Our "greatest living author" + was offered up as a wave-offering, and he smoked daily on the altar of the + newspapers. + </p> + <p> + It will be extremely rash of the biographers of the future to try to + follow Ibsen's life day by day in the Christiania press from, let us say, + 1891 to 1901. During that decade he occupied the reporters immensely, and + he was particularly useful to the active young men who telegraph "chat" to + Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Berlin. Snapshots of Ibsen, + dangerous illness of the playwright, quaint habits of the Norwegian + dramatist, a poet's double life, anecdotes of Ibsen and Mrs.——, + rumors of the King's attitude to Ibsen—this pollenta, dressed a + dozen ways, was the standing dish at every journalist's table. If a space + needed filling, a very rude reply to some fatuous question might be fitted + in and called "Instance of Ibsen's Wit." The crop of fable was enormous, + and always seemed to find a gratified public, for whom nothing was too + absurd if it was supposed to illustrate "our great national poet." Ibsen, + meanwhile, did nothing at all. He never refuted a calumny, never corrected + a story, but he threw an ironic glance through his gold- rimmed spectacles + as he strolled down Carl Johan with his hands behind his back. + </p> + <p> + His personal appearance, it must be admitted, formed a tempting basis upon + which to build a legend. His force of will had gradually transfigured his + bodily forms until he thoroughly looked the part which he was expected to + fill. At the age of thirty, to judge by the early photographs, he had been + a commonplace-looking little man, with a shock of coal-black hair and a + full beard, one of those hirsute types common in the Teutonic races, which + may prove, on inquiry, to be painter, musician, or engraver, or possibly + engineer, but less probably poet. Then came the exile from Norway, and the + residence in Rome, marked by a little bust which stands before me now, + where the beard is cut away into two round whiskers so as to release the + firm round chin, and the long upper lip is clean-shaved. Here there is + more liveliness, but still no distinction. Then comes a further advance—a + photograph (in which I feel a tender pride, for it was made to please me) + taken in Dresden (October 15, 1873), where the brow, perfectly smooth and + white, has widened out, the whiskers have become less chubby, and the + small, scrutinizing eyes absolutely sparkle with malice. Here, you say at + last, is no poet, indeed, but an unusually cultivated banker or + surprisingly adroit solicitor. Here the hair, retreating from the great + forehead, begins to curl and roll with a distinguished wildness; here the + long mouth, like a slit in the face, losing itself at each end in whisker, + is a symbol of concentrated will power, a drawer in some bureau, + containing treasures, firmly locked up. + </p> + <p> + Then came Munich, where Ibsen's character underwent very considerable + changes, or rather where its natural features became fixed and emphasized. + We are not left without precious indication of his gestures and his looks + at this time, when he was a little past the age of fifty. Where so much + has been extravagantly written, or described in a journalistic key of + false emphasis, great is the value of a quiet portrait by one of those who + has studied Ibsen most intelligently. It is perhaps the most careful + pen-sketch of him in any language. + </p> + <p> + Mr. William Archer, then, has given the following account of his first + meeting with Ibsen. It was in the Scandinavia Club, in Rome, at the close + of 1881:— + </p> + <p> + I had been about a quarter of an hour in the room, and was standing close + to the door, when it opened, and in glided an undersized man with very + broad shoulders and a large, leonine head, wearing a long black frock-coat + with very broad lapels, on one of which a knot of red ribbon was + conspicuous. I knew him at once, but was a little taken aback by his low + stature. In spite of all the famous instances to the contrary, one + instinctively associates greatness with size. His natural height was even + somewhat diminished by a habit of bending forward slightly from the waist, + begotten, no doubt, of short-sightedness, and the need to peer into + things. He moved very slowly and noiselessly, with his hands behind his + back—an unobtrusive personality, which would have been insignificant + had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest of the frame. But + there was nothing insignificant about the high and massive forehead, + crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the small and pale but + piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or the thin lipped mouth, + depressed at the corners into a curve indicative of iron will, and set + between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as the hair. The most cursory + observer could not but recognize power and character in the head; yet one + would scarcely have guessed it to be the power of a poet, the character of + a prophet. Misled, perhaps, by the ribbon at the buttonhole, and by an + expression of reserve, almost of secretiveness, in the lines of the + tight-shut mouth, one would rather have supposed one's self face to face + with an eminent statesman or diplomatist. + </p> + <p> + With the further advance of years all that was singular in Ibsen's + appearance became accentuated. The hair and beard turned snowy white; the + former rose in a fierce sort of Oberland, the latter was kept square and + full, crossing underneath the truculent chin that escaped from it. As + Ibsen walked to a banquet in Christiania, he looked quite small under the + blaze of crosses, stars and belts which he displayed when he unbuttoned + the long black overcoat which enclosed him tightly. Never was he seen + without his hands behind him, and the poet Holger Drachmann started a + theory that as Ibsen could do nothing in the world but write, the Muse + tied his wrists together at the small of his back whenever they were not + actually engaged in composition. His regularity in all habits, his + mechanical ways, were the subject of much amusement. He must sit day after + day in the same chair, at the same table, in the same corner of the cafe, + and woe to the ignorant intruder who was accidentally beforehand with him. + No word was spoken, but the indignant poet stood at a distance, glaring, + until the stranger should be pierced with embarrassment, and should rise + and flee away. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen had the reputation of being dangerous and difficult of access. But + the evidence of those who knew him best point to his having been + phlegmatic rather than morose. He was "umbrageous," ready to be + discomposed by the action of others, but, if not vexed or startled, he was + elaborately courteous. He had a great dislike of any abrupt movement, and + if he was startled, he had the instinct of a wild animal, to bite. It was + a pain to him to have the chain of his thoughts suddenly broken, and he + could not bear to be addressed by chance acquaintances in street or café. + When he was resident in Munich and Dresden, the difficulty of obtaining an + interview with Ibsen was notorious. His wife protected him from strangers, + and if her defences broke down, and the stranger contrived to penetrate + the inner fastness, Ibsen might suddenly appear in the doorway, half in a + rage, half quivering with distress, and say, in heartrending tones, "Bitte + um Arbeitsruhe"—"Please let me work in peace!" They used to tell how + in Munich a rich baron, who was the local Maecenas of letters, once bored + Ibsen with a long recital of his love affairs, and ended by saying, with a + wonderful air of fatuity, "To you, Master, I come, because of your + unparalleled knowledge of the female heart. In your hands I place my fate. + Advise me, and I will follow your advice." Ibsen snapped his mouth and + glared through his spectacles; then in a low voice of concentrated fury he + said: "Get home, and—go to bed!" whereat his noble visitor withdrew, + clothed with indignation as with a garment. + </p> + <p> + His voice was uniform, soft and quiet. The bitter things he said seemed + the bitterer for his gentle way of saying them. As his shape grew burly + and his head of hair enormous, the smallness of his extremities became + accentuated. His little hands were always folded away as he tripped upon + his tiny feet. His movements were slow and distrait. He wasted few words + on the current incidents of life, and I was myself the witness, in 1899, + of his <i>sang-froid</i> under distressing circumstances. Ibsen was + descending a polished marble staircase when his feet slipped and he fell + swiftly, precipitately, downward. He must have injured himself severely, + he might have been killed, if two young gentlemen had not darted forward + below and caught him in their arms. Once more set the right way up, Ibsen + softly thanked his saviours with much frugality of phrase—"Tak, mine + Herrer!"—tenderly touched an abraded surface of his top-hat, and + marched forth homeward, unperturbed. + </p> + <p> + His silence had a curious effect on those in whose company he feasted; it + seemed to hypnotise them. The great Danish actress, Mrs. Heiberg, herself + the wittiest of talkers, said that to sit beside Ibsen was to peer into a + gold-mine and not catch a glitter from the hidden treasure. But his + dumbness was not so bitterly ironical as it was popularly supposed to be. + It came largely from a very strange passivity which made definite action + unwelcome to him. He could never be induced to pay visits, yet he would + urge his wife and his son to accept invitations, and when they returned he + would insist on being told every particular— who was there, what was + said, even what everybody wore. He never went to a theatre or + concert-room, except on the very rare occasions when he could be induced + to be present at the performance of his own plays. But he was extremely + fond of hearing about the stage. He had a memory for little things and an + observation of trifles which was extraordinary. He thought it amazing that + people could go into a room and not notice the pattern of the carpet, the + color of the curtains, the objects on the walls; these being details which + he could not help observing and retaining. This trait comes out in his + copious and minute stage directions. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen was simplicity itself; no man was ever less affected. But his + character was closed; he was perpetually on the defensive. He was seldom + confidential, he never "gave way"; his emotions and his affections were + genuine, but his heart was a fenced city. He had little sense of domestic + comfort; his rooms were bare and neat, with no personal objects save those + which belonged to his wife. Even in the days of his wealth, in the fine + house on Drammensvej, there was a singular absence of individuality about + his dwelling rooms. They might have been prepared for a rich American + traveller in some hotel. Through a large portion of his career in Germany + he lived in furnished rooms, not because he did not possess furniture of + his own, which was stored up, but because he paid no sort of homage to his + own penates. He had friends, but he did not cultivate them; he rather + permitted them, at intervals, to cultivate him. To Georg Brandes (March 6, + 1870) he wrote: "Friends are a costly luxury; and when one has devoted + one's self wholly to a profession and a mission here in life, there is no + place left for friends." The very charming story of Ibsen's throwing his + arms round old Hans Christian Andersen's neck, and forcing him to be + genial and amiable, [Note: <i>Samliv med Ibsen.</i>] is not inconsistent + with the general rule of passivity and shyness which he preserved in + matters of friendship. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen's reading was singularly limited. In his fine rooms on Drammensvej I + remember being struck by seeing no books at all, except the large Bible + which always lay at his side, and formed his constant study. He disliked + having his partiality for the Bible commented on, and if, as would + sometimes be the case, religious people expressed pleasure at finding him + deep in the sacred volume, Ibsen would roughly reply: "It is only for the + sake of the language." He was the enemy of anything which seemed to + approach cant and pretension, and he concealed his own views as closely as + he desired to understand the views of others. He possessed very little + knowledge of literature. The French he despised and repudiated, although + he certainly had studied Voltaire with advantage; of the Italians he knew + only Dante and of the English only Shakespeare, both of whom he had + studied in translations. In Danish he read and reread Holberg, who + throughout his life unquestionably remained Ibsen's favorite author; he + preserved a certain admiration for the Danish classics of his youth: + Heiberg, Hertz, Schack-Steffelt. In German, the foreign language which he + read most currently, he was strangely ignorant of Schiller and Heine, and + hostile to Goethe, although <i>Brand</i> and <i>Peer Gynt</i> must owe + something of their form to <i>Faust</i>. But the German poets whom he + really enjoyed were two dramatists of the age preceding his own, Otto + Ludwig (1813-65) and Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). Each of these playwrights + had been occupied in making certain reforms, of a realistic tendency, in + the existing tradition of the stage, and each of them dealt, before any + one else in Europe did so, with "problems" on the stage. These two German + poets, but Hebbel particularly, passed from romanticism to realism, and so + on to mysticism, in a manner fascinating to Ibsen, whom it is possible + that they influenced. [Note: It would be interesting to compare <i>Die + Niebelungen</i>, the trilogy which Hebbel published in 1862, in which the + struggle between pagan and Christian ideals of conduct is analyzed, with + Ibsen's <i>Emperor and Galilean</i>.] He remained, in later years, + persistently ignorant of Zola, and of Tolstoi he had read, with + contemptuous disapproval, only some of the polemical pamphlets. He said to + me, in 1899, of the great Russian: "Tolstoi?—he is mad!" with a + screwing up of the features such as a child makes at the thought of a + black draught. + </p> + <p> + If he read at all, it was poetry. His indifference to music was complete; + he had, in fact, no ear whatever, and could not distinguish one tune from + another. His efforts to appreciate the music which Grieg made for <i>Peer + Gynt</i> were pathetic. But for verse his sense was exceedingly delicate, + and the sound of poetry gave him acute pleasure. At times, when his nerves + were overstrained, he was fatigued by the riot of rhymes which pursued him + through his dreams, and which his memory vainly strove to recapture. For + academic philosophy and systems of philosophic thought he had a great + impatience. The vexed question of what he owed to the eminent Danish + philosopher, Sören Kierkegaard, has never been solved. Brandes has + insisted, again and again, on the close relation between <i>Brand</i> and + other works of Ibsen and the famous <i>Either-Or</i> of Kierkegaard; "it + actually seems," he says, "as though Ibsen had aspired to the honor of + being called Kierkegaard's poet." Ibsen, however, aspired to no such + honor, and, while he never actually denied the influence, the relation + between him and the philosopher seems to be much rather one of parallelism + than of imitation. Ibsen was a poetical psychologist of the first order, + but he could not bring himself to read the prose of the professional + thinkers. + </p> + <p> + In his attitude both to philosophical and poetical literature Ibsen is + with such apparently remote figures as Guy de Maupassant and Shelley; in + his realism and his mysticism he is unrelated to immediate predecessors, + and has no wish to be a disciple of the dead. His extreme interest in the + observation of ethical problems is not identified with any curiosity about + what philosophical writers have said on similar subjects. Weininger has + pointed out that Ibsen's philosophy is radically the same as that of Kant, + yet there is no evidence that Ibsen had ever studied or had even turned + over the pages of the <i>Criticism of Pure Reason</i>. It is not necessary + to suppose that he had done so. The peculiar aspect of the Ego as the + principal and ultimately sole guide to truth was revealed anew to the + Norwegian poet, and references to Kant, or to Fichte, or to Kierkegaard, + seem, therefore, to be beside the mark. The watchword of <i>Brand</i>, + with his cry of "All or Nothing," his absolute repudiation of compromise, + was not a literary conception, but was founded, without the help of books, + on a profound contemplation of human nature, mainly, no doubt, as Ibsen + found it in himself. But in these days of the tyranny of literature it is + curious to meet with an author of the first rank who worked without a + library. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen's study of women was evidently so close, and what he writes about + them is usually so penetrating, that many legends have naturally sprung up + about the manner in which he gained his experience. Of these, most are + pure fiction. As a matter of fact, Ibsen was shy with women, and + unless they took the initiative, he contented himself with watching them + from a distance: and noting their ways in silence. The early flirtation + with Miss Rikke Hoist at Bergen, which takes so prominent a place in + Ibsen's story mainly because such incidents were extremely rare in it, is + a typical instance. If this young girl of sixteen had not taken the matter + into her own hands, running up the steps of the hotel and flinging her + posy of flowers into the face of the young poet, the incident would have + closed in his watching her down the street, while the fire smouldered in + his eyes. It was not until her fresh field- blossoms had struck him on the + cheek that he was emboldened to follow her and to send her the lyrical + roses and auriculas which live forever in his poems. If we wish to note + the difference of temperament, we have but to contrast Ibsen's affair with + Rikke Holst with Goethe's attitude to Christiana Vulpius; in doing so, we + bring the passive and the active lover face to face. + </p> + <p> + Ibsen would gladly have married his flower of the field, a vision of whose + bright, untrammelled adolescence reappears again and again in his works, + and plainly in <i>The Master-Builder</i>. But he escaped a great danger in + failing to secure her as his wife, for Rikke Holst, when she had lost her + girlish freshness, would probably have had little character and no culture + to fall back upon. He waited, fortunately for his happiness, until he + secured Susannah Thoresen. Mrs. Ibsen, his faithful guide, guardian and + companion for half a century, will live among the entirely successful + wives of difficult men of genius. In the midst of the spiteful gossip of + Christiania she had to traverse her <i>via dolorosa</i>, for it was part + of the fun of the journalists to represent this husband and wife as + permanently alienated. That Ibsen was easy to live with is not probable, + but his wife not merely contrived to do it, but by her watchfulness, her + adroitness, and, when necessary, by her firmness of decision, she smoothed + the path for the great man whom she adored, and who was to her a great + wilful child to be cajoled and circumvented. He was absolutely dependent + on her, although he affected amusing airs of independence; and if she + absented herself, there were soon cries in the house of "My Cat, My Cat!" + the pet name by which he called his wife. Of their domestic ways little is + yet known in detail, but everything can be imagined. + </p> + <p> + To the enigma of Ibsen's character it was believed that his private + correspondence might supply a key. His letters were collected and arranged + while he was still alive, but he was not any longer in a mental condition + which permitted him to offer any help in comment to his editors. His son, + Mr. Sigurd Ibsen, superintended the work, and two careful bibliographers, + Mr. Halvdan Koht and Mr. Julius Elias, carried out the scheme in two + volumes [Note: <i>Breve fra Henrik Ibsen</i>, Gyldendalske Boghadel, + 1904.], with the execution of which no fault can be suggested. But the + enigma remained unsolved; the sphinx spoke much, but failed to answer the + questions we had been asking. These letters, in the first place, suffer + from the fact that Ibsen was a relentless destroyer of documents; they are + all written by him; not one single example had been preserved of the + correspondence to which this is the reply. Then Ibsen's letters, as + revealers of the unseen mood, are particularly unsatisfactory. With rare + exceptions, he remains throughout them tightly buttoned up in his long and + legendary frock-coat. There is no laughter and no tears in his letters; he + is occasionally extremely angry, and exudes drops of poison, like the + captive scorpion which he caught when he was in Italy, and loved to watch + and tease. But there is no self-abandonment, and very little emotion; the + letters are principally historical and critical, "finger-posts for + commentators." They give valuable information about the genius of his + works, but they tell almost less about his inner moral nature than do his + imaginative writings. + </p> + <p> + In his youth the scorpion in Ibsen's heart seems to have stung him + occasionally to acts which afterwards filled him with embarrassment. We + hear that in his Bergen days he sent to Lading, his fellow-teacher at the + theatre, a challenge of which, when the mood was over, he was greatly + ashamed. It is said that on another occasion, under the pressure of + annoyance, maddened with fear and insomnia, he sprang out of bed in his + shirt and tried to throw himself into the sea off one of the quays in the + harbor. Such performances were futile and ridiculous, and they belong only + to his youth. It seems certain that he schooled himself to the suppression + of such evidences of his anger, and that he did so largely by shutting up + within his breast all the fire that rose there. The <i>Correspondence</i>—dark + lantern as it is—seems to illuminate this condition of things; we + see before us Ibsen with his hands clenched, his mouth tightly shut, rigid + with determination not to "let himself go," the eyes alone blazing behind + the gleaming spectacles. + </p> + <p> + An instance of his suppression of personal feeling may be offered. The + lengthiest of all Ibsen's published letters describes to Brandes (April + 25, 1866) the suicide, at Rome, of a young Danish lawyer, Ludvig David, of + whom Ibsen had seen a good deal. The lad threw himself head-foremost out + of window, in a crisis of fever. Ibsen writes down all the minutest + details with feeling and refinement, but with as little sympathetic + emotion as if he was drawing up a report for the police. With this trait + may be compared his extreme interest in the detailed accounts of public + trials; he liked to read exactly what the prisoner said, and all the + evidence of the witnesses. In this Ibsen resembled Robert Browning, whose + curiosity about the small incidents surrounding a large event was + boundless. When Ibsen, in the course of such an investigation, found the + real purpose of some strange act dawn upon him, he exhibited an almost + childish pleasure; and this was doubled when the interpretation was one + which had not presented itself to the conventional legal authorities. + </p> + <p> + In everything connected with the execution of his own work there was no + limit to the pains which he was willing to take. His handwriting had + always been neat, but it was commonplace in his early years. The exquisite + calligraphy which he ultimately used on every occasion, and the beauty of + which was famous far and wide, he adopted deliberately when he was in Rome + in 1862. To the end of his life, although in the latest years the letters + lost, from the shakiness of his hand, some of their almost Chinese + perfection, he wrote his smallest notes in this character. His zeal for + elaboration as an artist led him to collect a mass of consistent imaginary + information about the personages in his plays, who became to him + absolutely real. It is related how, some one happening to say that Nora, + in <i>A Doll's House</i>, had a curious name, Ibsen immediately replied, + "Oh! her full name was Leonora; but that was shortened to Nora when she + was quite a little girl. Of course, you know, she was terribly spoilt by + her parents." Nothing of this is revealed in the play itself, but Ibsen + was familiar with the past history of all the characters he created. All + through his career he seems to have been long haunted by the central + notion of his pieces, and to have laid it aside, sometimes for many years, + until a set of incidents spontaneously crystallized around it. When the + medium in which he was going to work became certain he would put himself + through a long course of study in the technical phraseology appropriate to + the subject. No pains were too great to prepare him for the final task. + </p> + <p> + When Mr. Archer visited Ibsen in the Harmonien Hotel at Saeby in 1887 he + extracted some valuable evidence from him as to his methods of + composition:— + </p> + <p> + It seems that the <i>idea</i> of a piece generally presents itself before + the characters and incidents, though, when I put this to him flatly, he + denied it. It seems to follow, however, from his saying that there is a + certain stage in the incubation of a play when it might as easily turn + into all essay as into a drama. He has to incarnate the ideas, as it were, + in character and incident, before the actual work of creation can be said + to have fairly begun. Different plans and ideas, he admits, often flow + together, and the play he ultimately produces is sometimes very unlike the + intention with which he set out. He writes and rewrites, scribbles and + destroys, an enormous amount before he makes the exquisite fair copy he + sends to Copenhagen. + </p> + <p> + He altered, as we have said, the printed text of his earlier works, in + order to bring them into harmony with his finished style, but he did not + do this, so far as I remember, after the publication of <i>Brand</i>. In + the case of all the dramas of his maturity he modified nothing when the + work had once been given to the world. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> <a name="linkc10" id="linkc10"></a><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER X + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Having accustomed ourselves to regard Ibsen as a disturbing and + revolutionizing force, which met with the utmost resistance at the outset, + and was gradually accepted before the close of his career, we may try to + define what the nature of his revolt was, and what it was, precisely, that + he attacked. It may be roughly said that what peculiarly roused the + animosity of Ibsen was the character which has become stereotyped in one + order of ideas, good in themselves but gradually outworn by use, and which + cannot admit ideas of a new kind. Ibsen meditated upon the obscurantism of + the old régime until he created figures like Rosmer, in whom the + characteristics of that school are crystallized. From the point of view + which would enter sympathetically into the soul of Ibsen and look out on + the world from his eyes, there is no one of his plays more valuable in its + purely theoretic way than <i>Rosmersholm</i>. It dissects the decrepitude + of ancient formulas, it surveys the ruin of ancient faiths. The curse of + heredity lies upon Rosmer, who is highly intelligent up to a certain + point, but who can go no further. Even if he is persuaded that a new + course of action would be salutary, he cannot move—he is bound in + invisible chains. It is useless to argue with Rosmer; his reason accepts + the line of logic, but he simply cannot, when it comes to action, cross + the bridge where Beate threw herself into the torrent. + </p> + <p> + But Ibsen had not the ardor of the fighting optimist. He was one who + "doubted clouds would break," who dreamed, since "right was worsted, wrong + would triumph." With Robert Browning he had but this one thing in common, + that both were fighters, both "held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight + better," but the dark fatalism of the Norwegian poet was in other things + in entire opposition to the sunshiny hopefulness of the English one. + Browning and Ibsen alike considered that the race must be reformed + periodically or it would die. The former anticipated reform as cheerily as + the sower expects harvest. Ibsen had no such happy certainty. He was + convinced of the necessity of breaking up the old illusions, the + imaginative call for revolt, but his faith wavered as to the success of + the new movements. The old order, in its resistance to all change, is very + strong. It may be shaken, but it is the work of a blind Sampson, and no + less, to bring it rattling to the ground. In <i>Rosmersholm</i>, all the + modern thought, all the vitality, all the lucidity belong to Rebecca, but + the decrepit formulas are stoutly intrenched. In the end it is not the new + idea who conquers; it is the antique house, with its traditions, its + avenging vision of white horses, which breaks the too-clairvoyant Rebecca. + </p> + <p> + This doubt of the final success of intelligence, this obstinate question + whether, after all, as we so glibly intimate, the old order changeth at + all, whether, on the contrary, it has not become a Juggernaut car that + crushes all originality and independence out of action, this breathes more + and more plainly out of the progressing work of Ibsen. Hedda Gabler + condemns the old order, in its dulness, its stifling mediocrity, but she + is unable to adapt her energy to any wholesome system of new ideas, and + she sinks into deeper moral dissolution. She hates all that has been done, + yet can herself do nothing, and she represents, in symbol, that detestable + condition of spirit which cannot create, though it sees the need of + creation, and can only show the irritation which its own sterility awakens + within it by destruction. All Hedda can actually do, to assert her energy, + is to burn the MS. of Lövborg, and to kill herself with General + Gabler's pistol. The race must be reformed or die; the Hedda Gablers which + adorn its latest phase do best to die. + </p> + <p> + We have seen that Ibsen's theory was that love of self is the fundamental + principle of all activity. It is the instinct of self- preservation and + self-amelioration which leads to every manifestation of revolt against + stereotyped formulas of conduct. Between the excessive ideality of Rebecca + and the decadent sterility of Hedda Gabler comes another type, perhaps + more sympathetic than either, the master-builder Solness. He, too, is led + to condemn the old order, but in the act of improving it he is overwhelmed + upon his pinnacle, and swoons to death, "dizzy, lost, yet unupbraiding." + Ibsen's exact meaning in the detail of these symbolic plays will long be + discussed, but they repay the closest and most reiterated study. Perhaps + the most curious of all is <i>The Lady from the Sea</i>, which has been + examined from the technically psychological view by a learned French + philosopher, M. Jules de Gaultier. For M. de Gaultier the interest which + attaches to Ibsen's conception of human life, with its conflicting + instincts and responsibilities, is more fully centred in <i>The Lady from + the Sea</i> than in any other of his productions. + </p> + <p> + The theory of the French writer is that Ibsen's constant aim is to + reconcile and to conciliate the two biological hypotheses which have + divided opinion in the nineteenth century, and which are known + respectively by the names of Cuvier and Lamarck; namely, that of the + invariability of species and that of the mutability of organic forms. In + the reconciliation of these hypotheses Ibsen finds the only process which + is truly encouraging to life. According to this theory, all the trouble, + all the weariness, all the waste of moral existences around us comes from + the neglect of one or other of these principles, and true health, social + or individual, is impossible without the harmonious application of them + both. According to this view, the apotheosis of Ibsen's genius, or at + least the most successful elucidation of his scheme of ideological drama, + is reached in the scene in <i>The Lady from the Sea</i> where Wangel + succeeds in winning the heart of Ellida back from the fascination of the + Stranger. It is certainly in this mysterious and strangely attractive play + that Ibsen has insisted, more than anywhere else, on the necessity of + taking physiology into consideration in every discussion of morals. He + refers, like a zoölogist, to the laws which regulate the formation + and the evolution of species, and the decision of Ellida, on which so much + depends, is an amazing example of the limitation of the power of change + produced by heredity. The extraordinary ingenuity of M. de Gaultier's + analysis of this play deserves recognition; whether it can quite be + accepted, as embraced by Ibsen's intention, may be doubtful. At the same + time, let us recollect that, however subtle our refinements become, the + instinct of Ibsen was probably subtler still. + </p> + <p> + In 1850, when Ibsen first crept forward, with the glimmering taper of his + Catilina, there was but one person in the world who fancied that the light + might pass from lamp to lamp and in half a century form an important part + of the intellectual illumination of Europe. The one person who did suspect + it was, of course, Ibsen himself. Against all probability and + common-sense, this apothecary's assistant, this ill- educated youth who + had just been plucked in his preliminary examination, who positively was, + and remained, unable to pass the first tests and become a student at the + University, maintained in his inmost soul the belief that he was born to + be "a king of thought." The impression is perhaps not uncommon among + ill-educated lads; what makes the case unique, and defeats our educational + formulas, is that it happened to be true. But the impact of Ibsen with the + social order of his age was unlucky, we see, from the first; it was + perhaps more unlucky than that of any other great man of the same class + with whose biography we have been made acquainted. He was at daggers drawn + with all that was successful and respectable and "nice" from the outset of + his career until near the end of it. + </p> + <p> + Hence we need not be surprised if in the tone of his message to the world + there is something acrimonious, something that tastes in the mouth like + aloes. He prepared a dose for a sick world, and he made it as nauseous and + astringent as he could, for he was not inclined to be one of those + physicians who mix jam with their julep. There was no other writer of + genius in the nineteenth century who was so bitter in dealing with human + frailty as Ibsen was. By the side of his cruel clearness the satire of + Carlyle is bluster, the diatribes of Leopardi shrill and thin. All other + reformers seem angry and benevolent by turns, Ibsen is uniformly and + impartially stern. That he probed deeper into the problems of life than + any other modern dramatist is acknowledged, but it was his surgical + calmness which enabled him to do it. The problem-plays of Alexandre Dumas + <i>fils</i> flutter with emotion, with prejudice and pardon. But Ibsen, + without impatience, examines under his microscope all the protean forms of + organic social life and coldly draws up his diagnosis like a report. We + have to think of him as thus ceaselessly occupied. We have seen that, long + before a sentence was written, he had invented and studied, in its + remotest branches, the life-history of the characters who were to move in + his play. Nothing was unknown to him of their experience, and for nearly + two years, like a coral-insect, he was building up the scheme of them in + silence. Odd little objects, fetiches which represented people to him, + stood arranged on his writing table, and were never to be touched. He + gazed at them until, as if by some feat of black magic, he turned them + into living persons, typical and yet individual. + </p> + <p> + We have recorded that the actual writing down of the dialogue was often + swift and easy, when the period of incubation was complete. Each of + Ibsen's plays presupposes a long history behind it; each starts like an + ancient Greek tragedy, in the full process of catastrophe. This method of + composition was extraordinary, was perhaps, in modern times, unparalleled. + It accounted in measure for the coherency, the inevitability, of all the + detail, but it also accounted for some of the difficulties which meet us + in the task of interpretation. Ibsen calls for an expositor, and will + doubtless give occupation to an endless series of scholiasts. They will + not easily exhaust their theme, and to the last something will escape, + something will defy their most careful examination. It is not + disrespectful to his memory to claim that Ibsen sometimes packed his stuff + too closely. Criticism, when it marvels most at the wonder of his genius, + is constrained to believe that he sometimes threw too much of his soul + into his composition, that he did not stand far enough away from it always + to command its general effect. The result, especially in the later + symbolical plays, is too vibratory, and excites the spectator too much. + </p> + <p> + One very curious example of Ibsen's minute care is found in the + copiousness of his stage directions. Later playwrights have imitated him + in this, and we have grown used to it; but thirty years ago such + minuteness seemed extravagant and needless. As a fact, it was essential to + the absolutely complete image which Ibsen desired to produce. The stage + directions in his plays cannot be "skipped" by any reader who desires to + follow the dramatist's thought step by step without losing the least link. + These notes of his intention will be of ever-increasing value as the + recollection of his personal wishes is lost. In 1899 Ibsen remarked to me + that it was almost useless for actors nowadays to try to perform the + comedies of Holberg, because there were no stage directions and the + tradition was lost. Of his own work, fortunately, that can never be said. + Dr. Verrall, in his brilliant and penetrating studies of the Greek + Tragedies, has pointed out more than once the "undesigned and unforeseen + defect with which, in studying ancient drama, we must perpetually reckon," + namely, the loss of the action and of the equivalent stage directions. It + is easy to imagine "what problems Shakespeare would present if he were + printed like the <i>Poetae Scenici Graeci</i>," and not more difficult to + realize how many things there would be to puzzle us in <i>Ghosts</i> and + <i>The Wild Duck</i> if we possessed nothing but the bare text. + </p> + <p> + The body of work so carefully conceived, so long maintained, so + passionately executed, was far too disturbing in its character to be + welcome at first. In the early eighties the name of Ibsen was loathed in + Norway, and the attacks on him which filled the press were often of an + extravagant character. At the present moment any one conversant with + Norwegian society who will ask a priest or a schoolmaster, an officer or a + doctor, what has been the effect of Ibsen's influence, will be surprised + at the unanimity of the reply. Opinions may differ as to the + attractiveness of the poet's art or of its skill, but there is an almost + universal admission of its beneficial tendency. Scarcely will a voice be + found to demur to the statement that Ibsen let fresh air and light into + the national life, that he roughly but thoroughly awakened the national + conscience, that even works like <i>Ghosts</i>, which shocked, and works + like <i>Rosmersholm</i>, which insulted the prejudices of his countrymen, + were excellent in their result. The conquest of Norway by this dramatist, + who reviled and attacked and abandoned his native land, who railed at + every national habit and showed a worm at the root of every national + tradition, is amazing. The fierce old man lived long enough to be + accompanied to his grave "to the noise of the mourning of a nation," and + he who had almost starved in exile to be conducted to the last resting + place by a Parliament and a King. + </p> + <p> + It must always be borne in mind that, although Ibsen's appeal is to the + whole world—his determination to use prose aiding him vastly in this + dissemination—yet it is to Norway that he belongs, and it is at home + that he is best understood. No matter how acrid his tone, no matter how + hard and savage the voice with which he prophesied, the accord between his + country and himself was complete long before the prophet died. As he + walked about, the strange, picturesque little old man, in the streets of + Christiania, his fellow-citizens gazed at him with a little fear, but with + some affection and with unbounded reverence. They understood at last what + the meaning of his message had been, and how closely it applied to + themselves, and how much the richer and healthier for it their civic + atmosphere had become. They would say, as the soul of Dante said in the <i>New + Life</i>:— + </p> + <p> + è costui Che viene a consolar la nostra mente, Ed è la sua + tanto possente, Ch'altro pensier non lascia star con nui. + </p> + <p> + No words, surely, could better express the intensity with which Ibsen had + pressed his moral quality, his <i>virtù</i>, upon the Norwegian + conscience, not halting in his pursuit till he had captured it and had + banished from it all other ideals of conduct. No one who knows will doubt + that the recent events in which Norway has taken so chivalric, and at the + same time so winning and gracious, an attitude in the eyes of the world, + owe not a little to their being the work of a generation nurtured in that + new temper of mind, that <i>spiritel nuovo d'amore</i> which was + inculcated by the whole work of Ibsen. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + +***** This file should be named 8152-h.htm or 8152-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/1/5/8152/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Henrik Ibsen + +Author: Edmund Gosse + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8152] +Posting Date: August 6, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + + + + + +HENRIK IBSEN + +By Edmund Grosse + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER I: CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + CHAPTER II: EARLY INFLUENCES + CHAPTER III: LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) + CHAPTER IV: THE SATIRES (1857-67) + CHAPTER V: 1868-75 + CHAPTER VI: 1875-82 + CHAPTER VII: 1883-91 + CHAPTER VIII: LAST YEARS + CHAPTER IX: PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS + CHAPTER X: INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + Henrik Ibsen + Ibsen in 1868 + Ibsen in Dresden, October, 1873 + From a drawing by Gustav Laerum + Facsimile of Ibsen's Handwriting + Ibsen. From the painting by Eilif Petersen + Bust of Ibsen, about 1865 + + + + +PREFACE + +Numerous and varied as have been the analyses of Ibsen's works +published, in all languages, since the completion of his writings, there +exists no biographical study which brings together, on a general plan, +what has been recorded of his adventures as an author. Hitherto the only +accepted Life of Ibsen has been _Et literaert Livsbillede_, published +in 1888 by Henrik Jaeger; of this an English translation was issued in +1890. Henrik Jaeger (who must not be confounded with the novelist, Hans +Henrik Jaeger) was a lecturer and dramatic critic, residing near Bergen, +whose book would possess little value had he not succeeded in persuading +Ibsen to give him a good deal of valuable information respecting his +early life in that city. In its own day, principally on this account, +Jaeger's volume was useful, supplying a large number of facts which were +new to the public. But the advance of Ibsen's activity, and the increase +of knowledge since his death, have so much extended and modified the +poet's history that _Et literaert Livsbillede_ has become obsolete. + +The principal authorities of which I have made use in the following +pages are the minute bibliographical _Oplysninger_ of J. B. Halvorsen, +marvels of ingenious labor, continued after Halvorsen's death by Sten +Konow (1901); the _Letters of Henrik Ibsen_, published in two volumes, +by H. Koht and J. Elias, in 1904, and now issued in an English +translation (Hodder & Stoughton); the recollections and notes of various +friends, published in the periodicals of Scandinavia and Germany +after his death; T. Blanc's _Et Bidrag til den Ibsenskte Digtnings +Scenehistorie_ (1906); and, most of all, the invaluable _Samliv med +Ibsen_ (1906) of Johan Paulsen. This last-mentioned writer aspires, in +measure, to be Ibsen's Boswell, and his book is a series of chapters +reminiscent of the dramatist's talk and manners, chiefly during those +central years of his life which he spent in Germany. It is a trivial, +naive and rather thin production, but it has something of the true +Boswellian touch, and builds up before us a lifelike portrait. + +From the materials, too, collected for many years past by Mr. William +Archer, I have received important help. Indeed, of Mr. Archer it is +difficult for an English student of Ibsen to speak with moderation. +It is true that thirty-six years ago some of Ibsen's early metrical +writings fell into the hands of the writer of this little volume, and +that I had the privilege, in consequence, of being the first person to +introduce Ibsen's name to the British public. Nor will I pretend for +a moment that it is not a gratification to me, after so many years and +after such surprising developments, to know that this was the fact. But, +save for this accident of time, it was Mr. Archer and no other who was +really the introducer of Ibsen to English readers. For a quarter of a +century he was the protagonist in the fight against misconstruction and +stupidity; with wonderful courage, with not less wonderful good temper +and persistency, he insisted on making the true Ibsen take the place of +the false, and on securing for him the recognition due to his genius. +Mr. William Archer has his reward; his own name is permanently attached +to the intelligent appreciation of the Norwegian playwright in England +and America. + +In these pages, where the space at my disposal was so small, I have not +been willing to waste it by repeating the plots of any of those plays of +Ibsen which are open to the English reader. It would please me best if +this book might be read in connection with the final edition of _Ibsen's +Complete Dramatic Works_, now being prepared by Mr. Archer in eleven +volumes (W. Heinemann, 1907). If we may judge of the whole work by those +volumes of it which have already appeared, I have little hesitation in +saying that no other foreign author of the second half of the nineteenth +century has been so ably and exhaustively edited in English as Ibsen has +been in this instance. + +The reader who knows the Dano-Norwegian language may further be +recommended to the study of Carl Naerup's _Norsk Litteraturhistories +siste Tidsrum_ (1905), a critical history of Norwegian literature since +1890, which is invaluable in giving a notion of the effect of modern +ideas on the very numerous younger writers of Norway, scarcely one of +whom has not been influenced in one direction or another by the tyranny +of Ibsen's personal genius. What has been written about Ibsen in England +and France has often missed something of its historical value by not +taking into consideration that movement of intellectual life in Norway +which has surrounded him and which he has stimulated. Perhaps I may be +allowed to say of my little book that this side of the subject has been +particularly borne in mind in the course of its composition. + +E. G. + +KLOBENSTEIN. + + + +CHAPTER I + +CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + +The parentage of the poet has been traced back to a certain Danish +skipper, Peter Ibsen, who, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, +made his way over from Stege, the capital of the island of Moeen, and +became a citizen of Bergen. From that time forth the men of the +family, all following the sea in their youth, jovial men of a humorous +disposition, continued to haunt the coasts of Norway, marrying sinister +and taciturn wives, who, by the way, were always, it would seem, Danes +or Germans or Scotswomen, so that positively the poet had, after a +hundred years and more of Norwegian habitation, not one drop of pure +Norse blood to inherit from his parents. His grandfather, Henrik, was +wrecked in 1798 in his own ship, which went down with all souls lost on +Hesnaes, near Grimstad; this reef is the scene of Ibsen's animated poem +of Terje Viken. His father, Knud, who was born in 1797, married in 1825 +a German, Marichen Cornelia Martie Altenburg, of the same town of Skien; +she was one year his senior, and the daughter of a merchant. It was in +1771 that the Ibsens, leaving Bergen, had settled in Skien, which was, +and still is, an important centre of the timber and shipping trades on +the south-east shore of the country. + +It may be roughly said that Skien, in the Danish days, was a sort of +Poole or Dartmouth, existing solely for purposes of marine merchandise, +and depending for prosperity, and life itself, on the sea. Much of a +wire-drawn ingenuity has been conjectured about the probable strains +of heredity which met in Ibsen. It is not necessary to do more than +to recognize the slight but obstinate exoticism, which kept all his +forbears more or less foreigners still in their Norwegian home; and to +insist on the mixture of adventurousness and plain common sense which +marked their movements by sea and shore. The stock was intensely +provincial, intensely unambitious; it would be difficult to find +anywhere a specimen of the lower middle class more consistent than the +Ibsens had been in preserving their respectable dead level. Even in that +inability to resist the call of the sea, generation after generation, +if there was a little of the dare-devil there was still more of the +conventional citizen. It is, in fact, a vain attempt to detect elements +of his ancestors in the extremely startling and unprecedented son who +was born to Knud and Marichen Ibsen two years and three months after +their marriage. + +This son, who was baptized Henrik Johan, although he never used the +second name, was born in a large edifice known as the Stockmann House, +in the centre of the town of Skien, on March 20, The house stood on one +side of a large, open square; the town pillory was at the right of and +the mad-house, the lock-up and other amiable urban institutions to the +left; in front was Latin school and the grammar school, while the church +occupied the middle of the square. Over this stern prospect the tourist +can no longer sentimentalize, for the whole of this part of Skien +was burned down in 1886, to the poet's unbridled satisfaction. "The +inhabitants of Skien," he said with grim humor, "were quite unworthy to +possess my birthplace." + +He declared that the harsh elements of landscape, mentioned above, were +those which earliest captivated his infant attention, and he added that +the square space, with the church in the midst of it, was filled all day +long with the dull and droning sound of many waterfalls, while from dawn +to dusk this drone of waters was constantly cut through by a sound that +was like the sharp screaming and moaning of women. This was caused by +hundreds of saws at work beside the waterfalls, taking advantage of that +force. "Afterwards, when I read about the guillotine, I always thought +of those saws," said the poet, whose earliest flight of fancy seems to +have been this association of womanhood with the shriek of the sawmill. + +In 1888, just before his sixtieth birthday, Ibsen wrote out for Henrik +Jaeger certain autobiographical recollections of his childhood. It is +from these that the striking phrase about the scream of the saws is +taken, and that is perhaps the most telling of these infant memories, +many of which are slight and naive. It is interesting, however, to find +that his earliest impressions of life at home were of an optimistic +character. "Skien," he says, "in my young days, was an exceedingly +lively and sociable place, quite unlike what it afterwards became. +Several highly cultivated and wealthy families lived in the town itself +or close by on their estates. Most of these families were more or less +closely related, and dances, dinners and music parties followed each +other, winter and summer, in almost unbroken sequence. Many travellers, +too, passed through the town, and, as there were as yet no regular inns, +they lodged with friends or connections. We almost always had guests in +our large, roomy house, especially at Christmas and Fair-time, when the +house was full, and we kept open table from morning till night." The +mind reverts to the majestic old wooden mansions which play so prominent +a part in Thomas Krag's novels, or to the house of Mrs. Solness' +parents, the burning down of which started the Master-Builder's +fortunes. Most of these grand old timber houses in Norway have indeed, +by this time, been so burned down. + +We may speculate on what the effect of this genial open-handedness might +have been, had it lasted, on the genius of the poet. But fortune had +harsher views of what befitted the training of so acrid a nature. When +Ibsen was eight years of age, his father's business was found to be in +such disorder that everything had to be sold to meet his creditors. The +only piece of property left when this process had been gone through +was a little broken-down farmhouse called Venstoeb, in the outskirts of +Skien. Ibsen afterwards stated that those who had taken most advantage +of his parents' hospitality in their prosperous days were precisely +those who now most markedly turned a cold shoulder on them. It is likely +enough that this may have been the case, but one sees how inevitably +Ibsen would, in after years, be convinced that it was. He believed +himself to have been, personally, much mortified and humiliated in +childhood by the change in the family status. Already, by all accounts, +he had begun to live a life of moral isolation. His excellent sister +long afterwards described him as an unsociable child, never a pleasant +companion, and out of sympathy with all the rest of the family. + +We recollect, in _The Wild Duck_, the garret which was the domain of +Hedvig and of that symbolic bird. At Venstoeb, the infant Ibsen possessed +a like retreat, a little room near the back entrance, which was sacred +to him and into the fastness of which he was accustomed to bolt himself. +Here were some dreary old books, among others Harrison's folio _History +of the City of London_, as well as a paint-box, an hour-glass, an +extinct eight-day clock, properties which were faithfully introduced, +half a century later, into _The Wild Duck_. His sister says that the +only outdoor amusement he cared for as a boy was building, and she +describes the prolonged construction of a castle, in the spirit of _The +Master-Builder_. + +Very soon he began to go to school, but to neither of the public +institutions in the town. He attended what is described as a "small +middle-class school," kept by a man called Johan Hansen, who was the +only person connected with his childhood, except his sister, for whom +the poet retained in after life any agreeable sentiment. "Johan Hansen," +he says, "had a mild, amiable temper, like that of a child," and when he +died, in 1865, Ibsen mourned him. The sexton at Skien, who helped in the +lessons, described the poet afterwards as "a quiet boy with a pair of +wonderful eyes, but with no sort of cleverness except an unusual +gift for drawing." Hansen taught Ibsen Latin and theology, gently, +perseveringly, without any striking results; that the pupil afterwards +boasted of having successfully perused Phaedrus in the original is in +itself significant. So little was talent expected from him that when, at +the age of about fifteen, he composed a rather melodramatic description +of a dream, the schoolmaster looked at him gloomily, and said he must +have copied it out of some book! One can imagine the shocked silence of +the author, "passive at the nadir of dismay." + +No great wild swan of the flocks of Phoebus ever began life as a more +ungainly duckling than Ibsen did. The ingenuity of biographers has +done its best to brighten up the dreary record of his childhood with +anecdotes, yet the sum of them all is but a dismal story. The only +talent which was supposed to lurk in the napkin was that for painting. +A little while before he left school, he was found to have been working +hard with water-colors. Various persons have recalled finished works of +the young Ibsen--a romantic landscape of the ironworks at Fossum, a view +from the windows at Venstoeb, a boy in peasant dress seated on a rock, +the latter described by a dignitary of the church as "awfully splendid," +overmaade praegtigt. One sees what kind of painting this must have +been, founded on some impression of Fearnley and Tidemann, a +far-away following of the new "national" art of the praiseworthy +"patriot-painters" of the school of Dahl. + +It is interesting to remember that Pope, who had considerable +intellectual relationship with Ibsen, also nourished in childhood the +ambition to be a painter, and drudged away at his easel for weeks and +months. As he to the insipid Jervases and Knellers whom he copied, +so Ibsen to the conscientious romantic artists of Norway's prime. In +neither case do we wish that an Ibsen or a Pope should be secured for +the National Gallery, but it is highly significant that such earnest +students of precise excellence in another art should first of all have +schooled their eyes to exactitude by grappling with form and color. + +In 1843, being fifteen years of age, Ibsen was confirmed and taken away +from school. These events marked the beginning of adolescence with a +young middle-class Norwegian of those days, for whom the future proposed +no task in life demanding a more elaborate education than the local +schoolmaster could give. Ibsen announced his wish to be a professional +artist, but that was one which could not be indulged. Until a later date +than this, every artist in Norway was forced abroad for the necessary +technical training: as a rule, students went to Dresden, because J. +C. Dahl was there; but many settled in Duesseldorf, where the teaching +attracted them. In any case, the adoption of a plastic profession meant +a long and serious expenditure of money, together with a very doubtful +prospect of ultimate remuneration. Fearnley, who had seemed the very +genius of Norwegian art, had just (1842) died, having scarcely begun to +sell his pictures, at the age of forty. It is not surprising that Knud +Ibsen, whose to were in a worse condition than ever, refused even to +consider a course of life which would entail a heavy and long-continued +expense. + +Ibsen hung about at home for a few months, then, shortly before his +sixteenth birthday, he apprenticed to an apothecary of the name of Mann, +at the little town of Grimstad, between Arendal and Christianssand, on +the extreme south-east corner of the Norwegian coast. This was his home +for more than five years; here he became a poet, and here the peculiar +color and tone of his temperament were developed. So far as the genius +of a very great man is influenced by his surroundings, and by his +physical condition in those surroundings, it was the atmosphere of +Grimstad and of its drug-store which moulded the character of Ibsen. +Skien and his father's house dropped from him like an old suit of +clothes. He left his parents, whom he scarcely knew, the town which +he hated, the schoolmates and schoolmasters to whom he seemed a surly +dunce. We find him next, with an apron round his middle and a pestle in +his hand, pounding drugs in a little apothecary's shop in Grimstad. What +Blackwood's so basely insinuated of Keats--"Back to the shop, Mr. John, +stick to plasters, pills and ointment-boxes," inappropriate to the +author of _Endymion_, was strictly true of the author of _Peer Gynt_. + +Curiosity and hero-worship once took the author of these lines to +Grimstad. It is a marvellous object-lesson on the development of genius. +For nearly six years (from 1844 to 1850), and those years the most +important of all in the moulding of character and talent, one of the +most original and far-reaching imaginations which Europe has seen for +a century was cooped up here among ointment-boxes, pills and plasters. +Grimstad is a small, isolated, melancholy place, connected with nothing +at all, visitable only by steamer. Featureless hills surround it, and it +looks out into the east wind, over a dark bay dotted with naked +rocks. No industry, no objects of interest in the vicinity, a perfect +uniformity of little red houses where nobody seems to be doing anything; +in Ibsen's time there are said to have been about five hundred of these +apathetic inhabitants. Here, then, for six interminable years, one +of the acutest brains in Europe had to interest itself in fraying +ipecacuanha and mixing black draughts behind an apothecary's counter. + +For several years nothing is recorded, and there was probably very +little that demanded record, of Ibsen's life at Grimstad. His own +interesting notes, it is obvious, refer only to the closing months of +the period. Ten years before the birth of Ibsen of the greatest poets of +Europe had written words which seem meant to characterize an adolescence +such as his. "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature +imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, +in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of +life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted; thence proceed mawkishness +and a thousand bitters." + +It is easy to discover that Ibsen, from his sixth to his twentieth +year, suffered acutely from moral and intellectual distemper. He was at +war--the phrase is his own--with the little community in which he lived. +And yet it seems to have been, in its tiny way, a tolerant and even +friendly little community. It is difficult for us to realize what life +in a remote coast-town of Norway would be sixty years ago. Connection +with the capital would be rare and difficult, and, when achieved, the +capital was as yet little more than we should call a village. There +would, perhaps, be a higher uniformity of education among the best +inhabitants of Grimstad than we are prepared to suppose. A certain +graceful veneer of culture, an old-fashioned Danish elegance reflected +from Copenhagen, would mark the more conservative citizens, male and +female. A fierier generation--not hot enough, however, to set the +fjord on flame--would celebrate the comparatively recent freedom of the +country in numerous patriotic forms. It is probable that a dark boy like +Ibsen would, on the whole, prefer the former type, but he would despise +them both. + +He was poor, excruciatingly poor, with a poverty that excluded all +indulgence, beyond the bare necessities, in food and clothes and +books. We can conceive the meagre advance of his position, first a +mere apprentice, then an assistant, finally buoyed up by the advice +of friends to study medicine and pharmacy, in the hope of being, some +bright day, himself no less than the owner of a drug-store. Did Mr. +Anstey know this, or was it the sheer adventure of genius, when he +contrasted the qualities of the master into "Pill-Doctor Herdal," +compounding "beautiful rainbow-colored powders that will give one a real +grip on the world"? Ibsen, it is allowable to think, may sometimes have +dreamed of a pill, "with arsenic in it, Hilda, and digitalis, too, +and strychnine and the best beetle-killer," which would decimate the +admirable inhabitants of Grimstad, strewing the rocks with their bodies +in their go-to-meeting coats and dresses. He had in him that source of +anger, against which all arguments are useless, which bubbles up in the +heart of youth who vaguely feels himself possessed of native energy, and +knows not how to stir a hand or even formulate a wish. He was savage in +manners, unprepossessing in appearance, and, as he himself has told us +with pathetic naivete, unable to express the real gratitude he felt to +the few who would willingly have extended friendship to him if he had +permitted it. + +As he advanced in age, he does not seem to have progressed in grace. By +the respectable citizens of Grimstad--and even Grimstad had its little +inner circle of impenetrable aristocracy--he regarded as "not quite +nice." The apothecary's assistant was a bold young man, who did not +seem to realize his menial position. He was certainly intelligent, and +Grimstad would have overlooked the pills and ointments if his manners +had been engaging, but he was rude, truculent and contradictory. The +youthful female sex is not in the habit of sharing the prejudices of +its elders in this respect, and many a juvenile Orson has, in such +conditions, enjoyed substantial successes. But young Ibsen was not a +favorite even with the girls, whom he alarmed and disconcerted. One of +the young ladies of Grimstad in after years attempted to describe the +effect which the poet made upon them. They had none of them liked him, +she said, "because"--she hesitated for the word--"because he was so +_spectral_." This gives us just the flash we want; it reveals to us for +a moment the distempered youth, almost incorporeal, displayed wandering +about at twilight and in lonely places, held in common esteem to be +malevolent, and expressing by gestures rather than by words sentiments +of a nature far from complimentary or agreeable. + +Thus life at Grimstad seems to have proceeded until Ibsen reached his +twenty-first year. In this quiet backwater of a seaport village the +passage of time was deliberate, and the development of hard-worked +apothecaries was slow. Ibsen's nature was not in any sense precocious, +and even if he had not languished in so lost a corner of society, it is +unlikely that he would have started prematurely in life or literature. +The actual waking up, when it came at last, seems to have been almost an +accident. There had been some composing of verses, now happily lost, and +some more significant distribution of "epigrams" and "caricatures" to +the vexation of various worthy persons. The earliest trace of +talent seems to been in this direction, in the form of lampoons +or "characters," as people called them in the seventeenth century, +sarcastic descriptions of types in which certain individuals could be +recognized. No doubt if these could be recovered, we should find them +rough and artless, but containing germs of the future keenness of +portraiture. They were keen enough, it seems, to rouse great resentment +in Grimstad. + +There is evidence to show that the lad had docility enough, at all +events, to look about for some aid in the composition of Norwegian +prose. We should know nothing of it but for a passage in Ibsen's later +polemic with Paul Jansenius Stub of Bergen. In 1848 Stub was an +invalid schoolmaster, who, it appears, eked out his income by giving +instruction, by correspondence, in style. How Ibsen heard of him does +not seem to be known, but when, in 1851, Ibsen entered, with needless +acrimony, into a controversy with his previous teacher about the +theatre, Stub complained of his ingratitude, since he had "taught the +boy to write." Stub's intervention in the matter, doubtless, was limited +to the correction of a few exercises. + +Ibsen's own theory was that his intellect and character were awakened +by the stir of revolution throughout Europe. The first political event +which really interested him was the proclamation of the French Republic, +which almost coincided with his twentieth birthday. He was born again, +a child of '48. There were risings in Vienna, in Milan, in Rome. Venice +was proclaimed a republic, the Pope fled to Gaeta, the streets of Berlin +ran with the blood of the populace. The Magyars rose against Jellalic +and his Croat troops; the Czechs demanded their autonomy; in response to +the revolutionary feeling in Germany, Schleswig-Holstein was up in arms. + +Each of these events, and others like them, and all occurring in the +rapid months of that momentous year, smote like hammers on the door of +Ibsen's brain, till it quivered with enthusiasm and excitement. The +old brooding languor was at an end, and with surprising clearness and +firmness he saw his pathway cut out before him as a poet and as a man. +The old clouds vanished, and though the social difficulties which hemmed +in his career were as gross as ever, he himself no longer doubted +what was to be his aim in life. The cry of revolution came to him, of +revolution faint indeed and broken, the voice of a minority appealing +frantically and for a moment against the overwhelming forces of a +respectable majority, but it came to him just at the moment when his +young spirit was prepared to receive it with faith and joy. The effect +on Ibsen's character was sudden and it was final: + + Then he stood up, and trod to dust + Fear and desire, mistrust and trust, + And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet, + And bound for sandals on his feet + Knowledge and patience of what must + And what things maybe, in the heat + And cold of years that rot and rust + And alter; and his spirit's meat + Was freedom, and his staff was wrought + Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought. + +We are not left to conjecture on the subject; in a document of extreme +interest, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of his +commentators, the preface to the second (1876) edition of _Catilina_, +he has described what the influences were which roused him out of +the wretchedness of Grimstad; they were precisely the revolution of +February, the risings in Hungary, the first Schleswig war. He wrote a +series of sonnets, now apparently lost, to King Oscar, imploring him to +take up arms for the help of Denmark, and of nights, when all his duties +were over at last, and the shop shut up, he would creep to the garret +where he slept, and dream himself fighting at the centre of the world, +instead of lost on its extreme circumference. And here he began his +first drama, the opening lines of which, + + "I must, I must; a voice is crying to me + From my soul's depth, and I will follow it," + +might be taken as the epigraph of Ibsen's whole life's work. + +In one of his letters to Georg Brandes he has noted, with that +clairvoyance which marks some of his utterances about himself, the +"full-blooded egotism" which developed in him during his last year of +mental and moral starvation at Grimstad. Through the whole series of +his satiric dramas we see the little narrow-minded borough, with its +ridiculous officials, its pinched and hypocritical social order, its +intolerable laws and ordinances, modified here and there, expanded +sometimes, modernized and brought up to date, but always recurrent in +the poet's memory. To the last, the images and the rebellions which were +burned into his soul at Grimstad were presented over and over again to +his readers. + +But the necessity of facing the examination at Christiania now presented +itself. He was so busily engaged in the shop that he had, as he says, to +steal his hours for study. He still inhabited the upper room, which he +calls a garret; it would not seem that the alteration in his status, +assistant now and no longer apprentice, had increased his social +conveniences. He was still the over-worked apothecary, pounding drugs +with a pestle and mortar from morning till night. Someone has pointed +out the odd circumstance that almost every scene in the drama of +_Catilina_ takes place in the dark. This was the unconscious result of +the fact that all the attention which the future realist could give to +the story had to be given in the night hours. When he emerged from the +garret, it was to read Latin with a candidate in theology, a Mr. Monrad, +brother of the afterwards famous professor. By a remarkable chance, the +subject given by the University for examination was the Conspiracy of +Catiline, to be studied in the history of Sallust and the oration of +Cicero. + +No theme could have been more singularly well fitted to fire the +enthusiasm of Ibsen. At no time of his life a linguist, or much +interested in history, it is probable that the difficulty of +concentrating his attention on a Latin text would have been +insurmountable had the subject been less intimately sympathetic to him. +But he tells us that he had no sooner perceived the character of the man +against whom these diatribes are directed than he devoured them greedily +(_jeg slugte disse skrifter_). The opening words of Sallust, which every +schoolboy has to read--we can imagine with what an extraordinary force +they would strike upon the resounding emotion of such a youth as Ibsen. +_Lucius Catilina nobili genere natus, magna vi et animi et corporis, sed +ingenio malo pravoque_--how does this at once bring up an image of the +arch-rebel, of Satan himself, as the poets have conceived him, how does +it attract, with its effects of energy, intelligence and pride, the +curiosity of one whose way of life, as Keats would say, is still +undecided, his ambition still thick-sighted! + +It was Sallust's picture more than Cicero's that absorbed Ibsen. +Criticism likes to trace a predecessor behind every genius, a Perugino +for Raffaelle, a Marlowe for Shakespeare. If we seek for the master-mind +that started Ibsen, it is not to be found among the writers of his age +or of his language. The real master of Ibsen was Sallust. There can be +no doubt that the cold and bitter strength of Sallust; his unflinching +method of building up his edifice of invective, stone by stone; his +close, unidealistic, dry penetration into character; his clinical +attitude, unmoved at the death-bed of a reputation; that all these +qualities were directly operative on the mind and intellectual character +of Ibsen, and went a long way to mould it while moulding was still +possible. + +There is no evidence to show that the oration of Cicero moved him nearly +so much as the narratives of Sallust. After all, the object of Cicero +was to crush the conspiracy, but what Ibsen was interested in was +the character of Catiline, and this was placed before him in a more +thrilling way by the austere reserve of the historian. No doubt, to a +young poet, when that poet was Ibsen, there would be something deeply +attractive in the sombre, archaic style, and icy violence of Sallust. +How thankful we ought to be that the historian, with his long sonorous +words--_flagitiosorum ac facinorosorum_--did not make of our perfervid +apothecary a mere tub-thumper of Corinthian prose! + +Ibsen now formed the two earliest friendships of his life. He had +reached the age of twenty without, as it would seem, having been able +to make his inner nature audible to those around him. He had been to +the inhabitants of Grimstad a stranger within their gates, not speaking +their language; or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at +all, but indulging in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like +Caliban, and tamed, and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship. +One of those who thus interpreted him was a young musician, Due, who +held a post in the custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud (1827-59), +who deserves a cordial acknowledgment from every admirer of Ibsen. He +also was in the receipt of custom, and a young man of small independent +means. To Schulerud and to Due, Ibsen revealed his poetic plans, and +he seems to have found in them both sympathizers with his republican +enthusiasms and transcendental schemes for the liberation of the +peoples. It was a stirring time, in 1848, and all generous young blood +was flowing fast in the same direction. + +Since Ibsen's death, Due has published a very lively paper of +recollections of the old Grimstad days. He says: + +His daily schedule admitted few intervals for rest or sleep. Yet I never +heard Ibsen complain of being tired. His health was uniformly good. +He must have had an exceptionally strong constitution, for when his +financial conditions compelled him to practice the most stringent +economy, he tried to do without underclothing, and finally even without +stockings. In these experiments he succeeded; and in winter he went +without an overcoat; yet without being troubled by colds or other bodily +ills. + +We have seen that Ibsen was so busy that he had to steal from his duties +the necessary hours for study. But out of these hours, he tells us, he +stole moments for the writing of poetry, of the revolutionary poetry +of which we have spoken, and for a great quantity of lyrics of a +sentimental and fanciful kind. Due was the confidant to whom he recited +the latter, and one at least of these early pieces survives, set to +music by this friend. But to Schulerud a graver secret was intrusted, no +less than that in the night hours of 1848-49 there was being composed +in the garret over the apothecary's shop a three-act tragedy in blank +verse, on the conspiracy of Catiline. With his own hand, when the first +draft was completed, Schulerud made a clean copy of the drama, and in +the autumn of 1849 he went to Christiania with the double purpose of +placing _Catilina_ at the theatre and securing a publisher for it. A +letter (October 15, 1849) from Ibsen, first printed in 1904--the only +document we possess of this earliest period--displays to a painful +degree the torturing anxiety with which the poet awaited news of his +play, and, incidentally, exposes his poverty. With all Schulerud's +energy, he found it impossible to gain attention for _Catilina_ at the +theatre, and in January, 1850, Ibsen received what he called its "death +warrant," but it was presently brought out as a volume, under the +pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme, at Schulerud's expense. Of _Catilina_ +about thirty copies were sold, and it attracted no notice whatever from +the press. + +Meanwhile, left alone in Grimstad, since Due was now with Schulerud in +Christiania, Ibsen had been busy with many literary projects. He had +been writing an abundance of lyrics, he had begun a one-act drama called +"The Normans," afterwards turned into _Kaempehoejen_; he was planning a +romance, _The Prisoner at Akershus_ (this was to deal with the story of +Christian Lofthus); and above all he was busy writing a tragedy of +_Olaf Trygvesoen_. [Note: On the authority of the Breve, pp. 59, 59, +where Halvdan Koht prints "Olaf Tr." and "Olaf T." expanding these to +Tr[ygvesoen]. But is it quite certain that what Ibsen wrote in these +letters was not "Olaf Li." and "Olaf L.," and that the reference is not +to Olaf Liljekrans, which was certainly begun at Grimstad? Is there any +other evidence that Ibsen ever started an _Olaf Trygvesoen_?] + +One of his poems had already been printed in a Christiania newspaper. +The call was overwhelming; he could endure Grimstad and the gallipots +no longer. In March, 1850, at the age of twenty-one, Ibsen stuck a few +dollars in his pocket and went off to try his fortune in the capital. + + + +CHAPTER II + +EARLY INFLUENCES + +In middle life Ibsen, who suppressed for as long a time as he could most +of his other juvenile works, deliberately lifted _Catilina_ from the +oblivion into which it had fallen, and replaced it in the series of his +writings. This is enough to indicate to us that he regarded it as of +relative importance, and imperfect as it is, and unlike his later plays, +it demands some critical examination. I not know whether any one ever +happened to ask Ibsen whether he had been aware that Alexandre Dumas +produced in Paris a five-act drama of _Catiline_ at the very moment +(October, 1848) when Ibsen started the composition of his. It is quite +possible that the young Norwegian saw this fact noted in a newspaper, +and immediately determined to try what he could make of the same +subject. In Dumas' play Catiline is presented merely as a demagogue; he +is the red Flag personified, and the political situation in France is +discussed under a slight veil of Roman history. Catiline is simply a +sort of Robespierre brought up to date. There is no trace of all this in +Ibsen. + +Oddly enough, though the paradox is easily explained, we find much more +similarity when we compare the Norwegian drama with that tragedy of +_Catiline_ which Ben Jonson published in 1611. Needless to state, Ibsen +had never read the old English play; it would be safe to lay a wager +that, when he died, Ibsen had never heard or seen the name of Ben +Jonson. Yet there is an odd sort of resemblance, founded on the fact +that each poet keeps very close to the incidents recorded by the Latins. +Neither of them takes Sallust's presentment of the character of Catiline +as if it were gospel, but, while holding exact touch with the narrative, +each contrives to add a native grandeur to the character of the +arch-conspirator, such as his original detractors denied him. In both +poems, Ben Jonson's and Ibsen's, Catiline is-- + +Armed with a glory high as his despair. + +Another resemblance between the old English and the modern Norwegian +dramatist is that each has felt the solid stuff of the drama to require +lightening, and has attempted to provide this by means, in Ben Jonson's +case, of solemn "choruses," in Ibsen's of lyrics. In the latter instance +the tragedy ends in rolling and rhymed verse, little suited to the +stage. + +This is a very curious example, among many which might be brought +forward, of Ibsen's native partiality for dramatic rhyme. In all +his early plays, his tendency is to slip into the lyrical mood. This +tendency reached its height nearly twenty years later in _Brand_ and +_Peer Gynt_, and the truth about the austere prose which he then adopted +for his dramas is probably this, not that the lyrical faculty had +quitted him, but that he found it to be hampering his purely dramatic +expression, and that he determined, by a self-denying ordinance, to tear +it altogether off his shoulders, like an embroidered mantle, which is in +itself very ornamental, but which checks an actor's movements. + +The close of Ibsen's _Catalina_ is, as we have said, composed entirely +in rhyme, and the effect of this curious. It is as though the young poet +could not restrain the rhythm bubbling up in him, and was obliged to +start running, although the moment was plainly one for walking. Here is +a fragment. Catiline has stabbed Aurelia, and left her in the tent for +dead. But while he was soliloquizing at the door of the tent, Fulvia +has stabbed him. He lies dying at the foot of a tree, and makes a speech +which ends thus:-- + +See, the pathway breaks, divided! I will wander, dumb, To the left hand. + + AURELIA + (appearing, blood-stained, at the door of the tent). + Nay! the right hand! Towards Elysium. + + CATILINE + (greatly alarmed). +O yon pallid apparition, how it fills me with remorse. 'Tis herself! +Aurelia! tell me, art thou living? not a corse? + + AURELIA. +Yes, I live that I may full thy sea of sorrows, and may lie With my +bosom pressed a moment to thy bosom, and then die. + + CATILINE + (bewildered). +What? thou livest? + + AURELIA. + + Death's pale herald o'er my senses threw a pall, + But my dulled eye tracked thy footsteps, and I saw, I saw it all, + And my passion a wife's forces to my wounded body gave; + Breast to breast, my Catiline, let us sink into our grave. + +[Note: In 1875 Ibsen practically rewrote the whole of this part of +_Catilina_, without, however, improving it. Why will great authors +confuse the history of literature by tampering with their early texts?] + +He had slipped far out of the sobriety of Sallust when he floundered, +in this way, in the deep waters of romanticism. In the isolation of +Grimstad he had but himself to consult, and the mind of a young poet who +has not yet enjoyed any generous communication with life is invariably +sentimental and romantic. The critics of the North have expended a +great deal of ingenuity in trying to prove that Ibsen exposed his own +temperament and character in the course of _Catilina_. No doubt there +is a great temptation to indulge in this species of analysis, but it is +amusing to note that some of the soliloquies which have been pointed out +as particularly self-revealing are translated almost word for word +out of Sallust. Perhaps the one passage in the play which is really +significant is that in which the hero says:-- + +If but for one brief moment I could flame And blaze through space, and +be a falling star; If only once, and by one glorious deed, I could +but knit the name of Catiline With glory and with deathless high +renown,--Then should I blithely, in the hour of conquest, Leave all, and +hie me to an alien shore, Press the keen dagger gayly to my heart, And +die; for then I should have lived indeed. + +This has its personal interest, since we know, on the evidence of his +sister, that such was the tenor of Ibsen's private talk about himself at +that precise time. + +Very imperfect as _Catilina_ is in dramatic art, and very primitive as +is the development of plot in it, it presents one aspect, as a literary +work, which is notable. That it should exist at all is curious, since, +surprising as it seems, it had no precursor. Although, during the +thirty-five years of Norwegian independence, various classes of +literature had been cultivated with extreme diligence, the drama had +hitherto been totally neglected. With the exception of a graceful opera +by Bjerregaard, which enjoyed a success sustained over a quarter of a +century, the only writings in dramatic form produced in Norway between +1815 and 1850 were the absurd lyrical farces of Wergeland, which were +devoid of all importance. Such a thing as a three-act tragedy in blank +verse was unknown in modern Norway, so that the youthful apothecary in +Grimstad, whatever he was doing, was not slavishly copying the fashions +of his own countrymen. + +The principal, if not the only influence which acted upon Ibsen at this +moment, was that of the great Danish tragedian, Adam Oehlenschlaeger. +It might be fantastically held that the leading romantic luminary +of Scandinavia withdrew on purpose to make room for his realistic +successor, since Oehlenschlaeger's latest play, _Kiartan and Gudrun_, +appeared just when Ibsen was planning _Catilina_, while the death of the +Danish poet (January 20, 1850) was practically simultaneous with Ibsen's +arrival in Christiania. In later years, Ibsen thought that Holberg and +Oehlenschlaeger were the only dramatists he had read when his own +first play was written; he was sure that he knew nothing of Schiller, +Shakespeare or the French. Of the rich and varied dramatic literature of +Denmark, in the generation between Oehlenschlaeger's and his own, he must +also for the present have known nothing. The influence of Heiberg and of +Hertz, presently to be so potent, had evidently not yet begun. But it +is important to perceive that already Norway, and Norwegian taste and +opinion, were nothing to him in his selection of themes and forms. + +It is not to be supposed that the taste for dramatic performances did +not exist in Norway, because no Norwegian plays were written. On the +contrary, in most of the large towns there were, and had long been, +private theatres or rooms which could be fitted up with a stage, at +which wandering troupes of actors gave performances that were eagerly +attended by "the best people." These actors, however, were exclusively +Danes, and there was an accepted tradition that Norwegians could +not act. If they attempted to do so, their native accents proved +disagreeable to their fellow-citizens, who demanded, as an imperative +condition, the peculiar intonation and pronunciation cultivated at +the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, as well as an absence of all native +peculiarities of language. The stage, therefore--and this is very +important in a consideration of the career of Ibsen--had come to be the +symbol of a certain bias in political feeling. Society in Norway was +divided into two classes, the "Danomaniacs" and the "Patriots." Neither +of these had any desire to alter the constitutional balance of power, +but while the latter wished Norway to be intellectually self-productive, +and leaned to a further isolation in language, literature, art and +manners, the former thought that danger of barbarism lay in every +direction save that of keeping close to the tradition of Denmark, from +which all that was witty, graceful and civilized had proceeded. + +Accordingly the theatre, at which exclusively Danish plays were acted, +in the Danish style, by Danish actors and actresses, was extremely +popular with the conservative class, who thought, by attendance on these +performances, to preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of +"high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the +patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave +suspicion as likely to undermine the purity of national feeling. + +The earliest attempt at the opening of a National Theatre had been made +at Christiania by the Swede, J. P. Stroemberg, in 1827; this was not +successful, and his theatre was burned down in 1835. In it some effort +had been made to use the Norwegian idiom and to train native actors, but +it had been to no avail. The play-going public liked their plays to be +Danish, and even nationalists of a pronounced species could not deny +that dramas, like the great historical tragedies of Oehlenschlaeger, +many of which dealt enthusiastically with legends that were peculiarly +Norwegian, were as national as it was possible for poems by a foreign +poet to be. All this time, it must be remembered, Christiania was to +Copenhagen as Dublin till lately was to London, or as New York was +half a century ago. It is in the arts that the old colonial instinct of +dependence is most loath to disappear. + +The party of the nationalists, however, had been steadily increasing in +activity, and the universal quickening of patriotic pulses in 1848 had +not been without its direct action upon Norway. + +Nevertheless, for various reasons of internal policy, there was perhaps +no country in Europe where this period of seismic disturbance led to +less public turmoil than precisely here in the North. The accession of +a new king, Oscar I, in 1844, had been followed by a sense of renewed +national security; the peasants were satisfied that the fresh reign +would be favorable to their rights and liberties; and the monarch showed +every inclination to leave his country of Norway as much as possible to +its own devices. The result of all this was that '48 left no mark on the +internal history of the country, and the fever which burned in youthful +bosoms was mainly, if not entirely, intellectual and transcendental. The +young Catiline from Grimstad, therefore, met with several sympathetic +rebels, but found nobody willing to conspire. But what he did find is +so important in the consideration of his future development that it is +needful briefly to examine it. + +Norway had, in 1850, been independent of Denmark for thirty-six years. +During the greater part of that time the fiery excitements of a struggle +for politic existence had fairly exhausted her mental resources, and had +left her powerless to inaugurate a national literature. Meanwhile, there +was no such discontinuity in the literary and scientific relations of +the two countries as that which had broken their constitutional union. A +tremendous effort was made by certain patriots to discover the basis of +an entirely independent intellectual life, something that should start +like the phoenix from the ashes of the old regime, and should offer no +likeness with what continued to flourish south of the Skagarak. But all +the efforts of the University of Christiania were vain to prevent the +cultivated classes from looking to Copenhagen as their centre of light. +Such authors as there were, and they were few indeed, followed humbly in +the footsteps of their Danish brethren. + +Patriotic historians of literature are not always to be trusted, and +those who study native handbooks of Norwegian criticism must be on their +guard when these deal with the three poets who "inaugurated in song the +young liberties of Norway." The writings of the three celebrated lyric +patriots, Schwach, Bjerregaard and Hansen, will not bear to have the +blaze of European experience cast upon them; their tapers dwindle to +sparks in the light of day. They gratified the vanity of the first +generation after 1815, but they deserve no record in the chronicles of +poetic art. If Ibsen ever read these rhymes of circumstance, it must +have been to treat them with contempt. + +Twenty years after the Union, however, and in Ibsen's early childhood, +an event occurred which was unique in the history of Norwegian +literature, and the consequences of which were far-reaching. As is often +the case in countries where the art of verse is as yet little exercised, +there grew up about 1830 a warm and general, but uncritical, delight in +poetry. This instinct was presently satisfied by the effusion of a vast +quantity of metrical writing, most of it very bad, and was exasperated +by a violent personal feud which for a while interested all educated +persons in Norway to a far greater degree than any other intellectual +or, for the time being, even political question. From 1834 to 1838 the +interests of all cultivated people centred around what was called +the "Twilight Feud" (_Daemringsfejden_), and no record of Ibsen's +intellectual development can be complete without a reference to +this celebrated controversy, the results of which long outlived the +popularity of its skits and pamphlets. + +Modern Norwegian literature began with this great fight. The +protagonists were two poets of undoubted talent, whose temperaments +and tendencies were so diametrically opposed that it seemed as +though Providence must have set them down in that raw and inflammable +civilization for the express purpose of setting the standing corn of +thought on fire. Henrik Wergeland (1808-45) was a belated son of the +French Revolution; ideas, fancies, melodies and enthusiasms fermented +in his ill-regulated brain, and he poured forth verses in a violent +and endless stream. It is difficult, from the sources of Scandinavian +opinion, to obtain a sensible impression of Wergeland. The critics of +Norway as persistently overrate his talents as those of Denmark neglect +and ridicule his pretensions. The Norwegians still speak of him as +_himmelstraevende sublim_ ("sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the +Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster. Neither view +commends itself to a foreign reader of the poet. + +The fact, internationally stated, seems rather to be this. In Wergeland +we have a typical example of the effects of excess of fancy in a +violently productive but essential uncritical nature. He was ecstatic, +unmeasured, a reckless improvisatore. In his ideas he was preposterously +humanitarian; a prodigious worker, his vigor of mind seemed never +exhausted by his labors; in theory an idealist, in his private life he +was charged with being scandalously sensual. He was so much the victim +of his inspiration that it would come upon him like a descending wind, +and leave him physically prostrate. In Wergeland we see an instance of +the poetical temper in its most unbridled form. A glance through the +enormous range of his collected works is like an excursion into chaos. +We are met almost at the threshold by a colossal epic, _Creation, Man +and the Messiah_ (1830); by songs that turn into dithyrambic odes, by +descriptive pieces which embrace the universe, by all the froth and roar +and turbidity of genius, with none of its purity and calm. The genius is +there; it is idle to deny it; but it is in a state of violent turmoil. + +It is when the ruling talent of an age is of the character of +Wergeland's-- + + Thundering and bursting, + In torrents, in waves, + Carolling and shouting + Over tombs, over graves-- + +that delicate spirits, as in Matthew Arnold's poem, sigh for the silence +and the hush, and rise at length in open rebellion against Iacchus and +his maenads, who destroy all the quiet of life and who madden innocent +blood with their riot. Johan Sebastian Welhaven (1807-73) was a student +at the University with Wergeland, and he remained silent while the +latter made the welkin ring louder and louder with his lyric shrieks. +Welhaven endured the rationalist and republican rhetoric of Wergeland +as long as he could, although with growing exasperation, until the +rhapsodical author of _Creation_, transgressing all moderation, accused +those who held reasonable views in literature and politics of being +traitors. Then it became necessary to deal with this raw and local +parody of Victor Hugo. When, in the words of _The Cask of Amontillado_, +Wergeland "ventured upon insult," Welhaven "vowed he would be avenged." + +Welhaven formed as complete a contrast to his antagonist as could be +imagined. He was of the class of Sully Prudhomme, of Matthew Arnold, of +Lowell, to name three of his younger contemporaries. In his nature all +was based upon equilibrium; his spirit, though full of graceful and +philosophical intuitions, was critical rather than creative. He wrote +little, and with difficulty, and in exquisite form. His life was as +blamelessly correct as his literary art was harmonious. Wergeland +knew nothing of the Danish tradition of his day, which he treated with +violent and bitter contempt. Welhaven, who had moved in the circle of +the friends of Rahbek, instinctively referred every literary problem to +the tribunal of Danish taste. He saw that with the enthusiasm with which +the poetry of Wergeland was received in Norway was connected a suspicion +of mental discipline, a growing worship of the peasant and a hatred and +scorn of Denmark, with all of which he had no sympathy. He thought the +time had come for better things; that the national temper ought to be +mollified with the improved economic situation of the country; that the +students, who were taking a more and more prominent place, ought to be +on the side of the angels. It was not unnatural that Welhaven should +look upon the corybantic music of Wergeland as the source and origin +of an evil of which it was really the symptom; he gathered his powers +together to crush it, and he published a thunderbolt of sonnets. + +The English reader, familiar with the powerlessness of even the best +verse to make any impression upon Anglo-Saxon opinion, may smile to +think of a great moral and ethical attack conducted with no better +weapon than a paper of sonnets. But the scene of the fight was a small, +intensely local, easily agitated society of persons, all keenly +though narrowly educated, and all accustomed to be addressed in verse. +Welhaven's pamphlet was entitled _The Twilight of Norway_ (1834), and +the sonnets of which it consisted were highly polished in form, filled +with direct and pointed references to familiar persons and events and +absolutely unshrinking in attack. No poetry of equal excellence had +been produced in Norway since the Union. It is not surprising that +this invective against the tendencies of the youthful bard over whose +rhapsodies all Norway was growing crazy with praise should arrest +universal attention, although in the _Twilight_ Welhaven adroitly +avoided mentioning Wergeland by name. Fanaticism gathered in an angry +army around the outraged standard of the republican poet, but the lovers +of order and discipline had found a voice, and they clustered about +Welhaven with their support. Language was not minced by the assailants, +and still less by the defenders. The lovers of Wergeland were told that +politics and brandy were their only pleasures, but those of Welhaven +were warned that they were known to be fed with bribes from Copenhagen. +Meanwhile Welhaven himself, in successive publications, calmly analyzed +the writings of his antagonist, and proved them to be "in complete +rebellion against sound thought and the laws of beauty." The feud raged +from 1834 to 1838, and left Norway divided into two rival camps of +taste. + +Although the "Twilight Feud" had passed away before Ibsen ceased to be a +boy, the effect of it was too widely spread not to affect him. In point +of fact, we see by the earliest of his lyric poems that while he was +at Grimstad he had fully made up his mind. His early songs and +complimentary pieces are all in the Danish taste, and if they show +any native influence at all, it is that of Welhaven. The extreme +superficiality of Wergeland would naturally be hateful to so arduous a +craftsman as Ibsen, and it is a fact that so far as his writings +reveal his mind to us, the all-popular poet of his youth appears to be +absolutely unknown to him. What this signifies may be realized if we say +that it is as though a great English or French poet of the second half +of the nineteenth century should seem to have never heard of Tennyson +or Victor Hugo. On the other hand, at one crucial point of a late play, +_Little Eyolf_, Ibsen actually pauses to quote Welhaven. + +In critical history the absence of an influence is sometimes as +significant as the presence of it. The looseness of Wergeland's style, +its frothy abundance, its digressions and parentheses, its slipshod +violence, would be to Ibsen so many beacons of warning, to be viewed +with horror and alarm. A poem of three stanzas, "To the Poets of +Norway," only recently printed, dates from his early months in +Christiania, and shows that even in 1850 Ibsen was impatient with the +conventional literature of his day. "Less about the glaciers and the +pine-forests," he cries, "less about the dusty legends of the past, and +more about what is going on in the silent hearts of your brethren!" Here +already is sounded the note which was ultimately to distinguish him from +all the previous writers of the North. + +No letters have been published which throw light on Ibsen's first two +years in the capital. We know that he did not communicate with his +parents, whose poverty was equalled by his own. He could receive no help +from them, nor offer them any, and he refrained, as they refrained, from +letter writing. This separation from his family, begun in this way, grew +into a habit, so that when his father died in 1877 no word had passed +between him and his son for nearly thirty years. When Ibsen reached +Christiania, in March, 1850, his first act was to seek out his friend +Schulerud, who was already a student. For some time he shared the room +of Schulerud and his thrifty meals; later on the two friends, in company +with Theodor Abildgaard, a young revolutionary journalist, lived in +lodgings kept by a certain Mother Saether. + +Schulerud received a monthly allowance which was "not enough for one, +and starvation for two"; but Ibsen's few dollars soon came to an end, +and he seems to have lived on the kindness of Schulerud to their great +mutual privation. Both young men attended the classes of a celebrated +"crammer" of that day, H. A. S. Heltberg, who had opened in 1843 a Latin +school where elder pupils came for a two-years' course to prepare them +for taking their degree. This place, known familiarly as "the Student +Factory," holds quite a prominent place in Norwegian literary history, +Ibsen, Bjoernson, Vinje and Jonas Lie having attended its classes and +passed from it to the University. + +Between these young men, the leading force of literature in the coming +age, a generous friendship sprang up, despite the disparity in their +ages. Vinje, a peasant from Thelemark, was thirty-two; he had been a +village schoolmaster and had only now, in 1850, contrived to reach +the University. With Vinje, the founder of the movement for writing +exclusively in Norwegian patois, Ibsen had a warm personal sympathy, +while he gave no intellectual adherence to his theories. Between the +births of Vinje and Bjoernson there stretched a period of fourteen years, +yet Bjoernson was a student before either Ibsen or Vinje. That Ibsen +immediately formed Bjoernson's acquaintance seems to be proved from the +fact that they both signed a protest against the deportation of a Dane +called Harring on May 29, 1850. It was a fortunate chance which threw +Ibsen thus suddenly into the midst of a group of those in whom the +hopes of the new generation were centred. But we are left largely to +conjecture in what manner their acquaintanceship acted upon his mind. + +His material life during the next year is obscure. Driven by the +extremity of need, it is plain that he adopted every means open to him +by which he could add a few dollars to Schulerud's little store. He +wrote for the poor and fugitive journals of the day, in prose and verse; +but the payment of the Norwegian press in those days was almost nothing. +It is difficult to know how he subsisted, yet he continued to exist. +Although none of his letters of this period seem to have been preserved, +a few landmarks are left us. The little play called _Kaempehoeien_ +(The Warrior's Barrow), which he had brought unfinished with him from +Grimstad, was completed and put into shape in May, 1850, accepted at the +Christiania Theatre, and acted three times during the following autumn. +Perhaps the most interesting fact connected with this performance +was that the only female part, that of Blanka, was taken by a young +debutante, Laura Svendsen; this was the actress afterwards to rise to +the height of eminence as the celebrated Mrs. Gundersen, no doubt the +most gifted of all Ibsen's original interpreters. + +It was a matter of course that the poet was greatly cheered by the +acceptance of his play, and he immediately set to work on another, +_Olaf Liljekrans_; but this he put aside when _Kaempehoeien_ practically +failed. He wrote a satirical comedy called _Norma_. He endeavored to get +certain of his works, dramatic and lyric, published in Christiania, but +all the schemes fell through. It is certain that 1851 began darkly for +the young man, and that his misfortunes encouraged in him a sour and +rebellious temper. For the first and only time in his life he meddled +with practical politics. Vinje and he--in company with a charming +person, Paul Botten-Hansen (1824-69), who flits very pleasantly +through the literary history of this time--founded a newspaper called +_Andhrimner_, which lasted for nine months. + +One of the contributors was Abildgaard, who, as we have seen, lived +in the same house with Ibsen. He was a wild being, who had adopted the +republican theories of the day in their crudest form. He posed as the +head of a little body whose object was to dethrone the king, and to +found a democracy in Norway. On July 7, 1851, the police made a raid +upon these childish conspirators, the leaders being arrested and +punished with a long imprisonment. The poet escaped, as by the skin of +his teeth, and the warning was a lifelong one. He never meddled with +politics any more. This was, indeed, as perhaps he felt, no time for +rebellion; all over Europe the eruption of socialism had spent itself, +and the docility of the populations had become wonderful. + +The discomfort and uncertainty of Ibsen's position in Christiania made +him glad to fill a post which the violinist, Ole Bull, offered him +during autumn. The newly constituted National Theatre in Bergen (opened +Jan. 2, 1850) had accepted a prologue written for an occasion by the +young poet, and on November 6, 1851, Ibsen entered into a contract by +which he bound himself go to Bergen "to assist the theatre as dramatic +author." The salary was less than L70 a year, but it was eked out by +travelling grants, and little as it might be, it was substantially more +than the nothing-at-all which Ibsen had been enjoying in Christiania. + +It is difficult to imagine what asset could be bought to the treasuries +of a public theatre by a youth of three and twenty so ill-educated, so +empty of experience and so ill-read as Ibsen was in 1851. His crudity, +we may be sure, passed belief. He was the novice who has not learned his +business, the tyro to whom the elements of his occupation are unknown. +We have seen that when he wrote _Catilina_ he had neither sat through +nor read any of the plays of the world, whether ancient or modern. The +pieces which belong to his student years reveal a preoccupation with +Danish dramas of the older school, Oehlenschlaeger and (if we may guess +what _Norma_ was) Holberg, but with nothing else. Yet Ole Bull, one of +the most far-sighted men of his time, must have perceived the germs +of theatrical genius in him, and it is probable that Ibsen owed his +appointment more to what this wise patron felt in his future than what +Ole Bull or any one else could possibly point to as yet accomplished. +Unquestionably, a rude theatrical penetration could already he divined +in his talk about the stage, vague and empirical as that must have been. + +At all events, to Bergen he went, as a sort of literary manager, as a +Claretie or Antoine, to compare a small thing with great ones, and the +fact was of inestimable value. It may even be held, without fear of +paradox, that this was the turning-point of Ibsen's life, that this +blind step in the dark, taken in the magnificent freedom of youth, was +what made him what he became. No Bergen in 1851, we may say, and no +_Doll's House_ or _Hedda Gabler_ ultimately to follow. For what it did +was to force this stubborn genius, which might so easily have slipped +into sinister and abnormal paths, and have missed the real humanity of +the stage, to take the tastes of the vulgar into due consideration and +to acquaint himself with the necessary laws of play-composition. + +Ibsen may seem to have little relation with the drama of the world, but +in reality he is linked with it at every step. There is something of +Shakespeare in _John Gabriel Borkman_, something Moliere in _Ghosts_, +something of Goethe in _Peer Gynt_. We may go further and say, though +it would have made Ibsen wince, that there is something of Scribe in _An +Enemy of the People_. Is very doubtful whether, without the discipline +which forced him to put on the stage, at Bergen and in Christiania, +plays evidently unsympathetic to his own taste, which obliged him to do +his best for the popular reception of those plays, and which forced +him minutely to analyze their effects, he would ever have been the +world-moving dramatist which, as all sane critics must admit, he at +length became. + +He made some mistakes at first; how could he fail to do so? It was the +recognition of these blunders, and perhaps the rough censure of them the +local press, which induced the Bergen theatre to scrape a few dollars +together and send him, in charge of some of the leading actors and +actresses, to Copenhagen and Dresden for instruction. To go from Bergen +to Copenhagen was like travelling from Abdera to Athens, and to find +a species of Sophocles in J. A. Heiberg, who had since 1849 been sole +manager of the Royal Theatre. Here the drama of the world, all the +salutary names, all the fine traditions, burst upon the pilgrims from +the North. Heiberg, the gracious and many-sided, was the centre of light +in those days; no one knew the stage as he knew no one interpreted it +with such splendid intelligence, and he received the crude Norwegian +"dramatist-manager" with the utmost elegance of cordiality. Among the +teachers of Ibsen, Heiberg ranks as the foremost. We may farther and say +that he was the last. When Ibsen had learned the lesson of Heiberg, +only nature and his own genius had anything more to teach him. [See Note +below] In August, 1852, rich with the spoils of time, but otherwise poor +indeed, Ibsen made his way back to his duties in Bergen. + +[Note: Perhaps no author, during the whole of his career, more deeply +impressed Ibsen with reverence and affection than Johan Ludvig Heiberg +did. When the great Danish poet died (at Bonderup, August 25, 1860), +Ibsen threw on his tomb the characteristic bunch of bitter herbs called +_Til de genlevende_--"To the Survivors," in which he expressed the +faintest appreciation of those who lavished posthumous honor on Heiberg +in Denmark: + + In your land a torch he lifted; + With its flame ye scorched his forehead. + + How to swing the sword he taught you, + And,--ye plunged it in his bosom. + + While he routed trolls of darkness,-- + With your shields you tripped and bruised him. + + But his glittering star of conquest + Ye must guard, since he has left you: + + Try, at least, to keep it shining, + While the thorn-crowned conqueror slumbers.] + + + +CHAPTER III + +LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) + +Ibsen's native biographers have not found much to record, and still less +that deserves to recorded, about his life during the next five years. He +remained in Bergen, cramped by want of means in his material condition, +and much harassed and worried by the little pressing requirements of the +theatre. It seems that every responsibility fell upon his shoulders, and +that there was no part of stage-life that it was not his duty to look +after. The dresses of the actresses, the furniture, the scene-painting, +the instruction of raw Norwegian actors and actresses, the selection of +plays, now to please himself, now to please the bourgeois of Bergen, all +this must be done by the poet or not done at all. Just so, two hundred +years earlier, we may imagine Moliere, at Carcassonne or Albi, bearing +up in his arms, a weary Titan, all the frivolities and anxieties and +misdeeds of a whole company of comedians. + +So far as our very scanty evidence goes, we find the poet isolated from +his fellows, so far as isolation was possible, during his long stay at +Bergen. He was not accused, and if there had been a chance he would have +been accused, of dereliction. No doubt he pushed through the work of +the theatre doggedly, but certainly not in a convivial spirit. The +Norwegians are a hospitable and festal people, and there is no question +that the manager of the theatre would have unusual opportunities of +being jolly with his friends. But it does not appear that Ibsen made +friends; if so, they were few, and they were as quiet as himself. Even +in these early years he did not invite confidences, and no one found +him wearing his heart upon his sleeve. He went through his work without +effusion, and there is no doubt that what leisure he enjoyed he spent in +study, mainly of dramatic literature. + +His reading must have been limited by his insensibility to foreign +languages. All through his life he forgot the tongues of other countries +almost faster than he gained them. Probably, at this time, he had begun +to know German, a language in which he did ultimately achieve a fluency +which was, it appears, always ungrammatical. But, as is not unfrequent +with a man who is fond of reading but no linguist, Ibsen's French and +English came and went in a trembling uncertainty. As time passed on, he +gave up the effort to read, even a newspaper, in either language. + +The mile-stones in this otherwise blank time are the original plays +which, perhaps in accordance with some clause in his agreement, he +produced at his theatre in the first week of January in each year. A +list of them cannot be spared in this place to the most indolent of +readers, since it offers, in a nutshell, a resume of what the busy +imagination of Ibsen was at work upon up to his thirtieth year. His +earliest new-year's gift to the play-goers of Bergen was _St. John's +Night_, 1853, a piece which has not been printed; in 1854 he revived +_The Warrior's Barrow_; in 1855 he made an immense although irregular +advance with _Lady Inger at Oestraat_; in 1856 he produced _The Feast at +Solhoug_; in 1857 a rewritten version of the early _Olaf Liljekrans_. +These are the juvenile works of Ibsen, which are scarcely counted in +the recognized canon of his writings. None of them is completely +representative of his genius, and several are not yet within reach of +the English reader. Yet they have a considerable importance, and must +detain us for a while. They are remarkable as showing the vigor of the +effort by which he attempted to create an independent style for himself, +no less than the great difficulties which he encountered in following +this admirable aim. + +_Lady Inger at Oestraat_, written in the winter of 1854 but not published +until 1857, is unique among Ibsen's works as a romantic exercise in +the manner of Scribe. It is the sole example of a theme taken by him +directly from comparatively modern history, and treated purely for its +value as a study of contemporary intrigue. From this point of view it +curiously exemplifies a remark of Hazlitt: "The progress of manners +and knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps +destroy both tragedy and comedy.... At last, there will be nothing left, +good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real life." + +When Ibsen undertook to write about Inger Gyldenloeve, he was but little +acquainted with the particulars of her history. He conceived her, as he +found her in the incomplete chronicles he consulted, as a Matriarch, +a wonderful and heroic elderly woman around whom all the hopes of an +embittered patriotism were legitimately centred. Unfortunately, "the +progress of knowledge," as Hazlitt would say, exposed the falsity of +this conception. A closer inspection of the documents, and further +analysis of the condition of Norway in 1528, destroyed the fair +illusion, and showed Ibsen in the light of an indulgent idealist. + +Here is what Jaeger [Note: In _En literaert Livsbillede_] has to give us +of the disconcerting results of research: + +In real life Lady Inger was not a woman formed upon so grand a plan. She +was the descendant of an old and noble family which had preserved +its dignity, and she consequently was the wealthiest landowner in the +country. This, and this alone, gives her a right to a place in history. +If we study her life, we find no reason to suppose that patriotic +considerations ever affected her conduct. The motive power of her +actions was on a far lower plane, and seems to have consisted mainly in +an amazingly strong instinct for adding to her wealth and her status. +We find her, for instance, on one occasion seizing the estates of a +neighbor, and holding them till she was actually forced to resign them. +When she gave her daughters in marriage to Danish noblemen, it was +to secure direct advantage from alliance with the most high-born +sons-in-law procurable. When she took a convent under her protection, +she contrived to extort a rent which well repaid her. Even for a +good action she exacted a return, and when she offered harbor to the +persecuted Chancellor, she had the adroitness to be well rewarded by a +large sum in rose-nobles and Hungarian gulden. + +All this could not fail to be highly exasperating to Ibsen, who had set +out to be a realist, and was convicted by the spiteful hand of history +of having been an idealist of the rose-water class. No wonder that he +never touched the sequence of modern events any more. + +There is some slight, but of course unconscious, resemblance to +_Macbeth_ in the external character of _Lady Inger_. This play has +something of the roughness of a mediaeval record, and it depicts a +condition of life where barbarism uncouthly mingles with a certain +luxury of condition. There is, however, this radical difference that in +_Lady Inger_ there is nothing preternatural, and it is, indeed, in this +play that Ibsen seems first to appreciate the value of a stiff attention +to realism. The romantic elements of the story, however, completely +dominate his imagination, and when we have read the play carefully what +remains with us most vividly is the picturesqueness and unity of +the scene. The action, vehement and tumultuous as it is, takes place +entirely within the walls of Oestraat castle, a mysterious edifice, +sombre and ancient, built on a crag over the ocean, and dimly lighted by + + Magic casements opening on the foam + Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn. + +The action is exclusively nocturnal, and so large a place in it is taken +by huge and portable candlesticks that it might be called the Tragedy of +the Candelabra. Through the windows, on the landward side, a procession +of mysterious visitors go by in the moonlight, one by one, each fraught +with the solemnity of fate. The play is full of striking pictures, +groups in light and shade, pictorial appeals to terror and pity. + +The fault of the drama lies in the uncertain conception of the +characters, and particularly of that of the Matriarch herself. Inger +is described to us as the Mother of the Norwegian People, as the one +strong, inflexible and implacable brain moving in a world of depressed +and irritated men. "Now there is no knight left in our land," says Finn, +but--and this is the point from which the play starts--there is Inger +Gyldenloeve. We have approached the moment of crisis when the fortunes +and the fates of Norway rest upon the firmness of this majestic woman. +Inger is driven forward on the tide of circumstance, and, however she +may ultimately fail, we demand evidence of her inherent greatness. This, +however, we fail to receive, and partly, no doubt, because Ibsen was +still distracted at the division of the ways. + +Oehlenschlaeger, if he had attempted this theme, would have made no +attempt after subtlety of character painting and still less after +correctness of historic color. He would have given small shrift to Olaf +Skaktavl, the psychological outlaw. But he would have drawn Inger, the +Mother of her People, in majestic strokes, and we should have had a +great simplicity, a noble outline with none of the detail put in. Ibsen, +already, cannot be satisfied with this; to him the detail is every +thing, and the result is a hopeless incongruity between the cartoon and +the finished work. + +Lady Inger, in Ibsen's play, fails to impress us with greatness. "The +deed no less than the attempt confounds" her. She displays, from the +opening scene, a weakness that is explicable, but excludes all evidence +of her energy. The ascendency of Nils Lykke, over herself and over her +singularly and unconvincingly modern daughter, Elima, in what does it +consist? In a presentation of a purely physical attractiveness; Nils +Lykke is simply a voluptuary, pursuing his good fortunes, with impudent +ease, in the home of his ancestral enemies. In his hands, and not in his +only, the majestic Inger is reduced from a queen to a pawn. All manhood, +we are told, is dead in Norway; if this be so, then what a field is +cleared where a heroine like Inger, not young and a victim to her +passions, nor old and delivered to decrepit fears, may show us how a +woman of intellect and force can take the place of man. Instead of this, +one disguised and anonymous adventurer after another comes forth out of +the night, and confuses her with pretensions and traps her with deceits +against which her intellect protests but her will is powerless to +contend. + +Another feature in the conduct of _Lady Inger_ portrays the ambitious +but the inexperienced dramatist. No doubt a pious commentator can +successfully unravel all the threads of the plot, but the spectator +demands that a play should be clearly and easily intelligible. The +audience, however, is sorely puzzled by the events of this awful third +night after Martinmas, and resents the obscurity of all this intrigue by +candlelight. Why do the various persons meet at Oestraat? Who sends +them? Whence do they come and whither do they go? To these questions, +no doubt, an answer can be found, and it is partly given, and very +awkwardly, by the incessant introduction of narrative. The confused and +melodramatic scene in the banquet-hall between Nils Lykke and Skaktavl +is of central importance, but what is it about? The business with +Lucia's coffin is a kind of nightmare, in the taste of Webster or +of Cyril Tourneur. All these shortcomings are slurred over by the +enthusiastic critics of Scandinavia, yet they call for indulgence. The +fact is that _Lady Inger_ is a brilliant piece of romantic extravagance, +which is extremely interesting in illuminating the evolution of Ibsen's +genius, and particularly as showing him in the act of emancipating +himself from Danish traditions, but which has little positive value as a +drama. + +The direct result of the failure of _Lady Inger_--for it did not please +the play-goers of Bergen and but partly satisfied its author--was, +however, to send him back, for the moment, more violently than ever to +the Danish tradition. Any record of this interesting phase in Ibsen's +career is, however, complicated by the fact that late in his life (in +1883) he did what was very unusual with him: he wrote a detailed account +of the circumstances of his poetical work in 1855 and 1856. He denied, +in short, that he had undergone any influence from the Danish poet +whom he had been persistently accused of imitating, and he traced the +movement of his mind to purely Norwegian sources. During the remainder +of his lifetime, of course, this statement greatly confounded criticism, +and there is still a danger of Ibsen's disclaimer being accepted for +gospel. However, literary history must be built on the evidence +before it, and the actual text of _The Feast at Solhoug_, and of _Olaf +Liljekrans_ must be taken in spite of anything their author chose to say +nearly thirty years afterwards. Great poets, without the least wish to +mystify, often, in the cant phrase, "cover their tracks." Tennyson, in +advanced years, denied that he had ever been influenced by Shelley or +Keats. So Ibsen disclaimed any effect upon his style of the lyrical +dramas of Hertz. But we must appeal from the arrogance of old age to the +actual works of youth. + +Henrik Hertz (1798-1870) was the most exquisite, the most delicate, +of the Danish writers of his age. He was deeply impressed with the +importance of form in drama, and at the height of his powers he began to +compose rhymed plays which were like old ballads put into dialogue. +His comedy of _Cupid's Strokes of Genius_ (1830) began a series of +tragi-comedies which gradually deepened in passion and melody, till they +culminated in two of the acknowledged masterpieces of the Danish stage, +_Svend Dyring's House_ (1837) and _King Rene's Daughter_ (1845). The +genius of Hertz was diametrically opposed to that of Ibsen; in all +Europe there were not two authors less alike. Hertz would have pleased +Kenelm Digby, and if that romantic being had read Danish, the poet of +chivalry must have had a niche in _The Broad Stone of Honour_. Hertz's +style is delicate to the verge of sweetness; his choice of words is +fantastically exquisite, yet so apposite as to give an impression of the +inevitable. He cares very little for psychological exactitude or truth +of observation; but he is the very type of what we mean by a verbal +artist. + +Ibsen made acquaintance with the works, and possibly with the person, of +Hertz, when he was in Copenhagen in 1852. There can be no doubt whatever +that, while he was anxiously questioning his own future, and conscious +of crude faults in _Lady Inger_, he set himself, as a task, to write in +the manner of Hertz. It is difficult to doubt that it was a deliberate +exercise, and we see the results in _The Feast at Solhoug_ and in _Olaf +Liljekrans_. These two plays are in ballad-rhyme and prose, like +Hertz's romantic dramas; there is the same determination to achieve the +chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. +Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without +an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that +he has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of +metrical writing, but breaks down surprisingly at awkward intervals, and +displays a hopeless inconsistency between his own nature and the medium +in which he is forcing himself to write. As a proof that the similarity +between _The Feast at Solhoug_ and _Svend Dyring's House_ is accidental, +it has been pointed out that Ibsen produced his own play on the Bergen +stage in January, 1856, and revived Hertz's a month later. It might, +surely, be more sensibly urged that this fact shows how much he was +captivated by the charm of the Danish dramatist. + +The sensible thing, in spite of Ibsen's late disclaimer, is to suppose +that, in the consciousness of his crudity and inexperience as a writer, +he voluntarily sat at the feet of the one great poet whom he felt had +most to teach him. On the boards at Bergen, _The Feast at Solhoug_ was +a success, while _Olaf Liljekrans_ was a failure; but neither incident +could have meant very much to Ibsen, who, if there ever was a poet who +lived in the future, was waiting and watching for the development of his +own genius. Slowly, without precocity, without even that joy in strength +of maturity which comes to most great writers before the age of thirty, +he toiled on in a sort of vacuum. His youth was one of unusual darkness, +because he had not merely poverty, isolation, citizenship of a remote +and imperfectly civilized country to contend against, but because his +critical sense was acute enough to teach him that he himself was still +unripe, still unworthy of the fame that he thirsted for. He had not +even the consolation which a proud confidence in themselves gives to the +unappreciated young, for in his heart of hearts he knew that he had as +yet done nothing which deserved the highest praise. But his imagination +was expanding with a steady sureness, and the long years of his +apprenticeship were drawing to a close. + +Ibsen was now, like other young Norwegian poets, and particularly +Bjoernson, coming into the range of that wind of nationalistic +inspiration which had begun to blow down from the mountains and to +fill every valley with music. The Norwegians were discovering that they +possessed a wonderful hidden treasure in their own ancient poetry and +legend. It was a gentle, clerically minded poet--himself the son of a +peasant--Joergen Moe (1813-82), long afterwards Bishop of Christianssand, +who, as far back as 1834, began to collect from peasants the folk-tales +of Norway. The childlike innocence and playful humor of these stories +were charming to the mind of Moe, who was fortunately joined by a +stronger though less delicate spirit in the person of Peter Christian +Asbjoernsen. Their earliest collection of folk-lore in collaboration +appeared in 1841, but it was the full edition of 1856 which produced a +national sensation, and doubtless awakened Ibsen in Bergen. Meanwhile, +in 1853, M. B. Landstad had published the earliest of his collections +of the folkeviser, or national songs, while L. M. Lindeman in the same +years (1853-59) was publishing, in installments, the peasant melodies of +Norway. Moreover, Ibsen, who read no Icelandic, was studying the ancient +sagas in the faithful and vigorous paraphrase of Petersen, and all +combined to determine him to make an experiment in a purely national and +archaistic direction. + +Ibsen, whose practice is always better than his theory, has given rather +a confused account of the circumstances that led to the composition +of his next play, _The Vikings at Helgeland_. But it is clear that in +looking through Petersen for a subject which would display, in broad and +primitive forms, the clash of character in an ancient Norwegian family, +he fell upon "Volsungasaga," and somewhat rashly responded to its +vigorous appeal. He thought that in this particular episode, "the +titanic conditions and occurrences of the 'Nibelungenlied'" and other +pro-mediaeval legends had "been reduced to human dimensions." He +believed that to dramatize such a story would lift what he called "our +national epic material" to a higher plane. There is one phrase in his +essay which is very interesting, in the light it throws upon the object +which the author had before him in writing _The Vikings at Helgeland_. +He says clearly--and this was intended as a revolt against the tradition +of Oehlenschlaeger--"it was not my aim to present our mythic world, but +simply our life in primitive times." Brandes says of this departure that +it is "indeed a new conquest, but, like so many conquests, associated +with very extensive plundering." + +In turning to an examination of _The Vikings_, the first point which +demands notice is that Ibsen has gained a surprising mastery over the +arts of theatrical writing since we met with him last. There is nothing +of the lyrical triviality of the verse in _The Feast at Solhoug_ about +the trenchant prose of _The Vikings_, and the crepuscular dimness +of _Lady Inger_ is exchanged for a perfect lucidity and directness. +Whatever we may think about the theatrical propriety of the conductor +of the vikings, there is no question at all as to what it is they do and +mean. Ibsen has gained, and for good, that master quality of translucent +presentation without which all other stage gifts are shorn of their +value. When we have, however, praised the limpidity of _The Vikings at +Helgeland_, we have, in honesty, to make several reservations in our +criticism of the author's choice of a subject. It is valuable to compare +Ibsen's treatment of Icelandic family-saga with that of William Morris; +let us say, in _The Lovers of Gudrun_. That enchanting little epic deals +with an episode from one of the great Iceland narratives, and follows +it much more closely than Ibsen's does. But we are conscious of a less +painful effort and of a more human result. Morris does successfully +what Ibsen unsuccessfully aimed at doing: he translates the heroic and +half-fabulous action into terms that are human and credible. + +It was, moreover, an error of judgment on the part of the Norwegian +playwright to make his tragedy a mosaic of effective bits borrowed +hither and thither from the Sagas. Scandinavian bibliography has toiled +to show his indebtedness to this tale and to that, and he has been +accused of concealing his plagiarisms. But to say this is to miss the +mark. A poet is at liberty to steal what he will, if only he builds his +thefts up into a living structure of his own. For this purpose, however, +it is practically found that, owing perhaps to the elastic consistency +of individual human nature, it is safest to stick to one story, +embroidering and developing it along its own essential lines. + +There is great vigor, however, in many of the scenes in _The Vikings_. +The appearance of Hioerdis on the stage, in the opening act, marks, +perhaps, the first occasion on which Ibsen had put forth his full +strength as a playwright. This entrance of Hioerdis ought to be extremely +effective; in fact, we understand, it rarely is. The cause of this +disappointment can easily be discovered. It is the misfortune of The +Vikings that it is hardly to be acted by mortal men. Hioerdis herself is +superhuman; she has eaten the heart of a wolf, she claims direct descent +from a race of fighting giants. There is a grandeur about the conception +of her form and character, but it is a grandeur which might well daunt +a human actress. One can faintly imagine the part being played by Mrs. +Siddons, with such an extremity of fierceness and terror that ladies and +gentlemen would be carried out of the theatre in hysterics, as in the +days of Byron. Where Hioerdis insults her guests, and contrives +the horrid murder of the boy Thorolf before their eyes, we have a +stage-dilemma presented to us-either the actress must treat the scene +inadequately, or else intolerably. _Ne pueros coram populo Medea +trucidet_, and we shrink from Hioerdis with a physical disgust. Her great +hands and shrieking mouth are like Bellona's, and they smell of blood. + +What is true of Hioerdis is true in less degree of all the characters +in _The Vikings_. They are "great beautiful half-witted men," as Mr. +Chesterton would say: + + Our sea was dark with dreadful ships + Full of strange spoil and fire, + And hairy men, as strange as sin, + With horrid heads, came wading in + Through the long low sea-mire. + +This is the other side of the picture; this is how Oernulf and his seven +terrible sons must have appeared to Kaare the peasant, and this is how, +to tell the truth, they would in real life appear to us. The persons in +_The Vikings at Helgeland_ are so primitive that they scarcely appeal to +our sense of reality. In spite of all the romantic color that the poet +has lavished upon them, and the majestic sentiments which he has put +into their mouths, we feel that the inhabitants of Helgeland must have +regarded them as those of Surbiton regarded the beings who were shot +down from Mars in Mr. Wells' blood-curdling story. + +_The Vikings at Helgeland_ is a work of extraordinary violence and +agitation. The personages bark at one another like seals and roar like +sea-lions; they "cry for blood, like beasts at night." Oernulf, the aged +father of a grim and speechless clan, is sorely wounded at the beginning +of the play, but it makes no difference to him; no one binds up his arm, +but he talks, fights, travels as before. We may see here foreshadowed +various features of Ibsen's more mannered work. Here is his favorite +conventional tame man, since, among the shouting heroes, Gunnar +whimpers like a Tesman. Here is Ibsen's favorite trick of unrequited +self-sacrifice; it is Sigurd, in Gunnar's armor, who kills the mystical +white bear, but it is Gunnar who reaps the advantage. It is only fair +to say that there is more than this to applaud in _The Vikings at +Helgeland_; it moves on a consistent and high level of austere +romantic beauty. Mr. William Archer, who admires the play more than any +Scandinavian critic has done, justly draws attention to the nobility of +Oernulf's entrance in the third act. Yet, on the whole, I confess myself +unable to be surprised at the severity with which Heiberg judged _The +Vikings_ at its first appearance, a severity which must have wounded +Ibsen to the quick. + +The year 1857 was one of unsettlement in Ibsen's condition. The period +for which he had undertaken to manage the theatre at Bergen had now come +to a close, and he was not anxious to prolong it. He had had enough +of Bergen, to which only one chain now bound him. Those who read the +incidents of a poet's life into the pages of his works may gratify their +tendency by seeing in the discussions between Dagny and Hioerdis some +echo of the thoughts which were occupying Ibsen's mind in relation +to the married state. Since his death, the story has been told of his +love-affair with a very young girl, Rikke Holst, who had attracted his +notice by throwing a bunch of wild flowers in his face, and whom he +followed and desired to marry. Her father had rejected the proposal with +indignation. Ibsen had suffered considerably, but this was, after all, +an early and a very fugitive sentiment, which made no deep impression on +his heart, although it seems to have always lingered in his memory. + +There had followed a sentiment much deeper and much more emphatic. A +charming, though fragmentary, set of verses, addressed in January, 1856, +to Miss Susannah Thoresen, show that already for a long while he had +come to regard this girl of twenty as "the young dreaming enigma," the +possible solution of which interested him more than that of any other +living problem. It was more than the conversation of a versifying lover +which made Ibsen speak of Miss Thoresen's "blossoming child-soul" as the +bourne of his ambitions. In his dark way, he was already violently in +love with her. + +The household of her father, Hans Conrad Thoresen, was the most +cultivated in Bergen. He himself, the rector of Holy Cross, was a +bookish, meditative man of no particular initiative, but he had married, +as his third wife, Anna Maria Kragh, a Dane by birth, and for a long +time, with the possible exception of Camilla Collett, Wergeland's +sister, the most active woman of letters in Norway. Mrs. Thoresen was +the step-mother of Susannah, the only child of her husband's second +marriage. Between Magdalene Thoresen and Ibsen a strong friendship had +sprung up, which lasted to the end of their lives, and some of Ibsen's +best letters are those written to his wife's step-mother. She worked +hard for him at the Bergen theatre, translating plays from the French, +and it was during Ibsen's management of the theatre that several of her +own pieces were produced. Her prose stories, in connection with which +her name lives in Norwegian literature, were not yet written; so long as +Ibsen was at her side, her ideas seem to have been concentrated on the +stage. Constant communication with this charming woman only nine years +his senior, and much his superior in conventional culture, must have +been a school of refinement to the crude and powerful young poet. And +now the wise Magdalene appeared to him in a new light, dedicating to +him the best treasure of the family circle, the gay and yet mysterious +Susannah. + +While he was writing _The Vikings at Helgeland_, and courting Susannah +Thoresen, Ibsen received what seemed a timely invitation to settle +in Christiania as director of the Norwegian Theatre; he returned, +thereupon, to the capital in the summer of 1857, after an absence of +six years. Now began another period of six years more, these the most +painful in Ibsen's life, when, as Halvorsen has said, he had to fight +not merely for the existence of himself and his family, but for the very +existence of Norwegian poetry and the Norwegian stage. This struggle was +an excessively distressing one. He had left Bergen crippled with +debts, and his marriage (June 26, 1856) weighed him down with further +responsibilities. The Norwegian Theatre at Christiania was, a secondary +house, ill-supported by its patrons, often tottering at the brink of +bankruptcy, and so primitive was the situation of literature in the +country that to attempt to live by poetry and drama was to court +starvation. His slender salary was seldom paid, and never in full. The +only published volume of Ibsen's which had (up to 1863) sold at all was +_The Warriors_, by which he had made in all 227 specie dollars (or about +L25). + +The Christiania he had come to, however, was not that which he had left. +In many directions it had developed rapidly. From an intellectual point +of view, the labors of the nationalists had made themselves felt; +the folk-lore of Landstad, Moe and Asbjoernsen had impressed young +imaginations. In some of its forms the development was unpleasing and +discouraging to Ibsen; the success of the blank-verse tragedies of +Andreas Munch (_Salomon de Caus_, 1855; _Lord William Russell_, 1857) +was, for instance, an irritating step in the wrong direction. The +new-born school of prose fiction, with Bjoernson as its head (_Synnoeve +Solbakken_, 1857; _Arne_, 1858), with Camilla Collett's _Prefect's +Daughters_, 1855, as its herald; with Oestgaard's sketches of peasant +life and humors in the mountains (1852)--all this was a direct menace +to the popularity of the national stage, offering an easy and alluring +alternative for home-loving citizens. Was it certain that the classic +Danish, which alone Ibsen cared to write, would continue to be the +language of the cultivated classes in Norway? Here was Ivar Aasen (in +1853) showing that the irritating landsmaal could be used for prose and +verse. + +Wherever he turned Ibsen saw increased vitality, but in shapes that were +either useless or antagonistic to himself, and all that was harsh and +saturnine in his nature awakened. We see Ibsen, at this moment of his +life, like Shakespeare in his darkest hour, "in disgrace with fortune +and men's eyes," unappreciated and ready to doubt the reality of his own +genius; and murmuring to himself:-- + + Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, + Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, + Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope. + With what I most enjoy contented least. + +How little his greatness was perceived in the Christiania literary +coteries may be gathered from the little fact that the species of +official anthology of _Modern Norwegian Poets_, published in 1859, +though it netted the shallows of national song very closely, contained +not a line by the author of the lovely lyrics in _The Feast at Solhoug_. +It was at this low and miserable moment that Ibsen's talent suddenly +took wings; he conceived, in the summer of 1858, what finally became, +five years later, his first acknowledged masterpiece, and perhaps +the most finished of all his writings, the sculptural tragedy of _The +Pretenders_. + +_The Pretenders_ (_Kongsemnerne_, properly stuff from which Kings can be +made) is the earliest of the plays of Ibsen in which the psychological +interest is predominant, and in which there is no attempt to disguise +the fact. Nothing that has since been written about this drama, the +very perfection of which is baffling to criticism, has improved upon the +impression which Georg Brandes received from it when he first read it +forty years ago. The passage is classic, and deserves to be cited, if +only as perhaps the very earliest instance in which the genius of +Ibsen was rewarded by the analysis of a great critic. Brandes wrote (in +1867):-- + +What is it that The Pretenders treats of? Looked at simply, it is an old +story. We all know the tale of Aladdin and Nureddin, the simple +legend in the Arabian Nights, and our great poet's [Oehlenschlaeger's] +incomparable poem. In _The Pretenders_ two figures again stand opposed +to one another as the superior and the inferior being, an Aladdin and +a Nureddin nature. It is towards this contrast that Ibsen has hitherto +unconsciously directed his endeavors, just as Nature feels her way in +her blind preliminary attempts to form her types. Hakon and Skule are +pretenders to the same throne, scions of royalty out of whom a king may +be made. But the first is the incarnation of fortune, victory, right and +confidence; the second--the principal figure in the play, masterly in +its truth and originality--is the brooder, a prey to inward struggle and +endless distrust, brave and ambitious, with perhaps every qualification +and claim to be king, but lacking the inexpressible, impalpable somewhat +that would give a value to all the rest--the wonderful Lamp. "I am a +king's arm," he says, "mayhap a king's brain as well; but Hakon is the +whole king." "You have wisdom and courage, and all noble gifts of the +mind," says Hakon to him; "you are born to stand nearest a king, but not +to be a king yourself." + +To a poet the achievements of his greatest contemporaries in their +common art have all the importance of high deeds in statesmanship and +war. It is, therefore, by no means extravagant to see in the noble +emulation of the two dukes in _The Pretenders_ some reflection of +Ibsen's attitude to the youthful and brilliant Bjoernson. The +luminous self-reliance, the ardor and confidence and good fortune of +Bjoernson-Hakon could not but offer a violent contrast with the gloom and +hesitation, the sick revulsions of hope and final lack of conviction, +of Ibsen-Skule. It was Bjoernson's "belt of strength," as it was Hakon's, +that he had utter belief in himself, and with this his rival could not +yet girdle himself. "The luckiest man is the greatest man," says Bishop +Nicholas in the play, and Bjoernson seemed in these melancholy years as +lucky as Ibsen was unlucky. But the Bishop's views were not wide enough, +and the end was not yet. + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SATIRES (1857-67) + +Temperament and environment combined at the period we have now reached +to turn Ibsen into a satirist. It was during his time of _Sturm und +Drang_, from 1857 to 1864, that the harshest elements in his nature were +awakened, and that he became one who loved to lash the follies of his +age. With the advent of prosperity and recognition this phase melted +away, leaving Ibsen without illusions and without much pity, but no +longer the scourge of his fellow-citizens. Although _The Pretenders_, a +work of dignified and polished aloofness, was not completed until +1863, it really belongs to the earlier and more experimental section +of Ibsen's works, and is so completely the outcome and the apex of +his national studies that it has seemed best to consider it with _The +Vikings at Helgeland_, in spite of its immense advance upon that drama. +But we must now go back a year, and take up an entirely new section +which overlaps the old, namely, that of Ibsen's satires in dramatic +rhyme. + +With regard to the adoption of that form of poetic art, a great +difference existed between Norwegian and English taste, and this must +be borne in mind. Almost exactly at the date when Ibsen was inditing the +sharp couplets of his _Love's Comedy_, Tennyson, in _Sea Dreams_, +was giving voice to the English abandonment of satire--which had been +rampant in the generation of Byron--in the famous words:-- + + I loathe it: he had never kindly heart, + Nor ever cared to better his own kind, + Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. + +What England repudiated, Norway comprehended, and in certain hands +enjoyed. Polemical literature, if seldom of a high class, was abundant +and was much appreciated. The masterpiece of modern Norwegian poetry +was, still, the satiric cycle of Welhaven. In ordinary controversy, the +tone was more scathing, the bludgeon was whirled more violently, than +English taste at that period could endure. Those whom Ibsen designed to +crush had not minced their own words. The press was violence itself, +and was not tempered with justice; when the poet looked round he saw +"afflicted virtue insolently stabbed with all manner of reproaches," as +Dryden said. + +Yet it was not an age of gross and open vices; manners were not +flagitious, they were merely of a nauseous insipidity. Ibsen, flown with +anger as with wine, could find no outrageous offences to lash, and all +he could invite the age to do was to laugh at certain conventions and to +reconsider some prejudicated opinions. He had to be pungent, not openly +ferocious; he had to be sarcastic and to treat the current code +of morals as a jest. He found the society around him excessively +distasteful to him, but there were no crying evils of a political or +ethical kind to be stigmatized. What was open to him was what an old +writer of our own defined as "a sharp, well-mannered way of laughing a +folly out of countenance." + +Unfortunately, the people laughed at will never consent to think the way +well mannered, and Ibsen was bitterly blamed for "want of taste," that +vaguest and most insidious of accusations. We are told that he began his +enterprise in prose [Note: "_Svanhild_: a Comedy in three acts and in +prose: 1860," is understood to exist still in manuscript], but found +that too stiff and bald a medium for a satire on the social crudity of +Norway. In writing satire, it is all-important that the form should +be adequate, and at this time Ibsen had not reached the impeccable +perfection of his later colloquial prose. He started _Love's Comedy_, +therefore, anew, and he wrote it as a pamphlet in rhyme. It is not +certain that he had any very definite idea of the line which his attack +should take. He was very poor, very sore, very uncomfortable, and he was +easily convinced that the times were out of joint. Then he observed that +if there was anything that the Norwegian upper classes prided themselves +upon it was their conduct of betrothal and marriage. Plato had said that +the familiarity of young persons before marriage prevented enmity +and disappointment in later years, that it was useful to know the +peculiarities of temperament beforehand, and so, being accustomed to +them, to discount them. But Ibsen was not of this opinion, or rather, +perhaps, he did not choose to be. The extremely slow and public method +of betrothal in the North gave him his first opportunity. + +It is with a song, in the original one of the most delicious of +his lyrics, that he opens the campaign. To a miscellaneous party of +Philistines circled around the tea table, "all sober and all ----" the +rebellious hero sings:-- + + + In the sunny orchard-closes, + While the warblers sing and swing, + Care not whether blustering Autumn + Break the promises of Spring; + Rose and white the apple-blossom + Hides you from the sultry sky; + Let it flutter, blown and scattered, + On the meadow by and by. + +In the sexual struggle, that is to say, the lovers should not pause to +consider the worldly advantages of their match, but should fly in +secret to each other's arms. By the law of battle, the female should be +snatched to the conqueror's saddle-bow, and ridden away with into +the night, not subjected to the jokes and the good advice and the +impertinent congratulations of the clan. Young Lochinvar does not wait +to ask the counsel of the bride's cousins, nor to run the gantlet of her +aunts; he fords the Esk river with her, where ford there is none. Ibsen +is in favor of the _mariage de convenance_, which suppresses, without +favor, the absurdity of love-matches. Above all, anything is better than +the publicity, the meddling and long-drawn exposure of betrothal, which +kills the fine delicacy of love, as birds are apt to break their own +eggs if intruding hands have touched them. + +This is the central point in _Love's Comedy_, but there is much beside +this in its reckless satire on the "sanctities" of domestic life. The +burden of monogamy is frivolously dealt with, and the impertinent poet +touches with levity upon the question of the duration of marriage: + + With my living, with my singing, + I will tear the hedges down! + Sweep the grass and heap the blossom! + Let it shrivel, pale and blown! + Throw the wicket wide! Sheep, cattle, + Let them browse among the best! + _I_ broke off the flowers; what matter + Who may graze among the rest! + +_Love's Comedy_ is perhaps the most diverting of Ibsen's works; it is +certainly the most impertinent. If there was one class in Norwegian +society which was held to be above criticism it was the clerical. A +prominent character in Ibsen's comedy is the Rev. Mr. Strawman, a gross, +unctuous and uxorious priest, blameless and dull, upon whose inert body +the arrows of satire converge. This was never forgotten and long was +unforgiven. As late as 1866 the Storthing refused a grant to Ibsen +definitely on the ground of the scandal caused by his sarcastic portrait +of Pastor Strawman. But the gentler sex, to which every poet looks for +an audience, was not less deeply outraged by the want of indulgence +which he had shown for all forms of amorous sentiment, although Ibsen +had really, through his satire on the methods of betrothal, risen +to something like a philosophical examination of the essence of love +itself. + +To Brandes, who reproached him for not recording the history of ideal +engagements, and who remarked, "You know, there are sound potatoes and +rotten potatoes in this world," Ibsen cynically replied, "I am afraid +none of the sound ones have come under my notice"; and when Guldstad +proves to the beautiful Svanhild the paramount importance of creature +comforts, the last word of distrust in the sustaining power of love had +been said. The popular impression of Ibsen as an "immoral" writer seems +to be primarily founded on the paradox and fireworks of _Love's Comedy_. + +Much might be forgiven to a man so wretched as Ibsen was in 1862, +and more to a poet so lively, brilliant and audacious in spite of his +misfortunes. These now gathered over his head and threatened to submerge +him altogether. He was perhaps momentarily saved by the publication of +_Terje Vigen_, which enjoyed a solid popularity. This is the principal +and, indeed, almost the only instance in Ibsen's works of what the +Northern critics call "epic," but what we less ambitiously know as the +tale in verse. _Terje Figen_ will never be translated successfully into +English, for it is written, with brilliant lightness and skill, in an +adaptation of the Norwegian ballad-measure which it is impossible to +reproduce with felicity in our language. + +Among Ibsen's writings _Terje Vigen_ is unique as a piece of pure +sentimentality carried right rough without one divagation into irony or +pungency. It is the story of a much-injured and revengeful Norse pilot, +who, having the chance to drown his old enemies, Milord and Milady, +saves them at the mute appeal of their blue-eyed English baby. +_Terje Vigen_ is a masterpiece of what we may define as the +"dash-away-a-manly-tear" class of narrative. It is extremely well +written and picturesque, but the wonder is that, of all people in the +world, Ibsen should have written it. + +His short lyric poems of this period betray much more clearly the real +temper of the man. They are filled full and brimming over with longing +and impatience, with painful passion and with hope deferred. It is in +the strident lyrics Ibsen wrote between 1857 and 1863 that we can best +read the record of his mind, and share its exasperations, and wonder +at its elasticity. The series of sonnets _In a Picture Gallery_ is a +strangely violent confession of distrust in his own genius; the _Epistle +to H. O. Blom_ a candid admission of his more than distrust in the +talent and honesty of others. It was the peculiarity and danger of +Ibsen's position that he represented no one but himself. For instance, +the liberty of many of the expressions in _Love's Comedy_ led those +who were beginning a movement in favor of the emancipation of women +to believe that Ibsen was in sympathy with them, but he was not. All +through his life, although his luminous penetration into character led +him to be scrupulously fair in his analysis of female character, he was +never a genuine supporter of the extension of public responsibility to +the sex. A little later (in 1869), when John Stuart Mill's _Subjection +of Women_ produced a sensation in Scandinavia, and met with many +enthusiastic supporters, Ibsen coldly reserved his opinion. He was +always an observer, always a clinical analyst at the bedside of society, +never a prophet, never a propagandist. + +His troubles gathered upon him. Neither theatre consented to act _Love's +Comedy_, and it would not even have been printed but for the zeal of the +young novelist Jonas Lie, who, to his great honor, bought for about +L35 the right to publish it as a supplement to a newspaper that he was +editing. Then the storm broke out; the press was unanimously adverse, +and in private circles abuse amounted almost to a social taboo. In 1862 +the second theatre became bankrupt, and Ibsen was thrown on the world, +the most unpopular man of his day, and crippled with debts. It is true +that he was engaged at the Christiania Theatre at a nominal salary of +about a pound a week, but he could not live on that. In August, 1860, +he had made a pathetic appeal to the Government for a _digter-gage_, +a payment to a poet, such as is freely given to talent in the Northern +countries. Sums were voted to Bjoernson and Vinje, but to Ibsen not a +penny. By some influence, however, for he was not without friends, +he was granted in March, 1862, a travelling grant of less than L20 +to enable him to wander for two months in western Hardanger and the +districts around the Sognefjord for the purpose of collecting folk-songs +and legends. The results of this journey were prepared for publication, +but never appeared. This interesting excursion, however, has left its +mark stamped broadly upon _Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_. + +All through 1863 his condition was critical. He determined that his only +hope was to exile himself definitely from Norway, which had become too +hot to hold him. Various private friends generously helped him over this +dreadful time of adversity, earning a gratitude which, if it was not +expansive, was lifelong. Very grudging recognition of his gifts was +at length made by the Government in the shape of another trifling +travelling grant (March, 1863), again a handsome sum being awarded to +Bjoernson, his popular rival. In May Ibsen applied, in despair, to the +King himself, who conferred upon him a small pension of L90 a year, +which for the immediate future stood between this great poet and +starvation. The news of it was received in Christiania by the press in +terms of despicable insult. + +But in June of this _annee terrible_ Ibsen had a flash of happiness. +He was invited down to Bergen to the fifth great "Festival of Song," +a national occurrence, and he and his poems met with a warm reception. +Moreover, he found his brilliant antagonist, Bjoernson, at Bergen on a +like errand, and renewed an old friendship with this warm-hearted and +powerful man of genius, destined to play through life the part of Hakon +to Ibsen's Skule. They spent much of the subsequent winter together. +As Halvdan Koht has excellently said: "Their intercourse brought them +closer to each other than they had ever been before. They felt that they +were inspired by the same ideas and the same hopes, and they suffered +the same bitter disappointments. With anguish they watched the Danish +brother-nation's desperate struggle against the superior power of +Germany, and save a province with a population of Scandinavian race and +speech taken from Denmark and incorporated in a foreign kingdom, +whilst the Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen, in spite of solemn promises, +refrained from yielding any assistance." An attack on Holstein (December +22, 1863) had introduced the Second Danish War, to which a disastrous +and humiliating termination was brought in the following August. + +In April, 1864, Ibsen took the momentous step of quitting his native +country. He entered Copenhagen at the dark hour when Schleswig as well +as Holstein had been abandoned, and when the citadel of Duepper alone +stood between Denmark and ruin. His agonized sympathy may be read in the +indignant lyrics of that spring. A fortnight later he set out, by Luebeck +and Trieste, for Rome, where he had now determined to reside. He reached +that city in due time, and sank with ineffable satisfaction into the +arms of its antique repose. "Here at last," he wrote to Bjoernson, +"there is blessed peace," and he settled himself down to the close +contemplation of poetry. + +The change from the severities of an interminable Northern winter to +the glow and splendor of Italy acted on the poet's spirit like an +enchantment. Ibsen came, another Pilgrim of Eternity, to Rome's "azure +sky, flowers, ruins, statues, music," and at first the contrast +between the crudity he had left and the glory he had found was almost +intolerable. He could not work; all he did was to lie in the flushed air +and become as a little child. There has scarcely been another example +of a writer of the first class who, deeply solicitous about beauty, but +debarred from all enjoyment of it until his thirty-seventh year, has +been suddenly dipped, as if into a magic fountain, into the heart of +unclouded loveliness without transition or preparation. Shelley and +Keats were dead long before they reached the age at which Ibsen broke +free from his prison-house of ice, while Byron, in the same year of his +life, was closing his romantic career. + +Ibsen's earliest impressions of what these poets had become accustomed +to at a ductile age were contradictory and even incoherent. The passion +of pagan antiquity for a long while bewildered him. He wandered among +the vestiges of antique art, unable to perceive their relation to modern +life, or their original significance. He missed the impress of the +individual on classic sculpture, as he had missed it--the parallel is +strange, but his own--on the Eddaic poems of ancient Iceland. He liked +a lyric or a statue to speak to him of the man who made it. He felt more +at home with Bernini among sculptors and with Bramante among architects +than with artists of a more archaic type. Shelley, we may remember, +labored under a similar heresy; to each of these poets the +attractiveness of individual character overpowered the languid flavor +of the age in which the artist had flourished. Ibsen's admiration of a +certain overpraised monument of Italian architecture would not be worth +recording but for the odd vigor with which he adds that the man who made +that might have made the moon in his leisure moments. + +During the first few months of Ibsen's life in Rome all was chaos in +his mind. He was plunged in stupefaction at the beauties of nature, the +amenities of mankind, the interpenetration of such a life with such an +art as he had never dreamed of and could yet but dimly comprehend. +In September, 1864, he tells Bjoernson that he is at work on a poem of +considerable length. This must have been the first draft of _Brand_, +which was begun, we know, as a narrative, or as the Northerns call +it, an "epic" poem; although a sketch for the _Julianus Apostata_ was +already forming in the back of his head, as a subject which would, +sooner or later, demand poetic treatment. He had left his wife and +little son in Copenhagen, but at the beginning of October they joined +him in Rome. The family lived on an income which seems almost incredibly +small, a maximum of 40 scudi a month. But it was a different thing to be +hungry in Christiania and in Rome, and Ibsen makes no complaints. A sort +of blessed languor had fallen upon him after all his afflictions. He +would loll through half his days among the tombs on the Via Latina, or +would loiter for hours and hours along the Appian Way. It took him weeks +to summon energy to visit S. Pietro in Vincoli, although he knew that +Michelangelo's "Moses" was there, and though he was weary with longing +to see it. All the tense chords of Ibsen's nature were loosened. His +soul was recovering, through a long and blissful convalescence, from the +aching maladies of its youth. + +He took some part in the society of those Scandinavian writers, painters +and sculptors who gathered in Rome through the years of their distress. +But only one of them attracted him strongly, the young Swedish lyrical +poet, Count Carl Snoilsky, then the hope and already even the glory of +his country. There was some quaint diversity between the rude and +gloomy Norwegian dramatist, already middle-aged, and the full-blooded, +sparkling Swedish diplomatist of twenty-three, rich, flattered, and +already as famous for his fashionable _bonnes fortunes_ as Byron. But +two things Snoilsky and Ibsen had in common, a passionate enthusiasm for +their art, and a rebellious attitude towards their immediate precursors +in it. Each, in his own way, was the leader of a new school. The +friendship of Ibsen and Snoilsky was a permanent condition for the rest +of their lives, for it was founded on a common basis. + +A few years later the writer of these pages received an amusing +impression of Ibsen at this period from the Danish poet, Christian +Molbech, who was also in Rome in 1865 and onwards. Ibsen wandering +silently about the streets, his hands plunged far into the pockets of +his invariable jacket of faded velveteen, Ibsen killing conversation by +his sudden moody appearances at the Scandinavian Club, Ibsen shattering +the ideals of the painters and the enthusiasms of the antiquaries by +a running fire of sarcastic paradox, this is mainly what the somewhat +unsympathetic Molbech was not unwilling to reproduce. He painted a more +agreeable Ibsen when he spoke of his summer flights to the Alban Hills, +planned on terms of the most prudent reference to resources which seemed +ever to be expected and never to arrive. Nevertheless, under the +vines in front of some inn at Genzano or Albano, Ibsen would duly +be discovered, placid and dreamy, always self-sufficient and +self-contained, but not unwilling to exchange, over a flask of thin +wine, commonplaces with a Danish friend. It was at Ariccia, in one of +these periods of _villegiatura_, during the summer and autumn of 1865, +that _Brand_, which had long been under considerature, suddenly took +final shape, and was written throughout, without pause or hesitation. In +July the poet put everything else aside to begin it, and before the end +of September he had completed it. + +_Brand_ placed Ibsen at a bound among the greatest European poets of his +age. The advance over the sculptural perfection of _The Pretenders_ and +the graceful wit of _Love's Comedy_ was so great as to be startling. +Nothing but the veil of a foreign language, which the best translations +are powerless to tear away from noble verse, prevented this mastery from +being perceived at once. In Scandinavia, where that veil did not exist, +for those who had eyes to see, and who were not blinded by prejudice, +it was plain that a very great writer had arisen in Norway at last. +Bjoernson had seemed to slip ahead of Ibsen; his _Sigurd Slembe_ (1862) +was a riper work than the elder friend had produced; but _Mary Stuart in +Scotland_ (1864) had marked a step backward, and now Ibsen had once +more shot far ahead of his rival. When we have admitted some want of +clearness in the symbolism which runs through _Brand_, and some +shifting of the point of view in the two last acts, an incoherency and +a turbidity which are natural in the treatment of so colossal a theme, +there is very little but praise to be given to a poem which is as +manifold in its emotion and as melodious in its versification as it +is surprising in its unchallenged originality. In the literatures of +Scandinavia it has not merely been unsurpassed, but in its own peculiar +province it has not been approached. It bears some remote likeness +to _Faust_, but with that exception there is perhaps nothing in the +literature of the world which can be likened to _Brand_, except, of +course, _Peer Gynt_. + +For a long while it was supposed that the difficulties in the way of +performing _Brand_ on the public stage were too great to be overcome. +But the task was attempted at length, first in Stockholm in 1895; and +within the last few years this majestic spectacle has been drawn in full +before the eyes of enraptured audiences in Copenhagen, Berlin, Moscow +and elsewhere. In spite of the timid reluctance of managers, wherever +this play is adequately presented, it captures an emotional public at a +run. It is an appeal against moral apathy which arouses the languid. It +is a clear and full embodiment of the gospel of energy which awakens and +upbraids the weak. In the original, its rush of rhymes produces on the +nerves an almost delirious excitement. If it is taken as an oration, it +is responded to as a great civic appeal; if as a sermon, it is sternly +religious, and fills the heart with tears. In the solemn mountain air, +with vague bells ringing high up among the glaciers, no one asks exactly +what _Brand_ expounds, nor whether it is perfectly coherent. Witnessed +on the living stage, it takes the citadel of the soul by storm. When it +is read, the critical judgment becomes cooler. + +Carefully examined, _Brand_ is found to present a disconcerting mixture +of realism and mysticism. Two men seem at work in the writing of it, and +their effects are sometimes contradictory. It has constantly been asked, +and it was asked at one, "Is _Brand_ the expression of Ibsen's own +nature?" Yes, and no. He threw much of himself into his hero, and yet +he was careful to remain outside. Ibsen, as we have already pointed out, +was ready in later life to discuss his own writings, and what he said +about them is often dangerously mystifying. He told Georg Brandes that +the religious vocation of Brand was not essential. "I could have applied +the whole syllogism just as well to a sculptor, or a politician, as to +a priest." (He was to deal with each of these alternations later on, but +with what a difference!) "I could quite as well," he persisted, "have +worked out the impulse which drove me to write, by taking Galileo, for +instance, as my hero--assuming, of course, that Galileo should stand +firm and never concede the fixity of the earth--or you yourself in your +struggle with the Danish reactionaries." This is not to the point, since +in fact neither Georg Brandes nor Galileo, as hero of a mystical drama, +could have produced such a capacity for evolution as is presented by the +stern priest whose absolute certitude, although founded, one admits, on +no rational theory of theology, is yet of the very essence of religion. + +Brand becomes intelligible when we regard him as a character of the +twelfth century transferred to the nineteenth. He has something of Peter +the Hermit in him. He ought to have been a crusading Christian king, +fighting against the Moslem for the liberties of some sparkling city of +God. He exists in his personage, under the precipice, above the fjord, +like a rude mediaeval anchorite, who eats his locusts and wild honey in +the desert. We cannot comprehend the action of Brand by any reference +to accepted creeds and codes, because he is so remote from the religious +conventions as hardly to seem objectively pious at all. He is violent +and incoherent; he knows not clearly what it is he wants, but it must +be an upheaval of all that exists, and it must bring Man into closer +contact with God. Brand is a king of souls, but his royal dignity is +marred, and is brought sometimes within an inch of the ridiculous, by +the prosaic nature of his modern surroundings. He is harsh and cruel; he +is liable to fits of anger before which the whole world trembles; and it +is by an avalanche, brought down upon him by his own wrath, that he is +finally buried in the ruins of the Ice-Church. + +The judicious reader may like to compare the character of Brand with +that extraordinary study of violence, the _Abbe Jules_ of Octave +Mirbeau. In each we have the history of revolt, in a succession of +crises, against an invincible vocation. In each an element of weakness +is the pride of a peasant priest. But in Ibsen there is fully developed +what the cynicism of Octave Mirbeau avoids, a genuine conception of +such a rebel's ceaseless effort after personal holiness. Lammers +or Lammenais, what can it matter whether some existing priest of +insurrection did or did not set Ibsen for a moment on the track of +his colossal imagination? We may leave these discussions to the +commentators; _Brand_ is one of the great poems of the world, and +endless generations of critics will investigate its purpose and analyze +its forms. + +There is, however, another than the priestly side. The poem contains a +great deal of superficial and rather ephemeral satire of contemporary +Scandinavian life, echoes of a frightened Storthing in Christiania, of a +crafty court in Stockholm, and of Denmark stretching her bleeding hands +to her sisters in an agony of despair. There is the still slighter local +strain of irony, which lightens the middle of the third act. Here Ibsen +comes not to heal but to slay; he exposes the corpse of an exhausted +age, and will bury it quickly, with sexton's songs and peals of elfin +laughter, in some chasm of rock above a waterfall. "It is Will alone +that matters," and for the weak of purpose there is nothing but ridicule +and six feet of such waste earth as nature carelessly can spare from her +rude store of graves. Against the mountain landscape, Brand holds up his +motto "All or Nothing," persistently, almost tiresomely, like a +modern advertising agent affronting the scenery with his panacea. +More truculently still, he insists upon the worship of a deity, not +white-bearded, but as young as Hercules, a scandal to prudent Lutheran +theologians, a prototype of violent strength. + +Yet Brand's own mission remains undefined to him--if it ever takes exact +shape--until Agnes reveals it to him:-- + + Choose thy endless loss or gain! + Do thy work and bear thy pain.... + Now (he answers) I see my way aright. + In _ourselves_ is that young Earth, + Ripe for the divine new-birth. + +And it is in Agnes--as the marvellous fourth act opens where her love +for the little dear dead child is revealed, and where her patience +endures all the cruelties of her husband's fanaticism--it is in Agnes +that Ibsen's genius for the first time utters the clear, unembittered +note of full humanity. He has ceased now to be parochial; he is a +nursling of the World and Time. If the harsh Priest be, in a measure, +Ibsen as Norway made him, Agnes and Einar, and perhaps Gerd also, are +the delicate offspring of Italy. + +Considerable postponements delayed the publication of _Brand_, which +saw the light at length, in Copenhagen, in March, 1866. It was at once +welcomed by the Danish press, which had hitherto known little of Ibsen, +and the poet's audience was thus very considerably widened. The satire +of the poem awakened an eager polemic; the popular priest Wexels +preached against its tendency. A novel was published, called _The +Daughters of Brand_, in which the results of its teaching were analyzed. +Ibsen enjoyed, what he had never experienced before, the light and +shade of a disputed but durable popular success. Four large editions of +_Brand_ were exhausted within the year of its publication, and it took +its place, of course, in more leisurely progress, among the few books +which continued, and still continue, steadily to sell. It has always +been, in the countries of Scandinavia, the best known and the most +popular of all Ibsen's writings. + +This success, however, was largely one of sentiment, not of pecuniary +fortune. The total income from four editions of a poem like _Brand_, in +the conditions of Northern literary life forty years ago, would not much +exceed L100. Hardly had Ibsen become the object of universal discussion +than he found himself assailed, as never before, by the paralysis of +poverty. He could not breathe, he could not move; he could not afford to +buy postage stamps to stick upon his business letters. He was threatened +with the absolute extinction of his resources. At the very time when +Copenhagen was ringing with his praise Ibsen was borrowing money for his +modest food and rent from the Danish Consul in Rome. + +In the winter of 1865 he fell into a highly nervous condition, in the +midst of which he was assailed by a malarious fever which brought him +within sight of the grave. To the agony of his devoted wife, he lay for +some time between life and death, and the extreme poverty from which +they suffered made it difficult, and even impossible, for her to +provide for him the alleviations which his state demanded. He gradually +recovered, however, thanks to his wife's care and to his own magnificent +constitution, but the springs of courage seemed to have snapped within +his breast. + +In March, 1866, worn out with illness, poverty and suspense, he wrote a +letter to Bjoernson, "my one and only friend," which is one of the most +heart-rending documents in the history of literature. Few great spirits +have been nearer the extinction of despair than Ibsen was, now in his +thirty-ninth year. His admirers, at their wits' end to know what to +advise, urged him to write directly to Carl, King of Sweden and Norway, +describing his condition, and asking for support. Simultaneously came +the manifest success of _Brand_, and, for the first time, the Norwegian +press recognized the poet's merit. There was a general movement in his +favor; King Carl graciously received his petition of April 15, and +on May 10 the Storthing, almost unanimously, voted Ibsen a "poet's +pension," restricted in amount but sufficient for his modest needs. + +The first use he made of his freedom was to move out of Rome, where he +found it impossible to write, and to settle at Frascati among the hills. +He hired a nest of cheap rooms in the Palazzo Gratiosi, two thousand +feet above the sea. Thither he came, with his wife and his little son, +and there he fitted himself up a study; setting his writing table at a +window that overlooked an immensity of country, and Mont Soracte closing +the horizon with its fiery pyramid. In his correspondence of this time +there are suddenly noticeable a gayety and an insouciance which are +elements wholly new in his letters. The dreadful burden was lifted; the +dreadful fear of sinking in a sea of troubles and being lost for ever, +the fear which animates his painful letter to King Carl, was blown away +like a cloud and the heaven of his temper was serene. At Frascati he +knew not what to be at; he tried that subject, and this, waiting for the +heavenly spark to fall. It seems to have been at Tusculum, and in the +autumn of 1866, that the subject he was looking for descended upon him. +He hurried back to Rome, and putting all other schemes aside, he devoted +himself heart and soul to the composition of _Peer Gynt_, which he +described as to be "a long dramatic poem, having as its chief figure one +of the half-mythical and fantastical personages from the peasant life of +_modern_ Norway." + +He wrote this work slowly, more slowly than was his wont, and it was +a whole year on the stocks. It was in the summer that Ibsen habitually +composed with the greatest ease, and _Peer Gynt_ did not trove smoothly +until the poet settled in the Villa Pisani, at Casamicciola, on the +island of Ischia. His own account was: "After _Brand_ came _Peer Gynt_, +as though of itself. It was written in Southern Italy, in Ischia and at +Sorrento. So far away from one's readers one becomes reckless. This poem +contains much that has its origin in the circumstances of my own youth. +My own mother--with the necessary exaggeration--served as the model for +Ase." _Peer Gynt_ was finished before Ibsen left Sorrento at the end of +the autumn, and the MS. was immediately posted to Copenhagen. None +of the delays which had interfered with the appearance of _Brand_ now +afflicted the temper of the poet, and _Peer Gynt_ was published in +November, 1867. + +In spite of the plain speaking of Ibsen himself, who declared that _Peer +Gynt_ was diametrically opposed in spirit to _Brand_, and that it made +no direct attack upon social questions, the critics of the later +poem have too often persisted in darkening it with their educational +pedantries. Ibsen did well to be angry with his commentators. "They have +discovered," he said, "much more satire in _Peer Gynt_ than was intended +by me. Why can they not read the book as a poem? For as such I +wrote it." It has been, however, the misfortune of Ibsen that he has +particularly attracted the attention of those who prefer to see anything +in a poem except its poetry, and who treat all tulips and roses as +if they were cabbages for the pot of didactic morality. Yet it is +surprising that after all that the author said, and with the lovely +poem shaking the bauble of its fool's cap at them, there can still be +commentators who see nothing in _Peer Gynt_ but the "awful interest +of the universal problems with which it deals." This obsession of the +critic to discover "problems" in the works of Ibsen has been one of the +main causes of that impatience and even downright injustice with which +his writings have been received by a large section of those readers who +should naturally have enjoyed them. He is a poet, of fantastic wit and +often reckless imagination, and he has been travestied in a long +black coat and white choker, as though he were an embodiment of the +Nonconformist conscience. + +Casting aside, therefore, the spurious "lessons" and supposititious +"problems" of this merry and mundane drama, we may recognize among +its irregularities and audacities two main qualities of merit. Above +everything else which we see in _Peer Gynt_ we see its fun and its +picturesqueness. Written at different times and in different moods, +there is an incoherency in its construction which its most whole-hearted +admirers cannot explain away. The first act is an inimitable burst of +lyrical high spirits, tottering on the verge of absurdity, carried +along its hilarious career with no less peril and with no less brilliant +success than Peer fables for himself and the reindeer in their ride +along the vertiginous blade of the Gjende. In the second act, satire and +fantasy become absolutely unbridled; the poet's genius sings and dances +under him, like a strong ship in a storm, but the vessel is rudderless +and the pilot an emphatic libertine. The wild impertinence of fancy, in +this act, from the moment when Peer and the Girl in the Green Gown +ride off upon the porker, down to the fight with the Boeig, gigantic +gelatinous symbol of self deception, exceeds in recklessness anything +else written since the second part of _Faust_. The third act, +culminating with the drive to Soria Moria Castle and the death of Ase, +is of the very quintessence of poetry, and puts Ibsen in the first rank +of creators. In the fourth act, the introduction of which is abrupt and +grotesque, we pass to a totally different and, I think, a lower order of +imagination. The fifth act, an amalgam of what is worst and best in the +poem, often seems divided from it in tone, style and direction, and is +more like a symbolic or mythical gloss upon the first three acts than a +contribution to the growth of the general story. + +Throughout this tangled and variegated scene the spirits of the author +remain almost preposterously high. If it were all hilarity and sardonic +laughter, we should weary of the strain. But physical beauty of the most +enchanting order is liberally provided to temper the excess of irony. +It is, I think, no exaggeration to say that nowhere to the dramatic +literature of the world, not by Shakespeare himself, is there introduced +into a play so much loveliness of scenery, and such varied and exquisite +appeal to the eyes, as there is in _Peer Gynt_. The fifth act contains +much which the reader can hardly enjoy, but it opens with a scene so +full of the glory of the mountains and the sea that I know nothing else +in drama to compare with it. This again is followed by one of the finest +shipwrecks in all poetry. Scene after scene, the first act portrays the +cold and solemn beauty of Norwegian scenery as no painter's brush has +contrived to do it. For the woodland background of the Saeter Girls +there is no parallel in plastic art but the most classic of Norwegian +paintings, Dahl's "Birch in a Snow Storm." Pages might be filled with +praise of the picturesqueness of tableau after tableau in each act of +_Peer Gynt_. + +The hero is the apotheosis of selfish vanity, and he is presented to us, +somewhat indecisively, as the type of one who sets at defiance his own +life's design. But is Peer Gynt designed to be a useful, a good, or even +a successful man? Certainly Ibsen had not discovered it when he wrote +the first act, in which scarcely anything is observable except a study, +full of merriment and sarcasm, of the sly, lazy and parasitical class +of peasant rogue. This type was not of Ibsen's invention; he found it in +those rustic tales, inimitably resumed by Asbjoernson and Moe, in which +he shows us that his memory was steeped. Here, too, he found the Boeig, +a monster of Norse superstition, vast and cold, slippery and invisible, +capable of infinite contraction and expansion. The conception that +this horror would stand in symbol for a certain development of selfish +national instability seems to have seized him later, and _Peer Gynt_, +which began as a farce, continued as a fable. The nearest approach to +a justification of the moral or "problem" purpose, which Ibsen's graver +prophets attribute to him, is found in the sixth scene of the fifth act, +where, quite in the manner of Goethe, thoughts and watchwords and songs +and tears take corporeal form and assail the aged _Peer Gynt_ with their +reproaches. + +_Peer Gynt_ was received in the North with some critical bewilderment, +and it has never been so great a favorite with the general public as +_Brand_. But Ibsen, with triumphant arrogance, when he was told that it +did not conform to the rules of poetic art, asserted that the rules must +be altered, not _Peer Gynt_. "My book," he wrote, "_is_ poetry; and if +it is not, then it shall be. The Norwegian conception of what poetry +is shall be made to fit my book." There was a struggle at first against +this assumption, but the drama has become a classic, and it is now +generally allowed, that so long as poetry is a term wide enough to +include _The Clouds_ and the Second Part of _Faust_, it must be made +wide enough to take in a poem as unique as they are in its majestic +intellectual caprices. + +[Note.--By far the most exhaustive analysis of _Peer Gynt_ which has +hitherto been given to the world is that published, as I send these +pages to the press, by the executors of Otto Weininger, in his +posthumous _Ueber die letzte Dinge_ (1907). This extraordinary young +man, who shot himself on October 4, 1903, in the house at Vienna where +Beethoven died, was only twenty-three years of age when he violently +deprived philosophical literature in Europe of by far its most promising +and remarkable recruit. If I confess myself unable to see in _Peer Gynt_ +all that Weininger saw in it, the fault is doubtless mine. But in +Ibsen, unquestionably, time will _create_ profundities, as it has in +Shakespeare. The greatest works grow in importance, as trees do after +the death of the mortal men who planted them.] + +CHAPTER V + +1868-75 + +Ibsen's four years in Italy were years of rest, of solitude, of calm. +The attitude of Ibsen to Italy was totally distinct from that of other +illustrious exiles of his day and generation. The line of pilgrims from +Stendhal and Lamartine down to Ruskin and the Brownings had brought +with them a personal interest in Italian affairs; Italian servitude had +roused some of them to anger or irony; they had spent nights of insomnia +dreaming of Italian liberty. _Casa Guidi Windows_ may be taken as the +extreme type of the way in which Italy did not impress Ibsen. He sought +there, and found, under the transparent azure of the Alban sky, in the +harmonious murmurs of the sea, in the violet shadows of the mountains, +above all in the gray streets of Rome, that rest of the brain, that +ripening of the spiritual faculties, which he needed most after his +rough and prolonged adolescence in Norway. In his attitude of passive +appreciation he was, perhaps, more like Landor than like any other of +the illustrious exiles--Landor, who died in Florence a few days after +Ibsen settled in Rome. There was a side of character, too, on which the +young Norwegian resembled that fighting man of genius. + +When, therefore, on September 8, 1867, Garibaldi, at Genoa, announced +his intention of marching upon Rome, an echo woke in many a poet's +heart "by rose hung river and light-foot rill," but left Ibsen simply +disconcerted. If Rome was to be freed from Papal slavery, it would no +longer be the somnolent and unupbraiding haunt of quietness which +the Norwegian desired for the healing of his spleen and his moral +hypochondria. In October the heralds of liberty crossed the Papal +frontier; on the 30th, by a slightly prosaic touch, it was the French +who entered Rome. Of Ibsen, in these last months of his disturbed +sojourn--for he soon determined that if there was going to be civil +war in Italy that country was no home for him--we hear but little. This +autumn, however, we find him increasingly observant of the career of +Georg Brandes, the brilliant and revolutionary Danish critic, in whom +he was later on to find his first great interpreter. And we notice +the beginnings of a difference with Bjoernson, lamentable and hardly +explicable, starting, it would vaguely seem, out of a sense that +Bjoernson did not appreciate the poetry of _Peer Gynt_ at its due value. +Clemens Petersen, who, since the decease of Heiberg, had been looked +upon as the _doyen_ of Danish critics--had pronounced against the poetry +of _Peer Gynt_, and Ibsen, in one of his worst moods, in a bearish +letter, had thrown the blame of this judgment upon Bjoernson. + +All through these last months in Rome we find Ibsen in the worst of +humors. If it be admissible to compare him with an animal, he seems the +badger among the writers of his time, nocturnal, inoffensive, solitary, +but at the rumor of disturbance apt to rush out of its burrow and bite +with terrific ferocity. The bite of Ibsen was no joke, and in moments +of exasperation he bit, without selection, friend and foe alike. Among +other snaps of the pen, he told Bjoernson that if he was not taken +seriously as a poet, he should try his "fate as a photographer." +Bjoernson, genially and wittily, took this up at once, and begged him to +put his photography into the form of a comedy. But the devil, as Ibsen +himself said, was throwing his shadow between the friends, and all +the benefits and all the affection of the old dark days were rapidly +forgotten. They quarrelled, too, rather absurdly, about decorations +from kings and ministers; Bjoernson having determined to reject all such +gewgaws, Ibsen announced his intention of accepting (and wearing) every +cross and star that was offered to him. At this date, no doubt, the +temptation was wholly problematical in both cases, yet each poet acted +on his determination to the end. But Bjoernson's hint about the comedy +seems to have been, for some years, the last flicker of friendship +between the two. On this Ibsen presently acted in a manner very +offensive to Bjoernson. + +In March, 1868, Ibsen was beginning to be very much indeed incensed +with things in general. "What Norway wants is a national disaster," he +amiably snarled. It was high time that the badger should seek shelter in +a new burrow, and in May we find him finally quitting Rome. There was a +farewell banquet, at which Julius Lange, who was present, remarks that +Ibsen showed a spice of the devil, but "was very witty and amiable." He +went to Florence for June, then quitted Italy altogether, settling for +three months at Berchtesgaden, the romantic little "sunbath" in the +Salzburg Alps, then still very quiet and unfashionable. There he started +his five-act comedy, _The League of Youth_. All September he spent in +Munich, and in October, 1868, took root once more, this time at Dresden, +which became his home for a considerable number of years. Almost at once +he sank down again into his brooding mood of isolation and quietism, +roaming about the streets of Dresden, as he hail haunted those of Rome, +by night or at unfrequented hours, very solitary, seeing few visitors, +writing few letters, slowly finishing his "photographic" comedy, which +he did not get off his hands until March, 1869. Although he was still +very poor, he refused all solicitations from editors to write for +journals or magazines; he preferred to appear before the public at long +intervals, with finished works of importance. + +It is impossible for a critic who is not a Norwegian, or not closely +instructed in the politics and manners of the North, to take much +interest in _The League of Youth_, which is the most provincial of all +Ibsen's mature works. There is a cant phrase minted in the course of +it, _de lokale forhold_, which we may awkwardly translate as "the local +conditions" or "situation." The play is all concerned with _de lokale +forhold_, and there is an overwhelming air of Little Pedlington about +the intrigue. This does not prevent _The League of Youth_ from being, +as Mr. Archer has said, "the first prose comedy of any importance in +Norwegian literature," [Note: It is to be supposed that Mr. Archer +deliberately prefers _The League of Youth_ to Bjoernson's _The Newly +Married Couple_ (1865), a slighter, but, as it seems to me, a more +amusing comedy.] but it excludes it from the larger European view. Oddly +enough, Ibsen believed, or pretended to believe, that _The League of +Youth_ was a "placable" piece of foolery, which could give no annoyance +to the worst of offenders by its innocent and indulgent banter. Perhaps, +like many strenuous writers, he underestimated the violence of his own +language; perhaps, living so long at a distance from Norway and catching +but faintly the reverberations of its political turmoil, he did not +realize how sensitive the native patriot must be to any chaff of "de +lokale forhold." When he found that the Norwegians were seriously angry, +Ibsen bluntly told them that he had closely studied the ways and the +manners of their "pernicious and lie-steeped clique." He was always +something of a snake in the grass to his poetic victims. + +Mr. Archer, whose criticism of this play is extraordinarily brilliant, +does his best to extenuate the stiffness of it. But to my own ear, as I +read it again after a quarter of a century, there rise the tones of the +stilted, the unsmiling, the essentially provincial and boringly solemn +society of Christiania as it appeared to a certain young pilgrim in +the early seventies, condensing, as it then seemed to do, all the +sensitiveness, the arrogance, the crudity which made communication with +the excellent and hospitable Norwegians of that past epoch so difficult +for an outsider--so difficult, in particular, for one coming freshly +from the grace and sweetness, the delicate, cultivated warmth of +Copenhagen. The political conditions which led to the writing of _The +League of Youth_ are old history now. There was the "liberal" element in +Norwegian politics, which was in 1868 becoming rapidly stronger and more +hampering to the Government, and there was the increasing influence of +Soeren Jaabaek (1814-94), a peasant farmer of ultra-socialistic views, +who had, almost alone, opposed in the Storthing the grant of any +pensions to poets, and whose name was an abomination to Ibsen. + +Now Bjoernson, in the development of his career as a political publicist, +had been flirting more and more outrageously with these extreme ideas +and this truculent peasant party. He had even burned incense before +Jaabaek, who was the accursed Thing. Ibsen, from the perspective of +Dresden, genuinely believed that Bjoernson, with his ardor and his energy +and his eloquence, war, becoming a national danger. We have seen that +Bjoernson had piqued Ibsen's vanity about _Peer Gynt_, and nothing +exasperates a friendship more fatally than public principle grafted on +a private slight. Moreover, the whole nature of Bjoernson was gregarious, +that of Ibsen solitary; Bjoernson must always be leading the majority, +Ibsen had scuples of conscience if ten persons agreed with him. They +were doomed to disagreement. Meanwhile, Ibsen burned his ships by +creating the figure of Stensgaard, in _The League of Youth_, a frothy +and mischievous demagogue whose rhetoric irresistibly reminded every +one of Bjoernson's rolling oratory. What Bjoernson, not without dignity, +objected to was not so much the personal attack, as that the whole play +attempted "to paint our young party of liberty as a troop of pushing, +phrase-mongering adventurers, whose patriotism lay solely in their +words." Ibsen acknowledged that that was exactly his opinion of them, +and what could follow for such a disjointed friendship but anger and +silence? + +The year 1869, which we now enter, is remarkable in the career of Ibsen +as being that in which he travelled most, and appeared on the surface of +society in the greatest number of capacities. He was enabled to do this +by a considerable increase in his pension. First of all, he was induced +to pay a visit of some months to Stockholm, being seized with a sudden +strong desire to study conditions in Sweden, a country which he had +hitherto professed to dislike. He had a delightful stay of two months, +received from King Carl the order of the Wasa, was feted at banquets, +renewed his acquaintance with Snoilsky, and was treated everywhere with +the highest distinction. Ibsen and Bjoernson were how beginning to be +recognized as the two great writers of Norway, and their droll balance +as the Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat of letters was already becoming defined. +It was doubtless Bjoernson's emphatic attacks on Sweden that at this +moment made Ibsen so loving to the Swedes and so beloved. He was in such +clover at Stockholm that he might have lingered on there indefinitely, +if the Khedive had not invited him, in September, to be his guest at +the opening of the Suez Canal. This sudden incursion of an Oriental +potentate into the narrative seems startling until we recollect that +illustrious persons were invited from all countries to this ceremony. +The interesting thing is to see that Ibsen was now so fatuous as to be +naturally so selected; the only other Norwegian guest being Professor J. +D. C. Lieblein, the Egyptologist. + +The poet started for Egypt, by Dresden and Paris, on September 28. +_The League of Youth_ was published on the 29th, and first performed on +October 18; Ibsen, therefore, just missed the scandal and uproar caused +by the play in Norway. In company with eighty-five other people, all +illustrious guests of the Khedive, and under the care of Mariette Bey, +Ibsen made a twenty-four days' expedition up the Nile into Nubia, and +then back to Cairo and Port Said. There, on November 17, in the company +of an empress and several princes of the blood, he saw the Canal +formally opened and graced a grand processional fleet that sailed out +from Port Said towards Ismaila. But on the quay at Port Said Ibsen's +Norwegian mail was handed to him, and letters and newspapers alike were +full of the violent scenes in the course of which _The League of Youth_ +had been hissed down at Christiania. Then and there he sent his defiance +back to Norway in _At Port Said_, one of the most pointed and effective +of all his polemical lyrics. A version in literal prose must suffice, +though it does cruel injustice to the venomous melody of the original: + + The dawn of the Eastern Land + Over the haven glittered; + Flags from all corners of the globe + Quivered from the masts. + Voices in music + Bore onward the cantata; + A thousand cannon + Christened the Canal. + + The steamers passed on + By the obelisk. + In the language of my home + Came to me the chatter of news. + The mirror-poem which I had polished + For masculine minxes + Had been smeared at home + By splutterings from penny whistles. + + The poison-fly stung; + It made my memories loathsome. + Stars, be thanked!-- + My home is what is ancient! + We hailed the frigate + From the roof of the river-boat; + I waved my hat + And saluted the flag. + + To the feast, to the feast, + In spite of the fangs of venomous reptiles! + A selected guest + Across the Lakes of Bitterness! + At the close of day + Dreaming, I shall slumber + Where Pharaoh was drowned-- + And when Moses passed over. + +In this mood of defiance, with rage unabated, Ibsen returned home by +Alexandria and Paris, and was in Dresden again in December. + +The year of 1870 drove him out of Dresden, as the French occupation had +driven him out of Rome. It was essential for him to be at rest in the +midst of a quiet and alien population. He was drawn towards Denmark, +partly for the sake of talk with Brandes, who had now become a factor +in his life, partly to arrange about the performance of one of his early +works, and in particular of _The Pretenders_. No definite plan, however, +had been formed, when, in the middle of June, war was declared between +Germany and France; but a fortnight later Ibsen quitted Saxony, +and settled for three months in Copenhagen, where his reception was +charmingly sympathetic. By the beginning of October, after the fall of +Strasburg and the hemming in of Metz, however, it was plain on which +side the fortunes of the war would lie, and Ibsen returned "as from +a rejuvenating bath" of Danish society to a Dresden full of French +prisoners, a Dresden, too, suffering terribly from the paralysis of +trade, and showing a plentiful lack of enthusiasm for Prussia. + +Ibsen turned his back on all such vexatious themes, and set himself to +the collecting and polishing of a series of lyrical poems, the _Digte_ +of 1871, the earliest, and, indeed, the only such collection that he +published. We may recollect that, at the very same moment, with far less +cause to isolate himself from the horrors of war, Theophile Gautier was +giving the last touches to _Emaux et Camees_. In December, 1870, Ibsen +addressed to Fru Limnell, a lady in Stockholm, his "Balloon-Letter," a +Hudibrastic rhymed epistle in nearly 400 lines, containing, with a good +deal that is trivial, some striking symbolical reminiscences of his trip +through Egypt, and some powerful ironic references to the caravan of +German invaders, with its Hathor and its Horus, which was then rushing +to the assault of Paris under the doleful colors of the Prussian flag. +Ibsen's sarcasms are all at the ugliness and prosaic utilitarianism of +the Germans; "Moltke," he says, "has killed the poetry of battles." + +Ibsen was now greatly developing and expanding his views, and forming +a world-policy of his own. The success of German discipline deeply +impressed him, and he thought that the day had probably dawned which +would be fatal to all revolt and "liberal rebellion" for the future. +More than ever he dreaded the revolutionary doctrines of men like +Jaabaek and Bjoernson, which would lead, he thought, to bloodshed and +national disaster. The very same events were impressing Goldwin Smith at +the very same moment with his famous prophecy that the abolition of all +dynastic and aristocratic institutions was at hand, with "the tranquil +inauguration" of elective industrial governments throughout the world. +So history moves doggedly on, _propheten rechts, propheten links_, a +perfectly impassive _welt-kind_ in the middle of them. In Copenhagen +Ibsen had, after all, missed Brandes, delayed in Rome by a long and +dangerous illness; and all he could do was to exchange letters with this +still unseen but increasingly sympathetic and beloved young friend. To +Brandes Ibsen wrote more freely than to any one else about the great +events which were shaking the face of Europe and occupying so much of +both their thoughts:-- + +The old, illusory France has collapsed [he wrote to Brandes on December +20, 1870, two days after the engagement at Nuits]; and as soon as the +new, real Prussia does the same, we shall be with one bound in a new +age. How ideas will then come tumbling about our ears! And it is high +time they did. Up till now we have been living on nothing but the crumbs +from the revolutionary table of last century, a food out of which all +nutriment has long been chewed. The old terms require to have a new +meaning infused into them. Liberty, equality and fraternity are no +longer the things they were in the days of the late-lamented Guillotine. +This is what the politicians will not understand, and therefore, I hate +them. They want their own special revolutions--revolutions in externals, +in politics and so forth. But all this is mere trifling. What is +all-important is the revolution of the Spirit of Man. + +This revolution, as exemplified by the Commune in Paris, did not satisfy +the anticipations which Ibsen had formed, and Brandes took advantage of +this to tell him that he had not yet studied politics minutely enough +from the scientific standpoint. Ibsen replied that what he did not +possess as knowledge came to him, to a certain degree, as intuition or +instinct. "Let this be as it may, the poet's essential task is to see, +not to reflect. For me in particular there would be danger in too much +reflection." Ibsen seems, at this time, to be in an oscillating frame of +mind, now bent on forming some positive theory of life out of which +his imaginative works shall crystallize, harmoniously explanatory; at +another time, anxious to be unhampered by theories and principles, and +to represent individuals and exceptions exactly as experience presents +them to him. In neither attitude, however, is there discernible any +trace of the moral physician, and this is the central distinction +between Tolstoi and Ibsen, whose methods, at first sight, sometimes +appear so similar. Tolstoi analyzes a morbid condition, but always +with the purpose, if he can, of curing it; Ibsen gives it even closer +clinical attention, but he leaves to others the care of removing a +disease which his business is solely to diagnose. + +The _Poems_, after infinite revision, were published at length, in a +very large edition, on May 3, 1871. One reason why Ibsen was glad to +get this book off his hands was that it enabled him to concentrate his +thoughts on the great drama he had been projecting, at intervals, for +seven years past, the trilogy (as he then planned it) on the story of +Julian the Apostate. At last Brandes came to Dresden (July, 1871) and +found the tenebrous poet plunged in the study of Neander and Strauss, +Gibbon unfortunately being a sealed book to him. All through the +autumn and winter he was kept in a chronic state of irritability by +the intrigues and the menaces of a Norwegian pirate, who threatened to +reprint, for his own profit, Ibsen's early and insufficiently protected +writings. This exacerbated the poet's dislike to his own country, where +the very law courts, he thought, were hostile to him. On this subject +he used language of tiresome over-emphasis. "From Sweden, from Denmark, +from Germany, I hear nothing but what gives me pleasure; it is from +Norway that everything bad comes upon me." It was indicated to would-be +Norwegian visitors that they were not welcome at Dresden. Norwegian +friends, he said, were "a costly luxury" which he was obliged to deny +himself. + +The First Part of _Julian_ was finished on Christmas Day, but it took +over a year more before the entire work, as we now possess it, was +completed. "A Herculean labor," the author called it, when he finally +laid down a weary pen in February, 1873. The year 1872 had been very +quietly spent in unremitting literary labor, tempered by genial visits +from some illustrious Danes of the older generation, as particularly +Hans Christian Andersen and Meyer Aron Goldschmidt, and by more formal +intercourse with a few Germans such as Konrad Maurer and Paul Heyse; all +this time, let us remember, no Norwegians--"by request." The summer was +spent in long rambles over the mountains of Austria, ending up with a +month of deep repose in Berchtesgaden. The next year was like unto this, +except that its roaming, restless summer closed with several months in +Vienna; and on October 17, 1873, _nonum in annum_, after the Horatian +counsel, the prodigious masterpiece, _Emperor and Galilean_, was +published in Copenhagen at last. + +Of all the writings of Ibsen, his huge double drama on the rise and +fall of Julian is the most extensive and the most ambitious. It is not +difficult to understand what it was about the most subtle and the most +speculative of the figures which animate the decline of antiquity +that fascinated the imagination of Ibsen. Successive historians have +celebrated the flexibility of intelligence and firmness of purpose which +were combined in the brain of Julian with a passion for abstract beauty +and an enthusiasm for a restored system of pagan Hellenic worship. +There was an individuality about Julian, an absence of the common purple +convention, of the imperial rhetoric, which strongly commended him +to Ibsen, and in his perverse ascetic revolt against Christianity he +offered a fascinating originality to one who thought the modern +world all out of joint. As a revolutionary, Julian presented ideas of +character which could not but passionately attract the Norwegian poet. +His attitude to his emperor and to his God, sceptical, in each case, +in each case inspired by no vulgar motive but by a species of lofty and +melancholy fatalism, promised a theme of the most entrancing complexity. +But there are curious traces in Ibsen's correspondence of the +difficulty, very strange in his case, which he experienced in forming +a concrete idea of Julian in his own mind. He had been vaguely drawn to +the theme, and when it was too late to recede, he found himself baffled +by the paradoxes which he encountered, and by the contradictions of a +figure seen darkly through a mist of historical detraction. + +He met these difficulties as well as he could, and as a prudent dramatic +poet should, by close and observant study of the document. He endeavored +to reconcile the evident superiority of Julian with the absurd +eccentricities of his private manners and with the futility of his +public acts. He noted all the Apostate's foibles by the side of his +virtues and his magnanimities. He traced without hesitation the course +of that strange insurrection which hurled a coarse fanatic from the +throne, only to place in his room a literary pedant with inked fingers +and populous beard. He accepted everything, from the parasites to the +purple slippers. The dangers of so humble an attendance upon history +were escaped with success in the first instalment of his "world drama." +In the strong and mounting scenes of _Caesar's Apostacy_, the +rapidity with which the incidents succeed one another, their inherent +significance, the innocent splendor of Julian's mind in its first +emancipation from the chains of false faith, combine to produce an +effect of high dramatic beauty. Georg Brandes, whose instinct in such +matters was almost infallible, when he read the First Part shortly +after its composition, entreated Ibsen to give this, as it stood, to the +public, and to let _The Emperor Julian's End_ follow independently. +Had Ibsen consented to do this, _Caesar's Fall_ would certainly take a +higher place among his works than it does at present, when its effect +is somewhat amputated and its meaning threatened with incoherence by the +author's apparent _volteface_ in the Second Part. + +It was a lifelong disappointment to Ibsen that _Emperor and Galilean_, +on which he expended far more consideration and labor than on any other +of his works, was never a favorite either with the public or among the +critics. With the best will in the world, however, it is not easy to +find full enjoyment in this gigantic work, which by some caprice +of style defiant of analysis, lacks the vitality which is usually +characteristic of Ibsen's least production. The speeches put into the +mouths of antique characters are appropriate, but they are seldom vivid; +as Bentley said of the epistles of Julian's own teacher Libanius, "You +feel by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse with some +dreaming pedant, his elbow on his desk." The scheme of Ibsen's drama was +too vast for the very minute and meticulous method he chose to adopt. +What he gives us is an immense canvas, on which he has painted here +and there in miniature. It is a pity that he chose for dramatic +representation so enormous a field. It would have suited his genius far +better to have abandoned any attempt to write a conclusive history, +and have selected some critical moment in the life of Julian. He should +rather have concentrated his energies, independent of the chroniclers, +on the resuscitation of that episode, and in the course of it have +trembled less humbly under the uplifted finger of Ammianus. + +Of _Emperor and Galilean_ Ibsen afterwards said: "It was the first" (but +he might have added "the only") "poem which I have written under the +influence of German ideas." He was aware of the danger of living too +long away from his own order of thought and language. But it was always +difficult for him, once planted in a place, to pull up his roots. A +weariness took possession of him after the publication of his double +drama, and he did practically nothing for four years. This marks a +central joint in the structure of his career, what the architects call +a "channel" in it, adding to the general retrospect of Ibsen's work an +aspect of solidity and resource. During these years he revised some of +his early writings, made a closer study of the arts of sculpture and +painting, and essayed, without satisfaction, a very brief sojourn in +Norway. In the spring of 1875 he definitely moved with his family from +Dresden to Munich. + +The brief visit to Christiania in 1874 proved very unfortunate. Ibsen +was suspicious, the Norwegians of that generation were constitutionally +stiff and reserved; long years among Southern races had accustomed him +to a plenitude in gesture and emphasis. He suffered, all the brief time +he was in Norway, from an intolerable _malaise_. Ten years afterwards, +in writing to Bjoernson, the discomfort of that experience was still +unallayed. "I have not yet saved nearly enough," he said, "to support +myself and my family in the case of my discontinuing my literary work. +And I should be obliged to discontinue it if I lived in Christiania.... +This simply means that I should not write at all. When, ten years ago, +after an absence of ten years, I sailed up the fjord, I felt a weight +settling down on my breast, a feeling of actual physical oppression. And +this feeling lasted all the time I was at home; I was not myself under +the stare of all those cold, uncomprehending Norwegian eyes at the +windows and in the streets." + +Ibsen had now been more than ten years am exile from Norway, and his +sentiments with regard to his own people were still what they were when, +in July, 1872, he had sent home his _Ode for the Millenary Festival_. +That very striking poem, one of the most solid of Ibsen's lyrical +performances, had opened in the key of unmitigated defiance to popular +opinion at home. It was intended to show Norwegians that they must +alter their attitude towards him, as he would never change his behavior +towards them. "My countrymen," he said:-- + + My countrymen, who filled for me deep bowls + Of wholesome bitter medicine, such as gave + The poet, on the margin of his grave, + Fresh force to fight where broken twilight rolls,-- + My countrymen, who sped me o'er the wave, + An exile, with my griefs for pilgrim-soles, + My fears for burdens, doubts for staff, to roam,-- + From the wide world I send you greeting home. + + I send you thanks for gifts that help and harden, + Thanks for each hour of purifying pain; + Each plant that springs in my poetic garden + Is rooted where your harshness poured its rain; + Each shoot in which it blooms and burgeons forth + It owes to that gray weather from the North; + The sun relaxes, but the fog secures! + My country, thanks! My life's best gifts were yours. + +In spite of these sardonic acknowledgments. Ibsen's fame in Norway, +though still disputed, was now secure. In Denmark and Sweden it was +almost unchallenged, and he was a name, at least, in Germany. In +England, since 1872, he had not been without a prophet. But in Italy, +Russia, France--three countries upon the intelligence of which he was +presently to make a wide and durable impression--he was still quite +unknown. + +Meanwhile, in glancing over the general literature of Europe, we see +his figure, at the threshold of his fiftieth year, taking greater +and greater prominence. He had become, in the sudden exinction of the +illustrious old men of Denmark, the first living writer of the North. He +was to Norway what Valera was to Spain, Carducci to Italy, Swinburne or +Rossetti to England, and Leconte de Lisle to France. These were mainly +lyrical poets, but it must not be forgotten that Ibsen, down at least +till 1871, was prominently illustrious as a writer in metrical form. If, +in the second portion of his career, he resolutely deprived himself +of all indulgence in the ornament of verse, it was a voluntary act of +austerity. It was Charles V at Yuste, wilfully exchanging the crown of +jewels for the coarse brown cowl of St. Jerome. And now, after a year +or two of prayer and fasting, Ibsen began a new intellectual career. +CHAPTER VI + +1875-82 + +While Ibsen was sitting at Munich, in this climacteric stage of his +career, dreaming of wonderful things and doing nothing, there came to +him, in the early months of 1875, two new plays by his chief rival. +These were _The Editor_ and _A Bankruptcy_, in which Bjoernson suddenly +swooped from his sagas and his romances down into the middle of sordid +modern life. This was his first attempt at that "photography by comedy" +which he had urged on Ibsen in 1868. It is not, I think, recorded +what was Ibsen's comment on these two plays, and particularly on _A +Bankruptcy_, but it is written broadly over the surface of his own next +work. It is obvious that he perceived that Bjoernson had carried a very +spirited raid into his own particular province, and he was determined to +drive this audacious enemy back by means of greater audacities. + +Not at once, however; for an extraordinary languor seemed to have fallen +upon Ibsen. His isolation from society became extreme; for nearly a year +he gave no sign of life. In September, 1875, indeed, if not earlier, he +was at work on a five-act play, but what this was is unknown. It seems +to have been in the winter of 1876, after an unprecedented period of +inanimation, that he started a new comedy, _The Pillars of Society_, +which was finished in Munich in July, 1877, that summer being unique in +the fact that the Ibsens do not seem to have left town at all. + +Ibsen was now a good deal altered in the exteriors of character. With +his fiftieth year he presents himself as no more the Poet, but the Man +of Business. Molbech told me that at this time the velveteen jacket, +symbol of the dear delays of art, was discarded in favor of a +frock-coat, too tight across the chest. Ibsen was now beginning, rather +shyly, very craftily, to invest money; he even found himself in frequent +straits for ready coin from his acute impatience to set every rix-dollar +breeding. He cast the suspicion of poetry from him, and with his gold +spectacles, his Dundreary whiskers, his broadcloth bosom and his quick +staccato step, he adopted the pose of a gentleman of affairs, very +positive and with no nonsense about him. + +He had long determined on the wilful abandonment of poetic form, and the +famous statement made in a letter to myself (January 15, 1874) must be +quoted, although it is well known, since it contains the clearest of all +the explanations by which Ibsen justified his new departure:-- + +You are of opinion that the drama [_Emperor and Galilean_] ought to have +been written in verse, and that it would have gained by this. Here I +must differ from you. The play is, as you will have observed, conceived +in the most realistic style: the illusion I wished to produce is that of +reality. I wished to produce the impression on the reader that what he +was reading was something that had really happened. If I had employed +verse, I should have counteracted my own intention and prevented +the accomplishment of the task I had set myself. The many ordinary +insignificant characters whom I have intentionally introduced into +the play would have become indistinct, and indistinguishable from one +another, if I had allowed all of them to speak in one and the same +rhythmical measure. We are no longer living in the days of Shakespeare. +Among sculptors there is already talk of painting statues in the natural +colors. Much can be said both for and against this. I have no desire +to see the Venus of Milo painted, but I would rather see the head of a +negro executed in black than in white marble. Speaking generally, +the style must conform to the degree of ideality which pervades the +representation. My new drama is no tragedy in the ancient acceptation; +what I desired to depict were human beings, and therefore I would not +let them talk "the language of the Gods." + +This revolt against dramatic verse was a feature of the epoch. In 1877 +Alphonse Daudet was to write of a comedy, "Mais, helas! cette piece est +en vers, et l'ennui s'y promene librement entre les rimes." + +No poet, however, sacrificed so much, or held so rigidly to his +intention of reproducing the exact language of real life, as did Ibsen +in the series of plays which opens with _The Pillars of Society_. This +drama was published in Copenhagen in October, 1877, and was acted almost +immediately in Denmark, Sweden and Norway; it had the good fortune to +be taken up warmly in Germany. What Ibsen's idea was, in the new sort of +realistic drama which he was inventing, was, in fact, perceived at once +by German audiences, although it was not always approved of. He was the +guest of the theatromaniac Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and _The Pillars of +Society_ was played in many parts of Germany. In Scandinavia the book of +the play sold well, and the piece had some success on the boards, but it +did not create anything like so much excitement as the author had hoped +that it would. Danish taste pronounced it "too German." + +For the fact that _The Pillars of Society_, except in Scandinavia and +Germany, did not then, and never has since, taken a permanent hold +upon the theatre, Mr. William Archer gives a reason which cannot be +controverted, namely, that by the time the other foreign publics had +fully awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown +the phase of his development marked by _Pillars of Society_, that the +play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned. It exactly suited +the German public of the eighties; it was exactly on a level with their +theatrical intelligence. But it was above the theatrical intelligence of +the Anglo-American public, and... below that of the French public. This +is of course an exaggeration. What I mean is that there was no possible +reason why the countrymen of Augier and Dumas should take any special +interest in _Pillars of Society_. It was not obviously in advance of +these masters in technical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment +running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of +that period. + +The subject of _The Pillars of Society_ was the hollowness and +rottenness of those supports, and the severe and unornamented prose +which Ibsen now adopted was very favorable to its discussion. He was +accused, however, of having lived so long away from home as to have +fallen out of touch with real Norwegian life, which he studied in the +convex mirror of the newspapers. It is more serious objection to _The +Pillars of Society_ that in it, as little as in _The League of Youth_, +had Ibsen cut himself off from the traditions of the well-made play. +Gloomy and homely as are the earlier acts, Ibsen sees as yet no way +out of the imbroglio but that known to Scribe and the masters of the +"well-made" play. The social hypocrisy of Consul Bernick is condoned by +a sort of death-bed repentance at the close, which is very much of +the usual "bless-ye-my-children" order. The loss of the Indian Girl is +miraculously prevented, and at the end the characters are solemnized and +warned, yet are left essentially none the worse for their alarm. This, +unfortunately, is not the mode in which the sins of scheming people +find them out in real life. But to the historical critic it is +very interesting to see Bjoernson and Ibsen nearer one another in _A +Bankruptcy_ and _The Pillars of Society_ than they had ever been before. +They now started on a course of eager, though benevolent, rivalry which +was eminently to the advantage of each of them. + +No feature of Ibsen's personal career is more interesting than his +relation to Bjoernson. Great as the genius of Ibsen was, yet, rating it +as ungrudgingly as possible, we have to admit that Bjoernson's character +was the more magnetic and more radiant of the two. Ibsen was a citizen +of the world; he belonged, in a very remarkable degree, to the small +class of men whose intelligence lifts them above the narrowness of local +conditions, who belong to civilization at large, not to the system +of one particular nation. He was, in consequence, endowed, almost +automatically, with the instinct of regarding ideas from a central +point; if he was to be limited at all, he might be styled European, +although, perhaps, few Western citizens would have had less difficulty +than he in making themselves comprehended by a Chinese, Japanese or +Indian mind of unusual breadth and cultivation. On the other hand, in +accepting the advantages of this large mental outlook, he was forced to +abandon those of nationality. No one can say that Ibsen was, until near +the end of his life, a good Norwegian, and he failed, by his utterances, +to vibrate the local mind. But Bjoernson, with less originality, was the +typical patriot in literature, and what he said, and thought, and wrote +was calculated to stir the local conscience to the depths of its being. + +When, therefore, in 1867, Ibsen, who was bound by all natural +obligations and tendencies to remain on the best terms with Bjoernson, +allowed the old friendship between them to lapse into positive +antagonism, he was following the irresistible evolution of his fate, as +Bjoernson was following his. It was as inevitable that Ibsen should +grow to his full height in solitude as it was that Bjoernson should +pine unless he was fed by the dew and sunlight of popular meetings, +torchlight processions of students and passionate appeals to local +sentiment. Trivial causes, such as those which we have chronicled +earlier, might seem to lead up to a division, but that division was +really inherent in the growth of the two men. + +Ibsen, however, was not wholly a gainer at first even in genius, by the +separation. It cut him off from Norway too entirely, and it threw him +into the arms of Germany. There were thirteen years in which Ibsen +and Bjoernson were nothing to one another, and these were not years of +unmingled mental happiness for either of them. But during this long +period each of these very remarkable men "came into his kingdom," and +when there was no longer any chance that either of there could warp the +nature of the other, fate brought them once more together. + +The reconciliation began, of course, with a gracious movement from +Bjoernson. At the end of 1880, writing for American readers, Bjoernson +had the generous candor to say: "I think I have a pretty thorough +acquaintance with the dramatic literature of the world, and I have not +the slightest hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen possesses more +dramatic power than any other play-writer of our day." When we remember +that, in France alone, Augier and Dumas _fils_ and Hugo, Halevy and +Meilhac and Labiche, were all of them alive, the compliment, though a +sound, was a vivid one. Sooner or later, everything that was said about +Ibsen, though it were whispered in Choctaw behind the altar of a Burmese +temple, came round to Ibsen's ears, and this handsome tribute from +the rival produced its effect. And when, shortly afterwards, still in +America, Bjoernson was nearly killed in a railway accident, Ibsen +broke the long silence by writing to him a most cordial letter of +congratulation. + +The next incident was the publication of _Ghosts_, when Bjoernson, now +thoroughly roused, stood out almost alone, throwing the vast prestige +of his judgment into the empty scale against the otherwise unanimous +black-balling. Then the reconcilement was full and fraternal, and Ibsen +wrote from Rome (January 24, 1882), with an emotion rare indeed for him: +"The only man in Norway who has frankly, boldly and generously taken +my part is Bjoernson. It is just like him; he has, in truth, a great, a +kingly soul; and I shall never forget what he has done now." Six months +later, on occasion of Bjoernson's jubilee, Ibsen telegraphed: "My thanks +for the work done side by side with me in the service of freedom these +twenty-five years." These words wiped away all unhappy memories of the +past; they gave public recognition to the fact that, though the two +great poets had been divided for half a generation by the forces of +circumstance, they had both been fighting at wings of the same army +against the common enemy. + +This, however, takes us for the moment a little too far ahead. After the +publication of _The Pillars of Society_, Ibsen remained quiet for some +time; indeed, from this date we find him adopting the practice which was +to be regular with him henceforth, namely, that of letting his mind +lie fallow for one year after the issue of each of his works, and then +spending another year in the formation of the new play. Munich gradually +became tedious to him, and he justly observed that the pressure of +German surroundings was unfavorable to the healthy evolution of his +genius. In 1878 he went back to Rome, which, although it was no longer +the quiet and aristocratic Rome of Papal days, was still immensely +attractive to his temperament. He was now, in some measure, "a person of +means," and he made the habit of connoisseurship his hobby. He formed +a small collection of pictures, selecting works with, as he believed, +great care. The result could be seen long afterwards by those who +visited him in his final affluence, for they hung round the rooms of the +sumptuous flat in which he spent his old age and in which he died. +His taste, as far as one remembers, was for the Italian masters of the +decline, and whether he selected pictures with a good judgment must be +left for others to decide. Probably he shared with Shelley a fondness +for the Guercinos and the Guido Renis, whom we can now admire only in +defiance of Ruskin. + +In April, 1879, it is understood, a story was told him of an incident in +the Danish courts, the adventure of a young married woman in one of the +small towns of Zealand, which set his thoughts running on a new dramatic +enterprise. He was still curiously irritated by contemplating, in +his mind's eye, the "respectable, estimable narrowmindedness and +worldliness" of social conditions in Norway, where there was no +aristocracy, and where a lower middle-class took the place of a +nobility, with, as he thought, sordid results. But he was no longer +suffering from what he himself had called "the feeling of an insane man +staring at one single, hopelessly black spot." He went to Amalfi for the +summer, and in that delightful spot, so curiously out of keeping with +his present rigidly prosaic mood, he set himself to write what is +probably the most widely famous of all his works, _A Doll's House_. The +day before he started he wrote to me from Rome (in an unpublished +letter of July 4, 1879): "I have been living here with my family since +September last, and most of that time I have been occupied with the idea +of a new dramatic work, which I shall now soon finish, and which will +be published in October. It is a serious drama, really a family drama, +dealing with modern conditions and in particular with the problems which +complicate marriage." This play he finished, lingering at Amalfi, in +September, 1879. It was an engineer's experiment at turning up and +draining a corner of the moral swamp which Norwegian society seemed to +be to his violent and ironic spirit. + +_A Doll's House_ was Ibsen's first unqualified success. Not merely was +it the earliest of his plays which excited universal discussion, but +in its construction and execution it carried out much further than its +immediate precursors Ibsen's new ideal as an unwavering realist. Mr. +Arthur Symons has well said [Note: The _Quarterly Review_ for October, +1906.] that "_A Doll's House_ is the first of Ibsen's plays in which +the puppets have no visible wires." It may even be said that it was the +first modern drama in which no wires had been employed. Not that even +here the execution is perfect, as Ibsen afterwards made it. The arm +of coincidence is terribly shortened, and the early acts, clever and +entertaining as they are, are still far from the inevitability of real +life. But when, in the wonderful last act, Nora issues from her bedroom, +dressed to go out, to Helmer's and the audience's stupefaction, and when +the agitated pair sit down to "have it out," face to face across the +table, then indeed the spectator feels that a new thing has been born in +drama, and, incidentally, that the "well-made play" has suddenly become +as dead as Queen Anne. The grimness, the intensity of life, are amazing +in this final scene, where the old happy ending is completely abandoned +for the first time, and where the paradox of life is presented without +the least shuffling or evasion. + +It was extraordinary how suddenly it was realized that _A Doll's +House_ was a prodigious performance. All Scandinavia rang with Nora's +"declaration of independence." People left the theatre, night after +night, pale with excitement, arguing, quarrelling, challenging. The +inner being had been unveiled for a moment, and new catchwords were +repeated from mouth to mouth. The great statement and reply--"No man +sacrifices his honor, even for one he loves," "Hundreds of thousands of +women have done so!"--roused interminable discussion in countless family +circles. The disputes were at one time so violent as to threaten the +peace of households; a school of imitators at once sprang up to treat +the situation, from slightly different points of view, in novel, poem +and drama. [Note: The reader who desires to obtain further light on the +technical quality of _A Doll's House_ can do no better than refer to Mr. +William Archer's elaborate analysis of it (_Fortnightly Review_, July, +1906.)] + +The universal excitement which Ibsen had vainly hoped would be awakened +by _The Pillars of Society_ came, when he was not expecting it, to greet +_A Doll's House_. Ibsen was stirred by the reception of his latest play +into a mood rather different from that which he expressed at any other +period. As has often been said, he did not pose as a prophet or as a +reformer, but it did occur to him now that he might exercise a strong +moral influence, and in writing to his German translator, Ludwig +Passarge, he said (June 16, 1880): + +Everything that I have written has the closest possible connection +with what I have lived through, even if it has not been my own personal +experience; in every new poem or play I have aimed at my own spiritual +emancipation and purification--for a man shares the responsibility and +the guilt of the society to which he belongs. + +It was in this spirit of unusual gravity that he sat down to the +composition of _Ghosts_. There is little or no record of how he occupied +himself at Munich and Berchtesgaden in 1880, except that in March he +began to sketch, and then abandoned, what afterwards became _The Lady +from the Sea_. In the autumn of that year, indulging once more his +curious restlessness, he took all his household gods and goods again to +Rome. His thoughts turned away from dramatic art for a moment, and he +planned an autobiography, which was to deal with the gradual development +of his mind, and to be called _From Skien to Rome_. Whether he actually +wrote any of this seems uncertain; that he should have planned it shows +a certain sense of maturity, a suspicion that, now in his fifty-third +year, he might be nearly at the end of his resources. As a matter of +fact, he was just entering upon a new inheritance. In the summer of 1881 +he went, as usual now, to Sorrento, and there [Note: So the authorities +state: but in an unpublished letter to myself, dated Rome, November +26, 1880, I find Ibsen saying, "Just now I am beginning to exercise my +thoughts over a new drama; I hope I shall finish it in the course of +next summer." It seems to have been already his habit to meditate long +about a subject before it took any definite literary form in his mind.] +the plot of _Ghosts_ revealed itself to him. This work was composed with +more than Ibsen's customary care, and was published at the beginning of +December, in an edition of ten thousand copies. + +Before the end of 1881 Ibsen was aware of the terrific turmoil which +_Ghosts_ had begun to occasion. He wrote to Passarge: "My new play has +now appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian +press. Every day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or +praising it. I consider it absolutely impossible that any German theatre +will accept the play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to +play it in any Scandinavian country for some time to come." It was, in +fact, not acted publicly anywhere until 1883, when the Swedes ventured +to try it, and the Germans followed in 1887. The Danes resisted it much +longer. + +Ibsen declared that he was quite prepared for the hubbub; he would +doubtless have been much disappointed if it had not taken place; +nevertheless, he was disconcerted at the volume and the violence of +the attacks. Yet he must have known that in the existing condition of +society, and the limited range of what was then thought a defensible +criticism of that condition, _Ghosts_ must cause a virulent +scandal. There has been, especially in Germany, a great deal of +medico-philosophical exposure of the under-side of life since 1880. It +is hardly possible that, there, or in any really civilized country, an +analysis of the causes of what is, after all, one of the simplest and +most conventional forms of hereditary disease could again excite such +a startling revulsion of feeling. Krafft-Ebing and a crew of +investigators, Strindberg, Brieux, Hauptmann, and a score of probing +playwrights all over the Continent, have gone further and often fared +much worse than Ibsen did when he dived into the family history of +Kammerherre Alving. When we read _Ghosts_ to-day we cannot recapture the +"new shudder" which it gave us a quarter of a century ago. Yet it must +not be forgotten that the publication of it, in that hide-bound time, +was an act of extraordinary courage. Georg Brandes, always clearsighted, +was alone in being able to perceive at once that _Ghosts_ was no attack +on society, but an effort to place the responsibilities of men and women +on a wholesomer and surer footing, by direct reference to the relation +of both to the child. + +When the same eminent critic, however, went on to say that _Ghosts_ was +"a poetic treatment of the question of heredity," it was more difficult +to follow him. Now that the flash and shock of the playwright's audacity +are discounted, it is natural to ask ourselves whether, as a work of +pure art, _Ghosts_ stands high among Ibsen's writings. I confess, for my +own part, that it seems to me deprived of "poetic" treatment, that is +to say, of grace, charm and suppleness, to an almost fatal extent. It +is extremely original, extremely vivid and stimulating, but, so far as +a foreigner may judge, the dialogue seems stilted and uniform, the +characters, with certain obvious exceptions, rather types than persons. +In the old fighting days it was necessary to praise _Ghosts_ with +extravagance, because the vituperation of the enemy was so stupid and +offensive, but now that there are no serious adversaries left, cooler +judgment admits--not one word that the idiot-adversary said, but--that +there are more convincing plays than _Ghosts_ in Ibsen's repertory. + +Up to this time, Ibsen had been looked upon as the mainstay of the +Conservative party in Norway, in opposition to Bjoernson, who led the +Radicals. But the author of _Ghosts_, who was accused of disseminating +anarchism and nihilism, was now smartly drummed out of the Tory camp +without being welcomed among the Liberals. Each party was eager to +disown him. He was like Coriolanus, when he was deserted by nobles and +people alike, and + +suffer'd by the voice of slaves to be Whoop'd out of Rome. + +The situation gave Ibsen occasion, from the perspective of his exile, to +form some impressions of political life which were at once pungent and +dignified: + +"I am more and more confirmed" [he said, Jan, 3, 1882] "in my belief +that there is something demoralizing in politics and parties. I, at any +rate, shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its +side. Bjoernson says, 'The majority is always right'; and as a practical +politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, of +necessity say, 'The minority is always right.'" + +In order to place this view clearly before his countrymen, he set about +composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most +successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward +in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with +preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, which he spent at +what was now to be for many years his favorite summer resort, Gossensass +in the Tyrol, a place which is consecrated to the memory of Ibsen in the +way that Pornic belongs to Robert Browning and the Bel Alp to Tyndall, +holiday homes in foreign countries, dedicated to blissful work without +disturbance. Here, at a spot now officially named the "Ibsenplatz," he +composed _The Enemy of the People_, engrossed in his invention as was +his wont, reading nothing and thinking of nothing but of the persons +whose history he was weaving. Oddly enough, he thought that this, +too, was to be a "placable" play, written to amuse and stimulate, but +calculated to wound nobody's feelings. The fact was that Ibsen, like +some ocelot or panther of the rocks, had a paw much heavier than he +himself realized, and his "play," in both senses, was a very serious +affair, when he descended to sport with common humanity. + +Another quotation, this time from a letter to Brandes, must be given to +show what Ibsen's attitude was at this moment to his fatherland and to +his art: + +"When I think how slow and heavy and dull the general intelligence is +at home, when I notice the low standard by which everything is judged, +a deep despondency comes over me, and it often seems to me that I might +just as well end my literary activity at once. They really do not need +poetry at home; they get along so well with the party newspapers and the +_Lutheran Weekly_." + +If Ibsen thought that he was offering them "poetry" in _The Enemy of +the People_, he spoke in a Scandinavian sense. Our criticism has never +opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as +poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser +or more unqualified prose than _The Enemy of the People_, without +a tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book. It is, +nevertheless, one of the most certainly successful of its author's +writings; as a stage-play it rivets the attention; as a pamphlet it +awakens irresistible sympathy; as a specimen of dramatic art, its +construction and evolution are almost faultless. Under a transparent +allegory, it describes the treatment which Ibsen himself had received at +the hands of the Norwegian public for venturing to tell them that their +spa should be drained before visitors were invited to flock to it. +Nevertheless, the playwright has not made the mistake of identifying his +own figure with that of Dr. Stockmann, who is an entirely independent +creation. Mr. Archer has compared the hero with Colonel Newcome, whose +loquacious amicability he does share, but Stockmann's character has much +more energy and initiative than Colonel Newcome's, whom we could never +fancy rousing himself "to purge society." + +Ibsen's practical wisdom in taking the bull by the horns in his reply to +the national reception of _Ghosts_ was proved by the instant success +of _The Enemy of the People_. Presented to the public in this new and +audacious form, the problem of a "moral water-supply" struck sensible +Norwegians as less absurd and less dangerous than they had conceived it +to be. The reproof was mordant, and the worst offenders crouched under +the lash. _Ghosts_ itself was still, for some time, tabooed, but _The +Enemy of the People_ received a cordial welcome, and has remained ever +since one of the most popular of Ibsen's writings. It is still extremely +effective on the stage, and as it is lightened by more humor than the +author is commonly willing to employ, it attracts even those who are +hostile to the intrusion of anything solemn behind the footlights. +CHAPTER VII + +1883-91 + +With the appearance of _An Enemy of the People_, which was published +in November, 1882, Ibsen entered upon a new stage in his career. He had +completely broken with the Conservative party in Norway, without having +gratified or won the confidence of the Liberals. He was now in personal +relations of friendliness with Bjoernson, whose generous approval of his +work as a dramatist sustained his spirits, but his own individualism had +been intensified by the hostile reception of _Ghosts_. His life was now +divided between Rome in the winter and Gossensass in the summer, and +in the Italian city, as in the Tyrolese village, he wandered solitary, +taciturn, absorbed in his own thoughts. His meditations led him more and +more into a lonely state. He floated, as on a prophet's carpet, between +the political heavens and earth, capriciously refusing to ascend or +to alight. He had come to a sceptical stage in his mental evolution, +a stage in which he was to remain for a considerable time, gradually +modifying it in a conservative direction. One wonders what the +simple-minded and stalwart Bjoernson thought of being quietly told +(March 28, 1884) that the lower classes are nowhere liberal-minded or +self-sacrificing, and that "in the views expressed by our [Norwegian] +peasants there is not an atom more of real Liberalism than is to be +found among the ultramontane peasantry of the Tyrol." In politics +Ibsen had now become a pagan; "I do not believe," he said, "in the +emancipatory power of political measures, nor have I much confidence +in the altruism and good will of those in power." This sense of the +uselessness of effort is strongly marked in the course of the next work +on which he was engaged, the very brilliant, but saturnine and sardonic +tragi-comedy of _The Wild Duck_. The first sketch of it was made during +the spring of 1884 in Rome, but the dramatist took it to Gossensass with +him for the finishing touches, and did not perfect it until the autumn. +It is remarkable that Ibsen invariably speaks of _The Wild Duck_, when +he mentions it in his correspondence, in terms of irony. He calls it a +collection of crazy tricks or tomfooleries, _galskaber_, an expression +which carries with it, in this sense, a confession of wilful paradox. In +something of the same spirit, Robert Browning, in the old days before +he was comprehended, used to speak of "the entirely unintelligible +_Sordello_," as if, sarcastically, to meet criticism half-way. + +When _The Wild Duck_ was first circulated among Ibsen's admirers, it +was received with some bewilderment. Quite slowly the idea received +acceptance that the hitherto so serious and even angry satirist was, +to put it plainly, laughing at himself. The faithful were reluctant to +concede it. But one sees now, clearly enough, that in a sense it was so. +I have tried to show, we imagine Ibsen saying, that your hypocritical +sentimentality needs correction--you live in "A Doll's House." I have +dared to point out to you that your society is physically and morally +rotten and full of "Ghosts." You have repudiated my honest efforts as a +reformer, and called me "An Enemy of the People." Very well, then, have +it so if you please. What a fool am I to trouble about you at all. Go +down a steep place in Gadara and drown yourselves. If it amuses you, it +can amuse me also to be looked upon as Gregers Werle. _Vogue la galere_. +"But as the play is neither to deal with the Supreme Court, nor the +right of absolute veto, nor even with the removal of the sign of the +union from the flag," burning questions then and afterwards in Norwegian +politics, "it can hardly count upon arousing much interest in Norway"; +it will, however, amuse me immensely to point out the absurdity of my +caring. It is in reading _The Wild Duck_ that for the first time the +really astonishing resemblance which Ibsen bears to Euripedes becomes +apparent to us. This is partly because the Norwegian dramatist now +relinquishes any other central object than the presentation to his +audience of the clash of temperament, and partly because here at last, +and for the future always, he separates himself from everything that is +not catastrophe. More than any earlier play, more even than _Ghosts_, +_The Wild Duck_ is an avalanche which has begun to move, and with +a movement unaffected by the incidents of the plot, long before the +curtain rises. The later plays of Ibsen, unlike almost all other modern +dramas, depend upon nothing that happens while they are being exhibited, +but rush downwards to their inevitable close in obedience to a series of +long-precedent impulses. In order to gain this effect, the dramatist +has to be acquainted with everything that has ever happened to his +personages, and we are informed that Ibsen used to build up in his own +mind, for months at a time, the past history of his puppets. He was now +master of this practice. We are not surprised, therefore, to find one +of the most penetrating of dramatic critics remarking of _The Wild +Duck_ that "never before had the poet displayed such an amazing power +of fascinating and absorbing us by the gradual withdrawal of veil after +veil from the past." + +The result of a searching determination to deal with personal and not +typical forms of temperament is seen in the firmness of the portraiture +in _The Wild Duck_, where, I think, less than ever before, is to be +found a trace of that incoherency which is to be met with occasionally +in all the earlier works of Ibsen, and which seems like the effect of a +sudden caprice or change of the point of view. There is, so far as I +can judge, no trace of this in _The Wild Duck_, where the continuity of +aspect is extraordinary. Confucius assures us that if we tell him our +past, he will tell us our future, and although several of the characters +in _The Wild Duck_ are the most sordid of Ibsen's creations, the author +has made himself so deeply familiar with them that they are absolutely +lifelike. The detestable Hialmar, in whom, by the looking-glass of a +disordered liver, any man may see a picture of himself; the pitiable +Gregers Werle, perpetually thirteenth at table, with his genius for +making an utter mess of other people's lives; the vulgar Gina; the +beautiful girlish figure of the little martyred Hedvig--all are wholly +real and living persons. + +The subject of the play, of course, is one which we do not expect, +or had not hitherto expected, from Ibsen. It is the danger of "a sick +conscience" and the value of illusion. Society may be full of poisonous +vapors and be built on a framework of lies; it is nevertheless prudent +to consider whether the ideal advantages of disturbing it overweigh the +practical disadvantages, and above all to bear in mind that if you rob +the average man of his illusions, you are almost sure to rob him of his +happiness. The topsy-turvy nature of a this theme made Ibsen as nearly +"rollicking" as he ever became in his life. We can imagine than as he +wrote the third act of _The Wild Duck_, where so horrible a luncheon +party--"we'll all keep a corner"--gloats over the herring salad, he +indulged again and again in those puffs of soundless and formidable +mirth which Mr. Johan Paulsen describes as so surprising an element of +conversation with Ibsen. + +To the gossip of that amiable Boswell, too, we must turn for a valuable +impression of the solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about +this time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now +successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family +saw him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if +sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to +catch him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study, +into which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to +believe, did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his +own mind, which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast and +rich than that which lay spread around him." [Note: _Samliv med Ibsen_, +1906, p. 30.] + +And now the celebrated afternoons at the cafes had begun. In Rome Ibsen +had his favorite table, and he would sit obliquely facing a mirror +in which, half hidden by a newspaper and by the glitter of his gold +spectacles, he could command a sight of the whole restaurant, and +especially of the door into the street. Every one who entered, every +couple that conversed, every movement of the scene, gave something to +those untiring eyes. The newspaper and the cafe mirror--these were the +books which, for the future, Ibsen was almost exclusively to study; and +out of the gestures of a pair of friends at a table, out of a paragraph +in a newspaper, even out of the terms of an advertisement, he could +build up a drama. Incessant observation of real life, incessant capture +of unaffected, unconsidered phrases, actual living experience leaping +in his hands like a captive wild animal, this was now the substance +from which all Ibsen's dreams and dramas were woven. Concentration of +attention on the vital play of character, this was his one interest. + +Out of this he was roused by a sudden determination to go at last and +see for himself what life in Norway was really like. A New England wit +once denied that a certain brilliant and Europe-loving American author +was a cosmopolitan. "No," he said, "a cosmopolitan is at home even in +his own country." Ibsen began to doubt whether he was not too far off +to follow events in Norway--and these were now beginning to be very +exciting--well enough to form an independent judgment about them; and +after twenty years of exile there is no doubt that the question was +fairly put. _The Wild Duck_ had been published in November, 1884, and +had been acted everywhere in Scandinavia with great success. The critics +and the public were agreed for the first time that Ibsen was a very +great national genius, and that if Norway was not proud of him it would +make a fool of itself in the eyes of Europe. + +Ibsen had said that Norway was a barbarous country, inhabited by two +millions of cats and dogs, but so many agreeable and highly-civilized +compliments found their way to him in Rome that he began to fancy that +the human element was beginning to be introduced. At all events, +he would see for himself, and in June, 1885, instead of stopping at +Gossensass, he pushed bravely on and landed in Christiania. + +At first all went well, but from the very beginning of the visit he +observed, or thought he observed, awkward phenomena. The country was +thrilled with political excitement, and it vibrated with rhetorical +resolutions which seemed to Ibsen very empty. He had a constitutional +horror of purely theoretical questions, and these were occupying Norway +from one end to the other. The King's veto, the consular difficulty, the +Swedish emblem in the national flag, these were the subjects of frenzied +discussion, and in none of these did Ibsen take any sort of pleasure. He +was not politically far-sighted, it must be confessed, nor did he guess +what practical proportions these "theoretical questions" were to assume +in the immediate future. + +That great writer and delightful associate, the Swedish poet, Count +Snoilsky, one of the few whose company never wearied or irritated Ibsen, +joined him in the far north. They spent a pleasant, quiet time together +at Molde, that enchanting little sub-arctic town, where it looks +southward over the shining fjord, with the Romsdalhorn forever guarding +the mountainous horizon. Here no politics intruded, and Ibsen, when +Snoilsky had left him, already thinking of a new drama, lingered on at +Molde, spending hours on hours at the end of the jetty, gazing into the +clear, cold sea. His passion for the sea had never betrayed him, and at +Rome, where he had long given up going to any galleries or studios, he +still haunted the house of a Norwegian marine painter, Nils Hansteen, +whose sketches reminded him of old days and recollected waters. + +But the autumn comes on apace in these high latitudes, and Ibsen had to +return to Christiania with its torchlight processions, and late noisy +feasts, and triumphant revolutionary oratory. He disliked it extremely, +and he made up his mind to go back to the indifferent South, where +people did not worry about such things. Unfortunately, the inhabitants +of Christiania did not leave him alone. They were not content to have +him among them as a retired observer, they wanted to make him stand out +definitely on one political side or the other. He was urged, at the end +of September, to receive the inevitable torchlight procession planned +in his honor by the Union of Norwegian Students. He was astute enough to +see that this might compromise his independence, but he was probably too +self-conscious in believing that a trap was being laid for him. He said +that, not having observed that his presence gave the Union any great +pleasure, he did not care to have its expression of great joy at t his +departure. This was not polite, for it does not appear that the students +had any idea that he intended to depart. He would not address a reply to +the Union as a body, but to "my friends among the students." + +A committee called upon him to beg him to reconsider his resolution, +but he roundly told them that he knew that they were reactionaries, and +wanted to annex him to their party, and that he was not blind to their +tricks. They withdrew in confusion, and Ibsen, in an agony of nervous +ness, determined to put the sea between himself and their machinations. +Early in October he retreated, or rather fled, to Copenhagen, and thence +to Munich, where he breathed again. Meanwhile, the extreme liberal +faction among the students claimed that his action had meant that he was +heart and soul with them, as against the reactionaries. A young Mr. Ove +Rode, who had interviewed him, took upon himself to say that these were +Ibsen's real sentiments. Ibsen fairly stamped with rage, and declared, +in furious communications, that all these things were done on purpose. +"It was an opportunity to insult a poet which it would have been a +sad pity to lose," he remarked, with quivering pen. A reverberant +controversy sprang up in the Norwegian newspapers, and Ibsen, in his +Bavarian harbor of refuge, continued to vibrate all through the winter +of 1885. The exile's return to his native country had proved to be far +from a success. + +Already his new play was taking shape, and the success of his great +personal ambition, namely that his son, Sigurd, should be taken with +honor into the diplomatic service of his country, did such to calm his +spirits. Ibsen was growing rich now, as well as famous, and if only the +Norwegians would let him alone, he might well be happy. The new play +was _Rosmersholm_, and it took its impulse from a speech which Ibsen had +made during his journey, at Trondhjem, where he expounded the gospel of +individualism to a respectful audience of workingmen, and had laid +down the necessity of introducing an aristocratic strain, _et adeligt +element_, into the life of a truly democratic state, a strain which +woman and labor were to unite in developing. He said: "I am thinking, +of course, not of birth, nor of money, nor even of intellect, but of the +nobility which grows out of character. It is _character_ alone which can +make us free." This nobility of character must be fostered, mainly, by +the united efforts of motherhood and labor. This was quite a new creed +in Norway, and it bewildered his hearers, but it is remarkable to notice +how the best public feeling in Scandinavia has responded to the appeal, +and how little surprise the present generation would express at a +repetition of such sentiments. And out of this idea of "nobility" of +public character _Rosmersholm_ directly sprang. + +We are not left to conjecture in this respect. In a letter to Bjoern +Kristensen (February 13, 1887), Ibsen deliberately explained, while +correcting a misconception of the purpose of _Rosmersholm_, that "the +play deals with the struggle which all serious-minded human beings have +to wage with themselves in order to bring their lives into harmony with +their convictions.... Conscience is very conservative. It has its deep +roots in tradition and the past generally, and hence the conflict." When +we come to read _Rosmersholm_ it is not difficult to see how this order +of ideas dominated Ibsen's mind when he wrote it. The mansion called by +that name is typical of the ancient traditions of Norwegian bourgeois +aristocracy, which are not to be subservient to such modern and timid +conservatism as is represented by Rector Kroll, with his horror of all +things new because they are new. The Rosmer strain, in its inherent +nobility, is to be superior to a craven horror of the democracy, and is +to show, by the courage with which it fulfils its personal destiny, that +it looks above and beyond all these momentary prejudices, and accepts, +from all hands, whatever is wise and of good report. + +The misfortune is that Ibsen, in unconscious bondage to his ideas, did +not construct his drama sturdily enough on realistic lines. While not +one of his works is more suggestive than _Rosmersholm_, there is not one +which gives the unbeliever more opportunity to blaspheme. This ancestral +house of a great rich race, which is kept up by the ministrations of +a single aged female servant, stands in pure Cloud-Cuckoo Land. The +absence of practical amenities in the Rosmer family might be set down to +eccentricity, if all the other personages were not equally ill-provided. +Rebecca, glorious heroine according to some admirers, "criminal, thief +and murderess," as another admirer pleonastically describes her, is +a sort of troll; nobody can explain--and yet an explanation seems +requisite--what she does in the house of Rosmer. In his eagerness to +work out a certain sequence of philosophical ideas, the playwright +for once neglected to be plausible. It is a very remarkable feature of +_Rosmersholm_ that in it, for the first time, and almost for the last, +Ibsen, in the act of theorizing, loses his hold upon reality. He places +his ingenious, elaborate and--given the premises--inevitable denouement +in a scene scarcely more credible than that of a Gilbert and Sullivan +opera, and not one-tenth as amusing. Following, as it does, immediately +on the heels of _The Wild Duck_, which was as remarkable a slice of real +life as was ever brought before a theatrical audience, the artificiality +of _Rosmersholm_ shows Ibsen as an artist clearly stepping backward that +he may leap the further forward. + +In other words, _Rosmersholm_ is the proof of Ibsen's desire to conquer +another field of drama. He had now for some years rejected with great +severity all temptations from the poetic spirit, which was nevertheless +ineradicable in him. He had wished to produce on the mind of the +spectator no other impression than that he was observing something which +had actually happened, exactly in the way and the words in which +it would happen. He had formulated to the actress, Lucie Wolf, the +principle that ideal dramatic poetry should be considered extinct, "like +some preposterous animal form of prehistoric times." But the soul of man +cannot be fed with a stone, and Ibsen had now discovered that perfectly +prosaic "slices of life" may be salutary and valuable on occasion, but +that sooner or later a poet asks for more. He, therefore, a poet if ever +there was one, had grown weary of the self-made law by which he had shut +himself out from Paradise. He determined, grudgingly, and hardly knowing +how to set about it, that he would once more give the spiritual and +the imaginative qualities their place in his work. These had now been +excluded for nearly twenty years, since the publication of _Peer Gynt_, +and he would not resume them so far as to write his dramas again in +verse. Verse in drama was doomed; or if not, it was at least a juvenile +and fugitive skill not to be rashly picked up again by a business-like +bard of sixty. But he would reopen the door to allegory and symbol, and +especially to fantastic beauty of landscape. + +The landscape of Rosmersholm has all, or at least much, of the old +enchantment. The scene at the mill-dam links us once more with the woods +and the waters which we had lost sight of since _Peer Gynt_. But this +element was still more evident in _The Lady from the Sea_, which was. +published in 1888. We have seen that Ibsen spent long hours, in the +summer of 1885, at the end of the pier at Molde, gazing down into the +waters, or watching the steamers arriving and departing, coming from +the great sea beyond the fjord or going towards it. As was his wont, +he stored up these impressions, making no immediate use of them. He +actually prepared _The Lady from the Sea_ in very different, although +still marine surroundings. He went to Jutland, and settled for the +summer at the pretty and ancient, but very mild little town of Saeby, +with the sands in front of him and rolling woods behind. From Saeby +it was a short journey to Frederikshavn, "which he liked very much--he +could knock about all day among the shipping, talking to the sailors, +and so forth. Besides, he found the neighborhood of the sea favorable to +contemplation and constructive thought." So Mr. Archer, who visited him +at Saeby; and I myself, a year or two later, picked up at Frederikshavn +an oral tradition of Ibsen, with his hands behind his back, and the +frock-coat tightly buttoned, stalking, stalking alone for hours on the +interminable promenade between the great harbor moles of Frederikshaven, +no one daring to break in upon his formidable contemplation. + +In several respects, though perhaps not in concentration of effect, +_The Lady from the Sea_ shows a distinct advance on _Rosmersholm_. It is +never dull, never didactic, as its predecessor too often was, and there +is thrown over the whole texture of it a glamour of romance, of mystery, +of beauty, which had not appeared in Ibsen's work since the completion +of _Peer Gynt_. Again, after the appearance of so many strenuous +tragedies, it was pleasant to welcome a pure comedy. _The Lady from +the Sea_ [Note: In the _Neue Rundschau_ for December, 1906, there was +published a first draft of _The Lady from the Sea_, dating as far back +as 1800.] is connected with the previous plays by its emphatic defence +of individuality and its statement of the imperative necessity of +developing it; but the tone is sunny, and without a tinge of pessimism. +It is in some respects the reverse of _Rosmersholm_; the bitterness +of restrained and balked individuality, which ends in death, +being contrasted with the sweetness of emancipated and gratified +individuality, which leads to health and peace. To the remarkable +estimate of _The Lady from the Sea_ formed by some critics, and in +particular by M. Jules de Gaultier, we shall return in a general +consideration of the symbolic plays, of which it is the earliest. +Enough to say here that even those who did not plunge so deeply into +its mysteries found it a remarkably agreeable spectacle, and that it has +continued to be, in Scandinavia and Germany, one of the most popular of +its author's works. + +Ibsen left his little tavern at Saeby towards the end of September, +1887, in consequence of an invitation to proceed directly to Stockholm, +where his Swedish admirers, now very numerous and enthusiastic, would +no longer be deprived of the pleasure of entertaining him publicly. +He appeared before them, the breast of his coat sparkling with foreign +stars and crosses, the Urim and Thummim of general European recognition. +He was now in his sixtieth year, and he had out lived all the obscurity +of his youth. In the three Scandinavian countries--even in recalcitrant +Norway--he was universally hailed as the greatest dramatist of the age. +In Germany his fame was greater than that of any native writer of the +sang class. In Italy and Russia he was entering on a career of high +and settled popularity. Even in France and England his work was now +discussed with that passionate interest which shows the vitality of what +is even, for the moment, misinterpreted and disliked. His admirers at +Stockholm told him that he had taken a foremost place in re-creating +their sense of life, that he was a fashioner and a builder of new social +forms, that he was, indeed, to thousands of them, the Master-Builder. +The reply he made to their enthusiasm was dignified and reserved, but it +revealed a sense of high gratification. Skule's long doubt was over; +he believed at last in his own kingdom, and that the world would be +ultimately the better for the stamp of his masterful soul upon its +surface. + +It was in an unusually happy mood that he sat dreaming through the early +part of the uneventful year 1889. But it gradually sank into melancholy +when, in the following year, he settled down to the composition of a +new play which was to treat of sad thoughts and tragic passions. He told +Snoilsky that for several reasons this work made very slow progress, +"and it robbed him of his summer holidays." From May to November, 1890, +he was uninterruptedly in Munich writing what is known to us now as +_Hedda Gabler_. He finished it at last, saying as he did so, "It has +not been my desire to deal in this play with so-called problems. What I +principally wanted to do was to depict human beings, human emotions and +human destinies, upon a groundwork of certain of the social conditions +and principles of the present day." It was a proof of the immense growth +of Ibsen's celebrity that editions of _Hedda Gabler_ were called for +almost simultaneously, in the winter of 1890, in London, New York, +St. Petersburg, Leipzig, Berlin and Moscow, as well as in Copenhagen, +Stockholm and Christiania. There was no other living author in the world +at that moment who excited so much curiosity among the intellectual +classes, and none who exercised so much influence on the younger +generation of authors and thinkers. + +In _Hedda Gabler_ Ibsen returned, for the last time, but with +concentrated vigor, to the prosaic ideal of his central period. He never +succeeded in being more objective in drama, he never kept more closely +to the bare facts of nature nor rejected more vigorously the ornaments +of romance and rhetoric than in this amazing play. There is no poetic +suggestion here, no species of symbol, white horse, or gnawing thing, or +monster from the sea. I am wholly in agreement with Mr. Archer when he +says that he finds it impossible to extract any sort of general idea +from _Hedda Gabler_, or to accept it as a satire of any condition of +society. Hedda is an individual, not a type, and it was as an individual +that she interested Ibsen. We have been told, since the poet's death, +that he was greatly struck by the case, which came under his notice at +Munich, of a German lady who poisoned herself because she was bored +with life, and had strayed into a false position. _Hedda Gabler_ is the +realization of such an individual case. At first sight, it seemed as +though Ibsen had been influenced by Dumas _fils_, which might have been +true, in spite of the marked dislike which each expressed for the other; +[Note: It is said that _La Route de Thebes_, which Dumas had begun +when he died, was to have been a deliberate attack on the methods and +influence of Ibsen. Ibsen, on his part, loathed Dumas.] but closer +examination showed that Hedda Gabler had no sort of relation with the +pamphlets of the master of Parisian problem-tragedy. + +The attempt to show that _Hedda Gabler_ "proved" anything was annoying +to Ibsen, who said, with more than his customary firmness, "It was not +my purpose to deal with what people call problems in this play. What I +chiefly tried to do was to paint human beings, human emotions and human +fate, against a background of some of the conditions and laws of society +as it exists to-day." The German critics, a little puzzled to find +a longitude and latitude for Tesman's "tastefully decorated" villa, +declared that this time Ibsen had written an "international," not a +locally Norwegian, play. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the +contrary, _Hedda Gabler_ is perhaps the most fatally local and Norwegian +of all Ibsen's plays, and it presents, not of course the highly +civilized Christiania of to-day, but the half-suburban, half-rural +little straggling town of forty years ago. When I visited Norway as a +lad, I received kind but sometimes rather stiff and raw hospitality +in several tastefully decorated villas, which were as like that of the +Tesmans as pea is like pea. Why Ibsen chose to paint a "west end of +Christiania" of 1860 rather than of 1890 I cannot guess, unless it was +that to so persistent an exile the former was far more familiar than the +latter. + +A Russian actress of extreme talent, Madame Alla Nazimova, who has had +special opportunities of studying the part of Hedda Gabler, has lately +(1907) depicted her as "aristocratic and ill-mated, ambitious and doomed +to a repulsive alliance with a man beneath her station, whom she +had mistakenly hoped would give her position and wealth. In other +circumstances, Hedda would have been a power for beauty and good." If +this ingenious theory be correct, _Hedda Gabler_ must be considered as +the leading example of Ibsen's often-repeated demonstration, that evil +is produced by circumstances and not by character. The portrait becomes +thrillingly vital if we realize that the stains upon it are the impact +of accidental conditions on a nature which might otherwise have been +useful and fleckless. Hedda Gabler is painted as Mr. Sargent might +paint a lady of the London fashionable world; his brush would divine +and emphasize, as Ibsen's pen does, the disorder of her nerves, and +the ravaging concentration of her will in a sort of barren and impotent +egotism, while doing justice to the superficial attractiveness of her +cultivated physical beauty. He would show, as Ibsen shows, and with an +equal lack of malice prepense, various detestable features which the +mask of good manners had concealed. Each artist would be called a +caricaturist because his instinctive penetration had taken him into +regions where the powder-puff and the rouge-pot lose their power. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +LAST YEARS + +With the publication of _Hedda Gabler_ Ibsen passed into what we may +call his final glory. Almost insensibly, and to an accompaniment of his +own growls of indignation, he had taken his place, not merely as the +most eminent imaginative writer of the three Scandinavian countries, but +as the type there of what literature should be and the prophet of what +it would become. In 1880, Norway, the youngest and long the rawest of +the three civilizations, was now the foremost in activity, and though +the influence of Bjoernson and Jonas Lie was significant, yet it was not +to be compared for breadth and complexity with that of Ibsen. The nature +of the revolution, exercised by the subject of this memoir between +1880 and 1890, that is to say from _Ghosts_ to _Hedda Gabler_, was +destructive before it was constructive. The poetry, fiction and drama +of the three Northern nations had become stagnant with commonplace +and conventional matter, lumbered with the recognized, inevitable and +sacrosanct forms of composition. This was particularly the case in +Sweden, where the influence of Ibsen now proved more violent and +catastrophic than anywhere else. Ibsen destroyed the attraction of the +old banal poetry; his spirit breathed upon it in fire, and in all its +faded elegance it withered up and vanished. + +The next event was that the new generation in the three Northern +countries, deprived of its traditional authorities, looked about for a +prophet and a father, and they found what they wanted in the exceedingly +uncompromising elderly gentleman who remained so silent in the cafes +of Rome and of Munich. The zeal of the young for this unseen and +unsympathetic personage was extraordinary, and took forms of amazing +extravagance. Ibsen's impassivity merely heightened the enthusiasm of +his countless admirers, who were found, it should be stated, almost +entirely among persons who were born after his exile from Norway. +His writings supplied a challenge to character and intelligence +which appealed to those who disliked the earlier system of morals and +aesthetics against which he had so long fought single-handed. + +Among writers in the North Ibsen began to hold very much the position +that Whistler was taking among painters and etchers in this country, +that is to say the abuse and ridicule of his works by a dwindling +group of elderly conventional critics merely stung into more frenzied +laudation an ever-widening circle of youthful admirers. Ibsen repented, +for a time almost exclusively, "serious" aims in literature, and with +those of Herbert Spencer, and in less measure of Zola, and a little +later of Nietzsche, his books were the spiritual food of all youthful +minds of any vigor or elasticity. + +In Sweden, at this time, the admiration for Ibsen took forms of almost +preposterous violence. The great Swedish novelist, Gustaf af Geijerstam, +has given a curious and amusing account of the rage for Ibsen which came +to its height about 1880. The question which every student asked his +friend, every lover his mistress, was "What do you think of Ibsen?" Not +to be a believer in the Norwegian master was a reef upon which love +or friendship might easily be shipwrecked. It was quoted gravely as +an insufferable incompatibility for the state of marriage. There was +a curious and secret symbolism running through the whole of youthful +Swedish society, from which their elders were cunningly excluded, by +which the volumes of Ibsen, passed from hand to hand, presented on +solemn occasions, became the emblems of the problems interesting to +generous youth, flags carried in the moral fight for liberty and truth. +The three Northern countries, in their long stagnation, had become +clogged and deadened with spiritual humbug, which had sealed the sources +of emotion. It seemed though, after the long frost of the seventies, +spring had come and literature had budded a at last, and that it was +Ibsen who had blown the clarion of the West Wind and heralded the +emancipation. + +The enthusiasm for the Norwegian dramatist was not always according +to knowledge, and sometimes it took grotesque forms. Much of the +abuse showered in England and France upon Ibsen at the time we are now +describing was due to echoes of the extravagance of his Scandinavian +and German idolaters. A Swedish satirist [Note: "Stella Kleve" (Mathilda +Malling, in _Framat_ 1886)] said that if Ibsen could have foreseen how +many "misunderstood" women would leave their homes in imitation of Nora, +and how many lovesick housekeepers drink poison on account of Rebecca, +he would have thrown ashes on his head and have retreated into the +deserts of Tartary. The suicide of the novelist, Ernst Ahlgren, was the +tragic circumstance where much was so purely comic. But if there were +elements of tragicomedy in the Ibsen idolatry, there were far more +important elements of vigorous and wholesome intellectual independence; +and it was during this period of Ibsen's almost hectic popularity that +the foundations of a new fiction and a new drama were laid in Sweden, +Denmark and Norway. A whole generation sucked strength and energy from +his early writings, since it is to be remarked that, from 1880 to 1890, +the great prestige of Ibsen did not depend so much on the dramas he was +then producing, as on the earlier works of his poetic youth, now reread +with an unexampled fervor. So, with us, the tardy popularity of Robert +Browning, which faintly resembles that of Ibsen, did not attract the +younger generation to the volumes which succeed _The Ring and the Book_, +but sent them back to the books which their fathers had despised, to +_Pippa Passes_ and _Men and Women_. To the generation of 1880, Ibsen was +not so much the author of the realistic social dramas as of those old +but now rediscovered miracles of poetry and wit, _The Pretenders_, +_Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_. + +In 1889 Ibsen had been made very pleasantly conscious of this strong +personal feeling in his favor among young men and women. Nor did he +find it confined to Scandinavia. He had travelled about in Germany, and +everywhere his plays were being acted. Berlin was wild about him; at +Weimar he was feted like a conqueror. He did not settle down at Munich +until May, and here, as we have seen, he stayed all the summer, hard at +work. After the success of _Hedda Gabler_, which overpowered all adverse +comment, Ibsen began to long to be in Norway again, and this feeling +was combined, in a curious way, with a very powerful emotion which now +entered into his life. He had lived a retired and peaceful existence, +mainly a spectator at the feast, as little occupied in helping himself +to the dishes which he saw others enjoy as is an eremite in the desert +in plucking the grape-clusters of his dreams. No adventure, of any +prominent kind, had ever been seen to diversify Ibsen's perfectly +decorous and domestic career. And now he was more than sixty, and the +gray tones were gathering round him more thickly than ever, when a real +ray of vermilion descended out of the sky and filled his horizon with +color. + +In the season of 1889, among the summer boarders at Gossensass, there +appeared a young Viennese lady of eighteen, Miss Emilie Bardach. She +used to sit on a certain bench in the Pferchthal, and when the poet, +whom she adored from afar, passed by, she had the courage to smile at +him. Strange to say, her smile was returned, and soon Ibsen was on +the bench at her side. He readily discovered where she lived; no less +readily he gained an introduction to the family with whom she boarded. +There was a window-seat in the _salle a manger_; it was deep and shaded +by odorous flowering shrubs; it lent itself to endless conversation. +The episode was strange, the passion improbable, incomprehensible, +profoundly natural and true. Perhaps, until they parted in the last days +of September, neither the old man nor the young girl realized what their +relations had meant to each. Youth secured its revenge, however; Miss +Bardach soon wrote from Vienna that she was now more tranquil, more +independent, happy at last. Ibsen, on the other hand, was heart-broken, +quivering with ecstasy, overwhelmed with joy and despair. + +It was the enigma in his "princess," as he called her; that completed +Miss Bardach's sorcery over the old poet. She seems to have been no +coquette; she flung her dangerous fascinations at his feet; she broke +the thread which bound the charms of her spirit and poured them over +him. He, for his part, remaining discreet and respectful, was shattered +with happiness. To a friend of mine, a young Norwegian man of letters, +Ibsen said about this time: "Oh, you can always love, but I am happier +than the happiest, for I am beloved." Long afterwards, on his seventieth +birthday, when his own natural force was failing, he wrote to Miss +Bardach, "That summer at Gossensass was the most beautiful and the most +harmonious portion of my whole existence. I scarcely venture to think +of it, and yet I think of nothing else. Ah! forever!" He did not dare to +send her _The Master-Builder_, since her presence interpenetrated every +line of it like a perfume, and when, we are told, she sent him her +photograph, signed "Princess of Orangia," her too-bold identification +of herself with Hilda Wangel hurt him as a rough touch, that finer tact +would have avoided. There can be no doubt at all that while she was +now largely absorbed by the compliment to her own vanity, he was still +absolutely enthralled and bewitched, and that what was fun to her made +life and death to him. + +This very curious episode [Note: It was quite unknown until the +correspondence--which has not been translated into English--was +published by Georg Brandes at the desire of the lady herself (September, +1906).], which modifies in several important respects our conception +of the dramatist's character, is analogous with the apparent change +of disposition which made Renan surprise his unthinking admirers so +suddenly at the epoch of _L'Eau de Jouvence_ and _L'Abbesse de Jouarre_. +It was founded, of course, on that dangerous susceptibility to which +an elderly man of genius, whose life had been spent in labor and +reflection, may be inclined to resign himself, as he sees the sands +running out of the hour-glass, and realizes that in analyzing and +dissecting emotion he has never had time to enjoy it. Time is so short, +the nerves so fragile and so finite, the dreadful illusion, the _maia_, +so irresistible, that the old man gives way to it, and would sooner die +at once than not make one grasp at happiness. + +It will have been remarked that Ibsen's habit was to store up an +impression, but not to use it immediately on creative work. We need, +therefore, feel no surprise that there is not a trace of the Bardach +episode in _Hedda Gabler_, although the composition of that play +immediately followed the _hohes, schmerzliches Glueck_ at Gossensass. He +was, too, no moonlight serenader, and his intense emotion is perfectly +compatible with the outline of some of the gossip which was repeated at +the time of his death; Ibsen being reported to have said of the Viennese +girl: "She did not get hold of me, but I got hold of her--for my +play." These things are very complex, and not to be hastily dismissed, +especially on the rough and ready English system. There would be give +and take in such a complicated situation, when the object was, as Ibsen +himself says, out of reach _unversichtbar_. There is no question that +for every pang which Hilda made her ancient lover suffer, he would +enrich his imagination with a dozen points of experience. There is no +paradox in saying that the poet was overwhelmed with a passion and yet +consciously made it serve as material for his plays. From this time +onwards every dramatic work of his bears the stamp of those hours among +the roses at Gossensass. + +To the spring of 1891 belongs Ibsen's somewhat momentous visit to +Vienna, where he was invited by Dr. Max Burckhard, the director of the +Burg Theatre, to superintend the performance of his _Pretenders_. Ibsen +had already, in strict privacy, visited Vienna, where his plays enjoyed +an increasing success, but this was his first public entrance into a +city which he admired on the whole more than any other city of Europe. +"Mein schoener Wien!" he used to murmur, with quite a clan of affection. +In April, 1891, after the triumph of his tragedy on the stage, Ibsen +was the guest at a public banquet at Vienna, when the ovations were +overwhelming and were extended until four o'clock next morning. A +performance of _The Wild Duck_ produced, what was almost as dear to +Ibsen as praise, a violent polemic, and he passed on out of a world of +storm and passion to Buda-Pesth, where he saw _A Doll's House_ acted +in Hungarian, amid thunders of applause, and where he was the guest +of Count Albert Apponyi. These were the happy and fruitful years which +consoled the heart of the poet for the bitter time when + +"Hate's decree Dwelt in his thoughts intolerable." + +In the ensuing summer, in July, 1891, Ibsen left Munich with every +intention of returning to it, but with the plan of a long summer trip +in Norway, where the triumphant success of _Hedda Gabler_ had been very +agreeable to his feelings. Once more he pushed up through the country to +Trondhjem, a city which had always attracted him and pleased him. Here +he presently embarked on one of the summer coasting-steamers, and saw +the shores of Nordland and Finmark for the first time, visiting the +North Cape itself. He came back to Christiania for the rest of the +season, with no prospect of staying. But he enjoyed a most flattering +reception; he was begged to resume his practical citizenship, and he was +assured that life in Norway would be made very pleasant to him. In the +autumn, therefore, in his abrupt way, he took an apartment in Viktoria +Terrasse, and sent to Munich for his furniture. He said to a friend +who expressed surprise at this settlement: "I may just as well make +Christiania my headquarters as Munich. The railway takes me in a very +short time wherever I want to go; and when I am bored with Norway I can +travel elsewhere." But he never felt the fatigue he anticipated, and, +but for brief visits to Copenhagen or Stockholm, he left his native +country no more after 1891, although he changed his abode in Christiania +itself. + +For the first twelve months Ibsen enjoyed the pleasures of the prodigal +returned, and fed with gusto on the fatted calf. Then, when three years +separated him from the illuminating soul-adventures of Gossensass, he +began to turn them into a play. It proved to be _The Master-Builder_, +and was published before the close of December, 1892, with the date 1893 +on the title-page. This play was running for some time in Germany and +England before it was played in Scandinavia. But on the evening of +March 8, 1893, it was simultaneously given at the National Theatre in +Christiania and at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. It was a work which +greatly puzzled the critics, and its meaning was scarcely apparent until +it had been seen on the stage, for which the oddity of its arrangements +are singularly well adapted. It was, however, almost immediately noticed +that it marked a new departure in Ibsen's writings. Here was an end of +the purely realistic and prosaic social dramas, which had reigned from +_The League of Youth_ to _Hedda Gabler_, and here was a return to the +strange and haunting beauty of the old imaginative pieces. Mr. Archer +was happily inspired when he spoke of "the pure melody" of the piece, +and the best scenes of _The Master-Builder_ were heroically and almost +recklessly poetical. + +This remarkable composition is full of what, for want of a better word, +we must call "symbolism." In the conversations between Solness and Hilda +much is introduced which is really almost unintelligible unless we take +it to be autobiographical. The Master-Builder is one who constructs, +not houses, but poems and plays. It is the poet himself who gives +expression, in the pathetic and erratic confessions of Solness, to his +doubts, his craven timidities, his selfish secrets, and his terror at +the uniformity of his "luck." It is less easy to see exactly what Ibsen +believed himself to be presenting to us in the enigmatical figure of +Hilda, so attractive and genial, so exquisitely refreshing, and yet +radically so cruel and superficial. She is perhaps conceived as a symbol +of Youth, arriving too late within the circle which Age has trodden +for its steps to walk in, and luring it too rashly, by the mirage of +happiness, into paths no longer within its physical and moral capacity. +"Hypnotism," Mr. Archer tells us, "is the first and last word of the +dramatic action"; perhaps thought-transference more exactly expresses +the idea, but I should not have stated even this quite so strongly. The +ground of the dramatic action seems to me to be the balance of Nemesis, +the fatal necessity that those who enjoy exceptional advantages in life +shall pay for them by not less exceptional, but perhaps less obvious, +disadvantages. The motto of the piece--at least of the first two of its +acts--might be the couplet of the French tragedian:-- + +C'est un ordre des dieux qui jamais ne se rompt De nous vendre bien cher +les grands biens qu'ils nous font. + +Beneath this, which we may call the transcendental aspect of the play, +we find a solid and objective study of the self-made man, the headstrong +amateur, who has never submitted to the wholesome discipline of +professional training, but who has trusted to the help of those trolls +or mascots, his native talent and his unfailing "luck." Upon such a man +descends Hilda, the disorganizer, who pierces the armor of his conceit +by a direct appeal to his passions. Solness has been the irresistible +sorcerer, through his good fortune, but he is not protected in his +climacteric against this unexpected attack upon the senses. Samson +philanders with Delila, and discovers that his strength is shorn from +him. There is no doubt that Ibsen intended in _The Master-Builder_ a +searching examination of "luck" and the tyranny of it, the terrible +effects of it on the Broviks and the Kajas whom nobody remembers, but +whose bodies lie under the wheels of its car. The dramatic situation is +here extremely interesting; it consists in the fact that Solness, who +breaks every one else, is broken by Hilda. The inherent hardness of +youth, which makes no allowances, which demands its kingdom here and now +upon the table, was never more powerfully depicted. Solness is smashed +by his impact with Hilda, as china is against a stone. In all this it +would be a mistake to see anything directly autobiographical, although +so much in the character and position of Solness may remind us, +legitimately enough, of Ibsen himself, and his adventures. + +The personal record of Ibsen in these years is almost silent. He was +growing old and set in his habits. He was growing rich, too, and he +surrounded himself with sedentary comforts. His wealth, it may here +be said, was founded entirely upon the success of his works, but was +fostered by his extreme adroitness as a man of business. Those who are +so fond of saying that any man of genius might have excelled in some +other capacity are fully justified if they like to imagine Ibsen as +the model financier. He certainly possessed a remarkable aptitude for +affairs, and we learn that his speculations were at once daring and +crafty. People who are weary of commiserating the poverty of poets may +be pleased to learn that when Ibsen died he was one of the wealthiest +private citizens of Christiania, and this was wholly in consequence of +the care he had taken in protecting his copyrights and administering his +receipts. If the melancholy couplet is correct which tells us that + + Aux petits des oiseaux Dieu donne la pature, + Mais sa bonte s'arrkete a la litterature, + +we must believe, with Ibsen's enemies, that his fortunes were not under +the divine protection. + +The actual numbers of each of his works printed since he first published +with Hegel in Copenhagen--a connection which he preserved without a +breach until the end--have been stated since his death. They contain +some points of interest. After 1876 Hegel ventured on large editions +of each new play, but they went off at first slowly. _The Lady from the +Sea_ was the earliest to appear, at once, in an issue of 10,000 copies, +which was soon exhausted. So great, however, had the public interest in +Ibsen become in 1894 that the edition of 10,000 copies of _Little Eyolf_ +was found quite inadequate to meet the first order, and it was enlarged +to 15,000, all of which were gone in a fortnight. This circulation in so +small a reading public as that of Denmark and Norway was unprecedented, +and it must be remembered that the simultaneous translations into most +of the languages of Europe are not included. + +_Little Eyolf_, which was written in Christiania during the spring and +summer of 1894, was issued, according to Ibsen's cometary custom, as the +second week of December rolled round. The reception of it was stormy, +even in Scandinavia, and led to violent outbursts of controversy. No +work from the master's pen had roused more difference of opinion among +the critics since the bluster over _Ghosts_ fourteen years before. Those +who prefer to absolute success in the creation of a work of art the +personal flavor or perfume of the artist himself were predisposed to +place _Little Eyolf_ very high among his writings. Nowhere is he more +independent of all other influences, nowhere more intensely, it may even +be said more distressingly, himself. From many points of view this play +may fairly be considered in the light of a _tour de force_. Ibsen--one +would conjecture--is trying to see to what extremities of agile +independence he can force his genius. The word "force" has escaped me; +but it may be retained as reproducing that sense of a difficulty not +quite easily or completely overcome which _Little Eyolf_ produces. +To mention but one technical matter; there are but four characters, +properly speaking, in the play--since Eyolf himself and the Rat-Wife +are but illustrations or symbolic properties--and of these four, one +(Borgheim) is wholly subsidiary. Ibsen, then, may be said to have +challenged imitation by composing a drama of passion with only three +characters in it. By a process of elimination this has been done +by Aeschylus (in the _Agamemnon_), by Racine (in _Phe*dre_ and +_Andromaque_), and in our own day by Maeterlinck (in _Pelle*as et +Me*lisande_). But Ibsen was accustomed to a wider field, and his +experiment seems not wholly successful. _Little Eyolf_, at least, is, +from all points of view, an exercise on the tight-rope. We may hazard +the conjecture that no drama gave Ibsen more satisfaction to write, +but for enjoyment the reader may prefer less prodigious agility on the +trapeze. + +If we turn from the technical virtuosity of _Little Eyolf_ to its moral +aspects, we find it a very dreadful play, set in darkness which nothing +illuminates but the twinkling sweetness of Asta. The mysterious symbol +of the Rat-Wife breaks in upon the pair whose love is turning to hate, +the man waxing cold as the wife grows hot. The Angel of God, in the +guise of an old beggar-woman, descends into their garden, and she drags +away, by an invisible chain, "the little gnawing thing," the pathetic +lame child. The effect on the pair of Eyolf's death by drowning is the +subject of the subsequent acts. In Rita jealousy is incarnate, and she +seems the most vigorous, and, it must be added, the most repulsive, +of Ibsen's feminine creations. The reckless violence of Rita's energy, +indeed, interpreted by a competent actress--played, for instance, as it +was in London most admirably by Miss Achurch--is almost too painful for +a public exhibition, and to the old criticism, "nec pueros coram populo +Medea trucidet," if a pedant chooses to press it, there teems no reply. +The sex question, as treated in _Little Eyolf_, recalls _The Kreutzer +Sonata_ (1889) of Tolstoi. When, however, I ventured to ask Ibsen +whether there was anything in this, he was displeased, and stoutly +denied it. What, an author denies, however, is not always evidence. + +Nothing further of general interest happened to Ibsen until 1896, when +he sat down to compose another drama, _John Gabriel Borkman_. This was a +study of the mental adventures of a man of high commercial imagination, +who is artificially parted from all that contact with real affairs +which keeps such energy on the track, and who goes mad with dreams of +incalculable power, a study, in fact, of financial megalomania. It was +said, at the time, that Ibsen was originally led to make this analysis +of character from reading in the Christiania newspapers a report of the +failure and trial of a notorious speculator convicted of fraud in 1895, +and sentenced to a long period of penal servitude. + +Whether this be so or not, we have in the person of John Gabriel +Borkman a prominent example of the ninteenth century type of criminous +speculator, in whom the vastness of view and the splendidly altruistic +audacity present themselves as elements which render it exceedingly +difficult to say how far the malefactor is morally responsible for +his crime. He has imagined, and to a certain point has carried out, a +monster metal "trust," for the success of which he lacks neither courage +nor knowledge nor practical administrative capacity, but only that +trifling concomitant, sufficiency of capital. To keep the fires blazing +until his vast model is molten into the mould, he helps himself to +money here, there, and everywhere, scarcely giving a thought to his +responsibilities, so certain is he of ultimate and beneficent triumph. +He will make rich beyond the dreams of avarice all these his involuntary +supporters. Unhappily, just before his scheme is ready and the metal +runs, he is stopped by the stupidity of the law, and finds himself in +prison. + +Side by side with this study of commercial madness runs a thread of that +new sense of the preciousness of vital joy which had occupied Ibsen so +much ever since the last of the summers at Gossensass. The figure of +Erhart Borkman is a very interesting one to the theatrical student. In +the ruin of the family, all hopes concentre in him. Every one claims +him, and in the bosoms of each of his shattered parents a secret hope +is born, Mrs. Borkman believing that by a brilliant career of commercial +rectitude her son will wipe out the memory of his father's crime; +Borkman, who has never given up the ambition of returning to business, +reposing his own hopes on the co-operation of his son. + +But Erhart Borkman disappoints them all. He will be himself, he will +enjoy his life, he will throw off all the burdens both of responsibility +and of restitution. He has no ambition and little natural feeling; +he simply must be happy, and he suddenly elopes, leaving all their +anticipations bankrupt, with a certain joyous Mrs. Wilton, who has +nothing but her beauty to recommend her. Deserted thus by the _ignis +fatuus_ of youth, the collapse of the three old people is complete. +Under the shock the brain of Borkman gives way, and he wanders out into +the winter's night, full of vague dreams of what he can still do in the +world, if he can only break from his bondage and shatter his dream. He +dies there in the snow, and the two old sisters, who have followed him +in an anxiety which overcomes their mutual hatred, arrive in time to +see him pass away. We leave them in the wood, "a dead man and two +shadows"--so Ella Rentheim puts it--"for _that_ is what the cold has +made of us"; the central moral of the piece being that all the errors of +humanity spring from cold-heartedness and neglect of the natural heat +of love. That Borkman embezzled money, and reduced hundreds of innocent +people to beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his +cruel bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that +is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of +obscurity, and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality, +about _John Gabriel Borkman_, but on the whole it is a work of lofty +originality and of poignant human interest. + +The veteran was now beginning to be conscious of the approaches of old +age, but they were made agreeable to him by many tokens of national +homage. + +On his seventieth birthday, March 20, 1898, Ibsen received the +felicitations of the world. It is pleasing to relate that a group of +admirers in England, a group which included Mr. Asquith, Mr. J. M. +Barrie, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. Pinero and +Mr. Bernard Shaw took part in these congratulations and sent Ibsen +a handsome set of silver plate, this being an act which, it had been +discovered, he particularly appreciated. The bearer of this gift was the +earliest of the long stream of visitors to arrive on the morning of the +poet's birthday, and he found Ibsen in company with his wife, his son, +his son's wife (Bjoernson's daughter), and his little grandson, Tankred. +The poet's surprise and pleasure were emphatic. A deputation from the +Storthing, headed by the Leader of the House, deputations representing +the University, the various Christiania Theatres, and other official or +academic bodies arrived at intervals during the course of the day; +and all the afternoon Ibsen was occupied in taking these hundreds of +visitors, in parties, up to the case containing the English tribute, in +showing the objects and in explaining their origin. There could be no +question that the gift gave genuine pleasure to the recipient; it +was the first, as it was to be the last, occasion on which any public +testimony to English appreciation of his genius found its way to Ibsen's +door. + +Immediately after the birthday festivities, which it was observed had +fatigued him, Ibsen started on a visit to Copenhagen, where he was +received by the aged King of Denmark, and to Stockholm, where he was +overpowered with ovations from all classes. There can be no doubt that +this triumphal progress, though deeply grateful to the aged poet's +susceptibilities, made a heavy drain upon his nervous resources. When +he returned to Norway, indeed, he was concealed from all visitors at +his physician's orders, and it is understood that he had some kind of +seizure. It was whispered that he would write no more, and the biennial +drama, due in December, 1898, did not make its appearance. His stores +of health, however, were not easily exhausted; he rested for several +months, and then he was seen once more in Carl Johans Gade, smiling; in +his usual way, and entirely recovered. It was announced that winter that +he was writing his reminiscences, but nothing more was heard of any such +book. + +He was able to take a vivid interest in the preparations for the +National Norwegian Theatre in Christiania, which was finally opened +by the King of Sweden and Norway on September 1, 1899. Early in the +morning, colossal bronze statues of Ibsen and Bjoernson were unveiled in +front of the theatre, and the poets, now, unfortunately, again not on +the best of terms, were seen making vast de*tours for the purpose of +satisfying their curiosity, and yet not meeting one another in flesh +or in metal. The first night, to prevent rivalry, was devoted to +antiquarianism, and to the performance of extracts from the plays of +Holberg. Ibsen and Bjoernson occupied the centre of the dress circle, +sitting uplifted in two gilded fauteuils and segregated by a vast +garland of red and white roses. They were the objects of universal +attention, and the King seemed never to have done smiling and bowing to +the two most famous of his Norwegian subjects. + +The next night was Ibsen's fete, and he occupied, alone, the manager's +box. A poem in his honor, by Niels Collet Vogt, was recited by the +leading actor, who retired, and then rushed down the empty stage, +with his arms extended, shouting "Long live Henrik Ibsen." The immense +audience started to its feet and repeated the words over and over again +with deafening fervor. The poet appeared to be almost overwhelmed +with emotion and pleasure; at length, with a gesture which was quite +pathetic, smiling through his tears, he seemed to beg his friends to +spare him, and the plaudits slowly ceased. _An Enemy of the People_ was +then admirably performed. At the close of every act Ibsen was called to +the front of his box, and when the performance was over, and the actors +had been thanked, the audience turned to him again with a sort of +affectionate ferocity. Ibsen was found to have stolen from his box, but +he was waylaid and forcibly carried back to it. On his reappearance, the +whole theatre rose in a roar of welcome, and it was with difficulty that +the aged poet, now painfully exhausted from the strain of an evening +of such prolonged excitement, could persuade the public to allow him +to withdraw. At length he left the theatre, walking slowly, bowing and +smiling, down a lane cleared for him, far into the street, through the +dense crowd of his admirers. This astonishing night, September 2, 1899, +was the climax of Ibsen's career. + +During all this time Ibsen was secretly at work on another drama, which +he intended as the epilogue to his earlier dramatic work, or at least to +all that he had written since _The Pillars of Society_. This play, which +was his latest, appeared, under the title of _When We Dead Awaken_, +in December, 1899 (with 1900 on the title-page). It was simultaneously +published, in very large editions, in all the principal languages +of Europe, and it was acted also, but it is impossible to deny that, +whether in the study or on the boards, it proved a disappointment. +It displayed, especially in its later acts, many obvious signs of the +weakness incident on old age. + +When it is said that _When We Dead Awaken_ was not worthy of its +predecessors, it should be explained that no falling off was visible in +the technical cleverness with which the dialogue was built up, nor in +the wording of particular sentences. Nothing more natural or amusing, +nothing showing greater, command of the resources of the theatre, had +ever been published by Ibsen himself than the opening act of _When +We Dead Awaken_. But there was certainly in the whole conception a +cloudiness, an ineffectuality, which was very little like anything +that Ibsen had displayed before. The moral of the piece was vague, the +evolution of it incoherent, and indeed in many places it seemed a parody +of his earlier manner. Not Mr. Anstey Guthrie's inimitable scenes +in _Mr. Punch's Ibsen_ were more preposterous than almost all the +appearances of Irene after the first act of _When We Dead Awaken_. + +It is Irene who describes herself as dead, but awakening in the society +of Rubek, whilst Maia, the little gay soulless creature whom the great +sculptor has married, and has got heartily tired of, goes up to the +mountains with Ulpheim the hunter, in pursuit of the free joy of life. +At the close, the assorted couples are caught on the summit of an +exceeding high mountain by a snowstorm, which opens to show Rubek and +Irene "whirled along with the masses of snow, and buried in them," while +Maia and her bear-hunter escape in safety to the plains. Interminable, +and often very sage and penetrating, but always essentially rather +maniacal, conversation fills up the texture of the play, which is +certainly the least successful of Ibsen's mature compositions. The +boredom of Rubek in the midst of his eminence and wealth, and his +conviction that by working in such concentration for the purity of art +he merely wasted his physical life, inspire the portions of the play +which bring most conviction and can be read with fullest satisfaction. +It is obvious that such thoughts, such faint and unavailing regrets, +pursued the old age of Ibsen; and the profound wound that his heart had +received so long before at Gossensass was unhealed to his last moments +of consciousness. An excellent French critic, M. P. G. La Chesnais, +has ingeniously considered the finale of this play as a confession that +Ibsen, at this end of his career, was convinced of the error of his +earlier rigor, and, having ceased to believe in his mission, regretted +the complete sacrifice of his life to his work. But perhaps it is not +necessary to go into such subtleties. _When We Dead Awaken_ is +the production of a very tired old man, whose physical powers were +declining. + +In the year 1900, during our South African War, sentiment in the +Scandinavian countries was very generally ranged on the side of the +Boers. Ibsen, however, expressed himself strongly and publicly in favor +of the English position. In an interview (November 24, 1900), which +produced a considerable sensation, he remarked that the Boers were but +half-cultivated, and had neither the will nor the power to advance +the cause of civilization. Their sole object had come to be a jealous +exclusion of all the higher forms of culture. The English were merely +taking what the Boers themselves had stolen from an earlier race; the +Boers had pitilessly hunted their precursors out of house and home, and +now they were tasting the same cup themselves. These were considerations +which had not occurred to generous sentimentalists in Norway, and +Ibsen's defence of England, which he supported in further communications +with irony and courage, made a great sensation, and threw cold water on +the pro-Boer sentimentalists. In Holland, where Ibsen had a wide +public, this want of sympathy for Dutch prejudice raised a good deal of +resentment, and Ibsen's statements were replied to by the fiery young +journalist, Cornelius Karel Elout, who even published a book on the +subject. Ibsen took dignified notice of Elout's attacks (December 9, +1900), repeating his defence of English policy, and this was the latest +of his public appearances. + +He took an interest, however, in the preparation of the great edition of +his _Collected Works_, which appeared in Copenhagen in 1901 and 1902, +in ten volumes. Before the publication of the latest of these, however, +Ibsen had suffered from an apoplectic stroke, from which he never wholly +recovered. It was believed that any form of mental fatigue might now be +fatal to him, and his life was prolonged by extreme medical care. He was +contented in spirit and even cheerful, but from this time forth he was +more and more completely withdrawn from consecutive interest in what was +going on in the world without. The publication, in succession, of his +juvenile works (_Kaempehoejen_, _Olaf Liljekrans_, both edited by Halvdan +Koht, in 1902), of his _Correspondence_, edited by Koht and Julius +Elias, in 1904, of the bibliographical edition of his collected works by +Carl Naerup, in 1902, left him indifferent and scarcely conscious. The +gathering darkness was broken, it is said, by a gleam of light in +1905; when the freedom of Norway and the accession of King Hakon were +explained to him, he was able to express his joyful approval before the +cloud finally sank upon his intelligence. + +During his long illness Ibsen was troubled by aphasia, and he expressed +himself painfully, now in broken Norwegian, now in still more broken +German. His unhappy hero, Oswald Alving, in _Ghosts_, had thrilled the +world by his cry, "Give me the sun, Mother!" and now Ibsen, with glassy +eyes, gazed at the dim windows, murmuring "Keine Sonne, keine Sonne, +keine Sonne!" At the table where all the works of his maturity had +been written the old man sat, persistently learning and forgetting the +alphabet. "Look!" he said to Julius Elias, pointing to his mournful +pothooks, "See what I am doing! I am sitting here and learning my +letters--my _letters_! I who was once a Writer!" Over this shattered +image of what Ibsen had been, over this dying lion, who could not die, +Mrs. Ibsen watched with the devotion of wife, mother and nurse in one, +through six pathetic years. She was rewarded, in his happier moments, +by the affection and tender gratitude of her invalid, whose latest +articulate words were addressed to her--"_min soede, kjaere, snille +frue_" (my sweet, dear, good wife); and she taught to adore their +grandfather the three children of a new generation, Tankred, Irene, +Eleonora. + +Ibsen preserved the habit of walking about his room, or standing for +hours staring out of window, until the beginning of May, 1906. Then +a more complete decay confined him to his bed. After several days of +unconsciousness, he died very peacefully in his house on Drammensvej, +opposite the Royal Gardens of Christiania, at half-past two in the +afternoon of May 23, 1906, being in his seventy-ninth year. By a +unanimous vote of the he was awarded a public funeral, which the King of +Norway attended in person, while King Edward VII was represented there +by the British Minister. The event was regarded through out Norway as a +national ceremony of the highest solemnity and importance, and the poet +who had suffered such bitter humiliation and neglect in his youth was +carried to his grave in solemn splendor, to the sound of a people's +lamentation. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS + +During the latest years of his life, which were spent as a wealthy and +prosperous citizen of Christiania, the figure of Ibsen took forms +of legendary celebrity which were equalled by no other living man of +letters, not even by Tolstoi, and which had scarcely been surpassed, +among the dead, by Victor Hugo. When we think of the obscurity of his +youth and middle age, and of his consistent refusal to advertise himself +by any of the little vulgar arts of self-exhibition, this extreme +publicity is at first sight curious, but it can be explained. Norway +is a small and a new country, inordinately, perhaps, but justly and +gracefully proud of those--an Ole Bull, a Frithjof Nansen, an Edvard +Grieg--who spread through the world evidences of its spiritual life. But +the one who was more original, more powerful, more interesting than any +other of her sons, had persistently kept aloof from the soil of Norway, +and was at length recaptured and shut up in a golden cage with more +expenditure of delicate labor than any perverse canary or escaped +macaw had ever needed. Ibsen safely housed in Christiania!--it was the +recovery of an important national asset, the resumption, after years of +vexation and loss, of the intellectual regalia of Norway. + +Ibsen, then--recaptured, though still in a frame of mind which left the +captors nervous--was naturally an object of pride. For the benefit of +the hundreds of tourists who annually pass through Christiania, it was +more than tempting, it was irresistible to point out, in slow advance +along Carl Johans Gade, in permanent silence at a table in the Grand +Cafe, "our greatest citizen." To this species of demonstration Ibsen +unconsciously lent himself by his immobility, his regularity of habits, +his solemn taciturnity. He had become more like a strange physical +object than like a man among men. He was visible broadly and quietly, +not conversing, rarely moving, quite isolated and self-contained, a +recognized public spectacle, delivered up, as though bound hand and +foot, to the kodak-hunter and the maker of "spicy" paragraphs. That +Ibsen was never seen to do anything, or heard to say anything, that +those who boasted of being intimate with him obviously lied in their +teeth--all this prepared him for sacrifice. Christiania is a hot-bed +of gossip, and its press one of the most "chatty" in the world. Our +"greatest living author" was offered up as a wave-offering, and he +smoked daily on the altar of the newspapers. + +It will be extremely rash of the biographers of the future to try to +follow Ibsen's life day by day in the Christiania press from, let +us say, 1891 to 1901. During that decade he occupied the reporters +immensely, and he was particularly useful to the active young men who +telegraph "chat" to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Berlin. +Snapshots of Ibsen, dangerous illness of the playwright, quaint habits +of the Norwegian dramatist, a poet's double life, anecdotes of Ibsen and +Mrs.----, rumors of the King's attitude to Ibsen--this pollenta, dressed +a dozen ways, was the standing dish at every journalist's table. If a +space needed filling, a very rude reply to some fatuous question might +be fitted in and called "Instance of Ibsen's Wit." The crop of fable was +enormous, and always seemed to find a gratified public, for whom nothing +was too absurd if it was supposed to illustrate "our great national +poet." Ibsen, meanwhile, did nothing at all. He never refuted a calumny, +never corrected a story, but he threw an ironic glance through his +gold-rimmed spectacles as he strolled down Carl Johan with his hands +behind his back. + +His personal appearance, it must be admitted, formed a tempting +basis upon which to build a legend. His force of will had gradually +transfigured his bodily forms until he thoroughly looked the part which +he was expected to fill. At the age of thirty, to judge by the early +photographs, he had been a commonplace-looking little man, with a shock +of coal-black hair and a full beard, one of those hirsute types common +in the Teutonic races, which may prove, on inquiry, to be painter, +musician, or engraver, or possibly engineer, but less probably poet. +Then came the exile from Norway, and the residence in Rome, marked by a +little bust which stands before me now, where the beard is cut away into +two round whiskers so as to release the firm round chin, and the long +upper lip is clean-shaved. Here there is more liveliness, but still no +distinction. Then comes a further advance--a photograph (in which I feel +a tender pride, for it was made to please me) taken in Dresden (October +15, 1873), where the brow, perfectly smooth and white, has widened out, +the whiskers have become less chubby, and the small, scrutinizing eyes +absolutely sparkle with malice. Here, you say at last, is no poet, +indeed, but an unusually cultivated banker or surprisingly adroit +solicitor. Here the hair, retreating from the great forehead, begins to +curl and roll with a distinguished wildness; here the long mouth, like +a slit in the face, losing itself at each end in whisker, is a symbol of +concentrated will power, a drawer in some bureau, containing treasures, +firmly locked up. + +Then came Munich, where Ibsen's character underwent very considerable +changes, or rather where its natural features became fixed and +emphasized. We are not left without precious indication of his gestures +and his looks at this time, when he was a little past the age of +fifty. Where so much has been extravagantly written, or described in +a journalistic key of false emphasis, great is the value of a quiet +portrait by one of those who has studied Ibsen most intelligently. It is +perhaps the most careful pen-sketch of him in any language. + +Mr. William Archer, then, has given the following account of his first +meeting with Ibsen. It was in the Scandinavia Club, in Rome, at the +close of 1881:-- + +I had been about a quarter of an hour in the room, and was standing +close to the door, when it opened, and in glided an undersized man with +very broad shoulders and a large, leonine head, wearing a long black +frock-coat with very broad lapels, on one of which a knot of red ribbon +was conspicuous. I knew him at once, but was a little taken aback by his +low stature. In spite of all the famous instances to the contrary, one +instinctively associates greatness with size. His natural height was +even somewhat diminished by a habit of bending forward slightly from the +waist, begotten, no doubt, of short-sightedness, and the need to peer +into things. He moved very slowly and noiselessly, with his hands +behind his back--an unobtrusive personality, which would have been +insignificant had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest +of the frame. But there was nothing insignificant about the high and +massive forehead, crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the +small and pale but piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or +the thin lipped mouth, depressed at the corners into a curve indicative +of iron will, and set between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as +the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power and +character in the head; yet one would scarcely have guessed it to be the +power of a poet, the character of a prophet. Misled, perhaps, by the +ribbon at the buttonhole, and by an expression of reserve, almost of +secretiveness, in the lines of the tight-shut mouth, one would rather +have supposed one's self face to face with an eminent statesman or +diplomatist. + +With the further advance of years all that was singular in Ibsen's +appearance became accentuated. The hair and beard turned snowy white; +the former rose in a fierce sort of Oberland, the latter was kept square +and full, crossing underneath the truculent chin that escaped from it. +As Ibsen walked to a banquet in Christiania, he looked quite small +under the blaze of crosses, stars and belts which he displayed when he +unbuttoned the long black overcoat which enclosed him tightly. Never +was he seen without his hands behind him, and the poet Holger Drachmann +started a theory that as Ibsen could do nothing in the world but write, +the Muse tied his wrists together at the small of his back whenever they +were not actually engaged in composition. His regularity in all habits, +his mechanical ways, were the subject of much amusement. He must sit day +after day in the same chair, at the same table, in the same corner +of the cafe, and woe to the ignorant intruder who was accidentally +beforehand with him. No word was spoken, but the indignant poet stood +at a distance, glaring, until the stranger should be pierced with +embarrassment, and should rise and flee away. + +Ibsen had the reputation of being dangerous and difficult of access. +But the evidence of those who knew him best point to his having +been phlegmatic rather than morose. He was "umbrageous," ready to be +discomposed by the action of others, but, if not vexed or startled, +he was elaborately courteous. He had a great dislike of any abrupt +movement, and if he was startled, he had the instinct of a wild animal, +to bite. It was a pain to him to have the chain of his thoughts suddenly +broken, and he could not bear to be addressed by chance acquaintances +in street or cafe. When he was resident in Munich and Dresden, the +difficulty of obtaining an interview with Ibsen was notorious. His wife +protected him from strangers, and if her defences broke down, and the +stranger contrived to penetrate the inner fastness, Ibsen might suddenly +appear in the doorway, half in a rage, half quivering with distress, and +say, in heartrending tones, "Bitte um Arbeitsruhe"--"Please let me work +in peace!" They used to tell how in Munich a rich baron, who was the +local Maecenas of letters, once bored Ibsen with a long recital of his +love affairs, and ended by saying, with a wonderful air of fatuity, +"To you, Master, I come, because of your unparalleled knowledge of +the female heart. In your hands I place my fate. Advise me, and I will +follow your advice." Ibsen snapped his mouth and glared through his +spectacles; then in a low voice of concentrated fury he said: "Get +home, and--go to bed!" whereat his noble visitor withdrew, clothed with +indignation as with a garment. + +His voice was uniform, soft and quiet. The bitter things he said seemed +the bitterer for his gentle way of saying them. As his shape grew burly +and his head of hair enormous, the smallness of his extremities became +accentuated. His little hands were always folded away as he tripped upon +his tiny feet. His movements were slow and distrait. He wasted few words +on the current incidents of life, and I was myself the witness, in +1899, of his _sang-froid_ under distressing circumstances. Ibsen was +descending a polished marble staircase when his feet slipped and he fell +swiftly, precipitately, downward. He must have injured himself severely, +he might have been killed, if two young gentlemen had not darted forward +below and caught him in their arms. Once more set the right way up, +Ibsen softly thanked his saviours with much frugality of phrase--"Tak, +mine Herrer!"--tenderly touched an abraded surface of his top-hat, and +marched forth homeward, unperturbed. + +His silence had a curious effect on those in whose company he feasted; +it seemed to hypnotise them. The great Danish actress, Mrs. Heiberg, +herself the wittiest of talkers, said that to sit beside Ibsen was to +peer into a gold-mine and not catch a glitter from the hidden treasure. +But his dumbness was not so bitterly ironical as it was popularly +supposed to be. It came largely from a very strange passivity which +made definite action unwelcome to him. He could never be induced to pay +visits, yet he would urge his wife and his son to accept invitations, +and when they returned he would insist on being told every +particular--who was there, what was said, even what everybody wore. +He never went to a theatre or concert-room, except on the very rare +occasions when he could be induced to be present at the performance of +his own plays. But he was extremely fond of hearing about the stage. He +had a memory for little things and an observation of trifles which was +extraordinary. He thought it amazing that people could go into a room +and not notice the pattern of the carpet, the color of the curtains, +the objects on the walls; these being details which he could not help +observing and retaining. This trait comes out in his copious and minute +stage directions. + +Ibsen was simplicity itself; no man was ever less affected. But his +character was closed; he was perpetually on the defensive. He was seldom +confidential, he never "gave way"; his emotions and his affections +were genuine, but his heart was a fenced city. He had little sense of +domestic comfort; his rooms were bare and neat, with no personal objects +save those which belonged to his wife. Even in the days of his wealth, +in the fine house on Drammensvej, there was a singular absence of +individuality about his dwelling rooms. They might have been prepared +for a rich American traveller in some hotel. Through a large portion of +his career in Germany he lived in furnished rooms, not because he did +not possess furniture of his own, which was stored up, but because he +paid no sort of homage to his own penates. He had friends, but he did +not cultivate them; he rather permitted them, at intervals, to cultivate +him. To Georg Brandes (March 6, 1870) he wrote: "Friends are a costly +luxury; and when one has devoted one's self wholly to a profession and +a mission here in life, there is no place left for friends." The very +charming story of Ibsen's throwing his arms round old Hans Christian +Andersen's neck, and forcing him to be genial and amiable, [Note: +_Samliv med Ibsen._] is not inconsistent with the general rule of +passivity and shyness which he preserved in matters of friendship. + +Ibsen's reading was singularly limited. In his fine rooms on Drammensvej +I remember being struck by seeing no books at all, except the large +Bible which always lay at his side, and formed his constant study. He +disliked having his partiality for the Bible commented on, and if, as +would sometimes be the case, religious people expressed pleasure at +finding him deep in the sacred volume, Ibsen would roughly reply: "It is +only for the sake of the language." He was the enemy of anything which +seemed to approach cant and pretension, and he concealed his own views +as closely as he desired to understand the views of others. He possessed +very little knowledge of literature. The French he despised and +repudiated, although he certainly had studied Voltaire with advantage; +of the Italians he knew only Dante and of the English only Shakespeare, +both of whom he had studied in translations. In Danish he read and +reread Holberg, who throughout his life unquestionably remained Ibsen's +favorite author; he preserved a certain admiration for the Danish +classics of his youth: Heiberg, Hertz, Schack-Steffelt. In German, the +foreign language which he read most currently, he was strangely ignorant +of Schiller and Heine, and hostile to Goethe, although _Brand_ and _Peer +Gynt_ must owe something of their form to _Faust_. But the German poets +whom he really enjoyed were two dramatists of the age preceding his +own, Otto Ludwig (1813-65) and Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). Each of these +playwrights had been occupied in making certain reforms, of a realistic +tendency, in the existing tradition of the stage, and each of them +dealt, before any one else in Europe did so, with "problems" on the +stage. These two German poets, but Hebbel particularly, passed from +romanticism to realism, and so on to mysticism, in a manner fascinating +to Ibsen, whom it is possible that they influenced. [Note: It would +be interesting to compare _Die Niebelungen_, the trilogy which Hebbel +published in 1862, in which the struggle between pagan and Christian +ideals of conduct is analyzed, with Ibsen's _Emperor and Galilean_.] He +remained, in later years, persistently ignorant of Zola, and of Tolstoi +he had read, with contemptuous disapproval, only some of the polemical +pamphlets. He said to me, in 1899, of the great Russian: "Tolstoi?--he +is mad!" with a screwing up of the features such as a child makes at the +thought of a black draught. + +If he read at all, it was poetry. His indifference to music was +complete; he had, in fact, no ear whatever, and could not distinguish +one tune from another. His efforts to appreciate the music which +Grieg made for _Peer Gynt_ were pathetic. But for verse his sense was +exceedingly delicate, and the sound of poetry gave him acute pleasure. +At times, when his nerves were overstrained, he was fatigued by the riot +of rhymes which pursued him through his dreams, and which his memory +vainly strove to recapture. For academic philosophy and systems of +philosophic thought he had a great impatience. The vexed question of +what he owed to the eminent Danish philosopher, Soeren Kierkegaard, has +never been solved. Brandes has insisted, again and again, on the +close relation between _Brand_ and other works of Ibsen and the famous +_Either-Or_ of Kierkegaard; "it actually seems," he says, "as though +Ibsen had aspired to the honor of being called Kierkegaard's poet." +Ibsen, however, aspired to no such honor, and, while he never actually +denied the influence, the relation between him and the philosopher seems +to be much rather one of parallelism than of imitation. Ibsen was a +poetical psychologist of the first order, but he could not bring himself +to read the prose of the professional thinkers. + +In his attitude both to philosophical and poetical literature Ibsen is +with such apparently remote figures as Guy de Maupassant and Shelley; in +his realism and his mysticism he is unrelated to immediate predecessors, +and has no wish to be a disciple of the dead. His extreme interest in +the observation of ethical problems is not identified with any curiosity +about what philosophical writers have said on similar subjects. +Weininger has pointed out that Ibsen's philosophy is radically the same +as that of Kant, yet there is no evidence that Ibsen had ever studied or +had even turned over the pages of the _Criticism of Pure Reason_. It is +not necessary to suppose that he had done so. The peculiar aspect of +the Ego as the principal and ultimately sole guide to truth was revealed +anew to the Norwegian poet, and references to Kant, or to Fichte, or to +Kierkegaard, seem, therefore, to be beside the mark. The watchword of +_Brand_, with his cry of "All or Nothing," his absolute repudiation of +compromise, was not a literary conception, but was founded, without the +help of books, on a profound contemplation of human nature, mainly, no +doubt, as Ibsen found it in himself. But in these days of the tyranny +of literature it is curious to meet with an author of the first rank who +worked without a library. + +Ibsen's study of women was evidently so close, and what he writes about +them is usually so penetrating, that many legends have naturally sprung +up about the manner in which he gained his experience. Of these, most +are pure fiction. As a matter of fact, Ibsen was shy with women, and +unless they took the initiative, he contented himself with watching them +from a distance: and noting their ways in silence. The early flirtation +with Miss Rikke Hoist at Bergen, which takes so prominent a place in +Ibsen's story mainly because such incidents were extremely rare in it, +is a typical instance. If this young girl of sixteen had not taken +the matter into her own hands, running up the steps of the hotel and +flinging her posy of flowers into the face of the young poet, the +incident would have closed in his watching her down the street, +while the fire smouldered in his eyes. It was not until her fresh +field-blossoms had struck him on the cheek that he was emboldened to +follow her and to send her the lyrical roses and auriculas which live +forever in his poems. If we wish to note the difference of temperament, +we have but to contrast Ibsen's affair with Rikke Holst with Goethe's +attitude to Christiana Vulpius; in doing so, we bring the passive and +the active lover face to face. + +Ibsen would gladly have married his flower of the field, a vision of +whose bright, untrammelled adolescence reappears again and again in +his works, and plainly in _The Master-Builder_. But he escaped a great +danger in failing to secure her as his wife, for Rikke Holst, when she +had lost her girlish freshness, would probably have had little character +and no culture to fall back upon. He waited, fortunately for his +happiness, until he secured Susannah Thoresen. Mrs. Ibsen, his faithful +guide, guardian and companion for half a century, will live among the +entirely successful wives of difficult men of genius. In the midst +of the spiteful gossip of Christiania she had to traverse her _via +dolorosa_, for it was part of the fun of the journalists to represent +this husband and wife as permanently alienated. That Ibsen was easy to +live with is not probable, but his wife not merely contrived to do it, +but by her watchfulness, her adroitness, and, when necessary, by her +firmness of decision, she smoothed the path for the great man whom +she adored, and who was to her a great wilful child to be cajoled and +circumvented. He was absolutely dependent on her, although he affected +amusing airs of independence; and if she absented herself, there were +soon cries in the house of "My Cat, My Cat!" the pet name by which he +called his wife. Of their domestic ways little is yet known in detail, +but everything can be imagined. + +To the enigma of Ibsen's character it was believed that his private +correspondence might supply a key. His letters were collected and +arranged while he was still alive, but he was not any longer in a +mental condition which permitted him to offer any help in comment to +his editors. His son, Mr. Sigurd Ibsen, superintended the work, and two +careful bibliographers, Mr. Halvdan Koht and Mr. Julius Elias, +carried out the scheme in two volumes [Note: _Breve fra Henrik Ibsen_, +Gyldendalske Boghadel, 1904.], with the execution of which no fault can +be suggested. But the enigma remained unsolved; the sphinx spoke much, +but failed to answer the questions we had been asking. These letters, +in the first place, suffer from the fact that Ibsen was a relentless +destroyer of documents; they are all written by him; not one single +example had been preserved of the correspondence to which this is +the reply. Then Ibsen's letters, as revealers of the unseen mood, are +particularly unsatisfactory. With rare exceptions, he remains throughout +them tightly buttoned up in his long and legendary frock-coat. There is +no laughter and no tears in his letters; he is occasionally extremely +angry, and exudes drops of poison, like the captive scorpion which he +caught when he was in Italy, and loved to watch and tease. But there +is no self-abandonment, and very little emotion; the letters are +principally historical and critical, "finger-posts for commentators." +They give valuable information about the genius of his works, but they +tell almost less about his inner moral nature than do his imaginative +writings. + +In his youth the scorpion in Ibsen's heart seems to have stung him +occasionally to acts which afterwards filled him with embarrassment. We +hear that in his Bergen days he sent to Lading, his fellow-teacher +at the theatre, a challenge of which, when the mood was over, he was +greatly ashamed. It is said that on another occasion, under the pressure +of annoyance, maddened with fear and insomnia, he sprang out of bed in +his shirt and tried to throw himself into the sea off one of the quays +in the harbor. Such performances were futile and ridiculous, and they +belong only to his youth. It seems certain that he schooled himself +to the suppression of such evidences of his anger, and that he did so +largely by shutting up within his breast all the fire that rose there. +The _Correspondence_--dark lantern as it is--seems to illuminate this +condition of things; we see before us Ibsen with his hands clenched, his +mouth tightly shut, rigid with determination not to "let himself go," +the eyes alone blazing behind the gleaming spectacles. + +An instance of his suppression of personal feeling may be offered. The +lengthiest of all Ibsen's published letters describes to Brandes (April +25, 1866) the suicide, at Rome, of a young Danish lawyer, Ludvig David, +of whom Ibsen had seen a good deal. The lad threw himself head-foremost +out of window, in a crisis of fever. Ibsen writes down all the minutest +details with feeling and refinement, but with as little sympathetic +emotion as if he was drawing up a report for the police. With this trait +may be compared his extreme interest in the detailed accounts of public +trials; he liked to read exactly what the prisoner said, and all the +evidence of the witnesses. In this Ibsen resembled Robert Browning, +whose curiosity about the small incidents surrounding a large event was +boundless. When Ibsen, in the course of such an investigation, found the +real purpose of some strange act dawn upon him, he exhibited an almost +childish pleasure; and this was doubled when the interpretation was one +which had not presented itself to the conventional legal authorities. + +In everything connected with the execution of his own work there was +no limit to the pains which he was willing to take. His handwriting +had always been neat, but it was commonplace in his early years. The +exquisite calligraphy which he ultimately used on every occasion, and +the beauty of which was famous far and wide, he adopted deliberately +when he was in Rome in 1862. To the end of his life, although in the +latest years the letters lost, from the shakiness of his hand, some of +their almost Chinese perfection, he wrote his smallest notes in this +character. His zeal for elaboration as an artist led him to collect a +mass of consistent imaginary information about the personages in his +plays, who became to him absolutely real. It is related how, some one +happening to say that Nora, in _A Doll's House_, had a curious name, +Ibsen immediately replied, "Oh! her full name was Leonora; but that was +shortened to Nora when she was quite a little girl. Of course, you know, +she was terribly spoilt by her parents." Nothing of this is revealed in +the play itself, but Ibsen was familiar with the past history of all the +characters he created. All through his career he seems to have been long +haunted by the central notion of his pieces, and to have laid it +aside, sometimes for many years, until a set of incidents spontaneously +crystallized around it. When the medium in which he was going to work +became certain he would put himself through a long course of study in +the technical phraseology appropriate to the subject. No pains were too +great to prepare him for the final task. + +When Mr. Archer visited Ibsen in the Harmonien Hotel at Saeby in 1887 +he extracted some valuable evidence from him as to his methods of +composition:-- + +It seems that the _idea_ of a piece generally presents itself before +the characters and incidents, though, when I put this to him flatly, he +denied it. It seems to follow, however, from his saying that there is a +certain stage in the incubation of a play when it might as easily turn +into all essay as into a drama. He has to incarnate the ideas, as it +were, in character and incident, before the actual work of creation +can be said to have fairly begun. Different plans and ideas, he admits, +often flow together, and the play he ultimately produces is sometimes +very unlike the intention with which he set out. He writes and rewrites, +scribbles and destroys, an enormous amount before he makes the exquisite +fair copy he sends to Copenhagen. + +He altered, as we have said, the printed text of his earlier works, in +order to bring them into harmony with his finished style, but he did not +do this, so far as I remember, after the publication of _Brand_. In the +case of all the dramas of his maturity he modified nothing when the work +had once been given to the world. + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + +Having accustomed ourselves to regard Ibsen as a disturbing and +revolutionizing force, which met with the utmost resistance at the +outset, and was gradually accepted before the close of his career, we +may try to define what the nature of his revolt was, and what it was, +precisely, that he attacked. It may be roughly said that what peculiarly +roused the animosity of Ibsen was the character which has become +stereotyped in one order of ideas, good in themselves but gradually +outworn by use, and which cannot admit ideas of a new kind. Ibsen +meditated upon the obscurantism of the old regime until he created +figures like Rosmer, in whom the characteristics of that school are +crystallized. From the point of view which would enter sympathetically +into the soul of Ibsen and look out on the world from his eyes, there +is no one of his plays more valuable in its purely theoretic way than +_Rosmersholm_. It dissects the decrepitude of ancient formulas, it +surveys the ruin of ancient faiths. The curse of heredity lies upon +Rosmer, who is highly intelligent up to a certain point, but who can go +no further. Even if he is persuaded that a new course of action would be +salutary, he cannot move--he is bound in invisible chains. It is useless +to argue with Rosmer; his reason accepts the line of logic, but he +simply cannot, when it comes to action, cross the bridge where Beate +threw herself into the torrent. + +But Ibsen had not the ardor of the fighting optimist. He was one who +"doubted clouds would break," who dreamed, since "right was worsted, +wrong would triumph." With Robert Browning he had but this one thing in +common, that both were fighters, both "held we fall to rise, are baffled +to fight better," but the dark fatalism of the Norwegian poet was in +other things in entire opposition to the sunshiny hopefulness of the +English one. Browning and Ibsen alike considered that the race must be +reformed periodically or it would die. The former anticipated reform +as cheerily as the sower expects harvest. Ibsen had no such happy +certainty. He was convinced of the necessity of breaking up the old +illusions, the imaginative call for revolt, but his faith wavered as to +the success of the new movements. The old order, in its resistance to +all change, is very strong. It may be shaken, but it is the work of +a blind Sampson, and no less, to bring it rattling to the ground. +In _Rosmersholm_, all the modern thought, all the vitality, all the +lucidity belong to Rebecca, but the decrepit formulas are stoutly +intrenched. In the end it is not the new idea who conquers; it is the +antique house, with its traditions, its avenging vision of white horses, +which breaks the too-clairvoyant Rebecca. + +This doubt of the final success of intelligence, this obstinate question +whether, after all, as we so glibly intimate, the old order changeth at +all, whether, on the contrary, it has not become a Juggernaut car that +crushes all originality and independence out of action, this breathes +more and more plainly out of the progressing work of Ibsen. Hedda Gabler +condemns the old order, in its dulness, its stifling mediocrity, but she +is unable to adapt her energy to any wholesome system of new ideas, and +she sinks into deeper moral dissolution. She hates all that has been +done, yet can herself do nothing, and she represents, in symbol, that +detestable condition of spirit which cannot create, though it sees +the need of creation, and can only show the irritation which its own +sterility awakens within it by destruction. All Hedda can actually do, +to assert her energy, is to burn the MS. of Loevborg, and to kill herself +with General Gabler's pistol. The race must be reformed or die; the +Hedda Gablers which adorn its latest phase do best to die. + +We have seen that Ibsen's theory was that love of self is the +fundamental principle of all activity. It is the instinct of +self-preservation and self-amelioration which leads to every +manifestation of revolt against stereotyped formulas of conduct. Between +the excessive ideality of Rebecca and the decadent sterility of Hedda +Gabler comes another type, perhaps more sympathetic than either, the +master-builder Solness. He, too, is led to condemn the old order, but in +the act of improving it he is overwhelmed upon his pinnacle, and swoons +to death, "dizzy, lost, yet unupbraiding." Ibsen's exact meaning in the +detail of these symbolic plays will long be discussed, but they repay +the closest and most reiterated study. Perhaps the most curious of all +is _The Lady from the Sea_, which has been examined from the technically +psychological view by a learned French philosopher, M. Jules de +Gaultier. For M. de Gaultier the interest which attaches to Ibsen's +conception of human life, with its conflicting instincts and +responsibilities, is more fully centred in _The Lady from the Sea_ than +in any other of his productions. + +The theory of the French writer is that Ibsen's constant aim is to +reconcile and to conciliate the two biological hypotheses which +have divided opinion in the nineteenth century, and which are known +respectively by the names of Cuvier and Lamarck; namely, that of the +invariability of species and that of the mutability of organic forms. +In the reconciliation of these hypotheses Ibsen finds the only process +which is truly encouraging to life. According to this theory, all the +trouble, all the weariness, all the waste of moral existences around +us comes from the neglect of one or other of these principles, and +true health, social or individual, is impossible without the harmonious +application of them both. According to this view, the apotheosis of +Ibsen's genius, or at least the most successful elucidation of his +scheme of ideological drama, is reached in the scene in _The Lady from +the Sea_ where Wangel succeeds in winning the heart of Ellida back from +the fascination of the Stranger. It is certainly in this mysterious and +strangely attractive play that Ibsen has insisted, more than anywhere +else, on the necessity of taking physiology into consideration in every +discussion of morals. He refers, like a zooelogist, to the laws which +regulate the formation and the evolution of species, and the decision +of Ellida, on which so much depends, is an amazing example of +the limitation of the power of change produced by heredity. The +extraordinary ingenuity of M. de Gaultier's analysis of this play +deserves recognition; whether it can quite be accepted, as embraced by +Ibsen's intention, may be doubtful. At the same time, let us recollect +that, however subtle our refinements become, the instinct of Ibsen was +probably subtler still. + +In 1850, when Ibsen first crept forward, with the glimmering taper of +his Catilina, there was but one person in the world who fancied that +the light might pass from lamp to lamp and in half a century form an +important part of the intellectual illumination of Europe. The one +person who did suspect it was, of course, Ibsen himself. Against +all probability and common-sense, this apothecary's assistant, this +ill-educated youth who had just been plucked in his preliminary +examination, who positively was, and remained, unable to pass the first +tests and become a student at the University, maintained in his +inmost soul the belief that he was born to be "a king of thought." The +impression is perhaps not uncommon among ill-educated lads; what makes +the case unique, and defeats our educational formulas, is that it +happened to be true. But the impact of Ibsen with the social order of +his age was unlucky, we see, from the first; it was perhaps more unlucky +than that of any other great man of the same class with whose biography +we have been made acquainted. He was at daggers drawn with all that +was successful and respectable and "nice" from the outset of his career +until near the end of it. + +Hence we need not be surprised if in the tone of his message to the +world there is something acrimonious, something that tastes in the +mouth like aloes. He prepared a dose for a sick world, and he made it as +nauseous and astringent as he could, for he was not inclined to be one +of those physicians who mix jam with their julep. There was no other +writer of genius in the nineteenth century who was so bitter in dealing +with human frailty as Ibsen was. By the side of his cruel clearness the +satire of Carlyle is bluster, the diatribes of Leopardi shrill and +thin. All other reformers seem angry and benevolent by turns, Ibsen is +uniformly and impartially stern. That he probed deeper into the problems +of life than any other modern dramatist is acknowledged, but it was +his surgical calmness which enabled him to do it. The problem-plays of +Alexandre Dumas _fils_ flutter with emotion, with prejudice and pardon. +But Ibsen, without impatience, examines under his microscope all the +protean forms of organic social life and coldly draws up his diagnosis +like a report. We have to think of him as thus ceaselessly occupied. We +have seen that, long before a sentence was written, he had invented and +studied, in its remotest branches, the life-history of the characters +who were to move in his play. Nothing was unknown to him of their +experience, and for nearly two years, like a coral-insect, he was +building up the scheme of them in silence. Odd little objects, fetiches +which represented people to him, stood arranged on his writing table, +and were never to be touched. He gazed at them until, as if by some +feat of black magic, he turned them into living persons, typical and yet +individual. + +We have recorded that the actual writing down of the dialogue was often +swift and easy, when the period of incubation was complete. Each of +Ibsen's plays presupposes a long history behind it; each starts like an +ancient Greek tragedy, in the full process of catastrophe. This +method of composition was extraordinary, was perhaps, in modern +times, unparalleled. It accounted in measure for the coherency, the +inevitability, of all the detail, but it also accounted for some of the +difficulties which meet us in the task of interpretation. Ibsen calls +for an expositor, and will doubtless give occupation to an endless +series of scholiasts. They will not easily exhaust their theme, and to +the last something will escape, something will defy their most careful +examination. It is not disrespectful to his memory to claim that Ibsen +sometimes packed his stuff too closely. Criticism, when it marvels most +at the wonder of his genius, is constrained to believe that he sometimes +threw too much of his soul into his composition, that he did not stand +far enough away from it always to command its general effect. The +result, especially in the later symbolical plays, is too vibratory, and +excites the spectator too much. + +One very curious example of Ibsen's minute care is found in the +copiousness of his stage directions. Later playwrights have imitated +him in this, and we have grown used to it; but thirty years ago such +minuteness seemed extravagant and needless. As a fact, it was essential +to the absolutely complete image which Ibsen desired to produce. The +stage directions in his plays cannot be "skipped" by any reader who +desires to follow the dramatist's thought step by step without losing +the least link. These notes of his intention will be of ever-increasing +value as the recollection of his personal wishes is lost. In 1899 Ibsen +remarked to me that it was almost useless for actors nowadays to try to +perform the comedies of Holberg, because there were no stage directions +and the tradition was lost. Of his own work, fortunately, that can never +be said. Dr. Verrall, in his brilliant and penetrating studies of the +Greek Tragedies, has pointed out more than once the "undesigned and +unforeseen defect with which, in studying ancient drama, we must +perpetually reckon," namely, the loss of the action and of the +equivalent stage directions. It is easy to imagine "what problems +Shakespeare would present if he were printed like the _Poetae Scenici +Graeci_," and not more difficult to realize how many things there would +be to puzzle us in _Ghosts_ and _The Wild Duck_ if we possessed nothing +but the bare text. + +The body of work so carefully conceived, so long maintained, so +passionately executed, was far too disturbing in its character to be +welcome at first. In the early eighties the name of Ibsen was loathed in +Norway, and the attacks on him which filled the press were often of an +extravagant character. At the present moment any one conversant with +Norwegian society who will ask a priest or a schoolmaster, an officer +or a doctor, what has been the effect of Ibsen's influence, will be +surprised at the unanimity of the reply. Opinions may differ as to the +attractiveness of the poet's art or of its skill, but there is an almost +universal admission of its beneficial tendency. Scarcely will a voice be +found to demur to the statement that Ibsen let fresh air and light into +the national life, that he roughly but thoroughly awakened the national +conscience, that even works like _Ghosts_, which shocked, and works like +_Rosmersholm_, which insulted the prejudices of his countrymen, were +excellent in their result. The conquest of Norway by this dramatist, who +reviled and attacked and abandoned his native land, who railed at +every national habit and showed a worm at the root of every national +tradition, is amazing. The fierce old man lived long enough to be +accompanied to his grave "to the noise of the mourning of a nation," and +he who had almost starved in exile to be conducted to the last resting +place by a Parliament and a King. + +It must always be borne in mind that, although Ibsen's appeal is to the +whole world--his determination to use prose aiding him vastly in this +dissemination--yet it is to Norway that he belongs, and it is at home +that he is best understood. No matter how acrid his tone, no matter how +hard and savage the voice with which he prophesied, the accord between +his country and himself was complete long before the prophet died. As he +walked about, the strange, picturesque little old man, in the streets +of Christiania, his fellow-citizens gazed at him with a little fear, +but with some affection and with unbounded reverence. They understood +at last what the meaning of his message had been, and how closely it +applied to themselves, and how much the richer and healthier for it +their civic atmosphere had become. They would say, as the soul of Dante +said in the _New Life_:-- + +e costui Che viene a consolar la nostra mente, Ed e la sua tanto +possente, Ch'altro pensier non lascia star con nui. + +No words, surely, could better express the intensity with which +Ibsen had pressed his moral quality, his _virtu_, upon the Norwegian +conscience, not halting in his pursuit till he had captured it and had +banished from it all other ideals of conduct. No one who knows will +doubt that the recent events in which Norway has taken so chivalric, and +at the same time so winning and gracious, an attitude in the eyes of the +world, owe not a little to their being the work of a generation nurtured +in that new temper of mind, that _spiritel nuovo d'amore_ which was +inculcated by the whole work of Ibsen. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + +***** This file should be named 8152.txt or 8152.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/1/5/8152/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Henrik Ibsen + +Author: Edmund Gosse + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8152] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + + + + +HENRIK IBSEN + +By Edmund Gosse + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I: CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH +CHAPTER II: EARLY INFLUENCES +CHAPTER III: LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) +CHAPTER IV: THE SATIRES (1857-67) +CHAPTER V: 1868-75 +CHAPTER VI: 1875-82 +CHAPTER VII: 1883-91 +CHAPTER VIII: LAST YEARS +CHAPTER IX: PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS +CHAPTER X: INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +Henrik Ibsen +Ibsen in 1868 +Ibsen in Dresden, October, 1873 +From a drawing by Gustav Laerum +Facsimile of Ibsen's Handwriting +Ibsen. From the painting by Eilif Petersen +Bust of Ibsen, about 1865 + + + +PREFACE + +Numerous and varied as have been the analyses of Ibsen's works +published, in all languages, since the completion of his writings, there +exists no biographical study which brings together, on a general plan, +what has been recorded of his adventures as an author. Hitherto the only +accepted Life of Ibsen has been _Et literaert Livsbillede_, published in +1888 by Henrik Jaeger; of this an English translation was issued in +1890. Henrik Jaeger (who must not be confounded with the novelist, Hans +Henrik Jaeger) was a lecturer and dramatic critic, residing near Bergen, +whose book would possess little value had he not succeeded in persuading +Ibsen to give him a good deal of valuable information respecting his +early life in that city. In its own day, principally on this account, +Jaeger's volume was useful, supplying a large number of facts which were +new to the public. But the advance of Ibsen's activity, and the increase +of knowledge since his death, have so much extended and modified the +poet's history that _Et literaert Livsbillede_ has become obsolete. + +The principal authorities of which I have made use in the following +pages are the minute bibliographical _Oplysninger_ of J. B. Halvorsen, +marvels of ingenious labor, continued after Halvorsen's death by Sten +Konow (1901); the _Letters of Henrik Ibsen_, published in two volumes, +by H. Koht and J. Elias, in 1904, and now issued in an English +translation (Hodder & Stoughton); the recollections and notes of various +friends, published in the periodicals of Scandinavia and Germany after +his death; T. Blanc's _Et Bidrag til den Ibsenskte Digtnings +Scenehistorie_ (1906); and, most of all, the invaluable _Samliv med +Ibsen_ (1906) of Johan Paulsen. This last-mentioned writer aspires, in +measure, to be Ibsen's Boswell, and his book is a series of chapters +reminiscent of the dramatist's talk and manners, chiefly during those +central years of his life which he spent in Germany. It is a trivial, +naive and rather thin production, but it has something of the true +Boswellian touch, and builds up before us a lifelike portrait. + +From the materials, too, collected for many years past by Mr. William +Archer, I have received important help. Indeed, of Mr. Archer it is +difficult for an English student of Ibsen to speak with moderation. It +is true that thirty-six years ago some of Ibsen's early metrical +writings fell into the hands of the writer of this little volume, and +that I had the privilege, in consequence, of being the first person to +introduce Ibsen's name to the British public. Nor will I pretend for a +moment that it is not a gratification to me, after so many years and +after such surprising developments, to know that this was the fact. But, +save for this accident of time, it was Mr. Archer and no other who was +really the introducer of Ibsen to English readers. For a quarter of a +century he was the protagonist in the fight against misconstruction and +stupidity; with wonderful courage, with not less wonderful good temper +and persistency, he insisted on making the true Ibsen take the place of +the false, and on securing for him the recognition due to his genius. +Mr. William Archer has his reward; his own name is permanently attached +to the intelligent appreciation of the Norwegian playwright in England +and America. + +In these pages, where the space at my disposal was so small, I have not +been willing to waste it by repeating the plots of any of those plays of +Ibsen which are open to the English reader. It would please me best if +this book might be read in connection with the final edition of _Ibsen's +Complete Dramatic Works_, now being prepared by Mr. Archer in eleven +volumes (W. Heinemann, 1907). If we may judge of the whole work by those +volumes of it which have already appeared, I have little hesitation in +saying that no other foreign author of the second half of the nineteenth +century has been so ably and exhaustively edited in English as Ibsen has +been in this instance. + +The reader who knows the Dano-Norwegian language may further be +recommended to the study of Carl Naerup's _Norsk Litteraturhistories +siste Tidsrum_ (1905), a critical history of Norwegian literature since +1890, which is invaluable in giving a notion of the effect of modern +ideas on the very numerous younger writers of Norway, scarcely one of +whom has not been influenced in one direction or another by the tyranny +of Ibsen's personal genius. What has been written about Ibsen in England +and France has often missed something of its historical value by not +taking into consideration that movement of intellectual life in Norway +which has surrounded him and which he has stimulated. Perhaps I may be +allowed to say of my little book that this side of the subject has been +particularly borne in mind in the course of its composition. + +E. G. + +KLOBENSTEIN. + + + +CHAPTER I + +CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + +The parentage of the poet has been traced back to a certain Danish +skipper, Peter Ibsen, who, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, +made his way over from Stege, the capital of the island of Moeen, and +became a citizen of Bergen. From that time forth the men of the family, +all following the sea in their youth, jovial men of a humorous +disposition, continued to haunt the coasts of Norway, marrying sinister +and taciturn wives, who, by the way, were always, it would seem, Danes +or Germans or Scotswomen, so that positively the poet had, after a +hundred years and more of Norwegian habitation, not one drop of pure +Norse blood to inherit from his parents. His grandfather, Henrik, was +wrecked in 1798 in his own ship, which went down with all souls lost on +Hesnaes, near Grimstad; this reef is the scene of Ibsen's animated poem +of Terje Viken. His father, Knud, who was born in 1797, married in 1825 +a German, Marichen Cornelia Martie Altenburg, of the same town of Skien; +she was one year his senior, and the daughter of a merchant. It was in +1771 that the Ibsens, leaving Bergen, had settled in Skien, which was, +and still is, an important centre of the timber and shipping trades on +the south-east shore of the country. + +It may be roughly said that Skien, in the Danish days, was a sort of +Poole or Dartmouth, existing solely for purposes of marine merchandise, +and depending for prosperity, and life itself, on the sea. Much of a +wire-drawn ingenuity has been conjectured about the probable strains of +heredity which met in Ibsen. It is not necessary to do more than to +recognize the slight but obstinate exoticism, which kept all his +forbears more or less foreigners still in their Norwegian home; and to +insist on the mixture of adventurousness and plain common sense which +marked their movements by sea and shore. The stock was intensely +provincial, intensely unambitious; it would be difficult to find +anywhere a specimen of the lower middle class more consistent than the +Ibsens had been in preserving their respectable dead level. Even in that +inability to resist the call of the sea, generation after generation, if +there was a little of the dare-devil there was still more of the +conventional citizen. It is, in fact, a vain attempt to detect elements +of his ancestors in the extremely startling and unprecedented son who +was born to Knud and Marichen Ibsen two years and three months after +their marriage. + +This son, who was baptized Henrik Johan, although he never used the +second name, was born in a large edifice known as the Stockmann House, +in the centre of the town of Skien, on March 20, The house stood on one +side of a large, open square; the town pillory was at the right of and +the mad-house, the lock-up and other amiable urban institutions to the +left; in front was Latin school and the grammar school, while the church +occupied the middle of the square. Over this stern prospect the tourist +can no longer sentimentalize, for the whole of this part of Skien was +burned down in 1886, to the poet's unbridled satisfaction. "The +inhabitants of Skien," he said with grim humor, "were quite unworthy to +possess my birthplace." + +He declared that the harsh elements of landscape, mentioned above, were +those which earliest captivated his infant attention, and he added that +the square space, with the church in the midst of it, was filled all day +long with the dull and droning sound of many waterfalls, while from dawn +to dusk this drone of waters was constantly cut through by a sound that +was like the sharp screaming and moaning of women. This was caused by +hundreds of saws at work beside the waterfalls, taking advantage of that +force. "Afterwards, when I read about the guillotine, I always thought +of those saws," said the poet, whose earliest flight of fancy seems to +have been this association of womanhood with the shriek of the sawmill. + +In 1888, just before his sixtieth birthday, Ibsen wrote out for Henrik +Jaeger certain autobiographical recollections of his childhood. It is +from these that the striking phrase about the scream of the saws is +taken, and that is perhaps the most telling of these infant memories, +many of which are slight and naive. It is interesting, however, to find +that his earliest impressions of life at home were of an optimistic +character. "Skien," he says, "in my young days, was an exceedingly +lively and sociable place, quite unlike what it afterwards became. +Several highly cultivated and wealthy families lived in the town itself +or close by on their estates. Most of these families were more or less +closely related, and dances, dinners and music parties followed each +other, winter and summer, in almost unbroken sequence. Many travellers, +too, passed through the town, and, as there were as yet no regular inns, +they lodged with friends or connections. We almost always had guests in +our large, roomy house, especially at Christmas and Fair-time, when the +house was full, and we kept open table from morning till night." The +mind reverts to the majestic old wooden mansions which play so prominent +a part in Thomas Krag's novels, or to the house of Mrs. Solness' +parents, the burning down of which started the Master-Builder's +fortunes. Most of these grand old timber houses in Norway have indeed, +by this time, been so burned down. + +We may speculate on what the effect of this genial open-handedness might +have been, had it lasted, on the genius of the poet. But fortune had +harsher views of what befitted the training of so acrid a nature. When +Ibsen was eight years of age, his father's business was found to be in +such disorder that everything had to be sold to meet his creditors. The +only piece of property left when this process had been gone through was +a little broken-down farmhouse called Venstoeb, in the outskirts of +Skien. Ibsen afterwards stated that those who had taken most advantage +of his parents' hospitality in their prosperous days were precisely +those who now most markedly turned a cold shoulder on them. It is likely +enough that this may have been the case, but one sees how inevitably +Ibsen would, in after years, be convinced that it was. He believed +himself to have been, personally, much mortified and humiliated in +childhood by the change in the family status. Already, by all accounts, +he had begun to live a life of moral isolation. His excellent sister +long afterwards described him as an unsociable child, never a pleasant +companion, and out of sympathy with all the rest of the family. + +We recollect, in _The Wild Duck_, the garret which was the domain of +Hedvig and of that symbolic bird. At Venstoeb, the infant Ibsen possessed +a like retreat, a little room near the back entrance, which was sacred +to him and into the fastness of which he was accustomed to bolt himself. +Here were some dreary old books, among others Harrison's folio _History +of the City of London_, as well as a paint-box, an hour-glass, an +extinct eight-day clock, properties which were faithfully introduced, +half a century later, into _The Wild Duck_. His sister says that the +only outdoor amusement he cared for as a boy was building, and she +describes the prolonged construction of a castle, in the spirit of _The +Master-Builder_. + +Very soon he began to go to school, but to neither of the public +institutions in the town. He attended what is described as a "small +middle-class school," kept by a man called Johan Hansen, who was the +only person connected with his childhood, except his sister, for whom +the poet retained in after life any agreeable sentiment. "Johan Hansen," +he says, "had a mild, amiable temper, like that of a child," and when he +died, in 1865, Ibsen mourned him. The sexton at Skien, who helped in the +lessons, described the poet afterwards as "a quiet boy with a pair of +wonderful eyes, but with no sort of cleverness except an unusual gift +for drawing." Hansen taught Ibsen Latin and theology, gently, +perseveringly, without any striking results; that the pupil afterwards +boasted of having successfully perused Phaedrus in the original is in +itself significant. So little was talent expected from him that when, at +the age of about fifteen, he composed a rather melodramatic description +of a dream, the schoolmaster looked at him gloomily, and said he must +have copied it out of some book! One can imagine the shocked silence of +the author, "passive at the nadir of dismay." + +No great wild swan of the flocks of Phoebus ever began life as a more +ungainly duckling than Ibsen did. The ingenuity of biographers has done +its best to brighten up the dreary record of his childhood with +anecdotes, yet the sum of them all is but a dismal story. The only +talent which was supposed to lurk in the napkin was that for painting. A +little while before he left school, he was found to have been working +hard with water-colors. Various persons have recalled finished works of +the young Ibsen--a romantic landscape of the ironworks at Fossum, a view +from the windows at Venstoeb, a boy in peasant dress seated on a rock, +the latter described by a dignitary of the church as "awfully splendid," +overmaade praegtigt. One sees what kind of painting this must have been, +founded on some impression of Fearnley and Tidemann, a far-away +following of the new "national" art of the praiseworthy "patriot- +painters" of the school of Dahl. + +It is interesting to remember that Pope, who had considerable +intellectual relationship with Ibsen, also nourished in childhood the +ambition to be a painter, and drudged away at his easel for weeks and +months. As he to the insipid Jervases and Knellers whom he copied, so +Ibsen to the conscientious romantic artists of Norway's prime. In +neither case do we wish that an Ibsen or a Pope should be secured for +the National Gallery, but it is highly significant that such earnest +students of precise excellence in another art should first of all have +schooled their eyes to exactitude by grappling with form and color. + +In 1843, being fifteen years of age, Ibsen was confirmed and taken away +from school. These events marked the beginning of adolescence with a +young middle-class Norwegian of those days, for whom the future proposed +no task in life demanding a more elaborate education than the local +schoolmaster could give. Ibsen announced his wish to be a professional +artist, but that was one which could not be indulged. Until a later date +than this, every artist in Norway was forced abroad for the necessary +technical training: as a rule, students went to Dresden, because J. C. +Dahl was there; but many settled in Duesseldorf, where the teaching +attracted them. In any case, the adoption of a plastic profession meant +a long and serious expenditure of money, together with a very doubtful +prospect of ultimate remuneration. Fearnley, who had seemed the very +genius of Norwegian art, had just (1842) died, having scarcely begun to +sell his pictures, at the age of forty. It is not surprising that Knud +Ibsen, whose to were in a worse condition than ever, refused even to +consider a course of life which would entail a heavy and long-continued +expense. + +Ibsen hung about at home for a few months, then, shortly before his +sixteenth birthday, he apprenticed to an apothecary of the name of Mann, +at the little town of Grimstad, between Arendal and Christianssand, on +the extreme south-east corner of the Norwegian coast. This was his home +for more than five years; here he became a poet, and here the peculiar +color and tone of his temperament were developed. So far as the genius +of a very great man is influenced by his surroundings, and by his +physical condition in those surroundings, it was the atmosphere of +Grimstad and of its drug-store which moulded the character of Ibsen. +Skien and his father's house dropped from him like an old suit of +clothes. He left his parents, whom he scarcely knew, the town which he +hated, the schoolmates and schoolmasters to whom he seemed a surly +dunce. We find him next, with an apron round his middle and a pestle in +his hand, pounding drugs in a little apothecary's shop in Grimstad. What +Blackwood's so basely insinuated of Keats--"Back to the shop, Mr. John, +stick to plasters, pills and ointment-boxes," inappropriate to the +author of _Endymion_, was strictly true of the author of _Peer Gynt_. + +Curiosity and hero-worship once took the author of these lines to +Grimstad. It is a marvellous object-lesson on the development of genius. +For nearly six years (from 1844 to 1850), and those years the most +important of all in the moulding of character and talent, one of the +most original and far-reaching imaginations which Europe has seen for a +century was cooped up here among ointment-boxes, pills and plasters. +Grimstad is a small, isolated, melancholy place, connected with nothing +at all, visitable only by steamer. Featureless hills surround it, and it +looks out into the east wind, over a dark bay dotted with naked rocks. +No industry, no objects of interest in the vicinity, a perfect +uniformity of little red houses where nobody seems to be doing anything; +in Ibsen's time there are said to have been about five hundred of these +apathetic inhabitants. Here, then, for six interminable years, one of +the acutest brains in Europe had to interest itself in fraying +ipecacuanha and mixing black draughts behind an apothecary's counter. + +For several years nothing is recorded, and there was probably very +little that demanded record, of Ibsen's life at Grimstad. His own +interesting notes, it is obvious, refer only to the closing months of +the period. Ten years before the birth of Ibsen of the greatest poets of +Europe had written words which seem meant to characterize an adolescence +such as his. "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature +imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, +in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of +life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted; thence proceed mawkishness +and a thousand bitters." + +It is easy to discover that Ibsen, from his sixth to his twentieth year, +suffered acutely from moral and intellectual distemper. He was at war-- +the phrase is his own--with the little community in which he lived. And +yet it seems to have been, in its tiny way, a tolerant and even friendly +little community. It is difficult for us to realize what life in a +remote coast-town of Norway would be sixty years ago. Connection with +the capital would be rare and difficult, and, when achieved, the capital +was as yet little more than we should call a village. There would, +perhaps, be a higher uniformity of education among the best inhabitants +of Grimstad than we are prepared to suppose. A certain graceful veneer +of culture, an old-fashioned Danish elegance reflected from Copenhagen, +would mark the more conservative citizens, male and female. A fierier +generation--not hot enough, however, to set the fjord on flame--would +celebrate the comparatively recent freedom of the country in numerous +patriotic forms. It is probable that a dark boy like Ibsen would, on the +whole, prefer the former type, but he would despise them both. + +He was poor, excruciatingly poor, with a poverty that excluded all +indulgence, beyond the bare necessities, in food and clothes and books. +We can conceive the meagre advance of his position, first a mere +apprentice, then an assistant, finally buoyed up by the advice of +friends to study medicine and pharmacy, in the hope of being, some +bright day, himself no less than the owner of a drug-store. Did Mr. +Anstey know this, or was it the sheer adventure of genius, when he +contrasted the qualities of the master into "Pill-Doctor Herdal," +compounding "beautiful rainbow-colored powders that will give one a real +grip on the world"? Ibsen, it is allowable to think, may sometimes have +dreamed of a pill, "with arsenic in it, Hilda, and digitalis, too, and +strychnine and the best beetle-killer," which would decimate the +admirable inhabitants of Grimstad, strewing the rocks with their bodies +in their go-to-meeting coats and dresses. He had in him that source of +anger, against which all arguments are useless, which bubbles up in the +heart of youth who vaguely feels himself possessed of native energy, and +knows not how to stir a hand or even formulate a wish. He was savage in +manners, unprepossessing in appearance, and, as he himself has told us +with pathetic naivete, unable to express the real gratitude he felt to +the few who would willingly have extended friendship to him if he had +permitted it. + +As he advanced in age, he does not seem to have progressed in grace. By +the respectable citizens of Grimstad--and even Grimstad had its little +inner circle of impenetrable aristocracy--he regarded as "not quite +nice." The apothecary's assistant was a bold young man, who did not seem +to realize his menial position. He was certainly intelligent, and +Grimstad would have overlooked the pills and ointments if his manners +had been engaging, but he was rude, truculent and contradictory. The +youthful female sex is not in the habit of sharing the prejudices of its +elders in this respect, and many a juvenile Orson has, in such +conditions, enjoyed substantial successes. But young Ibsen was not a +favorite even with the girls, whom he alarmed and disconcerted. One of +the young ladies of Grimstad in after years attempted to describe the +effect which the poet made upon them. They had none of them liked him, +she said, "because"--she hesitated for the word--"because he was so +_spectral_." This gives us just the flash we want; it reveals to us for +a moment the distempered youth, almost incorporeal, displayed wandering +about at twilight and in lonely places, held in common esteem to be +malevolent, and expressing by gestures rather than by words sentiments +of a nature far from complimentary or agreeable. + +Thus life at Grimstad seems to have proceeded until Ibsen reached his +twenty-first year. In this quiet backwater of a seaport village the +passage of time was deliberate, and the development of hard-worked +apothecaries was slow. Ibsen's nature was not in any sense precocious, +and even if he had not languished in so lost a corner of society, it is +unlikely that he would have started prematurely in life or literature. +The actual waking up, when it came at last, seems to have been almost an +accident. There had been some composing of verses, now happily lost, and +some more significant distribution of "epigrams" and "caricatures" to +the vexation of various worthy persons. The earliest trace of talent +seems to been in this direction, in the form of lampoons or +"characters," as people called them in the seventeenth century, +sarcastic descriptions of types in which certain individuals could be +recognized. No doubt if these could be recovered, we should find them +rough and artless, but containing germs of the future keenness of +portraiture. They were keen enough, it seems, to rouse great resentment +in Grimstad. + +There is evidence to show that the lad had docility enough, at all +events, to look about for some aid in the composition of Norwegian +prose. We should know nothing of it but for a passage in Ibsen's later +polemic with Paul Jansenius Stub of Bergen. In 1848 Stub was an invalid +schoolmaster, who, it appears, eked out his income by giving +instruction, by correspondence, in style. How Ibsen heard of him does +not seem to be known, but when, in 1851, Ibsen entered, with needless +acrimony, into a controversy with his previous teacher about the +theatre, Stub complained of his ingratitude, since he had "taught the +boy to write." Stub's intervention in the matter, doubtless, was limited +to the correction of a few exercises. + +Ibsen's own theory was that his intellect and character were awakened by +the stir of revolution throughout Europe. The first political event +which really interested him was the proclamation of the French Republic, +which almost coincided with his twentieth birthday. He was born again, a +child of '48. There were risings in Vienna, in Milan, in Rome. Venice +was proclaimed a republic, the Pope fled to Gaeta, the streets of Berlin +ran with the blood of the populace. The Magyars rose against Jellalic +and his Croat troops; the Czechs demanded their autonomy; in response to +the revolutionary feeling in Germany, Schleswig-Holstein was up in arms. + +Each of these events, and others like them, and all occurring in the +rapid months of that momentous year, smote like hammers on the door of +Ibsen's brain, till it quivered with enthusiasm and excitement. The old +brooding languor was at an end, and with surprising clearness and +firmness he saw his pathway cut out before him as a poet and as a man. +The old clouds vanished, and though the social difficulties which hemmed +in his career were as gross as ever, he himself no longer doubted what +was to be his aim in life. The cry of revolution came to him, of +revolution faint indeed and broken, the voice of a minority appealing +frantically and for a moment against the overwhelming forces of a +respectable majority, but it came to him just at the moment when his +young spirit was prepared to receive it with faith and joy. The effect +on Ibsen's character was sudden and it was final: + + Then he stood up, and trod to dust + Fear and desire, mistrust and trust, + And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet, + And bound for sandals on his feet + Knowledge and patience of what must + And what things maybe, in the heat + And cold of years that rot and rust + And alter; and his spirit's meat + Was freedom, and his staff was wrought + Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought. + +We are not left to conjecture on the subject; in a document of extreme +interest, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of his +commentators, the preface to the second (1876) edition of _Catilina_, he +has described what the influences were which roused him out of the +wretchedness of Grimstad; they were precisely the revolution of +February, the risings in Hungary, the first Schleswig war. He wrote a +series of sonnets, now apparently lost, to King Oscar, imploring him to +take up arms for the help of Denmark, and of nights, when all his duties +were over at last, and the shop shut up, he would creep to the garret +where he slept, and dream himself fighting at the centre of the world, +instead of lost on its extreme circumference. And here he began his +first drama, the opening lines of which, + + "I must, I must; a voice is crying to me + From my soul's depth, and I will follow it," + +might be taken as the epigraph of Ibsen's whole life's work. + +In one of his letters to Georg Brandes he has noted, with that +clairvoyance which marks some of his utterances about himself, the +"full-blooded egotism" which developed in him during his last year of +mental and moral starvation at Grimstad. Through the whole series of his +satiric dramas we see the little narrow-minded borough, with its +ridiculous officials, its pinched and hypocritical social order, its +intolerable laws and ordinances, modified here and there, expanded +sometimes, modernized and brought up to date, but always recurrent in +the poet's memory. To the last, the images and the rebellions which were +burned into his soul at Grimstad were presented over and over again to +his readers. + +But the necessity of facing the examination at Christiania now presented +itself. He was so busily engaged in the shop that he had, as he says, to +steal his hours for study. He still inhabited the upper room, which he +calls a garret; it would not seem that the alteration in his status, +assistant now and no longer apprentice, had increased his social +conveniences. He was still the over-worked apothecary, pounding drugs +with a pestle and mortar from morning till night. Someone has pointed +out the odd circumstance that almost every scene in the drama of +_Catilina_ takes place in the dark. This was the unconscious result of +the fact that all the attention which the future realist could give to +the story had to be given in the night hours. When he emerged from the +garret, it was to read Latin with a candidate in theology, a Mr. Monrad, +brother of the afterwards famous professor. By a remarkable chance, the +subject given by the University for examination was the Conspiracy of +Catiline, to be studied in the history of Sallust and the oration of +Cicero. + +No theme could have been more singularly well fitted to fire the +enthusiasm of Ibsen. At no time of his life a linguist, or much +interested in history, it is probable that the difficulty of +concentrating his attention on a Latin text would have been +insurmountable had the subject been less intimately sympathetic to him. +But he tells us that he had no sooner perceived the character of the man +against whom these diatribes are directed than he devoured them greedily +(_jeg slugte disse skrifter_). The opening words of Sallust, which every +schoolboy has to read--we can imagine with what an extraordinary force +they would strike upon the resounding emotion of such a youth as Ibsen. +_Lucius Catilina nobili genere natus, magna vi et animi et corporis, sed +ingenio malo pravoque_--how does this at once bring up an image of the +arch-rebel, of Satan himself, as the poets have conceived him, how does +it attract, with its effects of energy, intelligence and pride, the +curiosity of one whose way of life, as Keats would say, is still +undecided, his ambition still thick-sighted! + +It was Sallust's picture more than Cicero's that absorbed Ibsen. +Criticism likes to trace a predecessor behind every genius, a Perugino +for Raffaelle, a Marlowe for Shakespeare. If we seek for the master-mind +that started Ibsen, it is not to be found among the writers of his age +or of his language. The real master of Ibsen was Sallust. There can be +no doubt that the cold and bitter strength of Sallust; his unflinching +method of building up his edifice of invective, stone by stone; his +close, unidealistic, dry penetration into character; his clinical +attitude, unmoved at the death-bed of a reputation; that all these +qualities were directly operative on the mind and intellectual character +of Ibsen, and went a long way to mould it while moulding was still +possible. + +There is no evidence to show that the oration of Cicero moved him nearly +so much as the narratives of Sallust. After all, the object of Cicero +was to crush the conspiracy, but what Ibsen was interested in was the +character of Catiline, and this was placed before him in a more +thrilling way by the austere reserve of the historian. No doubt, to a +young poet, when that poet was Ibsen, there would be something deeply +attractive in the sombre, archaic style, and icy violence of Sallust. +How thankful we ought to be that the historian, with his long sonorous +words--_flagitiosorum ac facinorosorum_--did not make of our perfervid +apothecary a mere tub-thumper of Corinthian prose! + +Ibsen now formed the two earliest friendships of his life. He had +reached the age of twenty without, as it would seem, having been able to +make his inner nature audible to those around him. He had been to the +inhabitants of Grimstad a stranger within their gates, not speaking +their language; or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at +all, but indulging in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like +Caliban, and tamed, and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship. +One of those who thus interpreted him was a young musician, Due, who +held a post in the custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud (1827-59), +who deserves a cordial acknowledgment from every admirer of Ibsen. He +also was in the receipt of custom, and a young man of small independent +means. To Schulerud and to Due, Ibsen revealed his poetic plans, and he +seems to have found in them both sympathizers with his republican +enthusiasms and transcendental schemes for the liberation of the +peoples. It was a stirring time, in 1848, and all generous young blood +was flowing fast in the same direction. + +Since Ibsen's death, Due has published a very lively paper of +recollections of the old Grimstad days. He says: + +His daily schedule admitted few intervals for rest or sleep. Yet I never +heard Ibsen complain of being tired. His health was uniformly good. He +must have had an exceptionally strong constitution, for when his +financial conditions compelled him to practice the most stringent +economy, he tried to do without underclothing, and finally even without +stockings. In these experiments he succeeded; and in winter he went +without an overcoat; yet without being troubled by colds or other bodily +ills. + +We have seen that Ibsen was so busy that he had to steal from his duties +the necessary hours for study. But out of these hours, he tells us, he +stole moments for the writing of poetry, of the revolutionary poetry of +which we have spoken, and for a great quantity of lyrics of a +sentimental and fanciful kind. Due was the confidant to whom he recited +the latter, and one at least of these early pieces survives, set to +music by this friend. But to Schulerud a graver secret was intrusted, no +less than that in the night hours of 1848-49 there was being composed in +the garret over the apothecary's shop a three-act tragedy in blank +verse, on the conspiracy of Catiline. With his own hand, when the first +draft was completed, Schulerud made a clean copy of the drama, and in +the autumn of 1849 he went to Christiania with the double purpose of +placing _Catilina_ at the theatre and securing a publisher for it. A +letter (October 15, 1849) from Ibsen, first printed in 1904--the only +document we possess of this earliest period--displays to a painful +degree the torturing anxiety with which the poet awaited news of his +play, and, incidentally, exposes his poverty. With all Schulerud's +energy, he found it impossible to gain attention for _Catilina_ at the +theatre, and in January, 1850, Ibsen received what he called its "death +warrant," but it was presently brought out as a volume, under the +pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme, at Schulerud's expense. Of _Catilina_ +about thirty copies were sold, and it attracted no notice whatever from +the press. + +Meanwhile, left alone in Grimstad, since Due was now with Schulerud in +Christiania, Ibsen had been busy with many literary projects. He had +been writing an abundance of lyrics, he had begun a one-act drama called +"The Normans," afterwards turned into _Kaempehoejen_; he was planning a +romance, _The Prisoner at Akershus_ (this was to deal with the story of +Christian Lofthus); and above all he was busy writing a tragedy of _Olaf +Trygvesoen. [Note: On the authority of the Breve, pp. 59, 59, where +Halvdan Koht prints "Olaf Tr." and "Olaf T." expanding these to +Tr[ygvesoen]. But is it quite certain that what Ibsen wrote in these +letters was not "Olaf Li." and "Olaf L.," and that the reference is not +to Olaf Liljekrans, which was certainly begun at Grimstad? Is there any +other evidence that Ibsen ever started an _Olaf Trygvesoen_? + +One of his poems had already been printed in a Christiania newspaper. +The call was overwhelming; he could endure Grimstad and the gallipots no +longer. In March, 1850, at the age of twenty-one, Ibsen stuck a few +dollars in his pocket and went off to try his fortune in the capital. + + + +CHAPTER II + +EARLY INFLUENCES + +In middle life Ibsen, who suppressed for as long a time as he could most +of his other juvenile works, deliberately lifted _Catilina_ from the +oblivion into which it had fallen, and replaced it in the series of his +writings. This is enough to indicate to us that he regarded it as of +relative importance, and imperfect as it is, and unlike his later plays, +it demands some critical examination. I not know whether any one ever +happened to ask Ibsen whether he had been aware that Alexandre Dumas +produced in Paris a five-act drama of _Catiline_ at the very moment +(October, 1848) when Ibsen started the composition of his. It is quite +possible that the young Norwegian saw this fact noted in a newspaper, +and immediately determined to try what he could make of the same +subject. In Dumas' play Catiline is presented merely as a demagogue; he +is the red Flag personified, and the political situation in France is +discussed under a slight veil of Roman history. Catiline is simply a +sort of Robespierre brought up to date. There is no trace of all this in +Ibsen. + +Oddly enough, though the paradox is easily explained, we find much more +similarity when we compare the Norwegian drama with that tragedy of +_Catiline_ which Ben Jonson published in 1611. Needless to state, Ibsen +had never read the old English play; it would be safe to lay a wager +that, when he died, Ibsen had never heard or seen the name of Ben +Jonson. Yet there is an odd sort of resemblance, founded on the fact +that each poet keeps very close to the incidents recorded by the Latins. +Neither of them takes Sallust's presentment of the character of Catiline +as if it were gospel, but, while holding exact touch with the narrative, +each contrives to add a native grandeur to the character of the arch- +conspirator, such as his original detractors denied him. In both poems, +Ben Jonson's and Ibsen's, Catiline is-- + +Armed with a glory high as his despair. + +Another resemblance between the old English and the modern Norwegian +dramatist is that each has felt the solid stuff of the drama to require +lightening, and has attempted to provide this by means, in Ben Jonson's +case, of solemn "choruses," in Ibsen's of lyrics. In the latter instance +the tragedy ends in rolling and rhymed verse, little suited to the +stage. + +This is a very curious example, among many which might be brought +forward, of Ibsen's native partiality for dramatic rhyme. In all his +early plays, his tendency is to slip into the lyrical mood. This +tendency reached its height nearly twenty years later in _Brand_ and +_Peer Gynt_, and the truth about the austere prose which he then adopted +for his dramas is probably this, not that the lyrical faculty had +quitted him, but that he found it to be hampering his purely dramatic +expression, and that he determined, by a self-denying ordinance, to tear +it altogether off his shoulders, like an embroidered mantle, which is in +itself very ornamental, but which checks an actor's movements. + +The close of Ibsen's _Catalina_ is, as we have said, composed entirely +in rhyme, and the effect of this curious. It is as though the young poet +could not restrain the rhythm bubbling up in him, and was obliged to +start running, although the moment was plainly one for walking. Here is +a fragment. Catiline has stabbed Aurelia, and left her in the tent for +dead. But while he was soliloquizing at the door of the tent, Fulvia has +stabbed him. He lies dying at the foot of a tree, and makes a speech +which ends thus:-- + +See, the pathway breaks, divided! I will wander, dumb, +To the left hand. + + AURELIA + (appearing, blood-stained, at the door of the tent). + Nay! the right hand! Towards Elysium. + + CATILINE + (greatly alarmed). +O yon pallid apparition, how it fills me with remorse. +'Tis herself! Aurelia! tell me, art thou living? not a corse? + + AURELIA. +Yes, I live that I may full thy sea of sorrows, and may lie +With my bosom pressed a moment to thy bosom, and then die. + + CATILINE + (bewildered). +What? thou livest? + + AURELIA. + Death's pale herald o'er my senses threw a pall, +But my dulled eye tracked thy footsteps, and I saw, I saw it all, +And my passion a wife's forces to my wounded body gave; +Breast to breast, my Catiline, let us sink into our grave. + +[Note: In 1875 Ibsen practically rewrote the whole of this part of +_Catilina_, without, however, improving it. Why will great authors +confuse the history of literature by tampering with their early +texts? + +He had slipped far out of the sobriety of Sallust when he floundered, in +this way, in the deep waters of romanticism. In the isolation of +Grimstad he had but himself to consult, and the mind of a young poet who +has not yet enjoyed any generous communication with life is invariably +sentimental and romantic. The critics of the North have expended a great +deal of ingenuity in trying to prove that Ibsen exposed his own +temperament and character in the course of _Catilina_. No doubt there is +a great temptation to indulge in this species of analysis, but it is +amusing to note that some of the soliloquies which have been pointed out +as particularly self-revealing are translated almost word for word out +of Sallust. Perhaps the one passage in the play which is really +significant is that in which the hero says:-- + +If but for one brief moment I could flame +And blaze through space, and be a falling star; +If only once, and by one glorious deed, +I could but knit the name of Catiline +With glory and with deathless high renown,-- +Then should I blithely, in the hour of conquest, +Leave all, and hie me to an alien shore, +Press the keen dagger gayly to my heart, +And die; for then I should have lived indeed. + +This has its personal interest, since we know, on the evidence of his +sister, that such was the tenor of Ibsen's private talk about himself at +that precise time. + +Very imperfect as _Catilina_ is in dramatic art, and very primitive as +is the development of plot in it, it presents one aspect, as a literary +work, which is notable. That it should exist at all is curious, since, +surprising as it seems, it had no precursor. Although, during the +thirty-five years of Norwegian independence, various classes of +literature had been cultivated with extreme diligence, the drama had +hitherto been totally neglected. With the exception of a graceful opera +by Bjerregaard, which enjoyed a success sustained over a quarter of a +century, the only writings in dramatic form produced in Norway between +1815 and 1850 were the absurd lyrical farces of Wergeland, which were +devoid of all importance. Such a thing as a three-act tragedy in blank +verse was unknown in modern Norway, so that the youthful apothecary in +Grimstad, whatever he was doing, was not slavishly copying the fashions +of his own countrymen. + +The principal, if not the only influence which acted upon Ibsen at this +moment, was that of the great Danish tragedian, Adam Oehlenschlaeger. It +might be fantastically held that the leading romantic luminary of +Scandinavia withdrew on purpose to make room for his realistic +successor, since Oehlenschlaeger's latest play, _Kiartan and Gudrun_, +appeared just when Ibsen was planning _Catilina_, while the death of the +Danish poet (January 20, 1850) was practically simultaneous with Ibsen's +arrival in Christiania. In later years, Ibsen thought that Holberg and +Oehlenschlaeger were the only dramatists he had read when his own first +play was written; he was sure that he knew nothing of Schiller, +Shakespeare or the French. Of the rich and varied dramatic literature of +Denmark, in the generation between Oehlenschlaeger's and his own, he must +also for the present have known nothing. The influence of Heiberg and of +Hertz, presently to be so potent, had evidently not yet begun. But it is +important to perceive that already Norway, and Norwegian taste and +opinion, were nothing to him in his selection of themes and forms. + +It is not to be supposed that the taste for dramatic performances did +not exist in Norway, because no Norwegian plays were written. On the +contrary, in most of the large towns there were, and had long been, +private theatres or rooms which could be fitted up with a stage, at +which wandering troupes of actors gave performances that were eagerly +attended by "the best people." These actors, however, were exclusively +Danes, and there was an accepted tradition that Norwegians could not +act. If they attempted to do so, their native accents proved +disagreeable to their fellow-citizens, who demanded, as an imperative +condition, the peculiar intonation and pronunciation cultivated at the +Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, as well as an absence of all native +peculiarities of language. The stage, therefore--and this is very +important in a consideration of the career of Ibsen--had come to be the +symbol of a certain bias in political feeling. Society in Norway was +divided into two classes, the "Danomaniacs" and the "Patriots." Neither +of these had any desire to alter the constitutional balance of power, +but while the latter wished Norway to be intellectually self-productive, +and leaned to a further isolation in language, literature, art and +manners, the former thought that danger of barbarism lay in every +direction save that of keeping close to the tradition of Denmark, from +which all that was witty, graceful and civilized had proceeded. + +Accordingly the theatre, at which exclusively Danish plays were acted, +in the Danish style, by Danish actors and actresses, was extremely +popular with the conservative class, who thought, by attendance on these +performances, to preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of +"high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the +patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave +suspicion as likely to undermine the purity of national feeling. + +The earliest attempt at the opening of a National Theatre had been made +at Christiania by the Swede, J. P. Stroemberg, in 1827; this was not +successful, and his theatre was burned down in 1835. In it some effort +had been made to use the Norwegian idiom and to train native actors, but +it had been to no avail. The play-going public liked their plays to be +Danish, and even nationalists of a pronounced species could not deny +that dramas, like the great historical tragedies of Oehlenschlaeger, many +of which dealt enthusiastically with legends that were peculiarly +Norwegian, were as national as it was possible for poems by a foreign +poet to be. All this time, it must be remembered, Christiania was to +Copenhagen as Dublin till lately was to London, or as New York was half +a century ago. It is in the arts that the old colonial instinct of +dependence is most loath to disappear. + +The party of the nationalists, however, had been steadily increasing in +activity, and the universal quickening of patriotic pulses in 1848 had +not been without its direct action upon Norway. + +Nevertheless, for various reasons of internal policy, there was perhaps +no country in Europe where this period of seismic disturbance led to +less public turmoil than precisely here in the North. The accession of a +new king, Oscar I, in 1844, had been followed by a sense of renewed +national security; the peasants were satisfied that the fresh reign +would be favorable to their rights and liberties; and the monarch showed +every inclination to leave his country of Norway as much as possible to +its own devices. The result of all this was that '48 left no mark on the +internal history of the country, and the fever which burned in youthful +bosoms was mainly, if not entirely, intellectual and transcendental. The +young Catiline from Grimstad, therefore, met with several sympathetic +rebels, but found nobody willing to conspire. But what he did find is so +important in the consideration of his future development that it is +needful briefly to examine it. + +Norway had, in 1850, been independent of Denmark for thirty-six years. +During the greater part of that time the fiery excitements of a struggle +for politic existence had fairly exhausted her mental resources, and had +left her powerless to inaugurate a national literature. Meanwhile, there +was no such discontinuity in the literary and scientific relations of +the two countries as that which had broken their constitutional union. A +tremendous effort was made by certain patriots to discover the basis of +an entirely independent intellectual life, something that should start +like the phoenix from the ashes of the old regime, and should offer no +likeness with what continued to flourish south of the Skagarak. But all +the efforts of the University of Christiania were vain to prevent the +cultivated classes from looking to Copenhagen as their centre of light. +Such authors as there were, and they were few indeed, followed humbly in +the footsteps of their Danish brethren. + +Patriotic historians of literature are not always to be trusted, and +those who study native handbooks of Norwegian criticism must be on their +guard when these deal with the three poets who "inaugurated in song the +young liberties of Norway." The writings of the three celebrated lyric +patriots, Schwach, Bjerregaard and Hansen, will not bear to have the +blaze of European experience cast upon them; their tapers dwindle to +sparks in the light of day. They gratified the vanity of the first +generation after 1815, but they deserve no record in the chronicles of +poetic art. If Ibsen ever read these rhymes of circumstance, it must +have been to treat them with contempt. + +Twenty years after the Union, however, and in Ibsen's early childhood, +an event occurred which was unique in the history of Norwegian +literature, and the consequences of which were far-reaching. As is often +the case in countries where the art of verse is as yet little exercised, +there grew up about 1830 a warm and general, but uncritical, delight in +poetry. This instinct was presently satisfied by the effusion of a vast +quantity of metrical writing, most of it very bad, and was exasperated +by a violent personal feud which for a while interested all educated +persons in Norway to a far greater degree than any other intellectual +or, for the time being, even political question. From 1834 to 1838 the +interests of all cultivated people centred around what was called the +"Twilight Feud" (_Daemringsfejden_), and no record of Ibsen's +intellectual development can be complete without a reference to this +celebrated controversy, the results of which long outlived the +popularity of its skits and pamphlets. + +Modern Norwegian literature began with this great fight. The +protagonists were two poets of undoubted talent, whose temperaments and +tendencies were so diametrically opposed that it seemed as though +Providence must have set them down in that raw and inflammable +civilization for the express purpose of setting the standing corn of +thought on fire. Henrik Wergeland (1808-45) was a belated son of the +French Revolution; ideas, fancies, melodies and enthusiasms fermented in +his ill-regulated brain, and he poured forth verses in a violent and +endless stream. It is difficult, from the sources of Scandinavian +opinion, to obtain a sensible impression of Wergeland. The critics of +Norway as persistently overrate his talents as those of Denmark neglect +and ridicule his pretensions. The Norwegians still speak of him as +_himmelstraevende sublim_ ("sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the +Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster. Neither view +commends itself to a foreign reader of the poet. + +The fact, internationally stated, seems rather to be this. In Wergeland +we have a typical example of the effects of excess of fancy in a +violently productive but essential uncritical nature. He was ecstatic, +unmeasured, a reckless improvisatore. In his ideas he was preposterously +humanitarian; a prodigious worker, his vigor of mind seemed never +exhausted by his labors; in theory an idealist, in his private life he +was charged with being scandalously sensual. He was so much the victim +of his inspiration that it would come upon him like a descending wind, +and leave him physically prostrate. In Wergeland we see an instance of +the poetical temper in its most unbridled form. A glance through the +enormous range of his collected works is like an excursion into chaos. +We are met almost at the threshold by a colossal epic, _Creation, Man +and the Messiah_ (1830); by songs that turn into dithyrambic odes, by +descriptive pieces which embrace the universe, by all the froth and roar +and turbidity of genius, with none of its purity and calm. The genius is +there; it is idle to deny it; but it is in a state of violent turmoil. + +It is when the ruling talent of an age is of the character of +Wergeland's-- + + Thundering and bursting, + In torrents, in waves, + Carolling and shouting + Over tombs, over graves-- + +that delicate spirits, as in Matthew Arnold's poem, sigh for the silence +and the hush, and rise at length in open rebellion against Iacchus and +his maenads, who destroy all the quiet of life and who madden innocent +blood with their riot. Johan Sebastian Welhaven (1807-73) was a student +at the University with Wergeland, and he remained silent while the +latter made the welkin ring louder and louder with his lyric shrieks. +Welhaven endured the rationalist and republican rhetoric of Wergeland as +long as he could, although with growing exasperation, until the +rhapsodical author of _Creation_, transgressing all moderation, accused +those who held reasonable views in literature and politics of being +traitors. Then it became necessary to deal with this raw and local +parody of Victor Hugo. When, in the words of _The Cask of Amontillado_, +Wergeland "ventured upon insult," Welhaven "vowed he would be avenged." + +Welhaven formed as complete a contrast to his antagonist as could be +imagined. He was of the class of Sully Prudhomme, of Matthew Arnold, of +Lowell, to name three of his younger contemporaries. In his nature all +was based upon equilibrium; his spirit, though full of graceful and +philosophical intuitions, was critical rather than creative. He wrote +little, and with difficulty, and in exquisite form. His life was as +blamelessly correct as his literary art was harmonious. Wergeland knew +nothing of the Danish tradition of his day, which he treated with +violent and bitter contempt. Welhaven, who had moved in the circle of +the friends of Rahbek, instinctively referred every literary problem to +the tribunal of Danish taste. He saw that with the enthusiasm with which +the poetry of Wergeland was received in Norway was connected a suspicion +of mental discipline, a growing worship of the peasant and a hatred and +scorn of Denmark, with all of which he had no sympathy. He thought the +time had come for better things; that the national temper ought to be +mollified with the improved economic situation of the country; that the +students, who were taking a more and more prominent place, ought to be +on the side of the angels. It was not unnatural that Welhaven should +look upon the corybantic music of Wergeland as the source and origin of +an evil of which it was really the symptom; he gathered his powers +together to crush it, and he published a thunderbolt of sonnets. + +The English reader, familiar with the powerlessness of even the best +verse to make any impression upon Anglo-Saxon opinion, may smile to +think of a great moral and ethical attack conducted with no better +weapon than a paper of sonnets. But the scene of the fight was a small, +intensely local, easily agitated society of persons, all keenly though +narrowly educated, and all accustomed to be addressed in verse. +Welhaven's pamphlet was entitled _The Twilight of Norway_ (1834), and +the sonnets of which it consisted were highly polished in form, filled +with direct and pointed references to familiar persons and events and +absolutely unshrinking in attack. No poetry of equal excellence had been +produced in Norway since the Union. It is not surprising that this +invective against the tendencies of the youthful bard over whose +rhapsodies all Norway was growing crazy with praise should arrest +universal attention, although in the _Twilight_ Welhaven adroitly +avoided mentioning Wergeland by name. Fanaticism gathered in an angry +army around the outraged standard of the republican poet, but the lovers +of order and discipline had found a voice, and they clustered about +Welhaven with their support. Language was not minced by the assailants, +and still less by the defenders. The lovers of Wergeland were told that +politics and brandy were their only pleasures, but those of Welhaven +were warned that they were known to be fed with bribes from Copenhagen. +Meanwhile Welhaven himself, in successive publications, calmly analyzed +the writings of his antagonist, and proved them to be "in complete +rebellion against sound thought and the laws of beauty." The feud raged +from 1834 to 1838, and left Norway divided into two rival camps of +taste. + +Although the "Twilight Feud" had passed away before Ibsen ceased to be a +boy, the effect of it was too widely spread not to affect him. In point +of fact, we see by the earliest of his lyric poems that while he was at +Grimstad he had fully made up his mind. His early songs and +complimentary pieces are all in the Danish taste, and if they show any +native influence at all, it is that of Welhaven. The extreme +superficiality of Wergeland would naturally be hateful to so arduous a +craftsman as Ibsen, and it is a fact that so far as his writings reveal +his mind to us, the all-popular poet of his youth appears to be +absolutely unknown to him. What this signifies may be realized if we say +that it is as though a great English or French poet of the second half +of the nineteenth century should seem to have never heard of Tennyson or +Victor Hugo. On the other hand, at one crucial point of a late play, +_Little Eyolf_, Ibsen actually pauses to quote Welhaven. + +In critical history the absence of an influence is sometimes as +significant as the presence of it. The looseness of Wergeland's style, +its frothy abundance, its digressions and parentheses, its slipshod +violence, would be to Ibsen so many beacons of warning, to be viewed +with horror and alarm. A poem of three stanzas, "To the Poets of +Norway," only recently printed, dates from his early months in +Christiania, and shows that even in 1850 Ibsen was impatient with the +conventional literature of his day. "Less about the glaciers and the +pine-forests," he cries, "less about the dusty legends of the past, and +more about what is going on in the silent hearts of your brethren!" Here +already is sounded the note which was ultimately to distinguish him from +all the previous writers of the North. + +No letters have been published which throw light on Ibsen's first two +years in the capital. We know that he did not communicate with his +parents, whose poverty was equalled by his own. He could receive no help +from them, nor offer them any, and he refrained, as they refrained, from +letter writing. This separation from his family, begun in this way, grew +into a habit, so that when his father died in 1877 no word had passed +between him and his son for nearly thirty years. When Ibsen reached +Christiania, in March, 1850, his first act was to seek out his friend +Schulerud, who was already a student. For some time he shared the room +of Schulerud and his thrifty meals; later on the two friends, in company +with Theodor Abildgaard, a young revolutionary journalist, lived in +lodgings kept by a certain Mother Saether. + +Schulerud received a monthly allowance which was "not enough for one, +and starvation for two"; but Ibsen's few dollars soon came to an end, +and he seems to have lived on the kindness of Schulerud to their great +mutual privation. Both young men attended the classes of a celebrated +"crammer" of that day, H. A. S. Heltberg, who had opened in 1843 a Latin +school where elder pupils came for a two-years' course to prepare them +for taking their degree. This place, known familiarly as "the Student +Factory," holds quite a prominent place in Norwegian literary history, +Ibsen, Bjoernson, Vinje and Jonas Lie having attended its classes and +passed from it to the University. + +Between these young men, the leading force of literature in the coming +age, a generous friendship sprang up, despite the disparity in their +ages. Vinje, a peasant from Thelemark, was thirty-two; he had been a +village schoolmaster and had only now, in 1850, contrived to reach the +University. With Vinje, the founder of the movement for writing +exclusively in Norwegian patois, Ibsen had a warm personal sympathy, +while he gave no intellectual adherence to his theories. Between the +births of Vinje and Bjoernson there stretched a period of fourteen years, +yet Bjoernson was a student before either Ibsen or Vinje. That Ibsen +immediately formed Bjoernson's acquaintance seems to be proved from the +fact that they both signed a protest against the deportation of a Dane +called Harring on May 29, 1850. It was a fortunate chance which threw +Ibsen thus suddenly into the midst of a group of those in whom the hopes +of the new generation were centred. But we are left largely to +conjecture in what manner their acquaintanceship acted upon his mind. + +His material life during the next year is obscure. Driven by the +extremity of need, it is plain that he adopted every means open to him +by which he could add a few dollars to Schulerud's little store. He +wrote for the poor and fugitive journals of the day, in prose and verse; +but the payment of the Norwegian press in those days was almost nothing. +It is difficult to know how he subsisted, yet he continued to exist. +Although none of his letters of this period seem to have been preserved, +a few landmarks are left us. The little play called _Kaempehoeien_ (The +Warrior's Barrow), which he had brought unfinished with him from +Grimstad, was completed and put into shape in May, 1850, accepted at the +Christiania Theatre, and acted three times during the following autumn. +Perhaps the most interesting fact connected with this performance was +that the only female part, that of Blanka, was taken by a young +debutante, Laura Svendsen; this was the actress afterwards to rise to +the height of eminence as the celebrated Mrs. Gundersen, no doubt the +most gifted of all Ibsen's original interpreters. + +It was a matter of course that the poet was greatly cheered by the +acceptance of his play, and he immediately set to work on another, _Olaf +Liljekrans_; but this he put aside when _Kaempehoeien_ practically +failed. He wrote a satirical comedy called _Norma_. He endeavored to get +certain of his works, dramatic and lyric, published in Christiania, but +all the schemes fell through. It is certain that 1851 began darkly for +the young man, and that his misfortunes encouraged in him a sour and +rebellious temper. For the first and only time in his life he meddled +with practical politics. Vinje and he--in company with a charming +person, Paul Botten-Hansen (1824-69), who flits very pleasantly through +the literary history of this time--founded a newspaper called +_Andhrimner_, which lasted for nine months. + +One of the contributors was Abildgaard, who, as we have seen, lived in +the same house with Ibsen. He was a wild being, who had adopted the +republican theories of the day in their crudest form. He posed as the +head of a little body whose object was to dethrone the king, and to +found a democracy in Norway. On July 7, 1851, the police made a raid +upon these childish conspirators, the leaders being arrested and +punished with a long imprisonment. The poet escaped, as by the skin of +his teeth, and the warning was a lifelong one. He never meddled with +politics any more. This was, indeed, as perhaps he felt, no time for +rebellion; all over Europe the eruption of socialism had spent itself, +and the docility of the populations had become wonderful. + +The discomfort and uncertainty of Ibsen's position in Christiania made +him glad to fill a post which the violinist, Ole Bull, offered him +during autumn. The newly constituted National Theatre in Bergen (opened +Jan. 2, 1850) had accepted a prologue written for an occasion by the +young poet, and on November 6, 1851, Ibsen entered into a contract by +which he bound himself go to Bergen "to assist the theatre as dramatic +author." The salary was less than L70 a year, but it was eked out by +travelling grants, and little as it might be, it was substantially more +than the nothing-at-all which Ibsen had been enjoying in Christiania. + +It is difficult to imagine what asset could be bought to the treasuries +of a public theatre by a youth of three and twenty so ill-educated, so +empty of experience and so ill-read as Ibsen was in 1851. His crudity, +we may be sure, passed belief. He was the novice who has not learned his +business, the tyro to whom the elements of his occupation are unknown. +We have seen that when he wrote _Catilina_ he had neither sat through +nor read any of the plays of the world, whether ancient or modern. The +pieces which belong to his student years reveal a preoccupation with +Danish dramas of the older school, Oehlenschlaeger and (if we may guess +what _Norma_ was) Holberg, but with nothing else. Yet Ole Bull, one of +the most far-sighted men of his time, must have perceived the germs of +theatrical genius in him, and it is probable that Ibsen owed his +appointment more to what this wise patron felt in his future than what +Ole Bull or any one else could possibly point to as yet accomplished. +Unquestionably, a rude theatrical penetration could already he divined +in his talk about the stage, vague and empirical as that must have been. + +At all events, to Bergen he went, as a sort of literary manager, as a +Claretie or Antoine, to compare a small thing with great ones, and the +fact was of inestimable value. It may even be held, without fear of +paradox, that this was the turning-point of Ibsen's life, that this +blind step in the dark, taken in the magnificent freedom of youth, was +what made him what he became. No Bergen in 1851, we may say, and no +_Doll's House_ or _Hedda Gabler_ ultimately to follow. For what it did +was to force this stubborn genius, which might so easily have slipped +into sinister and abnormal paths, and have missed the real humanity of +the stage, to take the tastes of the vulgar into due consideration and +to acquaint himself with the necessary laws of play-composition. + +Ibsen may seem to have little relation with the drama of the world, but +in reality he is linked with it at every step. There is something of +Shakespeare in _John Gabriel Borkman_, something Moliere in _Ghosts_, +something of Goethe in _Peer Gynt_. We may go further and say, though it +would have made Ibsen wince, that there is something of Scribe in _An +Enemy of the People_. Is very doubtful whether, without the discipline +which forced him to put on the stage, at Bergen and in Christiania, +plays evidently unsympathetic to his own taste, which obliged him to do +his best for the popular reception of those plays, and which forced him +minutely to analyze their effects, he would ever have been the world- +moving dramatist which, as all sane critics must admit, he at length +became. + +He made some mistakes at first; how could he fail to do so? It was the +recognition of these blunders, and perhaps the rough censure of them the +local press, which induced the Bergen theatre to scrape a few dollars +together and send him, in charge of some of the leading actors and +actresses, to Copenhagen and Dresden for instruction. To go from Bergen +to Copenhagen was like travelling from Abdera to Athens, and to find a +species of Sophocles in J. A. Heiberg, who had since 1849 been sole +manager of the Royal Theatre. Here the drama of the world, all the +salutary names, all the fine traditions, burst upon the pilgrims from +the North. Heiberg, the gracious and many-sided, was the centre of light +in those days; no one knew the stage as he knew no one interpreted it +with such splendid intelligence, and he received the crude Norwegian +"dramatist-manager" with the utmost elegance of cordiality. Among the +teachers of Ibsen, Heiberg ranks as the foremost. We may farther and say +that he was the last. When Ibsen had learned the lesson of Heiberg, only +nature and his own genius had anything more to teach him. [See Note +below] In August, 1852, rich with the spoils of time, but otherwise poor +indeed, Ibsen made his way back to his duties in Bergen. + +[Note: Perhaps no author, during the whole of his career, more deeply +impressed Ibsen with reverence and affection than Johan Ludvig Heiberg +did. When the great Danish poet died (at Bonderup, August 25, 1860), +Ibsen threw on his tomb the characteristic bunch of bitter herbs called +_Til de genlevende_--"To the Survivors," in which he expressed the +faintest appreciation of those who lavished posthumous honor on Heiberg +in Denmark: + + In your land a torch he lifted; + With its flame ye scorched his forehead. + + How to swing the sword he taught you, + And,--ye plunged it in his bosom. + + While he routed trolls of darkness,-- + With your shields you tripped and bruised him. + + But his glittering star of conquest + Ye must guard, since he has left you: + + Try, at least, to keep it shining, + While the thorn-crowned conqueror slumbers.] + + + +CHAPTER III + +LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) + +Ibsen's native biographers have not found much to record, and still less +that deserves to recorded, about his life during the next five years. He +remained in Bergen, cramped by want of means in his material condition, +and much harassed and worried by the little pressing requirements of the +theatre. It seems that every responsibility fell upon his shoulders, and +that there was no part of stage-life that it was not his duty to look +after. The dresses of the actresses, the furniture, the scene-painting, +the instruction of raw Norwegian actors and actresses, the selection of +plays, now to please himself, now to please the bourgeois of Bergen, all +this must be done by the poet or not done at all. Just so, two hundred +years earlier, we may imagine Moliere, at Carcassonne or Albi, bearing +up in his arms, a weary Titan, all the frivolities and anxieties and +misdeeds of a whole company of comedians. + +So far as our very scanty evidence goes, we find the poet isolated from +his fellows, so far as isolation was possible, during his long stay at +Bergen. He was not accused, and if there had been a chance he would have +been accused, of dereliction. No doubt he pushed through the work of the +theatre doggedly, but certainly not in a convivial spirit. The +Norwegians are a hospitable and festal people, and there is no question +that the manager of the theatre would have unusual opportunities of +being jolly with his friends. But it does not appear that Ibsen made +friends; if so, they were few, and they were as quiet as himself. Even +in these early years he did not invite confidences, and no one found him +wearing his heart upon his sleeve. He went through his work without +effusion, and there is no doubt that what leisure he enjoyed he spent in +study, mainly of dramatic literature. + +His reading must have been limited by his insensibility to foreign +languages. All through his life he forgot the tongues of other countries +almost faster than he gained them. Probably, at this time, he had begun +to know German, a language in which he did ultimately achieve a fluency +which was, it appears, always ungrammatical. But, as is not unfrequent +with a man who is fond of reading but no linguist, Ibsen's French and +English came and went in a trembling uncertainty. As time passed on, he +gave up the effort to read, even a newspaper, in either language. + +The mile-stones in this otherwise blank time are the original plays +which, perhaps in accordance with some clause in his agreement, he +produced at his theatre in the first week of January in each year. A +list of them cannot be spared in this place to the most indolent of +readers, since it offers, in a nutshell, a resume of what the busy +imagination of Ibsen was at work upon up to his thirtieth year. His +earliest new-year's gift to the play-goers of Bergen was _St. John's +Night_, 1853, a piece which has not been printed; in 1854 he revived +_The Warrior's Barrow_; in 1855 he made an immense although irregular +advance with _Lady Inger at Oestraat_; in 1856 he produced _The Feast at +Solhoug_; in 1857 a rewritten version of the early _Olaf Liljekrans_. +These are the juvenile works of Ibsen, which are scarcely counted in the +recognized canon of his writings. None of them is completely +representative of his genius, and several are not yet within reach of +the English reader. Yet they have a considerable importance, and must +detain us for a while. They are remarkable as showing the vigor of the +effort by which he attempted to create an independent style for himself, +no less than the great difficulties which he encountered in following +this admirable aim. + +_Lady Inger at Oestraat_, written in the winter of 1854 but not published +until 1857, is unique among Ibsen's works as a romantic exercise in the +manner of Scribe. It is the sole example of a theme taken by him +directly from comparatively modern history, and treated purely for its +value as a study of contemporary intrigue. From this point of view it +curiously exemplifies a remark of Hazlitt: "The progress of manners and +knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps +destroy both tragedy and comedy. ... At last, there will be nothing +left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real +life." + +When Ibsen undertook to write about Inger Gyldenloeve, he was but little +acquainted with the particulars of her history. He conceived her, as he +found her in the incomplete chronicles he consulted, as a Matriarch, a +wonderful and heroic elderly woman around whom all the hopes of an +embittered patriotism were legitimately centred. Unfortunately, "the +progress of knowledge," as Hazlitt would say, exposed the falsity of +this conception. A closer inspection of the documents, and further +analysis of the condition of Norway in 1528, destroyed the fair +illusion, and showed Ibsen in the light of an indulgent idealist. + +Here is what Jaeger [Note: In _En literaert Livsbillede_] has to give us +of the disconcerting results of research: + +In real life Lady Inger was not a woman formed upon so grand a plan. She +was the descendant of an old and noble family which had preserved its +dignity, and she consequently was the wealthiest landowner in the +country. This, and this alone, gives her a right to a place in history. +If we study her life, we find no reason to suppose that patriotic +considerations ever affected her conduct. The motive power of her +actions was on a far lower plane, and seems to have consisted mainly in +an amazingly strong instinct for adding to her wealth and her status. We +find her, for instance, on one occasion seizing the estates of a +neighbor, and holding them till she was actually forced to resign them. +When she gave her daughters in marriage to Danish noblemen, it was to +secure direct advantage from alliance with the most high-born sons-in- +law procurable. When she took a convent under her protection, she +contrived to extort a rent which well repaid her. Even for a good action +she exacted a return, and when she offered harbor to the persecuted +Chancellor, she had the adroitness to be well rewarded by a large sum in +rose-nobles and Hungarian gulden. + +All this could not fail to be highly exasperating to Ibsen, who had set +out to be a realist, and was convicted by the spiteful hand of history +of having been an idealist of the rose-water class. No wonder that he +never touched the sequence of modern events any more. + +There is some slight, but of course unconscious, resemblance to +_Macbeth_ in the external character of _Lady Inger_. This play has +something of the roughness of a mediaeval record, and it depicts a +condition of life where barbarism uncouthly mingles with a certain +luxury of condition. There is, however, this radical difference that in +_Lady Inger_ there is nothing preternatural, and it is, indeed, in this +play that Ibsen seems first to appreciate the value of a stiff attention +to realism. The romantic elements of the story, however, completely +dominate his imagination, and when we have read the play carefully what +remains with us most vividly is the picturesqueness and unity of the +scene. The action, vehement and tumultuous as it is, takes place +entirely within the walls of Oestraat castle, a mysterious edifice, +sombre and ancient, built on a crag over the ocean, and dimly lighted by + + Magic casements opening on the foam + Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn. + +The action is exclusively nocturnal, and so large a place in it is taken +by huge and portable candlesticks that it might be called the Tragedy of +the Candelabra. Through the windows, on the landward side, a procession +of mysterious visitors go by in the moonlight, one by one, each fraught +with the solemnity of fate. The play is full of striking pictures, +groups in light and shade, pictorial appeals to terror and pity. + +The fault of the drama lies in the uncertain conception of the +characters, and particularly of that of the Matriarch herself. Inger is +described to us as the Mother of the Norwegian People, as the one +strong, inflexible and implacable brain moving in a world of depressed +and irritated men. "Now there is no knight left in our land," says Finn, +but--and this is the point from which the play starts--there is Inger +Gyldenloeve. We have approached the moment of crisis when the fortunes +and the fates of Norway rest upon the firmness of this majestic woman. +Inger is driven forward on the tide of circumstance, and, however she +may ultimately fail, we demand evidence of her inherent greatness. This, +however, we fail to receive, and partly, no doubt, because Ibsen was +still distracted at the division of the ways. + +Oehlenschlaeger, if he had attempted this theme, would have made no +attempt after subtlety of character painting and still less after +correctness of historic color. He would have given small shrift to Olaf +Skaktavl, the psychological outlaw. But he would have drawn Inger, the +Mother of her People, in majestic strokes, and we should have had a +great simplicity, a noble outline with none of the detail put in. Ibsen, +already, cannot be satisfied with this; to him the detail is every +thing, and the result is a hopeless incongruity between the cartoon and +the finished work. + +Lady Inger, in Ibsen's play, fails to impress us with greatness. "The +deed no less than the attempt confounds" her. She displays, from the +opening scene, a weakness that is explicable, but excludes all evidence +of her energy. The ascendency of Nils Lykke, over herself and over her +singularly and unconvincingly modern daughter, Elima, in what does it +consist? In a presentation of a purely physical attractiveness; Nils +Lykke is simply a voluptuary, pursuing his good fortunes, with impudent +ease, in the home of his ancestral enemies. In his hands, and not in his +only, the majestic Inger is reduced from a queen to a pawn. All manhood, +we are told, is dead in Norway; if this be so, then what a field is +cleared where a heroine like Inger, not young and a victim to her +passions, nor old and delivered to decrepit fears, may show us how a +woman of intellect and force can take the place of man. Instead of this, +one disguised and anonymous adventurer after another comes forth out of +the night, and confuses her with pretensions and traps her with deceits +against which her intellect protests but her will is powerless to +contend. + +Another feature in the conduct of _Lady Inger_ portrays the ambitious +but the inexperienced dramatist. No doubt a pious commentator can +successfully unravel all the threads of the plot, but the spectator +demands that a play should be clearly and easily intelligible. The +audience, however, is sorely puzzled by the events of this awful third +night after Martinmas, and resents the obscurity of all this intrigue by +candlelight. Why do the various persons meet at Oestraat? Who sends them? +Whence do they come and whither do they go? To these questions, no +doubt, an answer can be found, and it is partly given, and very +awkwardly, by the incessant introduction of narrative. The confused and +melodramatic scene in the banquet-hall between Nils Lykke and Skaktavl +is of central importance, but what is it about? The business with +Lucia's coffin is a kind of nightmare, in the taste of Webster or of +Cyril Tourneur. All these shortcomings are slurred over by the +enthusiastic critics of Scandinavia, yet they call for indulgence. The +fact is that _Lady Inger+ is a brilliant piece of romantic extravagance, +which is extremely interesting in illuminating the evolution of Ibsen's +genius, and particularly as showing him in the act of emancipating +himself from Danish traditions, but which has little positive value as a +drama. + +The direct result of the failure of _Lady Inger_--for it did not please +the play-goers of Bergen and but partly satisfied its author--was, +however, to send him back, for the moment, more violently than ever to +the Danish tradition. Any record of this interesting phase in Ibsen's +career is, however, complicated by the fact that late in his life (in +1883) he did what was very unusual with him: he wrote a detailed account +of the circumstances of his poetical work in 1855 and 1856. He denied, +in short, that he had undergone any influence from the Danish poet whom +he had been persistently accused of imitating, and he traced the +movement of his mind to purely Norwegian sources. During the remainder +of his lifetime, of course, this statement greatly confounded criticism, +and there is still a danger of Ibsen's disclaimer being accepted for +gospel. However, literary history must be built on the evidence before +it, and the actual text of _The Feast at Solhoug_, and of _Olaf +Liljekrans_ must be taken in spite of anything their author chose to say +nearly thirty years afterwards. Great poets, without the least wish to +mystify, often, in the cant phrase, "cover their tracks." Tennyson, in +advanced years, denied that he had ever been influenced by Shelley or +Keats. So Ibsen disclaimed any effect upon his style of the lyrical +dramas of Hertz. But we must appeal from the arrogance of old age to the +actual works of youth. + +Henrik Hertz (1798-1870) was the most exquisite, the most delicate, of +the Danish writers of his age. He was deeply impressed with the +importance of form in drama, and at the height of his powers he began to +compose rhymed plays which were like old ballads put into dialogue. His +comedy of _Cupid's Strokes of Genius_ (1830) began a series of tragi- +comedies which gradually deepened in passion and melody, till they +culminated in two of the acknowledged masterpieces of the Danish stage, +_Svend Dyring's House_ (1837) and _King Rene's Daughter_ (1845). The +genius of Hertz was diametrically opposed to that of Ibsen; in all +Europe there were not two authors less alike. Hertz would have pleased +Kenelm Digby, and if that romantic being had read Danish, the poet of +chivalry must have had a niche in _The Broad Stone of Honour_. Hertz's +style is delicate to the verge of sweetness; his choice of words is +fantastically exquisite, yet so apposite as to give an impression of the +inevitable. He cares very little for psychological exactitude or truth +of observation; but he is the very type of what we mean by a verbal +artist. + +Ibsen made acquaintance with the works, and possibly with the person, of +Hertz, when he was in Copenhagen in 1852. There can be no doubt whatever +that, while he was anxiously questioning his own future, and conscious +of crude faults in _Lady Inger_, he set himself, as a task, to write in +the manner of Hertz. It is difficult to doubt that it was a deliberate +exercise, and we see the results in _The Feast at Solhoug_ and in _Olaf +Liljekrans_. These two plays are in ballad-rhyme and prose, like Hertz's +romantic dramas; there is the same determination to achieve the +chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. +Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without +an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that +he has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of +metrical writing, but breaks down surprisingly at awkward intervals, and +displays a hopeless inconsistency between his own nature and the medium +in which he is forcing himself to write. As a proof that the similarity +between _The Feast at Solhoug_ and _Svend Dyring's House_ is accidental, +it has been pointed out that Ibsen produced his own play on the Bergen +stage in January, 1856, and revived Hertz's a month later. It might, +surely, be more sensibly urged that this fact shows how much he was +captivated by the charm of the Danish dramatist. + +The sensible thing, in spite of Ibsen's late disclaimer, is to suppose +that, in the consciousness of his crudity and inexperience as a writer, +he voluntarily sat at the feet of the one great poet whom he felt had +most to teach him. On the boards at Bergen, _The Feast at Solhoug_ was a +success, while _Olaf Liljekrans_ was a failure; but neither incident +could have meant very much to Ibsen, who, if there ever was a poet who +lived in the future, was waiting and watching for the development of his +own genius. Slowly, without precocity, without even that joy in strength +of maturity which comes to most great writers before the age of thirty, +he toiled on in a sort of vacuum. His youth was one of unusual darkness, +because he had not merely poverty, isolation, citizenship of a remote +and imperfectly civilized country to contend against, but because his +critical sense was acute enough to teach him that he himself was still +unripe, still unworthy of the fame that he thirsted for. He had not even +the consolation which a proud confidence in themselves gives to the +unappreciated young, for in his heart of hearts he knew that he had as +yet done nothing which deserved the highest praise. But his imagination +was expanding with a steady sureness, and the long years of his +apprenticeship were drawing to a close. + +Ibsen was now, like other young Norwegian poets, and particularly +Bjoernson, coming into the range of that wind of nationalistic +inspiration which had begun to blow down from the mountains and to fill +every valley with music. The Norwegians were discovering that they +possessed a wonderful hidden treasure in their own ancient poetry and +legend. It was a gentle, clerically minded poet--himself the son of a +peasant--Joergen Moe (1813-82), long afterwards Bishop of Christianssand, +who, as far back as 1834, began to collect from peasants the folk-tales +of Norway. The childlike innocence and playful humor of these stories +were charming to the mind of Moe, who was fortunately joined by a +stronger though less delicate spirit in the person of Peter Christian +Asbjoernsen. Their earliest collection of folk-lore in collaboration +appeared in 1841, but it was the full edition of 1856 which produced a +national sensation, and doubtless awakened Ibsen in Bergen. Meanwhile, +in 1853, M. B. Landstad had published the earliest of his collections of +the folkeviser, or national songs, while L. M. Lindeman in the same +years (1853-59) was publishing, in installments, the peasant melodies of +Norway. Moreover, Ibsen, who read no Icelandic, was studying the ancient +sagas in the faithful and vigorous paraphrase of Petersen, and all +combined to determine him to make an experiment in a purely national and +archaistic direction. + +Ibsen, whose practice is always better than his theory, has given rather +a confused account of the circumstances that led to the composition of +his next play, _The Vikings at Helgeland_. But it is clear that in +looking through Petersen for a subject which would display, in broad and +primitive forms, the clash of character in an ancient Norwegian family, +he fell upon "Volsungasaga," and somewhat rashly responded to its +vigorous appeal. He thought that in this particular episode, "the +titanic conditions and occurrences of the 'Nibelungenlied'" and other +pro-mediaeval legends had "been reduced to human dimensions." He +believed that to dramatize such a story would lift what he called "our +national epic material" to a higher plane. There is one phrase in his +essay which is very interesting, in the light it throws upon the object +which the author had before him in writing _The Vikings at Helgeland_. +He says clearly--and this was intended as a revolt against the tradition +of Oehlenschlaeger--"it was not my aim to present our mythic world, but +simply our life in primitive times." Brandes says of this departure that +it is "indeed a new conquest, but, like so many conquests, associated +with very extensive plundering." + +In turning to an examination of _The Vikings_, the first point which +demands notice is that Ibsen has gained a surprising mastery over the +arts of theatrical writing since we met with him last. There is nothing +of the lyrical triviality of the verse in _The Feast at Solhoug_ about +the trenchant prose of _The Vikings_, and the crepuscular dimness of +_Lady Inger_ is exchanged for a perfect lucidity and directness. +Whatever we may think about the theatrical propriety of the conductor of +the vikings, there is no question at all as to what it is they do and +mean. Ibsen has gained, and for good, that master quality of translucent +presentation without which all other stage gifts are shorn of their +value. When we have, however, praised the limpidity of _The Vikings at +Helgeland_, we have, in honesty, to make several reservations in our +criticism of the author's choice of a subject. It is valuable to compare +Ibsen's treatment of Icelandic family-saga with that of William Morris; +let us say, in _The Lovers of Gudrun_. That enchanting little epic deals +with an episode from one of the great Iceland narratives, and follows it +much more closely than Ibsen's does. But we are conscious of a less +painful effort and of a more human result. Morris does successfully what +Ibsen unsuccessfully aimed at doing: he translates the heroic and half- +fabulous action into terms that are human and credible. + +It was, moreover, an error of judgment on the part of the Norwegian +playwright to make his tragedy a mosaic of effective bits borrowed +hither and thither from the Sagas. Scandinavian bibliography has toiled +to show his indebtedness to this tale and to that, and he has been +accused of concealing his plagiarisms. But to say this is to miss the +mark. A poet is at liberty to steal what he will, if only he builds his +thefts up into a living structure of his own. For this purpose, however, +it is practically found that, owing perhaps to the elastic consistency +of individual human nature, it is safest to stick to one story, +embroidering and developing it along its own essential lines. + +There is great vigor, however, in many of the scenes in _The Vikings_. +The appearance of Hioerdis on the stage, in the opening act, marks, +perhaps, the first occasion on which Ibsen had put forth his full +strength as a playwright. This entrance of Hioerdis ought to be extremely +effective; in fact, we understand, it rarely is. The cause of this +disappointment can easily be discovered. It is the misfortune of The +Vikings that it is hardly to be acted by mortal men. Hioerdis herself is +superhuman; she has eaten the heart of a wolf, she claims direct descent +from a race of fighting giants. There is a grandeur about the conception +of her form and character, but it is a grandeur which might well daunt a +human actress. One can faintly imagine the part being played by Mrs. +Siddons, with such an extremity of fierceness and terror that ladies and +gentlemen would be carried out of the theatre in hysterics, as in the +days of Byron. Where Hioerdis insults her guests, and contrives the +horrid murder of the boy Thorolf before their eyes, we have a stage- +dilemma presented to us-either the actress must treat the scene +inadequately, or else intolerably. _Ne pueros coram populo Medea +trucidet_, and we shrink from Hioerdis with a physical disgust. Her great +hands and shrieking mouth are like Bellona's, and they smell of blood. + +What is true of Hioerdis is true in less degree of all the characters in +_The Vikings_. They are "great beautiful half-witted men," as Mr. +Chesterton would say: + + Our sea was dark with dreadful ships + Full of strange spoil and fire, + And hairy men, as strange as sin, + With horrid heads, came wading in + Through the long low sea-mire. + +This is the other side of the picture; this is how Oernulf and his seven +terrible sons must have appeared to Kaare the peasant, and this is how, +to tell the truth, they would in real life appear to us. The persons in +_The Vikings at Helgeland_ are so primitive that they scarcely appeal to +our sense of reality. In spite of all the romantic color that the poet +has lavished upon them, and the majestic sentiments which he has put +into their mouths, we feel that the inhabitants of Helgeland must have +regarded them as those of Surbiton regarded the beings who were shot +down from Mars in Mr. Wells' blood-curdling story. + +_The Vikings at Helgeland_ is a work of extraordinary violence and +agitation. The personages bark at one another like seals and roar like +sea-lions; they "cry for blood, like beasts at night." Oernulf, the aged +father of a grim and speechless clan, is sorely wounded at the beginning +of the play, but it makes no difference to him; no one binds up his arm, +but he talks, fights, travels as before. We may see here foreshadowed +various features of Ibsen's more mannered work. Here is his favorite +conventional tame man, since, among the shouting heroes, Gunnar whimpers +like a Tesman. Here is Ibsen's favorite trick of unrequited self- +sacrifice; it is Sigurd, in Gunnar's armor, who kills the mystical white +bear, but it is Gunnar who reaps the advantage. It is only fair to say +that there is more than this to applaud in _The Vikings at Helgeland_; +it moves on a consistent and high level of austere romantic beauty. Mr. +William Archer, who admires the play more than any Scandinavian critic +has done, justly draws attention to the nobility of Oernulf's entrance in +the third act. Yet, on the whole, I confess myself unable to be +surprised at the severity with which Heiberg judged _The Vikings_ at its +first appearance, a severity which must have wounded Ibsen to the quick. + +The year 1857 was one of unsettlement in Ibsen's condition. The period +for which he had undertaken to manage the theatre at Bergen had now come +to a close, and he was not anxious to prolong it. He had had enough of +Bergen, to which only one chain now bound him. Those who read the +incidents of a poet's life into the pages of his works may gratify their +tendency by seeing in the discussions between Dagny and Hioerdis some +echo of the thoughts which were occupying Ibsen's mind in relation to +the married state. Since his death, the story has been told of his love- +affair with a very young girl, Rikke Holst, who had attracted his notice +by throwing a bunch of wild flowers in his face, and whom he followed +and desired to marry. Her father had rejected the proposal with +indignation. Ibsen had suffered considerably, but this was, after all, +an early and a very fugitive sentiment, which made no deep impression on +his heart, although it seems to have always lingered in his memory. + +There had followed a sentiment much deeper and much more emphatic. A +charming, though fragmentary, set of verses, addressed in January, 1856, +to Miss Susannah Thoresen, show that already for a long while he had +come to regard this girl of twenty as "the young dreaming enigma," the +possible solution of which interested him more than that of any other +living problem. It was more than the conversation of a versifying lover +which made Ibsen speak of Miss Thoresen's "blossoming child-soul" as the +bourne of his ambitions. In his dark way, he was already violently in +love with her. + +The household of her father, Hans Conrad Thoresen, was the most +cultivated in Bergen. He himself, the rector of Holy Cross, was a +bookish, meditative man of no particular initiative, but he had married, +as his third wife, Anna Maria Kragh, a Dane by birth, and for a long +time, with the possible exception of Camilla Collett, Wergeland's +sister, the most active woman of letters in Norway. Mrs. Thoresen was +the step-mother of Susannah, the only child of her husband's second +marriage. Between Magdalene Thoresen and Ibsen a strong friendship had +sprung up, which lasted to the end of their lives, and some of Ibsen's +best letters are those written to his wife's step-mother. She worked +hard for him at the Bergen theatre, translating plays from the French, +and it was during Ibsen's management of the theatre that several of her +own pieces were produced. Her prose stories, in connection with which +her name lives in Norwegian literature, were not yet written; so long as +Ibsen was at her side, her ideas seem to have been concentrated on the +stage. Constant communication with this charming woman only nine years +his senior, and much his superior in conventional culture, must have +been a school of refinement to the crude and powerful young poet. And +now the wise Magdalene appeared to him in a new light, dedicating to him +the best treasure of the family circle, the gay and yet mysterious +Susannah. + +While he was writing _The Vikings at Helgeland_, and courting Susannah +Thoresen, Ibsen received what seemed a timely invitation to settle in +Christiania as director of the Norwegian Theatre; he returned, +thereupon, to the capital in the summer of 1857, after an absence of six +years. Now began another period of six years more, these the most +painful in Ibsen's life, when, as Halvorsen has said, he had to fight +not merely for the existence of himself and his family, but for the very +existence of Norwegian poetry and the Norwegian stage. This struggle was +an excessively distressing one. He had left Bergen crippled with debts, +and his marriage (June 26, 1856) weighed him down with further +responsibilities. The Norwegian Theatre at Christiania was, a secondary +house, ill-supported by its patrons, often tottering at the brink of +bankruptcy, and so primitive was the situation of literature in the +country that to attempt to live by poetry and drama was to court +starvation. His slender salary was seldom paid, and never in full. The +only published volume of Ibsen's which had (up to 1863) sold at all was +_The Warriors_, by which he had made in all 227 specie dollars (or about +L25). + +The Christiania he had come to, however, was not that which he had left. +In many directions it had developed rapidly. From an intellectual point +of view, the labors of the nationalists had made themselves felt; the +folk-lore of Landstad, Moe and Asbjoernsen had impressed young +imaginations. In some of its forms the development was unpleasing and +discouraging to Ibsen; the success of the blank-verse tragedies of +Andreas Munch (_Salomon de Caus_, 1855; _Lord William Russell_, 1857) +was, for instance, an irritating step in the wrong direction. The new- +born school of prose fiction, with Bjoernson as its head (_Synnoeve +Solbakken_, 1857; _Arne_, 1858), with Camilla Collett's _Prefect's +Daughters_, 1855, as its herald; with Oestgaard's sketches of peasant +life and humors in the mountains (1852)--all this was a direct menace to +the popularity of the national stage, offering an easy and alluring +alternative for home-loving citizens. Was it certain that the classic +Danish, which alone Ibsen cared to write, would continue to be the +language of the cultivated classes in Norway? Here was Ivar Aasen (in +1853) showing that the irritating landsmaal could be used for prose and +verse. + +Wherever he turned Ibsen saw increased vitality, but in shapes that were +either useless or antagonistic to himself, and all that was harsh and +saturnine in his nature awakened. We see Ibsen, at this moment of his +life, like Shakespeare in his darkest hour, "in disgrace with fortune +and men's eyes," unappreciated and ready to doubt the reality of his own +genius; and murmuring to himself:-- + + Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, + Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, + Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope. + With what I most enjoy contented least. + +How little his greatness was perceived in the Christiania literary +coteries may be gathered from the little fact that the species of +official anthology of _Modern Norwegian Poets_, published in 1859, +though it netted the shallows of national song very closely, contained +not a line by the author of the lovely lyrics in _The Feast at Solhoug_. +It was at this low and miserable moment that Ibsen's talent suddenly +took wings; he conceived, in the summer of 1858, what finally became, +five years later, his first acknowledged masterpiece, and perhaps the +most finished of all his writings, the sculptural tragedy of _The +Pretenders_. + +_The Pretenders_ (_Kongsemnerne_, properly stuff from which Kings can be +made) is the earliest of the plays of Ibsen in which the psychological +interest is predominant, and in which there is no attempt to disguise +the fact. Nothing that has since been written about this drama, the very +perfection of which is baffling to criticism, has improved upon the +impression which Georg Brandes received from it when he first read it +forty years ago. The passage is classic, and deserves to be cited, if +only as perhaps the very earliest instance in which the genius of Ibsen +was rewarded by the analysis of a great critic. Brandes wrote (in +1867):-- + +What is it that The Pretenders treats of? Looked at simply, it is an old +story. We all know the tale of Aladdin and Nureddin, the simple legend +in the Arabian Nights, and our great poet's [Oehlenschlaeger's] +incomparable poem. In _The Pretenders_ two figures again stand opposed +to one another as the superior and the inferior being, an Aladdin and a +Nureddin nature. It is towards this contrast that Ibsen has hitherto +unconsciously directed his endeavors, just as Nature feels her way in +her blind preliminary attempts to form her types. Hakon and Skule are +pretenders to the same throne, scions of royalty out of whom a king may +be made. But the first is the incarnation of fortune, victory, right and +confidence; the second--the principal figure in the play, masterly in +its truth and originality--is the brooder, a prey to inward struggle and +endless distrust, brave and ambitious, with perhaps every qualification +and claim to be king, but lacking the inexpressible, impalpable somewhat +that would give a value to all the rest--the wonderful Lamp. "I am a +king's arm," he says, "mayhap a king's brain as well; but Hakon is the +whole king." "You have wisdom and courage, and all noble gifts of the +mind," says Hakon to him; "you are born to stand nearest a king, but not +to be a king yourself." + +To a poet the achievements of his greatest contemporaries in their +common art have all the importance of high deeds in statesmanship and +war. It is, therefore, by no means extravagant to see in the noble +emulation of the two dukes in _The Pretenders_ some reflection of +Ibsen's attitude to the youthful and brilliant Bjoernson. The luminous +self-reliance, the ardor and confidence and good fortune of Bjoernson- +Hakon could not but offer a violent contrast with the gloom and +hesitation, the sick revulsions of hope and final lack of conviction, of +Ibsen-Skule. It was Bjoernson's "belt of strength," as it was Hakon's, +that he had utter belief in himself, and with this his rival could not +yet girdle himself. "The luckiest man is the greatest man," says Bishop +Nicholas in the play, and Bjoernson seemed in these melancholy years as +lucky as Ibsen was unlucky. But the Bishop's views were not wide enough, +and the end was not yet. + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SATIRES (1857-67) + +Temperament and environment combined at the period we have now reached +to turn Ibsen into a satirist. It was during his time of _Sturm und +Drang_, from 1857 to 1864, that the harshest elements in his nature were +awakened, and that he became one who loved to lash the follies of his +age. With the advent of prosperity and recognition this phase melted +away, leaving Ibsen without illusions and without much pity, but no +longer the scourge of his fellow-citizens. Although _The Pretenders_, a +work of dignified and polished aloofness, was not completed until 1863, +it really belongs to the earlier and more experimental section of +Ibsen's works, and is so completely the outcome and the apex of his +national studies that it has seemed best to consider it with _The +Vikings at Helgeland_, in spite of its immense advance upon that drama. +But we must now go back a year, and take up an entirely new section +which overlaps the old, namely, that of Ibsen's satires in dramatic +rhyme. + +With regard to the adoption of that form of poetic art, a great +difference existed between Norwegian and English taste, and this must be +borne in mind. Almost exactly at the date when Ibsen was inditing the +sharp couplets of his _Love's Comedy_, Tennyson, in _Sea Dreams_, was +giving voice to the English abandonment of satire--which had been +rampant in the generation of Byron--in the famous words:-- + + I loathe it: he had never kindly heart, + Nor ever cared to better his own kind, + Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. + +What England repudiated, Norway comprehended, and in certain hands +enjoyed. Polemical literature, if seldom of a high class, was abundant +and was much appreciated. The masterpiece of modern Norwegian poetry +was, still, the satiric cycle of Welhaven. In ordinary controversy, the +tone was more scathing, the bludgeon was whirled more violently, than +English taste at that period could endure. Those whom Ibsen designed to +crush had not minced their own words. The press was violence itself, and +was not tempered with justice; when the poet looked round he saw +"afflicted virtue insolently stabbed with all manner of reproaches," as +Dryden said. + +Yet it was not an age of gross and open vices; manners were not +flagitious, they were merely of a nauseous insipidity. Ibsen, flown with +anger as with wine, could find no outrageous offences to lash, and all +he could invite the age to do was to laugh at certain conventions and to +reconsider some prejudicated opinions. He had to be pungent, not openly +ferocious; he had to be sarcastic and to treat the current code of +morals as a jest. He found the society around him excessively +distasteful to him, but there were no crying evils of a political or +ethical kind to be stigmatized. What was open to him was what an old +writer of our own defined as "a sharp, well-mannered way of laughing a +folly out of countenance." + +Unfortunately, the people laughed at will never consent to think the way +well mannered, and Ibsen was bitterly blamed for "want of taste," that +vaguest and most insidious of accusations. We are told that he began his +enterprise in prose [Note: "_Svanhild_: a Comedy in three acts and in +prose: 1860," is understood to exist still in manuscript], but found +that too stiff and bald a medium for a satire on the social crudity of +Norway. In writing satire, it is all-important that the form should be +adequate, and at this time Ibsen had not reached the impeccable +perfection of his later colloquial prose. He started _Love's Comedy_, +therefore, anew, and he wrote it as a pamphlet in rhyme. It is not +certain that he had any very definite idea of the line which his attack +should take. He was very poor, very sore, very uncomfortable, and he was +easily convinced that the times were out of joint. Then he observed that +if there was anything that the Norwegian upper classes prided themselves +upon it was their conduct of betrothal and marriage. Plato had said that +the familiarity of young persons before marriage prevented enmity and +disappointment in later years, that it was useful to know the +peculiarities of temperament beforehand, and so, being accustomed to +them, to discount them. But Ibsen was not of this opinion, or rather, +perhaps, he did not choose to be. The extremely slow and public method +of betrothal in the North gave him his first opportunity. + +It is with a song, in the original one of the most delicious of his +lyrics, that he opens the campaign. To a miscellaneous party of +Philistines circled around the tea table, "all sober and all ----" the +rebellious hero sings:-- + + + In the sunny orchard-closes, + While the warblers sing and swing, + Care not whether blustering Autumn + Break the promises of Spring; + Rose and white the apple-blossom + Hides you from the sultry sky; + Let it flutter, blown and scattered, + On the meadow by and by. + +In the sexual struggle, that is to say, the lovers should not pause to +consider the worldly advantages of their match, but should fly in secret +to each other's arms. By the law of battle, the female should be +snatched to the conqueror's saddle-bow, and ridden away with into the +night, not subjected to the jokes and the good advice and the +impertinent congratulations of the clan. Young Lochinvar does not wait +to ask the counsel of the bride's cousins, nor to run the gantlet of her +aunts; he fords the Esk river with her, where ford there is none. Ibsen +is in favor of the _mariage de convenance_, which suppresses, without +favor, the absurdity of love-matches. Above all, anything is better than +the publicity, the meddling and long-drawn exposure of betrothal, which +kills the fine delicacy of love, as birds are apt to break their own +eggs if intruding hands have touched them. + +This is the central point in _Love's Comedy_, but there is much beside +this in its reckless satire on the "sanctities" of domestic life. The +burden of monogamy is frivolously dealt with, and the impertinent poet +touches with levity upon the question of the duration of marriage: + + With my living, with my singing, + I will tear the hedges down! + Sweep the grass and heap the blossom! + Let it shrivel, pale and blown! + Throw the wicket wide! Sheep, cattle, + Let them browse among the best! + _I_ broke off the flowers; what matter + Who may graze among the rest! + +_Love's Comedy_ is perhaps the most diverting of Ibsen's works; it is +certainly the most impertinent. If there was one class in Norwegian +society which was held to be above criticism it was the clerical. A +prominent character in Ibsen's comedy is the Rev. Mr. Strawman, a gross, +unctuous and uxorious priest, blameless and dull, upon whose inert body +the arrows of satire converge. This was never forgotten and long was +unforgiven. As late as 1866 the Storthing refused a grant to Ibsen +definitely on the ground of the scandal caused by his sarcastic portrait +of Pastor Strawman. But the gentler sex, to which every poet looks for +an audience, was not less deeply outraged by the want of indulgence +which he had shown for all forms of amorous sentiment, although Ibsen +had really, through his satire on the methods of betrothal, risen to +something like a philosophical examination of the essence of love +itself. + +To Brandes, who reproached him for not recording the history of ideal +engagements, and who remarked, "You know, there are sound potatoes and +rotten potatoes in this world," Ibsen cynically replied, "I am afraid +none of the sound ones have come under my notice"; and when Guldstad +proves to the beautiful Svanhild the paramount importance of creature +comforts, the last word of distrust in the sustaining power of love had +been said. The popular impression of Ibsen as an "immoral" writer seems +to be primarily founded on the paradox and fireworks of _Love's Comedy_. + +Much might be forgiven to a man so wretched as Ibsen was in 1862, and +more to a poet so lively, brilliant and audacious in spite of his +misfortunes. These now gathered over his head and threatened to submerge +him altogether. He was perhaps momentarily saved by the publication of +_Terje Vigen_, which enjoyed a solid popularity. This is the principal +and, indeed, almost the only instance in Ibsen's works of what the +Northern critics call "epic," but what we less ambitiously know as the +tale in verse. _Terje Figen_ will never be translated successfully into +English, for it is written, with brilliant lightness and skill, in an +adaptation of the Norwegian ballad-measure which it is impossible to +reproduce with felicity in our language. + +Among Ibsen's writings _Terje Vigen_ is unique as a piece of pure +sentimentality carried right rough without one divagation into irony or +pungency. It is the story of a much-injured and revengeful Norse pilot, +who, having the chance to drown his old enemies, Milord and Milady, +saves them at the mute appeal of their blue-eyed English baby. _Terje +Vigen_ is a masterpiece of what we may define as the "dash-away-a-manly- +tear" class of narrative. It is extremely well written and picturesque, +but the wonder is that, of all people in the world, Ibsen should have +written it. + +His short lyric poems of this period betray much more clearly the real +temper of the man. They are filled full and brimming over with longing +and impatience, with painful passion and with hope deferred. It is in +the strident lyrics Ibsen wrote between 1857 and 1863 that we can best +read the record of his mind, and share its exasperations, and wonder at +its elasticity. The series of sonnets _In a Picture Gallery_ is a +strangely violent confession of distrust in his own genius; the _Epistle +to H. O. Blom_ a candid admission of his more than distrust in the +talent and honesty of others. It was the peculiarity and danger of +Ibsen's position that he represented no one but himself. For instance, +the liberty of many of the expressions in _Love's Comedy_ led those who +were beginning a movement in favor of the emancipation of women to +believe that Ibsen was in sympathy with them, but he was not. All +through his life, although his luminous penetration into character led +him to be scrupulously fair in his analysis of female character, he was +never a genuine supporter of the extension of public responsibility to +the sex. A little later (in 1869), when John Stuart Mill's _Subjection +of Women_ produced a sensation in Scandinavia, and met with many +enthusiastic supporters, Ibsen coldly reserved his opinion. He was +always an observer, always a clinical analyst at the bedside of society, +never a prophet, never a propagandist. + +His troubles gathered upon him. Neither theatre consented to act _Love's +Comedy_, and it would not even have been printed but for the zeal of the +young novelist Jonas Lie, who, to his great honor, bought for about L35 +the right to publish it as a supplement to a newspaper that he was +editing. Then the storm broke out; the press was unanimously adverse, +and in private circles abuse amounted almost to a social taboo. In 1862 +the second theatre became bankrupt, and Ibsen was thrown on the world, +the most unpopular man of his day, and crippled with debts. It is true +that he was engaged at the Christiania Theatre at a nominal salary of +about a pound a week, but he could not live on that. In August, 1860, he +had made a pathetic appeal to the Government for a _digter-gage_, a +payment to a poet, such as is freely given to talent in the Northern +countries. Sums were voted to Bjoernson and Vinje, but to Ibsen not a +penny. By some influence, however, for he was not without friends, he +was granted in March, 1862, a travelling grant of less than L20 to +enable him to wander for two months in western Hardanger and the +districts around the Sognefjord for the purpose of collecting folk-songs +and legends. The results of this journey were prepared for publication, +but never appeared. This interesting excursion, however, has left its +mark stamped broadly upon _Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_. + +All through 1863 his condition was critical. He determined that his only +hope was to exile himself definitely from Norway, which had become too +hot to hold him. Various private friends generously helped him over this +dreadful time of adversity, earning a gratitude which, if it was not +expansive, was lifelong. Very grudging recognition of his gifts was at +length made by the Government in the shape of another trifling +travelling grant (March, 1863), again a handsome sum being awarded to +Bjoernson, his popular rival. In May Ibsen applied, in despair, to the +King himself, who conferred upon him a small pension of L90 a year, +which for the immediate future stood between this great poet and +starvation. The news of it was received in Christiania by the press in +terms of despicable insult. + +But in June of this _annee terrible_ Ibsen had a flash of happiness. He +was invited down to Bergen to the fifth great "Festival of Song," a +national occurrence, and he and his poems met with a warm reception. +Moreover, he found his brilliant antagonist, Bjoernson, at Bergen on a +like errand, and renewed an old friendship with this warm-hearted and +powerful man of genius, destined to play through life the part of Hakon +to Ibsen's Skule. They spent much of the subsequent winter together. As +Halvdan Koht has excellently said: "Their intercourse brought them +closer to each other than they had ever been before. They felt that they +were inspired by the same ideas and the same hopes, and they suffered +the same bitter disappointments. With anguish they watched the Danish +brother-nation's desperate struggle against the superior power of +Germany, and save a province with a population of Scandinavian race and +speech taken from Denmark and incorporated in a foreign kingdom, whilst +the Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen, in spite of solemn promises, +refrained from yielding any assistance." An attack on Holstein (December +22, 1863) had introduced the Second Danish War, to which a disastrous +and humiliating termination was brought in the following August. + +In April, 1864, Ibsen took the momentous step of quitting his native +country. He entered Copenhagen at the dark hour when Schleswig as well +as Holstein had been abandoned, and when the citadel of Duepper alone +stood between Denmark and ruin. His agonized sympathy may be read in the +indignant lyrics of that spring. A fortnight later he set out, by Luebeck +and Trieste, for Rome, where he had now determined to reside. He reached +that city in due time, and sank with ineffable satisfaction into the +arms of its antique repose. "Here at last," he wrote to Bjoernson, "there +is blessed peace," and he settled himself down to the close +contemplation of poetry. + +The change from the severities of an interminable Northern winter to the +glow and splendor of Italy acted on the poet's spirit like an +enchantment. Ibsen came, another Pilgrim of Eternity, to Rome's "azure +sky, flowers, ruins, statues, music," and at first the contrast between +the crudity he had left and the glory he had found was almost +intolerable. He could not work; all he did was to lie in the flushed air +and become as a little child. There has scarcely been another example of +a writer of the first class who, deeply solicitous about beauty, but +debarred from all enjoyment of it until his thirty-seventh year, has +been suddenly dipped, as if into a magic fountain, into the heart of +unclouded loveliness without transition or preparation. Shelley and +Keats were dead long before they reached the age at which Ibsen broke +free from his prison-house of ice, while Byron, in the same year of his +life, was closing his romantic career. + +Ibsen's earliest impressions of what these poets had become accustomed +to at a ductile age were contradictory and even incoherent. The passion +of pagan antiquity for a long while bewildered him. He wandered among +the vestiges of antique art, unable to perceive their relation to modern +life, or their original significance. He missed the impress of the +individual on classic sculpture, as he had missed it--the parallel is +strange, but his own--on the Eddaic poems of ancient Iceland. He liked a +lyric or a statue to speak to him of the man who made it. He felt more +at home with Bernini among sculptors and with Bramante among architects +than with artists of a more archaic type. Shelley, we may remember, +labored under a similar heresy; to each of these poets the +attractiveness of individual character overpowered the languid flavor of +the age in which the artist had flourished. Ibsen's admiration of a +certain overpraised monument of Italian architecture would not be worth +recording but for the odd vigor with which he adds that the man who made +that might have made the moon in his leisure moments. + +During the first few months of Ibsen's life in Rome all was chaos in his +mind. He was plunged in stupefaction at the beauties of nature, the +amenities of mankind, the interpenetration of such a life with such an +art as he had never dreamed of and could yet but dimly comprehend. In +September, 1864, he tells Bjoernson that he is at work on a poem of +considerable length. This must have been the first draft of _Brand_, +which was begun, we know, as a narrative, or as the Northerns call it, +an "epic" poem; although a sketch for the _Julianus Apostata_ was +already forming in the back of his head, as a subject which would, +sooner or later, demand poetic treatment. He had left his wife and +little son in Copenhagen, but at the beginning of October they joined +him in Rome. The family lived on an income which seems almost incredibly +small, a maximum of 40 scudi a month. But it was a different thing to be +hungry in Christiania and in Rome, and Ibsen makes no complaints. A sort +of blessed languor had fallen upon him after all his afflictions. He +would loll through half his days among the tombs on the Via Latina, or +would loiter for hours and hours along the Appian Way. It took him weeks +to summon energy to visit S. Pietro in Vincoli, although he knew that +Michelangelo's "Moses" was there, and though he was weary with longing +to see it. All the tense chords of Ibsen's nature were loosened. His +soul was recovering, through a long and blissful convalescence, from the +aching maladies of its youth. + +He took some part in the society of those Scandinavian writers, painters +and sculptors who gathered in Rome through the years of their distress. +But only one of them attracted him strongly, the young Swedish lyrical +poet, Count Carl Snoilsky, then the hope and already even the glory of +his country. There was some quaint diversity between the rude and gloomy +Norwegian dramatist, already middle-aged, and the full-blooded, +sparkling Swedish diplomatist of twenty-three, rich, flattered, and +already as famous for his fashionable _bonnes fortunes_ as Byron. But +two things Snoilsky and Ibsen had in common, a passionate enthusiasm for +their art, and a rebellious attitude towards their immediate precursors +in it. Each, in his own way, was the leader of a new school. The +friendship of Ibsen and Snoilsky was a permanent condition for the rest +of their lives, for it was founded on a common basis. + +A few years later the writer of these pages received an amusing +impression of Ibsen at this period from the Danish poet, Christian +Molbech, who was also in Rome in 1865 and onwards. Ibsen wandering +silently about the streets, his hands plunged far into the pockets of +his invariable jacket of faded velveteen, Ibsen killing conversation by +his sudden moody appearances at the Scandinavian Club, Ibsen shattering +the ideals of the painters and the enthusiasms of the antiquaries by a +running fire of sarcastic paradox, this is mainly what the somewhat +unsympathetic Molbech was not unwilling to reproduce. He painted a more +agreeable Ibsen when he spoke of his summer flights to the Alban Hills, +planned on terms of the most prudent reference to resources which seemed +ever to be expected and never to arrive. Nevertheless, under the vines +in front of some inn at Genzano or Albano, Ibsen would duly be +discovered, placid and dreamy, always self-sufficient and self- +contained, but not unwilling to exchange, over a flask of thin wine, +commonplaces with a Danish friend. It was at Ariccia, in one of these +periods of _villegiatura_, during the summer and autumn of 1865, that +_Brand_, which had long been under considerature, suddenly took final +shape, and was written throughout, without pause or hesitation. In July +the poet put everything else aside to begin it, and before the end of +September he had completed it. + +_Brand_ placed Ibsen at a bound among the greatest European poets of his +age. The advance over the sculptural perfection of _The Pretenders_ and +the graceful wit of _Love's Comedy_ was so great as to be startling. +Nothing but the veil of a foreign language, which the best translations +are powerless to tear away from noble verse, prevented this mastery from +being perceived at once. In Scandinavia, where that veil did not exist, +for those who had eyes to see, and who were not blinded by prejudice, it +was plain that a very great writer had arisen in Norway at last. +Bjoernson had seemed to slip ahead of Ibsen; his _Sigurd Slembe_ (1862) +was a riper work than the elder friend had produced; but _Mary Stuart in +Scotland_ (1864) had marked a step backward, and now Ibsen had once more +shot far ahead of his rival. When we have admitted some want of +clearness in the symbolism which runs through _Brand_, and some shifting +of the point of view in the two last acts, an incoherency and a +turbidity which are natural in the treatment of so colossal a theme, +there is very little but praise to be given to a poem which is as +manifold in its emotion and as melodious in its versification as it is +surprising in its unchallenged originality. In the literatures of +Scandinavia it has not merely been unsurpassed, but in its own peculiar +province it has not been approached. It bears some remote likeness to +_Faust_, but with that exception there is perhaps nothing in the +literature of the world which can be likened to _Brand_, except, of +course, _Peer Gynt_. + +For a long while it was supposed that the difficulties in the way of +performing _Brand_ on the public stage were too great to be overcome. +But the task was attempted at length, first in Stockholm in 1895; and +within the last few years this majestic spectacle has been drawn in full +before the eyes of enraptured audiences in Copenhagen, Berlin, Moscow +and elsewhere. In spite of the timid reluctance of managers, wherever +this play is adequately presented, it captures an emotional public at a +run. It is an appeal against moral apathy which arouses the languid. It +is a clear and full embodiment of the gospel of energy which awakens and +upbraids the weak. In the original, its rush of rhymes produces on the +nerves an almost delirious excitement. If it is taken as an oration, it +is responded to as a great civic appeal; if as a sermon, it is sternly +religious, and fills the heart with tears. In the solemn mountain air, +with vague bells ringing high up among the glaciers, no one asks exactly +what _Brand_ expounds, nor whether it is perfectly coherent. Witnessed +on the living stage, it takes the citadel of the soul by storm. When it +is read, the critical judgment becomes cooler. + +Carefully examined, _Brand_ is found to present a disconcerting mixture +of realism and mysticism. Two men seem at work in the writing of it, and +their effects are sometimes contradictory. It has constantly been asked, +and it was asked at one, "Is _Brand_ the expression of Ibsen's own +nature?" Yes, and no. He threw much of himself into his hero, and yet he +was careful to remain outside. Ibsen, as we have already pointed out, +was ready in later life to discuss his own writings, and what he said +about them is often dangerously mystifying. He told Georg Brandes that +the religious vocation of Brand was not essential. "I could have applied +the whole syllogism just as well to a sculptor, or a politician, as to a +priest." (He was to deal with each of these alternations later on, but +with what a difference!) "I could quite as well," he persisted, "have +worked out the impulse which drove me to write, by taking Galileo, for +instance, as my hero--assuming, of course, that Galileo should stand +firm and never concede the fixity of the earth--or you yourself in your +struggle with the Danish reactionaries." This is not to the point, since +in fact neither Georg Brandes nor Galileo, as hero of a mystical drama, +could have produced such a capacity for evolution as is presented by the +stern priest whose absolute certitude, although founded, one admits, on +no rational theory of theology, is yet of the very essence of religion. + +Brand becomes intelligible when we regard him as a character of the +twelfth century transferred to the nineteenth. He has something of Peter +the Hermit in him. He ought to have been a crusading Christian king, +fighting against the Moslem for the liberties of some sparkling city of +God. He exists in his personage, under the precipice, above the fjord, +like a rude mediaeval anchorite, who eats his locusts and wild honey in +the desert. We cannot comprehend the action of Brand by any reference to +accepted creeds and codes, because he is so remote from the religious +conventions as hardly to seem objectively pious at all. He is violent +and incoherent; he knows not clearly what it is he wants, but it must be +an upheaval of all that exists, and it must bring Man into closer +contact with God. Brand is a king of souls, but his royal dignity is +marred, and is brought sometimes within an inch of the ridiculous, by +the prosaic nature of his modern surroundings. He is harsh and cruel; he +is liable to fits of anger before which the whole world trembles; and it +is by an avalanche, brought down upon him by his own wrath, that he is +finally buried in the ruins of the Ice-Church. + +The judicious reader may like to compare the character of Brand with +that extraordinary study of violence, the _Abbe Jules_ of Octave +Mirbeau. In each we have the history of revolt, in a succession of +crises, against an invincible vocation. In each an element of weakness +is the pride of a peasant priest. But in Ibsen there is fully developed +what the cynicism of Octave Mirbeau avoids, a genuine conception of such +a rebel's ceaseless effort after personal holiness. Lammers or +Lammenais, what can it matter whether some existing priest of +insurrection did or did not set Ibsen for a moment on the track of his +colossal imagination? We may leave these discussions to the +commentators; _Brand_ is one of the great poems of the world, and +endless generations of critics will investigate its purpose and analyze +its forms. + +There is, however, another than the priestly side. The poem contains a +great deal of superficial and rather ephemeral satire of contemporary +Scandinavian life, echoes of a frightened Storthing in Christiania, of a +crafty court in Stockholm, and of Denmark stretching her bleeding hands +to her sisters in an agony of despair. There is the still slighter local +strain of irony, which lightens the middle of the third act. Here Ibsen +comes not to heal but to slay; he exposes the corpse of an exhausted +age, and will bury it quickly, with sexton's songs and peals of elfin +laughter, in some chasm of rock above a waterfall. "It is Will alone +that matters," and for the weak of purpose there is nothing but ridicule +and six feet of such waste earth as nature carelessly can spare from her +rude store of graves. Against the mountain landscape, Brand holds up his +motto "All or Nothing," persistently, almost tiresomely, like a modern +advertising agent affronting the scenery with his panacea. More +truculently still, he insists upon the worship of a deity, not white- +bearded, but as young as Hercules, a scandal to prudent Lutheran +theologians, a prototype of violent strength. + +Yet Brand's own mission remains undefined to him--if it ever takes exact +shape--until Agnes reveals it to him:-- + + Choose thy endless loss or gain! + Do thy work and bear thy pain. ... + Now (he answers) I see my way aright. + In _ourselves_ is that young Earth, + Ripe for the divine new-birth. + +And it is in Agnes--as the marvellous fourth act opens where her love +for the little dear dead child is revealed, and where her patience +endures all the cruelties of her husband's fanaticism--it is in Agnes +that Ibsen's genius for the first time utters the clear, unembittered +note of full humanity. He has ceased now to be parochial; he is a +nursling of the World and Time. If the harsh Priest be, in a measure, +Ibsen as Norway made him, Agnes and Einar, and perhaps Gerd also, are +the delicate offspring of Italy. + +Considerable postponements delayed the publication of _Brand_, which saw +the light at length, in Copenhagen, in March, 1866. It was at once +welcomed by the Danish press, which had hitherto known little of Ibsen, +and the poet's audience was thus very considerably widened. The satire +of the poem awakened an eager polemic; the popular priest Wexels +preached against its tendency. A novel was published, called _The +Daughters of Brand_, in which the results of its teaching were analyzed. +Ibsen enjoyed, what he had never experienced before, the light and shade +of a disputed but durable popular success. Four large editions of +_Brand_ were exhausted within the year of its publication, and it took +its place, of course, in more leisurely progress, among the few books +which continued, and still continue, steadily to sell. It has always +been, in the countries of Scandinavia, the best known and the most +popular of all Ibsen's writings. + +This success, however, was largely one of sentiment, not of pecuniary +fortune. The total income from four editions of a poem like _Brand_, in +the conditions of Northern literary life forty years ago, would not much +exceed L100. Hardly had Ibsen become the object of universal discussion +than he found himself assailed, as never before, by the paralysis of +poverty. He could not breathe, he could not move; he could not afford to +buy postage stamps to stick upon his business letters. He was threatened +with the absolute extinction of his resources. At the very time when +Copenhagen was ringing with his praise Ibsen was borrowing money for his +modest food and rent from the Danish Consul in Rome. + +In the winter of 1865 he fell into a highly nervous condition, in the +midst of which he was assailed by a malarious fever which brought him +within sight of the grave. To the agony of his devoted wife, he lay for +some time between life and death, and the extreme poverty from which +they suffered made it difficult, and even impossible, for her to provide +for him the alleviations which his state demanded. He gradually +recovered, however, thanks to his wife's care and to his own magnificent +constitution, but the springs of courage seemed to have snapped within +his breast. + +In March, 1866, worn out with illness, poverty and suspense, he wrote a +letter to Bjoernson, "my one and only friend," which is one of the most +heart-rending documents in the history of literature. Few great spirits +have been nearer the extinction of despair than Ibsen was, now in his +thirty-ninth year. His admirers, at their wits' end to know what to +advise, urged him to write directly to Carl, King of Sweden and Norway, +describing his condition, and asking for support. Simultaneously came +the manifest success of _Brand_, and, for the first time, the Norwegian +press recognized the poet's merit. There was a general movement in his +favor; King Carl graciously received his petition of April 15, and on +May 10 the Storthing, almost unanimously, voted Ibsen a "poet's +pension," restricted in amount but sufficient for his modest needs. + +The first use he made of his freedom was to move out of Rome, where he +found it impossible to write, and to settle at Frascati among the hills. +He hired a nest of cheap rooms in the Palazzo Gratiosi, two thousand +feet above the sea. Thither he came, with his wife and his little son, +and there he fitted himself up a study; setting his writing table at a +window that overlooked an immensity of country, and Mont Soracte closing +the horizon with its fiery pyramid. In his correspondence of this time +there are suddenly noticeable a gayety and an insouciance which are +elements wholly new in his letters. The dreadful burden was lifted; the +dreadful fear of sinking in a sea of troubles and being lost for ever, +the fear which animates his painful letter to King Carl, was blown away +like a cloud and the heaven of his temper was serene. At Frascati he +knew not what to be at; he tried that subject, and this, waiting for the +heavenly spark to fall. It seems to have been at Tusculum, and in the +autumn of 1866, that the subject he was looking for descended upon him. +He hurried back to Rome, and putting all other schemes aside, he devoted +himself heart and soul to the composition of _Peer Gynt_, which he +described as to be "a long dramatic poem, having as its chief figure one +of the half-mythical and fantastical personages from the peasant life of +_modern_ Norway." + +He wrote this work slowly, more slowly than was his wont, and it was a +whole year on the stocks. It was in the summer that Ibsen habitually +composed with the greatest ease, and _Peer Gynt_ did not trove smoothly +until the poet settled in the Villa Pisani, at Casamicciola, on the +island of Ischia. His own account was: "After _Brand_ came _Peer Gynt_, +as though of itself. It was written in Southern Italy, in Ischia and at +Sorrento. So far away from one's readers one becomes reckless. This poem +contains much that has its origin in the circumstances of my own youth. +My own mother--with the necessary exaggeration--served as the model for +Ase." _Peer Gynt_ was finished before Ibsen left Sorrento at the end of +the autumn, and the MS. was immediately posted to Copenhagen. None of +the delays which had interfered with the appearance of _Brand_ now +afflicted the temper of the poet, and _Peer Gynt_ was published in +November, 1867. + +In spite of the plain speaking of Ibsen himself, who declared that _Peer +Gynt_ was diametrically opposed in spirit to _Brand_, and that it made +no direct attack upon social questions, the critics of the later poem +have too often persisted in darkening it with their educational +pedantries. Ibsen did well to be angry with his commentators. "They have +discovered," he said, "much more satire in _Peer Gynt_ than was intended +by me. Why can they not read the book as a poem? For as such I wrote +it." It has been, however, the misfortune of Ibsen that he has +particularly attracted the attention of those who prefer to see anything +in a poem except its poetry, and who treat all tulips and roses as if +they were cabbages for the pot of didactic morality. Yet it is +surprising that after all that the author said, and with the lovely poem +shaking the bauble of its fool's cap at them, there can still be +commentators who see nothing in _Peer Gynt_ but the "awful interest of +the universal problems with which it deals." This obsession of the +critic to discover "problems" in the works of Ibsen has been one of the +main causes of that impatience and even downright injustice with which +his writings have been received by a large section of those readers who +should naturally have enjoyed them. He is a poet, of fantastic wit and +often reckless imagination, and he has been travestied in a long black +coat and white choker, as though he were an embodiment of the +Nonconformist conscience. + +Casting aside, therefore, the spurious "lessons" and supposititious +"problems" of this merry and mundane drama, we may recognize among its +irregularities and audacities two main qualities of merit. Above +everything else which we see in _Peer Gynt_ we see its fun and its +picturesqueness. Written at different times and in different moods, +there is an incoherency in its construction which its most whole-hearted +admirers cannot explain away. The first act is an inimitable burst of +lyrical high spirits, tottering on the verge of absurdity, carried along +its hilarious career with no less peril and with no less brilliant +success than Peer fables for himself and the reindeer in their ride +along the vertiginous blade of the Gjende. In the second act, satire and +fantasy become absolutely unbridled; the poet's genius sings and dances +under him, like a strong ship in a storm, but the vessel is rudderless +and the pilot an emphatic libertine. The wild impertinence of fancy, in +this act, from the moment when Peer and the Girl in the Green Gown ride +off upon the porker, down to the fight with the Boeig, gigantic +gelatinous symbol of self deception, exceeds in recklessness anything +else written since the second part of _Faust_. The third act, +culminating with the drive to Soria Moria Castle and the death of Ase, +is of the very quintessence of poetry, and puts Ibsen in the first rank +of creators. In the fourth act, the introduction of which is abrupt and +grotesque, we pass to a totally different and, I think, a lower order of +imagination. The fifth act, an amalgam of what is worst and best in the +poem, often seems divided from it in tone, style and direction, and is +more like a symbolic or mythical gloss upon the first three acts than a +contribution to the growth of the general story. + +Throughout this tangled and variegated scene the spirits of the author +remain almost preposterously high. If it were all hilarity and sardonic +laughter, we should weary of the strain. But physical beauty of the most +enchanting order is liberally provided to temper the excess of irony. It +is, I think, no exaggeration to say that nowhere to the dramatic +literature of the world, not by Shakespeare himself, is there introduced +into a play so much loveliness of scenery, and such varied and exquisite +appeal to the eyes, as there is in _Peer Gynt_. The fifth act contains +much which the reader can hardly enjoy, but it opens with a scene so +full of the glory of the mountains and the sea that I know nothing else +in drama to compare with it. This again is followed by one of the finest +shipwrecks in all poetry. Scene after scene, the first act portrays the +cold and solemn beauty of Norwegian scenery as no painter's brush has +contrived to do it. For the woodland background of the Saeter Girls +there is no parallel in plastic art but the most classic of Norwegian +paintings, Dahl's "Birch in a Snow Storm." Pages might be filled with +praise of the picturesqueness of tableau after tableau in each act of +_Peer Gynt_. + +The hero is the apotheosis of selfish vanity, and he is presented to us, +somewhat indecisively, as the type of one who sets at defiance his own +life's design. But is Peer Gynt designed to be a useful, a good, or even +a successful man? Certainly Ibsen had not discovered it when he wrote +the first act, in which scarcely anything is observable except a study, +full of merriment and sarcasm, of the sly, lazy and parasitical class of +peasant rogue. This type was not of Ibsen's invention; he found it in +those rustic tales, inimitably resumed by Asbjoernson and Moe, in which +he shows us that his memory was steeped. Here, too, he found the Boeig, a +monster of Norse superstition, vast and cold, slippery and invisible, +capable of infinite contraction and expansion. The conception that this +horror would stand in symbol for a certain development of selfish +national instability seems to have seized him later, and _Peer Gynt_, +which began as a farce, continued as a fable. The nearest approach to a +justification of the moral or "problem" purpose, which Ibsen's graver +prophets attribute to him, is found in the sixth scene of the fifth act, +where, quite in the manner of Goethe, thoughts and watchwords and songs +and tears take corporeal form and assail the aged _Peer Gynt_ with their +reproaches. + +_Peer Gynt_ was received in the North with some critical bewilderment, +and it has never been so great a favorite with the general public as +_Brand_. But Ibsen, with triumphant arrogance, when he was told that it +did not conform to the rules of poetic art, asserted that the rules must +be altered, not _Peer Gynt_. "My book," he wrote, "_is_ poetry; and if +it is not, then it shall be. The Norwegian conception of what poetry is +shall be made to fit my book." There was a struggle at first against +this assumption, but the drama has become a classic, and it is now +generally allowed, that so long as poetry is a term wide enough to +include _The Clouds_ and the Second Part of _Faust_, it must be made +wide enough to take in a poem as unique as they are in its majestic +intellectual caprices. + +[Note.--By far the most exhaustive analysis of _Peer Gynt_ which has +hitherto been given to the world is that published, as I send these +pages to the press, by the executors of Otto Weininger, in his +posthumous _Ueber die letzte Dinge_ (1907). This extraordinary young +man, who shot himself on October 4, 1903, in the house at Vienna where +Beethoven died, was only twenty-three years of age when he violently +deprived philosophical literature in Europe of by far its most promising +and remarkable recruit. If I confess myself unable to see in _Peer Gynt_ +all that Weininger saw in it, the fault is doubtless mine. But in Ibsen, +unquestionably, time will _create_ profundities, as it has in +Shakespeare. The greatest works grow in importance, as trees do after +the death of the mortal men who planted them.] + +CHAPTER V + +1868-75 + +Ibsen's four years in Italy were years of rest, of solitude, of calm. +The attitude of Ibsen to Italy was totally distinct from that of other +illustrious exiles of his day and generation. The line of pilgrims from +Stendhal and Lamartine down to Ruskin and the Brownings had brought with +them a personal interest in Italian affairs; Italian servitude had +roused some of them to anger or irony; they had spent nights of insomnia +dreaming of Italian liberty. _Casa Guidi Windows_ may be taken as the +extreme type of the way in which Italy did not impress Ibsen. He sought +there, and found, under the transparent azure of the Alban sky, in the +harmonious murmurs of the sea, in the violet shadows of the mountains, +above all in the gray streets of Rome, that rest of the brain, that +ripening of the spiritual faculties, which he needed most after his +rough and prolonged adolescence in Norway. In his attitude of passive +appreciation he was, perhaps, more like Landor than like any other of +the illustrious exiles--Landor, who died in Florence a few days after +Ibsen settled in Rome. There was a side of character, too, on which the +young Norwegian resembled that fighting man of genius. + +When, therefore, on September 8, 1867, Garibaldi, at Genoa, announced +his intention of marching upon Rome, an echo woke in many a poet's heart +"by rose hung river and light-foot rill," but left Ibsen simply +disconcerted. If Rome was to be freed from Papal slavery, it would no +longer be the somnolent and unupbraiding haunt of quietness which the +Norwegian desired for the healing of his spleen and his moral +hypochondria. In October the heralds of liberty crossed the Papal +frontier; on the 30th, by a slightly prosaic touch, it was the French +who entered Rome. Of Ibsen, in these last months of his disturbed +sojourn--for he soon determined that if there was going to be civil war +in Italy that country was no home for him--we hear but little. This +autumn, however, we find him increasingly observant of the career of +Georg Brandes, the brilliant and revolutionary Danish critic, in whom he +was later on to find his first great interpreter. And we notice the +beginnings of a difference with Bjoernson, lamentable and hardly +explicable, starting, it would vaguely seem, out of a sense that +Bjoernson did not appreciate the poetry of _Peer Gynt_ at its due value. +Clemens Petersen, who, since the decease of Heiberg, had been looked +upon as the _doyen_ of Danish critics--had pronounced against the poetry +of _Peer Gynt_, and Ibsen, in one of his worst moods, in a bearish +letter, had thrown the blame of this judgment upon Bjoernson. + +All through these last months in Rome we find Ibsen in the worst of +humors. If it be admissible to compare him with an animal, he seems the +badger among the writers of his time, nocturnal, inoffensive, solitary, +but at the rumor of disturbance apt to rush out of its burrow and bite +with terrific ferocity. The bite of Ibsen was no joke, and in moments of +exasperation he bit, without selection, friend and foe alike. Among +other snaps of the pen, he told Bjoernson that if he was not taken +seriously as a poet, he should try his "fate as a photographer." +Bjoernson, genially and wittily, took this up at once, and begged him to +put his photography into the form of a comedy. But the devil, as Ibsen +himself said, was throwing his shadow between the friends, and all the +benefits and all the affection of the old dark days were rapidly +forgotten. They quarrelled, too, rather absurdly, about decorations from +kings and ministers; Bjoernson having determined to reject all such +gewgaws, Ibsen announced his intention of accepting (and wearing) every +cross and star that was offered to him. At this date, no doubt, the +temptation was wholly problematical in both cases, yet each poet acted +on his determination to the end. But Bjoernson's hint about the comedy +seems to have been, for some years, the last flicker of friendship +between the two. On this Ibsen presently acted in a manner very +offensive to Bjoernson. + +In March, 1868, Ibsen was beginning to be very much indeed incensed with +things in general. "What Norway wants is a national disaster," he +amiably snarled. It was high time that the badger should seek shelter in +a new burrow, and in May we find him finally quitting Rome. There was a +farewell banquet, at which Julius Lange, who was present, remarks that +Ibsen showed a spice of the devil, but "was very witty and amiable." He +went to Florence for June, then quitted Italy altogether, settling for +three months at Berchtesgaden, the romantic little "sunbath" in the +Salzburg Alps, then still very quiet and unfashionable. There he started +his five-act comedy, _The League of Youth_. All September he spent in +Munich, and in October, 1868, took root once more, this time at Dresden, +which became his home for a considerable number of years. Almost at once +he sank down again into his brooding mood of isolation and quietism, +roaming about the streets of Dresden, as he hail haunted those of Rome, +by night or at unfrequented hours, very solitary, seeing few visitors, +writing few letters, slowly finishing his "photographic" comedy, which +he did not get off his hands until March, 1869. Although he was still +very poor, he refused all solicitations from editors to write for +journals or magazines; he preferred to appear before the public at long +intervals, with finished works of importance. + +It is impossible for a critic who is not a Norwegian, or not closely +instructed in the politics and manners of the North, to take much +interest in _The League of Youth_, which is the most provincial of all +Ibsen's mature works. There is a cant phrase minted in the course of it, +_de lokale forhold_, which we may awkwardly translate as "the local +conditions" or "situation." The play is all concerned with _de lokale +forhold_, and there is an overwhelming air of Little Pedlington about +the intrigue. This does not prevent _The League of Youth_ from being, as +Mr. Archer has said, "the first prose comedy of any importance in +Norwegian literature," [Note: It is to be supposed that Mr. Archer +deliberately prefers _The League of Youth_ to Bjoernson's _The Newly +Married Couple_ (1865), a slighter, but, as it seems to me, a more +amusing comedy.] but it excludes it from the larger European view. Oddly +enough, Ibsen believed, or pretended to believe, that _The League of +Youth_ was a "placable" piece of foolery, which could give no annoyance +to the worst of offenders by its innocent and indulgent banter. Perhaps, +like many strenuous writers, he underestimated the violence of his own +language; perhaps, living so long at a distance from Norway and catching +but faintly the reverberations of its political turmoil, he did not +realize how sensitive the native patriot must be to any chaff of "de +lokale forhold." When he found that the Norwegians were seriously angry, +Ibsen bluntly told them that he had closely studied the ways and the +manners of their "pernicious and lie-steeped clique." He was always +something of a snake in the grass to his poetic victims. + +Mr. Archer, whose criticism of this play is extraordinarily brilliant, +does his best to extenuate the stiffness of it. But to my own ear, as I +read it again after a quarter of a century, there rise the tones of the +stilted, the unsmiling, the essentially provincial and boringly solemn +society of Christiania as it appeared to a certain young pilgrim in the +early seventies, condensing, as it then seemed to do, all the +sensitiveness, the arrogance, the crudity which made communication with +the excellent and hospitable Norwegians of that past epoch so difficult +for an outsider--so difficult, in particular, for one coming freshly +from the grace and sweetness, the delicate, cultivated warmth of +Copenhagen. The political conditions which led to the writing of _The +League of Youth_ are old history now. There was the "liberal" element in +Norwegian politics, which was in 1868 becoming rapidly stronger and more +hampering to the Government, and there was the increasing influence of +Soeren Jaabaek (1814-94), a peasant farmer of ultra-socialistic views, +who had, almost alone, opposed in the Storthing the grant of any +pensions to poets, and whose name was an abomination to Ibsen. + +Now Bjoernson, in the development of his career as a political publicist, +had been flirting more and more outrageously with these extreme ideas +and this truculent peasant party. He had even burned incense before +Jaabaek, who was the accursed Thing. Ibsen, from the perspective of +Dresden, genuinely believed that Bjoernson, with his ardor and his energy +and his eloquence, war, becoming a national danger. We have seen that +Bjoernson had piqued Ibsen's vanity about _Peer Gynt_, and nothing +exasperates a friendship more fatally than public principle grafted on a +private slight. Moreover, the whole nature of Bjoernson was gregarious, +that of Ibsen solitary; Bjoernson must always be leading the majority, +Ibsen had scuples of conscience if ten persons agreed with him. They +were doomed to disagreement. Meanwhile, Ibsen burned his ships by +creating the figure of Stensgaard, in _The League of Youth_, a frothy +and mischievous demagogue whose rhetoric irresistibly reminded every one +of Bjoernson's rolling oratory. What Bjoernson, not without dignity, +objected to was not so much the personal attack, as that the whole play +attempted "to paint our young party of liberty as a troop of pushing, +phrase-mongering adventurers, whose patriotism lay solely in their +words." Ibsen acknowledged that that was exactly his opinion of them, +and what could follow for such a disjointed friendship but anger and +silence? + +The year 1869, which we now enter, is remarkable in the career of Ibsen +as being that in which he travelled most, and appeared on the surface of +society in the greatest number of capacities. He was enabled to do this +by a considerable increase in his pension. First of all, he was induced +to pay a visit of some months to Stockholm, being seized with a sudden +strong desire to study conditions in Sweden, a country which he had +hitherto professed to dislike. He had a delightful stay of two months, +received from King Carl the order of the Wasa, was feted at banquets, +renewed his acquaintance with Snoilsky, and was treated everywhere with +the highest distinction. Ibsen and Bjoernson were how beginning to be +recognized as the two great writers of Norway, and their droll balance +as the Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat of letters was already becoming defined. +It was doubtless Bjoernson's emphatic attacks on Sweden that at this +moment made Ibsen so loving to the Swedes and so beloved. He was in such +clover at Stockholm that he might have lingered on there indefinitely, +if the Khedive had not invited him, in September, to be his guest at the +opening of the Suez Canal. This sudden incursion of an Oriental +potentate into the narrative seems startling until we recollect that +illustrious persons were invited from all countries to this ceremony. +The interesting thing is to see that Ibsen was now so fatuous as to be +naturally so selected; the only other Norwegian guest being Professor J. +D. C. Lieblein, the Egyptologist. + +The poet started for Egypt, by Dresden and Paris, on September 28. _The +League of Youth_ was published on the 29th, and first performed on +October 18; Ibsen, therefore, just missed the scandal and uproar caused +by the play in Norway. In company with eighty-five other people, all +illustrious guests of the Khedive, and under the care of Mariette Bey, +Ibsen made a twenty-four days' expedition up the Nile into Nubia, and +then back to Cairo and Port Said. There, on November 17, in the company +of an empress and several princes of the blood, he saw the Canal +formally opened and graced a grand processional fleet that sailed out +from Port Said towards Ismaila. But on the quay at Port Said Ibsen's +Norwegian mail was handed to him, and letters and newspapers alike were +full of the violent scenes in the course of which _The League of Youth_ +had been hissed down at Christiania. Then and there he sent his defiance +back to Norway in _At Port Said_, one of the most pointed and effective +of all his polemical lyrics. A version in literal prose must suffice, +though it does cruel injustice to the venomous melody of the original: + + The dawn of the Eastern Land + Over the haven glittered; + Flags from all corners of the globe + Quivered from the masts. + Voices in music + Bore onward the cantata; + A thousand cannon + Christened the Canal. + + The steamers passed on + By the obelisk. + In the language of my home + Came to me the chatter of news. + The mirror-poem which I had polished + For masculine minxes + Had been smeared at home + By splutterings from penny whistles. + + The poison-fly stung; + It made my memories loathsome. + Stars, be thanked!-- + My home is what is ancient! + We hailed the frigate + From the roof of the river-boat; + I waved my hat + And saluted the flag. + + To the feast, to the feast, + In spite of the fangs of venomous reptiles! + A selected guest + Across the Lakes of Bitterness! + At the close of day + Dreaming, I shall slumber + Where Pharaoh was drowned-- + And when Moses passed over. + +In this mood of defiance, with rage unabated, Ibsen returned home by +Alexandria and Paris, and was in Dresden again in December. + +The year of 1870 drove him out of Dresden, as the French occupation had +driven him out of Rome. It was essential for him to be at rest in the +midst of a quiet and alien population. He was drawn towards Denmark, +partly for the sake of talk with Brandes, who had now become a factor in +his life, partly to arrange about the performance of one of his early +works, and in particular of _The Pretenders_. No definite plan, however, +had been formed, when, in the middle of June, war was declared between +Germany and France; but a fortnight later Ibsen quitted Saxony, and +settled for three months in Copenhagen, where his reception was +charmingly sympathetic. By the beginning of October, after the fall of +Strasburg and the hemming in of Metz, however, it was plain on which +side the fortunes of the war would lie, and Ibsen returned "as from a +rejuvenating bath" of Danish society to a Dresden full of French +prisoners, a Dresden, too, suffering terribly from the paralysis of +trade, and showing a plentiful lack of enthusiasm for Prussia. + +Ibsen turned his back on all such vexatious themes, and set himself to +the collecting and polishing of a series of lyrical poems, the _Digte_ +of 1871, the earliest, and, indeed, the only such collection that he +published. We may recollect that, at the very same moment, with far less +cause to isolate himself from the horrors of war, Theophile Gautier was +giving the last touches to _Emaux et Camees_. In December, 1870, Ibsen +addressed to Fru Limnell, a lady in Stockholm, his "Balloon-Letter," a +Hudibrastic rhymed epistle in nearly 400 lines, containing, with a good +deal that is trivial, some striking symbolical reminiscences of his trip +through Egypt, and some powerful ironic references to the caravan of +German invaders, with its Hathor and its Horus, which was then rushing +to the assault of Paris under the doleful colors of the Prussian flag. +Ibsen's sarcasms are all at the ugliness and prosaic utilitarianism of +the Germans; "Moltke," he says, "has killed the poetry of battles." + +Ibsen was now greatly developing and expanding his views, and forming a +world-policy of his own. The success of German discipline deeply +impressed him, and he thought that the day had probably dawned which +would be fatal to all revolt and "liberal rebellion" for the future. +More than ever he dreaded the revolutionary doctrines of men like +Jaabaek and Bjoernson, which would lead, he thought, to bloodshed and +national disaster. The very same events were impressing Goldwin Smith at +the very same moment with his famous prophecy that the abolition of all +dynastic and aristocratic institutions was at hand, with "the tranquil +inauguration" of elective industrial governments throughout the world. +So history moves doggedly on, _propheten rechts, propheten links_, a +perfectly impassive _welt-kind_ in the middle of them. In Copenhagen +Ibsen had, after all, missed Brandes, delayed in Rome by a long and +dangerous illness; and all he could do was to exchange letters with this +still unseen but increasingly sympathetic and beloved young friend. To +Brandes Ibsen wrote more freely than to any one else about the great +events which were shaking the face of Europe and occupying so much of +both their thoughts:-- + +The old, illusory France has collapsed [he wrote to Brandes on December +20, 1870, two days after the engagement at Nuits]; and as soon as the +new, real Prussia does the same, we shall be with one bound in a new +age. How ideas will then come tumbling about our ears! And it is high +time they did. Up till now we have been living on nothing but the crumbs +from the revolutionary table of last century, a food out of which all +nutriment has long been chewed. The old terms require to have a new +meaning infused into them. Liberty, equality and fraternity are no +longer the things they were in the days of the late-lamented Guillotine. +This is what the politicians will not understand, and therefore, I hate +them. They want their own special revolutions--revolutions in externals, +in politics and so forth. But all this is mere trifling. What is +all-important is the revolution of the Spirit of Man. + +This revolution, as exemplified by the Commune in Paris, did not satisfy +the anticipations which Ibsen had formed, and Brandes took advantage of +this to tell him that he .had not yet studied politics minutely enough +from the scientific standpoint. Ibsen replied that what he did not +possess as knowledge came to him, to a certain degree, as intuition or +instinct. "Let this be as it may, the poet's essential task is to see, +not to reflect. For me in particular there would be danger in too much +reflection." Ibsen seems, at this time, to be in an oscillating frame of +mind, now bent on forming some positive theory of life out of which his +imaginative works shall crystallize, harmoniously explanatory; at +another time, anxious to be unhampered by theories and principles, and +to represent individuals and exceptions exactly as experience presents +them to him. In neither attitude, however, is there discernible any +trace of the moral physician, and this is the central distinction +between Tolstoi and Ibsen, whose methods, at first sight, sometimes +appear so similar. Tolstoi analyzes a morbid condition, but always with +the purpose, if he can, of curing it; Ibsen gives it even closer +clinical attention, but he leaves to others the care of removing a +disease which his business is solely to diagnose. + +The _Poems_, after infinite revision, were published at length, in a +very large edition, on May 3, 1871. One reason why Ibsen was glad to get +this book off his hands was that it enabled him to concentrate his +thoughts on the great drama he had been projecting, at intervals, for +seven years past, the trilogy (as he then planned it) on the story of +Julian the Apostate. At last Brandes came to Dresden (July, 1871) and +found the tenebrous poet plunged in the study of Neander and Strauss, +Gibbon unfortunately being a sealed book to him. All through the autumn +and winter he was kept in a chronic state of irritability by the +intrigues and the menaces of a Norwegian pirate, who threatened to +reprint, for his own profit, Ibsen's early and insufficiently protected +writings. This exacerbated the poet's dislike to his own country, where +the very law courts, he thought, were hostile to him. On this subject he +used language of tiresome over-emphasis. "From Sweden, from Denmark, +from Germany, I hear nothing but what gives me pleasure; it is from +Norway that everything bad comes upon me." It was indicated to would-be +Norwegian visitors that they were not welcome at Dresden. Norwegian +friends, he said, were "a costly luxury" which he was obliged to deny +himself. + +The First Part of _Julian_ was finished on Christmas Day, but it took +over a year more before the entire work, as we now possess it, was +completed. "A Herculean labor," the author called it, when he finally +laid down a weary pen in February, 1873. The year 1872 had been very +quietly spent in unremitting literary labor, tempered by genial visits +from some illustrious Danes of the older generation, as particularly +Hans Christian Andersen and Meyer Aron Goldschmidt, and by more formal +intercourse with a few Germans such as Konrad Maurer and Paul Heyse; all +this time, let us remember, no Norwegians--"by request." The summer was +spent in long rambles over the mountains of Austria, ending up with a +month of deep repose in Berchtesgaden. The next year was like unto this, +except that its roaming, restless summer closed with several months in +Vienna; and on October 17, 1873, _nonum in annum_, after the Horatian +counsel, the prodigious masterpiece, _Emperor and Galilean_, was +published in Copenhagen at last. + +Of all the writings of Ibsen, his huge double drama on the rise and fall +of Julian is the most extensive and the most ambitious. It is not +difficult to understand what it was about the most subtle and the most +speculative of the figures which animate the decline of antiquity that +fascinated the imagination of Ibsen. Successive historians have +celebrated the flexibility of intelligence and firmness of purpose which +were combined in the brain of Julian with a passion for abstract beauty +and an enthusiasm for a restored system of pagan Hellenic worship. There +was an individuality about Julian, an absence of the common purple +convention, of the imperial rhetoric, which strongly commended him to +Ibsen, and in his perverse ascetic revolt against Christianity he +offered a fascinating originality to one who thought the modern world +all out of joint. As a revolutionary, Julian presented ideas of +character which could not but passionately attract the Norwegian poet. +His attitude to his emperor and to his God, sceptical, in each case, in +each case inspired by no vulgar motive but by a species of lofty and +melancholy fatalism, promised a theme of the most entrancing complexity. +But there are curious traces in Ibsen's correspondence of the +difficulty, very strange in his case, which he experienced in forming a +concrete idea of Julian in his own mind. He had been vaguely drawn to +the theme, and when it was too late to recede, he found himself baffled +by the paradoxes which he encountered, and by the contradictions of a +figure seen darkly through a mist of historical detraction. + +He met these difficulties as well as he could, and as a prudent dramatic +poet should, by close and observant study of the document. He endeavored +to reconcile the evident superiority of Julian with the absurd +eccentricities of his private manners and with the futility of his +public acts. He noted all the Apostate's foibles by the side of his +virtues and his magnanimities. He traced without hesitation the course +of that strange insurrection which hurled a coarse fanatic from the +throne, only to place in his room a literary pedant with inked fingers +and populous beard. He accepted everything, from the parasites to the +purple slippers. The dangers of so humble an attendance upon history +were escaped with success in the first instalment of his "world drama." +In the strong and mounting scenes of _Caesar's Apostacy_, the rapidity +with which the incidents succeed one another, their inherent +significance, the innocent splendor of Julian's mind in its first +emancipation from the chains of false faith, combine to produce an +effect of high dramatic beauty. Georg Brandes, whose instinct in such +matters was almost infallible, when he read the First Part shortly after +its composition, entreated Ibsen to give this, as it stood, to the +public, and to let _The Emperor Julian's End_ follow independently. Had +Ibsen consented to do this, _Caesar's Fall_ would certainly take a +higher place among his works than it does at present, when its effect is +somewhat amputated and its meaning threatened with incoherence by the +author's apparent _volteface_ in the Second Part. + +It was a lifelong disappointment to Ibsen that _Emperor and Galilean_, +on which he expended far more consideration and labor than on any other +of his works, was never a favorite either with the public or among the +critics. With the best will in the world, however, it is not easy to +find full enjoyment in this gigantic work, which by some caprice of +style defiant of analysis, lacks the vitality which is usually +characteristic of Ibsen's least production. The speeches put into the +mouths of antique characters are appropriate, but they are seldom vivid; +as Bentley said of the epistles of Julian's own teacher Libanius, "You +feel by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse with some +dreaming pedant, his elbow on his desk." The scheme of Ibsen's drama was +too vast for the very minute and meticulous method he chose to adopt. +What he gives us is an immense canvas, on which he has painted here and +there in miniature. It is a pity that he chose for dramatic +representation so enormous a field. It would have suited his genius far +better to have abandoned any attempt to write a conclusive history, and +have selected some critical moment in the life of Julian. He should +rather have concentrated his energies, independent of the chroniclers, +on the resuscitation of that episode, and in the course of it have +trembled less humbly under the uplifted finger of Ammianus. + +Of _Emperor and Galilean_ Ibsen afterwards said: "It was the first" (but +he might have added "the only") "poem which I have written under the +influence of German ideas." He was aware of the danger of living too +long away from his own order of thought and language. But it was always +difficult for him, once planted in a place, to pull up his roots. A +weariness took possession of him after the publication of his double +drama, and he did practically nothing for four years. This marks a +central joint in the structure of his career, what the architects call a +"channel" in it, adding to the general retrospect of Ibsen's work an +aspect of solidity and resource. During these years he revised some of +his early writings, made a closer study of the arts of sculpture and +painting, and essayed, without satisfaction, a very brief sojourn in +Norway. In the spring of 1875 he definitely moved with his family from +Dresden to Munich. + +The brief visit to Christiania in 1874 proved very unfortunate. Ibsen +was suspicious, the Norwegians of that generation were constitutionally +stiff and reserved; long years among Southern races had accustomed him +to a plenitude in gesture and emphasis. He suffered, all the brief time +he was in Norway, from an intolerable _malaise_. Ten years afterwards, +in writing to Bjoernson, the discomfort of that experience was still +unallayed. "I have not yet saved nearly enough," he said, "to support +myself and my family in the case of my discontinuing my literary work. +And I should be obliged to discontinue it if I lived in Christiania. ... +This simply means that I should not write at all. When, ten years ago, +after an absence of ten years, I sailed up the fjord, I felt a weight +settling down on my breast, a feeling of actual physical oppression. And +this feeling lasted all the time I was at home; I was not myself under +the stare of all those cold, uncomprehending Norwegian eyes at the +windows and in the streets." + +Ibsen had now been more than ten years am exile from Norway, and his +sentiments with regard to his own people were still what they were when, +in July, 1872, he had sent home his _Ode for the Millenary Festival_. +That very striking poem, one of the most solid of Ibsen's lyrical +performances, had opened in the key of unmitigated defiance to popular +opinion at home. It was intended to show Norwegians that they must alter +their attitude towards him, as he would never change his behavior +towards them. "My countrymen," he said:-- + + My countrymen, who filled for me deep bowls + Of wholesome bitter medicine, such as gave + The poet, on the margin of his grave, + Fresh force to fight where broken twilight rolls,-- + My countrymen, who sped me o'er the wave, + An exile, with my griefs for pilgrim-soles, + My fears for burdens, doubts for staff, to roam,-- + From the wide world I send you greeting home. + + I send you thanks for gifts that help and harden, + Thanks for each hour of purifying pain; + Each plant that springs in my poetic garden + Is rooted where your harshness poured its rain; + Each shoot in which it blooms and burgeons forth + It owes to that gray weather from the North; + The sun relaxes, but the fog secures! + My country, thanks! My life's best gifts were yours. + +In spite of these sardonic acknowledgments. Ibsen's fame in Norway, +though still disputed, was now secure. In Denmark and Sweden it was +almost unchallenged, and he was a name, at least, in Germany. In +England, since 1872, he had not been without a prophet. But in Italy, +Russia, France--three countries upon the intelligence of which he was +presently to make a wide and durable impression--he was still quite +unknown. + +Meanwhile, in glancing over the general literature of Europe, we see his +figure, at the threshold of his fiftieth year, taking greater and +greater prominence. He had become, in the sudden exinction of the +illustrious old men of Denmark, the first living writer of the North. He +was to Norway what Valera was to Spain, Carducci to Italy, Swinburne or +Rossetti to England, and Leconte de Lisle to France. These were mainly +lyrical poets, but it must not be forgotten that Ibsen, down at least +till 1871, was prominently illustrious as a writer in metrical form. If, +in the second portion of his career, he resolutely deprived himself of +all indulgence in the ornament of verse, it was a voluntary act of +austerity. It was Charles V at Yuste, wilfully exchanging the crown of +jewels for the coarse brown cowl of St. Jerome. And now, after a year or +two of prayer and fasting, Ibsen began a new intellectual career. +CHAPTER VI + +1875-82 + +While Ibsen was sitting at Munich, in this climacteric stage of his +career, dreaming of wonderful things and doing nothing, there came to +him, in the early months of 1875, two new plays by his chief rival. +These were _The Editor_ and _A Bankruptcy_, in which Bjoernson suddenly +swooped from his sagas and his romances down into the middle of sordid +modern life. This was his first attempt at that "photography by comedy" +which he had urged on Ibsen in 1868. It is not, I think, recorded what +was Ibsen's comment on these two plays, and particularly on _A +Bankruptcy_, but it is written broadly over the surface of his own next +work. It is obvious that he perceived that Bjoernson had carried a very +spirited raid into his own particular province, and he was determined to +drive this audacious enemy back by means of greater audacities. + +Not at once, however; for an extraordinary languor seemed to have fallen +upon Ibsen. His isolation from society became extreme; for nearly a year +he gave no sign of life. In September, 1875, indeed, if not earlier, he +was at work on a five-act play, but what this was is unknown. It seems +to have been in the winter of 1876, after an unprecedented period of +inanimation, that he started a new comedy, _The Pillars of Society_, +which was finished in Munich in July, 1877, that summer being unique in +the fact that the Ibsens do not seem to have left town at all. + +Ibsen was now a good deal altered in the exteriors of character. With +his fiftieth year he presents himself as no more the Poet, but the Man +of Business. Molbech told me that at this time the velveteen jacket, +symbol of the dear delays of art, was discarded in favor of a frock- +coat, too tight across the chest. Ibsen was now beginning, rather shyly, +very craftily, to invest money; he even found himself in frequent +straits for ready coin from his acute impatience to set every rix-dollar +breeding. He cast the suspicion of poetry from him, and with his gold +spectacles, his Dundreary whiskers, his broadcloth bosom and his quick +staccato step, he adopted the pose of a gentleman of affairs, very +positive and with no nonsense about him. + +He had long determined on the wilful abandonment of poetic form, and the +famous statement made in a letter to myself (January 15, 1874) must be +quoted, although it is well known, since it contains the clearest of all +the explanations by which Ibsen justified his new departure:-- + +You are of opinion that the drama [_Emperor and Galilean_] ought to have +been written in verse, and that it would have gained by this. Here I +must differ from you. The play is, as you will have observed, conceived +in the most realistic style: the illusion I wished to produce is that of +reality. I wished to produce the impression on the reader that what he +was reading was something that had really happened. If I had employed +verse, I should have counteracted my own intention and prevented the +accomplishment of the task I had set myself. The many ordinary +insignificant characters whom I have intentionally introduced into the +play would have become indistinct, and indistinguishable from one +another, if I had allowed all of them to speak in one and the same +rhythmical measure. We are no longer living in the days of Shakespeare. +Among sculptors there is already talk of painting statues in the natural +colors. Much can be said both for and against this. I have no desire to +see the Venus of Milo painted, but I would rather see the head of a +negro executed in black than in white marble. Speaking generally, the +style must conform to the degree of ideality which pervades the +representation. My new drama is no tragedy in the ancient acceptation; +what I desired to depict were human beings, and therefore I would not +let them talk "the language of the Gods." + +This revolt against dramatic verse was a feature of the epoch. In 1877 +Alphonse Daudet was to write of a comedy, "Mais, helas! cette piece est +en vers, et l'ennui s'y promene librement entre les rimes." + +No poet, however, sacrificed so much, or held so rigidly to his +intention of reproducing the exact language of real life, as did Ibsen +in the series of plays which opens with _The Pillars of Society_. This +drama was published in Copenhagen in October, 1877, and was acted almost +immediately in Denmark, Sweden and Norway; it had the good fortune to be +taken up warmly in Germany. What Ibsen's idea was, in the new sort of +realistic drama which he was inventing, was, in fact, perceived at once +by German audiences, although it was not always approved of. He was the +guest of the theatromaniac Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and _The Pillars of +Society_ was played in many parts of Germany. In Scandinavia the book of +the play sold well, and the piece had some success on the boards, but it +did not create anything like so much excitement as the author had hoped +that it would. Danish taste pronounced it "too German." + +For the fact that _The Pillars of Society_, except in Scandinavia and +Germany, did not then, and never has since, taken a permanent hold upon +the theatre, Mr. William Archer gives a reason which cannot be +controverted, namely, that by the time the other foreign publics had +fully awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown +the phase of his development marked by _Pillars of Society_, that the +play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned. It exactly suited the +German public of the eighties; it was exactly on a level with their +theatrical intelligence. But it was above the theatrical intelligence of +the Anglo-American public, and ... below that of the French public. This +is of course an exaggeration. What I mean is that there was no possible +reason why the countrymen of Augier and Dumas should take any special +interest in _Pillars of Society_. It was not obviously in advance of +these masters in technical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment +running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of +that period. + +The subject of _The Pillars of Society_ was the hollowness and +rottenness of those supports, and the severe and unornamented prose +which Ibsen now adopted was very favorable to its discussion. He was +accused, however, of having lived so long away from home as to have +fallen out of touch with real Norwegian life, which he studied in the +convex mirror of the newspapers. It is more serious objection to _The +Pillars of Society_ that in it, as little as in _The League of Youth_, +had Ibsen cut himself off from the traditions of the well-made play. +Gloomy and homely as are the earlier acts, Ibsen sees as yet no way out +of the imbroglio but that known to Scribe and the masters of the "well- +made" play. The social hypocrisy of Consul Bernick is condoned by a sort +of death-bed repentance at the close, which is very much of the usual +"bless-ye-my-children" order. The loss of the Indian Girl is +miraculously prevented, and at the end the characters are solemnized and +warned, yet are left essentially none the worse for their alarm. This, +unfortunately, is not the mode in which the sins of scheming people find +them out in real life. But to the historical critic it is very +interesting to see Bjoernson and Ibsen nearer one another in _A +Bankruptcy_ and _The Pillars of Society_ than they had ever been before. +They now started on a course of eager, though benevolent, rivalry which +was eminently to the advantage of each of them. + +No feature of Ibsen's personal career is more interesting than his +relation to Bjoernson. Great as the genius of Ibsen was, yet, rating it +as ungrudgingly as possible, we have to admit that Bjoernson's character +was the more magnetic and more radiant of the two. Ibsen was a citizen +of the world; he belonged, in a very remarkable degree, to the small +class of men whose intelligence lifts them above the narrowness of local +conditions, who belong to civilization at large, not to the system of +one particular nation. He was, in consequence, endowed, almost +automatically, with the instinct of regarding ideas from a central +point; if he was to be limited at all, he might be styled European, +although, perhaps, few Western citizens would have had less difficulty +than he in making themselves comprehended by a Chinese, Japanese or +Indian mind of unusual breadth and cultivation. On the other hand, in +accepting the advantages of this large mental outlook, he was forced to +abandon those of nationality. No one can say that Ibsen was, until near +the end of his life, a good Norwegian, and he failed, by his utterances, +to vibrate the local mind. But Bjoernson, with less originality, was the +typical patriot in literature, and what he said, and thought, and wrote +was calculated to stir the local conscience to the depths of its being. + +When, therefore, in 1867, Ibsen, who was bound by all natural +obligations and tendencies to remain on the best terms with Bjoernson, +allowed the old friendship between them to lapse into positive +antagonism, he was following the irresistible evolution of his fate, as +Bjoernson was following his. It was as inevitable that Ibsen should grow +to his full height in solitude as it was that Bjoernson should pine +unless he was fed by the dew and sunlight of popular meetings, +torchlight processions of students and passionate appeals to local +sentiment. Trivial causes, such as those which we have chronicled +earlier, might seem to lead up to a division, but that division was +really inherent in the growth of the two men. + +Ibsen, however, was not wholly a gainer at first even in genius, by the +separation. It cut him off from Norway too entirely, and it threw him +into the arms of Germany. There were thirteen years in which Ibsen and +Bjoernson were nothing to one another, and these were not years of +unmingled mental happiness for either of them. But during this long +period each of these very remarkable men "came into his kingdom," and +when there was no longer any chance that either of there could warp the +nature of the other, fate brought them once more together. + +The reconciliation began, of course, with a gracious movement from +Bjoernson. At the end of 1880, writing for American readers, Bjoernson had +the generous candor to say: "I think I have a pretty thorough +acquaintance with the dramatic literature of the world, and I have not +the slightest hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen possesses more +dramatic power than any other play-writer of our day." When we remember +that, in France alone, Augier and Dumas _fils_ and Hugo, Halevy and +Meilhac and Labiche, were all of them alive, the compliment, though a +sound, was a vivid one. Sooner or later, everything that was said about +Ibsen, though it were whispered in Choctaw behind the altar of a Burmese +temple, came round to Ibsen's ears, and this handsome tribute from the +rival produced its effect. And when, shortly afterwards, still in +America, Bjoernson was nearly killed in a railway accident, Ibsen broke +the long silence by writing to him a most cordial letter of +congratulation. + +The next incident was the publication of _Ghosts_, when Bjoernson, now +thoroughly roused, stood out almost alone, throwing the vast prestige of +his judgment into the empty scale against the otherwise unanimous black- +balling. Then the reconcilement was full and fraternal, and Ibsen wrote +from Rome (January 24, 1882), with an emotion rare indeed for him: "The +only man in Norway who has frankly, boldly and generously taken my part +is Bjoernson. It is just like him; he has, in truth, a great, a kingly +soul; and I shall never forget what he has done now." Six months later, +on occasion of Bjoernson's jubilee, Ibsen telegraphed: "My thanks for the +work done side by side with me in the service of freedom these twenty- +five years." These words wiped away all unhappy memories of the past; +they gave public recognition to the fact that, though the two great +poets had been divided for half a generation by the forces of +circumstance, they had both been fighting at wings of the same army +against the common enemy. + +This, however, takes us for the moment a little too far ahead. After the +publication of _The Pillars of Society_, Ibsen remained quiet for some +time; indeed, from this date we find him adopting the practice which was +to be regular with him henceforth, namely, that of letting his mind lie +fallow for one year after the issue of each of his works, and then +spending another year in the formation of the new play. Munich gradually +became tedious to him, and he justly observed that the pressure of +German surroundings was unfavorable to the healthy evolution of his +genius. In 1878 he went back to Rome, which, although it was no longer +the quiet and aristocratic Rome of Papal days, was still immensely +attractive to his temperament. He was now, in some measure, "a person of +means," and he made the habit of connoisseurship his hobby. He formed a +small collection of pictures, selecting works with, as he believed, +great care. The result could be seen long afterwards by those who +visited him in his final affluence, for they hung round the rooms of the +sumptuous flat in which he spent his old age and in which he died. His +taste, as far as one remembers, was for the Italian masters of the +decline, and whether he selected pictures with a good judgment must be +left for others to decide. Probably he shared with Shelley a fondness +for the Guercinos and the Guido Renis, whom we can now admire only in +defiance of Ruskin. + +In April, 1879, it is understood, a story was told him of an incident in +the Danish courts, the adventure of a young married woman in one of the +small towns of Zealand, which set his thoughts running on a new dramatic +enterprise. He was still curiously irritated by contemplating, in his +mind's eye, the "respectable, estimable narrowmindedness and +worldliness" of social conditions in Norway, where there was no +aristocracy, and where a lower middle-class took the place of a +nobility, with, as he thought, sordid results. But he was no longer +suffering from what he himself had called "the feeling of an insane man +staring at one single, hopelessly black spot." He went to Amalfi for the +summer, and in that delightful spot, so curiously out of keeping with +his present rigidly prosaic mood, he set himself to write what is +probably the most widely famous of all his works, _A Doll's House_. The +day before he started he wrote to me from Rome (in an unpublished letter +of July 4, 1879): "I have been living here with my family since +September last, and most of that time I have been occupied with the idea +of a new dramatic work, which I shall now soon finish, and which will be +published in October. It is a serious drama, really a family drama, +dealing with modern conditions and in particular with the problems which +complicate marriage." This play he finished, lingering at Amalfi, in +September, 1879. It was an engineer's experiment at turning up and +draining a corner of the moral swamp which Norwegian society seemed to +be to his violent and ironic spirit. + +_A Doll's House_ was Ibsen's first unqualified success. Not merely was +it the earliest of his plays which excited universal discussion, but in +its construction and execution it carried out much further than its +immediate precursors Ibsen's new ideal as an unwavering realist. Mr. +Arthur Symons has well said [Note: The _Quarterly Review_ for October, +1906.] that "_A Doll's House_ is the first of Ibsen's plays in which the +puppets have no visible wires." It may even be said that it was the +first modern drama in which no wires had been employed. Not that even +here the execution is perfect, as Ibsen afterwards made it. The arm of +coincidence is terribly shortened, and the early acts, clever and +entertaining as they are, are still far from the inevitability of real +life. But when, in the wonderful last act, Nora issues from her bedroom, +dressed to go out, to Helmer's and the audience's stupefaction, and when +the agitated pair sit down to "have it out," face to face across the +table, then indeed the spectator feels that a new thing has been born in +drama, and, incidentally, that the "well-made play" has suddenly become +as dead as Queen Anne. The grimness, the intensity of life, are amazing +in this final scene, where the old happy ending is completely abandoned +for the first time, and where the paradox of life is presented without +the least shuffling or evasion. + +It was extraordinary how suddenly it was realized that _A Doll's House_ +was a prodigious performance. All Scandinavia rang with Nora's +"declaration of independence." People left the theatre, night after +night, pale with excitement, arguing, quarrelling, challenging. The +inner being had been unveiled for a moment, and new catchwords were +repeated from mouth to mouth. The great statement and reply--"No man +sacrifices his honor, even for one he loves," "Hundreds of thousands of +women have done so!"--roused interminable discussion in countless family +circles. The disputes were at one time so violent as to threaten the +peace of households; a school of imitators at once sprang up to treat +the situation, from slightly different points of view, in novel, poem +and drama. [Note: The reader who desires to obtain further light on the +technical quality of _A Doll's House_ can do no better than refer to Mr. +William Archer's elaborate analysis of it (_Fortnightly Review_, July, +1906.)] + +The universal excitement which Ibsen had vainly hoped would be awakened +by _The Pillars of Society_ came, when he was not expecting it, to greet +_A Doll's House_. Ibsen was stirred by the reception of his latest play +into a mood rather different from that which he expressed at any other +period. As has often been said, he did not pose as a prophet or as a +reformer, but it did occur to him now that he might exercise a strong +moral influence, and in writing to his German translator, Ludwig +Passarge, he said (June 16, 1880): + +Everything that I have written has the closest possible connection with +what I have lived through, even if it has not been my own personal +experience; in every new poem or play I have aimed at my own spiritual +emancipation and purification--for a man shares the responsibility and +the guilt of the society to which he belongs. + +It was in this spirit of unusual gravity that he sat down to the +composition of _Ghosts_. There is little or no record of how he occupied +himself at Munich and Berchtesgaden in 1880, except that in March he +began to sketch, and then abandoned, what afterwards became _The Lady +from the Sea_. In the autumn of that year, indulging once more his +curious restlessness, he took all his household gods and goods again to +Rome. His thoughts turned away from dramatic art for a moment, and he +planned an autobiography, which was to deal with the gradual development +of his mind, and to be called _From Skien to Rome_. Whether he actually +wrote any of this seems uncertain; that he should have planned it shows +a certain sense of maturity, a suspicion that, now in his fifty-third +year, he might be nearly at the end of his resources. As a matter of +fact, he was just entering upon a new inheritance. In the summer of 1881 +he went, as usual now, to Sorrento, and there [Note: So the authorities +state: but in an unpublished letter to myself, dated Rome, November 26, +1880, I find Ibsen saying, "Just now I am beginning to exercise my +thoughts over a new drama; I hope I shall finish it in the course of +next summer." It seems to have been already his habit to meditate long +about a subject before it took any definite literary form in his mind.] +the plot of _Ghosts_ revealed itself to him. This work was composed with +more than Ibsen's customary care, and was published at the beginning of +December, in an edition of ten thousand copies. + +Before the end of 1881 Ibsen was aware of the terrific turmoil which +_Ghosts_ had begun to occasion. He wrote to Passarge: "My new play has +now appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian +press. Every day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or +praising it. I consider it absolutely impossible that any German theatre +will accept the play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to +play it in any Scandinavian country for some time to come." It was, in +fact, not acted publicly anywhere until 1883, when the Swedes ventured +to try it, and the Germans followed in 1887. The Danes resisted it much +longer. + +Ibsen declared that he was quite prepared for the hubbub; he would +doubtless have been much disappointed if it had not taken place; +nevertheless, he was disconcerted at the volume and the violence of the +attacks. Yet he must have known that in the existing condition of +society, and the limited range of what was then thought a defensible +criticism of that condition, _Ghosts_ must cause a virulent scandal. +There has been, especially in Germany, a great deal of medico- +philosophical exposure of the under-side of life since 1880. It is +hardly possible that, there, or in any really civilized country, an +analysis of the causes of what is, after all, one of the simplest and +most conventional forms of hereditary disease could again excite such a +startling revulsion of feeling. Krafft-Ebing and a crew of +investigators, Strindberg, Brieux, Hauptmann, and a score of probing +playwrights all over the Continent, have gone further and often fared +much worse than Ibsen did when he dived into the family history of +Kammerherre Alving. When we read _Ghosts_ to-day we cannot recapture the +"new shudder" which it gave us a quarter of a century ago. Yet it must +not be forgotten that the publication of it, in that hide-bound time, +was an act of extraordinary courage. Georg Brandes, always clearsighted, +was alone in being able to perceive at once that _Ghosts_ was no attack +on society, but an effort to place the responsibilities of men and women +on a wholesomer and surer footing, by direct reference to the relation +of both to the child. + +When the same eminent critic, however, went on to say that _Ghosts_ was +"a poetic treatment of the question of heredity," it was more difficult +to follow him. Now that the flash and shock of the playwright's audacity +are discounted, it is natural to ask ourselves whether, as a work of +pure art, _Ghosts_ stands high among Ibsen's writings. I confess, for my +own part, that it seems to me deprived of "poetic" treatment, that is to +say, of grace, charm and suppleness, to an almost fatal extent. It is +extremely original, extremely vivid and stimulating, but, so far as a +foreigner may judge, the dialogue seems stilted and uniform, the +characters, with certain obvious exceptions, rather types than persons. +In the old fighting days it was necessary to praise _Ghosts_ with +extravagance, because the vituperation of the enemy was so stupid and +offensive, but now that there are no serious adversaries left, cooler +judgment admits--not one word that the idiot-adversary said, but--that +there are more convincing plays than _Ghosts_ in Ibsen's repertory. + +Up to this time, Ibsen had been looked upon as the mainstay of the +Conservative party in Norway, in opposition to Bjoernson, who led the +Radicals. But the author of _Ghosts_, who was accused of disseminating +anarchism and nihilism, was now smartly drummed out of the Tory camp +without being welcomed among the Liberals. Each party was eager to +disown him. He was like Coriolanus, when he was deserted by nobles and +people alike, and + +suffer'd by the voice of slaves to be Whoop'd out of Rome. + +The situation gave Ibsen occasion, from the perspective of his exile, to +form some impressions of political life which were at once pungent and +dignified: + +"I am more and more confirmed" [he said, Jan, 3, 1882] "in my belief +that there is something demoralizing in politics and parties. I, at any +rate, shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its +side. Bjoernson says, 'The majority is always right'; and as a practical +politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, of +necessity say, 'The minority is always right.'" + +In order to place this view clearly before his countrymen, he set about +composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most +successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward +in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with +preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, which he spent at +what was now to be for many years his favorite summer resort, Gossensass +in the Tyrol, a place which is consecrated to the memory of Ibsen in the +way that Pornic belongs to Robert Browning and the Bel Alp to Tyndall, +holiday homes in foreign countries, dedicated to blissful work without +disturbance. Here, at a spot now officially named the "Ibsenplatz," he +composed _The Enemy of the People_, engrossed in his invention as was +his wont, reading nothing and thinking of nothing but of the persons +whose history he was weaving. Oddly enough, he thought that this, too, +was to be a "placable" play, written to amuse and stimulate, but +calculated to wound nobody's feelings. The fact was that Ibsen, like +some ocelot or panther of the rocks, had a paw much heavier than he +himself realized, and his "play," in both senses, was a very serious +affair, when he descended to sport with common humanity. + +Another quotation, this time from a letter to Brandes, must be given to +show what Ibsen's attitude was at this moment to his fatherland and to +his art: + +"When I think how slow and heavy and dull the general intelligence is at +home, when I notice the low standard by which everything is judged, a +deep despondency comes over me, and it often seems to me that I might +just as well end my literary activity at once. They really do not need +poetry at home; they get along so well with the party newspapers and the +_Lutheran Weekly_." + +If Ibsen thought that he was offering them "poetry" in _The Enemy of the +People_, he spoke in a Scandinavian sense. Our criticism has never +opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as +poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser +or more unqualified prose than _The Enemy of the People_, without a +tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book. It is, +nevertheless, one of the most certainly successful of its author's +writings; as a stage-play it rivets the attention; as a pamphlet it +awakens irresistible sympathy; as a specimen of dramatic art, its +construction and evolution are almost faultless. Under a transparent +allegory, it describes the treatment which Ibsen himself had received at +the hands of the Norwegian public for venturing to tell them that their +spa should be drained before visitors were invited to flock to it. +Nevertheless, the playwright has not made the mistake of identifying his +own figure with that of Dr. Stockmann, who is an entirely independent +creation. Mr. Archer has compared the hero with Colonel Newcome, whose +loquacious amicability he does share, but Stockmann's character has much +more energy and initiative than Colonel Newcome's, whom we could never +fancy rousing himself "to purge society." + +Ibsen's practical wisdom in taking the bull by the horns in his reply to +the national reception of _Ghosts_ was proved by the instant success of +_The Enemy of the People_. Presented to the public in this new and +audacious form, the problem of a "moral water-supply" struck sensible +Norwegians as less absurd and less dangerous than they had conceived it +to be. The reproof was mordant, and the worst offenders crouched under +the lash. _Ghosts_ itself was still, for some time, tabooed, but _The +Enemy of the People_ received a cordial welcome, and has remained ever +since one of the most popular of Ibsen's writings. It is still extremely +effective on the stage, and as it is lightened by more humor than the +author is commonly willing to employ, it attracts even those who are +hostile to the intrusion of anything solemn behind the footlights. +CHAPTER VII + +1883-91 + +With the appearance of _An Enemy of the People_, which was published in +November, 1882, Ibsen entered upon a new stage in his career. He had +completely broken with the Conservative party in Norway, without having +gratified or won the confidence of the Liberals. He was now in personal +relations of friendliness with Bjoernson, whose generous approval of his +work as a dramatist sustained his spirits, but his own individualism had +been intensified by the hostile reception of _Ghosts_. His life was now +divided between Rome in the winter and Gossensass in the summer, and in +the Italian city, as in the Tyrolese village, he wandered solitary, +taciturn, absorbed in his own thoughts. His meditations led him more and +more into a lonely state. He floated, as on a prophet's carpet, between +the political heavens and earth, capriciously refusing to ascend or to +alight. He had come to a sceptical stage in his mental evolution, a +stage in which he was to remain for a considerable time, gradually +modifying it in a conservative direction. One wonders what the simple- +minded and stalwart Bjoernson thought of being quietly told (March 28, +1884) that the lower classes are nowhere liberal-minded or self- +sacrificing, and that "in the views expressed by our [Norwegian] +peasants there is not an atom more of real Liberalism than is to be +found among the ultramontane peasantry of the Tyrol." In politics Ibsen +had now become a pagan; "I do not believe," he said, "in the +emancipatory power of political measures, nor have I much confidence in +the altruism and good will of those in power." This sense of the +uselessness of effort is strongly marked in the course of the next work +on which he was engaged, the very brilliant, but saturnine and sardonic +tragi-comedy of _The Wild Duck_. The first sketch of it was made during +the spring of 1884 in Rome, but the dramatist took it to Gossensass with +him for the finishing touches, and did not perfect it until the autumn. +It is remarkable that Ibsen invariably speaks of _The Wild Duck_, when +he mentions it in his correspondence, in terms of irony. He calls it a +collection of crazy tricks or tomfooleries, _galskaber_, an expression +which carries with it, in this sense, a confession of wilful paradox. In +something of the same spirit, Robert Browning, in the old days before he +was comprehended, used to speak of "the entirely unintelligible +_Sordello_," as if, sarcastically, to meet criticism half-way. + +When _The Wild Duck_ was first circulated among Ibsen's admirers, it was +received with some bewilderment. Quite slowly the idea received +acceptance that the hitherto so serious and even angry satirist was, to +put it plainly, laughing at himself. The faithful were reluctant to +concede it. But one sees now, clearly enough, that in a sense it was so. +I have tried to show, we imagine Ibsen saying, that your hypocritical +sentimentality needs correction--you live in "A Doll's House." I have +dared to point out to you that your society is physically and morally +rotten and full of "Ghosts." You have repudiated my honest efforts as a +reformer, and called me "An Enemy of the People." Very well, then, have +it so if you please. What a fool am I to trouble about you at all. Go +down a steep place in Gadara and drown yourselves. If it amuses you, it +can amuse me also to be looked upon as Gregers Werle. _Vogue la galere_. +"But as the play is neither to deal with the Supreme Court, nor the +right of absolute veto, nor even with the removal of the sign of the +union from the flag," burning questions then and afterwards in Norwegian +politics, "it can hardly count upon arousing much interest in Norway"; +it will, however, amuse me immensely to point out the absurdity of my +caring. It is in reading _The Wild Duck_ that for the first time the +really astonishing resemblance which Ibsen bears to Euripedes becomes +apparent to us. This is partly because the Norwegian dramatist now +relinquishes any other central object than the presentation to his +audience of the clash of temperament, and partly because here at last, +and for the future always, he separates himself from everything that is +not catastrophe. More than any earlier play, more even than _Ghosts_, +_The Wild Duck_ is an avalanche which has begun to move, and with a +movement unaffected by the incidents of the plot, long before the +curtain rises. The later plays of Ibsen, unlike almost all other modern +dramas, depend upon nothing that happens while they are being exhibited, +but rush downwards to their inevitable close in obedience to a series of +long-precedent impulses. In order to gain this effect, the dramatist has +to be acquainted with everything that has ever happened to his +personages, and we are informed that Ibsen used to build up in his own +mind, for months at a time, the past history of his puppets. He was now +master of this practice. We are not surprised, therefore, to find one of +the most penetrating of dramatic critics remarking of _The Wild Duck_ +that "never before had the poet displayed such an amazing power of +fascinating and absorbing us by the gradual withdrawal of veil after +veil from the past." + +The result of a searching determination to deal with personal and not +typical forms of temperament is seen in the firmness of the portraiture +in _The Wild Duck_, where, I think, less than ever before, is to be +found a trace of that incoherency which is to be met with occasionally +in all the earlier works of Ibsen, and which seems like the effect of a +sudden caprice or change of the point of view. There is, so far as I can +judge, no trace of this in _The Wild Duck_, where the continuity of +aspect is extraordinary. Confucius assures us that if we tell him our +past, he will tell us our future, and although several of the characters +in _The Wild Duck_ are the most sordid of Ibsen's creations, the author +has made himself so deeply familiar with them that they are absolutely +lifelike. The detestable Hialmar, in whom, by the looking-glass of a +disordered liver, any man may see a picture of himself; the pitiable +Gregers Werle, perpetually thirteenth at table, with his genius for +making an utter mess of other people's lives; the vulgar Gina; the +beautiful girlish figure of the little martyred Hedvig--all are wholly +real and living persons. + +The subject of the play, of course, is one which we do not expect, or +had not hitherto expected, from Ibsen. It is the danger of "a sick +conscience" and the value of illusion. Society may be full of poisonous +vapors and be built on a framework of lies; it is nevertheless prudent +to consider whether the ideal advantages of disturbing it overweigh the +practical disadvantages, and above all to bear in mind that if you rob +the average man of his illusions, you are almost sure to rob him of his +happiness. The topsy-turvy nature of a this theme made Ibsen as nearly +"rollicking" as he ever became in his life. We can imagine than as he +wrote the third act of _The Wild Duck_, where so horrible a luncheon +party--"we'll all keep a corner"--gloats over the herring salad, he +indulged again and again in those puffs of soundless and formidable +mirth which Mr. Johan Paulsen describes as so surprising an element of +conversation with Ibsen. + +To the gossip of that amiable Boswell, too, we must turn for a valuable +impression of the solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about +this time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now +successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family saw +him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if +sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to +catch him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study, +into which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to +believe, did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his +own mind, which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast and +rich than that which lay spread around him." [Note: _Samliv med Ibsen_, +1906, p. 30.] + +And now the celebrated afternoons at the cafes had begun. In Rome Ibsen +had his favorite table, and he would sit obliquely facing a mirror in +which, half hidden by a newspaper and by the glitter of his gold +spectacles, he could command a sight of the whole restaurant, and +especially of the door into the street. Every one who entered, every +couple that conversed, every movement of the scene, gave something to +those untiring eyes. The newspaper and the cafe mirror--these were the +books which, for the future, Ibsen was almost exclusively to study; and +out of the gestures of a pair of friends at a table, out of a paragraph +in a newspaper, even out of the terms of an advertisement, he could +build up a drama. Incessant observation of real life, incessant capture +of unaffected, unconsidered phrases, actual living experience leaping in +his hands like a captive wild animal, this was now the substance from +which all Ibsen's dreams and dramas were woven. Concentration of +attention on the vital play of character, this was his one interest. + +Out of this he was roused by a sudden determination to go at last and +see for himself what life in Norway was really like. A New England wit +once denied that a certain brilliant and Europe-loving American author +was a cosmopolitan. "No," he said, "a cosmopolitan is at home even in +his own country." Ibsen began to doubt whether he was not too far off to +follow events in Norway--and these were now beginning to be very +exciting--well enough to form an independent judgment about them; and +after twenty years of exile there is no doubt that the question was +fairly put. _The Wild Duck_ had been published in November, 1884, and +had been acted everywhere in Scandinavia with great success. The critics +and the public were agreed for the first time that Ibsen was a very +great national genius, and that if Norway was not proud of him it would +make a fool of itself in the eyes of Europe. + +Ibsen had said that Norway was a barbarous country, inhabited by two +millions of cats and dogs, but so many agreeable and highly-civilized +compliments found their way to him in Rome that he began to fancy that +the human element was beginning to be introduced. At all events, he +would see for himself, and in June, 1885, instead of stopping at +Gossensass, he pushed bravely on and landed in Christiania. + +At first all went well, but from the very beginning of the visit he +observed, or thought he observed, awkward phenomena. The country was +thrilled with political excitement, and it vibrated with rhetorical +resolutions which seemed to Ibsen very empty. He had a constitutional +horror of purely theoretical questions, and these were occupying Norway +from one end to the other. The King's veto, the consular difficulty, the +Swedish emblem in the national flag, these were the subjects of frenzied +discussion, and in none of these did Ibsen take any sort of pleasure. He +was not politically far-sighted, it must be confessed, nor did he guess +what practical proportions these "theoretical questions" were to assume +in the immediate future. + +That great writer and delightful associate, the Swedish poet, Count +Snoilsky, one of the few whose company never wearied or irritated Ibsen, +joined him in the far north. They spent a pleasant, quiet time together +at Molde, that enchanting little sub-arctic town, where it looks +southward over the shining fjord, with the Romsdalhorn forever guarding +the mountainous horizon. Here no politics intruded, and Ibsen, when +Snoilsky had left him, already thinking of a new drama, lingered on at +Molde, spending hours on hours at the end of the jetty, gazing into the +clear, cold sea. His passion for the sea had never betrayed him, and at +Rome, where he had long given up going to any galleries or studios, he +still haunted the house of a Norwegian marine painter, Nils Hansteen, +whose sketches reminded him of old days and recollected waters. + +But the autumn comes on apace in these high latitudes, and Ibsen had to +return to Christiania with its torchlight processions, and late noisy +feasts, and triumphant revolutionary oratory. He disliked it extremely, +and he made up his mind to go back to the indifferent South, where +people did not worry about such things. Unfortunately, the inhabitants +of Christiania did not leave him alone. They were not content to have +him among them as a retired observer, they wanted to make him stand out +definitely on one political side or the other. He was urged, at the end +of September, to receive the inevitable torchlight procession planned in +his honor by the Union of Norwegian Students. He was astute enough to +see that this might compromise his independence, but he was probably too +self-conscious in believing that a trap was being laid for him. He said +that, not having observed that his presence gave the Union any great +pleasure, he did not care to have its expression of great joy at t his +departure. This was not polite, for it does not appear that the students +had any idea that he intended to depart. He would not address a reply to +the Union as a body, but to "my friends among the students." + +A committee called upon him to beg him to reconsider his resolution, but +he roundly told them that he knew that they were reactionaries, and +wanted to annex him to their party, and that he was not blind to their +tricks. They withdrew in confusion, and Ibsen, in an agony of nervous +ness, determined to put the sea between himself and their machinations. +Early in October he retreated, or rather fled, to Copenhagen, and thence +to Munich, where he breathed again. Meanwhile, the extreme liberal +faction among the students claimed that his action had meant that he was +heart and soul with them, as against the reactionaries. A young Mr. Ove +Rode, who had interviewed him, took upon himself to say that these were +Ibsen's real sentiments. Ibsen fairly stamped with rage, and declared, +in furious communications, that all these things were done on purpose. +"It was an opportunity to insult a poet which it would have been a sad +pity to lose," he remarked, with quivering pen. A reverberant +controversy sprang up in the Norwegian newspapers, and Ibsen, in his +Bavarian harbor of refuge, continued to vibrate all through the winter +of 1885. The exile's return to his native country had proved to be far +from a success. + +Already his new play was taking shape, and the success of his great +personal ambition, namely that his son, Sigurd, should be taken with +honor into the diplomatic service of his country, did such to calm his +spirits. Ibsen was growing rich now, as well as famous, and if only the +Norwegians would let him alone, he might well be happy. The new play was +_Rosmersholm_, and it took its impulse from a speech which Ibsen had +made during his journey, at Trondhjem, where he expounded the gospel of +individualism to a respectful audience of workingmen, and had laid down +the necessity of introducing an aristocratic strain, _et adeligt +element_, into the life of a truly democratic state, a strain which +woman and labor were to unite in developing. He said: "I am thinking, of +course, not of birth, nor of money, nor even of intellect, but of the +nobility which grows out of character. It is _character_ alone which can +make us free." This nobility of character must be fostered, mainly, by +the united efforts of motherhood and labor. This was quite a new creed +in Norway, and it bewildered his hearers, but it is remarkable to notice +how the best public feeling in Scandinavia has responded to the appeal, +and how little surprise the present generation would express at a +repetition of such sentiments. And out of this idea of "nobility" of +public character _Rosmersholm_ directly sprang. + +We are not left to conjecture in this respect. In a letter to Bjoern +Kristensen (February 13, 1887), Ibsen deliberately explained, while +correcting a misconception of the purpose of _Rosmersholm_, that "the +play deals with the struggle which all serious-minded human beings have +to wage with themselves in order to bring their lives into harmony with +their convictions. ... Conscience is very conservative. It has its deep +roots in tradition and the past generally, and hence the conflict." When +we come to read _Rosmersholm_ it is not difficult to see how this order +of ideas dominated Ibsen's mind when he wrote it. The mansion called by +that name is typical of the ancient traditions of Norwegian bourgeois +aristocracy, which are not to be subservient to such modern and timid +conservatism as is represented by Rector Kroll, with his horror of all +things new because they are new. The Rosmer strain, in its inherent +nobility, is to be superior to a craven horror of the democracy, and is +to show, by the courage with which it fulfils its personal destiny, that +it looks above and beyond all these momentary prejudices, and accepts, +from all hands, whatever is wise and of good report. + +The misfortune is that Ibsen, in unconscious bondage to his ideas, did +not construct his drama sturdily enough on realistic lines. While not +one of his works is more suggestive than _Rosmersholm_, there is not one +which gives the unbeliever more opportunity to blaspheme. This ancestral +house of a great rich race, which is kept up by the ministrations of a +single aged female servant, stands in pure Cloud-Cuckoo Land. The +absence of practical amenities in the Rosmer family might be set down to +eccentricity, if all the other personages were not equally ill-provided. +Rebecca, glorious heroine according to some admirers, "criminal, thief +and murderess," as another admirer pleonastically describes her, is a +sort of troll; nobody can explain--and yet an explanation seems +requisite--what she does in the house of Rosmer. In his eagerness to +work out a certain sequence of philosophical ideas, the playwright for +once neglected to be plausible. It is a very remarkable feature of +_Rosmersholm_ that in it, for the first time, and almost for the last, +Ibsen, in the act of theorizing, loses his hold upon reality. He places +his ingenious, elaborate and--given the premises--inevitable denouement +in a scene scarcely more credible than that of a Gilbert and Sullivan +opera, and not one-tenth as amusing. Following, as it does, immediately +on the heels of _The Wild Duck_, which was as remarkable a slice of real +life as was ever brought before a theatrical audience, the artificiality +of _Rosmersholm_ shows Ibsen as an artist clearly stepping backward that +he may leap the further forward. + +In other words, _Rosmersholm_ is the proof of Ibsen's desire to conquer +another field of drama. He had now for some years rejected with great +severity all temptations from the poetic spirit, which was nevertheless +ineradicable in him. He had wished to produce on the mind of the +spectator no other impression than that he was observing something which +had actually happened, exactly in the way and the words in which it +would happen. He had formulated to the actress, Lucie Wolf, the +principle that ideal dramatic poetry should be considered extinct, "like +some preposterous animal form of prehistoric times." But the soul of man +cannot be fed with a stone, and Ibsen had now discovered that perfectly +prosaic "slices of life" may be salutary and valuable on occasion, but +that sooner or later a poet asks for more. He, therefore, a poet if ever +there was one, had grown weary of the self-made law by which he had shut +himself out from Paradise. He determined, grudgingly, and hardly knowing +how to set about it, that he would once more give the spiritual and the +imaginative qualities their place in his work. These had now been +excluded for nearly twenty years, since the publication of _Peer Gynt_, +and he would not resume them so far as to write his dramas again in +verse. Verse in drama was doomed; or if not, it was at least a juvenile +and fugitive skill not to be rashly picked up again by a business-like +bard of sixty. But he would reopen the door to allegory and symbol, and +especially to fantastic beauty of landscape. + +The landscape of Rosmersholm has all, or at least much, of the old +enchantment. The scene at the mill-dam links us once more with the woods +and the waters which we had lost sight of since _Peer Gynt_. But this +element was still more evident in _The Lady from the Sea_, which was. +published in 1888. We have seen that Ibsen spent long hours, in the +summer of 1885, at the end of the pier at Molde, gazing down into the +waters, or watching the steamers arriving and departing, coming from the +great sea beyond the fjord or going towards it. As was his wont, he +stored up these impressions, making no immediate use of them. He +actually prepared _The Lady from the Sea_ in very different, although +still marine surroundings. He went to Jutland, and settled for the +summer at the pretty and ancient, but very mild little town of Saeby, +with the sands in front of him and rolling woods behind. From Saeby it +was a short journey to Frederikshavn, "which he liked very much--he +could knock about all day among the shipping, talking to the sailors, +and so forth. Besides, he found the neighborhood of the sea favorable to +contemplation and constructive thought." So Mr. Archer, who visited him +at Saeby; and I myself, a year or two later, picked up at Frederikshavn +an oral tradition of Ibsen, with his hands behind his back, and the +frock-coat tightly buttoned, stalking, stalking alone for hours on the +interminable promenade between the great harbor moles of Frederikshaven, +no one daring to break in upon his formidable contemplation. + +In several respects, though perhaps not in concentration of effect, _The +Lady from the Sea_ shows a distinct advance on _Rosmersholm_. It is +never dull, never didactic, as its predecessor too often was, and there +is thrown over the whole texture of it a glamour of romance, of mystery, +of beauty, which had not appeared in Ibsen's work since the completion +of _Peer Gynt_. Again, after the appearance of so many strenuous +tragedies, it was pleasant to welcome a pure comedy. _The Lady from the +Sea [Note: In the _Neue Rundschau_ for December, 1906, there was +published a first draft of _The Lady from the Sea_, dating as far back +as 1800.] is connected with the previous plays by its emphatic defence +of individuality and its statement of the imperative necessity of +developing it; but the tone is sunny, and without a tinge of pessimism. +It is in some respects the reverse of _Rosmersholm_; the bitterness of +restrained and balked individuality, which ends in death, being +contrasted with the sweetness of emancipated and gratified +individuality, which leads to health and peace. To the remarkable +estimate of _The Lady from the Sea_ formed by some critics, and in +particular by M. Jules de Gaultier, we shall return in a general +consideration of the symbolic plays, of which it is the earliest. Enough +to say here that even those who did not plunge so deeply into its +mysteries found it a remarkably agreeable spectacle, and that it has +continued to be, in Scandinavia and Germany, one of the most popular of +its author's works. + +Ibsen left his little tavern at Saeby towards the end of September, +1887, in consequence of an invitation to proceed directly to Stockholm, +where his Swedish admirers, now very numerous and enthusiastic, would no +longer be deprived of the pleasure of entertaining him publicly. He +appeared before them, the breast of his coat sparkling with foreign +stars and crosses, the Urim and Thummim of general European recognition. +He was now in his sixtieth year, and he had out lived all the obscurity +of his youth. In the three Scandinavian countries--even in recalcitrant +Norway--he was universally hailed as the greatest dramatist of the age. +In Germany his fame was greater than that of any native writer of the +sang class. In Italy and Russia he was entering on a career of high and +settled popularity. Even in France and England his work was now +discussed with that passionate interest which shows the vitality of what +is even, for the moment, misinterpreted and disliked. His admirers at +Stockholm told him that he had taken a foremost place in re-creating +their sense of life, that he was a fashioner and a builder of new social +forms, that he was, indeed, to thousands of them, the Master-Builder. +The reply he made to their enthusiasm was dignified and reserved, but it +revealed a sense of high gratification. Skule's long doubt was over; he +believed at last in his own kingdom, and that the world would be +ultimately the better for the stamp of his masterful soul upon its +surface. + +It was in an unusually happy mood that he sat dreaming through the early +part of the uneventful year 1889. But it gradually sank into melancholy +when, in the following year, he settled down to the composition of a new +play which was to treat of sad thoughts and tragic passions. He told +Snoilsky that for several reasons this work made very slow progress, +"and it robbed him of his summer holidays." From May to November, 1890, +he was uninterruptedly in Munich writing what is known to us now as +_Hedda Gabler_. He finished it at last, saying as he did so, "It has not +been my desire to deal in this play with so-called problems. What I +principally wanted to do was to depict human beings, human emotions and +human destinies, upon a groundwork of certain of the social conditions +and principles of the present day." It was a proof of the immense growth +of Ibsen's celebrity that editions of _Hedda Gabler_ were called for +almost simultaneously, in the winter of 1890, in London, New York, St. +Petersburg, Leipzig, Berlin and Moscow, as well as in Copenhagen, +Stockholm and Christiania. There was no other living author in the world +at that moment who excited so much curiosity among the intellectual +classes, and none who exercised so much influence on the younger +generation of authors and thinkers. + +In _Hedda Gabler_ Ibsen returned, for the last time, but with +concentrated vigor, to the prosaic ideal of his central period. He never +succeeded in being more objective in drama, he never kept more closely +to the bare facts of nature nor rejected more vigorously the ornaments +of romance and rhetoric than in this amazing play. There is no poetic +suggestion here, no species of symbol, white horse, or gnawing thing, or +monster from the sea. I am wholly in agreement with Mr. Archer when he +says that he finds it impossible to extract any sort of general idea +from _Hedda Gabler_, or to accept it as a satire of any condition of +society. Hedda is an individual, not a type, and it was as an individual +that she interested Ibsen. We have been told, since the poet's death, +that he was greatly struck by the case, which came under his notice at +Munich, of a German lady who poisoned herself because she was bored with +life, and had strayed into a false position. _Hedda Gabler_ is the +realization of such an individual case. At first sight, it seemed as +though Ibsen had been influenced by Dumas _fils_, which might have been +true, in spite of the marked dislike which each expressed for the other; +[Note: It is said that _La Route de Thebes_, which Dumas had begun when +he died, was to have been a deliberate attack on the methods and +influence of Ibsen. Ibsen, on his part, loathed Dumas.] but closer +examination showed that Hedda Gabler had no sort of relation with the +pamphlets of the master of Parisian problem-tragedy. + +The attempt to show that _Hedda Gabler_ "proved" anything was annoying +to Ibsen, who said, with more than his customary firmness, "It was not +my purpose to deal with what people call problems in this play. What I +chiefly tried to do was to paint human beings, human emotions and human +fate, against a background of some of the conditions and laws of society +as it exists to-day." The German critics, a little puzzled to find a +longitude and latitude for Tesman's "tastefully decorated" villa, +declared that this time Ibsen had written an "international," not a +locally Norwegian, play. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the +contrary, _Hedda Gabler_ is perhaps the most fatally local and Norwegian +of all Ibsen's plays, and it presents, not of course the highly +civilized Christiania of to-day, but the half-suburban, half-rural +little straggling town of forty years ago. When I visited Norway as a +lad, I received kind but sometimes rather stiff and raw hospitality in +several tastefully decorated villas, which were as like that of the +Tesmans as pea is like pea. Why Ibsen chose to paint a "west end of +Christiania" of 1860 rather than of 1890 I cannot guess, unless it was +that to so persistent an exile the former was far more familiar than the +latter. + +A Russian actress of extreme talent, Madame Alla Nazimova, who has had +special opportunities of studying the part of Hedda Gabler, has lately +(1907) depicted her as "aristocratic and ill-mated, ambitious and doomed +to a repulsive alliance with a man beneath her station, whom she had +mistakenly hoped would give her position and wealth. In other +circumstances, Hedda would have been a power for beauty and good." If +this ingenious theory be correct, _Hedda Gabler_ must be considered as +the leading example of Ibsen's often-repeated demonstration, that evil +is produced by circumstances and not by character. The portrait becomes +thrillingly vital if we realize that the stains upon it are the impact +of accidental conditions on a nature which might otherwise have been +useful and fleckless. Hedda Gabler is painted as Mr. Sargent might paint +a lady of the London fashionable world; his brush would divine and +emphasize, as Ibsen's pen does, the disorder of her nerves, and the +ravaging concentration of her will in a sort of barren and impotent +egotism, while doing justice to the superficial attractiveness of her +cultivated physical beauty. He would show, as Ibsen shows, and with an +equal lack of malice prepense, various detestable features which the +mask of good manners had concealed. Each artist would be called a +caricaturist because his instinctive penetration had taken him into +regions where the powder-puff and the rouge-pot lose their power. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +LAST YEARS + +With the publication of _Hedda Gabler_ Ibsen passed into what we may +call his final glory. Almost insensibly, and to an accompaniment of his +own growls of indignation, he had taken his place, not merely as the +most eminent imaginative writer of the three Scandinavian countries, but +as the type there of what literature should be and the prophet of what +it would become. In 1880, Norway, the youngest and long the rawest of +the three civilizations, was now the foremost in activity, and though +the influence of Bjoernson and Jonas Lie was significant, yet it was not +to be compared for breadth and complexity with that of Ibsen. The nature +of the revolution, exercised by the subject of this memoir between 1880 +and 1890, that is to say from _Ghosts_ to _Hedda Gabler_, was +destructive before it was constructive. The poetry, fiction and drama of +the three Northern nations had become stagnant with commonplace and +conventional matter, lumbered with the recognized, inevitable and +sacrosanct forms of composition. This was particularly the case in +Sweden, where the influence of Ibsen now proved more violent and +catastrophic than anywhere else. Ibsen destroyed the attraction of the +old banal poetry; his spirit breathed upon it in fire, and in all its +faded elegance it withered up and vanished. + +The next event was that the new generation in the three Northern +countries, deprived of its traditional authorities, looked about for a +prophet and a father, and they found what they wanted in the exceedingly +uncompromising elderly gentleman who remained so silent in the cafes of +Rome and of Munich. The zeal of the young for this unseen and +unsympathetic personage was extraordinary, and took forms of amazing +extravagance. Ibsen's impassivity merely heightened the enthusiasm of +his countless admirers, who were found, it should be stated, almost +entirely among persons who were born after his exile from Norway. His +writings supplied a challenge to character and intelligence which +appealed to those who disliked the earlier system of morals and +aesthetics against which he had so long fought single-handed. + +Among writers in the North Ibsen began to hold very much the position +that Whistler was taking among painters and etchers in this country, +that is to say the abuse and ridicule of his works by a dwindling group +of elderly conventional critics merely stung into more frenzied +laudation an ever-widening circle of youthful admirers. Ibsen repented, +for a time almost exclusively, "serious" aims in literature, and with +those of Herbert Spencer, and in less measure of Zola, and a little +later of Nietzsche, his books were the spiritual food of all youthful +minds of any vigor or elasticity. + +In Sweden, at this time, the admiration for Ibsen took forms of almost +preposterous violence. The great Swedish novelist, Gustaf af Geijerstam, +has given a curious and amusing account of the rage for Ibsen which came +to its height about 1880. The question which every student asked his +friend, every lover his mistress, was "What do you think of Ibsen?" Not +to be a believer in the Norwegian master was a reef upon which love or +friendship might easily be shipwrecked. It was quoted gravely as an +insufferable incompatibility for the state of marriage. There was a +curious and secret symbolism running through the whole of youthful +Swedish society, from which their elders were cunningly excluded, by +which the volumes of Ibsen, passed from hand to hand, presented on +solemn occasions, became the emblems of the problems interesting to +generous youth, flags carried in the moral fight for liberty and truth. +The three Northern countries, in their long stagnation, had become +clogged and deadened with spiritual humbug, which had sealed the sources +of emotion. It seemed though, after the long frost of the seventies, +spring had come and literature had budded a at last, and that it was +Ibsen who had blown the clarion of the West Wind and heralded the +emancipation. + +The enthusiasm for the Norwegian dramatist was not always according to +knowledge, and sometimes it took grotesque forms. Much of the abuse +showered in England and France upon Ibsen at the time we are now +describing was due to echoes of the extravagance of his Scandinavian and +German idolaters. A Swedish satirist [Note: "Stella Kleve" (Mathilda +Malling, in _Framat_ 1886)] said that if Ibsen could have foreseen how +many "misunderstood" women would leave their homes in imitation of Nora, +and how many lovesick housekeepers drink poison on account of Rebecca, +he would have thrown ashes on his head and have retreated into the +deserts of Tartary. The suicide of the novelist, Ernst Ahlgren, was the +tragic circumstance where much was so purely comic. But if there were +elements of tragicomedy in the Ibsen idolatry, there were far more +important elements of vigorous and wholesome intellectual independence; +and it was during this period of Ibsen's almost hectic popularity that +the foundations of a new fiction and a new drama were laid in Sweden, +Denmark and Norway. A whole generation sucked strength and energy from +his early writings, since it is to be remarked that, from 1880 to 1890, +the great prestige of Ibsen did not depend so much on the dramas he was +then producing, as on the earlier works of his poetic youth, now reread +with an unexampled fervor. So, with us, the tardy popularity of Robert +Browning, which faintly resembles that of Ibsen, did not attract the +younger generation to the volumes which succeed _The Ring and the Book_, +but sent them back to the books which their fathers had despised, to +_Pippa Passes_ and _Men and Women_. To the generation of 1880, Ibsen was +not so much the author of the realistic social dramas as of those old +but now rediscovered miracles of poetry and wit, _The Pretenders_, +_Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_. + +In 1889 Ibsen had been made very pleasantly conscious of this strong +personal feeling in his favor among young men and women. Nor did he find +it confined to Scandinavia. He had travelled about in Germany, and +everywhere his plays were being acted. Berlin was wild about him; at +Weimar he was feted like a conqueror. He did not settle down at Munich +until May, and here, as we have seen, he stayed all the summer, hard at +work. After the success of _Hedda Gabler_, which overpowered all adverse +comment, Ibsen began to long to be in Norway again, and this feeling was +combined, in a curious way, with a very powerful emotion which now +entered into his life. He had lived a retired and peaceful existence, +mainly a spectator at the feast, as little occupied in helping himself +to the dishes which he saw others enjoy as is an eremite in the desert +in plucking the grape-clusters of his dreams. No adventure, of any +prominent kind, had ever been seen to diversify Ibsen's perfectly +decorous and domestic career. And now he was more than sixty, and the +gray tones were gathering round him more thickly than ever, when a real +ray of vermilion descended out of the sky and filled his horizon with +color. + +In the season of 1889, among the summer boarders at Gossensass, there +appeared a young Viennese lady of eighteen, Miss Emilie Bardach. She +used to sit on a certain bench in the Pferchthal, and when the poet, +whom she adored from afar, passed by, she had the courage to smile at +him. Strange to say, her smile was returned, and soon Ibsen was on the +bench at her side. He readily discovered where she lived; no less +readily he gained an introduction to the family with whom she boarded. +There was a window-seat in the _salle a manger_; it was deep and shaded +by odorous flowering shrubs; it lent itself to endless conversation. The +episode was strange, the passion improbable, incomprehensible, +profoundly natural and true. Perhaps, until they parted in the last days +of September, neither the old man nor the young girl realized what their +relations had meant to each. Youth secured its revenge, however; Miss +Bardach soon wrote from Vienna that she was now more tranquil, more +independent, happy at last. Ibsen, on the other hand, was heart-broken, +quivering with ecstasy, overwhelmed with joy and despair. + +It was the enigma in his "princess," as he called her; that completed +Miss Bardach's sorcery over the old poet. She seems to have been no +coquette; she flung her dangerous fascinations at his feet; she broke +the thread which bound the charms of her spirit and poured them over +him. He, for his part, remaining discreet and respectful, was shattered +with happiness. To a friend of mine, a young Norwegian man of letters, +Ibsen said about this time: "Oh, you can always love, but I am happier +than the happiest, for I am beloved." Long afterwards, on his seventieth +birthday, when his own natural force was failing, he wrote to Miss +Bardach, "That summer at Gossensass was the most beautiful and the most +harmonious portion of my whole existence. I scarcely venture to think of +it, and yet I think of nothing else. Ah! forever!" He did not dare to +send her _The Master-Builder_, since her presence interpenetrated every +line of it like a perfume, and when, we are told, she sent him her +photograph, signed "Princess of Orangia," her too-bold identification of +herself with Hilda Wangel hurt him as a rough touch, that finer tact +would have avoided. There can be no doubt at all that while she was now +largely absorbed by the compliment to her own vanity, he was still +absolutely enthralled and bewitched, and that what was fun to her made +life and death to him. + +This very curious episode [Note: It was quite unknown until the +correspondence--which has not been translated into English--was +published by Georg Brandes at the desire of the lady herself (September, +1906).], which modifies in several important respects our conception of +the dramatist's character, is analogous with the apparent change of +disposition which made Renan surprise his unthinking admirers so +suddenly at the epoch of _L'Eau de Jouvence_ and _L'Abbesse de Jouarre_. +It was founded, of course, on that dangerous susceptibility to which an +elderly man of genius, whose life had been spent in labor and +reflection, may be inclined to resign himself, as he sees the sands +running out of the hour-glass, and realizes that in analyzing and +dissecting emotion he has never had time to enjoy it. Time is so short, +the nerves so fragile and so finite, the dreadful illusion, the _maia_, +so irresistible, that the old man gives way to it, and would sooner die +at once than not make one grasp at happiness. + +It will have been remarked that Ibsen's habit was to store up an +impression, but not to use it immediately on creative work. We need, +therefore, feel no surprise that there is not a trace of the Bardach +episode in _Hedda Gabler_, although the composition of that play +immediately followed the _hohes, schmerzliches Glueck_ at Gossensass. He +was, too, no moonlight serenader, and his intense emotion is perfectly +compatible with the outline of some of the gossip which was repeated at +the time of his death; Ibsen being reported to have said of the Viennese +girl: "She did not get hold of me, but I got hold of her--for my play." +These things are very complex, and not to be hastily dismissed, +especially on the rough and ready English system. There would be give +and take in such a complicated situation, when the object was, as Ibsen +himself says, out of reach _unversichtbar_. There is no question that +for every pang which Hilda made her ancient lover suffer, he would +enrich his imagination with a dozen points of experience. There is no +paradox in saying that the poet was overwhelmed with a passion and yet +consciously made it serve as material for his plays. From this time +onwards every dramatic work of his bears the stamp of those hours among +the roses at Gossensass. + +To the spring of 1891 belongs Ibsen's somewhat momentous visit to +Vienna, where he was invited by Dr. Max Burckhard, the director of the +Burg Theatre, to superintend the performance of his _Pretenders_. Ibsen +had already, in strict privacy, visited Vienna, where his plays enjoyed +an increasing success, but this was his first public entrance into a +city which he admired on the whole more than any other city of Europe. +"Mein schoener Wien!" he used to murmur, with quite a clan of affection. +In April, 1891, after the triumph of his tragedy on the stage, Ibsen was +the guest at a public banquet at Vienna, when the ovations were +overwhelming and were extended until four o'clock next morning. A +performance of _The Wild Duck_ produced, what was almost as dear to +Ibsen as praise, a violent polemic, and he passed on out of a world of +storm and passion to Buda-Pesth, where he saw _A Doll's House_ acted in +Hungarian, amid thunders of applause, and where he was the guest of +Count Albert Apponyi. These were the happy and fruitful years which +consoled the heart of the poet for the bitter time when + +"Hate's decree Dwelt in his thoughts intolerable." + +In the ensuing summer, in July, 1891, Ibsen left Munich with every +intention of returning to it, but with the plan of a long summer trip in +Norway, where the triumphant success of _Hedda Gabler_ had been very +agreeable to his feelings. Once more he pushed up through the country to +Trondhjem, a city which had always attracted him and pleased him. Here +he presently embarked on one of the summer coasting-steamers, and saw +the shores of Nordland and Finmark for the first time, visiting the +North Cape itself. He came back to Christiania for the rest of the +season, with no prospect of staying. But he enjoyed a most flattering +reception; he was begged to resume his practical citizenship, and he was +assured that life in Norway would be made very pleasant to him. In the +autumn, therefore, in his abrupt way, he took an apartment in Viktoria +Terrasse, and sent to Munich for his furniture. He said to a friend who +expressed surprise at this settlement: "I may just as well make +Christiania my headquarters as Munich. The railway takes me in a very +short time wherever I want to go; and when I am bored with Norway I can +travel elsewhere." But he never felt the fatigue he anticipated, and, +but for brief visits to Copenhagen or Stockholm, he left his native +country no more after 1891, although he changed his abode in Christiania +itself. + +For the first twelve months Ibsen enjoyed the pleasures of the prodigal +returned, and fed with gusto on the fatted calf. Then, when three years +separated him from the illuminating soul-adventures of Gossensass, he +began to turn them into a play. It proved to be _The Master-Builder_, +and was published before the close of December, 1892, with the date 1893 +on the title-page. This play was running for some time in Germany and +England before it was played in Scandinavia. But on the evening of March +8, 1893, it was simultaneously given at the National Theatre in +Christiania and at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. It was a work which +greatly puzzled the critics, and its meaning was scarcely apparent until +it had been seen on the stage, for which the oddity of its arrangements +are singularly well adapted. It was, however, almost immediately noticed +that it marked a new departure in Ibsen's writings. Here was an end of +the purely realistic and prosaic social dramas, which had reigned from +_The League of Youth_ to _Hedda Gabler_, and here was a return to the +strange and haunting beauty of the old imaginative pieces. Mr. Archer +was happily inspired when he spoke of "the pure melody" of the piece, +and the best scenes of _The Master-Builder_ were heroically and almost +recklessly poetical. + +This remarkable composition is full of what, for want of a better word, +we must call "symbolism." In the conversations between Solness and Hilda +much is introduced which is really almost unintelligible unless we take +it to be autobiographical. The Master-Builder is one who constructs, not +houses, but poems and plays. It is the poet himself who gives +expression, in the pathetic and erratic confessions of Solness, to his +doubts, his craven timidities, his selfish secrets, and his terror at +the uniformity of his "luck." It is less easy to see exactly what Ibsen +believed himself to be presenting to us in the enigmatical figure of +Hilda, so attractive and genial, so exquisitely refreshing, and yet +radically so cruel and superficial. She is perhaps conceived as a symbol +of Youth, arriving too late within the circle which Age has trodden for +its steps to walk in, and luring it too rashly, by the mirage of +happiness, into paths no longer within its physical and moral capacity. +"Hypnotism," Mr. Archer tells us, "is the first and last word of the +dramatic action"; perhaps thought-transference more exactly expresses +the idea, but I should not have stated even this quite so strongly. The +ground of the dramatic action seems to me to be the balance of Nemesis, +the fatal necessity that those who enjoy exceptional advantages in life +shall pay for them by not less exceptional, but perhaps less obvious, +disadvantages. The motto of the piece--at least of the first two of its +acts--might be the couplet of the French tragedian:-- + +C'est un ordre des dieux qui jamais ne se rompt De nous vendre bien cher +les grands biens qu'ils nous font. + +Beneath this, which we may call the transcendental aspect of the play, +we find a solid and objective study of the self-made man, the headstrong +amateur, who has never submitted to the wholesome discipline of +professional training, but who has trusted to the help of those trolls +or mascots, his native talent and his unfailing "luck." Upon such a man +descends Hilda, the disorganizer, who pierces the armor of his conceit +by a direct appeal to his passions. Solness has been the irresistible +sorcerer, through his good fortune, but he is not protected in his +climacteric against this unexpected attack upon the senses. Samson +philanders with Delila, and discovers that his strength is shorn from +him. There is no doubt that Ibsen intended in _The Master-Builder_ a +searching examination of "luck" and the tyranny of it, the terrible +effects of it on the Broviks and the Kajas whom nobody remembers, but +whose bodies lie under the wheels of its car. The dramatic situation is +here extremely interesting; it consists in the fact that Solness, who +breaks every one else, is broken by Hilda. The inherent hardness of +youth, which makes no allowances, which demands its kingdom here and now +upon the table, was never more powerfully depicted. Solness is smashed +by his impact with Hilda, as china is against a stone. In all this it +would be a mistake to see anything directly autobiographical, although +so much in the character and position of Solness may remind us, +legitimately enough, of Ibsen himself, and his adventures. + +The personal record of Ibsen in these years is almost silent. He was +growing old and set in his habits. He was growing rich, too, and he +surrounded himself with sedentary comforts. His wealth, it may here be +said, was founded entirely upon the success of his works, but was +fostered by his extreme adroitness as a man of business. Those who are +so fond of saying that any man of genius might have excelled in some +other capacity are fully justified if they like to imagine Ibsen as the +model financier. He certainly possessed a remarkable aptitude for +affairs, and we learn that his speculations were at once daring and +crafty. People who are weary of commiserating the poverty of poets may +be pleased to learn that when Ibsen died he was one of the wealthiest +private citizens of Christiania, and this was wholly in consequence of +the care he had taken in protecting his copyrights and administering his +receipts. If the melancholy couplet is correct which tells us that + +Aux petits des oiseaux Dieu donne la pature, +Mais sa bonte s'arrkete a la litterature, + +we must believe, with Ibsen's enemies, that his fortunes were not under +the divine protection. + +The actual numbers of each of his works printed since he first published +with Hegel in Copenhagen--a connection which he preserved without a +breach until the end--have been stated since his death. They contain +some points of interest. After 1876 Hegel ventured on large editions of +each new play, but they went off at first slowly. _The Lady from the +Sea_ was the earliest to appear, at once, in an issue of 10,000 copies, +which was soon exhausted. So great, however, had the public interest in +Ibsen become in 1894 that the edition of 10,000 copies of _Little Eyolf_ +was found quite inadequate to meet the first order, and it was enlarged +to 15,000, all of which were gone in a fortnight. This circulation in so +small a reading public as that of Denmark and Norway was unprecedented, +and it must be remembered that the simultaneous translations into most +of the languages of Europe are not included. + +_Little Eyolf_, which was written in Christiania during the spring and +summer of 1894, was issued, according to Ibsen's cometary custom, as the +second week of December rolled round. The reception of it was stormy, +even in Scandinavia, and led to violent outbursts of controversy. No +work from the master's pen had roused more difference of opinion among +the critics since the bluster over _Ghosts_ fourteen years before. Those +who prefer to absolute success in the creation of a work of art the +personal flavor or perfume of the artist himself were predisposed to +place _Little Eyolf_ very high among his writings. Nowhere is he more +independent of all other influences, nowhere more intensely, it may even +be said more distressingly, himself. From many points of view this play +may fairly be considered in the light of a _tour de force_. Ibsen--one +would conjecture--is trying to see to what extremities of agile +independence he can force his genius. The word "force" has escaped me; +but it may be retained as reproducing that sense of a difficulty not +quite easily or completely overcome which _Little Eyolf_ produces. To +mention but one technical matter; there are but four characters, +properly speaking, in the play--since Eyolf himself and the Rat-Wife are +but illustrations or symbolic properties--and of these four, one +(Borgheim) is wholly subsidiary. Ibsen, then, may be said to have +challenged imitation by composing a drama of passion with only three +characters in it. By a process of elimination this has been done by +Aeschylus (in the _Agamemnon_), by Racine (in _Phe*dre_ and +_Andromaque_), and in our own day by Maeterlinck (in _Pelle*as et +Me*lisande_). But Ibsen was accustomed to a wider field, and his +experiment seems not wholly successful. _Little Eyolf_, at least, is, +from all points of view, an exercise on the tight-rope. We may hazard +the conjecture that no drama gave Ibsen more satisfaction to write, but +for enjoyment the reader may prefer less prodigious agility on the +trapeze. + +If we turn from the technical virtuosity of _Little Eyolf_ to its moral +aspects, we find it a very dreadful play, set in darkness which nothing +illuminates but the twinkling sweetness of Asta. The mysterious symbol +of the Rat-Wife breaks in upon the pair whose love is turning to hate, +the man waxing cold as the wife grows hot. The Angel of God, in the +guise of an old beggar-woman, descends into their garden, and she drags +away, by an invisible chain, "the little gnawing thing," the pathetic +lame child. The effect on the pair of Eyolf's death by drowning is the +subject of the subsequent acts. In Rita jealousy is incarnate, and she +seems the most vigorous, and, it must be added, the most repulsive, of +Ibsen's feminine creations. The reckless violence of Rita's energy, +indeed, interpreted by a competent actress--played, for instance, as it +was in London most admirably by Miss Achurch--is almost too painful for +a public exhibition, and to the old criticism, "nec pueros coram populo +Medea trucidet," if a pedant chooses to press it, there teems no reply. +The sex question, as treated in _Little Eyolf_, recalls _The Kreutzer +Sonata_ (1889) of Tolstoi. When, however, I ventured to ask Ibsen +whether there was anything in this, he was displeased, and stoutly +denied it. What, an author denies, however, is not always evidence. + +Nothing further of general interest happened to Ibsen until 1896, when +he sat down to compose another drama, _John Gabriel Borkman_. This was a +study of the mental adventures of a man of high commercial imagination, +who is artificially parted from all that contact with real affairs which +keeps such energy on the track, and who goes mad with dreams of +incalculable power, a study, in fact, of financial megalomania. It was +said, at the time, that Ibsen was originally led to make this analysis +of character from reading in the Christiania newspapers a report of the +failure and trial of a notorious speculator convicted of fraud in 1895, +and sentenced to a long period of penal servitude. + +Whether this be so or not, we have in the person of John Gabriel Borkman +a prominent example of the ninteenth century type of criminous +speculator, in whom the vastness of view and the splendidly altruistic +audacity present themselves as elements which render it exceedingly +difficult to say how far the malefactor is morally responsible for his +crime. He has imagined, and to a certain point has carried out, a +monster metal "trust," for the success of which he lacks neither courage +nor knowledge nor practical administrative capacity, but only that +trifling concomitant, sufficiency of capital. To keep the fires blazing +until his vast model is molten into the mould, he helps himself to money +here, there, and everywhere, scarcely giving a thought to his +responsibilities, so certain is he of ultimate and beneficent triumph. +He will make rich beyond the dreams of avarice all these his involuntary +supporters. Unhappily, just before his scheme is ready and the metal +runs, he is stopped by the stupidity of the law, and finds himself in +prison. + +Side by side with this study of commercial madness runs a thread of that +new sense of the preciousness of vital joy which had occupied Ibsen so +much ever since the last of the summers at Gossensass. The figure of +Erhart Borkman is a very interesting one to the theatrical student. In +the ruin of the family, all hopes concentre in him. Every one claims +him, and in the bosoms of each of his shattered parents a secret hope is +born, Mrs. Borkman believing that by a brilliant career of commercial +rectitude her son will wipe out the memory of his father's crime; +Borkman, who has never given up the ambition of returning to business, +reposing his own hopes on the co-operation of his son. + +But Erhart Borkman disappoints them all. He will be himself, he will +enjoy his life, he will throw off all the burdens both of responsibility +and of restitution. He has no ambition and little natural feeling; he +simply must be happy, and he suddenly elopes, leaving all their +anticipations bankrupt, with a certain joyous Mrs. Wilton, who has +nothing but her beauty to recommend her. Deserted thus by the _ignis +fatuus_ of youth, the collapse of the three old people is complete. +Under the shock the brain of Borkman gives way, and he wanders out into +the winter's night, full of vague dreams of what he can still do in the +world, if he can only break from his bondage and shatter his dream. He +dies there in the snow, and the two old sisters, who have followed him +in an anxiety which overcomes their mutual hatred, arrive in time to see +him pass away. We leave them in the wood, "a dead man and two shadows"-- +so Ella Rentheim puts it--"for _that_ is what the cold has made of us"; +the central moral of the piece being that all the errors of humanity +spring from cold-heartedness and neglect of the natural heat of love. +That Borkman embezzled money, and reduced hundreds of innocent people to +beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his cruel +bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that is the +unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of obscurity, +and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality, about +_John Gabriel Borkman_, but on the whole it is a work of lofty +originality and of poignant human interest. + +The veteran was now beginning to be conscious of the approaches of old +age, but they were made agreeable to him by many tokens of national +homage. + +On his seventieth birthday, March 20, 1898, Ibsen received the +felicitations of the world. It is pleasing to relate that a group of +admirers in England, a group which included Mr. Asquith, Mr. J. M. +Barrie, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. Pinero and Mr. +Bernard Shaw took part in these congratulations and sent Ibsen a +handsome set of silver plate, this being an act which, it had been +discovered, he particularly appreciated. The bearer of this gift was the +earliest of the long stream of visitors to arrive on the morning of the +poet's birthday, and he found Ibsen in company with his wife, his son, +his son's wife (Bjoernson's daughter), and his little grandson, Tankred. +The poet's surprise and pleasure were emphatic. A deputation from the +Storthing, headed by the Leader of the House, deputations representing +the University, the various Christiania Theatres, and other official or +academic bodies arrived at intervals during the course of the day; and +all the afternoon Ibsen was occupied in taking these hundreds of +visitors, in parties, up to the case containing the English tribute, in +showing the objects and in explaining their origin. There could be no +question that the gift gave genuine pleasure to the recipient; it was +the first, as it was to be the last, occasion on which any public +testimony to English appreciation of his genius found its way to Ibsen's +door. + +Immediately after the birthday festivities, which it was observed had +fatigued him, Ibsen started on a visit to Copenhagen, where he was +received by the aged King of Denmark, and to Stockholm, where he was +overpowered with ovations from all classes. There can be no doubt that +this triumphal progress, though deeply grateful to the aged poet's +susceptibilities, made a heavy drain upon his nervous resources. When he +returned to Norway, indeed, he was concealed from all visitors at his +physician's orders, and it is understood that he had some kind of +seizure. It was whispered that he would write no more, and the biennial +drama, due in December, 1898, did not make its appearance. His stores of +health, however, were not easily exhausted; he rested for several +months, and then he was seen once more in Carl Johans Gade, smiling; in +his usual way, and entirely recovered. It was announced that winter that +he was writing his reminiscences, but nothing more was heard of any such +book. + +He was able to take a vivid interest in the preparations for the +National Norwegian Theatre in Christiania, which was finally opened by +the King of Sweden and Norway on September 1, 1899. Early in the +morning, colossal bronze statues of Ibsen and Bjoernson were unveiled in +front of the theatre, and the poets, now, unfortunately, again not on +the best of terms, were seen making vast de*tours for the purpose of +satisfying their curiosity, and yet not meeting one another in flesh or +in metal. The first night, to prevent rivalry, was devoted to +antiquarianism, and to the performance of extracts from the plays of +Holberg. Ibsen and Bjoernson occupied the centre of the dress circle, +sitting uplifted in two gilded fauteuils and segregated by a vast +garland of red and white roses. They were the objects of universal +attention, and the King seemed never to have done smiling and bowing to +the two most famous of his Norwegian subjects. + +The next night was Ibsen's fe*te, and he occupied, alone, the manager's +box. A poem in his honor, by Niels Collet Vogt, was recited by the +leading actor, who retired, and then rushed down the empty stage, with +his arms extended, shouting "Long live Henrik Ibsen." The immense +audience started to its feet and repeated the words over and over again +with deafening fervor. The poet appeared to be almost overwhelmed with +emotion and pleasure; at length, with a gesture which was quite +pathetic, smiling through his tears, he seemed to beg his friends to +spare him, and the plaudits slowly ceased. _An Enemy of the People_ was +then admirably performed. At the close of every act Ibsen was called to +the front of his box, and when the performance was over, and the actors +had been thanked, the audience turned to him again with a sort of +affectionate ferocity. Ibsen was found to have stolen from his box, but +he was waylaid and forcibly carried back to it. On his reappearance, the +whole theatre rose in a roar of welcome, and it was with difficulty that +the aged poet, now painfully exhausted from the strain of an evening of +such prolonged excitement, could persuade the public to allow him to +withdraw. At length he left the theatre, walking slowly, bowing and +smiling, down a lane cleared for him, far into the street, through the +dense crowd of his admirers. This astonishing night, September 2, 1899, +was the climax of Ibsen's career. + +During all this time Ibsen was secretly at work on another drama, which +he intended as the epilogue to his earlier dramatic work, or at least to +all that he had written since _The Pillars of Society_. This play, which +was his latest, appeared, under the title of _When We Dead Awaken_, in +December, 1899 (with 1900 on the title-page). It was simultaneously +published, in very large editions, in all the principal languages of +Europe, and it was acted also, but it is impossible to deny that, +whether in the study or on the boards, it proved a disappointment. It +displayed, especially in its later acts, many obvious signs of the +weakness incident on old age. + +When it is said that _When We Dead Awaken_ was not worthy of its +predecessors, it should be explained that no falling off was visible in +the technical cleverness with which the dialogue was built up, nor in +the wording of particular sentences. Nothing more natural or amusing, +nothing showing greater, command of the resources of the theatre, had +ever been published by Ibsen himself than the opening act of _When We +Dead Awaken_. But there was certainly in the whole conception a +cloudiness, an ineffectuality, which was very little like anything that +Ibsen had displayed before. The moral of the piece was vague, the +evolution of it incoherent, and indeed in many places it seemed a parody +of his earlier manner. Not Mr. Anstey Guthrie's inimitable scenes in +_Mr. Punch's Ibsen_ were more preposterous than almost all the +appearances of Irene after the first act of _When We Dead Awaken_. + +It is Irene who describes herself as dead, but awakening in the society +of Rubek, whilst Maia, the little gay soulless creature whom the great +sculptor has married, and has got heartily tired of, goes up to the +mountains with Ulpheim the hunter, in pursuit of the free joy of life. +At the close, the assorted couples are caught on the summit of an +exceeding high mountain by a snowstorm, which opens to show Rubek and +Irene "whirled along with the masses of snow, and buried in them," while +Maia and her bear-hunter escape in safety to the plains. Interminable, +and often very sage and penetrating, but always essentially rather +maniacal, conversation fills up the texture of the play, which is +certainly the least successful of Ibsen's mature compositions. The +boredom of Rubek in the midst of his eminence and wealth, and his +conviction that by working in such concentration for the purity of art +he merely wasted his physical life, inspire the portions of the play +which bring most conviction and can be read with fullest satisfaction. +It is obvious that such thoughts, such faint and unavailing regrets, +pursued the old age of Ibsen; and the profound wound that his heart had +received so long before at Gossensass was unhealed to his last moments +of consciousness. An excellent French critic, M. P. G. La Chesnais, has +ingeniously considered the finale of this play as a confession that +Ibsen, at this end of his career, was convinced of the error of his +earlier rigor, and, having ceased to believe in his mission, regretted +the complete sacrifice of his life to his work. But perhaps it is not +necessary to go into such subtleties. _When We Dead Awaken_ is the +production of a very tired old man, whose physical powers were +declining. + +In the year 1900, during our South African War, sentiment in the +Scandinavian countries was very generally ranged on the side of the +Boers. Ibsen, however, expressed himself strongly and publicly in favor +of the English position. In an interview (November 24, 1900), which +produced a considerable sensation, he remarked that the Boers were but +half-cultivated, and had neither the will nor the power to advance the +cause of civilization. Their sole object had come to be a jealous +exclusion of all the higher forms of culture. The English were merely +taking what the Boers themselves had stolen from an earlier race; the +Boers had pitilessly hunted their precursors out of house and home, and +now they were tasting the same cup themselves. These were considerations +which had not occurred to generous sentimentalists in Norway, and +Ibsen's defence of England, which he supported in further communications +with irony and courage, made a great sensation, and threw cold water on +the pro-Boer sentimentalists. In Holland, where Ibsen had a wide public, +this want of sympathy for Dutch prejudice raised a good deal of +resentment, and Ibsen's statements were replied to by the fiery young +journalist, Cornelius Karel Elout, who even published a book on the +subject. Ibsen took dignified notice of Elout's attacks (December 9, +1900), repeating his defence of English policy, and this was the latest +of his public appearances. + +He took an interest, however, in the preparation of the great edition of +his _Collected Works_, which appeared in Copenhagen in 1901 and 1902, in +ten volumes. Before the publication of the latest of these, however, +Ibsen had suffered from an apoplectic stroke, from which he never wholly +recovered. It was believed that any form of mental fatigue might now be +fatal to him, and his life was prolonged by extreme medical care. He was +contented in spirit and even cheerful, but from this time forth he was +more and more completely withdrawn from consecutive interest in what was +going on in the world without. The publication, in succession, of his +juvenile works (_Kaempehoejen_, _Olaf Liljekrans_, both edited by Halvdan +Koht, in 1902), of his _Correspondence_, edited by Koht and Julius +Elias, in 1904, of the bibliographical edition of his collected works by +Carl Naerup, in 1902, left him indifferent and scarcely conscious. The +gathering darkness was broken, it is said, by a gleam of light in 1905; +when the freedom of Norway and the accession of King Hakon were +explained to him, he was able to express his joyful approval before the +cloud finally sank upon his intelligence. + +During his long illness Ibsen was troubled by aphasia, and he expressed +himself painfully, now in broken Norwegian, now in still more broken +German. His unhappy hero, Oswald Alving, in _Ghosts_, had thrilled the +world by his cry, "Give me the sun, Mother!" and now Ibsen, with glassy +eyes, gazed at the dim windows, murmuring "Keine Sonne, keine Sonne, +keine Sonne!" At the table where all the works of his maturity had been +written the old man sat, persistently learning and forgetting the +alphabet. "Look!" he said to Julius Elias, pointing to his mournful +pothooks, "See what I am doing! I am sitting here and learning my letters +--my _letters_! I who was once a Writer!" Over this shattered image of +what Ibsen had been, over this dying lion, who could not die, Mrs. Ibsen +watched with the devotion of wife, mother and nurse in one, through six +pathetic years. She was rewarded, in his happier moments, by the +affection and tender gratitude of her invalid, whose latest articulate +words were addressed to her--"_min soede, kjaere, snille frue_" (my +sweet, dear, good wife); and she taught to adore their grandfather the +three children of a new generation, Tankred, Irene, Eleonora. + +Ibsen preserved the habit of walking about his room, or standing for +hours staring out of window, until the beginning of May, 1906. Then a +more complete decay confined him to his bed. After several days of +unconsciousness, he died very peacefully in his house on Drammensvej, +opposite the Royal Gardens of Christiania, at half-past two in the +afternoon of May 23, 1906, being in his seventy-ninth year. By a +unanimous vote of the he was awarded a public funeral, which the King of +Norway attended in person, while King Edward VII was represented there +by the British Minister. The event was regarded through out Norway as a +national ceremony of the highest solemnity and importance, and the poet +who had suffered such bitter humiliation and neglect in his youth was +carried to his grave in solemn splendor, to the sound of a people's +lamentation. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS + +During the latest years of his life, which were spent as a wealthy and +prosperous citizen of Christiania, the figure of Ibsen took forms of +legendary celebrity which were equalled by no other living man of +letters, not even by Tolstoi, and which had scarcely been surpassed, +among the dead, by Victor Hugo. When we think of the obscurity of his +youth and middle age, and of his consistent refusal to advertise himself +by any of the little vulgar arts of self-exhibition, this extreme +publicity is at first sight curious, but it can be explained. Norway is +a small and a new country, inordinately, perhaps, but justly and +gracefully proud of those--an Ole Bull, a Frithjof Nansen, an Edvard +Grieg--who spread through the world evidences of its spiritual life. But +the one who was more original, more powerful, more interesting than any +other of her sons, had persistently kept aloof from the soil of Norway, +and was at length recaptured and shut up in a golden cage with more +expenditure of delicate labor than any perverse canary or escaped macaw +had ever needed. Ibsen safely housed in Christiania!--it was the +recovery of an important national asset, the resumption, after years of +vexation and loss, of the intellectual regalia of Norway. + +Ibsen, then--recaptured, though still in a frame of mind which left the +captors nervous--was naturally an object of pride. For the benefit of +the hundreds of tourists who annually pass through Christiania, it was +more than tempting, it was irresistible to point out, in slow advance +along Carl Johans Gade, in permanent silence at a table in the Grand +Cafe, "our greatest citizen." To this species of demonstration Ibsen +unconsciously lent himself by his immobility, his regularity of habits, +his solemn taciturnity. He had become more like a strange physical +object than like a man among men. He was visible broadly and quietly, +not conversing, rarely moving, quite isolated and self-contained, a +recognized public spectacle, delivered up, as though bound hand and +foot, to the kodak-hunter and the maker of "spicy" paragraphs. That +Ibsen was never seen to do anything, or heard to say anything, that +those who boasted of being intimate with him obviously lied in their +teeth--all this prepared him for sacrifice. Christiania is a hot-bed of +gossip, and its press one of the most "chatty" in the world. Our +"greatest living author" was offered up as a wave-offering, and he +smoked daily on the altar of the newspapers. + +It will be extremely rash of the biographers of the future to try to +follow Ibsen's life day by day in the Christiania press from, let us +say, 1891 to 1901. During that decade he occupied the reporters +immensely, and he was particularly useful to the active young men who +telegraph "chat" to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Berlin. +Snapshots of Ibsen, dangerous illness of the playwright, quaint habits +of the Norwegian dramatist, a poet's double life, anecdotes of Ibsen and +Mrs.----, rumors of the King's attitude to Ibsen--this pollenta, dressed +a dozen ways, was the standing dish at every journalist's table. If a +space needed filling, a very rude reply to some fatuous question might +be fitted in and called "Instance of Ibsen's Wit." The crop of fable was +enormous, and always seemed to find a gratified public, for whom nothing +was too absurd if it was supposed to illustrate "our great national +poet." Ibsen, meanwhile, did nothing at all. He never refuted a calumny, +never corrected a story, but he threw an ironic glance through his gold- +rimmed spectacles as he strolled down Carl Johan with his hands behind +his back. + +His personal appearance, it must be admitted, formed a tempting basis +upon which to build a legend. His force of will had gradually +transfigured his bodily forms until he thoroughly looked the part which +he was expected to fill. At the age of thirty, to judge by the early +photographs, he had been a commonplace-looking little man, with a shock +of coal-black hair and a full beard, one of those hirsute types common +in the Teutonic races, which may prove, on inquiry, to be painter, +musician, or engraver, or possibly engineer, but less probably poet. +Then came the exile from Norway, and the residence in Rome, marked by a +little bust which stands before me now, where the beard is cut away into +two round whiskers so as to release the firm round chin, and the long +upper lip is clean-shaved. Here there is more liveliness, but still no +distinction. Then comes a further advance--a photograph (in which I feel +a tender pride, for it was made to please me) taken in Dresden (October +15, 1873), where the brow, perfectly smooth and white, has widened out, +the whiskers have become less chubby, and the small, scrutinizing eyes +absolutely sparkle with malice. Here, you say at last, is no poet, +indeed, but an unusually cultivated banker or surprisingly adroit +solicitor. Here the hair, retreating from the great forehead, begins to +curl and roll with a distinguished wildness; here the long mouth, like a +slit in the face, losing itself at each end in whisker, is a symbol of +concentrated will power, a drawer in some bureau, containing treasures, +firmly locked up. + +Then came Munich, where Ibsen's character underwent very considerable +changes, or rather where its natural features became fixed and +emphasized. We are not left without precious indication of his gestures +and his looks at this time, when he was a little past the age of fifty. +Where so much has been extravagantly written, or described in a +journalistic key of false emphasis, great is the value of a quiet +portrait by one of those who has studied Ibsen most intelligently. It is +perhaps the most careful pen-sketch of him in any language. + +Mr. William Archer, then, has given the following account of his first +meeting with Ibsen. It was in the Scandinavia Club, in Rome, at the +close of 1881:-- + +I had been about a quarter of an hour in the room, and was standing +close to the door, when it opened, and in glided an undersized man with +very broad shoulders and a large, leonine head, wearing a long black +frock-coat with very broad lapels, on one of which a knot of red ribbon +was conspicuous. I knew him at once, but was a little taken aback by his +low stature. In spite of all the famous instances to the contrary, one +instinctively associates greatness with size. His natural height was +even somewhat diminished by a habit of bending forward slightly from the +waist, begotten, no doubt, of short-sightedness, and the need to peer +into things. He moved very slowly and noiselessly, with his hands behind +his back--an unobtrusive personality, which would have been +insignificant had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest of +the frame. But there was nothing insignificant about the high and +massive forehead, crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the +small and pale but piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or +the thin lipped mouth, depressed at the corners into a curve indicative +of iron will, and set between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as +the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power and +character in the head; yet one would scarcely have guessed it to be the +power of a poet, the character of a prophet. Misled, perhaps, by the +ribbon at the buttonhole, and by an expression of reserve, almost of +secretiveness, in the lines of the tight-shut mouth, one would rather +have supposed one's self face to face with an eminent statesman or +diplomatist. + +With the further advance of years all that was singular in Ibsen's +appearance became accentuated. The hair and beard turned snowy white; +the former rose in a fierce sort of Oberland, the latter was kept square +and full, crossing underneath the truculent chin that escaped from it. +As Ibsen walked to a banquet in Christiania, he looked quite small under +the blaze of crosses, stars and belts which he displayed when he +unbuttoned the long black overcoat which enclosed him tightly. Never was +he seen without his hands behind him, and the poet Holger Drachmann +started a theory that as Ibsen could do nothing in the world but write, +the Muse tied his wrists together at the small of his back whenever they +were not actually engaged in composition. His regularity in all habits, +his mechanical ways, were the subject of much amusement. He must sit day +after day in the same chair, at the same table, in the same corner of +the cafe, and woe to the ignorant intruder who was accidentally +beforehand with him. No word was spoken, but the indignant poet stood at +a distance, glaring, until the stranger should be pierced with +embarrassment, and should rise and flee away. + +Ibsen had the reputation of being dangerous and difficult of access. But +the evidence of those who knew him best point to his having been +phlegmatic rather than morose. He was "umbrageous," ready to be +discomposed by the action of others, but, if not vexed or startled, he +was elaborately courteous. He had a great dislike of any abrupt +movement, and if he was startled, he had the instinct of a wild animal, +to bite. It was a pain to him to have the chain of his thoughts suddenly +broken, and he could not bear to be addressed by chance acquaintances in +street or cafe*. When he was resident in n Munich and Dresden, the +difficulty of obtaining an interview with Ibsen was notorious. His wife +protected him from strangers, and if her defences broke down, and the +stranger contrived to penetrate the inner fastness, Ibsen might suddenly +appear in the doorway, half in a rage, half quivering with distress, and +say, in heartrending tones, "Bitte um Arbeitsruhe"--"Please let me work +in peace!" They used to tell how in Munich a rich baron, who was the +local Maecenas of letters, once bored Ibsen with a long recital of his +love affairs, and ended by saying, with a wonderful air of fatuity, "To +you, Master, I come, because of your unparalleled knowledge of the +female heart. In your hands I place my fate. Advise me, and I will +follow your advice." Ibsen snapped his mouth and glared through his +spectacles; then in a low voice of concentrated fury he said: "Get home, +and--go to bed!" whereat his noble visitor withdrew, clothed with +indignation as with a garment. + +His voice was uniform, soft and quiet. The bitter things he said seemed +the bitterer for his gentle way of saying them. As his shape grew burly +and his head of hair enormous, the smallness of his extremities became +accentuated. His little hands were always folded away as he tripped upon +his tiny feet. His movements were slow and distrait. He wasted few words +on the current incidents of life, and I was myself the witness, in 1899, +of his _sang-froid_ under distressing circumstances. Ibsen was +descending a polished marble staircase when his feet slipped and he fell +swiftly, precipitately, downward. He must have injured himself severely, +he might have been killed, if two young gentlemen had not darted forward +below and caught him in their arms. Once more set the right way up, +Ibsen softly thanked his saviours with much frugality of phrase--"Tak, +mine Herrer!"--tenderly touched an abraded surface of his top-hat, and +marched forth homeward, unperturbed. + +His silence had a curious effect on those in whose company he feasted; +it seemed to hypnotise them. The great Danish actress, Mrs. Heiberg, +herself the wittiest of talkers, said that to sit beside Ibsen was to +peer into a gold-mine and not catch a glitter from the hidden treasure. +But his dumbness was not so bitterly ironical as it was popularly +supposed to be. It came largely from a very strange passivity which made +definite action unwelcome to him. He could never be induced to pay +visits, yet he would urge his wife and his son to accept invitations, +and when they returned he would insist on being told every particular-- +who was there, what was said, even what everybody wore. He never went to +a theatre or concert-room, except on the very rare occasions when he +could be induced to be present at the performance of his own plays. But +he was extremely fond of hearing about the stage. He had a memory for +little things and an observation of trifles which was extraordinary. He +thought it amazing that people could go into a room and not notice the +pattern of the carpet, the color of the curtains, the objects on the +walls; these being details which he could not help observing and +retaining. This trait comes out in his copious and minute stage +directions. + +Ibsen was simplicity itself; no man was ever less affected. But his +character was closed; he was perpetually on the defensive. He was seldom +confidential, he never "gave way"; his emotions and his affections were +genuine, but his heart was a fenced city. He had little sense of +domestic comfort; his rooms were bare and neat, with no personal objects +save those which belonged to his wife. Even in the days of his wealth, +in the fine house on Drammensvej, there was a singular absence of +individuality about his dwelling rooms. They might have been prepared +for a rich American traveller in some hotel. Through a large portion of +his career in Germany he lived in furnished rooms, not because he did +not possess furniture of his own, which was stored up, but because he +paid no sort of homage to his own penates. He had friends, but he did +not cultivate them; he rather permitted them, at intervals, to cultivate +him. To Georg Brandes (March 6, 1870) he wrote: "Friends are a costly +luxury; and when one has devoted one's self wholly to a profession and a +mission here in life, there is no place left for friends." The very +charming story of Ibsen's throwing his arms round old Hans Christian +Andersen's neck, and forcing him to be genial and amiable, [Note: +_Samliv med Ibsen._] is not inconsistent with the general rule of +passivity and shyness which he preserved in matters of friendship. + +Ibsen's reading was singularly limited. In his fine rooms on Drammensvej +I remember being struck by seeing no books at all, except the large +Bible which always lay at his side, and formed his constant study. He +disliked having his partiality for the Bible commented on, and if, as +would sometimes be the case, religious people expressed pleasure at +finding him deep in the sacred volume, Ibsen would roughly reply: "It is +only for the sake of the language." He was the enemy of anything which +seemed to approach cant and pretension, and he concealed his own views +as closely as he desired to understand the views of others. He possessed +very little knowledge of literature. The French he despised and +repudiated, although he certainly had studied Voltaire with advantage; +of the Italians he knew only Dante and of the English only Shakespeare, +both of whom he had studied in translations. In Danish he read and +reread Holberg, who throughout his life unquestionably remained Ibsen's +favorite author; he preserved a certain admiration for the Danish +classics of his youth: Heiberg, Hertz, Schack-Steffelt. In German, the +foreign language which he read most currently, he was strangely ignorant +of Schiller and Heine, and hostile to Goethe, although _Brand_ and _Peer +Gynt_ must owe something of their form to _Faust_. But the German poets +whom he really enjoyed were two dramatists of the age preceding his own, +Otto Ludwig (1813-65) and Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). Each of these +playwrights had been occupied in making certain reforms, of a realistic +tendency, in the existing tradition of the stage, and each of them +dealt, before any one else in Europe did so, with "problems" on the +stage. These two German poets, but Hebbel particularly, passed from +romanticism to realism, and so on to mysticism, in a manner fascinating +to Ibsen, whom it is possible that they influenced. [Note: It would be +interesting to compare _Die Niebelungen_, the trilogy which Hebbel +published in 1862, in which the struggle between pagan and Christian +ideals of conduct is analyzed, with Ibsen's _Emperor and Galilean_.] He +remained, in later years, persistently ignorant of Zola, and of Tolstoi +he had read, with contemptuous disapproval, only some of the polemical +pamphlets. He said to me, in 1899, of the great Russian: "Tolstoi?--he +is mad!" with a screwing up of the features such as a child makes at the +thought of a black draught. + +If he read at all, it was poetry. His indifference to music was +complete; he had, in fact, no ear whatever, and could not distinguish +one tune from another. His efforts to appreciate the music which Grieg +made for _Peer Gynt_ were pathetic. But for verse his sense was +exceedingly delicate, and the sound of poetry gave him acute pleasure. +At times, when his nerves were overstrained, he was fatigued by the riot +of rhymes which pursued him through his dreams, and which his memory +vainly strove to recapture. For academic philosophy and systems of +philosophic thought he had a great impatience. The vexed question of +what he owed to the eminent Danish philosopher, Soeren Kierkegaard, has +never been solved. Brandes has insisted, again and again, on the close +relation between _Brand_ and other works of Ibsen and the famous +_Either-Or_ of Kierkegaard; "it actually seems," he says, "as though +Ibsen had aspired to the honor of being called Kierkegaard's poet." +Ibsen, however, aspired to no such honor, and, while he never actually +denied the influence, the relation between him and the philosopher seems +to be much rather one of parallelism than of imitation. Ibsen was a +poetical psychologist of the first order, but he could not bring himself +to read the prose of the professional thinkers. + +In his attitude both to philosophical and poetical literature Ibsen is +with such apparently remote figures as Guy de Maupassant and Shelley; in +his realism and his mysticism he is unrelated to immediate predecessors, +and has no wish to be a disciple of the dead. His extreme interest in +the observation of ethical problems is not identified with any curiosity +about what philosophical writers have said on similar subjects. +Weininger has pointed out that Ibsen's philosophy is radically the same +as that of Kant, yet there is no evidence that Ibsen had ever studied or +had even turned over the pages of the _Criticism of Pure Reason_. It is +not necessary to suppose that he had done so. The peculiar aspect of the +Ego as the principal and ultimately sole guide to truth was revealed +anew to the Norwegian poet, and references to Kant, or to Fichte, or to +Kierkegaard, seem, therefore, to be beside the mark. The watchword of +_Brand_, with his cry of "All or Nothing," his absolute repudiation of +compromise, was not a literary conception, but was founded, without the +help of books, on a profound contemplation of human nature, mainly, no +doubt, as Ibsen found it in himself. But in these days of the tyranny of +literature it is curious to meet with an author of the first rank who +worked without a library. + +Ibsen's study of women was evidently so close, and what he writes about +them is usually so penetrating, that many legends have naturally sprung +up about the manner in which he gained his experience. Of these, most +are pure fiction. As a matter of fact, Ibsen was shy with women, and +unless they took the initiative, he contented himself with watching them +from a distance: and noting their ways in silence. The early flirtation +with Miss Rikke Hoist at Bergen, which takes so prominent a place in +Ibsen's story mainly because such incidents were extremely rare in it, +is a typical instance. If this young girl of sixteen had not taken the +matter into her own hands, running up the steps of the hotel and +flinging her posy of flowers into the face of the young poet, the +incident would have closed in his watching her down the street, while +the fire smouldered in his eyes. It was not until her fresh field- +blossoms had struck him on the cheek that he was emboldened to follow +her and to send her the lyrical roses and auriculas which live forever +in his poems. If we wish to note the difference of temperament, we have +but to contrast Ibsen's affair with Rikke Holst with Goethe's attitude +to Christiana Vulpius; in doing so, we bring the passive and the active +lover face to face. + +Ibsen would gladly have married his flower of the field, a vision of +whose bright, untrammelled adolescence reappears again and again in his +works, and plainly in _The Master-Builder_. But he escaped a great +danger in failing to secure her as his wife, for Rikke Holst, when she +had lost her girlish freshness, would probably have had little character +and no culture to fall back upon. He waited, fortunately for his +happiness, until he secured Susannah Thoresen. Mrs. Ibsen, his faithful +guide, guardian and companion for half a century, will live among the +entirely successful wives of difficult men of genius. In the midst of +the spiteful gossip of Christiania she had to traverse her _via +dolorosa_, for it was part of the fun of the journalists to represent +this husband and wife as permanently alienated. That Ibsen was easy to +live with is not probable, but his wife not merely contrived to do it, +but by her watchfulness, her adroitness, and, when necessary, by her +firmness of decision, she smoothed the path for the great man whom she +adored, and who was to her a great wilful child to be cajoled and +circumvented. He was absolutely dependent on her, although he affected +amusing airs of independence; and if she absented herself, there were +soon cries in the house of "My Cat, My Cat!" the pet name by which he +called his wife. Of their domestic ways little is yet known in detail, +but everything can be imagined. + +To the enigma of Ibsen's character it was believed that his private +correspondence might supply a key. His letters were collected and +arranged while he was still alive, but he was not any longer in a mental +condition which permitted him to offer any help in comment to his +editors. His son, Mr. Sigurd Ibsen, superintended the work, and two +careful bibliographers, Mr. Halvdan Koht and Mr. Julius Elias, carried +out the scheme in two volumes [Note: _Breve fra Henrik Ibsen_, +Gyldendalske Boghadel, 1904.], with the execution of which no fault can +be suggested. But the enigma remained unsolved; the sphinx spoke much, +but failed to answer the questions we had been asking. These letters, in +the first place, suffer from the fact that Ibsen was a relentless +destroyer of documents; they are all written by him; not one single +example had been preserved of the correspondence to which this is the +reply. Then Ibsen's letters, as revealers of the unseen mood, are +particularly unsatisfactory. With rare exceptions, he remains throughout +them tightly buttoned up in his long and legendary frock-coat. There is +no laughter and no tears in his letters; he is occasionally extremely +angry, and exudes drops of poison, like the captive scorpion which he +caught when he was in Italy, and loved to watch and tease. But there is +no self-abandonment, and very little emotion; the letters are +principally historical and critical, "finger-posts for commentators." +They give valuable information about the genius of his works, but they +tell almost less about his inner moral nature than do his imaginative +writings. + +In his youth the scorpion in Ibsen's heart seems to have stung him +occasionally to acts which afterwards filled him with embarrassment. We +hear that in his Bergen days he sent to Lading, his fellow-teacher at +the theatre, a challenge of which, when the mood was over, he was +greatly ashamed. It is said that on another occasion, under the pressure +of annoyance, maddened with fear and insomnia, he sprang out of bed in +his shirt and tried to throw himself into the sea off one of the quays +in the harbor. Such performances were futile and ridiculous, and they +belong only to his youth. It seems certain that he schooled himself to +the suppression of such evidences of his anger, and that he did so +largely by shutting up within his breast all the fire that rose there. +The _Correspondence_--dark lantern as it is--seems to illuminate this +condition of things; we see before us Ibsen with his hands clenched, his +mouth tightly shut, rigid with determination not to "let himself go," +the eyes alone blazing behind the gleaming spectacles. + +An instance of his suppression of personal feeling may be offered. The +lengthiest of all Ibsen's published letters describes to Brandes (April +25, 1866) the suicide, at Rome, of a young Danish lawyer, Ludvig David, +of whom Ibsen had seen a good deal. The lad threw himself head-foremost +out of window, in a crisis of fever. Ibsen writes down all the minutest +details with feeling and refinement, but with as little sympathetic +emotion as if he was drawing up a report for the police. With this trait +may be compared his extreme interest in the detailed accounts of public +trials; he liked to read exactly what the prisoner said, and all the +evidence of the witnesses. In this Ibsen resembled Robert Browning, +whose curiosity about the small incidents surrounding a large event was +boundless. When Ibsen, in the course of such an investigation, found the +real purpose of some strange act dawn upon him, he exhibited an almost +childish pleasure; and this was doubled when the interpretation was one +which had not presented itself to the conventional legal authorities. + +In everything connected with the execution of his own work there was no +limit to the pains which he was willing to take. His handwriting had +always been neat, but it was commonplace in his early years. The +exquisite calligraphy which he ultimately used on every occasion, and +the beauty of which was famous far and wide, he adopted deliberately +when he was in Rome in 1862. To the end of his life, although in the +latest years the letters lost, from the shakiness of his hand, some of +their almost Chinese perfection, he wrote his smallest notes in this +character. His zeal for elaboration as an artist led him to collect a +mass of consistent imaginary information about the personages in his +plays, who became to him absolutely real. It is related how, some one +happening to say that Nora, in _A Doll's House_, had a curious name, +Ibsen immediately replied, "Oh! her full name was Leonora; but that was +shortened to Nora when she was quite a little girl. Of course, you know, +she was terribly spoilt by her parents." Nothing of this is revealed in +the play itself, but Ibsen was familiar with the past history of all the +characters he created. All through his career he seems to have been long +haunted by the central notion of his pieces, and to have laid it aside, +sometimes for many years, until a set of incidents spontaneously +crystallized around it. When the medium in which he was going to work +became certain he would put himself through a long course of study in +the technical phraseology appropriate to the subject. No pains were too +great to prepare him for the final task. + +When Mr. Archer visited Ibsen in the Harmonien Hotel at Saeby in 1887 he +extracted some valuable evidence from him as to his methods of +composition:-- + +It seems that the _idea_ of a piece generally presents itself before the +characters and incidents, though, when I put this to him flatly, he +denied it. It seems to follow, however, from his saying that there is a +certain stage in the incubation of a play when it might as easily turn +into all essay as into a drama. He has to incarnate the ideas, as it +were, in character and incident, before the actual work of creation can +be said to have fairly begun. Different plans and ideas, he admits, +often flow together, and the play he ultimately produces is sometimes +very unlike the intention with which he set out. He writes and rewrites, +scribbles and destroys, an enormous amount before he makes the +exquisite fair copy he sends to Copenhagen. + +He altered, as we have said, the printed text of his earlier works, in +order to bring them into harmony with his finished style, but he did not +do this, so far as I remember, after the publication of _Brand_. In the +case of all the dramas of his maturity he modified nothing when the work +had once been given to the world. + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + +Having accustomed ourselves to regard Ibsen as a disturbing and +revolutionizing force, which met with the utmost resistance at the +outset, and was gradually accepted before the close of his career, we +may try to define what the nature of his revolt was, and what it was, +precisely, that he attacked. It may be roughly said that what peculiarly +roused the animosity of Ibsen was the character which has become +stereotyped in one order of ideas, good in themselves but gradually +outworn by use, and which cannot admit ideas of a new kind. Ibsen +meditated upon the obscurantism of the old regime until he created +figures like Rosmer, in whom the characteristics of that school are +crystallized. From the point of view which would enter sympathetically +into the soul of Ibsen and look out on the world from his eyes, there is +no one of his plays more valuable in its purely theoretic way than +_Rosmersholm_. It dissects the decrepitude of ancient formulas, it +surveys the ruin of ancient faiths. The curse of heredity lies upon +Rosmer, who is highly intelligent up to a certain point, but who can go +no further. Even if he is persuaded that a new course of action would be +salutary, he cannot move--he is bound in invisible chains. It is useless +to argue with Rosmer; his reason accepts the line of logic, but he +simply cannot, when it comes to action, cross the bridge where Beate +threw herself into the torrent. + +But Ibsen had not the ardor of the fighting optimist. He was one who +"doubted clouds would break," who dreamed, since "right was worsted, +wrong would triumph." With Robert Browning he had but this one thing in +common, that both were fighters, both "held we fall to rise, are baffled +to fight better," but the dark fatalism of the Norwegian poet was in +other things in entire opposition to the sunshiny hopefulness of the +English one. Browning and Ibsen alike considered that the race must be +reformed periodically or it would die. The former anticipated reform as +cheerily as the sower expects harvest. Ibsen had no such happy +certainty. He was convinced of the necessity of breaking up the old +illusions, the imaginative call for revolt, but his faith wavered as to +the success of the new movements. The old order, in its resistance to +all change, is very strong. It may be shaken, but it is the work of a +blind Sampson, and no less, to bring it rattling to the ground. In +_Rosmersholm_, all the modern thought, all the vitality, all the +lucidity belong to Rebecca, but the decrepit formulas are stoutly +intrenched. In the end it is not the new idea who conquers; it is the +antique house, with its traditions, its avenging vision of white horses, +which breaks the too-clairvoyant Rebecca. + +This doubt of the final success of intelligence, this obstinate question +whether, after all, as we so glibly intimate, the old order changeth at +all, whether, on the contrary, it has not become a Juggernaut car that +crushes all originality and independence out of action, this breathes +more and more plainly out of the progressing work of Ibsen. Hedda Gabler +condemns the old order, in its dulness, its stifling mediocrity, but she +is unable to adapt her energy to any wholesome system of new ideas, and +she sinks into deeper moral dissolution. She hates all that has been +done, yet can herself do nothing, and she represents, in symbol, that +detestable condition of spirit which cannot create, though it sees the +need of creation, and can only show the irritation which its own +sterility awakens within it by destruction. All Hedda can actually do, +to assert her energy, is to burn the MS. of Loevborg, and to kill herself +with General Gabler's pistol. The race must be reformed or die; the +Hedda Gablers which adorn its latest phase do best to die. + +We have seen that Ibsen's theory was that love of self is the +fundamental principle of all activity. It is the instinct of self- +preservation and self-amelioration which leads to every manifestation of +revolt against stereotyped formulas of conduct. Between the excessive +ideality of Rebecca and the decadent sterility of Hedda Gabler comes +another type, perhaps more sympathetic than either, the master-builder +Solness. He, too, is led to condemn the old order, but in the act of +improving it he is overwhelmed upon his pinnacle, and swoons to death, +"dizzy, lost, yet unupbraiding." Ibsen's exact meaning in the detail of +these symbolic plays will long be discussed, but they repay the closest +and most reiterated study. Perhaps the most curious of all is _The Lady +from the Sea_, which has been examined from the technically +psychological view by a learned French philosopher, M. Jules de +Gaultier. For M. de Gaultier the interest which attaches to Ibsen's +conception of human life, with its conflicting instincts and +responsibilities, is more fully centred in _The Lady from the Sea_ than +in any other of his productions. + +The theory of the French writer is that Ibsen's constant aim is to +reconcile and to conciliate the two biological hypotheses which have +divided opinion in the nineteenth century, and which are known +respectively by the names of Cuvier and Lamarck; namely, that of the +invariability of species and that of the mutability of organic forms. In +the reconciliation of these hypotheses Ibsen finds the only process +which is truly encouraging to life. According to this theory, all the +trouble, all the weariness, all the waste of moral existences around us +comes from the neglect of one or other of these principles, and true +health, social or individual, is impossible without the harmonious +application of them both. According to this view, the apotheosis of +Ibsen's genius, or at least the most successful elucidation of his +scheme of ideological drama, is reached in the scene in _The Lady from +the Sea_ where Wangel succeeds in winning the heart of Ellida back from +the fascination of the Stranger. It is certainly in this mysterious and +strangely attractive play that Ibsen has insisted, more than anywhere +else, on the necessity of taking physiology into consideration in every +discussion of morals. He refers, like a zooelogist, to the laws which +regulate the formation and the evolution of species, and the decision of +Ellida, on which so much depends, is an amazing example of the +limitation of the power of change produced by heredity. The +extraordinary ingenuity of M. de Gaultier's analysis of this play +deserves recognition; whether it can quite be accepted, as embraced by +Ibsen's intention, may be doubtful. At the same time, let us recollect +that, however subtle our refinements become, the instinct of Ibsen was +probably subtler still. + +In 1850, when Ibsen first crept forward, with the glimmering taper of +his Catilina, there was but one person in the world who fancied that the +light might pass from lamp to lamp and in half a century form an +important part of the intellectual illumination of Europe. The one +person who did suspect it was, of course, Ibsen himself. Against all +probability and common-sense, this apothecary's assistant, this ill- +educated youth who had just been plucked in his preliminary examination, +who positively was, and remained, unable to pass the first tests and +become a student at the University, maintained in his inmost soul the +belief that he was born to be "a king of thought." The impression is +perhaps not uncommon among ill-educated lads; what makes the case +unique, and defeats our educational formulas, is that it happened to be +true. But the impact of Ibsen with the social order of his age was +unlucky, we see, from the first; it was perhaps more unlucky than that +of any other great man of the same class with whose biography we have +been made acquainted. He was at daggers drawn with all that was +successful and respectable and "nice" from the outset of his career +until near the end of it. + +Hence we need not be surprised if in the tone of his message to the +world there is something acrimonious, something that tastes in the mouth +like aloes. He prepared a dose for a sick world, and he made it as +nauseous and astringent as he could, for he was not inclined to be one +of those physicians who mix jam with their julep. There was no other +writer of genius in the nineteenth century who was so bitter in dealing +with human frailty as Ibsen was. By the side of his cruel clearness the +satire of Carlyle is bluster, the diatribes of Leopardi shrill and thin. +All other reformers seem angry and benevolent by turns, Ibsen is +uniformly and impartially stern. That he probed deeper into the problems +of life than any other modern dramatist is acknowledged, but it was his +surgical calmness which enabled him to do it. The problem-plays of +Alexandre Dumas _fils_ flutter with emotion, with prejudice and pardon. +But Ibsen, without impatience, examines under his microscope all the +protean forms of organic social life and coldly draws up his diagnosis +like a report. We have to think of him as thus ceaselessly occupied. We +have seen that, long before a sentence was written, he had invented and +studied, in its remotest branches, the life-history of the characters +who were to move in his play. Nothing was unknown to him of their +experience, and for nearly two years, like a coral-insect, he was +building up the scheme of them in silence. Odd little objects, fetiches +which represented people to him, stood arranged on his writing table, +and were never to be touched. He gazed at them until, as if by some feat +of black magic, he turned them into living persons, typical and yet +individual. + +We have recorded that the actual writing down of the dialogue was often +swift and easy, when the period of incubation was complete. Each of +Ibsen's plays presupposes a long history behind it; each starts like an +ancient Greek tragedy, in the full process of catastrophe. This method +of composition was extraordinary, was perhaps, in modern times, +unparalleled. It accounted in measure for the coherency, the +inevitability, of all the detail, but it also accounted for some of the +difficulties which meet us in the task of interpretation. Ibsen calls +for an expositor, and will doubtless give occupation to an endless +series of scholiasts. They will not easily exhaust their theme, and to +the last something will escape, something will defy their most careful +examination. It is not disrespectful to his memory to claim that Ibsen +sometimes packed his stuff too closely. Criticism, when it marvels most +at the wonder of his genius, is constrained to believe that he sometimes +threw too much of his soul into his composition, that he did not stand +far enough away from it always to command its general effect. The +result, especially in the later symbolical plays, is too vibratory, and +excites the spectator too much. + +One very curious example of Ibsen's minute care is found in the +copiousness of his stage directions. Later playwrights have imitated him +in this, and we have grown used to it; but thirty years ago such +minuteness seemed extravagant and needless. As a fact, it was essential +to the absolutely complete image which Ibsen desired to produce. The +stage directions in his plays cannot be "skipped" by any reader who +desires to follow the dramatist's thought step by step without losing +the least link. These notes of his intention will be of ever-increasing +value as the recollection of his personal wishes is lost. In 1899 Ibsen +remarked to me that it was almost useless for actors nowadays to try to +perform the comedies of Holberg, because there were no stage directions +and the tradition was lost. Of his own work, fortunately, that can never +be said. Dr. Verrall, in his brilliant and penetrating studies of the +Greek Tragedies, has pointed out more than once the "undesigned and +unforeseen defect with which, in studying ancient drama, we must +perpetually reckon," namely, the loss of the action and of the +equivalent stage directions. It is easy to imagine "what problems +Shakespeare would present if he were printed like the _Poetae Scenici +Graeci_," and not more difficult to realize how many things there would +be to puzzle us in _Ghosts_ and _The Wild Duck_ if we possessed nothing +but the bare text. + +The body of work so carefully conceived, so long maintained, so +passionately executed, was far too disturbing in its character to be +welcome at first. In the early eighties the name of Ibsen was loathed in +Norway, and the attacks on him which filled the press were often of an +extravagant character. At the present moment any one conversant with +Norwegian society who will ask a priest or a schoolmaster, an officer or +a doctor, what has been the effect of Ibsen's influence, will be +surprised at the unanimity of the reply. Opinions may differ as to the +attractiveness of the poet's art or of its skill, but there is an almost +universal admission of its beneficial tendency. Scarcely will a voice be +found to demur to the statement that Ibsen let fresh air and light into +the national life, that he roughly but thoroughly awakened the national +conscience, that even works like _Ghosts_, which shocked, and works like +_Rosmersholm_, which insulted the prejudices of his countrymen, were +excellent in their result. The conquest of Norway by this dramatist, who +reviled and attacked and abandoned his native land, who railed at every +national habit and showed a worm at the root of every national +tradition, is amazing. The fierce old man lived long enough to be +accompanied to his grave "to the noise of the mourning of a nation," and +he who had almost starved in exile to be conducted to the last resting +place by a Parliament and a King. + +It must always be borne in mind that, although Ibsen's appeal is to the +whole world--his determination to use prose aiding him vastly in this +dissemination--yet it is to Norway that he belongs, and it is at home +that he is best understood. No matter how acrid his tone, no matter how +hard and savage the voice with which he prophesied, the accord between +his country and himself was complete long before the prophet died. As he +walked about, the strange, picturesque little old man, in the streets of +Christiania, his fellow-citizens gazed at him with a little fear, but +with some affection and with unbounded reverence. They understood at +last what the meaning of his message had been, and how closely it +applied to themselves, and how much the richer and healthier for it +their civic atmosphere had become. They would say, as the soul of Dante +said in the _New Life_:-- + +e costui Che viene a consolar la nostra mente, Ed e la sua tanto +possente, Ch'altro pensier non lascia star con nui. + +No words, surely, could better express the intensity with which Ibsen +had pressed his moral quality, his _virtu_, upon the Norwegian +conscience, not halting in his pursuit till he had captured it and had +banished from it all other ideals of conduct. No one who knows will +doubt that the recent events in which Norway has taken so chivalric, and +at the same time so winning and gracious, an attitude in the eyes of the +world, owe not a little to their being the work of a generation nurtured +in that new temper of mind, that _spiritel nuovo d'amore_ which was +inculcated by the whole work of Ibsen. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + +This file should be named 7ibsn10.txt or 7ibsn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7ibsn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7ibsn10a.txt + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Henrik Ibsen + +Author: Edmund Gosse + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8152] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + + + + +HENRIK IBSEN + +By Edmund Grosse + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I: CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH +CHAPTER II: EARLY INFLUENCES +CHAPTER III: LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) +CHAPTER IV: THE SATIRES (1857-67) +CHAPTER V: 1868-75 +CHAPTER VI: 1875-82 +CHAPTER VII: 1883-91 +CHAPTER VIII: LAST YEARS +CHAPTER IX: PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS +CHAPTER X: INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +Henrik Ibsen +Ibsen in 1868 +Ibsen in Dresden, October, 1873 +From a drawing by Gustav Laerum +Facsimile of Ibsen's Handwriting +Ibsen. From the painting by Eilif Petersen +Bust of Ibsen, about 1865 + + + +PREFACE + +Numerous and varied as have been the analyses of Ibsen's works +published, in all languages, since the completion of his writings, there +exists no biographical study which brings together, on a general plan, +what has been recorded of his adventures as an author. Hitherto the only +accepted Life of Ibsen has been _Et literaert Livsbillede_, published in +1888 by Henrik Jaeger; of this an English translation was issued in +1890. Henrik Jaeger (who must not be confounded with the novelist, Hans +Henrik Jaeger) was a lecturer and dramatic critic, residing near Bergen, +whose book would possess little value had he not succeeded in persuading +Ibsen to give him a good deal of valuable information respecting his +early life in that city. In its own day, principally on this account, +Jaeger's volume was useful, supplying a large number of facts which were +new to the public. But the advance of Ibsen's activity, and the increase +of knowledge since his death, have so much extended and modified the +poet's history that _Et literaert Livsbillede_ has become obsolete. + +The principal authorities of which I have made use in the following +pages are the minute bibliographical _Oplysninger_ of J. B. Halvorsen, +marvels of ingenious labor, continued after Halvorsen's death by Sten +Konow (1901); the _Letters of Henrik Ibsen_, published in two volumes, +by H. Koht and J. Elias, in 1904, and now issued in an English +translation (Hodder & Stoughton); the recollections and notes of various +friends, published in the periodicals of Scandinavia and Germany after +his death; T. Blanc's _Et Bidrag til den Ibsenskte Digtnings +Scenehistorie_ (1906); and, most of all, the invaluable _Samliv med +Ibsen_ (1906) of Johan Paulsen. This last-mentioned writer aspires, in +measure, to be Ibsen's Boswell, and his book is a series of chapters +reminiscent of the dramatist's talk and manners, chiefly during those +central years of his life which he spent in Germany. It is a trivial, +naive and rather thin production, but it has something of the true +Boswellian touch, and builds up before us a lifelike portrait. + +From the materials, too, collected for many years past by Mr. William +Archer, I have received important help. Indeed, of Mr. Archer it is +difficult for an English student of Ibsen to speak with moderation. It +is true that thirty-six years ago some of Ibsen's early metrical +writings fell into the hands of the writer of this little volume, and +that I had the privilege, in consequence, of being the first person to +introduce Ibsen's name to the British public. Nor will I pretend for a +moment that it is not a gratification to me, after so many years and +after such surprising developments, to know that this was the fact. But, +save for this accident of time, it was Mr. Archer and no other who was +really the introducer of Ibsen to English readers. For a quarter of a +century he was the protagonist in the fight against misconstruction and +stupidity; with wonderful courage, with not less wonderful good temper +and persistency, he insisted on making the true Ibsen take the place of +the false, and on securing for him the recognition due to his genius. +Mr. William Archer has his reward; his own name is permanently attached +to the intelligent appreciation of the Norwegian playwright in England +and America. + +In these pages, where the space at my disposal was so small, I have not +been willing to waste it by repeating the plots of any of those plays of +Ibsen which are open to the English reader. It would please me best if +this book might be read in connection with the final edition of _Ibsen's +Complete Dramatic Works_, now being prepared by Mr. Archer in eleven +volumes (W. Heinemann, 1907). If we may judge of the whole work by those +volumes of it which have already appeared, I have little hesitation in +saying that no other foreign author of the second half of the nineteenth +century has been so ably and exhaustively edited in English as Ibsen has +been in this instance. + +The reader who knows the Dano-Norwegian language may further be +recommended to the study of Carl Naerup's _Norsk Litteraturhistories +siste Tidsrum_ (1905), a critical history of Norwegian literature since +1890, which is invaluable in giving a notion of the effect of modern +ideas on the very numerous younger writers of Norway, scarcely one of +whom has not been influenced in one direction or another by the tyranny +of Ibsen's personal genius. What has been written about Ibsen in England +and France has often missed something of its historical value by not +taking into consideration that movement of intellectual life in Norway +which has surrounded him and which he has stimulated. Perhaps I may be +allowed to say of my little book that this side of the subject has been +particularly borne in mind in the course of its composition. + +E. G. + +KLOBENSTEIN. + + + +CHAPTER I + +CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + +The parentage of the poet has been traced back to a certain Danish +skipper, Peter Ibsen, who, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, +made his way over from Stege, the capital of the island of Möen, and +became a citizen of Bergen. From that time forth the men of the family, +all following the sea in their youth, jovial men of a humorous +disposition, continued to haunt the coasts of Norway, marrying sinister +and taciturn wives, who, by the way, were always, it would seem, Danes +or Germans or Scotswomen, so that positively the poet had, after a +hundred years and more of Norwegian habitation, not one drop of pure +Norse blood to inherit from his parents. His grandfather, Henrik, was +wrecked in 1798 in his own ship, which went down with all souls lost on +Hesnaes, near Grimstad; this reef is the scene of Ibsen's animated poem +of Terje Viken. His father, Knud, who was born in 1797, married in 1825 +a German, Marichen Cornelia Martie Altenburg, of the same town of Skien; +she was one year his senior, and the daughter of a merchant. It was in +1771 that the Ibsens, leaving Bergen, had settled in Skien, which was, +and still is, an important centre of the timber and shipping trades on +the south-east shore of the country. + +It may be roughly said that Skien, in the Danish days, was a sort of +Poole or Dartmouth, existing solely for purposes of marine merchandise, +and depending for prosperity, and life itself, on the sea. Much of a +wire-drawn ingenuity has been conjectured about the probable strains of +heredity which met in Ibsen. It is not necessary to do more than to +recognize the slight but obstinate exoticism, which kept all his +forbears more or less foreigners still in their Norwegian home; and to +insist on the mixture of adventurousness and plain common sense which +marked their movements by sea and shore. The stock was intensely +provincial, intensely unambitious; it would be difficult to find +anywhere a specimen of the lower middle class more consistent than the +Ibsens had been in preserving their respectable dead level. Even in that +inability to resist the call of the sea, generation after generation, if +there was a little of the dare-devil there was still more of the +conventional citizen. It is, in fact, a vain attempt to detect elements +of his ancestors in the extremely startling and unprecedented son who +was born to Knud and Marichen Ibsen two years and three months after +their marriage. + +This son, who was baptized Henrik Johan, although he never used the +second name, was born in a large edifice known as the Stockmann House, +in the centre of the town of Skien, on March 20, The house stood on one +side of a large, open square; the town pillory was at the right of and +the mad-house, the lock-up and other amiable urban institutions to the +left; in front was Latin school and the grammar school, while the church +occupied the middle of the square. Over this stern prospect the tourist +can no longer sentimentalize, for the whole of this part of Skien was +burned down in 1886, to the poet's unbridled satisfaction. "The +inhabitants of Skien," he said with grim humor, "were quite unworthy to +possess my birthplace." + +He declared that the harsh elements of landscape, mentioned above, were +those which earliest captivated his infant attention, and he added that +the square space, with the church in the midst of it, was filled all day +long with the dull and droning sound of many waterfalls, while from dawn +to dusk this drone of waters was constantly cut through by a sound that +was like the sharp screaming and moaning of women. This was caused by +hundreds of saws at work beside the waterfalls, taking advantage of that +force. "Afterwards, when I read about the guillotine, I always thought +of those saws," said the poet, whose earliest flight of fancy seems to +have been this association of womanhood with the shriek of the sawmill. + +In 1888, just before his sixtieth birthday, Ibsen wrote out for Henrik +Jaeger certain autobiographical recollections of his childhood. It is +from these that the striking phrase about the scream of the saws is +taken, and that is perhaps the most telling of these infant memories, +many of which are slight and naive. It is interesting, however, to find +that his earliest impressions of life at home were of an optimistic +character. "Skien," he says, "in my young days, was an exceedingly +lively and sociable place, quite unlike what it afterwards became. +Several highly cultivated and wealthy families lived in the town itself +or close by on their estates. Most of these families were more or less +closely related, and dances, dinners and music parties followed each +other, winter and summer, in almost unbroken sequence. Many travellers, +too, passed through the town, and, as there were as yet no regular inns, +they lodged with friends or connections. We almost always had guests in +our large, roomy house, especially at Christmas and Fair-time, when the +house was full, and we kept open table from morning till night." The +mind reverts to the majestic old wooden mansions which play so prominent +a part in Thomas Krag's novels, or to the house of Mrs. Solness' +parents, the burning down of which started the Master-Builder's +fortunes. Most of these grand old timber houses in Norway have indeed, +by this time, been so burned down. + +We may speculate on what the effect of this genial open-handedness might +have been, had it lasted, on the genius of the poet. But fortune had +harsher views of what befitted the training of so acrid a nature. When +Ibsen was eight years of age, his father's business was found to be in +such disorder that everything had to be sold to meet his creditors. The +only piece of property left when this process had been gone through was +a little broken-down farmhouse called Venstöb, in the outskirts of +Skien. Ibsen afterwards stated that those who had taken most advantage +of his parents' hospitality in their prosperous days were precisely +those who now most markedly turned a cold shoulder on them. It is likely +enough that this may have been the case, but one sees how inevitably +Ibsen would, in after years, be convinced that it was. He believed +himself to have been, personally, much mortified and humiliated in +childhood by the change in the family status. Already, by all accounts, +he had begun to live a life of moral isolation. His excellent sister +long afterwards described him as an unsociable child, never a pleasant +companion, and out of sympathy with all the rest of the family. + +We recollect, in _The Wild Duck_, the garret which was the domain of +Hedvig and of that symbolic bird. At Venstöb, the infant Ibsen possessed +a like retreat, a little room near the back entrance, which was sacred +to him and into the fastness of which he was accustomed to bolt himself. +Here were some dreary old books, among others Harrison's folio _History +of the City of London_, as well as a paint-box, an hour-glass, an +extinct eight-day clock, properties which were faithfully introduced, +half a century later, into _The Wild Duck_. His sister says that the +only outdoor amusement he cared for as a boy was building, and she +describes the prolonged construction of a castle, in the spirit of _The +Master-Builder_. + +Very soon he began to go to school, but to neither of the public +institutions in the town. He attended what is described as a "small +middle-class school," kept by a man called Johan Hansen, who was the +only person connected with his childhood, except his sister, for whom +the poet retained in after life any agreeable sentiment. "Johan Hansen," +he says, "had a mild, amiable temper, like that of a child," and when he +died, in 1865, Ibsen mourned him. The sexton at Skien, who helped in the +lessons, described the poet afterwards as "a quiet boy with a pair of +wonderful eyes, but with no sort of cleverness except an unusual gift +for drawing." Hansen taught Ibsen Latin and theology, gently, +perseveringly, without any striking results; that the pupil afterwards +boasted of having successfully perused Phaedrus in the original is in +itself significant. So little was talent expected from him that when, at +the age of about fifteen, he composed a rather melodramatic description +of a dream, the schoolmaster looked at him gloomily, and said he must +have copied it out of some book! One can imagine the shocked silence of +the author, "passive at the nadir of dismay." + +No great wild swan of the flocks of Phoebus ever began life as a more +ungainly duckling than Ibsen did. The ingenuity of biographers has done +its best to brighten up the dreary record of his childhood with +anecdotes, yet the sum of them all is but a dismal story. The only +talent which was supposed to lurk in the napkin was that for painting. A +little while before he left school, he was found to have been working +hard with water-colors. Various persons have recalled finished works of +the young Ibsen--a romantic landscape of the ironworks at Fossum, a view +from the windows at Venstöb, a boy in peasant dress seated on a rock, +the latter described by a dignitary of the church as "awfully splendid," +overmaade praegtigt. One sees what kind of painting this must have been, +founded on some impression of Fearnley and Tidemann, a far-away +following of the new "national" art of the praiseworthy "patriot- +painters" of the school of Dahl. + +It is interesting to remember that Pope, who had considerable +intellectual relationship with Ibsen, also nourished in childhood the +ambition to be a painter, and drudged away at his easel for weeks and +months. As he to the insipid Jervases and Knellers whom he copied, so +Ibsen to the conscientious romantic artists of Norway's prime. In +neither case do we wish that an Ibsen or a Pope should be secured for +the National Gallery, but it is highly significant that such earnest +students of precise excellence in another art should first of all have +schooled their eyes to exactitude by grappling with form and color. + +In 1843, being fifteen years of age, Ibsen was confirmed and taken away +from school. These events marked the beginning of adolescence with a +young middle-class Norwegian of those days, for whom the future proposed +no task in life demanding a more elaborate education than the local +schoolmaster could give. Ibsen announced his wish to be a professional +artist, but that was one which could not be indulged. Until a later date +than this, every artist in Norway was forced abroad for the necessary +technical training: as a rule, students went to Dresden, because J. C. +Dahl was there; but many settled in Düsseldorf, where the teaching +attracted them. In any case, the adoption of a plastic profession meant +a long and serious expenditure of money, together with a very doubtful +prospect of ultimate remuneration. Fearnley, who had seemed the very +genius of Norwegian art, had just (1842) died, having scarcely begun to +sell his pictures, at the age of forty. It is not surprising that Knud +Ibsen, whose to were in a worse condition than ever, refused even to +consider a course of life which would entail a heavy and long-continued +expense. + +Ibsen hung about at home for a few months, then, shortly before his +sixteenth birthday, he apprenticed to an apothecary of the name of Mann, +at the little town of Grimstad, between Arendal and Christianssand, on +the extreme south-east corner of the Norwegian coast. This was his home +for more than five years; here he became a poet, and here the peculiar +color and tone of his temperament were developed. So far as the genius +of a very great man is influenced by his surroundings, and by his +physical condition in those surroundings, it was the atmosphere of +Grimstad and of its drug-store which moulded the character of Ibsen. +Skien and his father's house dropped from him like an old suit of +clothes. He left his parents, whom he scarcely knew, the town which he +hated, the schoolmates and schoolmasters to whom he seemed a surly +dunce. We find him next, with an apron round his middle and a pestle in +his hand, pounding drugs in a little apothecary's shop in Grimstad. What +Blackwood's so basely insinuated of Keats--"Back to the shop, Mr. John, +stick to plasters, pills and ointment-boxes," inappropriate to the +author of _Endymion_, was strictly true of the author of _Peer Gynt_. + +Curiosity and hero-worship once took the author of these lines to +Grimstad. It is a marvellous object-lesson on the development of genius. +For nearly six years (from 1844 to 1850), and those years the most +important of all in the moulding of character and talent, one of the +most original and far-reaching imaginations which Europe has seen for a +century was cooped up here among ointment-boxes, pills and plasters. +Grimstad is a small, isolated, melancholy place, connected with nothing +at all, visitable only by steamer. Featureless hills surround it, and it +looks out into the east wind, over a dark bay dotted with naked rocks. +No industry, no objects of interest in the vicinity, a perfect +uniformity of little red houses where nobody seems to be doing anything; +in Ibsen's time there are said to have been about five hundred of these +apathetic inhabitants. Here, then, for six interminable years, one of +the acutest brains in Europe had to interest itself in fraying +ipecacuanha and mixing black draughts behind an apothecary's counter. + +For several years nothing is recorded, and there was probably very +little that demanded record, of Ibsen's life at Grimstad. His own +interesting notes, it is obvious, refer only to the closing months of +the period. Ten years before the birth of Ibsen of the greatest poets of +Europe had written words which seem meant to characterize an adolescence +such as his. "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature +imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, +in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of +life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted; thence proceed mawkishness +and a thousand bitters." + +It is easy to discover that Ibsen, from his sixth to his twentieth year, +suffered acutely from moral and intellectual distemper. He was at war-- +the phrase is his own--with the little community in which he lived. And +yet it seems to have been, in its tiny way, a tolerant and even friendly +little community. It is difficult for us to realize what life in a +remote coast-town of Norway would be sixty years ago. Connection with +the capital would be rare and difficult, and, when achieved, the capital +was as yet little more than we should call a village. There would, +perhaps, be a higher uniformity of education among the best inhabitants +of Grimstad than we are prepared to suppose. A certain graceful veneer +of culture, an old-fashioned Danish elegance reflected from Copenhagen, +would mark the more conservative citizens, male and female. A fierier +generation--not hot enough, however, to set the fjord on flame--would +celebrate the comparatively recent freedom of the country in numerous +patriotic forms. It is probable that a dark boy like Ibsen would, on the +whole, prefer the former type, but he would despise them both. + +He was poor, excruciatingly poor, with a poverty that excluded all +indulgence, beyond the bare necessities, in food and clothes and books. +We can conceive the meagre advance of his position, first a mere +apprentice, then an assistant, finally buoyed up by the advice of +friends to study medicine and pharmacy, in the hope of being, some +bright day, himself no less than the owner of a drug-store. Did Mr. +Anstey know this, or was it the sheer adventure of genius, when he +contrasted the qualities of the master into "Pill-Doctor Herdal," +compounding "beautiful rainbow-colored powders that will give one a real +grip on the world"? Ibsen, it is allowable to think, may sometimes have +dreamed of a pill, "with arsenic in it, Hilda, and digitalis, too, and +strychnine and the best beetle-killer," which would decimate the +admirable inhabitants of Grimstad, strewing the rocks with their bodies +in their go-to-meeting coats and dresses. He had in him that source of +anger, against which all arguments are useless, which bubbles up in the +heart of youth who vaguely feels himself possessed of native energy, and +knows not how to stir a hand or even formulate a wish. He was savage in +manners, unprepossessing in appearance, and, as he himself has told us +with pathetic naïveté, unable to express the real gratitude he felt to +the few who would willingly have extended friendship to him if he had +permitted it. + +As he advanced in age, he does not seem to have progressed in grace. By +the respectable citizens of Grimstad--and even Grimstad had its little +inner circle of impenetrable aristocracy--he regarded as "not quite +nice." The apothecary's assistant was a bold young man, who did not seem +to realize his menial position. He was certainly intelligent, and +Grimstad would have overlooked the pills and ointments if his manners +had been engaging, but he was rude, truculent and contradictory. The +youthful female sex is not in the habit of sharing the prejudices of its +elders in this respect, and many a juvenile Orson has, in such +conditions, enjoyed substantial successes. But young Ibsen was not a +favorite even with the girls, whom he alarmed and disconcerted. One of +the young ladies of Grimstad in after years attempted to describe the +effect which the poet made upon them. They had none of them liked him, +she said, "because"--she hesitated for the word--"because he was so +_spectral_." This gives us just the flash we want; it reveals to us for +a moment the distempered youth, almost incorporeal, displayed wandering +about at twilight and in lonely places, held in common esteem to be +malevolent, and expressing by gestures rather than by words sentiments +of a nature far from complimentary or agreeable. + +Thus life at Grimstad seems to have proceeded until Ibsen reached his +twenty-first year. In this quiet backwater of a seaport village the +passage of time was deliberate, and the development of hard-worked +apothecaries was slow. Ibsen's nature was not in any sense precocious, +and even if he had not languished in so lost a corner of society, it is +unlikely that he would have started prematurely in life or literature. +The actual waking up, when it came at last, seems to have been almost an +accident. There had been some composing of verses, now happily lost, and +some more significant distribution of "epigrams" and "caricatures" to +the vexation of various worthy persons. The earliest trace of talent +seems to been in this direction, in the form of lampoons or +"characters," as people called them in the seventeenth century, +sarcastic descriptions of types in which certain individuals could be +recognized. No doubt if these could be recovered, we should find them +rough and artless, but containing germs of the future keenness of +portraiture. They were keen enough, it seems, to rouse great resentment +in Grimstad. + +There is evidence to show that the lad had docility enough, at all +events, to look about for some aid in the composition of Norwegian +prose. We should know nothing of it but for a passage in Ibsen's later +polemic with Paul Jansenius Stub of Bergen. In 1848 Stub was an invalid +schoolmaster, who, it appears, eked out his income by giving +instruction, by correspondence, in style. How Ibsen heard of him does +not seem to be known, but when, in 1851, Ibsen entered, with needless +acrimony, into a controversy with his previous teacher about the +theatre, Stub complained of his ingratitude, since he had "taught the +boy to write." Stub's intervention in the matter, doubtless, was limited +to the correction of a few exercises. + +Ibsen's own theory was that his intellect and character were awakened by +the stir of revolution throughout Europe. The first political event +which really interested him was the proclamation of the French Republic, +which almost coincided with his twentieth birthday. He was born again, a +child of '48. There were risings in Vienna, in Milan, in Rome. Venice +was proclaimed a republic, the Pope fled to Gaeta, the streets of Berlin +ran with the blood of the populace. The Magyars rose against Jellalic +and his Croat troops; the Czechs demanded their autonomy; in response to +the revolutionary feeling in Germany, Schleswig-Holstein was up in arms. + +Each of these events, and others like them, and all occurring in the +rapid months of that momentous year, smote like hammers on the door of +Ibsen's brain, till it quivered with enthusiasm and excitement. The old +brooding languor was at an end, and with surprising clearness and +firmness he saw his pathway cut out before him as a poet and as a man. +The old clouds vanished, and though the social difficulties which hemmed +in his career were as gross as ever, he himself no longer doubted what +was to be his aim in life. The cry of revolution came to him, of +revolution faint indeed and broken, the voice of a minority appealing +frantically and for a moment against the overwhelming forces of a +respectable majority, but it came to him just at the moment when his +young spirit was prepared to receive it with faith and joy. The effect +on Ibsen's character was sudden and it was final: + + Then he stood up, and trod to dust + Fear and desire, mistrust and trust, + And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet, + And bound for sandals on his feet + Knowledge and patience of what must + And what things maybe, in the heat + And cold of years that rot and rust + And alter; and his spirit's meat + Was freedom, and his staff was wrought + Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought. + +We are not left to conjecture on the subject; in a document of extreme +interest, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of his +commentators, the preface to the second (1876) edition of _Catilina_, he +has described what the influences were which roused him out of the +wretchedness of Grimstad; they were precisely the revolution of +February, the risings in Hungary, the first Schleswig war. He wrote a +series of sonnets, now apparently lost, to King Oscar, imploring him to +take up arms for the help of Denmark, and of nights, when all his duties +were over at last, and the shop shut up, he would creep to the garret +where he slept, and dream himself fighting at the centre of the world, +instead of lost on its extreme circumference. And here he began his +first drama, the opening lines of which, + + "I must, I must; a voice is crying to me + From my soul's depth, and I will follow it," + +might be taken as the epigraph of Ibsen's whole life's work. + +In one of his letters to Georg Brandes he has noted, with that +clairvoyance which marks some of his utterances about himself, the +"full-blooded egotism" which developed in him during his last year of +mental and moral starvation at Grimstad. Through the whole series of his +satiric dramas we see the little narrow-minded borough, with its +ridiculous officials, its pinched and hypocritical social order, its +intolerable laws and ordinances, modified here and there, expanded +sometimes, modernized and brought up to date, but always recurrent in +the poet's memory. To the last, the images and the rebellions which were +burned into his soul at Grimstad were presented over and over again to +his readers. + +But the necessity of facing the examination at Christiania now presented +itself. He was so busily engaged in the shop that he had, as he says, to +steal his hours for study. He still inhabited the upper room, which he +calls a garret; it would not seem that the alteration in his status, +assistant now and no longer apprentice, had increased his social +conveniences. He was still the over-worked apothecary, pounding drugs +with a pestle and mortar from morning till night. Someone has pointed +out the odd circumstance that almost every scene in the drama of +_Catilina_ takes place in the dark. This was the unconscious result of +the fact that all the attention which the future realist could give to +the story had to be given in the night hours. When he emerged from the +garret, it was to read Latin with a candidate in theology, a Mr. Monrad, +brother of the afterwards famous professor. By a remarkable chance, the +subject given by the University for examination was the Conspiracy of +Catiline, to be studied in the history of Sallust and the oration of +Cicero. + +No theme could have been more singularly well fitted to fire the +enthusiasm of Ibsen. At no time of his life a linguist, or much +interested in history, it is probable that the difficulty of +concentrating his attention on a Latin text would have been +insurmountable had the subject been less intimately sympathetic to him. +But he tells us that he had no sooner perceived the character of the man +against whom these diatribes are directed than he devoured them greedily +(_jeg slugte disse skrifter_). The opening words of Sallust, which every +schoolboy has to read--we can imagine with what an extraordinary force +they would strike upon the resounding emotion of such a youth as Ibsen. +_Lucius Catilina nobili genere natus, magna vi et animi et corporis, sed +ingenio malo pravoque_--how does this at once bring up an image of the +arch-rebel, of Satan himself, as the poets have conceived him, how does +it attract, with its effects of energy, intelligence and pride, the +curiosity of one whose way of life, as Keats would say, is still +undecided, his ambition still thick-sighted! + +It was Sallust's picture more than Cicero's that absorbed Ibsen. +Criticism likes to trace a predecessor behind every genius, a Perugino +for Raffaelle, a Marlowe for Shakespeare. If we seek for the master-mind +that started Ibsen, it is not to be found among the writers of his age +or of his language. The real master of Ibsen was Sallust. There can be +no doubt that the cold and bitter strength of Sallust; his unflinching +method of building up his edifice of invective, stone by stone; his +close, unidealistic, dry penetration into character; his clinical +attitude, unmoved at the death-bed of a reputation; that all these +qualities were directly operative on the mind and intellectual character +of Ibsen, and went a long way to mould it while moulding was still +possible. + +There is no evidence to show that the oration of Cicero moved him nearly +so much as the narratives of Sallust. After all, the object of Cicero +was to crush the conspiracy, but what Ibsen was interested in was the +character of Catiline, and this was placed before him in a more +thrilling way by the austere reserve of the historian. No doubt, to a +young poet, when that poet was Ibsen, there would be something deeply +attractive in the sombre, archaic style, and icy violence of Sallust. +How thankful we ought to be that the historian, with his long sonorous +words--_flagitiosorum ac facinorosorum_--did not make of our perfervid +apothecary a mere tub-thumper of Corinthian prose! + +Ibsen now formed the two earliest friendships of his life. He had +reached the age of twenty without, as it would seem, having been able to +make his inner nature audible to those around him. He had been to the +inhabitants of Grimstad a stranger within their gates, not speaking +their language; or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at +all, but indulging in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like +Caliban, and tamed, and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship. +One of those who thus interpreted him was a young musician, Due, who +held a post in the custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud (1827-59), +who deserves a cordial acknowledgment from every admirer of Ibsen. He +also was in the receipt of custom, and a young man of small independent +means. To Schulerud and to Due, Ibsen revealed his poetic plans, and he +seems to have found in them both sympathizers with his republican +enthusiasms and transcendental schemes for the liberation of the +peoples. It was a stirring time, in 1848, and all generous young blood +was flowing fast in the same direction. + +Since Ibsen's death, Due has published a very lively paper of +recollections of the old Grimstad days. He says: + +His daily schedule admitted few intervals for rest or sleep. Yet I never +heard Ibsen complain of being tired. His health was uniformly good. He +must have had an exceptionally strong constitution, for when his +financial conditions compelled him to practice the most stringent +economy, he tried to do without underclothing, and finally even without +stockings. In these experiments he succeeded; and in winter he went +without an overcoat; yet without being troubled by colds or other bodily +ills. + +We have seen that Ibsen was so busy that he had to steal from his duties +the necessary hours for study. But out of these hours, he tells us, he +stole moments for the writing of poetry, of the revolutionary poetry of +which we have spoken, and for a great quantity of lyrics of a +sentimental and fanciful kind. Due was the confidant to whom he recited +the latter, and one at least of these early pieces survives, set to +music by this friend. But to Schulerud a graver secret was intrusted, no +less than that in the night hours of 1848-49 there was being composed in +the garret over the apothecary's shop a three-act tragedy in blank +verse, on the conspiracy of Catiline. With his own hand, when the first +draft was completed, Schulerud made a clean copy of the drama, and in +the autumn of 1849 he went to Christiania with the double purpose of +placing _Catilina_ at the theatre and securing a publisher for it. A +letter (October 15, 1849) from Ibsen, first printed in 1904--the only +document we possess of this earliest period--displays to a painful +degree the torturing anxiety with which the poet awaited news of his +play, and, incidentally, exposes his poverty. With all Schulerud's +energy, he found it impossible to gain attention for _Catilina_ at the +theatre, and in January, 1850, Ibsen received what he called its "death +warrant," but it was presently brought out as a volume, under the +pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme, at Schulerud's expense. Of _Catilina_ +about thirty copies were sold, and it attracted no notice whatever from +the press. + +Meanwhile, left alone in Grimstad, since Due was now with Schulerud in +Christiania, Ibsen had been busy with many literary projects. He had +been writing an abundance of lyrics, he had begun a one-act drama called +"The Normans," afterwards turned into _Kaempehöjen_; he was planning a +romance, _The Prisoner at Akershus_ (this was to deal with the story of +Christian Lofthus); and above all he was busy writing a tragedy of _Olaf +Trygvesön. [Note: On the authority of the Breve, pp. 59, 59, where +Halvdan Koht prints "Olaf Tr." and "Olaf T." expanding these to +Tr[ygvesön]. But is it quite certain that what Ibsen wrote in these +letters was not "Olaf Li." and "Olaf L.," and that the reference is not +to Olaf Liljekrans, which was certainly begun at Grimstad? Is there any +other evidence that Ibsen ever started an _Olaf Trygvesön_? + +One of his poems had already been printed in a Christiania newspaper. +The call was overwhelming; he could endure Grimstad and the gallipots no +longer. In March, 1850, at the age of twenty-one, Ibsen stuck a few +dollars in his pocket and went off to try his fortune in the capital. + + + +CHAPTER II + +EARLY INFLUENCES + +In middle life Ibsen, who suppressed for as long a time as he could most +of his other juvenile works, deliberately lifted _Catilina_ from the +oblivion into which it had fallen, and replaced it in the series of his +writings. This is enough to indicate to us that he regarded it as of +relative importance, and imperfect as it is, and unlike his later plays, +it demands some critical examination. I not know whether any one ever +happened to ask Ibsen whether he had been aware that Alexandre Dumas +produced in Paris a five-act drama of _Catiline_ at the very moment +(October, 1848) when Ibsen started the composition of his. It is quite +possible that the young Norwegian saw this fact noted in a newspaper, +and immediately determined to try what he could make of the same +subject. In Dumas' play Catiline is presented merely as a demagogue; he +is the red Flag personified, and the political situation in France is +discussed under a slight veil of Roman history. Catiline is simply a +sort of Robespierre brought up to date. There is no trace of all this in +Ibsen. + +Oddly enough, though the paradox is easily explained, we find much more +similarity when we compare the Norwegian drama with that tragedy of +_Catiline_ which Ben Jonson published in 1611. Needless to state, Ibsen +had never read the old English play; it would be safe to lay a wager +that, when he died, Ibsen had never heard or seen the name of Ben +Jonson. Yet there is an odd sort of resemblance, founded on the fact +that each poet keeps very close to the incidents recorded by the Latins. +Neither of them takes Sallust's presentment of the character of Catiline +as if it were gospel, but, while holding exact touch with the narrative, +each contrives to add a native grandeur to the character of the arch- +conspirator, such as his original detractors denied him. In both poems, +Ben Jonson's and Ibsen's, Catiline is-- + +Armed with a glory high as his despair. + +Another resemblance between the old English and the modern Norwegian +dramatist is that each has felt the solid stuff of the drama to require +lightening, and has attempted to provide this by means, in Ben Jonson's +case, of solemn "choruses," in Ibsen's of lyrics. In the latter instance +the tragedy ends in rolling and rhymed verse, little suited to the +stage. + +This is a very curious example, among many which might be brought +forward, of Ibsen's native partiality for dramatic rhyme. In all his +early plays, his tendency is to slip into the lyrical mood. This +tendency reached its height nearly twenty years later in _Brand_ and +_Peer Gynt_, and the truth about the austere prose which he then adopted +for his dramas is probably this, not that the lyrical faculty had +quitted him, but that he found it to be hampering his purely dramatic +expression, and that he determined, by a self-denying ordinance, to tear +it altogether off his shoulders, like an embroidered mantle, which is in +itself very ornamental, but which checks an actor's movements. + +The close of Ibsen's _Catalina_ is, as we have said, composed entirely +in rhyme, and the effect of this curious. It is as though the young poet +could not restrain the rhythm bubbling up in him, and was obliged to +start running, although the moment was plainly one for walking. Here is +a fragment. Catiline has stabbed Aurelia, and left her in the tent for +dead. But while he was soliloquizing at the door of the tent, Fulvia has +stabbed him. He lies dying at the foot of a tree, and makes a speech +which ends thus:-- + +See, the pathway breaks, divided! I will wander, dumb, +To the left hand. + + AURELIA + (appearing, blood-stained, at the door of the tent). + Nay! the right hand! Towards Elysium. + + CATILINE + (greatly alarmed). +O yon pallid apparition, how it fills me with remorse. +'Tis herself! Aurelia! tell me, art thou living? not a corse? + + AURELIA. +Yes, I live that I may full thy sea of sorrows, and may lie +With my bosom pressed a moment to thy bosom, and then die. + + CATILINE + (bewildered). +What? thou livest? + + AURELIA. + Death's pale herald o'er my senses threw a pall, +But my dulled eye tracked thy footsteps, and I saw, I saw it all, +And my passion a wife's forces to my wounded body gave; +Breast to breast, my Catiline, let us sink into our grave. + +[Note: In 1875 Ibsen practically rewrote the whole of this part of +_Catilina_, without, however, improving it. Why will great authors +confuse the history of literature by tampering with their early +texts? + +He had slipped far out of the sobriety of Sallust when he floundered, in +this way, in the deep waters of romanticism. In the isolation of +Grimstad he had but himself to consult, and the mind of a young poet who +has not yet enjoyed any generous communication with life is invariably +sentimental and romantic. The critics of the North have expended a great +deal of ingenuity in trying to prove that Ibsen exposed his own +temperament and character in the course of _Catilina_. No doubt there is +a great temptation to indulge in this species of analysis, but it is +amusing to note that some of the soliloquies which have been pointed out +as particularly self-revealing are translated almost word for word out +of Sallust. Perhaps the one passage in the play which is really +significant is that in which the hero says:-- + +If but for one brief moment I could flame +And blaze through space, and be a falling star; +If only once, and by one glorious deed, +I could but knit the name of Catiline +With glory and with deathless high renown,-- +Then should I blithely, in the hour of conquest, +Leave all, and hie me to an alien shore, +Press the keen dagger gayly to my heart, +And die; for then I should have lived indeed. + +This has its personal interest, since we know, on the evidence of his +sister, that such was the tenor of Ibsen's private talk about himself at +that precise time. + +Very imperfect as _Catilina_ is in dramatic art, and very primitive as +is the development of plot in it, it presents one aspect, as a literary +work, which is notable. That it should exist at all is curious, since, +surprising as it seems, it had no precursor. Although, during the +thirty-five years of Norwegian independence, various classes of +literature had been cultivated with extreme diligence, the drama had +hitherto been totally neglected. With the exception of a graceful opera +by Bjerregaard, which enjoyed a success sustained over a quarter of a +century, the only writings in dramatic form produced in Norway between +1815 and 1850 were the absurd lyrical farces of Wergeland, which were +devoid of all importance. Such a thing as a three-act tragedy in blank +verse was unknown in modern Norway, so that the youthful apothecary in +Grimstad, whatever he was doing, was not slavishly copying the fashions +of his own countrymen. + +The principal, if not the only influence which acted upon Ibsen at this +moment, was that of the great Danish tragedian, Adam Oehlenschläger. It +might be fantastically held that the leading romantic luminary of +Scandinavia withdrew on purpose to make room for his realistic +successor, since Oehlenschläger's latest play, _Kiartan and Gudrun_, +appeared just when Ibsen was planning _Catilina_, while the death of the +Danish poet (January 20, 1850) was practically simultaneous with Ibsen's +arrival in Christiania. In later years, Ibsen thought that Holberg and +Oehlenschläger were the only dramatists he had read when his own first +play was written; he was sure that he knew nothing of Schiller, +Shakespeare or the French. Of the rich and varied dramatic literature of +Denmark, in the generation between Oehlenschläger's and his own, he must +also for the present have known nothing. The influence of Heiberg and of +Hertz, presently to be so potent, had evidently not yet begun. But it is +important to perceive that already Norway, and Norwegian taste and +opinion, were nothing to him in his selection of themes and forms. + +It is not to be supposed that the taste for dramatic performances did +not exist in Norway, because no Norwegian plays were written. On the +contrary, in most of the large towns there were, and had long been, +private theatres or rooms which could be fitted up with a stage, at +which wandering troupes of actors gave performances that were eagerly +attended by "the best people." These actors, however, were exclusively +Danes, and there was an accepted tradition that Norwegians could not +act. If they attempted to do so, their native accents proved +disagreeable to their fellow-citizens, who demanded, as an imperative +condition, the peculiar intonation and pronunciation cultivated at the +Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, as well as an absence of all native +peculiarities of language. The stage, therefore--and this is very +important in a consideration of the career of Ibsen--had come to be the +symbol of a certain bias in political feeling. Society in Norway was +divided into two classes, the "Danomaniacs" and the "Patriots." Neither +of these had any desire to alter the constitutional balance of power, +but while the latter wished Norway to be intellectually self-productive, +and leaned to a further isolation in language, literature, art and +manners, the former thought that danger of barbarism lay in every +direction save that of keeping close to the tradition of Denmark, from +which all that was witty, graceful and civilized had proceeded. + +Accordingly the theatre, at which exclusively Danish plays were acted, +in the Danish style, by Danish actors and actresses, was extremely +popular with the conservative class, who thought, by attendance on these +performances, to preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of +"high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the +patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave +suspicion as likely to undermine the purity of national feeling. + +The earliest attempt at the opening of a National Theatre had been made +at Christiania by the Swede, J. P. Strömberg, in 1827; this was not +successful, and his theatre was burned down in 1835. In it some effort +had been made to use the Norwegian idiom and to train native actors, but +it had been to no avail. The play-going public liked their plays to be +Danish, and even nationalists of a pronounced species could not deny +that dramas, like the great historical tragedies of Oehlenschläger, many +of which dealt enthusiastically with legends that were peculiarly +Norwegian, were as national as it was possible for poems by a foreign +poet to be. All this time, it must be remembered, Christiania was to +Copenhagen as Dublin till lately was to London, or as New York was half +a century ago. It is in the arts that the old colonial instinct of +dependence is most loath to disappear. + +The party of the nationalists, however, had been steadily increasing in +activity, and the universal quickening of patriotic pulses in 1848 had +not been without its direct action upon Norway. + +Nevertheless, for various reasons of internal policy, there was perhaps +no country in Europe where this period of seismic disturbance led to +less public turmoil than precisely here in the North. The accession of a +new king, Oscar I, in 1844, had been followed by a sense of renewed +national security; the peasants were satisfied that the fresh reign +would be favorable to their rights and liberties; and the monarch showed +every inclination to leave his country of Norway as much as possible to +its own devices. The result of all this was that '48 left no mark on the +internal history of the country, and the fever which burned in youthful +bosoms was mainly, if not entirely, intellectual and transcendental. The +young Catiline from Grimstad, therefore, met with several sympathetic +rebels, but found nobody willing to conspire. But what he did find is so +important in the consideration of his future development that it is +needful briefly to examine it. + +Norway had, in 1850, been independent of Denmark for thirty-six years. +During the greater part of that time the fiery excitements of a struggle +for politic existence had fairly exhausted her mental resources, and had +left her powerless to inaugurate a national literature. Meanwhile, there +was no such discontinuity in the literary and scientific relations of +the two countries as that which had broken their constitutional union. A +tremendous effort was made by certain patriots to discover the basis of +an entirely independent intellectual life, something that should start +like the phoenix from the ashes of the old régime, and should offer no +likeness with what continued to flourish south of the Skagarak. But all +the efforts of the University of Christiania were vain to prevent the +cultivated classes from looking to Copenhagen as their centre of light. +Such authors as there were, and they were few indeed, followed humbly in +the footsteps of their Danish brethren. + +Patriotic historians of literature are not always to be trusted, and +those who study native handbooks of Norwegian criticism must be on their +guard when these deal with the three poets who "inaugurated in song the +young liberties of Norway." The writings of the three celebrated lyric +patriots, Schwach, Bjerregaard and Hansen, will not bear to have the +blaze of European experience cast upon them; their tapers dwindle to +sparks in the light of day. They gratified the vanity of the first +generation after 1815, but they deserve no record in the chronicles of +poetic art. If Ibsen ever read these rhymes of circumstance, it must +have been to treat them with contempt. + +Twenty years after the Union, however, and in Ibsen's early childhood, +an event occurred which was unique in the history of Norwegian +literature, and the consequences of which were far-reaching. As is often +the case in countries where the art of verse is as yet little exercised, +there grew up about 1830 a warm and general, but uncritical, delight in +poetry. This instinct was presently satisfied by the effusion of a vast +quantity of metrical writing, most of it very bad, and was exasperated +by a violent personal feud which for a while interested all educated +persons in Norway to a far greater degree than any other intellectual +or, for the time being, even political question. From 1834 to 1838 the +interests of all cultivated people centred around what was called the +"Twilight Feud" (_Daemringsfejden_), and no record of Ibsen's +intellectual development can be complete without a reference to this +celebrated controversy, the results of which long outlived the +popularity of its skits and pamphlets. + +Modern Norwegian literature began with this great fight. The +protagonists were two poets of undoubted talent, whose temperaments and +tendencies were so diametrically opposed that it seemed as though +Providence must have set them down in that raw and inflammable +civilization for the express purpose of setting the standing corn of +thought on fire. Henrik Wergeland (1808-45) was a belated son of the +French Revolution; ideas, fancies, melodies and enthusiasms fermented in +his ill-regulated brain, and he poured forth verses in a violent and +endless stream. It is difficult, from the sources of Scandinavian +opinion, to obtain a sensible impression of Wergeland. The critics of +Norway as persistently overrate his talents as those of Denmark neglect +and ridicule his pretensions. The Norwegians still speak of him as +_himmelstraevende sublim_ ("sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the +Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster. Neither view +commends itself to a foreign reader of the poet. + +The fact, internationally stated, seems rather to be this. In Wergeland +we have a typical example of the effects of excess of fancy in a +violently productive but essential uncritical nature. He was ecstatic, +unmeasured, a reckless improvisatore. In his ideas he was preposterously +humanitarian; a prodigious worker, his vigor of mind seemed never +exhausted by his labors; in theory an idealist, in his private life he +was charged with being scandalously sensual. He was so much the victim +of his inspiration that it would come upon him like a descending wind, +and leave him physically prostrate. In Wergeland we see an instance of +the poetical temper in its most unbridled form. A glance through the +enormous range of his collected works is like an excursion into chaos. +We are met almost at the threshold by a colossal epic, _Creation, Man +and the Messiah_ (1830); by songs that turn into dithyrambic odes, by +descriptive pieces which embrace the universe, by all the froth and roar +and turbidity of genius, with none of its purity and calm. The genius is +there; it is idle to deny it; but it is in a state of violent turmoil. + +It is when the ruling talent of an age is of the character of +Wergeland's-- + + Thundering and bursting, + In torrents, in waves, + Carolling and shouting + Over tombs, over graves-- + +that delicate spirits, as in Matthew Arnold's poem, sigh for the silence +and the hush, and rise at length in open rebellion against Iacchus and +his maenads, who destroy all the quiet of life and who madden innocent +blood with their riot. Johan Sebastian Welhaven (1807-73) was a student +at the University with Wergeland, and he remained silent while the +latter made the welkin ring louder and louder with his lyric shrieks. +Welhaven endured the rationalist and republican rhetoric of Wergeland as +long as he could, although with growing exasperation, until the +rhapsodical author of _Creation_, transgressing all moderation, accused +those who held reasonable views in literature and politics of being +traitors. Then it became necessary to deal with this raw and local +parody of Victor Hugo. When, in the words of _The Cask of Amontillado_, +Wergeland "ventured upon insult," Welhaven "vowed he would be avenged." + +Welhaven formed as complete a contrast to his antagonist as could be +imagined. He was of the class of Sully Prudhomme, of Matthew Arnold, of +Lowell, to name three of his younger contemporaries. In his nature all +was based upon equilibrium; his spirit, though full of graceful and +philosophical intuitions, was critical rather than creative. He wrote +little, and with difficulty, and in exquisite form. His life was as +blamelessly correct as his literary art was harmonious. Wergeland knew +nothing of the Danish tradition of his day, which he treated with +violent and bitter contempt. Welhaven, who had moved in the circle of +the friends of Rahbek, instinctively referred every literary problem to +the tribunal of Danish taste. He saw that with the enthusiasm with which +the poetry of Wergeland was received in Norway was connected a suspicion +of mental discipline, a growing worship of the peasant and a hatred and +scorn of Denmark, with all of which he had no sympathy. He thought the +time had come for better things; that the national temper ought to be +mollified with the improved economic situation of the country; that the +students, who were taking a more and more prominent place, ought to be +on the side of the angels. It was not unnatural that Welhaven should +look upon the corybantic music of Wergeland as the source and origin of +an evil of which it was really the symptom; he gathered his powers +together to crush it, and he published a thunderbolt of sonnets. + +The English reader, familiar with the powerlessness of even the best +verse to make any impression upon Anglo-Saxon opinion, may smile to +think of a great moral and ethical attack conducted with no better +weapon than a paper of sonnets. But the scene of the fight was a small, +intensely local, easily agitated society of persons, all keenly though +narrowly educated, and all accustomed to be addressed in verse. +Welhaven's pamphlet was entitled _The Twilight of Norway_ (1834), and +the sonnets of which it consisted were highly polished in form, filled +with direct and pointed references to familiar persons and events and +absolutely unshrinking in attack. No poetry of equal excellence had been +produced in Norway since the Union. It is not surprising that this +invective against the tendencies of the youthful bard over whose +rhapsodies all Norway was growing crazy with praise should arrest +universal attention, although in the _Twilight_ Welhaven adroitly +avoided mentioning Wergeland by name. Fanaticism gathered in an angry +army around the outraged standard of the republican poet, but the lovers +of order and discipline had found a voice, and they clustered about +Welhaven with their support. Language was not minced by the assailants, +and still less by the defenders. The lovers of Wergeland were told that +politics and brandy were their only pleasures, but those of Welhaven +were warned that they were known to be fed with bribes from Copenhagen. +Meanwhile Welhaven himself, in successive publications, calmly analyzed +the writings of his antagonist, and proved them to be "in complete +rebellion against sound thought and the laws of beauty." The feud raged +from 1834 to 1838, and left Norway divided into two rival camps of +taste. + +Although the "Twilight Feud" had passed away before Ibsen ceased to be a +boy, the effect of it was too widely spread not to affect him. In point +of fact, we see by the earliest of his lyric poems that while he was at +Grimstad he had fully made up his mind. His early songs and +complimentary pieces are all in the Danish taste, and if they show any +native influence at all, it is that of Welhaven. The extreme +superficiality of Wergeland would naturally be hateful to so arduous a +craftsman as Ibsen, and it is a fact that so far as his writings reveal +his mind to us, the all-popular poet of his youth appears to be +absolutely unknown to him. What this signifies may be realized if we say +that it is as though a great English or French poet of the second half +of the nineteenth century should seem to have never heard of Tennyson or +Victor Hugo. On the other hand, at one crucial point of a late play, +_Little Eyolf_, Ibsen actually pauses to quote Welhaven. + +In critical history the absence of an influence is sometimes as +significant as the presence of it. The looseness of Wergeland's style, +its frothy abundance, its digressions and parentheses, its slipshod +violence, would be to Ibsen so many beacons of warning, to be viewed +with horror and alarm. A poem of three stanzas, "To the Poets of +Norway," only recently printed, dates from his early months in +Christiania, and shows that even in 1850 Ibsen was impatient with the +conventional literature of his day. "Less about the glaciers and the +pine-forests," he cries, "less about the dusty legends of the past, and +more about what is going on in the silent hearts of your brethren!" Here +already is sounded the note which was ultimately to distinguish him from +all the previous writers of the North. + +No letters have been published which throw light on Ibsen's first two +years in the capital. We know that he did not communicate with his +parents, whose poverty was equalled by his own. He could receive no help +from them, nor offer them any, and he refrained, as they refrained, from +letter writing. This separation from his family, begun in this way, grew +into a habit, so that when his father died in 1877 no word had passed +between him and his son for nearly thirty years. When Ibsen reached +Christiania, in March, 1850, his first act was to seek out his friend +Schulerud, who was already a student. For some time he shared the room +of Schulerud and his thrifty meals; later on the two friends, in company +with Theodor Abildgaard, a young revolutionary journalist, lived in +lodgings kept by a certain Mother Saether. + +Schulerud received a monthly allowance which was "not enough for one, +and starvation for two"; but Ibsen's few dollars soon came to an end, +and he seems to have lived on the kindness of Schulerud to their great +mutual privation. Both young men attended the classes of a celebrated +"crammer" of that day, H. A. S. Heltberg, who had opened in 1843 a Latin +school where elder pupils came for a two-years' course to prepare them +for taking their degree. This place, known familiarly as "the Student +Factory," holds quite a prominent place in Norwegian literary history, +Ibsen, Björnson, Vinje and Jonas Lie having attended its classes and +passed from it to the University. + +Between these young men, the leading force of literature in the coming +age, a generous friendship sprang up, despite the disparity in their +ages. Vinje, a peasant from Thelemark, was thirty-two; he had been a +village schoolmaster and had only now, in 1850, contrived to reach the +University. With Vinje, the founder of the movement for writing +exclusively in Norwegian patois, Ibsen had a warm personal sympathy, +while he gave no intellectual adherence to his theories. Between the +births of Vinje and Björnson there stretched a period of fourteen years, +yet Björnson was a student before either Ibsen or Vinje. That Ibsen +immediately formed Björnson's acquaintance seems to be proved from the +fact that they both signed a protest against the deportation of a Dane +called Harring on May 29, 1850. It was a fortunate chance which threw +Ibsen thus suddenly into the midst of a group of those in whom the hopes +of the new generation were centred. But we are left largely to +conjecture in what manner their acquaintanceship acted upon his mind. + +His material life during the next year is obscure. Driven by the +extremity of need, it is plain that he adopted every means open to him +by which he could add a few dollars to Schulerud's little store. He +wrote for the poor and fugitive journals of the day, in prose and verse; +but the payment of the Norwegian press in those days was almost nothing. +It is difficult to know how he subsisted, yet he continued to exist. +Although none of his letters of this period seem to have been preserved, +a few landmarks are left us. The little play called _Kaempehöien_ (The +Warrior's Barrow), which he had brought unfinished with him from +Grimstad, was completed and put into shape in May, 1850, accepted at the +Christiania Theatre, and acted three times during the following autumn. +Perhaps the most interesting fact connected with this performance was +that the only female part, that of Blanka, was taken by a young +débutante, Laura Svendsen; this was the actress afterwards to rise to +the height of eminence as the celebrated Mrs. Gundersen, no doubt the +most gifted of all Ibsen's original interpreters. + +It was a matter of course that the poet was greatly cheered by the +acceptance of his play, and he immediately set to work on another, _Olaf +Liljekrans_; but this he put aside when _Kaempehöien_ practically +failed. He wrote a satirical comedy called _Norma_. He endeavored to get +certain of his works, dramatic and lyric, published in Christiania, but +all the schemes fell through. It is certain that 1851 began darkly for +the young man, and that his misfortunes encouraged in him a sour and +rebellious temper. For the first and only time in his life he meddled +with practical politics. Vinje and he--in company with a charming +person, Paul Botten-Hansen (1824-69), who flits very pleasantly through +the literary history of this time--founded a newspaper called +_Andhrimner_, which lasted for nine months. + +One of the contributors was Abildgaard, who, as we have seen, lived in +the same house with Ibsen. He was a wild being, who had adopted the +republican theories of the day in their crudest form. He posed as the +head of a little body whose object was to dethrone the king, and to +found a democracy in Norway. On July 7, 1851, the police made a raid +upon these childish conspirators, the leaders being arrested and +punished with a long imprisonment. The poet escaped, as by the skin of +his teeth, and the warning was a lifelong one. He never meddled with +politics any more. This was, indeed, as perhaps he felt, no time for +rebellion; all over Europe the eruption of socialism had spent itself, +and the docility of the populations had become wonderful. + +The discomfort and uncertainty of Ibsen's position in Christiania made +him glad to fill a post which the violinist, Ole Bull, offered him +during autumn. The newly constituted National Theatre in Bergen (opened +Jan. 2, 1850) had accepted a prologue written for an occasion by the +young poet, and on November 6, 1851, Ibsen entered into a contract by +which he bound himself go to Bergen "to assist the theatre as dramatic +author." The salary was less than £70 a year, but it was eked out by +travelling grants, and little as it might be, it was substantially more +than the nothing-at-all which Ibsen had been enjoying in Christiania. + +It is difficult to imagine what asset could be bought to the treasuries +of a public theatre by a youth of three and twenty so ill-educated, so +empty of experience and so ill-read as Ibsen was in 1851. His crudity, +we may be sure, passed belief. He was the novice who has not learned his +business, the tyro to whom the elements of his occupation are unknown. +We have seen that when he wrote _Catilina_ he had neither sat through +nor read any of the plays of the world, whether ancient or modern. The +pieces which belong to his student years reveal a preoccupation with +Danish dramas of the older school, Oehlenschläger and (if we may guess +what _Norma_ was) Holberg, but with nothing else. Yet Ole Bull, one of +the most far-sighted men of his time, must have perceived the germs of +theatrical genius in him, and it is probable that Ibsen owed his +appointment more to what this wise patron felt in his future than what +Ole Bull or any one else could possibly point to as yet accomplished. +Unquestionably, a rude theatrical penetration could already he divined +in his talk about the stage, vague and empirical as that must have been. + +At all events, to Bergen he went, as a sort of literary manager, as a +Claretie or Antoine, to compare a small thing with great ones, and the +fact was of inestimable value. It may even be held, without fear of +paradox, that this was the turning-point of Ibsen's life, that this +blind step in the dark, taken in the magnificent freedom of youth, was +what made him what he became. No Bergen in 1851, we may say, and no +_Doll's House_ or _Hedda Gabler_ ultimately to follow. For what it did +was to force this stubborn genius, which might so easily have slipped +into sinister and abnormal paths, and have missed the real humanity of +the stage, to take the tastes of the vulgar into due consideration and +to acquaint himself with the necessary laws of play-composition. + +Ibsen may seem to have little relation with the drama of the world, but +in reality he is linked with it at every step. There is something of +Shakespeare in _John Gabriel Borkman_, something Molière in _Ghosts_, +something of Goethe in _Peer Gynt_. We may go further and say, though it +would have made Ibsen wince, that there is something of Scribe in _An +Enemy of the People_. Is very doubtful whether, without the discipline +which forced him to put on the stage, at Bergen and in Christiania, +plays evidently unsympathetic to his own taste, which obliged him to do +his best for the popular reception of those plays, and which forced him +minutely to analyze their effects, he would ever have been the world- +moving dramatist which, as all sane critics must admit, he at length +became. + +He made some mistakes at first; how could he fail to do so? It was the +recognition of these blunders, and perhaps the rough censure of them the +local press, which induced the Bergen theatre to scrape a few dollars +together and send him, in charge of some of the leading actors and +actresses, to Copenhagen and Dresden for instruction. To go from Bergen +to Copenhagen was like travelling from Abdera to Athens, and to find a +species of Sophocles in J. A. Heiberg, who had since 1849 been sole +manager of the Royal Theatre. Here the drama of the world, all the +salutary names, all the fine traditions, burst upon the pilgrims from +the North. Heiberg, the gracious and many-sided, was the centre of light +in those days; no one knew the stage as he knew no one interpreted it +with such splendid intelligence, and he received the crude Norwegian +"dramatist-manager" with the utmost elegance of cordiality. Among the +teachers of Ibsen, Heiberg ranks as the foremost. We may farther and say +that he was the last. When Ibsen had learned the lesson of Heiberg, only +nature and his own genius had anything more to teach him. [See Note +below] In August, 1852, rich with the spoils of time, but otherwise poor +indeed, Ibsen made his way back to his duties in Bergen. + +[Note: Perhaps no author, during the whole of his career, more deeply +impressed Ibsen with reverence and affection than Johan Ludvig Heiberg +did. When the great Danish poet died (at Bonderup, August 25, 1860), +Ibsen threw on his tomb the characteristic bunch of bitter herbs called +_Til de genlevende_--"To the Survivors," in which he expressed the +faintest appreciation of those who lavished posthumous honor on Heiberg +in Denmark: + + In your land a torch he lifted; + With its flame ye scorched his forehead. + + How to swing the sword he taught you, + And,--ye plunged it in his bosom. + + While he routed trolls of darkness,-- + With your shields you tripped and bruised him. + + But his glittering star of conquest + Ye must guard, since he has left you: + + Try, at least, to keep it shining, + While the thorn-crowned conqueror slumbers.] + + + +CHAPTER III + +LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57) + +Ibsen's native biographers have not found much to record, and still less +that deserves to recorded, about his life during the next five years. He +remained in Bergen, cramped by want of means in his material condition, +and much harassed and worried by the little pressing requirements of the +theatre. It seems that every responsibility fell upon his shoulders, and +that there was no part of stage-life that it was not his duty to look +after. The dresses of the actresses, the furniture, the scene-painting, +the instruction of raw Norwegian actors and actresses, the selection of +plays, now to please himself, now to please the bourgeois of Bergen, all +this must be done by the poet or not done at all. Just so, two hundred +years earlier, we may imagine Molière, at Carcassonne or Albi, bearing +up in his arms, a weary Titan, all the frivolities and anxieties and +misdeeds of a whole company of comedians. + +So far as our very scanty evidence goes, we find the poet isolated from +his fellows, so far as isolation was possible, during his long stay at +Bergen. He was not accused, and if there had been a chance he would have +been accused, of dereliction. No doubt he pushed through the work of the +theatre doggedly, but certainly not in a convivial spirit. The +Norwegians are a hospitable and festal people, and there is no question +that the manager of the theatre would have unusual opportunities of +being jolly with his friends. But it does not appear that Ibsen made +friends; if so, they were few, and they were as quiet as himself. Even +in these early years he did not invite confidences, and no one found him +wearing his heart upon his sleeve. He went through his work without +effusion, and there is no doubt that what leisure he enjoyed he spent in +study, mainly of dramatic literature. + +His reading must have been limited by his insensibility to foreign +languages. All through his life he forgot the tongues of other countries +almost faster than he gained them. Probably, at this time, he had begun +to know German, a language in which he did ultimately achieve a fluency +which was, it appears, always ungrammatical. But, as is not unfrequent +with a man who is fond of reading but no linguist, Ibsen's French and +English came and went in a trembling uncertainty. As time passed on, he +gave up the effort to read, even a newspaper, in either language. + +The mile-stones in this otherwise blank time are the original plays +which, perhaps in accordance with some clause in his agreement, he +produced at his theatre in the first week of January in each year. A +list of them cannot be spared in this place to the most indolent of +readers, since it offers, in a nutshell, a résumé of what the busy +imagination of Ibsen was at work upon up to his thirtieth year. His +earliest new-year's gift to the play-goers of Bergen was _St. John's +Night_, 1853, a piece which has not been printed; in 1854 he revived +_The Warrior's Barrow_; in 1855 he made an immense although irregular +advance with _Lady Inger at Östraat_; in 1856 he produced _The Feast at +Solhoug_; in 1857 a rewritten version of the early _Olaf Liljekrans_. +These are the juvenile works of Ibsen, which are scarcely counted in the +recognized canon of his writings. None of them is completely +representative of his genius, and several are not yet within reach of +the English reader. Yet they have a considerable importance, and must +detain us for a while. They are remarkable as showing the vigor of the +effort by which he attempted to create an independent style for himself, +no less than the great difficulties which he encountered in following +this admirable aim. + +_Lady Inger at Östraat_, written in the winter of 1854 but not published +until 1857, is unique among Ibsen's works as a romantic exercise in the +manner of Scribe. It is the sole example of a theme taken by him +directly from comparatively modern history, and treated purely for its +value as a study of contemporary intrigue. From this point of view it +curiously exemplifies a remark of Hazlitt: "The progress of manners and +knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps +destroy both tragedy and comedy. ... At last, there will be nothing +left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real +life." + +When Ibsen undertook to write about Inger Gyldenlöve, he was but little +acquainted with the particulars of her history. He conceived her, as he +found her in the incomplete chronicles he consulted, as a Matriarch, a +wonderful and heroic elderly woman around whom all the hopes of an +embittered patriotism were legitimately centred. Unfortunately, "the +progress of knowledge," as Hazlitt would say, exposed the falsity of +this conception. A closer inspection of the documents, and further +analysis of the condition of Norway in 1528, destroyed the fair +illusion, and showed Ibsen in the light of an indulgent idealist. + +Here is what Jaeger [Note: In _En literaert Livsbillede_] has to give us +of the disconcerting results of research: + +In real life Lady Inger was not a woman formed upon so grand a plan. She +was the descendant of an old and noble family which had preserved its +dignity, and she consequently was the wealthiest landowner in the +country. This, and this alone, gives her a right to a place in history. +If we study her life, we find no reason to suppose that patriotic +considerations ever affected her conduct. The motive power of her +actions was on a far lower plane, and seems to have consisted mainly in +an amazingly strong instinct for adding to her wealth and her status. We +find her, for instance, on one occasion seizing the estates of a +neighbor, and holding them till she was actually forced to resign them. +When she gave her daughters in marriage to Danish noblemen, it was to +secure direct advantage from alliance with the most high-born sons-in- +law procurable. When she took a convent under her protection, she +contrived to extort a rent which well repaid her. Even for a good action +she exacted a return, and when she offered harbor to the persecuted +Chancellor, she had the adroitness to be well rewarded by a large sum in +rose-nobles and Hungarian gulden. + +All this could not fail to be highly exasperating to Ibsen, who had set +out to be a realist, and was convicted by the spiteful hand of history +of having been an idealist of the rose-water class. No wonder that he +never touched the sequence of modern events any more. + +There is some slight, but of course unconscious, resemblance to +_Macbeth_ in the external character of _Lady Inger_. This play has +something of the roughness of a mediaeval record, and it depicts a +condition of life where barbarism uncouthly mingles with a certain +luxury of condition. There is, however, this radical difference that in +_Lady Inger_ there is nothing preternatural, and it is, indeed, in this +play that Ibsen seems first to appreciate the value of a stiff attention +to realism. The romantic elements of the story, however, completely +dominate his imagination, and when we have read the play carefully what +remains with us most vividly is the picturesqueness and unity of the +scene. The action, vehement and tumultuous as it is, takes place +entirely within the walls of Östraat castle, a mysterious edifice, +sombre and ancient, built on a crag over the ocean, and dimly lighted by + + Magic casements opening on the foam + Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn. + +The action is exclusively nocturnal, and so large a place in it is taken +by huge and portable candlesticks that it might be called the Tragedy of +the Candelabra. Through the windows, on the landward side, a procession +of mysterious visitors go by in the moonlight, one by one, each fraught +with the solemnity of fate. The play is full of striking pictures, +groups in light and shade, pictorial appeals to terror and pity. + +The fault of the drama lies in the uncertain conception of the +characters, and particularly of that of the Matriarch herself. Inger is +described to us as the Mother of the Norwegian People, as the one +strong, inflexible and implacable brain moving in a world of depressed +and irritated men. "Now there is no knight left in our land," says Finn, +but--and this is the point from which the play starts--there is Inger +Gyldenlöve. We have approached the moment of crisis when the fortunes +and the fates of Norway rest upon the firmness of this majestic woman. +Inger is driven forward on the tide of circumstance, and, however she +may ultimately fail, we demand evidence of her inherent greatness. This, +however, we fail to receive, and partly, no doubt, because Ibsen was +still distracted at the division of the ways. + +Oehlenschläger, if he had attempted this theme, would have made no +attempt after subtlety of character painting and still less after +correctness of historic color. He would have given small shrift to Olaf +Skaktavl, the psychological outlaw. But he would have drawn Inger, the +Mother of her People, in majestic strokes, and we should have had a +great simplicity, a noble outline with none of the detail put in. Ibsen, +already, cannot be satisfied with this; to him the detail is every +thing, and the result is a hopeless incongruity between the cartoon and +the finished work. + +Lady Inger, in Ibsen's play, fails to impress us with greatness. "The +deed no less than the attempt confounds" her. She displays, from the +opening scene, a weakness that is explicable, but excludes all evidence +of her energy. The ascendency of Nils Lykke, over herself and over her +singularly and unconvincingly modern daughter, Elima, in what does it +consist? In a presentation of a purely physical attractiveness; Nils +Lykke is simply a voluptuary, pursuing his good fortunes, with impudent +ease, in the home of his ancestral enemies. In his hands, and not in his +only, the majestic Inger is reduced from a queen to a pawn. All manhood, +we are told, is dead in Norway; if this be so, then what a field is +cleared where a heroine like Inger, not young and a victim to her +passions, nor old and delivered to decrepit fears, may show us how a +woman of intellect and force can take the place of man. Instead of this, +one disguised and anonymous adventurer after another comes forth out of +the night, and confuses her with pretensions and traps her with deceits +against which her intellect protests but her will is powerless to +contend. + +Another feature in the conduct of _Lady Inger_ portrays the ambitious +but the inexperienced dramatist. No doubt a pious commentator can +successfully unravel all the threads of the plot, but the spectator +demands that a play should be clearly and easily intelligible. The +audience, however, is sorely puzzled by the events of this awful third +night after Martinmas, and resents the obscurity of all this intrigue by +candlelight. Why do the various persons meet at Östraat? Who sends them? +Whence do they come and whither do they go? To these questions, no +doubt, an answer can be found, and it is partly given, and very +awkwardly, by the incessant introduction of narrative. The confused and +melodramatic scene in the banquet-hall between Nils Lykke and Skaktavl +is of central importance, but what is it about? The business with +Lucia's coffin is a kind of nightmare, in the taste of Webster or of +Cyril Tourneur. All these shortcomings are slurred over by the +enthusiastic critics of Scandinavia, yet they call for indulgence. The +fact is that _Lady Inger+ is a brilliant piece of romantic extravagance, +which is extremely interesting in illuminating the evolution of Ibsen's +genius, and particularly as showing him in the act of emancipating +himself from Danish traditions, but which has little positive value as a +drama. + +The direct result of the failure of _Lady Inger_--for it did not please +the play-goers of Bergen and but partly satisfied its author--was, +however, to send him back, for the moment, more violently than ever to +the Danish tradition. Any record of this interesting phase in Ibsen's +career is, however, complicated by the fact that late in his life (in +1883) he did what was very unusual with him: he wrote a detailed account +of the circumstances of his poetical work in 1855 and 1856. He denied, +in short, that he had undergone any influence from the Danish poet whom +he had been persistently accused of imitating, and he traced the +movement of his mind to purely Norwegian sources. During the remainder +of his lifetime, of course, this statement greatly confounded criticism, +and there is still a danger of Ibsen's disclaimer being accepted for +gospel. However, literary history must be built on the evidence before +it, and the actual text of _The Feast at Solhoug_, and of _Olaf +Liljekrans_ must be taken in spite of anything their author chose to say +nearly thirty years afterwards. Great poets, without the least wish to +mystify, often, in the cant phrase, "cover their tracks." Tennyson, in +advanced years, denied that he had ever been influenced by Shelley or +Keats. So Ibsen disclaimed any effect upon his style of the lyrical +dramas of Hertz. But we must appeal from the arrogance of old age to the +actual works of youth. + +Henrik Hertz (1798-1870) was the most exquisite, the most delicate, of +the Danish writers of his age. He was deeply impressed with the +importance of form in drama, and at the height of his powers he began to +compose rhymed plays which were like old ballads put into dialogue. His +comedy of _Cupid's Strokes of Genius_ (1830) began a series of tragi- +comedies which gradually deepened in passion and melody, till they +culminated in two of the acknowledged masterpieces of the Danish stage, +_Svend Dyring's House_ (1837) and _King René's Daughter_ (1845). The +genius of Hertz was diametrically opposed to that of Ibsen; in all +Europe there were not two authors less alike. Hertz would have pleased +Kenelm Digby, and if that romantic being had read Danish, the poet of +chivalry must have had a niche in _The Broad Stone of Honour_. Hertz's +style is delicate to the verge of sweetness; his choice of words is +fantastically exquisite, yet so apposite as to give an impression of the +inevitable. He cares very little for psychological exactitude or truth +of observation; but he is the very type of what we mean by a verbal +artist. + +Ibsen made acquaintance with the works, and possibly with the person, of +Hertz, when he was in Copenhagen in 1852. There can be no doubt whatever +that, while he was anxiously questioning his own future, and conscious +of crude faults in _Lady Inger_, he set himself, as a task, to write in +the manner of Hertz. It is difficult to doubt that it was a deliberate +exercise, and we see the results in _The Feast at Solhoug_ and in _Olaf +Liljekrans_. These two plays are in ballad-rhyme and prose, like Hertz's +romantic dramas; there is the same determination to achieve the +chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. +Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without +an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that +he has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of +metrical writing, but breaks down surprisingly at awkward intervals, and +displays a hopeless inconsistency between his own nature and the medium +in which he is forcing himself to write. As a proof that the similarity +between _The Feast at Solhoug_ and _Svend Dyring's House_ is accidental, +it has been pointed out that Ibsen produced his own play on the Bergen +stage in January, 1856, and revived Hertz's a month later. It might, +surely, be more sensibly urged that this fact shows how much he was +captivated by the charm of the Danish dramatist. + +The sensible thing, in spite of Ibsen's late disclaimer, is to suppose +that, in the consciousness of his crudity and inexperience as a writer, +he voluntarily sat at the feet of the one great poet whom he felt had +most to teach him. On the boards at Bergen, _The Feast at Solhoug_ was a +success, while _Olaf Liljekrans_ was a failure; but neither incident +could have meant very much to Ibsen, who, if there ever was a poet who +lived in the future, was waiting and watching for the development of his +own genius. Slowly, without precocity, without even that joy in strength +of maturity which comes to most great writers before the age of thirty, +he toiled on in a sort of vacuum. His youth was one of unusual darkness, +because he had not merely poverty, isolation, citizenship of a remote +and imperfectly civilized country to contend against, but because his +critical sense was acute enough to teach him that he himself was still +unripe, still unworthy of the fame that he thirsted for. He had not even +the consolation which a proud confidence in themselves gives to the +unappreciated young, for in his heart of hearts he knew that he had as +yet done nothing which deserved the highest praise. But his imagination +was expanding with a steady sureness, and the long years of his +apprenticeship were drawing to a close. + +Ibsen was now, like other young Norwegian poets, and particularly +Björnson, coming into the range of that wind of nationalistic +inspiration which had begun to blow down from the mountains and to fill +every valley with music. The Norwegians were discovering that they +possessed a wonderful hidden treasure in their own ancient poetry and +legend. It was a gentle, clerically minded poet--himself the son of a +peasant--Jörgen Moe (1813-82), long afterwards Bishop of Christianssand, +who, as far back as 1834, began to collect from peasants the folk-tales +of Norway. The childlike innocence and playful humor of these stories +were charming to the mind of Moe, who was fortunately joined by a +stronger though less delicate spirit in the person of Peter Christian +Asbjörnsen. Their earliest collection of folk-lore in collaboration +appeared in 1841, but it was the full edition of 1856 which produced a +national sensation, and doubtless awakened Ibsen in Bergen. Meanwhile, +in 1853, M. B. Landstad had published the earliest of his collections of +the folkeviser, or national songs, while L. M. Lindeman in the same +years (1853-59) was publishing, in installments, the peasant melodies of +Norway. Moreover, Ibsen, who read no Icelandic, was studying the ancient +sagas in the faithful and vigorous paraphrase of Petersen, and all +combined to determine him to make an experiment in a purely national and +archaistic direction. + +Ibsen, whose practice is always better than his theory, has given rather +a confused account of the circumstances that led to the composition of +his next play, _The Vikings at Helgeland_. But it is clear that in +looking through Petersen for a subject which would display, in broad and +primitive forms, the clash of character in an ancient Norwegian family, +he fell upon "Volsungasaga," and somewhat rashly responded to its +vigorous appeal. He thought that in this particular episode, "the +titanic conditions and occurrences of the 'Nibelungenlied'" and other +pro-mediaeval legends had "been reduced to human dimensions." He +believed that to dramatize such a story would lift what he called "our +national epic material" to a higher plane. There is one phrase in his +essay which is very interesting, in the light it throws upon the object +which the author had before him in writing _The Vikings at Helgeland_. +He says clearly--and this was intended as a revolt against the tradition +of Oehlenschläger--"it was not my aim to present our mythic world, but +simply our life in primitive times." Brandes says of this departure that +it is "indeed a new conquest, but, like so many conquests, associated +with very extensive plundering." + +In turning to an examination of _The Vikings_, the first point which +demands notice is that Ibsen has gained a surprising mastery over the +arts of theatrical writing since we met with him last. There is nothing +of the lyrical triviality of the verse in _The Feast at Solhoug_ about +the trenchant prose of _The Vikings_, and the crepuscular dimness of +_Lady Inger_ is exchanged for a perfect lucidity and directness. +Whatever we may think about the theatrical propriety of the conductor of +the vikings, there is no question at all as to what it is they do and +mean. Ibsen has gained, and for good, that master quality of translucent +presentation without which all other stage gifts are shorn of their +value. When we have, however, praised the limpidity of _The Vikings at +Helgeland_, we have, in honesty, to make several reservations in our +criticism of the author's choice of a subject. It is valuable to compare +Ibsen's treatment of Icelandic family-saga with that of William Morris; +let us say, in _The Lovers of Gudrun_. That enchanting little epic deals +with an episode from one of the great Iceland narratives, and follows it +much more closely than Ibsen's does. But we are conscious of a less +painful effort and of a more human result. Morris does successfully what +Ibsen unsuccessfully aimed at doing: he translates the heroic and half- +fabulous action into terms that are human and credible. + +It was, moreover, an error of judgment on the part of the Norwegian +playwright to make his tragedy a mosaic of effective bits borrowed +hither and thither from the Sagas. Scandinavian bibliography has toiled +to show his indebtedness to this tale and to that, and he has been +accused of concealing his plagiarisms. But to say this is to miss the +mark. A poet is at liberty to steal what he will, if only he builds his +thefts up into a living structure of his own. For this purpose, however, +it is practically found that, owing perhaps to the elastic consistency +of individual human nature, it is safest to stick to one story, +embroidering and developing it along its own essential lines. + +There is great vigor, however, in many of the scenes in _The Vikings_. +The appearance of Hiördis on the stage, in the opening act, marks, +perhaps, the first occasion on which Ibsen had put forth his full +strength as a playwright. This entrance of Hiördis ought to be extremely +effective; in fact, we understand, it rarely is. The cause of this +disappointment can easily be discovered. It is the misfortune of The +Vikings that it is hardly to be acted by mortal men. Hiördis herself is +superhuman; she has eaten the heart of a wolf, she claims direct descent +from a race of fighting giants. There is a grandeur about the conception +of her form and character, but it is a grandeur which might well daunt a +human actress. One can faintly imagine the part being played by Mrs. +Siddons, with such an extremity of fierceness and terror that ladies and +gentlemen would be carried out of the theatre in hysterics, as in the +days of Byron. Where Hiördis insults her guests, and contrives the +horrid murder of the boy Thorolf before their eyes, we have a stage- +dilemma presented to us-either the actress must treat the scene +inadequately, or else intolerably. _Ne pueros coram populo Medea +trucidet_, and we shrink from Hiördis with a physical disgust. Her great +hands and shrieking mouth are like Bellona's, and they smell of blood. + +What is true of Hiördis is true in less degree of all the characters in +_The Vikings_. They are "great beautiful half-witted men," as Mr. +Chesterton would say: + + Our sea was dark with dreadful ships + Full of strange spoil and fire, + And hairy men, as strange as sin, + With horrid heads, came wading in + Through the long low sea-mire. + +This is the other side of the picture; this is how Örnulf and his seven +terrible sons must have appeared to Kaare the peasant, and this is how, +to tell the truth, they would in real life appear to us. The persons in +_The Vikings at Helgeland_ are so primitive that they scarcely appeal to +our sense of reality. In spite of all the romantic color that the poet +has lavished upon them, and the majestic sentiments which he has put +into their mouths, we feel that the inhabitants of Helgeland must have +regarded them as those of Surbiton regarded the beings who were shot +down from Mars in Mr. Wells' blood-curdling story. + +_The Vikings at Helgeland_ is a work of extraordinary violence and +agitation. The personages bark at one another like seals and roar like +sea-lions; they "cry for blood, like beasts at night." Örnulf, the aged +father of a grim and speechless clan, is sorely wounded at the beginning +of the play, but it makes no difference to him; no one binds up his arm, +but he talks, fights, travels as before. We may see here foreshadowed +various features of Ibsen's more mannered work. Here is his favorite +conventional tame man, since, among the shouting heroes, Gunnar whimpers +like a Tesman. Here is Ibsen's favorite trick of unrequited self- +sacrifice; it is Sigurd, in Gunnar's armor, who kills the mystical white +bear, but it is Gunnar who reaps the advantage. It is only fair to say +that there is more than this to applaud in _The Vikings at Helgeland_; +it moves on a consistent and high level of austere romantic beauty. Mr. +William Archer, who admires the play more than any Scandinavian critic +has done, justly draws attention to the nobility of Örnulf's entrance in +the third act. Yet, on the whole, I confess myself unable to be +surprised at the severity with which Heiberg judged _The Vikings_ at its +first appearance, a severity which must have wounded Ibsen to the quick. + +The year 1857 was one of unsettlement in Ibsen's condition. The period +for which he had undertaken to manage the theatre at Bergen had now come +to a close, and he was not anxious to prolong it. He had had enough of +Bergen, to which only one chain now bound him. Those who read the +incidents of a poet's life into the pages of his works may gratify their +tendency by seeing in the discussions between Dagny and Hiördis some +echo of the thoughts which were occupying Ibsen's mind in relation to +the married state. Since his death, the story has been told of his love- +affair with a very young girl, Rikke Holst, who had attracted his notice +by throwing a bunch of wild flowers in his face, and whom he followed +and desired to marry. Her father had rejected the proposal with +indignation. Ibsen had suffered considerably, but this was, after all, +an early and a very fugitive sentiment, which made no deep impression on +his heart, although it seems to have always lingered in his memory. + +There had followed a sentiment much deeper and much more emphatic. A +charming, though fragmentary, set of verses, addressed in January, 1856, +to Miss Susannah Thoresen, show that already for a long while he had +come to regard this girl of twenty as "the young dreaming enigma," the +possible solution of which interested him more than that of any other +living problem. It was more than the conversation of a versifying lover +which made Ibsen speak of Miss Thoresen's "blossoming child-soul" as the +bourne of his ambitions. In his dark way, he was already violently in +love with her. + +The household of her father, Hans Conrad Thoresen, was the most +cultivated in Bergen. He himself, the rector of Holy Cross, was a +bookish, meditative man of no particular initiative, but he had married, +as his third wife, Anna Maria Kragh, a Dane by birth, and for a long +time, with the possible exception of Camilla Collett, Wergeland's +sister, the most active woman of letters in Norway. Mrs. Thoresen was +the step-mother of Susannah, the only child of her husband's second +marriage. Between Magdalene Thoresen and Ibsen a strong friendship had +sprung up, which lasted to the end of their lives, and some of Ibsen's +best letters are those written to his wife's step-mother. She worked +hard for him at the Bergen theatre, translating plays from the French, +and it was during Ibsen's management of the theatre that several of her +own pieces were produced. Her prose stories, in connection with which +her name lives in Norwegian literature, were not yet written; so long as +Ibsen was at her side, her ideas seem to have been concentrated on the +stage. Constant communication with this charming woman only nine years +his senior, and much his superior in conventional culture, must have +been a school of refinement to the crude and powerful young poet. And +now the wise Magdalene appeared to him in a new light, dedicating to him +the best treasure of the family circle, the gay and yet mysterious +Susannah. + +While he was writing _The Vikings at Helgeland_, and courting Susannah +Thoresen, Ibsen received what seemed a timely invitation to settle in +Christiania as director of the Norwegian Theatre; he returned, +thereupon, to the capital in the summer of 1857, after an absence of six +years. Now began another period of six years more, these the most +painful in Ibsen's life, when, as Halvorsen has said, he had to fight +not merely for the existence of himself and his family, but for the very +existence of Norwegian poetry and the Norwegian stage. This struggle was +an excessively distressing one. He had left Bergen crippled with debts, +and his marriage (June 26, 1856) weighed him down with further +responsibilities. The Norwegian Theatre at Christiania was, a secondary +house, ill-supported by its patrons, often tottering at the brink of +bankruptcy, and so primitive was the situation of literature in the +country that to attempt to live by poetry and drama was to court +starvation. His slender salary was seldom paid, and never in full. The +only published volume of Ibsen's which had (up to 1863) sold at all was +_The Warriors_, by which he had made in all 227 specie dollars (or about +£25). + +The Christiania he had come to, however, was not that which he had left. +In many directions it had developed rapidly. From an intellectual point +of view, the labors of the nationalists had made themselves felt; the +folk-lore of Landstad, Moe and Asbjörnsen had impressed young +imaginations. In some of its forms the development was unpleasing and +discouraging to Ibsen; the success of the blank-verse tragedies of +Andreas Munch (_Salomon de Caus_, 1855; _Lord William Russell_, 1857) +was, for instance, an irritating step in the wrong direction. The new- +born school of prose fiction, with Björnson as its head (_Synnöve +Solbakken_, 1857; _Arne_, 1858), with Camilla Collett's _Prefect's +Daughters_, 1855, as its herald; with Östgaard's sketches of peasant +life and humors in the mountains (1852)--all this was a direct menace to +the popularity of the national stage, offering an easy and alluring +alternative for home-loving citizens. Was it certain that the classic +Danish, which alone Ibsen cared to write, would continue to be the +language of the cultivated classes in Norway? Here was Ivar Aasen (in +1853) showing that the irritating landsmaal could be used for prose and +verse. + +Wherever he turned Ibsen saw increased vitality, but in shapes that were +either useless or antagonistic to himself, and all that was harsh and +saturnine in his nature awakened. We see Ibsen, at this moment of his +life, like Shakespeare in his darkest hour, "in disgrace with fortune +and men's eyes," unappreciated and ready to doubt the reality of his own +genius; and murmuring to himself:-- + + Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, + Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, + Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope. + With what I most enjoy contented least. + +How little his greatness was perceived in the Christiania literary +coteries may be gathered from the little fact that the species of +official anthology of _Modern Norwegian Poets_, published in 1859, +though it netted the shallows of national song very closely, contained +not a line by the author of the lovely lyrics in _The Feast at Solhoug_. +It was at this low and miserable moment that Ibsen's talent suddenly +took wings; he conceived, in the summer of 1858, what finally became, +five years later, his first acknowledged masterpiece, and perhaps the +most finished of all his writings, the sculptural tragedy of _The +Pretenders_. + +_The Pretenders_ (_Kongsemnerne_, properly stuff from which Kings can be +made) is the earliest of the plays of Ibsen in which the psychological +interest is predominant, and in which there is no attempt to disguise +the fact. Nothing that has since been written about this drama, the very +perfection of which is baffling to criticism, has improved upon the +impression which Georg Brandes received from it when he first read it +forty years ago. The passage is classic, and deserves to be cited, if +only as perhaps the very earliest instance in which the genius of Ibsen +was rewarded by the analysis of a great critic. Brandes wrote (in +1867):-- + +What is it that The Pretenders treats of? Looked at simply, it is an old +story. We all know the tale of Aladdin and Nureddin, the simple legend +in the Arabian Nights, and our great poet's [Oehlenschläger's] +incomparable poem. In _The Pretenders_ two figures again stand opposed +to one another as the superior and the inferior being, an Aladdin and a +Nureddin nature. It is towards this contrast that Ibsen has hitherto +unconsciously directed his endeavors, just as Nature feels her way in +her blind preliminary attempts to form her types. Håkon and Skule are +pretenders to the same throne, scions of royalty out of whom a king may +be made. But the first is the incarnation of fortune, victory, right and +confidence; the second--the principal figure in the play, masterly in +its truth and originality--is the brooder, a prey to inward struggle and +endless distrust, brave and ambitious, with perhaps every qualification +and claim to be king, but lacking the inexpressible, impalpable somewhat +that would give a value to all the rest--the wonderful Lamp. "I am a +king's arm," he says, "mayhap a king's brain as well; but Håkon is the +whole king." "You have wisdom and courage, and all noble gifts of the +mind," says Håkon to him; "you are born to stand nearest a king, but not +to be a king yourself." + +To a poet the achievements of his greatest contemporaries in their +common art have all the importance of high deeds in statesmanship and +war. It is, therefore, by no means extravagant to see in the noble +emulation of the two dukes in _The Pretenders_ some reflection of +Ibsen's attitude to the youthful and brilliant Björnson. The luminous +self-reliance, the ardor and confidence and good fortune of Björnson- +Håkon could not but offer a violent contrast with the gloom and +hesitation, the sick revulsions of hope and final lack of conviction, of +Ibsen-Skule. It was Björnson's "belt of strength," as it was Håkon's, +that he had utter belief in himself, and with this his rival could not +yet girdle himself. "The luckiest man is the greatest man," says Bishop +Nicholas in the play, and Björnson seemed in these melancholy years as +lucky as Ibsen was unlucky. But the Bishop's views were not wide enough, +and the end was not yet. + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SATIRES (1857-67) + +Temperament and environment combined at the period we have now reached +to turn Ibsen into a satirist. It was during his time of _Sturm und +Drang_, from 1857 to 1864, that the harshest elements in his nature were +awakened, and that he became one who loved to lash the follies of his +age. With the advent of prosperity and recognition this phase melted +away, leaving Ibsen without illusions and without much pity, but no +longer the scourge of his fellow-citizens. Although _The Pretenders_, a +work of dignified and polished aloofness, was not completed until 1863, +it really belongs to the earlier and more experimental section of +Ibsen's works, and is so completely the outcome and the apex of his +national studies that it has seemed best to consider it with _The +Vikings at Helgeland_, in spite of its immense advance upon that drama. +But we must now go back a year, and take up an entirely new section +which overlaps the old, namely, that of Ibsen's satires in dramatic +rhyme. + +With regard to the adoption of that form of poetic art, a great +difference existed between Norwegian and English taste, and this must be +borne in mind. Almost exactly at the date when Ibsen was inditing the +sharp couplets of his _Love's Comedy_, Tennyson, in _Sea Dreams_, was +giving voice to the English abandonment of satire--which had been +rampant in the generation of Byron--in the famous words:-- + + I loathe it: he had never kindly heart, + Nor ever cared to better his own kind, + Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. + +What England repudiated, Norway comprehended, and in certain hands +enjoyed. Polemical literature, if seldom of a high class, was abundant +and was much appreciated. The masterpiece of modern Norwegian poetry +was, still, the satiric cycle of Welhaven. In ordinary controversy, the +tone was more scathing, the bludgeon was whirled more violently, than +English taste at that period could endure. Those whom Ibsen designed to +crush had not minced their own words. The press was violence itself, and +was not tempered with justice; when the poet looked round he saw +"afflicted virtue insolently stabbed with all manner of reproaches," as +Dryden said. + +Yet it was not an age of gross and open vices; manners were not +flagitious, they were merely of a nauseous insipidity. Ibsen, flown with +anger as with wine, could find no outrageous offences to lash, and all +he could invite the age to do was to laugh at certain conventions and to +reconsider some prejudicated opinions. He had to be pungent, not openly +ferocious; he had to be sarcastic and to treat the current code of +morals as a jest. He found the society around him excessively +distasteful to him, but there were no crying evils of a political or +ethical kind to be stigmatized. What was open to him was what an old +writer of our own defined as "a sharp, well-mannered way of laughing a +folly out of countenance." + +Unfortunately, the people laughed at will never consent to think the way +well mannered, and Ibsen was bitterly blamed for "want of taste," that +vaguest and most insidious of accusations. We are told that he began his +enterprise in prose [Note: "_Svanhild_: a Comedy in three acts and in +prose: 1860," is understood to exist still in manuscript], but found +that too stiff and bald a medium for a satire on the social crudity of +Norway. In writing satire, it is all-important that the form should be +adequate, and at this time Ibsen had not reached the impeccable +perfection of his later colloquial prose. He started _Love's Comedy_, +therefore, anew, and he wrote it as a pamphlet in rhyme. It is not +certain that he had any very definite idea of the line which his attack +should take. He was very poor, very sore, very uncomfortable, and he was +easily convinced that the times were out of joint. Then he observed that +if there was anything that the Norwegian upper classes prided themselves +upon it was their conduct of betrothal and marriage. Plato had said that +the familiarity of young persons before marriage prevented enmity and +disappointment in later years, that it was useful to know the +peculiarities of temperament beforehand, and so, being accustomed to +them, to discount them. But Ibsen was not of this opinion, or rather, +perhaps, he did not choose to be. The extremely slow and public method +of betrothal in the North gave him his first opportunity. + +It is with a song, in the original one of the most delicious of his +lyrics, that he opens the campaign. To a miscellaneous party of +Philistines circled around the tea table, "all sober and all ----" the +rebellious hero sings:-- + + + In the sunny orchard-closes, + While the warblers sing and swing, + Care not whether blustering Autumn + Break the promises of Spring; + Rose and white the apple-blossom + Hides you from the sultry sky; + Let it flutter, blown and scattered, + On the meadow by and by. + +In the sexual struggle, that is to say, the lovers should not pause to +consider the worldly advantages of their match, but should fly in secret +to each other's arms. By the law of battle, the female should be +snatched to the conqueror's saddle-bow, and ridden away with into the +night, not subjected to the jokes and the good advice and the +impertinent congratulations of the clan. Young Lochinvar does not wait +to ask the counsel of the bride's cousins, nor to run the gantlet of her +aunts; he fords the Esk river with her, where ford there is none. Ibsen +is in favor of the _mariage de convenance_, which suppresses, without +favor, the absurdity of love-matches. Above all, anything is better than +the publicity, the meddling and long-drawn exposure of betrothal, which +kills the fine delicacy of love, as birds are apt to break their own +eggs if intruding hands have touched them. + +This is the central point in _Love's Comedy_, but there is much beside +this in its reckless satire on the "sanctities" of domestic life. The +burden of monogamy is frivolously dealt with, and the impertinent poet +touches with levity upon the question of the duration of marriage: + + With my living, with my singing, + I will tear the hedges down! + Sweep the grass and heap the blossom! + Let it shrivel, pale and blown! + Throw the wicket wide! Sheep, cattle, + Let them browse among the best! + _I_ broke off the flowers; what matter + Who may graze among the rest! + +_Love's Comedy_ is perhaps the most diverting of Ibsen's works; it is +certainly the most impertinent. If there was one class in Norwegian +society which was held to be above criticism it was the clerical. A +prominent character in Ibsen's comedy is the Rev. Mr. Strawman, a gross, +unctuous and uxorious priest, blameless and dull, upon whose inert body +the arrows of satire converge. This was never forgotten and long was +unforgiven. As late as 1866 the Storthing refused a grant to Ibsen +definitely on the ground of the scandal caused by his sarcastic portrait +of Pastor Strawman. But the gentler sex, to which every poet looks for +an audience, was not less deeply outraged by the want of indulgence +which he had shown for all forms of amorous sentiment, although Ibsen +had really, through his satire on the methods of betrothal, risen to +something like a philosophical examination of the essence of love +itself. + +To Brandes, who reproached him for not recording the history of ideal +engagements, and who remarked, "You know, there are sound potatoes and +rotten potatoes in this world," Ibsen cynically replied, "I am afraid +none of the sound ones have come under my notice"; and when Guldstad +proves to the beautiful Svanhild the paramount importance of creature +comforts, the last word of distrust in the sustaining power of love had +been said. The popular impression of Ibsen as an "immoral" writer seems +to be primarily founded on the paradox and fireworks of _Love's Comedy_. + +Much might be forgiven to a man so wretched as Ibsen was in 1862, and +more to a poet so lively, brilliant and audacious in spite of his +misfortunes. These now gathered over his head and threatened to submerge +him altogether. He was perhaps momentarily saved by the publication of +_Terje Vigen_, which enjoyed a solid popularity. This is the principal +and, indeed, almost the only instance in Ibsen's works of what the +Northern critics call "epic," but what we less ambitiously know as the +tale in verse. _Terje Figen_ will never be translated successfully into +English, for it is written, with brilliant lightness and skill, in an +adaptation of the Norwegian ballad-measure which it is impossible to +reproduce with felicity in our language. + +Among Ibsen's writings _Terje Vigen_ is unique as a piece of pure +sentimentality carried right rough without one divagation into irony or +pungency. It is the story of a much-injured and revengeful Norse pilot, +who, having the chance to drown his old enemies, Milord and Milady, +saves them at the mute appeal of their blue-eyed English baby. _Terje +Vigen_ is a masterpiece of what we may define as the "dash-away-a-manly- +tear" class of narrative. It is extremely well written and picturesque, +but the wonder is that, of all people in the world, Ibsen should have +written it. + +His short lyric poems of this period betray much more clearly the real +temper of the man. They are filled full and brimming over with longing +and impatience, with painful passion and with hope deferred. It is in +the strident lyrics Ibsen wrote between 1857 and 1863 that we can best +read the record of his mind, and share its exasperations, and wonder at +its elasticity. The series of sonnets _In a Picture Gallery_ is a +strangely violent confession of distrust in his own genius; the _Epistle +to H. O. Blom_ a candid admission of his more than distrust in the +talent and honesty of others. It was the peculiarity and danger of +Ibsen's position that he represented no one but himself. For instance, +the liberty of many of the expressions in _Love's Comedy_ led those who +were beginning a movement in favor of the emancipation of women to +believe that Ibsen was in sympathy with them, but he was not. All +through his life, although his luminous penetration into character led +him to be scrupulously fair in his analysis of female character, he was +never a genuine supporter of the extension of public responsibility to +the sex. A little later (in 1869), when John Stuart Mill's _Subjection +of Women_ produced a sensation in Scandinavia, and met with many +enthusiastic supporters, Ibsen coldly reserved his opinion. He was +always an observer, always a clinical analyst at the bedside of society, +never a prophet, never a propagandist. + +His troubles gathered upon him. Neither theatre consented to act _Love's +Comedy_, and it would not even have been printed but for the zeal of the +young novelist Jonas Lie, who, to his great honor, bought for about £35 +the right to publish it as a supplement to a newspaper that he was +editing. Then the storm broke out; the press was unanimously adverse, +and in private circles abuse amounted almost to a social taboo. In 1862 +the second theatre became bankrupt, and Ibsen was thrown on the world, +the most unpopular man of his day, and crippled with debts. It is true +that he was engaged at the Christiania Theatre at a nominal salary of +about a pound a week, but he could not live on that. In August, 1860, he +had made a pathetic appeal to the Government for a _digter-gage_, a +payment to a poet, such as is freely given to talent in the Northern +countries. Sums were voted to Björnson and Vinje, but to Ibsen not a +penny. By some influence, however, for he was not without friends, he +was granted in March, 1862, a travelling grant of less than £20 to +enable him to wander for two months in western Hardanger and the +districts around the Sognefjord for the purpose of collecting folk-songs +and legends. The results of this journey were prepared for publication, +but never appeared. This interesting excursion, however, has left its +mark stamped broadly upon _Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_. + +All through 1863 his condition was critical. He determined that his only +hope was to exile himself definitely from Norway, which had become too +hot to hold him. Various private friends generously helped him over this +dreadful time of adversity, earning a gratitude which, if it was not +expansive, was lifelong. Very grudging recognition of his gifts was at +length made by the Government in the shape of another trifling +travelling grant (March, 1863), again a handsome sum being awarded to +Björnson, his popular rival. In May Ibsen applied, in despair, to the +King himself, who conferred upon him a small pension of £90 a year, +which for the immediate future stood between this great poet and +starvation. The news of it was received in Christiania by the press in +terms of despicable insult. + +But in June of this _année terrible_ Ibsen had a flash of happiness. He +was invited down to Bergen to the fifth great "Festival of Song," a +national occurrence, and he and his poems met with a warm reception. +Moreover, he found his brilliant antagonist, Björnson, at Bergen on a +like errand, and renewed an old friendship with this warm-hearted and +powerful man of genius, destined to play through life the part of Håkon +to Ibsen's Skule. They spent much of the subsequent winter together. As +Halvdan Koht has excellently said: "Their intercourse brought them +closer to each other than they had ever been before. They felt that they +were inspired by the same ideas and the same hopes, and they suffered +the same bitter disappointments. With anguish they watched the Danish +brother-nation's desperate struggle against the superior power of +Germany, and save a province with a population of Scandinavian race and +speech taken from Denmark and incorporated in a foreign kingdom, whilst +the Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen, in spite of solemn promises, +refrained from yielding any assistance." An attack on Holstein (December +22, 1863) had introduced the Second Danish War, to which a disastrous +and humiliating termination was brought in the following August. + +In April, 1864, Ibsen took the momentous step of quitting his native +country. He entered Copenhagen at the dark hour when Schleswig as well +as Holstein had been abandoned, and when the citadel of Düpper alone +stood between Denmark and ruin. His agonized sympathy may be read in the +indignant lyrics of that spring. A fortnight later he set out, by Lübeck +and Trieste, for Rome, where he had now determined to reside. He reached +that city in due time, and sank with ineffable satisfaction into the +arms of its antique repose. "Here at last," he wrote to Björnson, "there +is blessed peace," and he settled himself down to the close +contemplation of poetry. + +The change from the severities of an interminable Northern winter to the +glow and splendor of Italy acted on the poet's spirit like an +enchantment. Ibsen came, another Pilgrim of Eternity, to Rome's "azure +sky, flowers, ruins, statues, music," and at first the contrast between +the crudity he had left and the glory he had found was almost +intolerable. He could not work; all he did was to lie in the flushed air +and become as a little child. There has scarcely been another example of +a writer of the first class who, deeply solicitous about beauty, but +debarred from all enjoyment of it until his thirty-seventh year, has +been suddenly dipped, as if into a magic fountain, into the heart of +unclouded loveliness without transition or preparation. Shelley and +Keats were dead long before they reached the age at which Ibsen broke +free from his prison-house of ice, while Byron, in the same year of his +life, was closing his romantic career. + +Ibsen's earliest impressions of what these poets had become accustomed +to at a ductile age were contradictory and even incoherent. The passion +of pagan antiquity for a long while bewildered him. He wandered among +the vestiges of antique art, unable to perceive their relation to modern +life, or their original significance. He missed the impress of the +individual on classic sculpture, as he had missed it--the parallel is +strange, but his own--on the Eddaic poems of ancient Iceland. He liked a +lyric or a statue to speak to him of the man who made it. He felt more +at home with Bernini among sculptors and with Bramante among architects +than with artists of a more archaic type. Shelley, we may remember, +labored under a similar heresy; to each of these poets the +attractiveness of individual character overpowered the languid flavor of +the age in which the artist had flourished. Ibsen's admiration of a +certain overpraised monument of Italian architecture would not be worth +recording but for the odd vigor with which he adds that the man who made +that might have made the moon in his leisure moments. + +During the first few months of Ibsen's life in Rome all was chaos in his +mind. He was plunged in stupefaction at the beauties of nature, the +amenities of mankind, the interpenetration of such a life with such an +art as he had never dreamed of and could yet but dimly comprehend. In +September, 1864, he tells Björnson that he is at work on a poem of +considerable length. This must have been the first draft of _Brand_, +which was begun, we know, as a narrative, or as the Northerns call it, +an "epic" poem; although a sketch for the _Julianus Apostata_ was +already forming in the back of his head, as a subject which would, +sooner or later, demand poetic treatment. He had left his wife and +little son in Copenhagen, but at the beginning of October they joined +him in Rome. The family lived on an income which seems almost incredibly +small, a maximum of 40 scudi a month. But it was a different thing to be +hungry in Christiania and in Rome, and Ibsen makes no complaints. A sort +of blessed languor had fallen upon him after all his afflictions. He +would loll through half his days among the tombs on the Via Latina, or +would loiter for hours and hours along the Appian Way. It took him weeks +to summon energy to visit S. Pietro in Vincoli, although he knew that +Michelangelo's "Moses" was there, and though he was weary with longing +to see it. All the tense chords of Ibsen's nature were loosened. His +soul was recovering, through a long and blissful convalescence, from the +aching maladies of its youth. + +He took some part in the society of those Scandinavian writers, painters +and sculptors who gathered in Rome through the years of their distress. +But only one of them attracted him strongly, the young Swedish lyrical +poet, Count Carl Snoilsky, then the hope and already even the glory of +his country. There was some quaint diversity between the rude and gloomy +Norwegian dramatist, already middle-aged, and the full-blooded, +sparkling Swedish diplomatist of twenty-three, rich, flattered, and +already as famous for his fashionable _bonnes fortunes_ as Byron. But +two things Snoilsky and Ibsen had in common, a passionate enthusiasm for +their art, and a rebellious attitude towards their immediate precursors +in it. Each, in his own way, was the leader of a new school. The +friendship of Ibsen and Snoilsky was a permanent condition for the rest +of their lives, for it was founded on a common basis. + +A few years later the writer of these pages received an amusing +impression of Ibsen at this period from the Danish poet, Christian +Molbech, who was also in Rome in 1865 and onwards. Ibsen wandering +silently about the streets, his hands plunged far into the pockets of +his invariable jacket of faded velveteen, Ibsen killing conversation by +his sudden moody appearances at the Scandinavian Club, Ibsen shattering +the ideals of the painters and the enthusiasms of the antiquaries by a +running fire of sarcastic paradox, this is mainly what the somewhat +unsympathetic Molbech was not unwilling to reproduce. He painted a more +agreeable Ibsen when he spoke of his summer flights to the Alban Hills, +planned on terms of the most prudent reference to resources which seemed +ever to be expected and never to arrive. Nevertheless, under the vines +in front of some inn at Genzano or Albano, Ibsen would duly be +discovered, placid and dreamy, always self-sufficient and self- +contained, but not unwilling to exchange, over a flask of thin wine, +commonplaces with a Danish friend. It was at Ariccia, in one of these +periods of _villegiatura_, during the summer and autumn of 1865, that +_Brand_, which had long been under considerature, suddenly took final +shape, and was written throughout, without pause or hesitation. In July +the poet put everything else aside to begin it, and before the end of +September he had completed it. + +_Brand_ placed Ibsen at a bound among the greatest European poets of his +age. The advance over the sculptural perfection of _The Pretenders_ and +the graceful wit of _Love's Comedy_ was so great as to be startling. +Nothing but the veil of a foreign language, which the best translations +are powerless to tear away from noble verse, prevented this mastery from +being perceived at once. In Scandinavia, where that veil did not exist, +for those who had eyes to see, and who were not blinded by prejudice, it +was plain that a very great writer had arisen in Norway at last. +Björnson had seemed to slip ahead of Ibsen; his _Sigurd Slembe_ (1862) +was a riper work than the elder friend had produced; but _Mary Stuart in +Scotland_ (1864) had marked a step backward, and now Ibsen had once more +shot far ahead of his rival. When we have admitted some want of +clearness in the symbolism which runs through _Brand_, and some shifting +of the point of view in the two last acts, an incoherency and a +turbidity which are natural in the treatment of so colossal a theme, +there is very little but praise to be given to a poem which is as +manifold in its emotion and as melodious in its versification as it is +surprising in its unchallenged originality. In the literatures of +Scandinavia it has not merely been unsurpassed, but in its own peculiar +province it has not been approached. It bears some remote likeness to +_Faust_, but with that exception there is perhaps nothing in the +literature of the world which can be likened to _Brand_, except, of +course, _Peer Gynt_. + +For a long while it was supposed that the difficulties in the way of +performing _Brand_ on the public stage were too great to be overcome. +But the task was attempted at length, first in Stockholm in 1895; and +within the last few years this majestic spectacle has been drawn in full +before the eyes of enraptured audiences in Copenhagen, Berlin, Moscow +and elsewhere. In spite of the timid reluctance of managers, wherever +this play is adequately presented, it captures an emotional public at a +run. It is an appeal against moral apathy which arouses the languid. It +is a clear and full embodiment of the gospel of energy which awakens and +upbraids the weak. In the original, its rush of rhymes produces on the +nerves an almost delirious excitement. If it is taken as an oration, it +is responded to as a great civic appeal; if as a sermon, it is sternly +religious, and fills the heart with tears. In the solemn mountain air, +with vague bells ringing high up among the glaciers, no one asks exactly +what _Brand_ expounds, nor whether it is perfectly coherent. Witnessed +on the living stage, it takes the citadel of the soul by storm. When it +is read, the critical judgment becomes cooler. + +Carefully examined, _Brand_ is found to present a disconcerting mixture +of realism and mysticism. Two men seem at work in the writing of it, and +their effects are sometimes contradictory. It has constantly been asked, +and it was asked at one, "Is _Brand_ the expression of Ibsen's own +nature?" Yes, and no. He threw much of himself into his hero, and yet he +was careful to remain outside. Ibsen, as we have already pointed out, +was ready in later life to discuss his own writings, and what he said +about them is often dangerously mystifying. He told Georg Brandes that +the religious vocation of Brand was not essential. "I could have applied +the whole syllogism just as well to a sculptor, or a politician, as to a +priest." (He was to deal with each of these alternations later on, but +with what a difference!) "I could quite as well," he persisted, "have +worked out the impulse which drove me to write, by taking Galileo, for +instance, as my hero--assuming, of course, that Galileo should stand +firm and never concede the fixity of the earth--or you yourself in your +struggle with the Danish reactionaries." This is not to the point, since +in fact neither Georg Brandes nor Galileo, as hero of a mystical drama, +could have produced such a capacity for evolution as is presented by the +stern priest whose absolute certitude, although founded, one admits, on +no rational theory of theology, is yet of the very essence of religion. + +Brand becomes intelligible when we regard him as a character of the +twelfth century transferred to the nineteenth. He has something of Peter +the Hermit in him. He ought to have been a crusading Christian king, +fighting against the Moslem for the liberties of some sparkling city of +God. He exists in his personage, under the precipice, above the fjord, +like a rude mediaeval anchorite, who eats his locusts and wild honey in +the desert. We cannot comprehend the action of Brand by any reference to +accepted creeds and codes, because he is so remote from the religious +conventions as hardly to seem objectively pious at all. He is violent +and incoherent; he knows not clearly what it is he wants, but it must be +an upheaval of all that exists, and it must bring Man into closer +contact with God. Brand is a king of souls, but his royal dignity is +marred, and is brought sometimes within an inch of the ridiculous, by +the prosaic nature of his modern surroundings. He is harsh and cruel; he +is liable to fits of anger before which the whole world trembles; and it +is by an avalanche, brought down upon him by his own wrath, that he is +finally buried in the ruins of the Ice-Church. + +The judicious reader may like to compare the character of Brand with +that extraordinary study of violence, the _Abbé Jules_ of Octave +Mirbeau. In each we have the history of revolt, in a succession of +crises, against an invincible vocation. In each an element of weakness +is the pride of a peasant priest. But in Ibsen there is fully developed +what the cynicism of Octave Mirbeau avoids, a genuine conception of such +a rebel's ceaseless effort after personal holiness. Lammers or +Lammenais, what can it matter whether some existing priest of +insurrection did or did not set Ibsen for a moment on the track of his +colossal imagination? We may leave these discussions to the +commentators; _Brand_ is one of the great poems of the world, and +endless generations of critics will investigate its purpose and analyze +its forms. + +There is, however, another than the priestly side. The poem contains a +great deal of superficial and rather ephemeral satire of contemporary +Scandinavian life, echoes of a frightened Storthing in Christiania, of a +crafty court in Stockholm, and of Denmark stretching her bleeding hands +to her sisters in an agony of despair. There is the still slighter local +strain of irony, which lightens the middle of the third act. Here Ibsen +comes not to heal but to slay; he exposes the corpse of an exhausted +age, and will bury it quickly, with sexton's songs and peals of elfin +laughter, in some chasm of rock above a waterfall. "It is Will alone +that matters," and for the weak of purpose there is nothing but ridicule +and six feet of such waste earth as nature carelessly can spare from her +rude store of graves. Against the mountain landscape, Brand holds up his +motto "All or Nothing," persistently, almost tiresomely, like a modern +advertising agent affronting the scenery with his panacea. More +truculently still, he insists upon the worship of a deity, not white- +bearded, but as young as Hercules, a scandal to prudent Lutheran +theologians, a prototype of violent strength. + +Yet Brand's own mission remains undefined to him--if it ever takes exact +shape--until Agnes reveals it to him:-- + + Choose thy endless loss or gain! + Do thy work and bear thy pain. ... + Now (he answers) I see my way aright. + In _ourselves_ is that young Earth, + Ripe for the divine new-birth. + +And it is in Agnes--as the marvellous fourth act opens where her love +for the little dear dead child is revealed, and where her patience +endures all the cruelties of her husband's fanaticism--it is in Agnes +that Ibsen's genius for the first time utters the clear, unembittered +note of full humanity. He has ceased now to be parochial; he is a +nursling of the World and Time. If the harsh Priest be, in a measure, +Ibsen as Norway made him, Agnes and Einar, and perhaps Gerd also, are +the delicate offspring of Italy. + +Considerable postponements delayed the publication of _Brand_, which saw +the light at length, in Copenhagen, in March, 1866. It was at once +welcomed by the Danish press, which had hitherto known little of Ibsen, +and the poet's audience was thus very considerably widened. The satire +of the poem awakened an eager polemic; the popular priest Wexels +preached against its tendency. A novel was published, called _The +Daughters of Brand_, in which the results of its teaching were analyzed. +Ibsen enjoyed, what he had never experienced before, the light and shade +of a disputed but durable popular success. Four large editions of +_Brand_ were exhausted within the year of its publication, and it took +its place, of course, in more leisurely progress, among the few books +which continued, and still continue, steadily to sell. It has always +been, in the countries of Scandinavia, the best known and the most +popular of all Ibsen's writings. + +This success, however, was largely one of sentiment, not of pecuniary +fortune. The total income from four editions of a poem like _Brand_, in +the conditions of Northern literary life forty years ago, would not much +exceed £100. Hardly had Ibsen become the object of universal discussion +than he found himself assailed, as never before, by the paralysis of +poverty. He could not breathe, he could not move; he could not afford to +buy postage stamps to stick upon his business letters. He was threatened +with the absolute extinction of his resources. At the very time when +Copenhagen was ringing with his praise Ibsen was borrowing money for his +modest food and rent from the Danish Consul in Rome. + +In the winter of 1865 he fell into a highly nervous condition, in the +midst of which he was assailed by a malarious fever which brought him +within sight of the grave. To the agony of his devoted wife, he lay for +some time between life and death, and the extreme poverty from which +they suffered made it difficult, and even impossible, for her to provide +for him the alleviations which his state demanded. He gradually +recovered, however, thanks to his wife's care and to his own magnificent +constitution, but the springs of courage seemed to have snapped within +his breast. + +In March, 1866, worn out with illness, poverty and suspense, he wrote a +letter to Björnson, "my one and only friend," which is one of the most +heart-rending documents in the history of literature. Few great spirits +have been nearer the extinction of despair than Ibsen was, now in his +thirty-ninth year. His admirers, at their wits' end to know what to +advise, urged him to write directly to Carl, King of Sweden and Norway, +describing his condition, and asking for support. Simultaneously came +the manifest success of _Brand_, and, for the first time, the Norwegian +press recognized the poet's merit. There was a general movement in his +favor; King Carl graciously received his petition of April 15, and on +May 10 the Storthing, almost unanimously, voted Ibsen a "poet's +pension," restricted in amount but sufficient for his modest needs. + +The first use he made of his freedom was to move out of Rome, where he +found it impossible to write, and to settle at Frascati among the hills. +He hired a nest of cheap rooms in the Palazzo Gratiosi, two thousand +feet above the sea. Thither he came, with his wife and his little son, +and there he fitted himself up a study; setting his writing table at a +window that overlooked an immensity of country, and Mont Soracté closing +the horizon with its fiery pyramid. In his correspondence of this time +there are suddenly noticeable a gayety and an insouciance which are +elements wholly new in his letters. The dreadful burden was lifted; the +dreadful fear of sinking in a sea of troubles and being lost for ever, +the fear which animates his painful letter to King Carl, was blown away +like a cloud and the heaven of his temper was serene. At Frascati he +knew not what to be at; he tried that subject, and this, waiting for the +heavenly spark to fall. It seems to have been at Tusculum, and in the +autumn of 1866, that the subject he was looking for descended upon him. +He hurried back to Rome, and putting all other schemes aside, he devoted +himself heart and soul to the composition of _Peer Gynt_, which he +described as to be "a long dramatic poem, having as its chief figure one +of the half-mythical and fantastical personages from the peasant life of +_modern_ Norway." + +He wrote this work slowly, more slowly than was his wont, and it was a +whole year on the stocks. It was in the summer that Ibsen habitually +composed with the greatest ease, and _Peer Gynt_ did not trove smoothly +until the poet settled in the Villa Pisani, at Casamicciola, on the +island of Ischia. His own account was: "After _Brand_ came _Peer Gynt_, +as though of itself. It was written in Southern Italy, in Ischia and at +Sorrento. So far away from one's readers one becomes reckless. This poem +contains much that has its origin in the circumstances of my own youth. +My own mother--with the necessary exaggeration--served as the model for +Ase." _Peer Gynt_ was finished before Ibsen left Sorrento at the end of +the autumn, and the MS. was immediately posted to Copenhagen. None of +the delays which had interfered with the appearance of _Brand_ now +afflicted the temper of the poet, and _Peer Gynt_ was published in +November, 1867. + +In spite of the plain speaking of Ibsen himself, who declared that _Peer +Gynt_ was diametrically opposed in spirit to _Brand_, and that it made +no direct attack upon social questions, the critics of the later poem +have too often persisted in darkening it with their educational +pedantries. Ibsen did well to be angry with his commentators. "They have +discovered," he said, "much more satire in _Peer Gynt_ than was intended +by me. Why can they not read the book as a poem? For as such I wrote +it." It has been, however, the misfortune of Ibsen that he has +particularly attracted the attention of those who prefer to see anything +in a poem except its poetry, and who treat all tulips and roses as if +they were cabbages for the pot of didactic morality. Yet it is +surprising that after all that the author said, and with the lovely poem +shaking the bauble of its fool's cap at them, there can still be +commentators who see nothing in _Peer Gynt_ but the "awful interest of +the universal problems with which it deals." This obsession of the +critic to discover "problems" in the works of Ibsen has been one of the +main causes of that impatience and even downright injustice with which +his writings have been received by a large section of those readers who +should naturally have enjoyed them. He is a poet, of fantastic wit and +often reckless imagination, and he has been travestied in a long black +coat and white choker, as though he were an embodiment of the +Nonconformist conscience. + +Casting aside, therefore, the spurious "lessons" and supposititious +"problems" of this merry and mundane drama, we may recognize among its +irregularities and audacities two main qualities of merit. Above +everything else which we see in _Peer Gynt_ we see its fun and its +picturesqueness. Written at different times and in different moods, +there is an incoherency in its construction which its most whole-hearted +admirers cannot explain away. The first act is an inimitable burst of +lyrical high spirits, tottering on the verge of absurdity, carried along +its hilarious career with no less peril and with no less brilliant +success than Peer fables for himself and the reindeer in their ride +along the vertiginous blade of the Gjende. In the second act, satire and +fantasy become absolutely unbridled; the poet's genius sings and dances +under him, like a strong ship in a storm, but the vessel is rudderless +and the pilot an emphatic libertine. The wild impertinence of fancy, in +this act, from the moment when Peer and the Girl in the Green Gown ride +off upon the porker, down to the fight with the Böig, gigantic +gelatinous symbol of self deception, exceeds in recklessness anything +else written since the second part of _Faust_. The third act, +culminating with the drive to Soria Moria Castle and the death of Ase, +is of the very quintessence of poetry, and puts Ibsen in the first rank +of creators. In the fourth act, the introduction of which is abrupt and +grotesque, we pass to a totally different and, I think, a lower order of +imagination. The fifth act, an amalgam of what is worst and best in the +poem, often seems divided from it in tone, style and direction, and is +more like a symbolic or mythical gloss upon the first three acts than a +contribution to the growth of the general story. + +Throughout this tangled and variegated scene the spirits of the author +remain almost preposterously high. If it were all hilarity and sardonic +laughter, we should weary of the strain. But physical beauty of the most +enchanting order is liberally provided to temper the excess of irony. It +is, I think, no exaggeration to say that nowhere to the dramatic +literature of the world, not by Shakespeare himself, is there introduced +into a play so much loveliness of scenery, and such varied and exquisite +appeal to the eyes, as there is in _Peer Gynt_. The fifth act contains +much which the reader can hardly enjoy, but it opens with a scene so +full of the glory of the mountains and the sea that I know nothing else +in drama to compare with it. This again is followed by one of the finest +shipwrecks in all poetry. Scene after scene, the first act portrays the +cold and solemn beauty of Norwegian scenery as no painter's brush has +contrived to do it. For the woodland background of the Saeter Girls +there is no parallel in plastic art but the most classic of Norwegian +paintings, Dahl's "Birch in a Snow Storm." Pages might be filled with +praise of the picturesqueness of tableau after tableau in each act of +_Peer Gynt_. + +The hero is the apotheosis of selfish vanity, and he is presented to us, +somewhat indecisively, as the type of one who sets at defiance his own +life's design. But is Peer Gynt designed to be a useful, a good, or even +a successful man? Certainly Ibsen had not discovered it when he wrote +the first act, in which scarcely anything is observable except a study, +full of merriment and sarcasm, of the sly, lazy and parasitical class of +peasant rogue. This type was not of Ibsen's invention; he found it in +those rustic tales, inimitably resumed by Asbjörnson and Moe, in which +he shows us that his memory was steeped. Here, too, he found the Böig, a +monster of Norse superstition, vast and cold, slippery and invisible, +capable of infinite contraction and expansion. The conception that this +horror would stand in symbol for a certain development of selfish +national instability seems to have seized him later, and _Peer Gynt_, +which began as a farce, continued as a fable. The nearest approach to a +justification of the moral or "problem" purpose, which Ibsen's graver +prophets attribute to him, is found in the sixth scene of the fifth act, +where, quite in the manner of Goethe, thoughts and watchwords and songs +and tears take corporeal form and assail the aged _Peer Gynt_ with their +reproaches. + +_Peer Gynt_ was received in the North with some critical bewilderment, +and it has never been so great a favorite with the general public as +_Brand_. But Ibsen, with triumphant arrogance, when he was told that it +did not conform to the rules of poetic art, asserted that the rules must +be altered, not _Peer Gynt_. "My book," he wrote, "_is_ poetry; and if +it is not, then it shall be. The Norwegian conception of what poetry is +shall be made to fit my book." There was a struggle at first against +this assumption, but the drama has become a classic, and it is now +generally allowed, that so long as poetry is a term wide enough to +include _The Clouds_ and the Second Part of _Faust_, it must be made +wide enough to take in a poem as unique as they are in its majestic +intellectual caprices. + +[Note.--By far the most exhaustive analysis of _Peer Gynt_ which has +hitherto been given to the world is that published, as I send these +pages to the press, by the executors of Otto Weininger, in his +posthumous _Ueber die letzte Dinge_ (1907). This extraordinary young +man, who shot himself on October 4, 1903, in the house at Vienna where +Beethoven died, was only twenty-three years of age when he violently +deprived philosophical literature in Europe of by far its most promising +and remarkable recruit. If I confess myself unable to see in _Peer Gynt_ +all that Weininger saw in it, the fault is doubtless mine. But in Ibsen, +unquestionably, time will _create_ profundities, as it has in +Shakespeare. The greatest works grow in importance, as trees do after +the death of the mortal men who planted them.] + +CHAPTER V + +1868-75 + +Ibsen's four years in Italy were years of rest, of solitude, of calm. +The attitude of Ibsen to Italy was totally distinct from that of other +illustrious exiles of his day and generation. The line of pilgrims from +Stendhal and Lamartine down to Ruskin and the Brownings had brought with +them a personal interest in Italian affairs; Italian servitude had +roused some of them to anger or irony; they had spent nights of insomnia +dreaming of Italian liberty. _Casa Guidi Windows_ may be taken as the +extreme type of the way in which Italy did not impress Ibsen. He sought +there, and found, under the transparent azure of the Alban sky, in the +harmonious murmurs of the sea, in the violet shadows of the mountains, +above all in the gray streets of Rome, that rest of the brain, that +ripening of the spiritual faculties, which he needed most after his +rough and prolonged adolescence in Norway. In his attitude of passive +appreciation he was, perhaps, more like Landor than like any other of +the illustrious exiles--Landor, who died in Florence a few days after +Ibsen settled in Rome. There was a side of character, too, on which the +young Norwegian resembled that fighting man of genius. + +When, therefore, on September 8, 1867, Garibaldi, at Genoa, announced +his intention of marching upon Rome, an echo woke in many a poet's heart +"by rose hung river and light-foot rill," but left Ibsen simply +disconcerted. If Rome was to be freed from Papal slavery, it would no +longer be the somnolent and unupbraiding haunt of quietness which the +Norwegian desired for the healing of his spleen and his moral +hypochondria. In October the heralds of liberty crossed the Papal +frontier; on the 30th, by a slightly prosaic touch, it was the French +who entered Rome. Of Ibsen, in these last months of his disturbed +sojourn--for he soon determined that if there was going to be civil war +in Italy that country was no home for him--we hear but little. This +autumn, however, we find him increasingly observant of the career of +Georg Brandes, the brilliant and revolutionary Danish critic, in whom he +was later on to find his first great interpreter. And we notice the +beginnings of a difference with Björnson, lamentable and hardly +explicable, starting, it would vaguely seem, out of a sense that +Björnson did not appreciate the poetry of _Peer Gynt_ at its due value. +Clemens Petersen, who, since the decease of Heiberg, had been looked +upon as the _doyen_ of Danish critics--had pronounced against the poetry +of _Peer Gynt_, and Ibsen, in one of his worst moods, in a bearish +letter, had thrown the blame of this judgment upon Björnson. + +All through these last months in Rome we find Ibsen in the worst of +humors. If it be admissible to compare him with an animal, he seems the +badger among the writers of his time, nocturnal, inoffensive, solitary, +but at the rumor of disturbance apt to rush out of its burrow and bite +with terrific ferocity. The bite of Ibsen was no joke, and in moments of +exasperation he bit, without selection, friend and foe alike. Among +other snaps of the pen, he told Björnson that if he was not taken +seriously as a poet, he should try his "fate as a photographer." +Björnson, genially and wittily, took this up at once, and begged him to +put his photography into the form of a comedy. But the devil, as Ibsen +himself said, was throwing his shadow between the friends, and all the +benefits and all the affection of the old dark days were rapidly +forgotten. They quarrelled, too, rather absurdly, about decorations from +kings and ministers; Björnson having determined to reject all such +gewgaws, Ibsen announced his intention of accepting (and wearing) every +cross and star that was offered to him. At this date, no doubt, the +temptation was wholly problematical in both cases, yet each poet acted +on his determination to the end. But Björnson's hint about the comedy +seems to have been, for some years, the last flicker of friendship +between the two. On this Ibsen presently acted in a manner very +offensive to Björnson. + +In March, 1868, Ibsen was beginning to be very much indeed incensed with +things in general. "What Norway wants is a national disaster," he +amiably snarled. It was high time that the badger should seek shelter in +a new burrow, and in May we find him finally quitting Rome. There was a +farewell banquet, at which Julius Lange, who was present, remarks that +Ibsen showed a spice of the devil, but "was very witty and amiable." He +went to Florence for June, then quitted Italy altogether, settling for +three months at Berchtesgaden, the romantic little "sunbath" in the +Salzburg Alps, then still very quiet and unfashionable. There he started +his five-act comedy, _The League of Youth_. All September he spent in +Munich, and in October, 1868, took root once more, this time at Dresden, +which became his home for a considerable number of years. Almost at once +he sank down again into his brooding mood of isolation and quietism, +roaming about the streets of Dresden, as he hail haunted those of Rome, +by night or at unfrequented hours, very solitary, seeing few visitors, +writing few letters, slowly finishing his "photographic" comedy, which +he did not get off his hands until March, 1869. Although he was still +very poor, he refused all solicitations from editors to write for +journals or magazines; he preferred to appear before the public at long +intervals, with finished works of importance. + +It is impossible for a critic who is not a Norwegian, or not closely +instructed in the politics and manners of the North, to take much +interest in _The League of Youth_, which is the most provincial of all +Ibsen's mature works. There is a cant phrase minted in the course of it, +_de lokale forhold_, which we may awkwardly translate as "the local +conditions" or "situation." The play is all concerned with _de lokale +forhold_, and there is an overwhelming air of Little Pedlington about +the intrigue. This does not prevent _The League of Youth_ from being, as +Mr. Archer has said, "the first prose comedy of any importance in +Norwegian literature," [Note: It is to be supposed that Mr. Archer +deliberately prefers _The League of Youth_ to Björnson's _The Newly +Married Couple_ (1865), a slighter, but, as it seems to me, a more +amusing comedy.] but it excludes it from the larger European view. Oddly +enough, Ibsen believed, or pretended to believe, that _The League of +Youth_ was a "placable" piece of foolery, which could give no annoyance +to the worst of offenders by its innocent and indulgent banter. Perhaps, +like many strenuous writers, he underestimated the violence of his own +language; perhaps, living so long at a distance from Norway and catching +but faintly the reverberations of its political turmoil, he did not +realize how sensitive the native patriot must be to any chaff of "de +lokale forhold." When he found that the Norwegians were seriously angry, +Ibsen bluntly told them that he had closely studied the ways and the +manners of their "pernicious and lie-steeped clique." He was always +something of a snake in the grass to his poetic victims. + +Mr. Archer, whose criticism of this play is extraordinarily brilliant, +does his best to extenuate the stiffness of it. But to my own ear, as I +read it again after a quarter of a century, there rise the tones of the +stilted, the unsmiling, the essentially provincial and boringly solemn +society of Christiania as it appeared to a certain young pilgrim in the +early seventies, condensing, as it then seemed to do, all the +sensitiveness, the arrogance, the crudity which made communication with +the excellent and hospitable Norwegians of that past epoch so difficult +for an outsider--so difficult, in particular, for one coming freshly +from the grace and sweetness, the delicate, cultivated warmth of +Copenhagen. The political conditions which led to the writing of _The +League of Youth_ are old history now. There was the "liberal" element in +Norwegian politics, which was in 1868 becoming rapidly stronger and more +hampering to the Government, and there was the increasing influence of +Sören Jaabaek (1814-94), a peasant farmer of ultra-socialistic views, +who had, almost alone, opposed in the Storthing the grant of any +pensions to poets, and whose name was an abomination to Ibsen. + +Now Björnson, in the development of his career as a political publicist, +had been flirting more and more outrageously with these extreme ideas +and this truculent peasant party. He had even burned incense before +Jaabaek, who was the accursed Thing. Ibsen, from the perspective of +Dresden, genuinely believed that Björnson, with his ardor and his energy +and his eloquence, war, becoming a national danger. We have seen that +Björnson had piqued Ibsen's vanity about _Peer Gynt_, and nothing +exasperates a friendship more fatally than public principle grafted on a +private slight. Moreover, the whole nature of Björnson was gregarious, +that of Ibsen solitary; Björnson must always be leading the majority, +Ibsen had scuples of conscience if ten persons agreed with him. They +were doomed to disagreement. Meanwhile, Ibsen burned his ships by +creating the figure of Stensgaard, in _The League of Youth_, a frothy +and mischievous demagogue whose rhetoric irresistibly reminded every one +of Björnson's rolling oratory. What Björnson, not without dignity, +objected to was not so much the personal attack, as that the whole play +attempted "to paint our young party of liberty as a troop of pushing, +phrase-mongering adventurers, whose patriotism lay solely in their +words." Ibsen acknowledged that that was exactly his opinion of them, +and what could follow for such a disjointed friendship but anger and +silence? + +The year 1869, which we now enter, is remarkable in the career of Ibsen +as being that in which he travelled most, and appeared on the surface of +society in the greatest number of capacities. He was enabled to do this +by a considerable increase in his pension. First of all, he was induced +to pay a visit of some months to Stockholm, being seized with a sudden +strong desire to study conditions in Sweden, a country which he had +hitherto professed to dislike. He had a delightful stay of two months, +received from King Carl the order of the Wasa, was feted at banquets, +renewed his acquaintance with Snoilsky, and was treated everywhere with +the highest distinction. Ibsen and Björnson were how beginning to be +recognized as the two great writers of Norway, and their droll balance +as the Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat of letters was already becoming defined. +It was doubtless Björnson's emphatic attacks on Sweden that at this +moment made Ibsen so loving to the Swedes and so beloved. He was in such +clover at Stockholm that he might have lingered on there indefinitely, +if the Khedive had not invited him, in September, to be his guest at the +opening of the Suez Canal. This sudden incursion of an Oriental +potentate into the narrative seems startling until we recollect that +illustrious persons were invited from all countries to this ceremony. +The interesting thing is to see that Ibsen was now so fatuous as to be +naturally so selected; the only other Norwegian guest being Professor J. +D. C. Lieblein, the Egyptologist. + +The poet started for Egypt, by Dresden and Paris, on September 28. _The +League of Youth_ was published on the 29th, and first performed on +October 18; Ibsen, therefore, just missed the scandal and uproar caused +by the play in Norway. In company with eighty-five other people, all +illustrious guests of the Khedive, and under the care of Mariette Bey, +Ibsen made a twenty-four days' expedition up the Nile into Nubia, and +then back to Cairo and Port Said. There, on November 17, in the company +of an empress and several princes of the blood, he saw the Canal +formally opened and graced a grand processional fleet that sailed out +from Port Said towards Ismaila. But on the quay at Port Said Ibsen's +Norwegian mail was handed to him, and letters and newspapers alike were +full of the violent scenes in the course of which _The League of Youth_ +had been hissed down at Christiania. Then and there he sent his defiance +back to Norway in _At Port Saïd_, one of the most pointed and effective +of all his polemical lyrics. A version in literal prose must suffice, +though it does cruel injustice to the venomous melody of the original: + + The dawn of the Eastern Land + Over the haven glittered; + Flags from all corners of the globe + Quivered from the masts. + Voices in music + Bore onward the cantata; + A thousand cannon + Christened the Canal. + + The steamers passed on + By the obelisk. + In the language of my home + Came to me the chatter of news. + The mirror-poem which I had polished + For masculine minxes + Had been smeared at home + By splutterings from penny whistles. + + The poison-fly stung; + It made my memories loathsome. + Stars, be thanked!-- + My home is what is ancient! + We hailed the frigate + From the roof of the river-boat; + I waved my hat + And saluted the flag. + + To the feast, to the feast, + In spite of the fangs of venomous reptiles! + A selected guest + Across the Lakes of Bitterness! + At the close of day + Dreaming, I shall slumber + Where Pharaoh was drowned-- + And when Moses passed over. + +In this mood of defiance, with rage unabated, Ibsen returned home by +Alexandria and Paris, and was in Dresden again in December. + +The year of 1870 drove him out of Dresden, as the French occupation had +driven him out of Rome. It was essential for him to be at rest in the +midst of a quiet and alien population. He was drawn towards Denmark, +partly for the sake of talk with Brandes, who had now become a factor in +his life, partly to arrange about the performance of one of his early +works, and in particular of _The Pretenders_. No definite plan, however, +had been formed, when, in the middle of June, war was declared between +Germany and France; but a fortnight later Ibsen quitted Saxony, and +settled for three months in Copenhagen, where his reception was +charmingly sympathetic. By the beginning of October, after the fall of +Strasburg and the hemming in of Metz, however, it was plain on which +side the fortunes of the war would lie, and Ibsen returned "as from a +rejuvenating bath" of Danish society to a Dresden full of French +prisoners, a Dresden, too, suffering terribly from the paralysis of +trade, and showing a plentiful lack of enthusiasm for Prussia. + +Ibsen turned his back on all such vexatious themes, and set himself to +the collecting and polishing of a series of lyrical poems, the _Digte_ +of 1871, the earliest, and, indeed, the only such collection that he +published. We may recollect that, at the very same moment, with far less +cause to isolate himself from the horrors of war, Théophile Gautier was +giving the last touches to _Emaux et Camées_. In December, 1870, Ibsen +addressed to Fru Limnell, a lady in Stockholm, his "Balloon-Letter," a +Hudibrastic rhymed epistle in nearly 400 lines, containing, with a good +deal that is trivial, some striking symbolical reminiscences of his trip +through Egypt, and some powerful ironic references to the caravan of +German invaders, with its Hathor and its Horus, which was then rushing +to the assault of Paris under the doleful colors of the Prussian flag. +Ibsen's sarcasms are all at the ugliness and prosaic utilitarianism of +the Germans; "Moltke," he says, "has killed the poetry of battles." + +Ibsen was now greatly developing and expanding his views, and forming a +world-policy of his own. The success of German discipline deeply +impressed him, and he thought that the day had probably dawned which +would be fatal to all revolt and "liberal rebellion" for the future. +More than ever he dreaded the revolutionary doctrines of men like +Jaabaek and Björnson, which would lead, he thought, to bloodshed and +national disaster. The very same events were impressing Goldwin Smith at +the very same moment with his famous prophecy that the abolition of all +dynastic and aristocratic institutions was at hand, with "the tranquil +inauguration" of elective industrial governments throughout the world. +So history moves doggedly on, _propheten rechts, propheten links_, a +perfectly impassive _welt-kind_ in the middle of them. In Copenhagen +Ibsen had, after all, missed Brandes, delayed in Rome by a long and +dangerous illness; and all he could do was to exchange letters with this +still unseen but increasingly sympathetic and beloved young friend. To +Brandes Ibsen wrote more freely than to any one else about the great +events which were shaking the face of Europe and occupying so much of +both their thoughts:-- + +The old, illusory France has collapsed [he wrote to Brandes on December +20, 1870, two days after the engagement at Nuits]; and as soon as the +new, real Prussia does the same, we shall be with one bound in a new +age. How ideas will then come tumbling about our ears! And it is high +time they did. Up till now we have been living on nothing but the crumbs +from the revolutionary table of last century, a food out of which all +nutriment has long been chewed. The old terms require to have a new +meaning infused into them. Liberty, equality and fraternity are no +longer the things they were in the days of the late-lamented Guillotine. +This is what the politicians will not understand, and therefore, I hate +them. They want their own special revolutions--revolutions in externals, +in politics and so forth. But all this is mere trifling. What is +all-important is the revolution of the Spirit of Man. + +This revolution, as exemplified by the Commune in Paris, did not satisfy +the anticipations which Ibsen had formed, and Brandes took advantage of +this to tell him that he .had not yet studied politics minutely enough +from the scientific standpoint. Ibsen replied that what he did not +possess as knowledge came to him, to a certain degree, as intuition or +instinct. "Let this be as it may, the poet's essential task is to see, +not to reflect. For me in particular there would be danger in too much +reflection." Ibsen seems, at this time, to be in an oscillating frame of +mind, now bent on forming some positive theory of life out of which his +imaginative works shall crystallize, harmoniously explanatory; at +another time, anxious to be unhampered by theories and principles, and +to represent individuals and exceptions exactly as experience presents +them to him. In neither attitude, however, is there discernible any +trace of the moral physician, and this is the central distinction +between Tolstoi and Ibsen, whose methods, at first sight, sometimes +appear so similar. Tolstoi analyzes a morbid condition, but always with +the purpose, if he can, of curing it; Ibsen gives it even closer +clinical attention, but he leaves to others the care of removing a +disease which his business is solely to diagnose. + +The _Poems_, after infinite revision, were published at length, in a +very large edition, on May 3, 1871. One reason why Ibsen was glad to get +this book off his hands was that it enabled him to concentrate his +thoughts on the great drama he had been projecting, at intervals, for +seven years past, the trilogy (as he then planned it) on the story of +Julian the Apostate. At last Brandes came to Dresden (July, 1871) and +found the tenebrous poet plunged in the study of Neander and Strauss, +Gibbon unfortunately being a sealed book to him. All through the autumn +and winter he was kept in a chronic state of irritability by the +intrigues and the menaces of a Norwegian pirate, who threatened to +reprint, for his own profit, Ibsen's early and insufficiently protected +writings. This exacerbated the poet's dislike to his own country, where +the very law courts, he thought, were hostile to him. On this subject he +used language of tiresome over-emphasis. "From Sweden, from Denmark, +from Germany, I hear nothing but what gives me pleasure; it is from +Norway that everything bad comes upon me." It was indicated to would-be +Norwegian visitors that they were not welcome at Dresden. Norwegian +friends, he said, were "a costly luxury" which he was obliged to deny +himself. + +The First Part of _Julian_ was finished on Christmas Day, but it took +over a year more before the entire work, as we now possess it, was +completed. "A Herculean labor," the author called it, when he finally +laid down a weary pen in February, 1873. The year 1872 had been very +quietly spent in unremitting literary labor, tempered by genial visits +from some illustrious Danes of the older generation, as particularly +Hans Christian Andersen and Meyer Aron Goldschmidt, and by more formal +intercourse with a few Germans such as Konrad Maurer and Paul Heyse; all +this time, let us remember, no Norwegians--"by request." The summer was +spent in long rambles over the mountains of Austria, ending up with a +month of deep repose in Berchtesgaden. The next year was like unto this, +except that its roaming, restless summer closed with several months in +Vienna; and on October 17, 1873, _nonum in annum_, after the Horatian +counsel, the prodigious masterpiece, _Emperor and Galilean_, was +published in Copenhagen at last. + +Of all the writings of Ibsen, his huge double drama on the rise and fall +of Julian is the most extensive and the most ambitious. It is not +difficult to understand what it was about the most subtle and the most +speculative of the figures which animate the decline of antiquity that +fascinated the imagination of Ibsen. Successive historians have +celebrated the flexibility of intelligence and firmness of purpose which +were combined in the brain of Julian with a passion for abstract beauty +and an enthusiasm for a restored system of pagan Hellenic worship. There +was an individuality about Julian, an absence of the common purple +convention, of the imperial rhetoric, which strongly commended him to +Ibsen, and in his perverse ascetic revolt against Christianity he +offered a fascinating originality to one who thought the modern world +all out of joint. As a revolutionary, Julian presented ideas of +character which could not but passionately attract the Norwegian poet. +His attitude to his emperor and to his God, sceptical, in each case, in +each case inspired by no vulgar motive but by a species of lofty and +melancholy fatalism, promised a theme of the most entrancing complexity. +But there are curious traces in Ibsen's correspondence of the +difficulty, very strange in his case, which he experienced in forming a +concrete idea of Julian in his own mind. He had been vaguely drawn to +the theme, and when it was too late to recede, he found himself baffled +by the paradoxes which he encountered, and by the contradictions of a +figure seen darkly through a mist of historical detraction. + +He met these difficulties as well as he could, and as a prudent dramatic +poet should, by close and observant study of the document. He endeavored +to reconcile the evident superiority of Julian with the absurd +eccentricities of his private manners and with the futility of his +public acts. He noted all the Apostate's foibles by the side of his +virtues and his magnanimities. He traced without hesitation the course +of that strange insurrection which hurled a coarse fanatic from the +throne, only to place in his room a literary pedant with inked fingers +and populous beard. He accepted everything, from the parasites to the +purple slippers. The dangers of so humble an attendance upon history +were escaped with success in the first instalment of his "world drama." +In the strong and mounting scenes of _Caesar's Apostacy_, the rapidity +with which the incidents succeed one another, their inherent +significance, the innocent splendor of Julian's mind in its first +emancipation from the chains of false faith, combine to produce an +effect of high dramatic beauty. Georg Brandes, whose instinct in such +matters was almost infallible, when he read the First Part shortly after +its composition, entreated Ibsen to give this, as it stood, to the +public, and to let _The Emperor Julian's End_ follow independently. Had +Ibsen consented to do this, _Caesar's Fall_ would certainly take a +higher place among his works than it does at present, when its effect is +somewhat amputated and its meaning threatened with incoherence by the +author's apparent _volteface_ in the Second Part. + +It was a lifelong disappointment to Ibsen that _Emperor and Galilean_, +on which he expended far more consideration and labor than on any other +of his works, was never a favorite either with the public or among the +critics. With the best will in the world, however, it is not easy to +find full enjoyment in this gigantic work, which by some caprice of +style defiant of analysis, lacks the vitality which is usually +characteristic of Ibsen's least production. The speeches put into the +mouths of antique characters are appropriate, but they are seldom vivid; +as Bentley said of the epistles of Julian's own teacher Libanius, "You +feel by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse with some +dreaming pedant, his elbow on his desk." The scheme of Ibsen's drama was +too vast for the very minute and meticulous method he chose to adopt. +What he gives us is an immense canvas, on which he has painted here and +there in miniature. It is a pity that he chose for dramatic +representation so enormous a field. It would have suited his genius far +better to have abandoned any attempt to write a conclusive history, and +have selected some critical moment in the life of Julian. He should +rather have concentrated his energies, independent of the chroniclers, +on the resuscitation of that episode, and in the course of it have +trembled less humbly under the uplifted finger of Ammianus. + +Of _Emperor and Galilean_ Ibsen afterwards said: "It was the first" (but +he might have added "the only") "poem which I have written under the +influence of German ideas." He was aware of the danger of living too +long away from his own order of thought and language. But it was always +difficult for him, once planted in a place, to pull up his roots. A +weariness took possession of him after the publication of his double +drama, and he did practically nothing for four years. This marks a +central joint in the structure of his career, what the architects call a +"channel" in it, adding to the general retrospect of Ibsen's work an +aspect of solidity and resource. During these years he revised some of +his early writings, made a closer study of the arts of sculpture and +painting, and essayed, without satisfaction, a very brief sojourn in +Norway. In the spring of 1875 he definitely moved with his family from +Dresden to Munich. + +The brief visit to Christiania in 1874 proved very unfortunate. Ibsen +was suspicious, the Norwegians of that generation were constitutionally +stiff and reserved; long years among Southern races had accustomed him +to a plenitude in gesture and emphasis. He suffered, all the brief time +he was in Norway, from an intolerable _malaise_. Ten years afterwards, +in writing to Björnson, the discomfort of that experience was still +unallayed. "I have not yet saved nearly enough," he said, "to support +myself and my family in the case of my discontinuing my literary work. +And I should be obliged to discontinue it if I lived in Christiania. ... +This simply means that I should not write at all. When, ten years ago, +after an absence of ten years, I sailed up the fjord, I felt a weight +settling down on my breast, a feeling of actual physical oppression. And +this feeling lasted all the time I was at home; I was not myself under +the stare of all those cold, uncomprehending Norwegian eyes at the +windows and in the streets." + +Ibsen had now been more than ten years am exile from Norway, and his +sentiments with regard to his own people were still what they were when, +in July, 1872, he had sent home his _Ode for the Millenary Festival_. +That very striking poem, one of the most solid of Ibsen's lyrical +performances, had opened in the key of unmitigated defiance to popular +opinion at home. It was intended to show Norwegians that they must alter +their attitude towards him, as he would never change his behavior +towards them. "My countrymen," he said:-- + + My countrymen, who filled for me deep bowls + Of wholesome bitter medicine, such as gave + The poet, on the margin of his grave, + Fresh force to fight where broken twilight rolls,-- + My countrymen, who sped me o'er the wave, + An exile, with my griefs for pilgrim-soles, + My fears for burdens, doubts for staff, to roam,-- + From the wide world I send you greeting home. + + I send you thanks for gifts that help and harden, + Thanks for each hour of purifying pain; + Each plant that springs in my poetic garden + Is rooted where your harshness poured its rain; + Each shoot in which it blooms and burgeons forth + It owes to that gray weather from the North; + The sun relaxes, but the fog secures! + My country, thanks! My life's best gifts were yours. + +In spite of these sardonic acknowledgments. Ibsen's fame in Norway, +though still disputed, was now secure. In Denmark and Sweden it was +almost unchallenged, and he was a name, at least, in Germany. In +England, since 1872, he had not been without a prophet. But in Italy, +Russia, France--three countries upon the intelligence of which he was +presently to make a wide and durable impression--he was still quite +unknown. + +Meanwhile, in glancing over the general literature of Europe, we see his +figure, at the threshold of his fiftieth year, taking greater and +greater prominence. He had become, in the sudden exinction of the +illustrious old men of Denmark, the first living writer of the North. He +was to Norway what Valera was to Spain, Carducci to Italy, Swinburne or +Rossetti to England, and Leconte de Lisle to France. These were mainly +lyrical poets, but it must not be forgotten that Ibsen, down at least +till 1871, was prominently illustrious as a writer in metrical form. If, +in the second portion of his career, he resolutely deprived himself of +all indulgence in the ornament of verse, it was a voluntary act of +austerity. It was Charles V at Yuste, wilfully exchanging the crown of +jewels for the coarse brown cowl of St. Jerome. And now, after a year or +two of prayer and fasting, Ibsen began a new intellectual career. +CHAPTER VI + +1875-82 + +While Ibsen was sitting at Munich, in this climacteric stage of his +career, dreaming of wonderful things and doing nothing, there came to +him, in the early months of 1875, two new plays by his chief rival. +These were _The Editor_ and _A Bankruptcy_, in which Björnson suddenly +swooped from his sagas and his romances down into the middle of sordid +modern life. This was his first attempt at that "photography by comedy" +which he had urged on Ibsen in 1868. It is not, I think, recorded what +was Ibsen's comment on these two plays, and particularly on _A +Bankruptcy_, but it is written broadly over the surface of his own next +work. It is obvious that he perceived that Björnson had carried a very +spirited raid into his own particular province, and he was determined to +drive this audacious enemy back by means of greater audacities. + +Not at once, however; for an extraordinary languor seemed to have fallen +upon Ibsen. His isolation from society became extreme; for nearly a year +he gave no sign of life. In September, 1875, indeed, if not earlier, he +was at work on a five-act play, but what this was is unknown. It seems +to have been in the winter of 1876, after an unprecedented period of +inanimation, that he started a new comedy, _The Pillars of Society_, +which was finished in Munich in July, 1877, that summer being unique in +the fact that the Ibsens do not seem to have left town at all. + +Ibsen was now a good deal altered in the exteriors of character. With +his fiftieth year he presents himself as no more the Poet, but the Man +of Business. Molbech told me that at this time the velveteen jacket, +symbol of the dear delays of art, was discarded in favor of a frock- +coat, too tight across the chest. Ibsen was now beginning, rather shyly, +very craftily, to invest money; he even found himself in frequent +straits for ready coin from his acute impatience to set every rix-dollar +breeding. He cast the suspicion of poetry from him, and with his gold +spectacles, his Dundreary whiskers, his broadcloth bosom and his quick +staccato step, he adopted the pose of a gentleman of affairs, very +positive and with no nonsense about him. + +He had long determined on the wilful abandonment of poetic form, and the +famous statement made in a letter to myself (January 15, 1874) must be +quoted, although it is well known, since it contains the clearest of all +the explanations by which Ibsen justified his new departure:-- + +You are of opinion that the drama [_Emperor and Galilean_] ought to have +been written in verse, and that it would have gained by this. Here I +must differ from you. The play is, as you will have observed, conceived +in the most realistic style: the illusion I wished to produce is that of +reality. I wished to produce the impression on the reader that what he +was reading was something that had really happened. If I had employed +verse, I should have counteracted my own intention and prevented the +accomplishment of the task I had set myself. The many ordinary +insignificant characters whom I have intentionally introduced into the +play would have become indistinct, and indistinguishable from one +another, if I had allowed all of them to speak in one and the same +rhythmical measure. We are no longer living in the days of Shakespeare. +Among sculptors there is already talk of painting statues in the natural +colors. Much can be said both for and against this. I have no desire to +see the Venus of Milo painted, but I would rather see the head of a +negro executed in black than in white marble. Speaking generally, the +style must conform to the degree of ideality which pervades the +representation. My new drama is no tragedy in the ancient acceptation; +what I desired to depict were human beings, and therefore I would not +let them talk "the language of the Gods." + +This revolt against dramatic verse was a feature of the epoch. In 1877 +Alphonse Daudet was to write of a comedy, "Mais, hélas! cette pièce est +en vers, et l'ennui s'y promène librement entre les rimes." + +No poet, however, sacrificed so much, or held so rigidly to his +intention of reproducing the exact language of real life, as did Ibsen +in the series of plays which opens with _The Pillars of Society_. This +drama was published in Copenhagen in October, 1877, and was acted almost +immediately in Denmark, Sweden and Norway; it had the good fortune to be +taken up warmly in Germany. What Ibsen's idea was, in the new sort of +realistic drama which he was inventing, was, in fact, perceived at once +by German audiences, although it was not always approved of. He was the +guest of the theatromaniac Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and _The Pillars of +Society_ was played in many parts of Germany. In Scandinavia the book of +the play sold well, and the piece had some success on the boards, but it +did not create anything like so much excitement as the author had hoped +that it would. Danish taste pronounced it "too German." + +For the fact that _The Pillars of Society_, except in Scandinavia and +Germany, did not then, and never has since, taken a permanent hold upon +the theatre, Mr. William Archer gives a reason which cannot be +controverted, namely, that by the time the other foreign publics had +fully awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown +the phase of his development marked by _Pillars of Society_, that the +play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned. It exactly suited the +German public of the eighties; it was exactly on a level with their +theatrical intelligence. But it was above the theatrical intelligence of +the Anglo-American public, and ... below that of the French public. This +is of course an exaggeration. What I mean is that there was no possible +reason why the countrymen of Augier and Dumas should take any special +interest in _Pillars of Society_. It was not obviously in advance of +these masters in technical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment +running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of +that period. + +The subject of _The Pillars of Society_ was the hollowness and +rottenness of those supports, and the severe and unornamented prose +which Ibsen now adopted was very favorable to its discussion. He was +accused, however, of having lived so long away from home as to have +fallen out of touch with real Norwegian life, which he studied in the +convex mirror of the newspapers. It is more serious objection to _The +Pillars of Society_ that in it, as little as in _The League of Youth_, +had Ibsen cut himself off from the traditions of the well-made play. +Gloomy and homely as are the earlier acts, Ibsen sees as yet no way out +of the imbroglio but that known to Scribe and the masters of the "well- +made" play. The social hypocrisy of Consul Bernick is condoned by a sort +of death-bed repentance at the close, which is very much of the usual +"bless-ye-my-children" order. The loss of the Indian Girl is +miraculously prevented, and at the end the characters are solemnized and +warned, yet are left essentially none the worse for their alarm. This, +unfortunately, is not the mode in which the sins of scheming people find +them out in real life. But to the historical critic it is very +interesting to see Björnson and Ibsen nearer one another in _A +Bankruptcy_ and _The Pillars of Society_ than they had ever been before. +They now started on a course of eager, though benevolent, rivalry which +was eminently to the advantage of each of them. + +No feature of Ibsen's personal career is more interesting than his +relation to Björnson. Great as the genius of Ibsen was, yet, rating it +as ungrudgingly as possible, we have to admit that Björnson's character +was the more magnetic and more radiant of the two. Ibsen was a citizen +of the world; he belonged, in a very remarkable degree, to the small +class of men whose intelligence lifts them above the narrowness of local +conditions, who belong to civilization at large, not to the system of +one particular nation. He was, in consequence, endowed, almost +automatically, with the instinct of regarding ideas from a central +point; if he was to be limited at all, he might be styled European, +although, perhaps, few Western citizens would have had less difficulty +than he in making themselves comprehended by a Chinese, Japanese or +Indian mind of unusual breadth and cultivation. On the other hand, in +accepting the advantages of this large mental outlook, he was forced to +abandon those of nationality. No one can say that Ibsen was, until near +the end of his life, a good Norwegian, and he failed, by his utterances, +to vibrate the local mind. But Björnson, with less originality, was the +typical patriot in literature, and what he said, and thought, and wrote +was calculated to stir the local conscience to the depths of its being. + +When, therefore, in 1867, Ibsen, who was bound by all natural +obligations and tendencies to remain on the best terms with Björnson, +allowed the old friendship between them to lapse into positive +antagonism, he was following the irresistible evolution of his fate, as +Björnson was following his. It was as inevitable that Ibsen should grow +to his full height in solitude as it was that Björnson should pine +unless he was fed by the dew and sunlight of popular meetings, +torchlight processions of students and passionate appeals to local +sentiment. Trivial causes, such as those which we have chronicled +earlier, might seem to lead up to a division, but that division was +really inherent in the growth of the two men. + +Ibsen, however, was not wholly a gainer at first even in genius, by the +separation. It cut him off from Norway too entirely, and it threw him +into the arms of Germany. There were thirteen years in which Ibsen and +Björnson were nothing to one another, and these were not years of +unmingled mental happiness for either of them. But during this long +period each of these very remarkable men "came into his kingdom," and +when there was no longer any chance that either of there could warp the +nature of the other, fate brought them once more together. + +The reconciliation began, of course, with a gracious movement from +Björnson. At the end of 1880, writing for American readers, Björnson had +the generous candor to say: "I think I have a pretty thorough +acquaintance with the dramatic literature of the world, and I have not +the slightest hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen possesses more +dramatic power than any other play-writer of our day." When we remember +that, in France alone, Augier and Dumas _fils_ and Hugo, Halévy and +Meilhac and Labiche, were all of them alive, the compliment, though a +sound, was a vivid one. Sooner or later, everything that was said about +Ibsen, though it were whispered in Choctaw behind the altar of a Burmese +temple, came round to Ibsen's ears, and this handsome tribute from the +rival produced its effect. And when, shortly afterwards, still in +America, Björnson was nearly killed in a railway accident, Ibsen broke +the long silence by writing to him a most cordial letter of +congratulation. + +The next incident was the publication of _Ghosts_, when Björnson, now +thoroughly roused, stood out almost alone, throwing the vast prestige of +his judgment into the empty scale against the otherwise unanimous black- +balling. Then the reconcilement was full and fraternal, and Ibsen wrote +from Rome (January 24, 1882), with an emotion rare indeed for him: "The +only man in Norway who has frankly, boldly and generously taken my part +is Björnson. It is just like him; he has, in truth, a great, a kingly +soul; and I shall never forget what he has done now." Six months later, +on occasion of Björnson's jubilee, Ibsen telegraphed: "My thanks for the +work done side by side with me in the service of freedom these twenty- +five years." These words wiped away all unhappy memories of the past; +they gave public recognition to the fact that, though the two great +poets had been divided for half a generation by the forces of +circumstance, they had both been fighting at wings of the same army +against the common enemy. + +This, however, takes us for the moment a little too far ahead. After the +publication of _The Pillars of Society_, Ibsen remained quiet for some +time; indeed, from this date we find him adopting the practice which was +to be regular with him henceforth, namely, that of letting his mind lie +fallow for one year after the issue of each of his works, and then +spending another year in the formation of the new play. Munich gradually +became tedious to him, and he justly observed that the pressure of +German surroundings was unfavorable to the healthy evolution of his +genius. In 1878 he went back to Rome, which, although it was no longer +the quiet and aristocratic Rome of Papal days, was still immensely +attractive to his temperament. He was now, in some measure, "a person of +means," and he made the habit of connoisseurship his hobby. He formed a +small collection of pictures, selecting works with, as he believed, +great care. The result could be seen long afterwards by those who +visited him in his final affluence, for they hung round the rooms of the +sumptuous flat in which he spent his old age and in which he died. His +taste, as far as one remembers, was for the Italian masters of the +decline, and whether he selected pictures with a good judgment must be +left for others to decide. Probably he shared with Shelley a fondness +for the Guercinos and the Guido Renis, whom we can now admire only in +defiance of Ruskin. + +In April, 1879, it is understood, a story was told him of an incident in +the Danish courts, the adventure of a young married woman in one of the +small towns of Zealand, which set his thoughts running on a new dramatic +enterprise. He was still curiously irritated by contemplating, in his +mind's eye, the "respectable, estimable narrowmindedness and +worldliness" of social conditions in Norway, where there was no +aristocracy, and where a lower middle-class took the place of a +nobility, with, as he thought, sordid results. But he was no longer +suffering from what he himself had called "the feeling of an insane man +staring at one single, hopelessly black spot." He went to Amalfi for the +summer, and in that delightful spot, so curiously out of keeping with +his present rigidly prosaic mood, he set himself to write what is +probably the most widely famous of all his works, _A Doll's House_. The +day before he started he wrote to me from Rome (in an unpublished letter +of July 4, 1879): "I have been living here with my family since +September last, and most of that time I have been occupied with the idea +of a new dramatic work, which I shall now soon finish, and which will be +published in October. It is a serious drama, really a family drama, +dealing with modern conditions and in particular with the problems which +complicate marriage." This play he finished, lingering at Amalfi, in +September, 1879. It was an engineer's experiment at turning up and +draining a corner of the moral swamp which Norwegian society seemed to +be to his violent and ironic spirit. + +_A Doll's House_ was Ibsen's first unqualified success. Not merely was +it the earliest of his plays which excited universal discussion, but in +its construction and execution it carried out much further than its +immediate precursors Ibsen's new ideal as an unwavering realist. Mr. +Arthur Symons has well said [Note: The _Quarterly Review_ for October, +1906.] that "_A Doll's House_ is the first of Ibsen's plays in which the +puppets have no visible wires." It may even be said that it was the +first modern drama in which no wires had been employed. Not that even +here the execution is perfect, as Ibsen afterwards made it. The arm of +coincidence is terribly shortened, and the early acts, clever and +entertaining as they are, are still far from the inevitability of real +life. But when, in the wonderful last act, Nora issues from her bedroom, +dressed to go out, to Helmer's and the audience's stupefaction, and when +the agitated pair sit down to "have it out," face to face across the +table, then indeed the spectator feels that a new thing has been born in +drama, and, incidentally, that the "well-made play" has suddenly become +as dead as Queen Anne. The grimness, the intensity of life, are amazing +in this final scene, where the old happy ending is completely abandoned +for the first time, and where the paradox of life is presented without +the least shuffling or evasion. + +It was extraordinary how suddenly it was realized that _A Doll's House_ +was a prodigious performance. All Scandinavia rang with Nora's +"declaration of independence." People left the theatre, night after +night, pale with excitement, arguing, quarrelling, challenging. The +inner being had been unveiled for a moment, and new catchwords were +repeated from mouth to mouth. The great statement and reply--"No man +sacrifices his honor, even for one he loves," "Hundreds of thousands of +women have done so!"--roused interminable discussion in countless family +circles. The disputes were at one time so violent as to threaten the +peace of households; a school of imitators at once sprang up to treat +the situation, from slightly different points of view, in novel, poem +and drama. [Note: The reader who desires to obtain further light on the +technical quality of _A Doll's House_ can do no better than refer to Mr. +William Archer's elaborate analysis of it (_Fortnightly Review_, July, +1906.)] + +The universal excitement which Ibsen had vainly hoped would be awakened +by _The Pillars of Society_ came, when he was not expecting it, to greet +_A Doll's House_. Ibsen was stirred by the reception of his latest play +into a mood rather different from that which he expressed at any other +period. As has often been said, he did not pose as a prophet or as a +reformer, but it did occur to him now that he might exercise a strong +moral influence, and in writing to his German translator, Ludwig +Passarge, he said (June 16, 1880): + +Everything that I have written has the closest possible connection with +what I have lived through, even if it has not been my own personal +experience; in every new poem or play I have aimed at my own spiritual +emancipation and purification--for a man shares the responsibility and +the guilt of the society to which he belongs. + +It was in this spirit of unusual gravity that he sat down to the +composition of _Ghosts_. There is little or no record of how he occupied +himself at Munich and Berchtesgaden in 1880, except that in March he +began to sketch, and then abandoned, what afterwards became _The Lady +from the Sea_. In the autumn of that year, indulging once more his +curious restlessness, he took all his household gods and goods again to +Rome. His thoughts turned away from dramatic art for a moment, and he +planned an autobiography, which was to deal with the gradual development +of his mind, and to be called _From Skien to Rome_. Whether he actually +wrote any of this seems uncertain; that he should have planned it shows +a certain sense of maturity, a suspicion that, now in his fifty-third +year, he might be nearly at the end of his resources. As a matter of +fact, he was just entering upon a new inheritance. In the summer of 1881 +he went, as usual now, to Sorrento, and there [Note: So the authorities +state: but in an unpublished letter to myself, dated Rome, November 26, +1880, I find Ibsen saying, "Just now I am beginning to exercise my +thoughts over a new drama; I hope I shall finish it in the course of +next summer." It seems to have been already his habit to meditate long +about a subject before it took any definite literary form in his mind.] +the plot of _Ghosts_ revealed itself to him. This work was composed with +more than Ibsen's customary care, and was published at the beginning of +December, in an edition of ten thousand copies. + +Before the end of 1881 Ibsen was aware of the terrific turmoil which +_Ghosts_ had begun to occasion. He wrote to Passarge: "My new play has +now appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian +press. Every day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or +praising it. I consider it absolutely impossible that any German theatre +will accept the play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to +play it in any Scandinavian country for some time to come." It was, in +fact, not acted publicly anywhere until 1883, when the Swedes ventured +to try it, and the Germans followed in 1887. The Danes resisted it much +longer. + +Ibsen declared that he was quite prepared for the hubbub; he would +doubtless have been much disappointed if it had not taken place; +nevertheless, he was disconcerted at the volume and the violence of the +attacks. Yet he must have known that in the existing condition of +society, and the limited range of what was then thought a defensible +criticism of that condition, _Ghosts_ must cause a virulent scandal. +There has been, especially in Germany, a great deal of medico- +philosophical exposure of the under-side of life since 1880. It is +hardly possible that, there, or in any really civilized country, an +analysis of the causes of what is, after all, one of the simplest and +most conventional forms of hereditary disease could again excite such a +startling revulsion of feeling. Krafft-Ebing and a crew of +investigators, Strindberg, Brieux, Hauptmann, and a score of probing +playwrights all over the Continent, have gone further and often fared +much worse than Ibsen did when he dived into the family history of +Kammerherre Alving. When we read _Ghosts_ to-day we cannot recapture the +"new shudder" which it gave us a quarter of a century ago. Yet it must +not be forgotten that the publication of it, in that hide-bound time, +was an act of extraordinary courage. Georg Brandes, always clearsighted, +was alone in being able to perceive at once that _Ghosts_ was no attack +on society, but an effort to place the responsibilities of men and women +on a wholesomer and surer footing, by direct reference to the relation +of both to the child. + +When the same eminent critic, however, went on to say that _Ghosts_ was +"a poetic treatment of the question of heredity," it was more difficult +to follow him. Now that the flash and shock of the playwright's audacity +are discounted, it is natural to ask ourselves whether, as a work of +pure art, _Ghosts_ stands high among Ibsen's writings. I confess, for my +own part, that it seems to me deprived of "poetic" treatment, that is to +say, of grace, charm and suppleness, to an almost fatal extent. It is +extremely original, extremely vivid and stimulating, but, so far as a +foreigner may judge, the dialogue seems stilted and uniform, the +characters, with certain obvious exceptions, rather types than persons. +In the old fighting days it was necessary to praise _Ghosts_ with +extravagance, because the vituperation of the enemy was so stupid and +offensive, but now that there are no serious adversaries left, cooler +judgment admits--not one word that the idiot-adversary said, but--that +there are more convincing plays than _Ghosts_ in Ibsen's repertory. + +Up to this time, Ibsen had been looked upon as the mainstay of the +Conservative party in Norway, in opposition to Björnson, who led the +Radicals. But the author of _Ghosts_, who was accused of disseminating +anarchism and nihilism, was now smartly drummed out of the Tory camp +without being welcomed among the Liberals. Each party was eager to +disown him. He was like Coriolanus, when he was deserted by nobles and +people alike, and + +suffer'd by the voice of slaves to be Whoop'd out of Rome. + +The situation gave Ibsen occasion, from the perspective of his exile, to +form some impressions of political life which were at once pungent and +dignified: + +"I am more and more confirmed" [he said, Jan, 3, 1882] "in my belief +that there is something demoralizing in politics and parties. I, at any +rate, shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its +side. Björnson says, 'The majority is always right'; and as a practical +politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, of +necessity say, 'The minority is always right.'" + +In order to place this view clearly before his countrymen, he set about +composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most +successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward +in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with +preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, which he spent at +what was now to be for many years his favorite summer resort, Gossensass +in the Tyrol, a place which is consecrated to the memory of Ibsen in the +way that Pornic belongs to Robert Browning and the Bel Alp to Tyndall, +holiday homes in foreign countries, dedicated to blissful work without +disturbance. Here, at a spot now officially named the "Ibsenplatz," he +composed _The Enemy of the People_, engrossed in his invention as was +his wont, reading nothing and thinking of nothing but of the persons +whose history he was weaving. Oddly enough, he thought that this, too, +was to be a "placable" play, written to amuse and stimulate, but +calculated to wound nobody's feelings. The fact was that Ibsen, like +some ocelot or panther of the rocks, had a paw much heavier than he +himself realized, and his "play," in both senses, was a very serious +affair, when he descended to sport with common humanity. + +Another quotation, this time from a letter to Brandes, must be given to +show what Ibsen's attitude was at this moment to his fatherland and to +his art: + +"When I think how slow and heavy and dull the general intelligence is at +home, when I notice the low standard by which everything is judged, a +deep despondency comes over me, and it often seems to me that I might +just as well end my literary activity at once. They really do not need +poetry at home; they get along so well with the party newspapers and the +_Lutheran Weekly_." + +If Ibsen thought that he was offering them "poetry" in _The Enemy of the +People_, he spoke in a Scandinavian sense. Our criticism has never +opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as +poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser +or more unqualified prose than _The Enemy of the People_, without a +tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book. It is, +nevertheless, one of the most certainly successful of its author's +writings; as a stage-play it rivets the attention; as a pamphlet it +awakens irresistible sympathy; as a specimen of dramatic art, its +construction and evolution are almost faultless. Under a transparent +allegory, it describes the treatment which Ibsen himself had received at +the hands of the Norwegian public for venturing to tell them that their +spa should be drained before visitors were invited to flock to it. +Nevertheless, the playwright has not made the mistake of identifying his +own figure with that of Dr. Stockmann, who is an entirely independent +creation. Mr. Archer has compared the hero with Colonel Newcome, whose +loquacious amicability he does share, but Stockmann's character has much +more energy and initiative than Colonel Newcome's, whom we could never +fancy rousing himself "to purge society." + +Ibsen's practical wisdom in taking the bull by the horns in his reply to +the national reception of _Ghosts_ was proved by the instant success of +_The Enemy of the People_. Presented to the public in this new and +audacious form, the problem of a "moral water-supply" struck sensible +Norwegians as less absurd and less dangerous than they had conceived it +to be. The reproof was mordant, and the worst offenders crouched under +the lash. _Ghosts_ itself was still, for some time, tabooed, but _The +Enemy of the People_ received a cordial welcome, and has remained ever +since one of the most popular of Ibsen's writings. It is still extremely +effective on the stage, and as it is lightened by more humor than the +author is commonly willing to employ, it attracts even those who are +hostile to the intrusion of anything solemn behind the footlights. +CHAPTER VII + +1883-91 + +With the appearance of _An Enemy of the People_, which was published in +November, 1882, Ibsen entered upon a new stage in his career. He had +completely broken with the Conservative party in Norway, without having +gratified or won the confidence of the Liberals. He was now in personal +relations of friendliness with Björnson, whose generous approval of his +work as a dramatist sustained his spirits, but his own individualism had +been intensified by the hostile reception of _Ghosts_. His life was now +divided between Rome in the winter and Gossensass in the summer, and in +the Italian city, as in the Tyrolese village, he wandered solitary, +taciturn, absorbed in his own thoughts. His meditations led him more and +more into a lonely state. He floated, as on a prophet's carpet, between +the political heavens and earth, capriciously refusing to ascend or to +alight. He had come to a sceptical stage in his mental evolution, a +stage in which he was to remain for a considerable time, gradually +modifying it in a conservative direction. One wonders what the simple- +minded and stalwart Björnson thought of being quietly told (March 28, +1884) that the lower classes are nowhere liberal-minded or self- +sacrificing, and that "in the views expressed by our [Norwegian] +peasants there is not an atom more of real Liberalism than is to be +found among the ultramontane peasantry of the Tyrol." In politics Ibsen +had now become a pagan; "I do not believe," he said, "in the +emancipatory power of political measures, nor have I much confidence in +the altruism and good will of those in power." This sense of the +uselessness of effort is strongly marked in the course of the next work +on which he was engaged, the very brilliant, but saturnine and sardonic +tragi-comedy of _The Wild Duck_. The first sketch of it was made during +the spring of 1884 in Rome, but the dramatist took it to Gossensass with +him for the finishing touches, and did not perfect it until the autumn. +It is remarkable that Ibsen invariably speaks of _The Wild Duck_, when +he mentions it in his correspondence, in terms of irony. He calls it a +collection of crazy tricks or tomfooleries, _galskaber_, an expression +which carries with it, in this sense, a confession of wilful paradox. In +something of the same spirit, Robert Browning, in the old days before he +was comprehended, used to speak of "the entirely unintelligible +_Sordello_," as if, sarcastically, to meet criticism half-way. + +When _The Wild Duck_ was first circulated among Ibsen's admirers, it was +received with some bewilderment. Quite slowly the idea received +acceptance that the hitherto so serious and even angry satirist was, to +put it plainly, laughing at himself. The faithful were reluctant to +concede it. But one sees now, clearly enough, that in a sense it was so. +I have tried to show, we imagine Ibsen saying, that your hypocritical +sentimentality needs correction--you live in "A Doll's House." I have +dared to point out to you that your society is physically and morally +rotten and full of "Ghosts." You have repudiated my honest efforts as a +reformer, and called me "An Enemy of the People." Very well, then, have +it so if you please. What a fool am I to trouble about you at all. Go +down a steep place in Gadara and drown yourselves. If it amuses you, it +can amuse me also to be looked upon as Gregers Werle. _Vogue la galère_. +"But as the play is neither to deal with the Supreme Court, nor the +right of absolute veto, nor even with the removal of the sign of the +union from the flag," burning questions then and afterwards in Norwegian +politics, "it can hardly count upon arousing much interest in Norway"; +it will, however, amuse me immensely to point out the absurdity of my +caring. It is in reading _The Wild Duck_ that for the first time the +really astonishing resemblance which Ibsen bears to Euripedes becomes +apparent to us. This is partly because the Norwegian dramatist now +relinquishes any other central object than the presentation to his +audience of the clash of temperament, and partly because here at last, +and for the future always, he separates himself from everything that is +not catastrophe. More than any earlier play, more even than _Ghosts_, +_The Wild Duck_ is an avalanche which has begun to move, and with a +movement unaffected by the incidents of the plot, long before the +curtain rises. The later plays of Ibsen, unlike almost all other modern +dramas, depend upon nothing that happens while they are being exhibited, +but rush downwards to their inevitable close in obedience to a series of +long-precedent impulses. In order to gain this effect, the dramatist has +to be acquainted with everything that has ever happened to his +personages, and we are informed that Ibsen used to build up in his own +mind, for months at a time, the past history of his puppets. He was now +master of this practice. We are not surprised, therefore, to find one of +the most penetrating of dramatic critics remarking of _The Wild Duck_ +that "never before had the poet displayed such an amazing power of +fascinating and absorbing us by the gradual withdrawal of veil after +veil from the past." + +The result of a searching determination to deal with personal and not +typical forms of temperament is seen in the firmness of the portraiture +in _The Wild Duck_, where, I think, less than ever before, is to be +found a trace of that incoherency which is to be met with occasionally +in all the earlier works of Ibsen, and which seems like the effect of a +sudden caprice or change of the point of view. There is, so far as I can +judge, no trace of this in _The Wild Duck_, where the continuity of +aspect is extraordinary. Confucius assures us that if we tell him our +past, he will tell us our future, and although several of the characters +in _The Wild Duck_ are the most sordid of Ibsen's creations, the author +has made himself so deeply familiar with them that they are absolutely +lifelike. The detestable Hialmar, in whom, by the looking-glass of a +disordered liver, any man may see a picture of himself; the pitiable +Gregers Werle, perpetually thirteenth at table, with his genius for +making an utter mess of other people's lives; the vulgar Gina; the +beautiful girlish figure of the little martyred Hedvig--all are wholly +real and living persons. + +The subject of the play, of course, is one which we do not expect, or +had not hitherto expected, from Ibsen. It is the danger of "a sick +conscience" and the value of illusion. Society may be full of poisonous +vapors and be built on a framework of lies; it is nevertheless prudent +to consider whether the ideal advantages of disturbing it overweigh the +practical disadvantages, and above all to bear in mind that if you rob +the average man of his illusions, you are almost sure to rob him of his +happiness. The topsy-turvy nature of a this theme made Ibsen as nearly +"rollicking" as he ever became in his life. We can imagine than as he +wrote the third act of _The Wild Duck_, where so horrible a luncheon +party--"we'll all keep a corner"--gloats over the herring salad, he +indulged again and again in those puffs of soundless and formidable +mirth which Mr. Johan Paulsen describes as so surprising an element of +conversation with Ibsen. + +To the gossip of that amiable Boswell, too, we must turn for a valuable +impression of the solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about +this time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now +successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family saw +him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if +sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to +catch him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study, +into which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to +believe, did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his +own mind, which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast and +rich than that which lay spread around him." [Note: _Samliv med Ibsen_, +1906, p. 30.] + +And now the celebrated afternoons at the cafes had begun. In Rome Ibsen +had his favorite table, and he would sit obliquely facing a mirror in +which, half hidden by a newspaper and by the glitter of his gold +spectacles, he could command a sight of the whole restaurant, and +especially of the door into the street. Every one who entered, every +couple that conversed, every movement of the scene, gave something to +those untiring eyes. The newspaper and the cafe mirror--these were the +books which, for the future, Ibsen was almost exclusively to study; and +out of the gestures of a pair of friends at a table, out of a paragraph +in a newspaper, even out of the terms of an advertisement, he could +build up a drama. Incessant observation of real life, incessant capture +of unaffected, unconsidered phrases, actual living experience leaping in +his hands like a captive wild animal, this was now the substance from +which all Ibsen's dreams and dramas were woven. Concentration of +attention on the vital play of character, this was his one interest. + +Out of this he was roused by a sudden determination to go at last and +see for himself what life in Norway was really like. A New England wit +once denied that a certain brilliant and Europe-loving American author +was a cosmopolitan. "No," he said, "a cosmopolitan is at home even in +his own country." Ibsen began to doubt whether he was not too far off to +follow events in Norway--and these were now beginning to be very +exciting--well enough to form an independent judgment about them; and +after twenty years of exile there is no doubt that the question was +fairly put. _The Wild Duck_ had been published in November, 1884, and +had been acted everywhere in Scandinavia with great success. The critics +and the public were agreed for the first time that Ibsen was a very +great national genius, and that if Norway was not proud of him it would +make a fool of itself in the eyes of Europe. + +Ibsen had said that Norway was a barbarous country, inhabited by two +millions of cats and dogs, but so many agreeable and highly-civilized +compliments found their way to him in Rome that he began to fancy that +the human element was beginning to be introduced. At all events, he +would see for himself, and in June, 1885, instead of stopping at +Gossensass, he pushed bravely on and landed in Christiania. + +At first all went well, but from the very beginning of the visit he +observed, or thought he observed, awkward phenomena. The country was +thrilled with political excitement, and it vibrated with rhetorical +resolutions which seemed to Ibsen very empty. He had a constitutional +horror of purely theoretical questions, and these were occupying Norway +from one end to the other. The King's veto, the consular difficulty, the +Swedish emblem in the national flag, these were the subjects of frenzied +discussion, and in none of these did Ibsen take any sort of pleasure. He +was not politically far-sighted, it must be confessed, nor did he guess +what practical proportions these "theoretical questions" were to assume +in the immediate future. + +That great writer and delightful associate, the Swedish poet, Count +Snoilsky, one of the few whose company never wearied or irritated Ibsen, +joined him in the far north. They spent a pleasant, quiet time together +at Molde, that enchanting little sub-arctic town, where it looks +southward over the shining fjord, with the Romsdalhorn forever guarding +the mountainous horizon. Here no politics intruded, and Ibsen, when +Snoilsky had left him, already thinking of a new drama, lingered on at +Molde, spending hours on hours at the end of the jetty, gazing into the +clear, cold sea. His passion for the sea had never betrayed him, and at +Rome, where he had long given up going to any galleries or studios, he +still haunted the house of a Norwegian marine painter, Nils Hansteen, +whose sketches reminded him of old days and recollected waters. + +But the autumn comes on apace in these high latitudes, and Ibsen had to +return to Christiania with its torchlight processions, and late noisy +feasts, and triumphant revolutionary oratory. He disliked it extremely, +and he made up his mind to go back to the indifferent South, where +people did not worry about such things. Unfortunately, the inhabitants +of Christiania did not leave him alone. They were not content to have +him among them as a retired observer, they wanted to make him stand out +definitely on one political side or the other. He was urged, at the end +of September, to receive the inevitable torchlight procession planned in +his honor by the Union of Norwegian Students. He was astute enough to +see that this might compromise his independence, but he was probably too +self-conscious in believing that a trap was being laid for him. He said +that, not having observed that his presence gave the Union any great +pleasure, he did not care to have its expression of great joy at t his +departure. This was not polite, for it does not appear that the students +had any idea that he intended to depart. He would not address a reply to +the Union as a body, but to "my friends among the students." + +A committee called upon him to beg him to reconsider his resolution, but +he roundly told them that he knew that they were reactionaries, and +wanted to annex him to their party, and that he was not blind to their +tricks. They withdrew in confusion, and Ibsen, in an agony of nervous +ness, determined to put the sea between himself and their machinations. +Early in October he retreated, or rather fled, to Copenhagen, and thence +to Munich, where he breathed again. Meanwhile, the extreme liberal +faction among the students claimed that his action had meant that he was +heart and soul with them, as against the reactionaries. A young Mr. Ove +Rode, who had interviewed him, took upon himself to say that these were +Ibsen's real sentiments. Ibsen fairly stamped with rage, and declared, +in furious communications, that all these things were done on purpose. +"It was an opportunity to insult a poet which it would have been a sad +pity to lose," he remarked, with quivering pen. A reverberant +controversy sprang up in the Norwegian newspapers, and Ibsen, in his +Bavarian harbor of refuge, continued to vibrate all through the winter +of 1885. The exile's return to his native country had proved to be far +from a success. + +Already his new play was taking shape, and the success of his great +personal ambition, namely that his son, Sigurd, should be taken with +honor into the diplomatic service of his country, did such to calm his +spirits. Ibsen was growing rich now, as well as famous, and if only the +Norwegians would let him alone, he might well be happy. The new play was +_Rosmersholm_, and it took its impulse from a speech which Ibsen had +made during his journey, at Trondhjem, where he expounded the gospel of +individualism to a respectful audience of workingmen, and had laid down +the necessity of introducing an aristocratic strain, _et adeligt +element_, into the life of a truly democratic state, a strain which +woman and labor were to unite in developing. He said: "I am thinking, of +course, not of birth, nor of money, nor even of intellect, but of the +nobility which grows out of character. It is _character_ alone which can +make us free." This nobility of character must be fostered, mainly, by +the united efforts of motherhood and labor. This was quite a new creed +in Norway, and it bewildered his hearers, but it is remarkable to notice +how the best public feeling in Scandinavia has responded to the appeal, +and how little surprise the present generation would express at a +repetition of such sentiments. And out of this idea of "nobility" of +public character _Rosmersholm_ directly sprang. + +We are not left to conjecture in this respect. In a letter to Björn +Kristensen (February 13, 1887), Ibsen deliberately explained, while +correcting a misconception of the purpose of _Rosmersholm_, that "the +play deals with the struggle which all serious-minded human beings have +to wage with themselves in order to bring their lives into harmony with +their convictions. ... Conscience is very conservative. It has its deep +roots in tradition and the past generally, and hence the conflict." When +we come to read _Rosmersholm_ it is not difficult to see how this order +of ideas dominated Ibsen's mind when he wrote it. The mansion called by +that name is typical of the ancient traditions of Norwegian bourgeois +aristocracy, which are not to be subservient to such modern and timid +conservatism as is represented by Rector Kroll, with his horror of all +things new because they are new. The Rosmer strain, in its inherent +nobility, is to be superior to a craven horror of the democracy, and is +to show, by the courage with which it fulfils its personal destiny, that +it looks above and beyond all these momentary prejudices, and accepts, +from all hands, whatever is wise and of good report. + +The misfortune is that Ibsen, in unconscious bondage to his ideas, did +not construct his drama sturdily enough on realistic lines. While not +one of his works is more suggestive than _Rosmersholm_, there is not one +which gives the unbeliever more opportunity to blaspheme. This ancestral +house of a great rich race, which is kept up by the ministrations of a +single aged female servant, stands in pure Cloud-Cuckoo Land. The +absence of practical amenities in the Rosmer family might be set down to +eccentricity, if all the other personages were not equally ill-provided. +Rebecca, glorious heroine according to some admirers, "criminal, thief +and murderess," as another admirer pleonastically describes her, is a +sort of troll; nobody can explain--and yet an explanation seems +requisite--what she does in the house of Rosmer. In his eagerness to +work out a certain sequence of philosophical ideas, the playwright for +once neglected to be plausible. It is a very remarkable feature of +_Rosmersholm_ that in it, for the first time, and almost for the last, +Ibsen, in the act of theorizing, loses his hold upon reality. He places +his ingenious, elaborate and--given the premises--inevitable dénouement +in a scene scarcely more credible than that of a Gilbert and Sullivan +opera, and not one-tenth as amusing. Following, as it does, immediately +on the heels of _The Wild Duck_, which was as remarkable a slice of real +life as was ever brought before a theatrical audience, the artificiality +of _Rosmersholm_ shows Ibsen as an artist clearly stepping backward that +he may leap the further forward. + +In other words, _Rosmersholm_ is the proof of Ibsen's desire to conquer +another field of drama. He had now for some years rejected with great +severity all temptations from the poetic spirit, which was nevertheless +ineradicable in him. He had wished to produce on the mind of the +spectator no other impression than that he was observing something which +had actually happened, exactly in the way and the words in which it +would happen. He had formulated to the actress, Lucie Wolf, the +principle that ideal dramatic poetry should be considered extinct, "like +some preposterous animal form of prehistoric times." But the soul of man +cannot be fed with a stone, and Ibsen had now discovered that perfectly +prosaic "slices of life" may be salutary and valuable on occasion, but +that sooner or later a poet asks for more. He, therefore, a poet if ever +there was one, had grown weary of the self-made law by which he had shut +himself out from Paradise. He determined, grudgingly, and hardly knowing +how to set about it, that he would once more give the spiritual and the +imaginative qualities their place in his work. These had now been +excluded for nearly twenty years, since the publication of _Peer Gynt_, +and he would not resume them so far as to write his dramas again in +verse. Verse in drama was doomed; or if not, it was at least a juvenile +and fugitive skill not to be rashly picked up again by a business-like +bard of sixty. But he would reopen the door to allegory and symbol, and +especially to fantastic beauty of landscape. + +The landscape of Rosmersholm has all, or at least much, of the old +enchantment. The scene at the mill-dam links us once more with the woods +and the waters which we had lost sight of since _Peer Gynt_. But this +element was still more evident in _The Lady from the Sea_, which was. +published in 1888. We have seen that Ibsen spent long hours, in the +summer of 1885, at the end of the pier at Molde, gazing down into the +waters, or watching the steamers arriving and departing, coming from the +great sea beyond the fjord or going towards it. As was his wont, he +stored up these impressions, making no immediate use of them. He +actually prepared _The Lady from the Sea_ in very different, although +still marine surroundings. He went to Jutland, and settled for the +summer at the pretty and ancient, but very mild little town of Saeby, +with the sands in front of him and rolling woods behind. From Saeby it +was a short journey to Frederikshavn, "which he liked very much--he +could knock about all day among the shipping, talking to the sailors, +and so forth. Besides, he found the neighborhood of the sea favorable to +contemplation and constructive thought." So Mr. Archer, who visited him +at Saeby; and I myself, a year or two later, picked up at Frederikshavn +an oral tradition of Ibsen, with his hands behind his back, and the +frock-coat tightly buttoned, stalking, stalking alone for hours on the +interminable promenade between the great harbor moles of Frederikshaven, +no one daring to break in upon his formidable contemplation. + +In several respects, though perhaps not in concentration of effect, _The +Lady from the Sea_ shows a distinct advance on _Rosmersholm_. It is +never dull, never didactic, as its predecessor too often was, and there +is thrown over the whole texture of it a glamour of romance, of mystery, +of beauty, which had not appeared in Ibsen's work since the completion +of _Peer Gynt_. Again, after the appearance of so many strenuous +tragedies, it was pleasant to welcome a pure comedy. _The Lady from the +Sea [Note: In the _Neue Rundschau_ for December, 1906, there was +published a first draft of _The Lady from the Sea_, dating as far back +as 1800.] is connected with the previous plays by its emphatic defence +of individuality and its statement of the imperative necessity of +developing it; but the tone is sunny, and without a tinge of pessimism. +It is in some respects the reverse of _Rosmersholm_; the bitterness of +restrained and balked individuality, which ends in death, being +contrasted with the sweetness of emancipated and gratified +individuality, which leads to health and peace. To the remarkable +estimate of _The Lady from the Sea_ formed by some critics, and in +particular by M. Jules de Gaultier, we shall return in a general +consideration of the symbolic plays, of which it is the earliest. Enough +to say here that even those who did not plunge so deeply into its +mysteries found it a remarkably agreeable spectacle, and that it has +continued to be, in Scandinavia and Germany, one of the most popular of +its author's works. + +Ibsen left his little tavern at Saeby towards the end of September, +1887, in consequence of an invitation to proceed directly to Stockholm, +where his Swedish admirers, now very numerous and enthusiastic, would no +longer be deprived of the pleasure of entertaining him publicly. He +appeared before them, the breast of his coat sparkling with foreign +stars and crosses, the Urim and Thummim of general European recognition. +He was now in his sixtieth year, and he had out lived all the obscurity +of his youth. In the three Scandinavian countries--even in recalcitrant +Norway--he was universally hailed as the greatest dramatist of the age. +In Germany his fame was greater than that of any native writer of the +sang class. In Italy and Russia he was entering on a career of high and +settled popularity. Even in France and England his work was now +discussed with that passionate interest which shows the vitality of what +is even, for the moment, misinterpreted and disliked. His admirers at +Stockholm told him that he had taken a foremost place in re-creating +their sense of life, that he was a fashioner and a builder of new social +forms, that he was, indeed, to thousands of them, the Master-Builder. +The reply he made to their enthusiasm was dignified and reserved, but it +revealed a sense of high gratification. Skule's long doubt was over; he +believed at last in his own kingdom, and that the world would be +ultimately the better for the stamp of his masterful soul upon its +surface. + +It was in an unusually happy mood that he sat dreaming through the early +part of the uneventful year 1889. But it gradually sank into melancholy +when, in the following year, he settled down to the composition of a new +play which was to treat of sad thoughts and tragic passions. He told +Snoilsky that for several reasons this work made very slow progress, +"and it robbed him of his summer holidays." From May to November, 1890, +he was uninterruptedly in Munich writing what is known to us now as +_Hedda Gabler_. He finished it at last, saying as he did so, "It has not +been my desire to deal in this play with so-called problems. What I +principally wanted to do was to depict human beings, human emotions and +human destinies, upon a groundwork of certain of the social conditions +and principles of the present day." It was a proof of the immense growth +of Ibsen's celebrity that editions of _Hedda Gabler_ were called for +almost simultaneously, in the winter of 1890, in London, New York, St. +Petersburg, Leipzig, Berlin and Moscow, as well as in Copenhagen, +Stockholm and Christiania. There was no other living author in the world +at that moment who excited so much curiosity among the intellectual +classes, and none who exercised so much influence on the younger +generation of authors and thinkers. + +In _Hedda Gabler_ Ibsen returned, for the last time, but with +concentrated vigor, to the prosaic ideal of his central period. He never +succeeded in being more objective in drama, he never kept more closely +to the bare facts of nature nor rejected more vigorously the ornaments +of romance and rhetoric than in this amazing play. There is no poetic +suggestion here, no species of symbol, white horse, or gnawing thing, or +monster from the sea. I am wholly in agreement with Mr. Archer when he +says that he finds it impossible to extract any sort of general idea +from _Hedda Gabler_, or to accept it as a satire of any condition of +society. Hedda is an individual, not a type, and it was as an individual +that she interested Ibsen. We have been told, since the poet's death, +that he was greatly struck by the case, which came under his notice at +Munich, of a German lady who poisoned herself because she was bored with +life, and had strayed into a false position. _Hedda Gabler_ is the +realization of such an individual case. At first sight, it seemed as +though Ibsen had been influenced by Dumas _fils_, which might have been +true, in spite of the marked dislike which each expressed for the other; +[Note: It is said that _La Route de Thebes_, which Dumas had begun when +he died, was to have been a deliberate attack on the methods and +influence of Ibsen. Ibsen, on his part, loathed Dumas.] but closer +examination showed that Hedda Gabler had no sort of relation with the +pamphlets of the master of Parisian problem-tragedy. + +The attempt to show that _Hedda Gabler_ "proved" anything was annoying +to Ibsen, who said, with more than his customary firmness, "It was not +my purpose to deal with what people call problems in this play. What I +chiefly tried to do was to paint human beings, human emotions and human +fate, against a background of some of the conditions and laws of society +as it exists to-day." The German critics, a little puzzled to find a +longitude and latitude for Tesman's "tastefully decorated" villa, +declared that this time Ibsen had written an "international," not a +locally Norwegian, play. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the +contrary, _Hedda Gabler_ is perhaps the most fatally local and Norwegian +of all Ibsen's plays, and it presents, not of course the highly +civilized Christiania of to-day, but the half-suburban, half-rural +little straggling town of forty years ago. When I visited Norway as a +lad, I received kind but sometimes rather stiff and raw hospitality in +several tastefully decorated villas, which were as like that of the +Tesmans as pea is like pea. Why Ibsen chose to paint a "west end of +Christiania" of 1860 rather than of 1890 I cannot guess, unless it was +that to so persistent an exile the former was far more familiar than the +latter. + +A Russian actress of extreme talent, Madame Alla Nazimova, who has had +special opportunities of studying the part of Hedda Gabler, has lately +(1907) depicted her as "aristocratic and ill-mated, ambitious and doomed +to a repulsive alliance with a man beneath her station, whom she had +mistakenly hoped would give her position and wealth. In other +circumstances, Hedda would have been a power for beauty and good." If +this ingenious theory be correct, _Hedda Gabler_ must be considered as +the leading example of Ibsen's often-repeated demonstration, that evil +is produced by circumstances and not by character. The portrait becomes +thrillingly vital if we realize that the stains upon it are the impact +of accidental conditions on a nature which might otherwise have been +useful and fleckless. Hedda Gabler is painted as Mr. Sargent might paint +a lady of the London fashionable world; his brush would divine and +emphasize, as Ibsen's pen does, the disorder of her nerves, and the +ravaging concentration of her will in a sort of barren and impotent +egotism, while doing justice to the superficial attractiveness of her +cultivated physical beauty. He would show, as Ibsen shows, and with an +equal lack of malice prepense, various detestable features which the +mask of good manners had concealed. Each artist would be called a +caricaturist because his instinctive penetration had taken him into +regions where the powder-puff and the rouge-pot lose their power. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +LAST YEARS + +With the publication of _Hedda Gabler_ Ibsen passed into what we may +call his final glory. Almost insensibly, and to an accompaniment of his +own growls of indignation, he had taken his place, not merely as the +most eminent imaginative writer of the three Scandinavian countries, but +as the type there of what literature should be and the prophet of what +it would become. In 1880, Norway, the youngest and long the rawest of +the three civilizations, was now the foremost in activity, and though +the influence of Björnson and Jonas Lie was significant, yet it was not +to be compared for breadth and complexity with that of Ibsen. The nature +of the revolution, exercised by the subject of this memoir between 1880 +and 1890, that is to say from _Ghosts_ to _Hedda Gabler_, was +destructive before it was constructive. The poetry, fiction and drama of +the three Northern nations had become stagnant with commonplace and +conventional matter, lumbered with the recognized, inevitable and +sacrosanct forms of composition. This was particularly the case in +Sweden, where the influence of Ibsen now proved more violent and +catastrophic than anywhere else. Ibsen destroyed the attraction of the +old banal poetry; his spirit breathed upon it in fire, and in all its +faded elegance it withered up and vanished. + +The next event was that the new generation in the three Northern +countries, deprived of its traditional authorities, looked about for a +prophet and a father, and they found what they wanted in the exceedingly +uncompromising elderly gentleman who remained so silent in the cafes of +Rome and of Munich. The zeal of the young for this unseen and +unsympathetic personage was extraordinary, and took forms of amazing +extravagance. Ibsen's impassivity merely heightened the enthusiasm of +his countless admirers, who were found, it should be stated, almost +entirely among persons who were born after his exile from Norway. His +writings supplied a challenge to character and intelligence which +appealed to those who disliked the earlier system of morals and +aesthetics against which he had so long fought single-handed. + +Among writers in the North Ibsen began to hold very much the position +that Whistler was taking among painters and etchers in this country, +that is to say the abuse and ridicule of his works by a dwindling group +of elderly conventional critics merely stung into more frenzied +laudation an ever-widening circle of youthful admirers. Ibsen repented, +for a time almost exclusively, "serious" aims in literature, and with +those of Herbert Spencer, and in less measure of Zola, and a little +later of Nietzsche, his books were the spiritual food of all youthful +minds of any vigor or elasticity. + +In Sweden, at this time, the admiration for Ibsen took forms of almost +preposterous violence. The great Swedish novelist, Gustaf af Geijerstam, +has given a curious and amusing account of the rage for Ibsen which came +to its height about 1880. The question which every student asked his +friend, every lover his mistress, was "What do you think of Ibsen?" Not +to be a believer in the Norwegian master was a reef upon which love or +friendship might easily be shipwrecked. It was quoted gravely as an +insufferable incompatibility for the state of marriage. There was a +curious and secret symbolism running through the whole of youthful +Swedish society, from which their elders were cunningly excluded, by +which the volumes of Ibsen, passed from hand to hand, presented on +solemn occasions, became the emblems of the problems interesting to +generous youth, flags carried in the moral fight for liberty and truth. +The three Northern countries, in their long stagnation, had become +clogged and deadened with spiritual humbug, which had sealed the sources +of emotion. It seemed though, after the long frost of the seventies, +spring had come and literature had budded a at last, and that it was +Ibsen who had blown the clarion of the West Wind and heralded the +emancipation. + +The enthusiasm for the Norwegian dramatist was not always according to +knowledge, and sometimes it took grotesque forms. Much of the abuse +showered in England and France upon Ibsen at the time we are now +describing was due to echoes of the extravagance of his Scandinavian and +German idolaters. A Swedish satirist [Note: "Stella Kleve" (Mathilda +Malling, in _Framat_ 1886)] said that if Ibsen could have foreseen how +many "misunderstood" women would leave their homes in imitation of Nora, +and how many lovesick housekeepers drink poison on account of Rebecca, +he would have thrown ashes on his head and have retreated into the +deserts of Tartary. The suicide of the novelist, Ernst Ahlgren, was the +tragic circumstance where much was so purely comic. But if there were +elements of tragicomedy in the Ibsen idolatry, there were far more +important elements of vigorous and wholesome intellectual independence; +and it was during this period of Ibsen's almost hectic popularity that +the foundations of a new fiction and a new drama were laid in Sweden, +Denmark and Norway. A whole generation sucked strength and energy from +his early writings, since it is to be remarked that, from 1880 to 1890, +the great prestige of Ibsen did not depend so much on the dramas he was +then producing, as on the earlier works of his poetic youth, now reread +with an unexampled fervor. So, with us, the tardy popularity of Robert +Browning, which faintly resembles that of Ibsen, did not attract the +younger generation to the volumes which succeed _The Ring and the Book_, +but sent them back to the books which their fathers had despised, to +_Pippa Passes_ and _Men and Women_. To the generation of 1880, Ibsen was +not so much the author of the realistic social dramas as of those old +but now rediscovered miracles of poetry and wit, _The Pretenders_, +_Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_. + +In 1889 Ibsen had been made very pleasantly conscious of this strong +personal feeling in his favor among young men and women. Nor did he find +it confined to Scandinavia. He had travelled about in Germany, and +everywhere his plays were being acted. Berlin was wild about him; at +Weimar he was fêted like a conqueror. He did not settle down at Munich +until May, and here, as we have seen, he stayed all the summer, hard at +work. After the success of _Hedda Gabler_, which overpowered all adverse +comment, Ibsen began to long to be in Norway again, and this feeling was +combined, in a curious way, with a very powerful emotion which now +entered into his life. He had lived a retired and peaceful existence, +mainly a spectator at the feast, as little occupied in helping himself +to the dishes which he saw others enjoy as is an eremite in the desert +in plucking the grape-clusters of his dreams. No adventure, of any +prominent kind, had ever been seen to diversify Ibsen's perfectly +decorous and domestic career. And now he was more than sixty, and the +gray tones were gathering round him more thickly than ever, when a real +ray of vermilion descended out of the sky and filled his horizon with +color. + +In the season of 1889, among the summer boarders at Gossensass, there +appeared a young Viennese lady of eighteen, Miss Emilie Bardach. She +used to sit on a certain bench in the Pferchthal, and when the poet, +whom she adored from afar, passed by, she had the courage to smile at +him. Strange to say, her smile was returned, and soon Ibsen was on the +bench at her side. He readily discovered where she lived; no less +readily he gained an introduction to the family with whom she boarded. +There was a window-seat in the _salle à manger_; it was deep and shaded +by odorous flowering shrubs; it lent itself to endless conversation. The +episode was strange, the passion improbable, incomprehensible, +profoundly natural and true. Perhaps, until they parted in the last days +of September, neither the old man nor the young girl realized what their +relations had meant to each. Youth secured its revenge, however; Miss +Bardach soon wrote from Vienna that she was now more tranquil, more +independent, happy at last. Ibsen, on the other hand, was heart-broken, +quivering with ecstasy, overwhelmed with joy and despair. + +It was the enigma in his "princess," as he called her; that completed +Miss Bardach's sorcery over the old poet. She seems to have been no +coquette; she flung her dangerous fascinations at his feet; she broke +the thread which bound the charms of her spirit and poured them over +him. He, for his part, remaining discreet and respectful, was shattered +with happiness. To a friend of mine, a young Norwegian man of letters, +Ibsen said about this time: "Oh, you can always love, but I am happier +than the happiest, for I am beloved." Long afterwards, on his seventieth +birthday, when his own natural force was failing, he wrote to Miss +Bardach, "That summer at Gossensass was the most beautiful and the most +harmonious portion of my whole existence. I scarcely venture to think of +it, and yet I think of nothing else. Ah! forever!" He did not dare to +send her _The Master-Builder_, since her presence interpenetrated every +line of it like a perfume, and when, we are told, she sent him her +photograph, signed "Princess of Orangia," her too-bold identification of +herself with Hilda Wangel hurt him as a rough touch, that finer tact +would have avoided. There can be no doubt at all that while she was now +largely absorbed by the compliment to her own vanity, he was still +absolutely enthralled and bewitched, and that what was fun to her made +life and death to him. + +This very curious episode [Note: It was quite unknown until the +correspondence--which has not been translated into English--was +published by Georg Brandes at the desire of the lady herself (September, +1906).], which modifies in several important respects our conception of +the dramatist's character, is analogous with the apparent change of +disposition which made Renan surprise his unthinking admirers so +suddenly at the epoch of _L'Eau de Jouvence_ and _L'Abbesse de Jouarre_. +It was founded, of course, on that dangerous susceptibility to which an +elderly man of genius, whose life had been spent in labor and +reflection, may be inclined to resign himself, as he sees the sands +running out of the hour-glass, and realizes that in analyzing and +dissecting emotion he has never had time to enjoy it. Time is so short, +the nerves so fragile and so finite, the dreadful illusion, the _maia_, +so irresistible, that the old man gives way to it, and would sooner die +at once than not make one grasp at happiness. + +It will have been remarked that Ibsen's habit was to store up an +impression, but not to use it immediately on creative work. We need, +therefore, feel no surprise that there is not a trace of the Bardach +episode in _Hedda Gabler_, although the composition of that play +immediately followed the _hohes, schmerzliches Glück_ at Gossensass. He +was, too, no moonlight serenader, and his intense emotion is perfectly +compatible with the outline of some of the gossip which was repeated at +the time of his death; Ibsen being reported to have said of the Viennese +girl: "She did not get hold of me, but I got hold of her--for my play." +These things are very complex, and not to be hastily dismissed, +especially on the rough and ready English system. There would be give +and take in such a complicated situation, when the object was, as Ibsen +himself says, out of reach _unversichtbar_. There is no question that +for every pang which Hilda made her ancient lover suffer, he would +enrich his imagination with a dozen points of experience. There is no +paradox in saying that the poet was overwhelmed with a passion and yet +consciously made it serve as material for his plays. From this time +onwards every dramatic work of his bears the stamp of those hours among +the roses at Gossensass. + +To the spring of 1891 belongs Ibsen's somewhat momentous visit to +Vienna, where he was invited by Dr. Max Burckhard, the director of the +Burg Theatre, to superintend the performance of his _Pretenders_. Ibsen +had already, in strict privacy, visited Vienna, where his plays enjoyed +an increasing success, but this was his first public entrance into a +city which he admired on the whole more than any other city of Europe. +"Mein schöner Wien!" he used to murmur, with quite a clan of affection. +In April, 1891, after the triumph of his tragedy on the stage, Ibsen was +the guest at a public banquet at Vienna, when the ovations were +overwhelming and were extended until four o'clock next morning. A +performance of _The Wild Duck_ produced, what was almost as dear to +Ibsen as praise, a violent polemic, and he passed on out of a world of +storm and passion to Buda-Pesth, where he saw _A Doll's House_ acted in +Hungarian, amid thunders of applause, and where he was the guest of +Count Albert Apponyi. These were the happy and fruitful years which +consoled the heart of the poet for the bitter time when + +"Hate's decree Dwelt in his thoughts intolerable." + +In the ensuing summer, in July, 1891, Ibsen left Munich with every +intention of returning to it, but with the plan of a long summer trip in +Norway, where the triumphant success of _Hedda Gabler_ had been very +agreeable to his feelings. Once more he pushed up through the country to +Trondhjem, a city which had always attracted him and pleased him. Here +he presently embarked on one of the summer coasting-steamers, and saw +the shores of Nordland and Finmark for the first time, visiting the +North Cape itself. He came back to Christiania for the rest of the +season, with no prospect of staying. But he enjoyed a most flattering +reception; he was begged to resume his practical citizenship, and he was +assured that life in Norway would be made very pleasant to him. In the +autumn, therefore, in his abrupt way, he took an apartment in Viktoria +Terrasse, and sent to Munich for his furniture. He said to a friend who +expressed surprise at this settlement: "I may just as well make +Christiania my headquarters as Munich. The railway takes me in a very +short time wherever I want to go; and when I am bored with Norway I can +travel elsewhere." But he never felt the fatigue he anticipated, and, +but for brief visits to Copenhagen or Stockholm, he left his native +country no more after 1891, although he changed his abode in Christiania +itself. + +For the first twelve months Ibsen enjoyed the pleasures of the prodigal +returned, and fed with gusto on the fatted calf. Then, when three years +separated him from the illuminating soul-adventures of Gossensass, he +began to turn them into a play. It proved to be _The Master-Builder_, +and was published before the close of December, 1892, with the date 1893 +on the title-page. This play was running for some time in Germany and +England before it was played in Scandinavia. But on the evening of March +8, 1893, it was simultaneously given at the National Theatre in +Christiania and at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. It was a work which +greatly puzzled the critics, and its meaning was scarcely apparent until +it had been seen on the stage, for which the oddity of its arrangements +are singularly well adapted. It was, however, almost immediately noticed +that it marked a new departure in Ibsen's writings. Here was an end of +the purely realistic and prosaic social dramas, which had reigned from +_The League of Youth_ to _Hedda Gabler_, and here was a return to the +strange and haunting beauty of the old imaginative pieces. Mr. Archer +was happily inspired when he spoke of "the pure melody" of the piece, +and the best scenes of _The Master-Builder_ were heroically and almost +recklessly poetical. + +This remarkable composition is full of what, for want of a better word, +we must call "symbolism." In the conversations between Solness and Hilda +much is introduced which is really almost unintelligible unless we take +it to be autobiographical. The Master-Builder is one who constructs, not +houses, but poems and plays. It is the poet himself who gives +expression, in the pathetic and erratic confessions of Solness, to his +doubts, his craven timidities, his selfish secrets, and his terror at +the uniformity of his "luck." It is less easy to see exactly what Ibsen +believed himself to be presenting to us in the enigmatical figure of +Hilda, so attractive and genial, so exquisitely refreshing, and yet +radically so cruel and superficial. She is perhaps conceived as a symbol +of Youth, arriving too late within the circle which Age has trodden for +its steps to walk in, and luring it too rashly, by the mirage of +happiness, into paths no longer within its physical and moral capacity. +"Hypnotism," Mr. Archer tells us, "is the first and last word of the +dramatic action"; perhaps thought-transference more exactly expresses +the idea, but I should not have stated even this quite so strongly. The +ground of the dramatic action seems to me to be the balance of Nemesis, +the fatal necessity that those who enjoy exceptional advantages in life +shall pay for them by not less exceptional, but perhaps less obvious, +disadvantages. The motto of the piece--at least of the first two of its +acts--might be the couplet of the French tragedian:-- + +C'est un ordre des dieux qui jamais ne se rompt De nous vendre bien cher +les grands biens qu'ils nous font. + +Beneath this, which we may call the transcendental aspect of the play, +we find a solid and objective study of the self-made man, the headstrong +amateur, who has never submitted to the wholesome discipline of +professional training, but who has trusted to the help of those trolls +or mascots, his native talent and his unfailing "luck." Upon such a man +descends Hilda, the disorganizer, who pierces the armor of his conceit +by a direct appeal to his passions. Solness has been the irresistible +sorcerer, through his good fortune, but he is not protected in his +climacteric against this unexpected attack upon the senses. Samson +philanders with Delila, and discovers that his strength is shorn from +him. There is no doubt that Ibsen intended in _The Master-Builder_ a +searching examination of "luck" and the tyranny of it, the terrible +effects of it on the Broviks and the Kajas whom nobody remembers, but +whose bodies lie under the wheels of its car. The dramatic situation is +here extremely interesting; it consists in the fact that Solness, who +breaks every one else, is broken by Hilda. The inherent hardness of +youth, which makes no allowances, which demands its kingdom here and now +upon the table, was never more powerfully depicted. Solness is smashed +by his impact with Hilda, as china is against a stone. In all this it +would be a mistake to see anything directly autobiographical, although +so much in the character and position of Solness may remind us, +legitimately enough, of Ibsen himself, and his adventures. + +The personal record of Ibsen in these years is almost silent. He was +growing old and set in his habits. He was growing rich, too, and he +surrounded himself with sedentary comforts. His wealth, it may here be +said, was founded entirely upon the success of his works, but was +fostered by his extreme adroitness as a man of business. Those who are +so fond of saying that any man of genius might have excelled in some +other capacity are fully justified if they like to imagine Ibsen as the +model financier. He certainly possessed a remarkable aptitude for +affairs, and we learn that his speculations were at once daring and +crafty. People who are weary of commiserating the poverty of poets may +be pleased to learn that when Ibsen died he was one of the wealthiest +private citizens of Christiania, and this was wholly in consequence of +the care he had taken in protecting his copyrights and administering his +receipts. If the melancholy couplet is correct which tells us that + +Aux petits des oiseaux Dieu donne la pature, +Mais sa bonte s'arrkete a la litterature, + +we must believe, with Ibsen's enemies, that his fortunes were not under +the divine protection. + +The actual numbers of each of his works printed since he first published +with Hegel in Copenhagen--a connection which he preserved without a +breach until the end--have been stated since his death. They contain +some points of interest. After 1876 Hegel ventured on large editions of +each new play, but they went off at first slowly. _The Lady from the +Sea_ was the earliest to appear, at once, in an issue of 10,000 copies, +which was soon exhausted. So great, however, had the public interest in +Ibsen become in 1894 that the edition of 10,000 copies of _Little Eyolf_ +was found quite inadequate to meet the first order, and it was enlarged +to 15,000, all of which were gone in a fortnight. This circulation in so +small a reading public as that of Denmark and Norway was unprecedented, +and it must be remembered that the simultaneous translations into most +of the languages of Europe are not included. + +_Little Eyolf_, which was written in Christiania during the spring and +summer of 1894, was issued, according to Ibsen's cometary custom, as the +second week of December rolled round. The reception of it was stormy, +even in Scandinavia, and led to violent outbursts of controversy. No +work from the master's pen had roused more difference of opinion among +the critics since the bluster over _Ghosts_ fourteen years before. Those +who prefer to absolute success in the creation of a work of art the +personal flavor or perfume of the artist himself were predisposed to +place _Little Eyolf_ very high among his writings. Nowhere is he more +independent of all other influences, nowhere more intensely, it may even +be said more distressingly, himself. From many points of view this play +may fairly be considered in the light of a _tour de force_. Ibsen--one +would conjecture--is trying to see to what extremities of agile +independence he can force his genius. The word "force" has escaped me; +but it may be retained as reproducing that sense of a difficulty not +quite easily or completely overcome which _Little Eyolf_ produces. To +mention but one technical matter; there are but four characters, +properly speaking, in the play--since Eyolf himself and the Rat-Wife are +but illustrations or symbolic properties--and of these four, one +(Borgheim) is wholly subsidiary. Ibsen, then, may be said to have +challenged imitation by composing a drama of passion with only three +characters in it. By a process of elimination this has been done by +Aeschylus (in the _Agamemnon_), by Racine (in _Phe*dre_ and +_Andromaque_), and in our own day by Maeterlinck (in _Pelle*as et +Me*lisande_). But Ibsen was accustomed to a wider field, and his +experiment seems not wholly successful. _Little Eyolf_, at least, is, +from all points of view, an exercise on the tight-rope. We may hazard +the conjecture that no drama gave Ibsen more satisfaction to write, but +for enjoyment the reader may prefer less prodigious agility on the +trapeze. + +If we turn from the technical virtuosity of _Little Eyolf_ to its moral +aspects, we find it a very dreadful play, set in darkness which nothing +illuminates but the twinkling sweetness of Asta. The mysterious symbol +of the Rat-Wife breaks in upon the pair whose love is turning to hate, +the man waxing cold as the wife grows hot. The Angel of God, in the +guise of an old beggar-woman, descends into their garden, and she drags +away, by an invisible chain, "the little gnawing thing," the pathetic +lame child. The effect on the pair of Eyolf's death by drowning is the +subject of the subsequent acts. In Rita jealousy is incarnate, and she +seems the most vigorous, and, it must be added, the most repulsive, of +Ibsen's feminine creations. The reckless violence of Rita's energy, +indeed, interpreted by a competent actress--played, for instance, as it +was in London most admirably by Miss Achurch--is almost too painful for +a public exhibition, and to the old criticism, "nec pueros coram populo +Medea trucidet," if a pedant chooses to press it, there teems no reply. +The sex question, as treated in _Little Eyolf_, recalls _The Kreutzer +Sonata_ (1889) of Tolstoi. When, however, I ventured to ask Ibsen +whether there was anything in this, he was displeased, and stoutly +denied it. What, an author denies, however, is not always evidence. + +Nothing further of general interest happened to Ibsen until 1896, when +he sat down to compose another drama, _John Gabriel Borkman_. This was a +study of the mental adventures of a man of high commercial imagination, +who is artificially parted from all that contact with real affairs which +keeps such energy on the track, and who goes mad with dreams of +incalculable power, a study, in fact, of financial megalomania. It was +said, at the time, that Ibsen was originally led to make this analysis +of character from reading in the Christiania newspapers a report of the +failure and trial of a notorious speculator convicted of fraud in 1895, +and sentenced to a long period of penal servitude. + +Whether this be so or not, we have in the person of John Gabriel Borkman +a prominent example of the ninteenth century type of criminous +speculator, in whom the vastness of view and the splendidly altruistic +audacity present themselves as elements which render it exceedingly +difficult to say how far the malefactor is morally responsible for his +crime. He has imagined, and to a certain point has carried out, a +monster metal "trust," for the success of which he lacks neither courage +nor knowledge nor practical administrative capacity, but only that +trifling concomitant, sufficiency of capital. To keep the fires blazing +until his vast model is molten into the mould, he helps himself to money +here, there, and everywhere, scarcely giving a thought to his +responsibilities, so certain is he of ultimate and beneficent triumph. +He will make rich beyond the dreams of avarice all these his involuntary +supporters. Unhappily, just before his scheme is ready and the metal +runs, he is stopped by the stupidity of the law, and finds himself in +prison. + +Side by side with this study of commercial madness runs a thread of that +new sense of the preciousness of vital joy which had occupied Ibsen so +much ever since the last of the summers at Gossensass. The figure of +Erhart Borkman is a very interesting one to the theatrical student. In +the ruin of the family, all hopes concentre in him. Every one claims +him, and in the bosoms of each of his shattered parents a secret hope is +born, Mrs. Borkman believing that by a brilliant career of commercial +rectitude her son will wipe out the memory of his father's crime; +Borkman, who has never given up the ambition of returning to business, +reposing his own hopes on the co-operation of his son. + +But Erhart Borkman disappoints them all. He will be himself, he will +enjoy his life, he will throw off all the burdens both of responsibility +and of restitution. He has no ambition and little natural feeling; he +simply must be happy, and he suddenly elopes, leaving all their +anticipations bankrupt, with a certain joyous Mrs. Wilton, who has +nothing but her beauty to recommend her. Deserted thus by the _ignis +fatuus_ of youth, the collapse of the three old people is complete. +Under the shock the brain of Borkman gives way, and he wanders out into +the winter's night, full of vague dreams of what he can still do in the +world, if he can only break from his bondage and shatter his dream. He +dies there in the snow, and the two old sisters, who have followed him +in an anxiety which overcomes their mutual hatred, arrive in time to see +him pass away. We leave them in the wood, "a dead man and two shadows"-- +so Ella Rentheim puts it--"for _that_ is what the cold has made of us"; +the central moral of the piece being that all the errors of humanity +spring from cold-heartedness and neglect of the natural heat of love. +That Borkman embezzled money, and reduced hundreds of innocent people to +beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his cruel +bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that is the +unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of obscurity, +and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality, about +_John Gabriel Borkman_, but on the whole it is a work of lofty +originality and of poignant human interest. + +The veteran was now beginning to be conscious of the approaches of old +age, but they were made agreeable to him by many tokens of national +homage. + +On his seventieth birthday, March 20, 1898, Ibsen received the +felicitations of the world. It is pleasing to relate that a group of +admirers in England, a group which included Mr. Asquith, Mr. J. M. +Barrie, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. Pinero and Mr. +Bernard Shaw took part in these congratulations and sent Ibsen a +handsome set of silver plate, this being an act which, it had been +discovered, he particularly appreciated. The bearer of this gift was the +earliest of the long stream of visitors to arrive on the morning of the +poet's birthday, and he found Ibsen in company with his wife, his son, +his son's wife (Björnson's daughter), and his little grandson, Tankred. +The poet's surprise and pleasure were emphatic. A deputation from the +Storthing, headed by the Leader of the House, deputations representing +the University, the various Christiania Theatres, and other official or +academic bodies arrived at intervals during the course of the day; and +all the afternoon Ibsen was occupied in taking these hundreds of +visitors, in parties, up to the case containing the English tribute, in +showing the objects and in explaining their origin. There could be no +question that the gift gave genuine pleasure to the recipient; it was +the first, as it was to be the last, occasion on which any public +testimony to English appreciation of his genius found its way to Ibsen's +door. + +Immediately after the birthday festivities, which it was observed had +fatigued him, Ibsen started on a visit to Copenhagen, where he was +received by the aged King of Denmark, and to Stockholm, where he was +overpowered with ovations from all classes. There can be no doubt that +this triumphal progress, though deeply grateful to the aged poet's +susceptibilities, made a heavy drain upon his nervous resources. When he +returned to Norway, indeed, he was concealed from all visitors at his +physician's orders, and it is understood that he had some kind of +seizure. It was whispered that he would write no more, and the biennial +drama, due in December, 1898, did not make its appearance. His stores of +health, however, were not easily exhausted; he rested for several +months, and then he was seen once more in Carl Johans Gade, smiling; in +his usual way, and entirely recovered. It was announced that winter that +he was writing his reminiscences, but nothing more was heard of any such +book. + +He was able to take a vivid interest in the preparations for the +National Norwegian Theatre in Christiania, which was finally opened by +the King of Sweden and Norway on September 1, 1899. Early in the +morning, colossal bronze statues of Ibsen and Björnson were unveiled in +front of the theatre, and the poets, now, unfortunately, again not on +the best of terms, were seen making vast de*tours for the purpose of +satisfying their curiosity, and yet not meeting one another in flesh or +in metal. The first night, to prevent rivalry, was devoted to +antiquarianism, and to the performance of extracts from the plays of +Holberg. Ibsen and Björnson occupied the centre of the dress circle, +sitting uplifted in two gilded fauteuils and segregated by a vast +garland of red and white roses. They were the objects of universal +attention, and the King seemed never to have done smiling and bowing to +the two most famous of his Norwegian subjects. + +The next night was Ibsen's fe*te, and he occupied, alone, the manager's +box. A poem in his honor, by Niels Collet Vogt, was recited by the +leading actor, who retired, and then rushed down the empty stage, with +his arms extended, shouting "Long live Henrik Ibsen." The immense +audience started to its feet and repeated the words over and over again +with deafening fervor. The poet appeared to be almost overwhelmed with +emotion and pleasure; at length, with a gesture which was quite +pathetic, smiling through his tears, he seemed to beg his friends to +spare him, and the plaudits slowly ceased. _An Enemy of the People_ was +then admirably performed. At the close of every act Ibsen was called to +the front of his box, and when the performance was over, and the actors +had been thanked, the audience turned to him again with a sort of +affectionate ferocity. Ibsen was found to have stolen from his box, but +he was waylaid and forcibly carried back to it. On his reappearance, the +whole theatre rose in a roar of welcome, and it was with difficulty that +the aged poet, now painfully exhausted from the strain of an evening of +such prolonged excitement, could persuade the public to allow him to +withdraw. At length he left the theatre, walking slowly, bowing and +smiling, down a lane cleared for him, far into the street, through the +dense crowd of his admirers. This astonishing night, September 2, 1899, +was the climax of Ibsen's career. + +During all this time Ibsen was secretly at work on another drama, which +he intended as the epilogue to his earlier dramatic work, or at least to +all that he had written since _The Pillars of Society_. This play, which +was his latest, appeared, under the title of _When We Dead Awaken_, in +December, 1899 (with 1900 on the title-page). It was simultaneously +published, in very large editions, in all the principal languages of +Europe, and it was acted also, but it is impossible to deny that, +whether in the study or on the boards, it proved a disappointment. It +displayed, especially in its later acts, many obvious signs of the +weakness incident on old age. + +When it is said that _When We Dead Awaken_ was not worthy of its +predecessors, it should be explained that no falling off was visible in +the technical cleverness with which the dialogue was built up, nor in +the wording of particular sentences. Nothing more natural or amusing, +nothing showing greater, command of the resources of the theatre, had +ever been published by Ibsen himself than the opening act of _When We +Dead Awaken_. But there was certainly in the whole conception a +cloudiness, an ineffectuality, which was very little like anything that +Ibsen had displayed before. The moral of the piece was vague, the +evolution of it incoherent, and indeed in many places it seemed a parody +of his earlier manner. Not Mr. Anstey Guthrie's inimitable scenes in +_Mr. Punch's Ibsen_ were more preposterous than almost all the +appearances of Irene after the first act of _When We Dead Awaken_. + +It is Irene who describes herself as dead, but awakening in the society +of Rubek, whilst Maia, the little gay soulless creature whom the great +sculptor has married, and has got heartily tired of, goes up to the +mountains with Ulpheim the hunter, in pursuit of the free joy of life. +At the close, the assorted couples are caught on the summit of an +exceeding high mountain by a snowstorm, which opens to show Rubek and +Irene "whirled along with the masses of snow, and buried in them," while +Maia and her bear-hunter escape in safety to the plains. Interminable, +and often very sage and penetrating, but always essentially rather +maniacal, conversation fills up the texture of the play, which is +certainly the least successful of Ibsen's mature compositions. The +boredom of Rubek in the midst of his eminence and wealth, and his +conviction that by working in such concentration for the purity of art +he merely wasted his physical life, inspire the portions of the play +which bring most conviction and can be read with fullest satisfaction. +It is obvious that such thoughts, such faint and unavailing regrets, +pursued the old age of Ibsen; and the profound wound that his heart had +received so long before at Gossensass was unhealed to his last moments +of consciousness. An excellent French critic, M. P. G. La Chesnais, has +ingeniously considered the finale of this play as a confession that +Ibsen, at this end of his career, was convinced of the error of his +earlier rigor, and, having ceased to believe in his mission, regretted +the complete sacrifice of his life to his work. But perhaps it is not +necessary to go into such subtleties. _When We Dead Awaken_ is the +production of a very tired old man, whose physical powers were +declining. + +In the year 1900, during our South African War, sentiment in the +Scandinavian countries was very generally ranged on the side of the +Boers. Ibsen, however, expressed himself strongly and publicly in favor +of the English position. In an interview (November 24, 1900), which +produced a considerable sensation, he remarked that the Boers were but +half-cultivated, and had neither the will nor the power to advance the +cause of civilization. Their sole object had come to be a jealous +exclusion of all the higher forms of culture. The English were merely +taking what the Boers themselves had stolen from an earlier race; the +Boers had pitilessly hunted their precursors out of house and home, and +now they were tasting the same cup themselves. These were considerations +which had not occurred to generous sentimentalists in Norway, and +Ibsen's defence of England, which he supported in further communications +with irony and courage, made a great sensation, and threw cold water on +the pro-Boer sentimentalists. In Holland, where Ibsen had a wide public, +this want of sympathy for Dutch prejudice raised a good deal of +resentment, and Ibsen's statements were replied to by the fiery young +journalist, Cornelius Karel Elout, who even published a book on the +subject. Ibsen took dignified notice of Elout's attacks (December 9, +1900), repeating his defence of English policy, and this was the latest +of his public appearances. + +He took an interest, however, in the preparation of the great edition of +his _Collected Works_, which appeared in Copenhagen in 1901 and 1902, in +ten volumes. Before the publication of the latest of these, however, +Ibsen had suffered from an apoplectic stroke, from which he never wholly +recovered. It was believed that any form of mental fatigue might now be +fatal to him, and his life was prolonged by extreme medical care. He was +contented in spirit and even cheerful, but from this time forth he was +more and more completely withdrawn from consecutive interest in what was +going on in the world without. The publication, in succession, of his +juvenile works (_Kaempehöjen_, _Olaf Liljekrans_, both edited by Halvdan +Koht, in 1902), of his _Correspondence_, edited by Koht and Julius +Elias, in 1904, of the bibliographical edition of his collected works by +Carl Naerup, in 1902, left him indifferent and scarcely conscious. The +gathering darkness was broken, it is said, by a gleam of light in 1905; +when the freedom of Norway and the accession of King Håkon were +explained to him, he was able to express his joyful approval before the +cloud finally sank upon his intelligence. + +During his long illness Ibsen was troubled by aphasia, and he expressed +himself painfully, now in broken Norwegian, now in still more broken +German. His unhappy hero, Oswald Alving, in _Ghosts_, had thrilled the +world by his cry, "Give me the sun, Mother!" and now Ibsen, with glassy +eyes, gazed at the dim windows, murmuring "Keine Sonne, keine Sonne, +keine Sonne!" At the table where all the works of his maturity had been +written the old man sat, persistently learning and forgetting the +alphabet. "Look!" he said to Julius Elias, pointing to his mournful +pothooks, "See what I am doing! I am sitting here and learning my letters +--my _letters_! I who was once a Writer!" Over this shattered image of +what Ibsen had been, over this dying lion, who could not die, Mrs. Ibsen +watched with the devotion of wife, mother and nurse in one, through six +pathetic years. She was rewarded, in his happier moments, by the +affection and tender gratitude of her invalid, whose latest articulate +words were addressed to her--"_min söde, kjaere, snille frue_" (my +sweet, dear, good wife); and she taught to adore their grandfather the +three children of a new generation, Tankred, Irene, Eleonora. + +Ibsen preserved the habit of walking about his room, or standing for +hours staring out of window, until the beginning of May, 1906. Then a +more complete decay confined him to his bed. After several days of +unconsciousness, he died very peacefully in his house on Drammensvej, +opposite the Royal Gardens of Christiania, at half-past two in the +afternoon of May 23, 1906, being in his seventy-ninth year. By a +unanimous vote of the he was awarded a public funeral, which the King of +Norway attended in person, while King Edward VII was represented there +by the British Minister. The event was regarded through out Norway as a +national ceremony of the highest solemnity and importance, and the poet +who had suffered such bitter humiliation and neglect in his youth was +carried to his grave in solemn splendor, to the sound of a people's +lamentation. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS + +During the latest years of his life, which were spent as a wealthy and +prosperous citizen of Christiania, the figure of Ibsen took forms of +legendary celebrity which were equalled by no other living man of +letters, not even by Tolstoi, and which had scarcely been surpassed, +among the dead, by Victor Hugo. When we think of the obscurity of his +youth and middle age, and of his consistent refusal to advertise himself +by any of the little vulgar arts of self-exhibition, this extreme +publicity is at first sight curious, but it can be explained. Norway is +a small and a new country, inordinately, perhaps, but justly and +gracefully proud of those--an Ole Bull, a Frithjof Nansen, an Edvard +Grieg--who spread through the world evidences of its spiritual life. But +the one who was more original, more powerful, more interesting than any +other of her sons, had persistently kept aloof from the soil of Norway, +and was at length recaptured and shut up in a golden cage with more +expenditure of delicate labor than any perverse canary or escaped macaw +had ever needed. Ibsen safely housed in Christiania!--it was the +recovery of an important national asset, the resumption, after years of +vexation and loss, of the intellectual regalia of Norway. + +Ibsen, then--recaptured, though still in a frame of mind which left the +captors nervous--was naturally an object of pride. For the benefit of +the hundreds of tourists who annually pass through Christiania, it was +more than tempting, it was irresistible to point out, in slow advance +along Carl Johans Gade, in permanent silence at a table in the Grand +Cafe, "our greatest citizen." To this species of demonstration Ibsen +unconsciously lent himself by his immobility, his regularity of habits, +his solemn taciturnity. He had become more like a strange physical +object than like a man among men. He was visible broadly and quietly, +not conversing, rarely moving, quite isolated and self-contained, a +recognized public spectacle, delivered up, as though bound hand and +foot, to the kodak-hunter and the maker of "spicy" paragraphs. That +Ibsen was never seen to do anything, or heard to say anything, that +those who boasted of being intimate with him obviously lied in their +teeth--all this prepared him for sacrifice. Christiania is a hot-bed of +gossip, and its press one of the most "chatty" in the world. Our +"greatest living author" was offered up as a wave-offering, and he +smoked daily on the altar of the newspapers. + +It will be extremely rash of the biographers of the future to try to +follow Ibsen's life day by day in the Christiania press from, let us +say, 1891 to 1901. During that decade he occupied the reporters +immensely, and he was particularly useful to the active young men who +telegraph "chat" to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Berlin. +Snapshots of Ibsen, dangerous illness of the playwright, quaint habits +of the Norwegian dramatist, a poet's double life, anecdotes of Ibsen and +Mrs.----, rumors of the King's attitude to Ibsen--this pollenta, dressed +a dozen ways, was the standing dish at every journalist's table. If a +space needed filling, a very rude reply to some fatuous question might +be fitted in and called "Instance of Ibsen's Wit." The crop of fable was +enormous, and always seemed to find a gratified public, for whom nothing +was too absurd if it was supposed to illustrate "our great national +poet." Ibsen, meanwhile, did nothing at all. He never refuted a calumny, +never corrected a story, but he threw an ironic glance through his gold- +rimmed spectacles as he strolled down Carl Johan with his hands behind +his back. + +His personal appearance, it must be admitted, formed a tempting basis +upon which to build a legend. His force of will had gradually +transfigured his bodily forms until he thoroughly looked the part which +he was expected to fill. At the age of thirty, to judge by the early +photographs, he had been a commonplace-looking little man, with a shock +of coal-black hair and a full beard, one of those hirsute types common +in the Teutonic races, which may prove, on inquiry, to be painter, +musician, or engraver, or possibly engineer, but less probably poet. +Then came the exile from Norway, and the residence in Rome, marked by a +little bust which stands before me now, where the beard is cut away into +two round whiskers so as to release the firm round chin, and the long +upper lip is clean-shaved. Here there is more liveliness, but still no +distinction. Then comes a further advance--a photograph (in which I feel +a tender pride, for it was made to please me) taken in Dresden (October +15, 1873), where the brow, perfectly smooth and white, has widened out, +the whiskers have become less chubby, and the small, scrutinizing eyes +absolutely sparkle with malice. Here, you say at last, is no poet, +indeed, but an unusually cultivated banker or surprisingly adroit +solicitor. Here the hair, retreating from the great forehead, begins to +curl and roll with a distinguished wildness; here the long mouth, like a +slit in the face, losing itself at each end in whisker, is a symbol of +concentrated will power, a drawer in some bureau, containing treasures, +firmly locked up. + +Then came Munich, where Ibsen's character underwent very considerable +changes, or rather where its natural features became fixed and +emphasized. We are not left without precious indication of his gestures +and his looks at this time, when he was a little past the age of fifty. +Where so much has been extravagantly written, or described in a +journalistic key of false emphasis, great is the value of a quiet +portrait by one of those who has studied Ibsen most intelligently. It is +perhaps the most careful pen-sketch of him in any language. + +Mr. William Archer, then, has given the following account of his first +meeting with Ibsen. It was in the Scandinavia Club, in Rome, at the +close of 1881:-- + +I had been about a quarter of an hour in the room, and was standing +close to the door, when it opened, and in glided an undersized man with +very broad shoulders and a large, leonine head, wearing a long black +frock-coat with very broad lapels, on one of which a knot of red ribbon +was conspicuous. I knew him at once, but was a little taken aback by his +low stature. In spite of all the famous instances to the contrary, one +instinctively associates greatness with size. His natural height was +even somewhat diminished by a habit of bending forward slightly from the +waist, begotten, no doubt, of short-sightedness, and the need to peer +into things. He moved very slowly and noiselessly, with his hands behind +his back--an unobtrusive personality, which would have been +insignificant had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest of +the frame. But there was nothing insignificant about the high and +massive forehead, crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the +small and pale but piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or +the thin lipped mouth, depressed at the corners into a curve indicative +of iron will, and set between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as +the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power and +character in the head; yet one would scarcely have guessed it to be the +power of a poet, the character of a prophet. Misled, perhaps, by the +ribbon at the buttonhole, and by an expression of reserve, almost of +secretiveness, in the lines of the tight-shut mouth, one would rather +have supposed one's self face to face with an eminent statesman or +diplomatist. + +With the further advance of years all that was singular in Ibsen's +appearance became accentuated. The hair and beard turned snowy white; +the former rose in a fierce sort of Oberland, the latter was kept square +and full, crossing underneath the truculent chin that escaped from it. +As Ibsen walked to a banquet in Christiania, he looked quite small under +the blaze of crosses, stars and belts which he displayed when he +unbuttoned the long black overcoat which enclosed him tightly. Never was +he seen without his hands behind him, and the poet Holger Drachmann +started a theory that as Ibsen could do nothing in the world but write, +the Muse tied his wrists together at the small of his back whenever they +were not actually engaged in composition. His regularity in all habits, +his mechanical ways, were the subject of much amusement. He must sit day +after day in the same chair, at the same table, in the same corner of +the cafe, and woe to the ignorant intruder who was accidentally +beforehand with him. No word was spoken, but the indignant poet stood at +a distance, glaring, until the stranger should be pierced with +embarrassment, and should rise and flee away. + +Ibsen had the reputation of being dangerous and difficult of access. But +the evidence of those who knew him best point to his having been +phlegmatic rather than morose. He was "umbrageous," ready to be +discomposed by the action of others, but, if not vexed or startled, he +was elaborately courteous. He had a great dislike of any abrupt +movement, and if he was startled, he had the instinct of a wild animal, +to bite. It was a pain to him to have the chain of his thoughts suddenly +broken, and he could not bear to be addressed by chance acquaintances in +street or café*. When he was resident in n Munich and Dresden, the +difficulty of obtaining an interview with Ibsen was notorious. His wife +protected him from strangers, and if her defences broke down, and the +stranger contrived to penetrate the inner fastness, Ibsen might suddenly +appear in the doorway, half in a rage, half quivering with distress, and +say, in heartrending tones, "Bitte um Arbeitsruhe"--"Please let me work +in peace!" They used to tell how in Munich a rich baron, who was the +local Maecenas of letters, once bored Ibsen with a long recital of his +love affairs, and ended by saying, with a wonderful air of fatuity, "To +you, Master, I come, because of your unparalleled knowledge of the +female heart. In your hands I place my fate. Advise me, and I will +follow your advice." Ibsen snapped his mouth and glared through his +spectacles; then in a low voice of concentrated fury he said: "Get home, +and--go to bed!" whereat his noble visitor withdrew, clothed with +indignation as with a garment. + +His voice was uniform, soft and quiet. The bitter things he said seemed +the bitterer for his gentle way of saying them. As his shape grew burly +and his head of hair enormous, the smallness of his extremities became +accentuated. His little hands were always folded away as he tripped upon +his tiny feet. His movements were slow and distrait. He wasted few words +on the current incidents of life, and I was myself the witness, in 1899, +of his _sang-froid_ under distressing circumstances. Ibsen was +descending a polished marble staircase when his feet slipped and he fell +swiftly, precipitately, downward. He must have injured himself severely, +he might have been killed, if two young gentlemen had not darted forward +below and caught him in their arms. Once more set the right way up, +Ibsen softly thanked his saviours with much frugality of phrase--"Tak, +mine Herrer!"--tenderly touched an abraded surface of his top-hat, and +marched forth homeward, unperturbed. + +His silence had a curious effect on those in whose company he feasted; +it seemed to hypnotise them. The great Danish actress, Mrs. Heiberg, +herself the wittiest of talkers, said that to sit beside Ibsen was to +peer into a gold-mine and not catch a glitter from the hidden treasure. +But his dumbness was not so bitterly ironical as it was popularly +supposed to be. It came largely from a very strange passivity which made +definite action unwelcome to him. He could never be induced to pay +visits, yet he would urge his wife and his son to accept invitations, +and when they returned he would insist on being told every particular-- +who was there, what was said, even what everybody wore. He never went to +a theatre or concert-room, except on the very rare occasions when he +could be induced to be present at the performance of his own plays. But +he was extremely fond of hearing about the stage. He had a memory for +little things and an observation of trifles which was extraordinary. He +thought it amazing that people could go into a room and not notice the +pattern of the carpet, the color of the curtains, the objects on the +walls; these being details which he could not help observing and +retaining. This trait comes out in his copious and minute stage +directions. + +Ibsen was simplicity itself; no man was ever less affected. But his +character was closed; he was perpetually on the defensive. He was seldom +confidential, he never "gave way"; his emotions and his affections were +genuine, but his heart was a fenced city. He had little sense of +domestic comfort; his rooms were bare and neat, with no personal objects +save those which belonged to his wife. Even in the days of his wealth, +in the fine house on Drammensvej, there was a singular absence of +individuality about his dwelling rooms. They might have been prepared +for a rich American traveller in some hotel. Through a large portion of +his career in Germany he lived in furnished rooms, not because he did +not possess furniture of his own, which was stored up, but because he +paid no sort of homage to his own penates. He had friends, but he did +not cultivate them; he rather permitted them, at intervals, to cultivate +him. To Georg Brandes (March 6, 1870) he wrote: "Friends are a costly +luxury; and when one has devoted one's self wholly to a profession and a +mission here in life, there is no place left for friends." The very +charming story of Ibsen's throwing his arms round old Hans Christian +Andersen's neck, and forcing him to be genial and amiable, [Note: +_Samliv med Ibsen._] is not inconsistent with the general rule of +passivity and shyness which he preserved in matters of friendship. + +Ibsen's reading was singularly limited. In his fine rooms on Drammensvej +I remember being struck by seeing no books at all, except the large +Bible which always lay at his side, and formed his constant study. He +disliked having his partiality for the Bible commented on, and if, as +would sometimes be the case, religious people expressed pleasure at +finding him deep in the sacred volume, Ibsen would roughly reply: "It is +only for the sake of the language." He was the enemy of anything which +seemed to approach cant and pretension, and he concealed his own views +as closely as he desired to understand the views of others. He possessed +very little knowledge of literature. The French he despised and +repudiated, although he certainly had studied Voltaire with advantage; +of the Italians he knew only Dante and of the English only Shakespeare, +both of whom he had studied in translations. In Danish he read and +reread Holberg, who throughout his life unquestionably remained Ibsen's +favorite author; he preserved a certain admiration for the Danish +classics of his youth: Heiberg, Hertz, Schack-Steffelt. In German, the +foreign language which he read most currently, he was strangely ignorant +of Schiller and Heine, and hostile to Goethe, although _Brand_ and _Peer +Gynt_ must owe something of their form to _Faust_. But the German poets +whom he really enjoyed were two dramatists of the age preceding his own, +Otto Ludwig (1813-65) and Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). Each of these +playwrights had been occupied in making certain reforms, of a realistic +tendency, in the existing tradition of the stage, and each of them +dealt, before any one else in Europe did so, with "problems" on the +stage. These two German poets, but Hebbel particularly, passed from +romanticism to realism, and so on to mysticism, in a manner fascinating +to Ibsen, whom it is possible that they influenced. [Note: It would be +interesting to compare _Die Niebelungen_, the trilogy which Hebbel +published in 1862, in which the struggle between pagan and Christian +ideals of conduct is analyzed, with Ibsen's _Emperor and Galilean_.] He +remained, in later years, persistently ignorant of Zola, and of Tolstoi +he had read, with contemptuous disapproval, only some of the polemical +pamphlets. He said to me, in 1899, of the great Russian: "Tolstoi?--he +is mad!" with a screwing up of the features such as a child makes at the +thought of a black draught. + +If he read at all, it was poetry. His indifference to music was +complete; he had, in fact, no ear whatever, and could not distinguish +one tune from another. His efforts to appreciate the music which Grieg +made for _Peer Gynt_ were pathetic. But for verse his sense was +exceedingly delicate, and the sound of poetry gave him acute pleasure. +At times, when his nerves were overstrained, he was fatigued by the riot +of rhymes which pursued him through his dreams, and which his memory +vainly strove to recapture. For academic philosophy and systems of +philosophic thought he had a great impatience. The vexed question of +what he owed to the eminent Danish philosopher, Sören Kierkegaard, has +never been solved. Brandes has insisted, again and again, on the close +relation between _Brand_ and other works of Ibsen and the famous +_Either-Or_ of Kierkegaard; "it actually seems," he says, "as though +Ibsen had aspired to the honor of being called Kierkegaard's poet." +Ibsen, however, aspired to no such honor, and, while he never actually +denied the influence, the relation between him and the philosopher seems +to be much rather one of parallelism than of imitation. Ibsen was a +poetical psychologist of the first order, but he could not bring himself +to read the prose of the professional thinkers. + +In his attitude both to philosophical and poetical literature Ibsen is +with such apparently remote figures as Guy de Maupassant and Shelley; in +his realism and his mysticism he is unrelated to immediate predecessors, +and has no wish to be a disciple of the dead. His extreme interest in +the observation of ethical problems is not identified with any curiosity +about what philosophical writers have said on similar subjects. +Weininger has pointed out that Ibsen's philosophy is radically the same +as that of Kant, yet there is no evidence that Ibsen had ever studied or +had even turned over the pages of the _Criticism of Pure Reason_. It is +not necessary to suppose that he had done so. The peculiar aspect of the +Ego as the principal and ultimately sole guide to truth was revealed +anew to the Norwegian poet, and references to Kant, or to Fichte, or to +Kierkegaard, seem, therefore, to be beside the mark. The watchword of +_Brand_, with his cry of "All or Nothing," his absolute repudiation of +compromise, was not a literary conception, but was founded, without the +help of books, on a profound contemplation of human nature, mainly, no +doubt, as Ibsen found it in himself. But in these days of the tyranny of +literature it is curious to meet with an author of the first rank who +worked without a library. + +Ibsen's study of women was evidently so close, and what he writes about +them is usually so penetrating, that many legends have naturally sprung +up about the manner in which he gained his experience. Of these, most +are pure fiction. As a matter of fact, Ibsen was shy with women, and +unless they took the initiative, he contented himself with watching them +from a distance: and noting their ways in silence. The early flirtation +with Miss Rikke Hoist at Bergen, which takes so prominent a place in +Ibsen's story mainly because such incidents were extremely rare in it, +is a typical instance. If this young girl of sixteen had not taken the +matter into her own hands, running up the steps of the hotel and +flinging her posy of flowers into the face of the young poet, the +incident would have closed in his watching her down the street, while +the fire smouldered in his eyes. It was not until her fresh field- +blossoms had struck him on the cheek that he was emboldened to follow +her and to send her the lyrical roses and auriculas which live forever +in his poems. If we wish to note the difference of temperament, we have +but to contrast Ibsen's affair with Rikke Holst with Goethe's attitude +to Christiana Vulpius; in doing so, we bring the passive and the active +lover face to face. + +Ibsen would gladly have married his flower of the field, a vision of +whose bright, untrammelled adolescence reappears again and again in his +works, and plainly in _The Master-Builder_. But he escaped a great +danger in failing to secure her as his wife, for Rikke Holst, when she +had lost her girlish freshness, would probably have had little character +and no culture to fall back upon. He waited, fortunately for his +happiness, until he secured Susannah Thoresen. Mrs. Ibsen, his faithful +guide, guardian and companion for half a century, will live among the +entirely successful wives of difficult men of genius. In the midst of +the spiteful gossip of Christiania she had to traverse her _via +dolorosa_, for it was part of the fun of the journalists to represent +this husband and wife as permanently alienated. That Ibsen was easy to +live with is not probable, but his wife not merely contrived to do it, +but by her watchfulness, her adroitness, and, when necessary, by her +firmness of decision, she smoothed the path for the great man whom she +adored, and who was to her a great wilful child to be cajoled and +circumvented. He was absolutely dependent on her, although he affected +amusing airs of independence; and if she absented herself, there were +soon cries in the house of "My Cat, My Cat!" the pet name by which he +called his wife. Of their domestic ways little is yet known in detail, +but everything can be imagined. + +To the enigma of Ibsen's character it was believed that his private +correspondence might supply a key. His letters were collected and +arranged while he was still alive, but he was not any longer in a mental +condition which permitted him to offer any help in comment to his +editors. His son, Mr. Sigurd Ibsen, superintended the work, and two +careful bibliographers, Mr. Halvdan Koht and Mr. Julius Elias, carried +out the scheme in two volumes [Note: _Breve fra Henrik Ibsen_, +Gyldendalske Boghadel, 1904.], with the execution of which no fault can +be suggested. But the enigma remained unsolved; the sphinx spoke much, +but failed to answer the questions we had been asking. These letters, in +the first place, suffer from the fact that Ibsen was a relentless +destroyer of documents; they are all written by him; not one single +example had been preserved of the correspondence to which this is the +reply. Then Ibsen's letters, as revealers of the unseen mood, are +particularly unsatisfactory. With rare exceptions, he remains throughout +them tightly buttoned up in his long and legendary frock-coat. There is +no laughter and no tears in his letters; he is occasionally extremely +angry, and exudes drops of poison, like the captive scorpion which he +caught when he was in Italy, and loved to watch and tease. But there is +no self-abandonment, and very little emotion; the letters are +principally historical and critical, "finger-posts for commentators." +They give valuable information about the genius of his works, but they +tell almost less about his inner moral nature than do his imaginative +writings. + +In his youth the scorpion in Ibsen's heart seems to have stung him +occasionally to acts which afterwards filled him with embarrassment. We +hear that in his Bergen days he sent to Lading, his fellow-teacher at +the theatre, a challenge of which, when the mood was over, he was +greatly ashamed. It is said that on another occasion, under the pressure +of annoyance, maddened with fear and insomnia, he sprang out of bed in +his shirt and tried to throw himself into the sea off one of the quays +in the harbor. Such performances were futile and ridiculous, and they +belong only to his youth. It seems certain that he schooled himself to +the suppression of such evidences of his anger, and that he did so +largely by shutting up within his breast all the fire that rose there. +The _Correspondence_--dark lantern as it is--seems to illuminate this +condition of things; we see before us Ibsen with his hands clenched, his +mouth tightly shut, rigid with determination not to "let himself go," +the eyes alone blazing behind the gleaming spectacles. + +An instance of his suppression of personal feeling may be offered. The +lengthiest of all Ibsen's published letters describes to Brandes (April +25, 1866) the suicide, at Rome, of a young Danish lawyer, Ludvig David, +of whom Ibsen had seen a good deal. The lad threw himself head-foremost +out of window, in a crisis of fever. Ibsen writes down all the minutest +details with feeling and refinement, but with as little sympathetic +emotion as if he was drawing up a report for the police. With this trait +may be compared his extreme interest in the detailed accounts of public +trials; he liked to read exactly what the prisoner said, and all the +evidence of the witnesses. In this Ibsen resembled Robert Browning, +whose curiosity about the small incidents surrounding a large event was +boundless. When Ibsen, in the course of such an investigation, found the +real purpose of some strange act dawn upon him, he exhibited an almost +childish pleasure; and this was doubled when the interpretation was one +which had not presented itself to the conventional legal authorities. + +In everything connected with the execution of his own work there was no +limit to the pains which he was willing to take. His handwriting had +always been neat, but it was commonplace in his early years. The +exquisite calligraphy which he ultimately used on every occasion, and +the beauty of which was famous far and wide, he adopted deliberately +when he was in Rome in 1862. To the end of his life, although in the +latest years the letters lost, from the shakiness of his hand, some of +their almost Chinese perfection, he wrote his smallest notes in this +character. His zeal for elaboration as an artist led him to collect a +mass of consistent imaginary information about the personages in his +plays, who became to him absolutely real. It is related how, some one +happening to say that Nora, in _A Doll's House_, had a curious name, +Ibsen immediately replied, "Oh! her full name was Leonora; but that was +shortened to Nora when she was quite a little girl. Of course, you know, +she was terribly spoilt by her parents." Nothing of this is revealed in +the play itself, but Ibsen was familiar with the past history of all the +characters he created. All through his career he seems to have been long +haunted by the central notion of his pieces, and to have laid it aside, +sometimes for many years, until a set of incidents spontaneously +crystallized around it. When the medium in which he was going to work +became certain he would put himself through a long course of study in +the technical phraseology appropriate to the subject. No pains were too +great to prepare him for the final task. + +When Mr. Archer visited Ibsen in the Harmonien Hotel at Saeby in 1887 he +extracted some valuable evidence from him as to his methods of +composition:-- + +It seems that the _idea_ of a piece generally presents itself before the +characters and incidents, though, when I put this to him flatly, he +denied it. It seems to follow, however, from his saying that there is a +certain stage in the incubation of a play when it might as easily turn +into all essay as into a drama. He has to incarnate the ideas, as it +were, in character and incident, before the actual work of creation can +be said to have fairly begun. Different plans and ideas, he admits, +often flow together, and the play he ultimately produces is sometimes +very unlike the intention with which he set out. He writes and rewrites, +scribbles and destroys, an enormous amount before he makes the +exquisite fair copy he sends to Copenhagen. + +He altered, as we have said, the printed text of his earlier works, in +order to bring them into harmony with his finished style, but he did not +do this, so far as I remember, after the publication of _Brand_. In the +case of all the dramas of his maturity he modified nothing when the work +had once been given to the world. + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS + +Having accustomed ourselves to regard Ibsen as a disturbing and +revolutionizing force, which met with the utmost resistance at the +outset, and was gradually accepted before the close of his career, we +may try to define what the nature of his revolt was, and what it was, +precisely, that he attacked. It may be roughly said that what peculiarly +roused the animosity of Ibsen was the character which has become +stereotyped in one order of ideas, good in themselves but gradually +outworn by use, and which cannot admit ideas of a new kind. Ibsen +meditated upon the obscurantism of the old régime until he created +figures like Rosmer, in whom the characteristics of that school are +crystallized. From the point of view which would enter sympathetically +into the soul of Ibsen and look out on the world from his eyes, there is +no one of his plays more valuable in its purely theoretic way than +_Rosmersholm_. It dissects the decrepitude of ancient formulas, it +surveys the ruin of ancient faiths. The curse of heredity lies upon +Rosmer, who is highly intelligent up to a certain point, but who can go +no further. Even if he is persuaded that a new course of action would be +salutary, he cannot move--he is bound in invisible chains. It is useless +to argue with Rosmer; his reason accepts the line of logic, but he +simply cannot, when it comes to action, cross the bridge where Beate +threw herself into the torrent. + +But Ibsen had not the ardor of the fighting optimist. He was one who +"doubted clouds would break," who dreamed, since "right was worsted, +wrong would triumph." With Robert Browning he had but this one thing in +common, that both were fighters, both "held we fall to rise, are baffled +to fight better," but the dark fatalism of the Norwegian poet was in +other things in entire opposition to the sunshiny hopefulness of the +English one. Browning and Ibsen alike considered that the race must be +reformed periodically or it would die. The former anticipated reform as +cheerily as the sower expects harvest. Ibsen had no such happy +certainty. He was convinced of the necessity of breaking up the old +illusions, the imaginative call for revolt, but his faith wavered as to +the success of the new movements. The old order, in its resistance to +all change, is very strong. It may be shaken, but it is the work of a +blind Sampson, and no less, to bring it rattling to the ground. In +_Rosmersholm_, all the modern thought, all the vitality, all the +lucidity belong to Rebecca, but the decrepit formulas are stoutly +intrenched. In the end it is not the new idea who conquers; it is the +antique house, with its traditions, its avenging vision of white horses, +which breaks the too-clairvoyant Rebecca. + +This doubt of the final success of intelligence, this obstinate question +whether, after all, as we so glibly intimate, the old order changeth at +all, whether, on the contrary, it has not become a Juggernaut car that +crushes all originality and independence out of action, this breathes +more and more plainly out of the progressing work of Ibsen. Hedda Gabler +condemns the old order, in its dulness, its stifling mediocrity, but she +is unable to adapt her energy to any wholesome system of new ideas, and +she sinks into deeper moral dissolution. She hates all that has been +done, yet can herself do nothing, and she represents, in symbol, that +detestable condition of spirit which cannot create, though it sees the +need of creation, and can only show the irritation which its own +sterility awakens within it by destruction. All Hedda can actually do, +to assert her energy, is to burn the MS. of Lövborg, and to kill herself +with General Gabler's pistol. The race must be reformed or die; the +Hedda Gablers which adorn its latest phase do best to die. + +We have seen that Ibsen's theory was that love of self is the +fundamental principle of all activity. It is the instinct of self- +preservation and self-amelioration which leads to every manifestation of +revolt against stereotyped formulas of conduct. Between the excessive +ideality of Rebecca and the decadent sterility of Hedda Gabler comes +another type, perhaps more sympathetic than either, the master-builder +Solness. He, too, is led to condemn the old order, but in the act of +improving it he is overwhelmed upon his pinnacle, and swoons to death, +"dizzy, lost, yet unupbraiding." Ibsen's exact meaning in the detail of +these symbolic plays will long be discussed, but they repay the closest +and most reiterated study. Perhaps the most curious of all is _The Lady +from the Sea_, which has been examined from the technically +psychological view by a learned French philosopher, M. Jules de +Gaultier. For M. de Gaultier the interest which attaches to Ibsen's +conception of human life, with its conflicting instincts and +responsibilities, is more fully centred in _The Lady from the Sea_ than +in any other of his productions. + +The theory of the French writer is that Ibsen's constant aim is to +reconcile and to conciliate the two biological hypotheses which have +divided opinion in the nineteenth century, and which are known +respectively by the names of Cuvier and Lamarck; namely, that of the +invariability of species and that of the mutability of organic forms. In +the reconciliation of these hypotheses Ibsen finds the only process +which is truly encouraging to life. According to this theory, all the +trouble, all the weariness, all the waste of moral existences around us +comes from the neglect of one or other of these principles, and true +health, social or individual, is impossible without the harmonious +application of them both. According to this view, the apotheosis of +Ibsen's genius, or at least the most successful elucidation of his +scheme of ideological drama, is reached in the scene in _The Lady from +the Sea_ where Wangel succeeds in winning the heart of Ellida back from +the fascination of the Stranger. It is certainly in this mysterious and +strangely attractive play that Ibsen has insisted, more than anywhere +else, on the necessity of taking physiology into consideration in every +discussion of morals. He refers, like a zoölogist, to the laws which +regulate the formation and the evolution of species, and the decision of +Ellida, on which so much depends, is an amazing example of the +limitation of the power of change produced by heredity. The +extraordinary ingenuity of M. de Gaultier's analysis of this play +deserves recognition; whether it can quite be accepted, as embraced by +Ibsen's intention, may be doubtful. At the same time, let us recollect +that, however subtle our refinements become, the instinct of Ibsen was +probably subtler still. + +In 1850, when Ibsen first crept forward, with the glimmering taper of +his Catilina, there was but one person in the world who fancied that the +light might pass from lamp to lamp and in half a century form an +important part of the intellectual illumination of Europe. The one +person who did suspect it was, of course, Ibsen himself. Against all +probability and common-sense, this apothecary's assistant, this ill- +educated youth who had just been plucked in his preliminary examination, +who positively was, and remained, unable to pass the first tests and +become a student at the University, maintained in his inmost soul the +belief that he was born to be "a king of thought." The impression is +perhaps not uncommon among ill-educated lads; what makes the case +unique, and defeats our educational formulas, is that it happened to be +true. But the impact of Ibsen with the social order of his age was +unlucky, we see, from the first; it was perhaps more unlucky than that +of any other great man of the same class with whose biography we have +been made acquainted. He was at daggers drawn with all that was +successful and respectable and "nice" from the outset of his career +until near the end of it. + +Hence we need not be surprised if in the tone of his message to the +world there is something acrimonious, something that tastes in the mouth +like aloes. He prepared a dose for a sick world, and he made it as +nauseous and astringent as he could, for he was not inclined to be one +of those physicians who mix jam with their julep. There was no other +writer of genius in the nineteenth century who was so bitter in dealing +with human frailty as Ibsen was. By the side of his cruel clearness the +satire of Carlyle is bluster, the diatribes of Leopardi shrill and thin. +All other reformers seem angry and benevolent by turns, Ibsen is +uniformly and impartially stern. That he probed deeper into the problems +of life than any other modern dramatist is acknowledged, but it was his +surgical calmness which enabled him to do it. The problem-plays of +Alexandre Dumas _fils_ flutter with emotion, with prejudice and pardon. +But Ibsen, without impatience, examines under his microscope all the +protean forms of organic social life and coldly draws up his diagnosis +like a report. We have to think of him as thus ceaselessly occupied. We +have seen that, long before a sentence was written, he had invented and +studied, in its remotest branches, the life-history of the characters +who were to move in his play. Nothing was unknown to him of their +experience, and for nearly two years, like a coral-insect, he was +building up the scheme of them in silence. Odd little objects, fetiches +which represented people to him, stood arranged on his writing table, +and were never to be touched. He gazed at them until, as if by some feat +of black magic, he turned them into living persons, typical and yet +individual. + +We have recorded that the actual writing down of the dialogue was often +swift and easy, when the period of incubation was complete. Each of +Ibsen's plays presupposes a long history behind it; each starts like an +ancient Greek tragedy, in the full process of catastrophe. This method +of composition was extraordinary, was perhaps, in modern times, +unparalleled. It accounted in measure for the coherency, the +inevitability, of all the detail, but it also accounted for some of the +difficulties which meet us in the task of interpretation. Ibsen calls +for an expositor, and will doubtless give occupation to an endless +series of scholiasts. They will not easily exhaust their theme, and to +the last something will escape, something will defy their most careful +examination. It is not disrespectful to his memory to claim that Ibsen +sometimes packed his stuff too closely. Criticism, when it marvels most +at the wonder of his genius, is constrained to believe that he sometimes +threw too much of his soul into his composition, that he did not stand +far enough away from it always to command its general effect. The +result, especially in the later symbolical plays, is too vibratory, and +excites the spectator too much. + +One very curious example of Ibsen's minute care is found in the +copiousness of his stage directions. Later playwrights have imitated him +in this, and we have grown used to it; but thirty years ago such +minuteness seemed extravagant and needless. As a fact, it was essential +to the absolutely complete image which Ibsen desired to produce. The +stage directions in his plays cannot be "skipped" by any reader who +desires to follow the dramatist's thought step by step without losing +the least link. These notes of his intention will be of ever-increasing +value as the recollection of his personal wishes is lost. In 1899 Ibsen +remarked to me that it was almost useless for actors nowadays to try to +perform the comedies of Holberg, because there were no stage directions +and the tradition was lost. Of his own work, fortunately, that can never +be said. Dr. Verrall, in his brilliant and penetrating studies of the +Greek Tragedies, has pointed out more than once the "undesigned and +unforeseen defect with which, in studying ancient drama, we must +perpetually reckon," namely, the loss of the action and of the +equivalent stage directions. It is easy to imagine "what problems +Shakespeare would present if he were printed like the _Poetae Scenici +Graeci_," and not more difficult to realize how many things there would +be to puzzle us in _Ghosts_ and _The Wild Duck_ if we possessed nothing +but the bare text. + +The body of work so carefully conceived, so long maintained, so +passionately executed, was far too disturbing in its character to be +welcome at first. In the early eighties the name of Ibsen was loathed in +Norway, and the attacks on him which filled the press were often of an +extravagant character. At the present moment any one conversant with +Norwegian society who will ask a priest or a schoolmaster, an officer or +a doctor, what has been the effect of Ibsen's influence, will be +surprised at the unanimity of the reply. Opinions may differ as to the +attractiveness of the poet's art or of its skill, but there is an almost +universal admission of its beneficial tendency. Scarcely will a voice be +found to demur to the statement that Ibsen let fresh air and light into +the national life, that he roughly but thoroughly awakened the national +conscience, that even works like _Ghosts_, which shocked, and works like +_Rosmersholm_, which insulted the prejudices of his countrymen, were +excellent in their result. The conquest of Norway by this dramatist, who +reviled and attacked and abandoned his native land, who railed at every +national habit and showed a worm at the root of every national +tradition, is amazing. The fierce old man lived long enough to be +accompanied to his grave "to the noise of the mourning of a nation," and +he who had almost starved in exile to be conducted to the last resting +place by a Parliament and a King. + +It must always be borne in mind that, although Ibsen's appeal is to the +whole world--his determination to use prose aiding him vastly in this +dissemination--yet it is to Norway that he belongs, and it is at home +that he is best understood. No matter how acrid his tone, no matter how +hard and savage the voice with which he prophesied, the accord between +his country and himself was complete long before the prophet died. As he +walked about, the strange, picturesque little old man, in the streets of +Christiania, his fellow-citizens gazed at him with a little fear, but +with some affection and with unbounded reverence. They understood at +last what the meaning of his message had been, and how closely it +applied to themselves, and how much the richer and healthier for it +their civic atmosphere had become. They would say, as the soul of Dante +said in the _New Life_:-- + +è costui Che viene a consolar la nostra mente, Ed è la sua tanto +possente, Ch'altro pensier non lascia star con nui. + +No words, surely, could better express the intensity with which Ibsen +had pressed his moral quality, his _virtù_, upon the Norwegian +conscience, not halting in his pursuit till he had captured it and had +banished from it all other ideals of conduct. No one who knows will +doubt that the recent events in which Norway has taken so chivalric, and +at the same time so winning and gracious, an attitude in the eyes of the +world, owe not a little to their being the work of a generation nurtured +in that new temper of mind, that _spiritel nuovo d'amore_ which was +inculcated by the whole work of Ibsen. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Grosse + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + +This file should be named 8ibsn10.txt or 8ibsn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8ibsn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8ibsn10a.txt + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/8ibsn10.zip b/old/8ibsn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f32a430 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8ibsn10.zip diff --git a/old/8ibsn10h.htm b/old/8ibsn10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..98fc382 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8ibsn10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5710 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>HENRIK IBSEN, By Edmund Gosse</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {color:#A82C28} +blockquote {font-size:14pt} +P {font-size:14pt} +--> +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<h2><a href="#begin">HENRIK IBSEN, By Edmund Gosse</a></h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Henrik Ibsen + +Author: Edmund Gosse + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8152] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + +<a name="begin"></a> +<br> +<center> +<h1>HENRIK IBSEN</h1> +<br> +<h2>By Edmund Gosse</h2> + +<a name="i1"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="bust2.jpg (50K)" src="bust2.jpg" height="760" width="474"> +</center> +<br><br> + +</center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +</center> + +<center> +<table summary="contents"> +<tr><td> +<p><a href="#c1">CHAPTER I: CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH</a><br> +<a href="#c2">CHAPTER II: EARLY INFLUENCES</a><br> +<a href="#c3">CHAPTER III: LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57)</a><br> +<a href="#c4">CHAPTER IV: THE SATIRES (1857-67)</a><br> +<a href="#c5">CHAPTER V: 1868-75</a><br> +<a href="#c6">CHAPTER VI: 1875-82</a><br> +<a href="#c7">CHAPTER VII: 1883-91</a><br> +<a href="#c8">CHAPTER VIII: LAST YEARS</a><br> +<a href="#c9">CHAPTER IX: PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS</a><br> +<a href="#c10">CHAPTER X: INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS</a></p> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</center> +<center> +<table summary="illustrations"> +<tr><td> +<p> +<a href="#i1">Bust of Ibsen, about 1865</a><br> +<a href="#i2">Facsimile of Ibsen's Handwriting</a><br> +<a href="#i3">Ibsen in 1868</a><br> +<a href="#i5">Ibsen in Dresden, October, 1873</a><br> +<a href="#i4">Henrik Ibsen</a><br> +<a href="#i6">From a drawing by Gustav Laerum</a><br> +<a href="#i7">Ibsen. From the painting by Eilif Petersen</a><br> +</p> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> +</center> +<br> +<p>Numerous and varied as have been the analyses of Ibsen's works +published, in all languages, since the completion of his writings, there +exists no biographical study which brings together, on a general plan, +what has been recorded of his adventures as an author. Hitherto the only +accepted Life of Ibsen has been <i>Et literaert Livsbillede</i>, published in +1888 by Henrik Jaeger; of this an English translation was issued in +1890. Henrik Jaeger (who must not be confounded with the novelist, Hans +Henrik Jaeger) was a lecturer and dramatic critic, residing near Bergen, +whose book would possess little value had he not succeeded in persuading +Ibsen to give him a good deal of valuable information respecting his +early life in that city. In its own day, principally on this account, +Jaeger's volume was useful, supplying a large number of facts which were +new to the public. But the advance of Ibsen's activity, and the increase +of knowledge since his death, have so much extended and modified the +poet's history that <i>Et literaert Livsbillede</i> has become obsolete.</p> + +<p>The principal authorities of which I have made use in the following +pages are the minute bibliographical <i>Oplysninger</i> of J. B. Halvorsen, +marvels of ingenious labor, continued after Halvorsen's death by Sten +Konow (1901); the <i>Letters of Henrik Ibsen</i>, published in two volumes, +by H. Koht and J. Elias, in 1904, and now issued in an English +translation (Hodder & Stoughton); the recollections and notes of various +friends, published in the periodicals of Scandinavia and Germany after +his death; T. Blanc's <i>Et Bidrag til den Ibsenskte Digtnings +Scenehistorie</i> (1906); and, most of all, the invaluable <i>Samliv med +Ibsen</i> (1906) of Johan Paulsen. This last-mentioned writer aspires, in +measure, to be Ibsen's Boswell, and his book is a series of chapters +reminiscent of the dramatist's talk and manners, chiefly during those +central years of his life which he spent in Germany. It is a trivial, +naive and rather thin production, but it has something of the true +Boswellian touch, and builds up before us a lifelike portrait.</p> + +<p>From the materials, too, collected for many years past by Mr. William +Archer, I have received important help. Indeed, of Mr. Archer it is +difficult for an English student of Ibsen to speak with moderation. It +is true that thirty-six years ago some of Ibsen's early metrical +writings fell into the hands of the writer of this little volume, and +that I had the privilege, in consequence, of being the first person to +introduce Ibsen's name to the British public. Nor will I pretend for a +moment that it is not a gratification to me, after so many years and +after such surprising developments, to know that this was the fact. But, +save for this accident of time, it was Mr. Archer and no other who was +really the introducer of Ibsen to English readers. For a quarter of a +century he was the protagonist in the fight against misconstruction and +stupidity; with wonderful courage, with not less wonderful good temper +and persistency, he insisted on making the true Ibsen take the place of +the false, and on securing for him the recognition due to his genius. +Mr. William Archer has his reward; his own name is permanently attached +to the intelligent appreciation of the Norwegian playwright in England +and America.</p> + +<p>In these pages, where the space at my disposal was so small, I have not +been willing to waste it by repeating the plots of any of those plays of +Ibsen which are open to the English reader. It would please me best if +this book might be read in connection with the final edition of <i>Ibsen's +Complete Dramatic Works</i>, now being prepared by Mr. Archer in eleven +volumes (W. Heinemann, 1907). If we may judge of the whole work by those +volumes of it which have already appeared, I have little hesitation in +saying that no other foreign author of the second half of the nineteenth +century has been so ably and exhaustively edited in English as Ibsen has +been in this instance.</p> + +<p>The reader who knows the Dano-Norwegian language may further be +recommended to the study of Carl Naerup's <i>Norsk Litteraturhistories +siste Tidsrum</i> (1905), a critical history of Norwegian literature since +1890, which is invaluable in giving a notion of the effect of modern +ideas on the very numerous younger writers of Norway, scarcely one of +whom has not been influenced in one direction or another by the tyranny +of Ibsen's personal genius. What has been written about Ibsen in England +and France has often missed something of its historical value by not +taking into consideration that movement of intellectual life in Norway +which has surrounded him and which he has stimulated. Perhaps I may be +allowed to say of my little book that this side of the subject has been +particularly borne in mind in the course of its composition.</p> + +<p>E. G.</p> + +<p>KLOBENSTEIN.</p> + +<br><br> +<a name="i2"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="handwriting2.jpg (72K)" src="handwriting2.jpg" height="359" width="834"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<br><br> +<a name="c1"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<br> +<h3>CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>The parentage of the poet has been traced back to a certain Danish +skipper, Peter Ibsen, who, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, +made his way over from Stege, the capital of the island of Möen, and +became a citizen of Bergen. From that time forth the men of the family, +all following the sea in their youth, jovial men of a humorous +disposition, continued to haunt the coasts of Norway, marrying sinister +and taciturn wives, who, by the way, were always, it would seem, Danes +or Germans or Scotswomen, so that positively the poet had, after a +hundred years and more of Norwegian habitation, not one drop of pure +Norse blood to inherit from his parents. His grandfather, Henrik, was +wrecked in 1798 in his own ship, which went down with all souls lost on +Hesnaes, near Grimstad; this reef is the scene of Ibsen's animated poem +of Terje Viken. His father, Knud, who was born in 1797, married in 1825 +a German, Marichen Cornelia Martie Altenburg, of the same town of Skien; +she was one year his senior, and the daughter of a merchant. It was in +1771 that the Ibsens, leaving Bergen, had settled in Skien, which was, +and still is, an important centre of the timber and shipping trades on +the south-east shore of the country.</p> + +<p>It may be roughly said that Skien, in the Danish days, was a sort of +Poole or Dartmouth, existing solely for purposes of marine merchandise, +and depending for prosperity, and life itself, on the sea. Much of a +wire-drawn ingenuity has been conjectured about the probable strains of +heredity which met in Ibsen. It is not necessary to do more than to +recognize the slight but obstinate exoticism, which kept all his +forbears more or less foreigners still in their Norwegian home; and to +insist on the mixture of adventurousness and plain common sense which +marked their movements by sea and shore. The stock was intensely +provincial, intensely unambitious; it would be difficult to find +anywhere a specimen of the lower middle class more consistent than the +Ibsens had been in preserving their respectable dead level. Even in that +inability to resist the call of the sea, generation after generation, if +there was a little of the dare-devil there was still more of the +conventional citizen. It is, in fact, a vain attempt to detect elements +of his ancestors in the extremely startling and unprecedented son who +was born to Knud and Marichen Ibsen two years and three months after +their marriage.</p> + +<p>This son, who was baptized Henrik Johan, although he never used the +second name, was born in a large edifice known as the Stockmann House, +in the centre of the town of Skien, on March 20, The house stood on one +side of a large, open square; the town pillory was at the right of and +the mad-house, the lock-up and other amiable urban institutions to the +left; in front was Latin school and the grammar school, while the church +occupied the middle of the square. Over this stern prospect the tourist +can no longer sentimentalize, for the whole of this part of Skien was +burned down in 1886, to the poet's unbridled satisfaction. "The +inhabitants of Skien," he said with grim humor, "were quite unworthy to +possess my birthplace."</p> + +<p>He declared that the harsh elements of landscape, mentioned above, were +those which earliest captivated his infant attention, and he added that +the square space, with the church in the midst of it, was filled all day +long with the dull and droning sound of many waterfalls, while from dawn +to dusk this drone of waters was constantly cut through by a sound that +was like the sharp screaming and moaning of women. This was caused by +hundreds of saws at work beside the waterfalls, taking advantage of that +force. "Afterwards, when I read about the guillotine, I always thought +of those saws," said the poet, whose earliest flight of fancy seems to +have been this association of womanhood with the shriek of the sawmill.</p> + +<p>In 1888, just before his sixtieth birthday, Ibsen wrote out for Henrik +Jaeger certain autobiographical recollections of his childhood. It is +from these that the striking phrase about the scream of the saws is +taken, and that is perhaps the most telling of these infant memories, +many of which are slight and naive. It is interesting, however, to find +that his earliest impressions of life at home were of an optimistic +character. "Skien," he says, "in my young days, was an exceedingly +lively and sociable place, quite unlike what it afterwards became. +Several highly cultivated and wealthy families lived in the town itself +or close by on their estates. Most of these families were more or less +closely related, and dances, dinners and music parties followed each +other, winter and summer, in almost unbroken sequence. Many travellers, +too, passed through the town, and, as there were as yet no regular inns, +they lodged with friends or connections. We almost always had guests in +our large, roomy house, especially at Christmas and Fair-time, when the +house was full, and we kept open table from morning till night." The +mind reverts to the majestic old wooden mansions which play so prominent +a part in Thomas Krag's novels, or to the house of Mrs. Solness' +parents, the burning down of which started the Master-Builder's +fortunes. Most of these grand old timber houses in Norway have indeed, +by this time, been so burned down.</p> + +<p>We may speculate on what the effect of this genial open-handedness might +have been, had it lasted, on the genius of the poet. But fortune had +harsher views of what befitted the training of so acrid a nature. When +Ibsen was eight years of age, his father's business was found to be in +such disorder that everything had to be sold to meet his creditors. The +only piece of property left when this process had been gone through was +a little broken-down farmhouse called Venstöb, in the outskirts of +Skien. Ibsen afterwards stated that those who had taken most advantage +of his parents' hospitality in their prosperous days were precisely +those who now most markedly turned a cold shoulder on them. It is likely +enough that this may have been the case, but one sees how inevitably +Ibsen would, in after years, be convinced that it was. He believed +himself to have been, personally, much mortified and humiliated in +childhood by the change in the family status. Already, by all accounts, +he had begun to live a life of moral isolation. His excellent sister +long afterwards described him as an unsociable child, never a pleasant +companion, and out of sympathy with all the rest of the family.</p> + +<p>We recollect, in <i>The Wild Duck</i>, the garret which was the domain of +Hedvig and of that symbolic bird. At Venstöb, the infant Ibsen possessed +a like retreat, a little room near the back entrance, which was sacred +to him and into the fastness of which he was accustomed to bolt himself. +Here were some dreary old books, among others Harrison's folio <i>History +of the City of London</i>, as well as a paint-box, an hour-glass, an +extinct eight-day clock, properties which were faithfully introduced, +half a century later, into <i>The Wild Duck</i>. His sister says that the +only outdoor amusement he cared for as a boy was building, and she +describes the prolonged construction of a castle, in the spirit of <i>The +Master-Builder</i>.</p> + +<p>Very soon he began to go to school, but to neither of the public +institutions in the town. He attended what is described as a "small +middle-class school," kept by a man called Johan Hansen, who was the +only person connected with his childhood, except his sister, for whom +the poet retained in after life any agreeable sentiment. "Johan Hansen," +he says, "had a mild, amiable temper, like that of a child," and when he +died, in 1865, Ibsen mourned him. The sexton at Skien, who helped in the +lessons, described the poet afterwards as "a quiet boy with a pair of +wonderful eyes, but with no sort of cleverness except an unusual gift +for drawing." Hansen taught Ibsen Latin and theology, gently, +perseveringly, without any striking results; that the pupil afterwards +boasted of having successfully perused Phaedrus in the original is in +itself significant. So little was talent expected from him that when, at +the age of about fifteen, he composed a rather melodramatic description +of a dream, the schoolmaster looked at him gloomily, and said he must +have copied it out of some book! One can imagine the shocked silence of +the author, "passive at the nadir of dismay."</p> + +<p>No great wild swan of the flocks of Phoebus ever began life as a more +ungainly duckling than Ibsen did. The ingenuity of biographers has done +its best to brighten up the dreary record of his childhood with +anecdotes, yet the sum of them all is but a dismal story. The only +talent which was supposed to lurk in the napkin was that for painting. A +little while before he left school, he was found to have been working +hard with water-colors. Various persons have recalled finished works of +the young Ibsen—a romantic landscape of the ironworks at Fossum, a view +from the windows at Venstöb, a boy in peasant dress seated on a rock, +the latter described by a dignitary of the church as "awfully splendid," +overmaade praegtigt. One sees what kind of painting this must have been, +founded on some impression of Fearnley and Tidemann, a far-away +following of the new "national" art of the praiseworthy "patriot- +painters" of the school of Dahl.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to remember that Pope, who had considerable +intellectual relationship with Ibsen, also nourished in childhood the +ambition to be a painter, and drudged away at his easel for weeks and +months. As he to the insipid Jervases and Knellers whom he copied, so +Ibsen to the conscientious romantic artists of Norway's prime. In +neither case do we wish that an Ibsen or a Pope should be secured for +the National Gallery, but it is highly significant that such earnest +students of precise excellence in another art should first of all have +schooled their eyes to exactitude by grappling with form and color.</p> + +<p>In 1843, being fifteen years of age, Ibsen was confirmed and taken away +from school. These events marked the beginning of adolescence with a +young middle-class Norwegian of those days, for whom the future proposed +no task in life demanding a more elaborate education than the local +schoolmaster could give. Ibsen announced his wish to be a professional +artist, but that was one which could not be indulged. Until a later date +than this, every artist in Norway was forced abroad for the necessary +technical training: as a rule, students went to Dresden, because J. C. +Dahl was there; but many settled in Düsseldorf, where the teaching +attracted them. In any case, the adoption of a plastic profession meant +a long and serious expenditure of money, together with a very doubtful +prospect of ultimate remuneration. Fearnley, who had seemed the very +genius of Norwegian art, had just (1842) died, having scarcely begun to +sell his pictures, at the age of forty. It is not surprising that Knud +Ibsen, whose to were in a worse condition than ever, refused even to +consider a course of life which would entail a heavy and long-continued +expense.</p> + +<p>Ibsen hung about at home for a few months, then, shortly before his +sixteenth birthday, he apprenticed to an apothecary of the name of Mann, +at the little town of Grimstad, between Arendal and Christianssand, on +the extreme south-east corner of the Norwegian coast. This was his home +for more than five years; here he became a poet, and here the peculiar +color and tone of his temperament were developed. So far as the genius +of a very great man is influenced by his surroundings, and by his +physical condition in those surroundings, it was the atmosphere of +Grimstad and of its drug-store which moulded the character of Ibsen. +Skien and his father's house dropped from him like an old suit of +clothes. He left his parents, whom he scarcely knew, the town which he +hated, the schoolmates and schoolmasters to whom he seemed a surly +dunce. We find him next, with an apron round his middle and a pestle in +his hand, pounding drugs in a little apothecary's shop in Grimstad. What +Blackwood's so basely insinuated of Keats—"Back to the shop, Mr. John, +stick to plasters, pills and ointment-boxes," inappropriate to the +author of <i>Endymion</i>, was strictly true of the author of <i>Peer Gynt</i>.</p> + +<p>Curiosity and hero-worship once took the author of these lines to +Grimstad. It is a marvellous object-lesson on the development of genius. +For nearly six years (from 1844 to 1850), and those years the most +important of all in the moulding of character and talent, one of the +most original and far-reaching imaginations which Europe has seen for a +century was cooped up here among ointment-boxes, pills and plasters. +Grimstad is a small, isolated, melancholy place, connected with nothing +at all, visitable only by steamer. Featureless hills surround it, and it +looks out into the east wind, over a dark bay dotted with naked rocks. +No industry, no objects of interest in the vicinity, a perfect +uniformity of little red houses where nobody seems to be doing anything; +in Ibsen's time there are said to have been about five hundred of these +apathetic inhabitants. Here, then, for six interminable years, one of +the acutest brains in Europe had to interest itself in fraying +ipecacuanha and mixing black draughts behind an apothecary's counter.</p> + +<p>For several years nothing is recorded, and there was probably very +little that demanded record, of Ibsen's life at Grimstad. His own +interesting notes, it is obvious, refer only to the closing months of +the period. Ten years before the birth of Ibsen of the greatest poets of +Europe had written words which seem meant to characterize an adolescence +such as his. "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature +imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, +in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of +life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted; thence proceed mawkishness +and a thousand bitters."</p> + +<p>It is easy to discover that Ibsen, from his sixth to his twentieth year, +suffered acutely from moral and intellectual distemper. He was at war— +the phrase is his own—with the little community in which he lived. And +yet it seems to have been, in its tiny way, a tolerant and even friendly +little community. It is difficult for us to realize what life in a +remote coast-town of Norway would be sixty years ago. Connection with +the capital would be rare and difficult, and, when achieved, the capital +was as yet little more than we should call a village. There would, +perhaps, be a higher uniformity of education among the best inhabitants +of Grimstad than we are prepared to suppose. A certain graceful veneer +of culture, an old-fashioned Danish elegance reflected from Copenhagen, +would mark the more conservative citizens, male and female. A fierier +generation—not hot enough, however, to set the fjord on flame—would +celebrate the comparatively recent freedom of the country in numerous +patriotic forms. It is probable that a dark boy like Ibsen would, on the +whole, prefer the former type, but he would despise them both.</p> + +<p>He was poor, excruciatingly poor, with a poverty that excluded all +indulgence, beyond the bare necessities, in food and clothes and books. +We can conceive the meagre advance of his position, first a mere +apprentice, then an assistant, finally buoyed up by the advice of +friends to study medicine and pharmacy, in the hope of being, some +bright day, himself no less than the owner of a drug-store. Did Mr. +Anstey know this, or was it the sheer adventure of genius, when he +contrasted the qualities of the master into "Pill-Doctor Herdal," +compounding "beautiful rainbow-colored powders that will give one a real +grip on the world"? Ibsen, it is allowable to think, may sometimes have +dreamed of a pill, "with arsenic in it, Hilda, and digitalis, too, and +strychnine and the best beetle-killer," which would decimate the +admirable inhabitants of Grimstad, strewing the rocks with their bodies +in their go-to-meeting coats and dresses. He had in him that source of +anger, against which all arguments are useless, which bubbles up in the +heart of youth who vaguely feels himself possessed of native energy, and +knows not how to stir a hand or even formulate a wish. He was savage in +manners, unprepossessing in appearance, and, as he himself has told us +with pathetic naïveté, unable to express the real gratitude he felt to +the few who would willingly have extended friendship to him if he had +permitted it.</p> + +<p>As he advanced in age, he does not seem to have progressed in grace. By +the respectable citizens of Grimstad—and even Grimstad had its little +inner circle of impenetrable aristocracy—he regarded as "not quite +nice." The apothecary's assistant was a bold young man, who did not seem +to realize his menial position. He was certainly intelligent, and +Grimstad would have overlooked the pills and ointments if his manners +had been engaging, but he was rude, truculent and contradictory. The +youthful female sex is not in the habit of sharing the prejudices of its +elders in this respect, and many a juvenile Orson has, in such +conditions, enjoyed substantial successes. But young Ibsen was not a +favorite even with the girls, whom he alarmed and disconcerted. One of +the young ladies of Grimstad in after years attempted to describe the +effect which the poet made upon them. They had none of them liked him, +she said, "because"—she hesitated for the word—"because he was so +<i>spectral</i>." This gives us just the flash we want; it reveals to us for +a moment the distempered youth, almost incorporeal, displayed wandering +about at twilight and in lonely places, held in common esteem to be +malevolent, and expressing by gestures rather than by words sentiments +of a nature far from complimentary or agreeable.</p> + +<p>Thus life at Grimstad seems to have proceeded until Ibsen reached his +twenty-first year. In this quiet backwater of a seaport village the +passage of time was deliberate, and the development of hard-worked +apothecaries was slow. Ibsen's nature was not in any sense precocious, +and even if he had not languished in so lost a corner of society, it is +unlikely that he would have started prematurely in life or literature. +The actual waking up, when it came at last, seems to have been almost an +accident. There had been some composing of verses, now happily lost, and +some more significant distribution of "epigrams" and "caricatures" to +the vexation of various worthy persons. The earliest trace of talent +seems to been in this direction, in the form of lampoons or +"characters," as people called them in the seventeenth century, +sarcastic descriptions of types in which certain individuals could be +recognized. No doubt if these could be recovered, we should find them +rough and artless, but containing germs of the future keenness of +portraiture. They were keen enough, it seems, to rouse great resentment +in Grimstad.</p> + +<p>There is evidence to show that the lad had docility enough, at all +events, to look about for some aid in the composition of Norwegian +prose. We should know nothing of it but for a passage in Ibsen's later +polemic with Paul Jansenius Stub of Bergen. In 1848 Stub was an invalid +schoolmaster, who, it appears, eked out his income by giving +instruction, by correspondence, in style. How Ibsen heard of him does +not seem to be known, but when, in 1851, Ibsen entered, with needless +acrimony, into a controversy with his previous teacher about the +theatre, Stub complained of his ingratitude, since he had "taught the +boy to write." Stub's intervention in the matter, doubtless, was limited +to the correction of a few exercises.</p> + +<p>Ibsen's own theory was that his intellect and character were awakened by +the stir of revolution throughout Europe. The first political event +which really interested him was the proclamation of the French Republic, +which almost coincided with his twentieth birthday. He was born again, a +child of '48. There were risings in Vienna, in Milan, in Rome. Venice +was proclaimed a republic, the Pope fled to Gaeta, the streets of Berlin +ran with the blood of the populace. The Magyars rose against Jellalic +and his Croat troops; the Czechs demanded their autonomy; in response to +the revolutionary feeling in Germany, Schleswig-Holstein was up in arms.</p> + +<p>Each of these events, and others like them, and all occurring in the +rapid months of that momentous year, smote like hammers on the door of +Ibsen's brain, till it quivered with enthusiasm and excitement. The old +brooding languor was at an end, and with surprising clearness and +firmness he saw his pathway cut out before him as a poet and as a man. +The old clouds vanished, and though the social difficulties which hemmed +in his career were as gross as ever, he himself no longer doubted what +was to be his aim in life. The cry of revolution came to him, of +revolution faint indeed and broken, the voice of a minority appealing +frantically and for a moment against the overwhelming forces of a +respectable majority, but it came to him just at the moment when his +young spirit was prepared to receive it with faith and joy. The effect +on Ibsen's character was sudden and it was final:</p> + +<p> Then he stood up, and trod to dust<br> + Fear and desire, mistrust and trust,<br> + And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet,<br> + And bound for sandals on his feet<br> + Knowledge and patience of what must<br> + And what things maybe, in the heat<br> + And cold of years that rot and rust<br> + And alter; and his spirit's meat<br> + Was freedom, and his staff was wrought<br> + Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought.</p><br> + +<p>We are not left to conjecture on the subject; in a document of extreme +interest, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of his +commentators, the preface to the second (1876) edition of <i>Catilina</i>, he +has described what the influences were which roused him out of the +wretchedness of Grimstad; they were precisely the revolution of +February, the risings in Hungary, the first Schleswig war. He wrote a +series of sonnets, now apparently lost, to King Oscar, imploring him to +take up arms for the help of Denmark, and of nights, when all his duties +were over at last, and the shop shut up, he would creep to the garret +where he slept, and dream himself fighting at the centre of the world, +instead of lost on its extreme circumference. And here he began his +first drama, the opening lines of which,</p> + +<p> "I must, I must; a voice is crying to me<br> + From my soul's depth, and I will follow it,"</p> + +<p>might be taken as the epigraph of Ibsen's whole life's work.</p> + +<p>In one of his letters to Georg Brandes he has noted, with that +clairvoyance which marks some of his utterances about himself, the +"full-blooded egotism" which developed in him during his last year of +mental and moral starvation at Grimstad. Through the whole series of his +satiric dramas we see the little narrow-minded borough, with its +ridiculous officials, its pinched and hypocritical social order, its +intolerable laws and ordinances, modified here and there, expanded +sometimes, modernized and brought up to date, but always recurrent in +the poet's memory. To the last, the images and the rebellions which were +burned into his soul at Grimstad were presented over and over again to +his readers.</p> + +<p>But the necessity of facing the examination at Christiania now presented +itself. He was so busily engaged in the shop that he had, as he says, to +steal his hours for study. He still inhabited the upper room, which he +calls a garret; it would not seem that the alteration in his status, +assistant now and no longer apprentice, had increased his social +conveniences. He was still the over-worked apothecary, pounding drugs +with a pestle and mortar from morning till night. Someone has pointed +out the odd circumstance that almost every scene in the drama of +<i>Catilina</i> takes place in the dark. This was the unconscious result of +the fact that all the attention which the future realist could give to +the story had to be given in the night hours. When he emerged from the +garret, it was to read Latin with a candidate in theology, a Mr. Monrad, +brother of the afterwards famous professor. By a remarkable chance, the +subject given by the University for examination was the Conspiracy of +Catiline, to be studied in the history of Sallust and the oration of +Cicero.</p> + +<p>No theme could have been more singularly well fitted to fire the +enthusiasm of Ibsen. At no time of his life a linguist, or much +interested in history, it is probable that the difficulty of +concentrating his attention on a Latin text would have been +insurmountable had the subject been less intimately sympathetic to him. +But he tells us that he had no sooner perceived the character of the man +against whom these diatribes are directed than he devoured them greedily +(<i>jeg slugte disse skrifter</i>). The opening words of Sallust, which every +schoolboy has to read—we can imagine with what an extraordinary force +they would strike upon the resounding emotion of such a youth as Ibsen. +<i>Lucius Catilina nobili genere natus, magna vi et animi et corporis, sed +ingenio malo pravoque</i>—how does this at once bring up an image of the +arch-rebel, of Satan himself, as the poets have conceived him, how does +it attract, with its effects of energy, intelligence and pride, the +curiosity of one whose way of life, as Keats would say, is still +undecided, his ambition still thick-sighted!</p> + +<p>It was Sallust's picture more than Cicero's that absorbed Ibsen. +Criticism likes to trace a predecessor behind every genius, a Perugino +for Raffaelle, a Marlowe for Shakespeare. If we seek for the master-mind +that started Ibsen, it is not to be found among the writers of his age +or of his language. The real master of Ibsen was Sallust. There can be +no doubt that the cold and bitter strength of Sallust; his unflinching +method of building up his edifice of invective, stone by stone; his +close, unidealistic, dry penetration into character; his clinical +attitude, unmoved at the death-bed of a reputation; that all these +qualities were directly operative on the mind and intellectual character +of Ibsen, and went a long way to mould it while moulding was still +possible.</p> + +<p>There is no evidence to show that the oration of Cicero moved him nearly +so much as the narratives of Sallust. After all, the object of Cicero +was to crush the conspiracy, but what Ibsen was interested in was the +character of Catiline, and this was placed before him in a more +thrilling way by the austere reserve of the historian. No doubt, to a +young poet, when that poet was Ibsen, there would be something deeply +attractive in the sombre, archaic style, and icy violence of Sallust. +How thankful we ought to be that the historian, with his long sonorous +words—<i>flagitiosorum ac facinorosorum</i>—did not make of our perfervid +apothecary a mere tub-thumper of Corinthian prose!</p> + +<p>Ibsen now formed the two earliest friendships of his life. He had +reached the age of twenty without, as it would seem, having been able to +make his inner nature audible to those around him. He had been to the +inhabitants of Grimstad a stranger within their gates, not speaking +their language; or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at +all, but indulging in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like +Caliban, and tamed, and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship. +One of those who thus interpreted him was a young musician, Due, who +held a post in the custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud (1827-59), +who deserves a cordial acknowledgment from every admirer of Ibsen. He +also was in the receipt of custom, and a young man of small independent +means. To Schulerud and to Due, Ibsen revealed his poetic plans, and he +seems to have found in them both sympathizers with his republican +enthusiasms and transcendental schemes for the liberation of the +peoples. It was a stirring time, in 1848, and all generous young blood +was flowing fast in the same direction.</p> + +<p>Since Ibsen's death, Due has published a very lively paper of +recollections of the old Grimstad days. He says:</p> + +<p>His daily schedule admitted few intervals for rest or sleep. Yet I never +heard Ibsen complain of being tired. His health was uniformly good. He +must have had an exceptionally strong constitution, for when his +financial conditions compelled him to practice the most stringent +economy, he tried to do without underclothing, and finally even without +stockings. In these experiments he succeeded; and in winter he went +without an overcoat; yet without being troubled by colds or other bodily +ills.</p> + +<p>We have seen that Ibsen was so busy that he had to steal from his duties +the necessary hours for study. But out of these hours, he tells us, he +stole moments for the writing of poetry, of the revolutionary poetry of +which we have spoken, and for a great quantity of lyrics of a +sentimental and fanciful kind. Due was the confidant to whom he recited +the latter, and one at least of these early pieces survives, set to +music by this friend. But to Schulerud a graver secret was intrusted, no +less than that in the night hours of 1848-49 there was being composed in +the garret over the apothecary's shop a three-act tragedy in blank +verse, on the conspiracy of Catiline. With his own hand, when the first +draft was completed, Schulerud made a clean copy of the drama, and in +the autumn of 1849 he went to Christiania with the double purpose of +placing <i>Catilina</i> at the theatre and securing a publisher for it. A +letter (October 15, 1849) from Ibsen, first printed in 1904—the only +document we possess of this earliest period—displays to a painful +degree the torturing anxiety with which the poet awaited news of his +play, and, incidentally, exposes his poverty. With all Schulerud's +energy, he found it impossible to gain attention for <i>Catilina</i> at the +theatre, and in January, 1850, Ibsen received what he called its "death +warrant," but it was presently brought out as a volume, under the +pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme, at Schulerud's expense. Of <i>Catilina</i> +about thirty copies were sold, and it attracted no notice whatever from +the press.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, left alone in Grimstad, since Due was now with Schulerud in +Christiania, Ibsen had been busy with many literary projects. He had +been writing an abundance of lyrics, he had begun a one-act drama called +"The Normans," afterwards turned into <i>Kaempehöjen</i>; he was planning a +romance, <i>The Prisoner at Akershus</i> (this was to deal with the story of +Christian Lofthus); and above all he was busy writing a tragedy of <i>Olaf +Trygvesön. [Note: On the authority of the Breve, pp. 59, 59, where +Halvdan Koht prints "Olaf Tr." and "Olaf T." expanding these to +Tr[ygvesön]. But is it quite certain that what Ibsen wrote in these +letters was not "Olaf Li." and "Olaf L.," and that the reference is not +to Olaf Liljekrans, which was certainly begun at Grimstad? Is there any +other evidence that Ibsen ever started an Olaf Trygvesön</i>?</p> + +<p>One of his poems had already been printed in a Christiania newspaper. +The call was overwhelming; he could endure Grimstad and the gallipots no +longer. In March, 1850, at the age of twenty-one, Ibsen stuck a few +dollars in his pocket and went off to try his fortune in the capital.</p> + +<br><br> +<a name="c2"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<br> +<h3>EARLY INFLUENCES</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>In middle life Ibsen, who suppressed for as long a time as he could most +of his other juvenile works, deliberately lifted <i>Catilina</i> from the +oblivion into which it had fallen, and replaced it in the series of his +writings. This is enough to indicate to us that he regarded it as of +relative importance, and imperfect as it is, and unlike his later plays, +it demands some critical examination. I not know whether any one ever +happened to ask Ibsen whether he had been aware that Alexandre Dumas +produced in Paris a five-act drama of <i>Catiline</i> at the very moment +(October, 1848) when Ibsen started the composition of his. It is quite +possible that the young Norwegian saw this fact noted in a newspaper, +and immediately determined to try what he could make of the same +subject. In Dumas' play Catiline is presented merely as a demagogue; he +is the red Flag personified, and the political situation in France is +discussed under a slight veil of Roman history. Catiline is simply a +sort of Robespierre brought up to date. There is no trace of all this in +Ibsen.</p> + +<p>Oddly enough, though the paradox is easily explained, we find much more +similarity when we compare the Norwegian drama with that tragedy of +<i>Catiline</i> which Ben Jonson published in 1611. Needless to state, Ibsen +had never read the old English play; it would be safe to lay a wager +that, when he died, Ibsen had never heard or seen the name of Ben +Jonson. Yet there is an odd sort of resemblance, founded on the fact +that each poet keeps very close to the incidents recorded by the Latins. +Neither of them takes Sallust's presentment of the character of Catiline +as if it were gospel, but, while holding exact touch with the narrative, +each contrives to add a native grandeur to the character of the arch- +conspirator, such as his original detractors denied him. In both poems, +Ben Jonson's and Ibsen's, Catiline is—</p> + +<p>Armed with a glory high as his despair.</p> + +<p>Another resemblance between the old English and the modern Norwegian +dramatist is that each has felt the solid stuff of the drama to require +lightening, and has attempted to provide this by means, in Ben Jonson's +case, of solemn "choruses," in Ibsen's of lyrics. In the latter instance +the tragedy ends in rolling and rhymed verse, little suited to the +stage.</p> + +<p>This is a very curious example, among many which might be brought +forward, of Ibsen's native partiality for dramatic rhyme. In all his +early plays, his tendency is to slip into the lyrical mood. This +tendency reached its height nearly twenty years later in <i>Brand</i> and +<i>Peer Gynt</i>, and the truth about the austere prose which he then adopted +for his dramas is probably this, not that the lyrical faculty had +quitted him, but that he found it to be hampering his purely dramatic +expression, and that he determined, by a self-denying ordinance, to tear +it altogether off his shoulders, like an embroidered mantle, which is in +itself very ornamental, but which checks an actor's movements.</p> + +<p>The close of Ibsen's <i>Catalina</i> is, as we have said, composed entirely +in rhyme, and the effect of this curious. It is as though the young poet +could not restrain the rhythm bubbling up in him, and was obliged to +start running, although the moment was plainly one for walking. Here is +a fragment. Catiline has stabbed Aurelia, and left her in the tent for +dead. But while he was soliloquizing at the door of the tent, Fulvia has +stabbed him. He lies dying at the foot of a tree, and makes a speech +which ends thus:—</p> + +<p>See, the pathway breaks, divided! I will wander, dumb, +To the left hand.</p> + +<p> AURELIA + (appearing, blood-stained, at the door of the tent). + Nay! the right hand! Towards Elysium.</p> + +<p> CATILINE + (greatly alarmed). +O yon pallid apparition, how it fills me with remorse. +'Tis herself! Aurelia! tell me, art thou living? not a corse?</p> + +<p> AURELIA. +Yes, I live that I may full thy sea of sorrows, and may lie +With my bosom pressed a moment to thy bosom, and then die.</p> + +<p> CATILINE + (bewildered). +What? thou livest?</p> + +<p> AURELIA. + Death's pale herald o'er my senses threw a pall, +But my dulled eye tracked thy footsteps, and I saw, I saw it all, +And my passion a wife's forces to my wounded body gave; +Breast to breast, my Catiline, let us sink into our grave.</p> + +<p>[Note: In 1875 Ibsen practically rewrote the whole of this part of +<i>Catilina</i>, without, however, improving it. Why will great authors +confuse the history of literature by tampering with their early +texts?</p> + +<p>He had slipped far out of the sobriety of Sallust when he floundered, in +this way, in the deep waters of romanticism. In the isolation of +Grimstad he had but himself to consult, and the mind of a young poet who +has not yet enjoyed any generous communication with life is invariably +sentimental and romantic. The critics of the North have expended a great +deal of ingenuity in trying to prove that Ibsen exposed his own +temperament and character in the course of <i>Catilina</i>. No doubt there is +a great temptation to indulge in this species of analysis, but it is +amusing to note that some of the soliloquies which have been pointed out +as particularly self-revealing are translated almost word for word out +of Sallust. Perhaps the one passage in the play which is really +significant is that in which the hero says:—</p> + +<p>If but for one brief moment I could flame +And blaze through space, and be a falling star; +If only once, and by one glorious deed, +I could but knit the name of Catiline +With glory and with deathless high renown,— +Then should I blithely, in the hour of conquest, +Leave all, and hie me to an alien shore, +Press the keen dagger gayly to my heart, +And die; for then I should have lived indeed.</p> + +<p>This has its personal interest, since we know, on the evidence of his +sister, that such was the tenor of Ibsen's private talk about himself at +that precise time.</p> + +<p>Very imperfect as <i>Catilina</i> is in dramatic art, and very primitive as +is the development of plot in it, it presents one aspect, as a literary +work, which is notable. That it should exist at all is curious, since, +surprising as it seems, it had no precursor. Although, during the +thirty-five years of Norwegian independence, various classes of +literature had been cultivated with extreme diligence, the drama had +hitherto been totally neglected. With the exception of a graceful opera +by Bjerregaard, which enjoyed a success sustained over a quarter of a +century, the only writings in dramatic form produced in Norway between +1815 and 1850 were the absurd lyrical farces of Wergeland, which were +devoid of all importance. Such a thing as a three-act tragedy in blank +verse was unknown in modern Norway, so that the youthful apothecary in +Grimstad, whatever he was doing, was not slavishly copying the fashions +of his own countrymen.</p> + +<p>The principal, if not the only influence which acted upon Ibsen at this +moment, was that of the great Danish tragedian, Adam Oehlenschläger. It +might be fantastically held that the leading romantic luminary of +Scandinavia withdrew on purpose to make room for his realistic +successor, since Oehlenschläger's latest play, <i>Kiartan and Gudrun</i>, +appeared just when Ibsen was planning <i>Catilina</i>, while the death of the +Danish poet (January 20, 1850) was practically simultaneous with Ibsen's +arrival in Christiania. In later years, Ibsen thought that Holberg and +Oehlenschläger were the only dramatists he had read when his own first +play was written; he was sure that he knew nothing of Schiller, +Shakespeare or the French. Of the rich and varied dramatic literature of +Denmark, in the generation between Oehlenschläger's and his own, he must +also for the present have known nothing. The influence of Heiberg and of +Hertz, presently to be so potent, had evidently not yet begun. But it is +important to perceive that already Norway, and Norwegian taste and +opinion, were nothing to him in his selection of themes and forms.</p> + +<p>It is not to be supposed that the taste for dramatic performances did +not exist in Norway, because no Norwegian plays were written. On the +contrary, in most of the large towns there were, and had long been, +private theatres or rooms which could be fitted up with a stage, at +which wandering troupes of actors gave performances that were eagerly +attended by "the best people." These actors, however, were exclusively +Danes, and there was an accepted tradition that Norwegians could not +act. If they attempted to do so, their native accents proved +disagreeable to their fellow-citizens, who demanded, as an imperative +condition, the peculiar intonation and pronunciation cultivated at the +Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, as well as an absence of all native +peculiarities of language. The stage, therefore—and this is very +important in a consideration of the career of Ibsen—had come to be the +symbol of a certain bias in political feeling. Society in Norway was +divided into two classes, the "Danomaniacs" and the "Patriots." Neither +of these had any desire to alter the constitutional balance of power, +but while the latter wished Norway to be intellectually self-productive, +and leaned to a further isolation in language, literature, art and +manners, the former thought that danger of barbarism lay in every +direction save that of keeping close to the tradition of Denmark, from +which all that was witty, graceful and civilized had proceeded.</p> + +<p>Accordingly the theatre, at which exclusively Danish plays were acted, +in the Danish style, by Danish actors and actresses, was extremely +popular with the conservative class, who thought, by attendance on these +performances, to preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of +"high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the +patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave +suspicion as likely to undermine the purity of national feeling.</p> + +<p>The earliest attempt at the opening of a National Theatre had been made +at Christiania by the Swede, J. P. Strömberg, in 1827; this was not +successful, and his theatre was burned down in 1835. In it some effort +had been made to use the Norwegian idiom and to train native actors, but +it had been to no avail. The play-going public liked their plays to be +Danish, and even nationalists of a pronounced species could not deny +that dramas, like the great historical tragedies of Oehlenschläger, many +of which dealt enthusiastically with legends that were peculiarly +Norwegian, were as national as it was possible for poems by a foreign +poet to be. All this time, it must be remembered, Christiania was to +Copenhagen as Dublin till lately was to London, or as New York was half +a century ago. It is in the arts that the old colonial instinct of +dependence is most loath to disappear.</p> + +<p>The party of the nationalists, however, had been steadily increasing in +activity, and the universal quickening of patriotic pulses in 1848 had +not been without its direct action upon Norway.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, for various reasons of internal policy, there was perhaps +no country in Europe where this period of seismic disturbance led to +less public turmoil than precisely here in the North. The accession of a +new king, Oscar I, in 1844, had been followed by a sense of renewed +national security; the peasants were satisfied that the fresh reign +would be favorable to their rights and liberties; and the monarch showed +every inclination to leave his country of Norway as much as possible to +its own devices. The result of all this was that '48 left no mark on the +internal history of the country, and the fever which burned in youthful +bosoms was mainly, if not entirely, intellectual and transcendental. The +young Catiline from Grimstad, therefore, met with several sympathetic +rebels, but found nobody willing to conspire. But what he did find is so +important in the consideration of his future development that it is +needful briefly to examine it.</p> + +<p>Norway had, in 1850, been independent of Denmark for thirty-six years. +During the greater part of that time the fiery excitements of a struggle +for politic existence had fairly exhausted her mental resources, and had +left her powerless to inaugurate a national literature. Meanwhile, there +was no such discontinuity in the literary and scientific relations of +the two countries as that which had broken their constitutional union. A +tremendous effort was made by certain patriots to discover the basis of +an entirely independent intellectual life, something that should start +like the phoenix from the ashes of the old régime, and should offer no +likeness with what continued to flourish south of the Skagarak. But all +the efforts of the University of Christiania were vain to prevent the +cultivated classes from looking to Copenhagen as their centre of light. +Such authors as there were, and they were few indeed, followed humbly in +the footsteps of their Danish brethren.</p> + +<p>Patriotic historians of literature are not always to be trusted, and +those who study native handbooks of Norwegian criticism must be on their +guard when these deal with the three poets who "inaugurated in song the +young liberties of Norway." The writings of the three celebrated lyric +patriots, Schwach, Bjerregaard and Hansen, will not bear to have the +blaze of European experience cast upon them; their tapers dwindle to +sparks in the light of day. They gratified the vanity of the first +generation after 1815, but they deserve no record in the chronicles of +poetic art. If Ibsen ever read these rhymes of circumstance, it must +have been to treat them with contempt.</p> + +<p>Twenty years after the Union, however, and in Ibsen's early childhood, +an event occurred which was unique in the history of Norwegian +literature, and the consequences of which were far-reaching. As is often +the case in countries where the art of verse is as yet little exercised, +there grew up about 1830 a warm and general, but uncritical, delight in +poetry. This instinct was presently satisfied by the effusion of a vast +quantity of metrical writing, most of it very bad, and was exasperated +by a violent personal feud which for a while interested all educated +persons in Norway to a far greater degree than any other intellectual +or, for the time being, even political question. From 1834 to 1838 the +interests of all cultivated people centred around what was called the +"Twilight Feud" (<i>Daemringsfejden</i>), and no record of Ibsen's +intellectual development can be complete without a reference to this +celebrated controversy, the results of which long outlived the +popularity of its skits and pamphlets.</p> + +<p>Modern Norwegian literature began with this great fight. The +protagonists were two poets of undoubted talent, whose temperaments and +tendencies were so diametrically opposed that it seemed as though +Providence must have set them down in that raw and inflammable +civilization for the express purpose of setting the standing corn of +thought on fire. Henrik Wergeland (1808-45) was a belated son of the +French Revolution; ideas, fancies, melodies and enthusiasms fermented in +his ill-regulated brain, and he poured forth verses in a violent and +endless stream. It is difficult, from the sources of Scandinavian +opinion, to obtain a sensible impression of Wergeland. The critics of +Norway as persistently overrate his talents as those of Denmark neglect +and ridicule his pretensions. The Norwegians still speak of him as +<i>himmelstraevende sublim</i> ("sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the +Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster. Neither view +commends itself to a foreign reader of the poet.</p> + +<p>The fact, internationally stated, seems rather to be this. In Wergeland +we have a typical example of the effects of excess of fancy in a +violently productive but essential uncritical nature. He was ecstatic, +unmeasured, a reckless improvisatore. In his ideas he was preposterously +humanitarian; a prodigious worker, his vigor of mind seemed never +exhausted by his labors; in theory an idealist, in his private life he +was charged with being scandalously sensual. He was so much the victim +of his inspiration that it would come upon him like a descending wind, +and leave him physically prostrate. In Wergeland we see an instance of +the poetical temper in its most unbridled form. A glance through the +enormous range of his collected works is like an excursion into chaos. +We are met almost at the threshold by a colossal epic, <i>Creation, Man +and the Messiah</i> (1830); by songs that turn into dithyrambic odes, by +descriptive pieces which embrace the universe, by all the froth and roar +and turbidity of genius, with none of its purity and calm. The genius is +there; it is idle to deny it; but it is in a state of violent turmoil.</p> + +<p>It is when the ruling talent of an age is of the character of +Wergeland's—</p> + +<p> Thundering and bursting,<br> + In torrents, in waves,<br> + Carolling and shouting<br> + Over tombs, over graves—</p> + +<p>that delicate spirits, as in Matthew Arnold's poem, sigh for the silence +and the hush, and rise at length in open rebellion against Iacchus and +his maenads, who destroy all the quiet of life and who madden innocent +blood with their riot. Johan Sebastian Welhaven (1807-73) was a student +at the University with Wergeland, and he remained silent while the +latter made the welkin ring louder and louder with his lyric shrieks. +Welhaven endured the rationalist and republican rhetoric of Wergeland as +long as he could, although with growing exasperation, until the +rhapsodical author of <i>Creation</i>, transgressing all moderation, accused +those who held reasonable views in literature and politics of being +traitors. Then it became necessary to deal with this raw and local +parody of Victor Hugo. When, in the words of <i>The Cask of Amontillado</i>, +Wergeland "ventured upon insult," Welhaven "vowed he would be avenged."</p> + +<p>Welhaven formed as complete a contrast to his antagonist as could be +imagined. He was of the class of Sully Prudhomme, of Matthew Arnold, of +Lowell, to name three of his younger contemporaries. In his nature all +was based upon equilibrium; his spirit, though full of graceful and +philosophical intuitions, was critical rather than creative. He wrote +little, and with difficulty, and in exquisite form. His life was as +blamelessly correct as his literary art was harmonious. Wergeland knew +nothing of the Danish tradition of his day, which he treated with +violent and bitter contempt. Welhaven, who had moved in the circle of +the friends of Rahbek, instinctively referred every literary problem to +the tribunal of Danish taste. He saw that with the enthusiasm with which +the poetry of Wergeland was received in Norway was connected a suspicion +of mental discipline, a growing worship of the peasant and a hatred and +scorn of Denmark, with all of which he had no sympathy. He thought the +time had come for better things; that the national temper ought to be +mollified with the improved economic situation of the country; that the +students, who were taking a more and more prominent place, ought to be +on the side of the angels. It was not unnatural that Welhaven should +look upon the corybantic music of Wergeland as the source and origin of +an evil of which it was really the symptom; he gathered his powers +together to crush it, and he published a thunderbolt of sonnets.</p> + +<p>The English reader, familiar with the powerlessness of even the best +verse to make any impression upon Anglo-Saxon opinion, may smile to +think of a great moral and ethical attack conducted with no better +weapon than a paper of sonnets. But the scene of the fight was a small, +intensely local, easily agitated society of persons, all keenly though +narrowly educated, and all accustomed to be addressed in verse. +Welhaven's pamphlet was entitled <i>The Twilight of Norway</i> (1834), and +the sonnets of which it consisted were highly polished in form, filled +with direct and pointed references to familiar persons and events and +absolutely unshrinking in attack. No poetry of equal excellence had been +produced in Norway since the Union. It is not surprising that this +invective against the tendencies of the youthful bard over whose +rhapsodies all Norway was growing crazy with praise should arrest +universal attention, although in the <i>Twilight</i> Welhaven adroitly +avoided mentioning Wergeland by name. Fanaticism gathered in an angry +army around the outraged standard of the republican poet, but the lovers +of order and discipline had found a voice, and they clustered about +Welhaven with their support. Language was not minced by the assailants, +and still less by the defenders. The lovers of Wergeland were told that +politics and brandy were their only pleasures, but those of Welhaven +were warned that they were known to be fed with bribes from Copenhagen. +Meanwhile Welhaven himself, in successive publications, calmly analyzed +the writings of his antagonist, and proved them to be "in complete +rebellion against sound thought and the laws of beauty." The feud raged +from 1834 to 1838, and left Norway divided into two rival camps of +taste.</p> + +<p>Although the "Twilight Feud" had passed away before Ibsen ceased to be a +boy, the effect of it was too widely spread not to affect him. In point +of fact, we see by the earliest of his lyric poems that while he was at +Grimstad he had fully made up his mind. His early songs and +complimentary pieces are all in the Danish taste, and if they show any +native influence at all, it is that of Welhaven. The extreme +superficiality of Wergeland would naturally be hateful to so arduous a +craftsman as Ibsen, and it is a fact that so far as his writings reveal +his mind to us, the all-popular poet of his youth appears to be +absolutely unknown to him. What this signifies may be realized if we say +that it is as though a great English or French poet of the second half +of the nineteenth century should seem to have never heard of Tennyson or +Victor Hugo. On the other hand, at one crucial point of a late play, +<i>Little Eyolf</i>, Ibsen actually pauses to quote Welhaven.</p> + +<p>In critical history the absence of an influence is sometimes as +significant as the presence of it. The looseness of Wergeland's style, +its frothy abundance, its digressions and parentheses, its slipshod +violence, would be to Ibsen so many beacons of warning, to be viewed +with horror and alarm. A poem of three stanzas, "To the Poets of +Norway," only recently printed, dates from his early months in +Christiania, and shows that even in 1850 Ibsen was impatient with the +conventional literature of his day. "Less about the glaciers and the +pine-forests," he cries, "less about the dusty legends of the past, and +more about what is going on in the silent hearts of your brethren!" Here +already is sounded the note which was ultimately to distinguish him from +all the previous writers of the North.</p> + +<p>No letters have been published which throw light on Ibsen's first two +years in the capital. We know that he did not communicate with his +parents, whose poverty was equalled by his own. He could receive no help +from them, nor offer them any, and he refrained, as they refrained, from +letter writing. This separation from his family, begun in this way, grew +into a habit, so that when his father died in 1877 no word had passed +between him and his son for nearly thirty years. When Ibsen reached +Christiania, in March, 1850, his first act was to seek out his friend +Schulerud, who was already a student. For some time he shared the room +of Schulerud and his thrifty meals; later on the two friends, in company +with Theodor Abildgaard, a young revolutionary journalist, lived in +lodgings kept by a certain Mother Saether.</p> + +<p>Schulerud received a monthly allowance which was "not enough for one, +and starvation for two"; but Ibsen's few dollars soon came to an end, +and he seems to have lived on the kindness of Schulerud to their great +mutual privation. Both young men attended the classes of a celebrated +"crammer" of that day, H. A. S. Heltberg, who had opened in 1843 a Latin +school where elder pupils came for a two-years' course to prepare them +for taking their degree. This place, known familiarly as "the Student +Factory," holds quite a prominent place in Norwegian literary history, +Ibsen, Björnson, Vinje and Jonas Lie having attended its classes and +passed from it to the University.</p> + +<p>Between these young men, the leading force of literature in the coming +age, a generous friendship sprang up, despite the disparity in their +ages. Vinje, a peasant from Thelemark, was thirty-two; he had been a +village schoolmaster and had only now, in 1850, contrived to reach the +University. With Vinje, the founder of the movement for writing +exclusively in Norwegian patois, Ibsen had a warm personal sympathy, +while he gave no intellectual adherence to his theories. Between the +births of Vinje and Björnson there stretched a period of fourteen years, +yet Björnson was a student before either Ibsen or Vinje. That Ibsen +immediately formed Björnson's acquaintance seems to be proved from the +fact that they both signed a protest against the deportation of a Dane +called Harring on May 29, 1850. It was a fortunate chance which threw +Ibsen thus suddenly into the midst of a group of those in whom the hopes +of the new generation were centred. But we are left largely to +conjecture in what manner their acquaintanceship acted upon his mind.</p> + +<p>His material life during the next year is obscure. Driven by the +extremity of need, it is plain that he adopted every means open to him +by which he could add a few dollars to Schulerud's little store. He +wrote for the poor and fugitive journals of the day, in prose and verse; +but the payment of the Norwegian press in those days was almost nothing. +It is difficult to know how he subsisted, yet he continued to exist. +Although none of his letters of this period seem to have been preserved, +a few landmarks are left us. The little play called <i>Kaempehöien</i> (The +Warrior's Barrow), which he had brought unfinished with him from +Grimstad, was completed and put into shape in May, 1850, accepted at the +Christiania Theatre, and acted three times during the following autumn. +Perhaps the most interesting fact connected with this performance was +that the only female part, that of Blanka, was taken by a young +débutante, Laura Svendsen; this was the actress afterwards to rise to +the height of eminence as the celebrated Mrs. Gundersen, no doubt the +most gifted of all Ibsen's original interpreters.</p> + +<p>It was a matter of course that the poet was greatly cheered by the +acceptance of his play, and he immediately set to work on another, <i>Olaf +Liljekrans</i>; but this he put aside when <i>Kaempehöien</i> practically +failed. He wrote a satirical comedy called <i>Norma</i>. He endeavored to get +certain of his works, dramatic and lyric, published in Christiania, but +all the schemes fell through. It is certain that 1851 began darkly for +the young man, and that his misfortunes encouraged in him a sour and +rebellious temper. For the first and only time in his life he meddled +with practical politics. Vinje and he—in company with a charming +person, Paul Botten-Hansen (1824-69), who flits very pleasantly through +the literary history of this time—founded a newspaper called +<i>Andhrimner</i>, which lasted for nine months.</p> + +<p>One of the contributors was Abildgaard, who, as we have seen, lived in +the same house with Ibsen. He was a wild being, who had adopted the +republican theories of the day in their crudest form. He posed as the +head of a little body whose object was to dethrone the king, and to +found a democracy in Norway. On July 7, 1851, the police made a raid +upon these childish conspirators, the leaders being arrested and +punished with a long imprisonment. The poet escaped, as by the skin of +his teeth, and the warning was a lifelong one. He never meddled with +politics any more. This was, indeed, as perhaps he felt, no time for +rebellion; all over Europe the eruption of socialism had spent itself, +and the docility of the populations had become wonderful.</p> + +<p>The discomfort and uncertainty of Ibsen's position in Christiania made +him glad to fill a post which the violinist, Ole Bull, offered him +during autumn. The newly constituted National Theatre in Bergen (opened +Jan. 2, 1850) had accepted a prologue written for an occasion by the +young poet, and on November 6, 1851, Ibsen entered into a contract by +which he bound himself go to Bergen "to assist the theatre as dramatic +author." The salary was less than £70 a year, but it was eked out by +travelling grants, and little as it might be, it was substantially more +than the nothing-at-all which Ibsen had been enjoying in Christiania.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to imagine what asset could be bought to the treasuries +of a public theatre by a youth of three and twenty so ill-educated, so +empty of experience and so ill-read as Ibsen was in 1851. His crudity, +we may be sure, passed belief. He was the novice who has not learned his +business, the tyro to whom the elements of his occupation are unknown. +We have seen that when he wrote <i>Catilina</i> he had neither sat through +nor read any of the plays of the world, whether ancient or modern. The +pieces which belong to his student years reveal a preoccupation with +Danish dramas of the older school, Oehlenschläger and (if we may guess +what <i>Norma</i> was) Holberg, but with nothing else. Yet Ole Bull, one of +the most far-sighted men of his time, must have perceived the germs of +theatrical genius in him, and it is probable that Ibsen owed his +appointment more to what this wise patron felt in his future than what +Ole Bull or any one else could possibly point to as yet accomplished. +Unquestionably, a rude theatrical penetration could already he divined +in his talk about the stage, vague and empirical as that must have been.</p> + +<p>At all events, to Bergen he went, as a sort of literary manager, as a +Claretie or Antoine, to compare a small thing with great ones, and the +fact was of inestimable value. It may even be held, without fear of +paradox, that this was the turning-point of Ibsen's life, that this +blind step in the dark, taken in the magnificent freedom of youth, was +what made him what he became. No Bergen in 1851, we may say, and no +<i>Doll's House</i> or <i>Hedda Gabler</i> ultimately to follow. For what it did +was to force this stubborn genius, which might so easily have slipped +into sinister and abnormal paths, and have missed the real humanity of +the stage, to take the tastes of the vulgar into due consideration and +to acquaint himself with the necessary laws of play-composition.</p> + +<p>Ibsen may seem to have little relation with the drama of the world, but +in reality he is linked with it at every step. There is something of +Shakespeare in <i>John Gabriel Borkman</i>, something Molière in <i>Ghosts</i>, +something of Goethe in <i>Peer Gynt</i>. We may go further and say, though it +would have made Ibsen wince, that there is something of Scribe in <i>An +Enemy of the People</i>. Is very doubtful whether, without the discipline +which forced him to put on the stage, at Bergen and in Christiania, +plays evidently unsympathetic to his own taste, which obliged him to do +his best for the popular reception of those plays, and which forced him +minutely to analyze their effects, he would ever have been the world- +moving dramatist which, as all sane critics must admit, he at length +became.</p> + +<p>He made some mistakes at first; how could he fail to do so? It was the +recognition of these blunders, and perhaps the rough censure of them the +local press, which induced the Bergen theatre to scrape a few dollars +together and send him, in charge of some of the leading actors and +actresses, to Copenhagen and Dresden for instruction. To go from Bergen +to Copenhagen was like travelling from Abdera to Athens, and to find a +species of Sophocles in J. A. Heiberg, who had since 1849 been sole +manager of the Royal Theatre. Here the drama of the world, all the +salutary names, all the fine traditions, burst upon the pilgrims from +the North. Heiberg, the gracious and many-sided, was the centre of light +in those days; no one knew the stage as he knew no one interpreted it +with such splendid intelligence, and he received the crude Norwegian +"dramatist-manager" with the utmost elegance of cordiality. Among the +teachers of Ibsen, Heiberg ranks as the foremost. We may farther and say +that he was the last. When Ibsen had learned the lesson of Heiberg, only +nature and his own genius had anything more to teach him. [See Note +below] In August, 1852, rich with the spoils of time, but otherwise poor +indeed, Ibsen made his way back to his duties in Bergen.</p> + +<p>[Note: Perhaps no author, during the whole of his career, more deeply +impressed Ibsen with reverence and affection than Johan Ludvig Heiberg +did. When the great Danish poet died (at Bonderup, August 25, 1860), +Ibsen threw on his tomb the characteristic bunch of bitter herbs called +<i>Til de genlevende</i>—"To the Survivors," in which he expressed the +faintest appreciation of those who lavished posthumous honor on Heiberg +in Denmark:</p> + +<p> In your land a torch he lifted;<br> + With its flame ye scorched his forehead.</p> + +<p> How to swing the sword he taught you,<br> + And,—ye plunged it in his bosom.</p> + +<p> While he routed trolls of darkness,—<br> + With your shields you tripped and bruised him.</p> + +<p> But his glittering star of conquest<br> + Ye must guard, since he has left you:</p> + +<p> Try, at least, to keep it shining,<br> + While the thorn-crowned conqueror slumbers.]</p> + +<br><br> +<a name="c3"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<br> +<h3>LIFE IN BERGEN (1852-57)</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>Ibsen's native biographers have not found much to record, and still less +that deserves to recorded, about his life during the next five years. He +remained in Bergen, cramped by want of means in his material condition, +and much harassed and worried by the little pressing requirements of the +theatre. It seems that every responsibility fell upon his shoulders, and +that there was no part of stage-life that it was not his duty to look +after. The dresses of the actresses, the furniture, the scene-painting, +the instruction of raw Norwegian actors and actresses, the selection of +plays, now to please himself, now to please the bourgeois of Bergen, all +this must be done by the poet or not done at all. Just so, two hundred +years earlier, we may imagine Molière, at Carcassonne or Albi, bearing +up in his arms, a weary Titan, all the frivolities and anxieties and +misdeeds of a whole company of comedians.</p> + +<p>So far as our very scanty evidence goes, we find the poet isolated from +his fellows, so far as isolation was possible, during his long stay at +Bergen. He was not accused, and if there had been a chance he would have +been accused, of dereliction. No doubt he pushed through the work of the +theatre doggedly, but certainly not in a convivial spirit. The +Norwegians are a hospitable and festal people, and there is no question +that the manager of the theatre would have unusual opportunities of +being jolly with his friends. But it does not appear that Ibsen made +friends; if so, they were few, and they were as quiet as himself. Even +in these early years he did not invite confidences, and no one found him +wearing his heart upon his sleeve. He went through his work without +effusion, and there is no doubt that what leisure he enjoyed he spent in +study, mainly of dramatic literature.</p> + +<p>His reading must have been limited by his insensibility to foreign +languages. All through his life he forgot the tongues of other countries +almost faster than he gained them. Probably, at this time, he had begun +to know German, a language in which he did ultimately achieve a fluency +which was, it appears, always ungrammatical. But, as is not unfrequent +with a man who is fond of reading but no linguist, Ibsen's French and +English came and went in a trembling uncertainty. As time passed on, he +gave up the effort to read, even a newspaper, in either language.</p> + +<p>The mile-stones in this otherwise blank time are the original plays +which, perhaps in accordance with some clause in his agreement, he +produced at his theatre in the first week of January in each year. A +list of them cannot be spared in this place to the most indolent of +readers, since it offers, in a nutshell, a résumé of what the busy +imagination of Ibsen was at work upon up to his thirtieth year. His +earliest new-year's gift to the play-goers of Bergen was <i>St. John's +Night</i>, 1853, a piece which has not been printed; in 1854 he revived +<i>The Warrior's Barrow</i>; in 1855 he made an immense although irregular +advance with <i>Lady Inger at Östraat</i>; in 1856 he produced <i>The Feast at +Solhoug</i>; in 1857 a rewritten version of the early <i>Olaf Liljekrans</i>. +These are the juvenile works of Ibsen, which are scarcely counted in the +recognized canon of his writings. None of them is completely +representative of his genius, and several are not yet within reach of +the English reader. Yet they have a considerable importance, and must +detain us for a while. They are remarkable as showing the vigor of the +effort by which he attempted to create an independent style for himself, +no less than the great difficulties which he encountered in following +this admirable aim.</p> + +<p><i>Lady Inger at Östraat</i>, written in the winter of 1854 but not published +until 1857, is unique among Ibsen's works as a romantic exercise in the +manner of Scribe. It is the sole example of a theme taken by him +directly from comparatively modern history, and treated purely for its +value as a study of contemporary intrigue. From this point of view it +curiously exemplifies a remark of Hazlitt: "The progress of manners and +knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps +destroy both tragedy and comedy. ... At last, there will be nothing +left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real +life."</p> + +<p>When Ibsen undertook to write about Inger Gyldenlöve, he was but little +acquainted with the particulars of her history. He conceived her, as he +found her in the incomplete chronicles he consulted, as a Matriarch, a +wonderful and heroic elderly woman around whom all the hopes of an +embittered patriotism were legitimately centred. Unfortunately, "the +progress of knowledge," as Hazlitt would say, exposed the falsity of +this conception. A closer inspection of the documents, and further +analysis of the condition of Norway in 1528, destroyed the fair +illusion, and showed Ibsen in the light of an indulgent idealist.</p> + +<p>Here is what Jaeger [Note: In <i>En literaert Livsbillede</i>] has to give us +of the disconcerting results of research:</p> + +<p>In real life Lady Inger was not a woman formed upon so grand a plan. She +was the descendant of an old and noble family which had preserved its +dignity, and she consequently was the wealthiest landowner in the +country. This, and this alone, gives her a right to a place in history. +If we study her life, we find no reason to suppose that patriotic +considerations ever affected her conduct. The motive power of her +actions was on a far lower plane, and seems to have consisted mainly in +an amazingly strong instinct for adding to her wealth and her status. We +find her, for instance, on one occasion seizing the estates of a +neighbor, and holding them till she was actually forced to resign them. +When she gave her daughters in marriage to Danish noblemen, it was to +secure direct advantage from alliance with the most high-born sons-in- +law procurable. When she took a convent under her protection, she +contrived to extort a rent which well repaid her. Even for a good action +she exacted a return, and when she offered harbor to the persecuted +Chancellor, she had the adroitness to be well rewarded by a large sum in +rose-nobles and Hungarian gulden.</p> + +<p>All this could not fail to be highly exasperating to Ibsen, who had set +out to be a realist, and was convicted by the spiteful hand of history +of having been an idealist of the rose-water class. No wonder that he +never touched the sequence of modern events any more.</p> + +<p>There is some slight, but of course unconscious, resemblance to +<i>Macbeth</i> in the external character of <i>Lady Inger</i>. This play has +something of the roughness of a mediaeval record, and it depicts a +condition of life where barbarism uncouthly mingles with a certain +luxury of condition. There is, however, this radical difference that in +<i>Lady Inger</i> there is nothing preternatural, and it is, indeed, in this +play that Ibsen seems first to appreciate the value of a stiff attention +to realism. The romantic elements of the story, however, completely +dominate his imagination, and when we have read the play carefully what +remains with us most vividly is the picturesqueness and unity of the +scene. The action, vehement and tumultuous as it is, takes place +entirely within the walls of Östraat castle, a mysterious edifice, +sombre and ancient, built on a crag over the ocean, and dimly lighted by</p> + +<p> Magic casements opening on the foam<br> + Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn.</p> + +<p>The action is exclusively nocturnal, and so large a place in it is taken +by huge and portable candlesticks that it might be called the Tragedy of +the Candelabra. Through the windows, on the landward side, a procession +of mysterious visitors go by in the moonlight, one by one, each fraught +with the solemnity of fate. The play is full of striking pictures, +groups in light and shade, pictorial appeals to terror and pity.</p> + +<p>The fault of the drama lies in the uncertain conception of the +characters, and particularly of that of the Matriarch herself. Inger is +described to us as the Mother of the Norwegian People, as the one +strong, inflexible and implacable brain moving in a world of depressed +and irritated men. "Now there is no knight left in our land," says Finn, +but—and this is the point from which the play starts—there is Inger +Gyldenlöve. We have approached the moment of crisis when the fortunes +and the fates of Norway rest upon the firmness of this majestic woman. +Inger is driven forward on the tide of circumstance, and, however she +may ultimately fail, we demand evidence of her inherent greatness. This, +however, we fail to receive, and partly, no doubt, because Ibsen was +still distracted at the division of the ways.</p> + +<p>Oehlenschläger, if he had attempted this theme, would have made no +attempt after subtlety of character painting and still less after +correctness of historic color. He would have given small shrift to Olaf +Skaktavl, the psychological outlaw. But he would have drawn Inger, the +Mother of her People, in majestic strokes, and we should have had a +great simplicity, a noble outline with none of the detail put in. Ibsen, +already, cannot be satisfied with this; to him the detail is every +thing, and the result is a hopeless incongruity between the cartoon and +the finished work.</p> + +<p>Lady Inger, in Ibsen's play, fails to impress us with greatness. "The +deed no less than the attempt confounds" her. She displays, from the +opening scene, a weakness that is explicable, but excludes all evidence +of her energy. The ascendency of Nils Lykke, over herself and over her +singularly and unconvincingly modern daughter, Elima, in what does it +consist? In a presentation of a purely physical attractiveness; Nils +Lykke is simply a voluptuary, pursuing his good fortunes, with impudent +ease, in the home of his ancestral enemies. In his hands, and not in his +only, the majestic Inger is reduced from a queen to a pawn. All manhood, +we are told, is dead in Norway; if this be so, then what a field is +cleared where a heroine like Inger, not young and a victim to her +passions, nor old and delivered to decrepit fears, may show us how a +woman of intellect and force can take the place of man. Instead of this, +one disguised and anonymous adventurer after another comes forth out of +the night, and confuses her with pretensions and traps her with deceits +against which her intellect protests but her will is powerless to +contend.</p> + +<p>Another feature in the conduct of <i>Lady Inger</i> portrays the ambitious +but the inexperienced dramatist. No doubt a pious commentator can +successfully unravel all the threads of the plot, but the spectator +demands that a play should be clearly and easily intelligible. The +audience, however, is sorely puzzled by the events of this awful third +night after Martinmas, and resents the obscurity of all this intrigue by +candlelight. Why do the various persons meet at Östraat? Who sends them? +Whence do they come and whither do they go? To these questions, no +doubt, an answer can be found, and it is partly given, and very +awkwardly, by the incessant introduction of narrative. The confused and +melodramatic scene in the banquet-hall between Nils Lykke and Skaktavl +is of central importance, but what is it about? The business with +Lucia's coffin is a kind of nightmare, in the taste of Webster or of +Cyril Tourneur. All these shortcomings are slurred over by the +enthusiastic critics of Scandinavia, yet they call for indulgence. The +fact is that <i>Lady Inger+ is a brilliant piece of romantic extravagance, +which is extremely interesting in illuminating the evolution of Ibsen's +genius, and particularly as showing him in the act of emancipating +himself from Danish traditions, but which has little positive value as a +drama.</i></p> + +<p>The direct result of the failure of <i>Lady Inger</i>—for it did not please +the play-goers of Bergen and but partly satisfied its author—was, +however, to send him back, for the moment, more violently than ever to +the Danish tradition. Any record of this interesting phase in Ibsen's +career is, however, complicated by the fact that late in his life (in +1883) he did what was very unusual with him: he wrote a detailed account +of the circumstances of his poetical work in 1855 and 1856. He denied, +in short, that he had undergone any influence from the Danish poet whom +he had been persistently accused of imitating, and he traced the +movement of his mind to purely Norwegian sources. During the remainder +of his lifetime, of course, this statement greatly confounded criticism, +and there is still a danger of Ibsen's disclaimer being accepted for +gospel. However, literary history must be built on the evidence before +it, and the actual text of <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i>, and of <i>Olaf +Liljekrans</i> must be taken in spite of anything their author chose to say +nearly thirty years afterwards. Great poets, without the least wish to +mystify, often, in the cant phrase, "cover their tracks." Tennyson, in +advanced years, denied that he had ever been influenced by Shelley or +Keats. So Ibsen disclaimed any effect upon his style of the lyrical +dramas of Hertz. But we must appeal from the arrogance of old age to the +actual works of youth.</p> + +<p>Henrik Hertz (1798-1870) was the most exquisite, the most delicate, of +the Danish writers of his age. He was deeply impressed with the +importance of form in drama, and at the height of his powers he began to +compose rhymed plays which were like old ballads put into dialogue. His +comedy of <i>Cupid's Strokes of Genius</i> (1830) began a series of tragi- +comedies which gradually deepened in passion and melody, till they +culminated in two of the acknowledged masterpieces of the Danish stage, +<i>Svend Dyring's House</i> (1837) and <i>King René's Daughter</i> (1845). The +genius of Hertz was diametrically opposed to that of Ibsen; in all +Europe there were not two authors less alike. Hertz would have pleased +Kenelm Digby, and if that romantic being had read Danish, the poet of +chivalry must have had a niche in <i>The Broad Stone of Honour</i>. Hertz's +style is delicate to the verge of sweetness; his choice of words is +fantastically exquisite, yet so apposite as to give an impression of the +inevitable. He cares very little for psychological exactitude or truth +of observation; but he is the very type of what we mean by a verbal +artist.</p> + +<p>Ibsen made acquaintance with the works, and possibly with the person, of +Hertz, when he was in Copenhagen in 1852. There can be no doubt whatever +that, while he was anxiously questioning his own future, and conscious +of crude faults in <i>Lady Inger</i>, he set himself, as a task, to write in +the manner of Hertz. It is difficult to doubt that it was a deliberate +exercise, and we see the results in <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i> and in <i>Olaf +Liljekrans</i>. These two plays are in ballad-rhyme and prose, like Hertz's +romantic dramas; there is the same determination to achieve the +chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. +Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without +an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that +he has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of +metrical writing, but breaks down surprisingly at awkward intervals, and +displays a hopeless inconsistency between his own nature and the medium +in which he is forcing himself to write. As a proof that the similarity +between <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i> and <i>Svend Dyring's House</i> is accidental, +it has been pointed out that Ibsen produced his own play on the Bergen +stage in January, 1856, and revived Hertz's a month later. It might, +surely, be more sensibly urged that this fact shows how much he was +captivated by the charm of the Danish dramatist.</p> + +<p>The sensible thing, in spite of Ibsen's late disclaimer, is to suppose +that, in the consciousness of his crudity and inexperience as a writer, +he voluntarily sat at the feet of the one great poet whom he felt had +most to teach him. On the boards at Bergen, <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i> was a +success, while <i>Olaf Liljekrans</i> was a failure; but neither incident +could have meant very much to Ibsen, who, if there ever was a poet who +lived in the future, was waiting and watching for the development of his +own genius. Slowly, without precocity, without even that joy in strength +of maturity which comes to most great writers before the age of thirty, +he toiled on in a sort of vacuum. His youth was one of unusual darkness, +because he had not merely poverty, isolation, citizenship of a remote +and imperfectly civilized country to contend against, but because his +critical sense was acute enough to teach him that he himself was still +unripe, still unworthy of the fame that he thirsted for. He had not even +the consolation which a proud confidence in themselves gives to the +unappreciated young, for in his heart of hearts he knew that he had as +yet done nothing which deserved the highest praise. But his imagination +was expanding with a steady sureness, and the long years of his +apprenticeship were drawing to a close.</p> + +<p>Ibsen was now, like other young Norwegian poets, and particularly +Björnson, coming into the range of that wind of nationalistic +inspiration which had begun to blow down from the mountains and to fill +every valley with music. The Norwegians were discovering that they +possessed a wonderful hidden treasure in their own ancient poetry and +legend. It was a gentle, clerically minded poet—himself the son of a +peasant—Jörgen Moe (1813-82), long afterwards Bishop of Christianssand, +who, as far back as 1834, began to collect from peasants the folk-tales +of Norway. The childlike innocence and playful humor of these stories +were charming to the mind of Moe, who was fortunately joined by a +stronger though less delicate spirit in the person of Peter Christian +Asbjörnsen. Their earliest collection of folk-lore in collaboration +appeared in 1841, but it was the full edition of 1856 which produced a +national sensation, and doubtless awakened Ibsen in Bergen. Meanwhile, +in 1853, M. B. Landstad had published the earliest of his collections of +the folkeviser, or national songs, while L. M. Lindeman in the same +years (1853-59) was publishing, in installments, the peasant melodies of +Norway. Moreover, Ibsen, who read no Icelandic, was studying the ancient +sagas in the faithful and vigorous paraphrase of Petersen, and all +combined to determine him to make an experiment in a purely national and +archaistic direction.</p> + +<p>Ibsen, whose practice is always better than his theory, has given rather +a confused account of the circumstances that led to the composition of +his next play, <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>. But it is clear that in +looking through Petersen for a subject which would display, in broad and +primitive forms, the clash of character in an ancient Norwegian family, +he fell upon "Volsungasaga," and somewhat rashly responded to its +vigorous appeal. He thought that in this particular episode, "the +titanic conditions and occurrences of the 'Nibelungenlied'" and other +pro-mediaeval legends had "been reduced to human dimensions." He +believed that to dramatize such a story would lift what he called "our +national epic material" to a higher plane. There is one phrase in his +essay which is very interesting, in the light it throws upon the object +which the author had before him in writing <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>. +He says clearly—and this was intended as a revolt against the tradition +of Oehlenschläger—"it was not my aim to present our mythic world, but +simply our life in primitive times." Brandes says of this departure that +it is "indeed a new conquest, but, like so many conquests, associated +with very extensive plundering."</p> + +<p>In turning to an examination of <i>The Vikings</i>, the first point which +demands notice is that Ibsen has gained a surprising mastery over the +arts of theatrical writing since we met with him last. There is nothing +of the lyrical triviality of the verse in <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i> about +the trenchant prose of <i>The Vikings</i>, and the crepuscular dimness of +<i>Lady Inger</i> is exchanged for a perfect lucidity and directness. +Whatever we may think about the theatrical propriety of the conductor of +the vikings, there is no question at all as to what it is they do and +mean. Ibsen has gained, and for good, that master quality of translucent +presentation without which all other stage gifts are shorn of their +value. When we have, however, praised the limpidity of <i>The Vikings at +Helgeland</i>, we have, in honesty, to make several reservations in our +criticism of the author's choice of a subject. It is valuable to compare +Ibsen's treatment of Icelandic family-saga with that of William Morris; +let us say, in <i>The Lovers of Gudrun</i>. That enchanting little epic deals +with an episode from one of the great Iceland narratives, and follows it +much more closely than Ibsen's does. But we are conscious of a less +painful effort and of a more human result. Morris does successfully what +Ibsen unsuccessfully aimed at doing: he translates the heroic and half- +fabulous action into terms that are human and credible.</p> + +<p>It was, moreover, an error of judgment on the part of the Norwegian +playwright to make his tragedy a mosaic of effective bits borrowed +hither and thither from the Sagas. Scandinavian bibliography has toiled +to show his indebtedness to this tale and to that, and he has been +accused of concealing his plagiarisms. But to say this is to miss the +mark. A poet is at liberty to steal what he will, if only he builds his +thefts up into a living structure of his own. For this purpose, however, +it is practically found that, owing perhaps to the elastic consistency +of individual human nature, it is safest to stick to one story, +embroidering and developing it along its own essential lines.</p> + +<p>There is great vigor, however, in many of the scenes in <i>The Vikings</i>. +The appearance of Hiördis on the stage, in the opening act, marks, +perhaps, the first occasion on which Ibsen had put forth his full +strength as a playwright. This entrance of Hiördis ought to be extremely +effective; in fact, we understand, it rarely is. The cause of this +disappointment can easily be discovered. It is the misfortune of The +Vikings that it is hardly to be acted by mortal men. Hiördis herself is +superhuman; she has eaten the heart of a wolf, she claims direct descent +from a race of fighting giants. There is a grandeur about the conception +of her form and character, but it is a grandeur which might well daunt a +human actress. One can faintly imagine the part being played by Mrs. +Siddons, with such an extremity of fierceness and terror that ladies and +gentlemen would be carried out of the theatre in hysterics, as in the +days of Byron. Where Hiördis insults her guests, and contrives the +horrid murder of the boy Thorolf before their eyes, we have a stage- +dilemma presented to us-either the actress must treat the scene +inadequately, or else intolerably. <i>Ne pueros coram populo Medea +trucidet</i>, and we shrink from Hiördis with a physical disgust. Her great +hands and shrieking mouth are like Bellona's, and they smell of blood.</p> + +<p>What is true of Hiördis is true in less degree of all the characters in +<i>The Vikings</i>. They are "great beautiful half-witted men," as Mr. +Chesterton would say:</p> + +<p> Our sea was dark with dreadful ships<br> + Full of strange spoil and fire,<br> + And hairy men, as strange as sin,<br> + With horrid heads, came wading in<br> + Through the long low sea-mire.</p> + +<p>This is the other side of the picture; this is how Örnulf and his seven +terrible sons must have appeared to Kaare the peasant, and this is how, +to tell the truth, they would in real life appear to us. The persons in +<i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i> are so primitive that they scarcely appeal to +our sense of reality. In spite of all the romantic color that the poet +has lavished upon them, and the majestic sentiments which he has put +into their mouths, we feel that the inhabitants of Helgeland must have +regarded them as those of Surbiton regarded the beings who were shot +down from Mars in Mr. Wells' blood-curdling story.</p> + +<p><i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i> is a work of extraordinary violence and +agitation. The personages bark at one another like seals and roar like +sea-lions; they "cry for blood, like beasts at night." Örnulf, the aged +father of a grim and speechless clan, is sorely wounded at the beginning +of the play, but it makes no difference to him; no one binds up his arm, +but he talks, fights, travels as before. We may see here foreshadowed +various features of Ibsen's more mannered work. Here is his favorite +conventional tame man, since, among the shouting heroes, Gunnar whimpers +like a Tesman. Here is Ibsen's favorite trick of unrequited self- +sacrifice; it is Sigurd, in Gunnar's armor, who kills the mystical white +bear, but it is Gunnar who reaps the advantage. It is only fair to say +that there is more than this to applaud in <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>; +it moves on a consistent and high level of austere romantic beauty. Mr. +William Archer, who admires the play more than any Scandinavian critic +has done, justly draws attention to the nobility of Örnulf's entrance in +the third act. Yet, on the whole, I confess myself unable to be +surprised at the severity with which Heiberg judged <i>The Vikings</i> at its +first appearance, a severity which must have wounded Ibsen to the quick.</p> + +<p>The year 1857 was one of unsettlement in Ibsen's condition. The period +for which he had undertaken to manage the theatre at Bergen had now come +to a close, and he was not anxious to prolong it. He had had enough of +Bergen, to which only one chain now bound him. Those who read the +incidents of a poet's life into the pages of his works may gratify their +tendency by seeing in the discussions between Dagny and Hiördis some +echo of the thoughts which were occupying Ibsen's mind in relation to +the married state. Since his death, the story has been told of his love- +affair with a very young girl, Rikke Holst, who had attracted his notice +by throwing a bunch of wild flowers in his face, and whom he followed +and desired to marry. Her father had rejected the proposal with +indignation. Ibsen had suffered considerably, but this was, after all, +an early and a very fugitive sentiment, which made no deep impression on +his heart, although it seems to have always lingered in his memory.</p> + +<p>There had followed a sentiment much deeper and much more emphatic. A +charming, though fragmentary, set of verses, addressed in January, 1856, +to Miss Susannah Thoresen, show that already for a long while he had +come to regard this girl of twenty as "the young dreaming enigma," the +possible solution of which interested him more than that of any other +living problem. It was more than the conversation of a versifying lover +which made Ibsen speak of Miss Thoresen's "blossoming child-soul" as the +bourne of his ambitions. In his dark way, he was already violently in +love with her.</p> + +<p>The household of her father, Hans Conrad Thoresen, was the most +cultivated in Bergen. He himself, the rector of Holy Cross, was a +bookish, meditative man of no particular initiative, but he had married, +as his third wife, Anna Maria Kragh, a Dane by birth, and for a long +time, with the possible exception of Camilla Collett, Wergeland's +sister, the most active woman of letters in Norway. Mrs. Thoresen was +the step-mother of Susannah, the only child of her husband's second +marriage. Between Magdalene Thoresen and Ibsen a strong friendship had +sprung up, which lasted to the end of their lives, and some of Ibsen's +best letters are those written to his wife's step-mother. She worked +hard for him at the Bergen theatre, translating plays from the French, +and it was during Ibsen's management of the theatre that several of her +own pieces were produced. Her prose stories, in connection with which +her name lives in Norwegian literature, were not yet written; so long as +Ibsen was at her side, her ideas seem to have been concentrated on the +stage. Constant communication with this charming woman only nine years +his senior, and much his superior in conventional culture, must have +been a school of refinement to the crude and powerful young poet. And +now the wise Magdalene appeared to him in a new light, dedicating to him +the best treasure of the family circle, the gay and yet mysterious +Susannah.</p> + +<p>While he was writing <i>The Vikings at Helgeland</i>, and courting Susannah +Thoresen, Ibsen received what seemed a timely invitation to settle in +Christiania as director of the Norwegian Theatre; he returned, +thereupon, to the capital in the summer of 1857, after an absence of six +years. Now began another period of six years more, these the most +painful in Ibsen's life, when, as Halvorsen has said, he had to fight +not merely for the existence of himself and his family, but for the very +existence of Norwegian poetry and the Norwegian stage. This struggle was +an excessively distressing one. He had left Bergen crippled with debts, +and his marriage (June 26, 1856) weighed him down with further +responsibilities. The Norwegian Theatre at Christiania was, a secondary +house, ill-supported by its patrons, often tottering at the brink of +bankruptcy, and so primitive was the situation of literature in the +country that to attempt to live by poetry and drama was to court +starvation. His slender salary was seldom paid, and never in full. The +only published volume of Ibsen's which had (up to 1863) sold at all was +<i>The Warriors</i>, by which he had made in all 227 specie dollars (or about +£25).</p> + +<p>The Christiania he had come to, however, was not that which he had left. +In many directions it had developed rapidly. From an intellectual point +of view, the labors of the nationalists had made themselves felt; the +folk-lore of Landstad, Moe and Asbjörnsen had impressed young +imaginations. In some of its forms the development was unpleasing and +discouraging to Ibsen; the success of the blank-verse tragedies of +Andreas Munch (<i>Salomon de Caus</i>, 1855; <i>Lord William Russell</i>, 1857) +was, for instance, an irritating step in the wrong direction. The new- +born school of prose fiction, with Björnson as its head (<i>Synnöve +Solbakken</i>, 1857; <i>Arne</i>, 1858), with Camilla Collett's <i>Prefect's +Daughters</i>, 1855, as its herald; with Östgaard's sketches of peasant +life and humors in the mountains (1852)—all this was a direct menace to +the popularity of the national stage, offering an easy and alluring +alternative for home-loving citizens. Was it certain that the classic +Danish, which alone Ibsen cared to write, would continue to be the +language of the cultivated classes in Norway? Here was Ivar Aasen (in +1853) showing that the irritating landsmaal could be used for prose and +verse.</p> + +<p>Wherever he turned Ibsen saw increased vitality, but in shapes that were +either useless or antagonistic to himself, and all that was harsh and +saturnine in his nature awakened. We see Ibsen, at this moment of his +life, like Shakespeare in his darkest hour, "in disgrace with fortune +and men's eyes," unappreciated and ready to doubt the reality of his own +genius; and murmuring to himself:—</p> + +<p> Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,<br> + Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,<br> + Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope.<br> + With what I most enjoy contented least.</p> + +<p>How little his greatness was perceived in the Christiania literary +coteries may be gathered from the little fact that the species of +official anthology of <i>Modern Norwegian Poets</i>, published in 1859, +though it netted the shallows of national song very closely, contained +not a line by the author of the lovely lyrics in <i>The Feast at Solhoug</i>. +It was at this low and miserable moment that Ibsen's talent suddenly +took wings; he conceived, in the summer of 1858, what finally became, +five years later, his first acknowledged masterpiece, and perhaps the +most finished of all his writings, the sculptural tragedy of <i>The +Pretenders</i>.</p> + +<p><i>The Pretenders</i> (<i>Kongsemnerne</i>, properly stuff from which Kings can be +made) is the earliest of the plays of Ibsen in which the psychological +interest is predominant, and in which there is no attempt to disguise +the fact. Nothing that has since been written about this drama, the very +perfection of which is baffling to criticism, has improved upon the +impression which Georg Brandes received from it when he first read it +forty years ago. The passage is classic, and deserves to be cited, if +only as perhaps the very earliest instance in which the genius of Ibsen +was rewarded by the analysis of a great critic. Brandes wrote (in +1867):—</p> + +<p>What is it that The Pretenders treats of? Looked at simply, it is an old +story. We all know the tale of Aladdin and Nureddin, the simple legend +in the Arabian Nights, and our great poet's [Oehlenschläger's] +incomparable poem. In <i>The Pretenders</i> two figures again stand opposed +to one another as the superior and the inferior being, an Aladdin and a +Nureddin nature. It is towards this contrast that Ibsen has hitherto +unconsciously directed his endeavors, just as Nature feels her way in +her blind preliminary attempts to form her types. Håkon and Skule are +pretenders to the same throne, scions of royalty out of whom a king may +be made. But the first is the incarnation of fortune, victory, right and +confidence; the second—the principal figure in the play, masterly in +its truth and originality—is the brooder, a prey to inward struggle and +endless distrust, brave and ambitious, with perhaps every qualification +and claim to be king, but lacking the inexpressible, impalpable somewhat +that would give a value to all the rest—the wonderful Lamp. "I am a +king's arm," he says, "mayhap a king's brain as well; but Håkon is the +whole king." "You have wisdom and courage, and all noble gifts of the +mind," says Håkon to him; "you are born to stand nearest a king, but not +to be a king yourself."</p> + +<p>To a poet the achievements of his greatest contemporaries in their +common art have all the importance of high deeds in statesmanship and +war. It is, therefore, by no means extravagant to see in the noble +emulation of the two dukes in <i>The Pretenders</i> some reflection of +Ibsen's attitude to the youthful and brilliant Björnson. The luminous +self-reliance, the ardor and confidence and good fortune of Björnson- +Håkon could not but offer a violent contrast with the gloom and +hesitation, the sick revulsions of hope and final lack of conviction, of +Ibsen-Skule. It was Björnson's "belt of strength," as it was Håkon's, +that he had utter belief in himself, and with this his rival could not +yet girdle himself. "The luckiest man is the greatest man," says Bishop +Nicholas in the play, and Björnson seemed in these melancholy years as +lucky as Ibsen was unlucky. But the Bishop's views were not wide enough, +and the end was not yet.</p> + +<a name="i3"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="1868.jpg (90K)" src="1868.jpg" height="756" width="490"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="c4"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<br> +<h3>THE SATIRES (1857-67)</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>Temperament and environment combined at the period we have now reached +to turn Ibsen into a satirist. It was during his time of <i>Sturm und +Drang</i>, from 1857 to 1864, that the harshest elements in his nature were +awakened, and that he became one who loved to lash the follies of his +age. With the advent of prosperity and recognition this phase melted +away, leaving Ibsen without illusions and without much pity, but no +longer the scourge of his fellow-citizens. Although <i>The Pretenders</i>, a +work of dignified and polished aloofness, was not completed until 1863, +it really belongs to the earlier and more experimental section of +Ibsen's works, and is so completely the outcome and the apex of his +national studies that it has seemed best to consider it with <i>The +Vikings at Helgeland</i>, in spite of its immense advance upon that drama. +But we must now go back a year, and take up an entirely new section +which overlaps the old, namely, that of Ibsen's satires in dramatic +rhyme.</p> + +<p>With regard to the adoption of that form of poetic art, a great +difference existed between Norwegian and English taste, and this must be +borne in mind. Almost exactly at the date when Ibsen was inditing the +sharp couplets of his <i>Love's Comedy</i>, Tennyson, in <i>Sea Dreams</i>, was +giving voice to the English abandonment of satire—which had been +rampant in the generation of Byron—in the famous words:—</p> + +<p> I loathe it: he had never kindly heart,<br> + Nor ever cared to better his own kind,<br> + Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it.</p> + +<p>What England repudiated, Norway comprehended, and in certain hands +enjoyed. Polemical literature, if seldom of a high class, was abundant +and was much appreciated. The masterpiece of modern Norwegian poetry +was, still, the satiric cycle of Welhaven. In ordinary controversy, the +tone was more scathing, the bludgeon was whirled more violently, than +English taste at that period could endure. Those whom Ibsen designed to +crush had not minced their own words. The press was violence itself, and +was not tempered with justice; when the poet looked round he saw +"afflicted virtue insolently stabbed with all manner of reproaches," as +Dryden said.</p> + +<p>Yet it was not an age of gross and open vices; manners were not +flagitious, they were merely of a nauseous insipidity. Ibsen, flown with +anger as with wine, could find no outrageous offences to lash, and all +he could invite the age to do was to laugh at certain conventions and to +reconsider some prejudicated opinions. He had to be pungent, not openly +ferocious; he had to be sarcastic and to treat the current code of +morals as a jest. He found the society around him excessively +distasteful to him, but there were no crying evils of a political or +ethical kind to be stigmatized. What was open to him was what an old +writer of our own defined as "a sharp, well-mannered way of laughing a +folly out of countenance."</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, the people laughed at will never consent to think the way +well mannered, and Ibsen was bitterly blamed for "want of taste," that +vaguest and most insidious of accusations. We are told that he began his +enterprise in prose [Note: "<i>Svanhild</i>: a Comedy in three acts and in +prose: 1860," is understood to exist still in manuscript], but found +that too stiff and bald a medium for a satire on the social crudity of +Norway. In writing satire, it is all-important that the form should be +adequate, and at this time Ibsen had not reached the impeccable +perfection of his later colloquial prose. He started <i>Love's Comedy</i>, +therefore, anew, and he wrote it as a pamphlet in rhyme. It is not +certain that he had any very definite idea of the line which his attack +should take. He was very poor, very sore, very uncomfortable, and he was +easily convinced that the times were out of joint. Then he observed that +if there was anything that the Norwegian upper classes prided themselves +upon it was their conduct of betrothal and marriage. Plato had said that +the familiarity of young persons before marriage prevented enmity and +disappointment in later years, that it was useful to know the +peculiarities of temperament beforehand, and so, being accustomed to +them, to discount them. But Ibsen was not of this opinion, or rather, +perhaps, he did not choose to be. The extremely slow and public method +of betrothal in the North gave him his first opportunity.</p> + +<p>It is with a song, in the original one of the most delicious of his +lyrics, that he opens the campaign. To a miscellaneous party of +Philistines circled around the tea table, "all sober and all ——" the +rebellious hero sings:—</p> + +<p> + In the sunny orchard-closes,<br> + While the warblers sing and swing,<br> + Care not whether blustering Autumn<br> + Break the promises of Spring;<br> + Rose and white the apple-blossom<br> + Hides you from the sultry sky;<br> + Let it flutter, blown and scattered,<br> + On the meadow by and by.</p> + +<p>In the sexual struggle, that is to say, the lovers should not pause to +consider the worldly advantages of their match, but should fly in secret +to each other's arms. By the law of battle, the female should be +snatched to the conqueror's saddle-bow, and ridden away with into the +night, not subjected to the jokes and the good advice and the +impertinent congratulations of the clan. Young Lochinvar does not wait +to ask the counsel of the bride's cousins, nor to run the gantlet of her +aunts; he fords the Esk river with her, where ford there is none. Ibsen +is in favor of the <i>mariage de convenance</i>, which suppresses, without +favor, the absurdity of love-matches. Above all, anything is better than +the publicity, the meddling and long-drawn exposure of betrothal, which +kills the fine delicacy of love, as birds are apt to break their own +eggs if intruding hands have touched them.</p> + +<p>This is the central point in <i>Love's Comedy</i>, but there is much beside +this in its reckless satire on the "sanctities" of domestic life. The +burden of monogamy is frivolously dealt with, and the impertinent poet +touches with levity upon the question of the duration of marriage:</p> + +<p> With my living, with my singing,<br> + I will tear the hedges down!<br> + Sweep the grass and heap the blossom!<br> + Let it shrivel, pale and blown!<br> + Throw the wicket wide! Sheep, cattle,<br> + Let them browse among the best<br>! + <i>I</i> broke off the flowers; what matter<br> + Who may graze among the rest!</p> + +<p><i>Love's Comedy</i> is perhaps the most diverting of Ibsen's works; it is +certainly the most impertinent. If there was one class in Norwegian +society which was held to be above criticism it was the clerical. A +prominent character in Ibsen's comedy is the Rev. Mr. Strawman, a gross, +unctuous and uxorious priest, blameless and dull, upon whose inert body +the arrows of satire converge. This was never forgotten and long was +unforgiven. As late as 1866 the Storthing refused a grant to Ibsen +definitely on the ground of the scandal caused by his sarcastic portrait +of Pastor Strawman. But the gentler sex, to which every poet looks for +an audience, was not less deeply outraged by the want of indulgence +which he had shown for all forms of amorous sentiment, although Ibsen +had really, through his satire on the methods of betrothal, risen to +something like a philosophical examination of the essence of love +itself.</p> + +<p>To Brandes, who reproached him for not recording the history of ideal +engagements, and who remarked, "You know, there are sound potatoes and +rotten potatoes in this world," Ibsen cynically replied, "I am afraid +none of the sound ones have come under my notice"; and when Guldstad +proves to the beautiful Svanhild the paramount importance of creature +comforts, the last word of distrust in the sustaining power of love had +been said. The popular impression of Ibsen as an "immoral" writer seems +to be primarily founded on the paradox and fireworks of <i>Love's Comedy</i>.</p> + +<p>Much might be forgiven to a man so wretched as Ibsen was in 1862, and +more to a poet so lively, brilliant and audacious in spite of his +misfortunes. These now gathered over his head and threatened to submerge +him altogether. He was perhaps momentarily saved by the publication of +<i>Terje Vigen</i>, which enjoyed a solid popularity. This is the principal +and, indeed, almost the only instance in Ibsen's works of what the +Northern critics call "epic," but what we less ambitiously know as the +tale in verse. <i>Terje Figen</i> will never be translated successfully into +English, for it is written, with brilliant lightness and skill, in an +adaptation of the Norwegian ballad-measure which it is impossible to +reproduce with felicity in our language.</p> + +<p>Among Ibsen's writings <i>Terje Vigen</i> is unique as a piece of pure +sentimentality carried right rough without one divagation into irony or +pungency. It is the story of a much-injured and revengeful Norse pilot, +who, having the chance to drown his old enemies, Milord and Milady, +saves them at the mute appeal of their blue-eyed English baby. <i>Terje +Vigen</i> is a masterpiece of what we may define as the "dash-away-a-manly- +tear" class of narrative. It is extremely well written and picturesque, +but the wonder is that, of all people in the world, Ibsen should have +written it.</p> + +<p>His short lyric poems of this period betray much more clearly the real +temper of the man. They are filled full and brimming over with longing +and impatience, with painful passion and with hope deferred. It is in +the strident lyrics Ibsen wrote between 1857 and 1863 that we can best +read the record of his mind, and share its exasperations, and wonder at +its elasticity. The series of sonnets <i>In a Picture Gallery</i> is a +strangely violent confession of distrust in his own genius; the <i>Epistle +to H. O. Blom</i> a candid admission of his more than distrust in the +talent and honesty of others. It was the peculiarity and danger of +Ibsen's position that he represented no one but himself. For instance, +the liberty of many of the expressions in <i>Love's Comedy</i> led those who +were beginning a movement in favor of the emancipation of women to +believe that Ibsen was in sympathy with them, but he was not. All +through his life, although his luminous penetration into character led +him to be scrupulously fair in his analysis of female character, he was +never a genuine supporter of the extension of public responsibility to +the sex. A little later (in 1869), when John Stuart Mill's <i>Subjection +of Women</i> produced a sensation in Scandinavia, and met with many +enthusiastic supporters, Ibsen coldly reserved his opinion. He was +always an observer, always a clinical analyst at the bedside of society, +never a prophet, never a propagandist.</p> + +<p>His troubles gathered upon him. Neither theatre consented to act <i>Love's +Comedy</i>, and it would not even have been printed but for the zeal of the +young novelist Jonas Lie, who, to his great honor, bought for about £35 +the right to publish it as a supplement to a newspaper that he was +editing. Then the storm broke out; the press was unanimously adverse, +and in private circles abuse amounted almost to a social taboo. In 1862 +the second theatre became bankrupt, and Ibsen was thrown on the world, +the most unpopular man of his day, and crippled with debts. It is true +that he was engaged at the Christiania Theatre at a nominal salary of +about a pound a week, but he could not live on that. In August, 1860, he +had made a pathetic appeal to the Government for a <i>digter-gage</i>, a +payment to a poet, such as is freely given to talent in the Northern +countries. Sums were voted to Björnson and Vinje, but to Ibsen not a +penny. By some influence, however, for he was not without friends, he +was granted in March, 1862, a travelling grant of less than £20 to +enable him to wander for two months in western Hardanger and the +districts around the Sognefjord for the purpose of collecting folk-songs +and legends. The results of this journey were prepared for publication, +but never appeared. This interesting excursion, however, has left its +mark stamped broadly upon <i>Brand</i> and <i>Peer Gynt</i>.</p> + +<p>All through 1863 his condition was critical. He determined that his only +hope was to exile himself definitely from Norway, which had become too +hot to hold him. Various private friends generously helped him over this +dreadful time of adversity, earning a gratitude which, if it was not +expansive, was lifelong. Very grudging recognition of his gifts was at +length made by the Government in the shape of another trifling +travelling grant (March, 1863), again a handsome sum being awarded to +Björnson, his popular rival. In May Ibsen applied, in despair, to the +King himself, who conferred upon him a small pension of £90 a year, +which for the immediate future stood between this great poet and +starvation. The news of it was received in Christiania by the press in +terms of despicable insult.</p> + +<p>But in June of this <i>année terrible</i> Ibsen had a flash of happiness. He +was invited down to Bergen to the fifth great "Festival of Song," a +national occurrence, and he and his poems met with a warm reception. +Moreover, he found his brilliant antagonist, Björnson, at Bergen on a +like errand, and renewed an old friendship with this warm-hearted and +powerful man of genius, destined to play through life the part of Håkon +to Ibsen's Skule. They spent much of the subsequent winter together. As +Halvdan Koht has excellently said: "Their intercourse brought them +closer to each other than they had ever been before. They felt that they +were inspired by the same ideas and the same hopes, and they suffered +the same bitter disappointments. With anguish they watched the Danish +brother-nation's desperate struggle against the superior power of +Germany, and save a province with a population of Scandinavian race and +speech taken from Denmark and incorporated in a foreign kingdom, whilst +the Norwegian and Swedish kinsmen, in spite of solemn promises, +refrained from yielding any assistance." An attack on Holstein (December +22, 1863) had introduced the Second Danish War, to which a disastrous +and humiliating termination was brought in the following August.</p> + +<p>In April, 1864, Ibsen took the momentous step of quitting his native +country. He entered Copenhagen at the dark hour when Schleswig as well +as Holstein had been abandoned, and when the citadel of Düpper alone +stood between Denmark and ruin. His agonized sympathy may be read in the +indignant lyrics of that spring. A fortnight later he set out, by Lübeck +and Trieste, for Rome, where he had now determined to reside. He reached +that city in due time, and sank with ineffable satisfaction into the +arms of its antique repose. "Here at last," he wrote to Björnson, "there +is blessed peace," and he settled himself down to the close +contemplation of poetry.</p> + +<p>The change from the severities of an interminable Northern winter to the +glow and splendor of Italy acted on the poet's spirit like an +enchantment. Ibsen came, another Pilgrim of Eternity, to Rome's "azure +sky, flowers, ruins, statues, music," and at first the contrast between +the crudity he had left and the glory he had found was almost +intolerable. He could not work; all he did was to lie in the flushed air +and become as a little child. There has scarcely been another example of +a writer of the first class who, deeply solicitous about beauty, but +debarred from all enjoyment of it until his thirty-seventh year, has +been suddenly dipped, as if into a magic fountain, into the heart of +unclouded loveliness without transition or preparation. Shelley and +Keats were dead long before they reached the age at which Ibsen broke +free from his prison-house of ice, while Byron, in the same year of his +life, was closing his romantic career.</p> + +<p>Ibsen's earliest impressions of what these poets had become accustomed +to at a ductile age were contradictory and even incoherent. The passion +of pagan antiquity for a long while bewildered him. He wandered among +the vestiges of antique art, unable to perceive their relation to modern +life, or their original significance. He missed the impress of the +individual on classic sculpture, as he had missed it—the parallel is +strange, but his own—on the Eddaic poems of ancient Iceland. He liked a +lyric or a statue to speak to him of the man who made it. He felt more +at home with Bernini among sculptors and with Bramante among architects +than with artists of a more archaic type. Shelley, we may remember, +labored under a similar heresy; to each of these poets the +attractiveness of individual character overpowered the languid flavor of +the age in which the artist had flourished. Ibsen's admiration of a +certain overpraised monument of Italian architecture would not be worth +recording but for the odd vigor with which he adds that the man who made +that might have made the moon in his leisure moments.</p> + +<p>During the first few months of Ibsen's life in Rome all was chaos in his +mind. He was plunged in stupefaction at the beauties of nature, the +amenities of mankind, the interpenetration of such a life with such an +art as he had never dreamed of and could yet but dimly comprehend. In +September, 1864, he tells Björnson that he is at work on a poem of +considerable length. This must have been the first draft of <i>Brand</i>, +which was begun, we know, as a narrative, or as the Northerns call it, +an "epic" poem; although a sketch for the <i>Julianus Apostata</i> was +already forming in the back of his head, as a subject which would, +sooner or later, demand poetic treatment. He had left his wife and +little son in Copenhagen, but at the beginning of October they joined +him in Rome. The family lived on an income which seems almost incredibly +small, a maximum of 40 scudi a month. But it was a different thing to be +hungry in Christiania and in Rome, and Ibsen makes no complaints. A sort +of blessed languor had fallen upon him after all his afflictions. He +would loll through half his days among the tombs on the Via Latina, or +would loiter for hours and hours along the Appian Way. It took him weeks +to summon energy to visit S. Pietro in Vincoli, although he knew that +Michelangelo's "Moses" was there, and though he was weary with longing +to see it. All the tense chords of Ibsen's nature were loosened. His +soul was recovering, through a long and blissful convalescence, from the +aching maladies of its youth.</p> + +<p>He took some part in the society of those Scandinavian writers, painters +and sculptors who gathered in Rome through the years of their distress. +But only one of them attracted him strongly, the young Swedish lyrical +poet, Count Carl Snoilsky, then the hope and already even the glory of +his country. There was some quaint diversity between the rude and gloomy +Norwegian dramatist, already middle-aged, and the full-blooded, +sparkling Swedish diplomatist of twenty-three, rich, flattered, and +already as famous for his fashionable <i>bonnes fortunes</i> as Byron. But +two things Snoilsky and Ibsen had in common, a passionate enthusiasm for +their art, and a rebellious attitude towards their immediate precursors +in it. Each, in his own way, was the leader of a new school. The +friendship of Ibsen and Snoilsky was a permanent condition for the rest +of their lives, for it was founded on a common basis.</p> + +<p>A few years later the writer of these pages received an amusing +impression of Ibsen at this period from the Danish poet, Christian +Molbech, who was also in Rome in 1865 and onwards. Ibsen wandering +silently about the streets, his hands plunged far into the pockets of +his invariable jacket of faded velveteen, Ibsen killing conversation by +his sudden moody appearances at the Scandinavian Club, Ibsen shattering +the ideals of the painters and the enthusiasms of the antiquaries by a +running fire of sarcastic paradox, this is mainly what the somewhat +unsympathetic Molbech was not unwilling to reproduce. He painted a more +agreeable Ibsen when he spoke of his summer flights to the Alban Hills, +planned on terms of the most prudent reference to resources which seemed +ever to be expected and never to arrive. Nevertheless, under the vines +in front of some inn at Genzano or Albano, Ibsen would duly be +discovered, placid and dreamy, always self-sufficient and self- +contained, but not unwilling to exchange, over a flask of thin wine, +commonplaces with a Danish friend. It was at Ariccia, in one of these +periods of <i>villegiatura</i>, during the summer and autumn of 1865, that +<i>Brand</i>, which had long been under considerature, suddenly took final +shape, and was written throughout, without pause or hesitation. In July +the poet put everything else aside to begin it, and before the end of +September he had completed it.</p> + +<p><i>Brand</i> placed Ibsen at a bound among the greatest European poets of his +age. The advance over the sculptural perfection of <i>The Pretenders</i> and +the graceful wit of <i>Love's Comedy</i> was so great as to be startling. +Nothing but the veil of a foreign language, which the best translations +are powerless to tear away from noble verse, prevented this mastery from +being perceived at once. In Scandinavia, where that veil did not exist, +for those who had eyes to see, and who were not blinded by prejudice, it +was plain that a very great writer had arisen in Norway at last. +Björnson had seemed to slip ahead of Ibsen; his <i>Sigurd Slembe</i> (1862) +was a riper work than the elder friend had produced; but <i>Mary Stuart in +Scotland</i> (1864) had marked a step backward, and now Ibsen had once more +shot far ahead of his rival. When we have admitted some want of +clearness in the symbolism which runs through <i>Brand</i>, and some shifting +of the point of view in the two last acts, an incoherency and a +turbidity which are natural in the treatment of so colossal a theme, +there is very little but praise to be given to a poem which is as +manifold in its emotion and as melodious in its versification as it is +surprising in its unchallenged originality. In the literatures of +Scandinavia it has not merely been unsurpassed, but in its own peculiar +province it has not been approached. It bears some remote likeness to +<i>Faust</i>, but with that exception there is perhaps nothing in the +literature of the world which can be likened to <i>Brand</i>, except, of +course, <i>Peer Gynt</i>.</p> + +<p>For a long while it was supposed that the difficulties in the way of +performing <i>Brand</i> on the public stage were too great to be overcome. +But the task was attempted at length, first in Stockholm in 1895; and +within the last few years this majestic spectacle has been drawn in full +before the eyes of enraptured audiences in Copenhagen, Berlin, Moscow +and elsewhere. In spite of the timid reluctance of managers, wherever +this play is adequately presented, it captures an emotional public at a +run. It is an appeal against moral apathy which arouses the languid. It +is a clear and full embodiment of the gospel of energy which awakens and +upbraids the weak. In the original, its rush of rhymes produces on the +nerves an almost delirious excitement. If it is taken as an oration, it +is responded to as a great civic appeal; if as a sermon, it is sternly +religious, and fills the heart with tears. In the solemn mountain air, +with vague bells ringing high up among the glaciers, no one asks exactly +what <i>Brand</i> expounds, nor whether it is perfectly coherent. Witnessed +on the living stage, it takes the citadel of the soul by storm. When it +is read, the critical judgment becomes cooler.</p> + +<p>Carefully examined, <i>Brand</i> is found to present a disconcerting mixture +of realism and mysticism. Two men seem at work in the writing of it, and +their effects are sometimes contradictory. It has constantly been asked, +and it was asked at one, "Is <i>Brand</i> the expression of Ibsen's own +nature?" Yes, and no. He threw much of himself into his hero, and yet he +was careful to remain outside. Ibsen, as we have already pointed out, +was ready in later life to discuss his own writings, and what he said +about them is often dangerously mystifying. He told Georg Brandes that +the religious vocation of Brand was not essential. "I could have applied +the whole syllogism just as well to a sculptor, or a politician, as to a +priest." (He was to deal with each of these alternations later on, but +with what a difference!) "I could quite as well," he persisted, "have +worked out the impulse which drove me to write, by taking Galileo, for +instance, as my hero—assuming, of course, that Galileo should stand +firm and never concede the fixity of the earth—or you yourself in your +struggle with the Danish reactionaries." This is not to the point, since +in fact neither Georg Brandes nor Galileo, as hero of a mystical drama, +could have produced such a capacity for evolution as is presented by the +stern priest whose absolute certitude, although founded, one admits, on +no rational theory of theology, is yet of the very essence of religion.</p> + +<p>Brand becomes intelligible when we regard him as a character of the +twelfth century transferred to the nineteenth. He has something of Peter +the Hermit in him. He ought to have been a crusading Christian king, +fighting against the Moslem for the liberties of some sparkling city of +God. He exists in his personage, under the precipice, above the fjord, +like a rude mediaeval anchorite, who eats his locusts and wild honey in +the desert. We cannot comprehend the action of Brand by any reference to +accepted creeds and codes, because he is so remote from the religious +conventions as hardly to seem objectively pious at all. He is violent +and incoherent; he knows not clearly what it is he wants, but it must be +an upheaval of all that exists, and it must bring Man into closer +contact with God. Brand is a king of souls, but his royal dignity is +marred, and is brought sometimes within an inch of the ridiculous, by +the prosaic nature of his modern surroundings. He is harsh and cruel; he +is liable to fits of anger before which the whole world trembles; and it +is by an avalanche, brought down upon him by his own wrath, that he is +finally buried in the ruins of the Ice-Church.</p> + +<p>The judicious reader may like to compare the character of Brand with +that extraordinary study of violence, the <i>Abbé Jules</i> of Octave +Mirbeau. In each we have the history of revolt, in a succession of +crises, against an invincible vocation. In each an element of weakness +is the pride of a peasant priest. But in Ibsen there is fully developed +what the cynicism of Octave Mirbeau avoids, a genuine conception of such +a rebel's ceaseless effort after personal holiness. Lammers or +Lammenais, what can it matter whether some existing priest of +insurrection did or did not set Ibsen for a moment on the track of his +colossal imagination? We may leave these discussions to the +commentators; <i>Brand</i> is one of the great poems of the world, and +endless generations of critics will investigate its purpose and analyze +its forms.</p> + +<p>There is, however, another than the priestly side. The poem contains a +great deal of superficial and rather ephemeral satire of contemporary +Scandinavian life, echoes of a frightened Storthing in Christiania, of a +crafty court in Stockholm, and of Denmark stretching her bleeding hands +to her sisters in an agony of despair. There is the still slighter local +strain of irony, which lightens the middle of the third act. Here Ibsen +comes not to heal but to slay; he exposes the corpse of an exhausted +age, and will bury it quickly, with sexton's songs and peals of elfin +laughter, in some chasm of rock above a waterfall. "It is Will alone +that matters," and for the weak of purpose there is nothing but ridicule +and six feet of such waste earth as nature carelessly can spare from her +rude store of graves. Against the mountain landscape, Brand holds up his +motto "All or Nothing," persistently, almost tiresomely, like a modern +advertising agent affronting the scenery with his panacea. More +truculently still, he insists upon the worship of a deity, not white- +bearded, but as young as Hercules, a scandal to prudent Lutheran +theologians, a prototype of violent strength.</p> + +<p>Yet Brand's own mission remains undefined to him—if it ever takes exact +shape—until Agnes reveals it to him:—</p> + +<p> Choose thy endless loss or gain!<br> + Do thy work and bear thy pain. ...<br> + Now (he answers) I see my way aright.<br> + In <i>ourselves</i> is that young Earth,<br> + Ripe for the divine new-birth.</p> + +<p>And it is in Agnes—as the marvellous fourth act opens where her love +for the little dear dead child is revealed, and where her patience +endures all the cruelties of her husband's fanaticism—it is in Agnes +that Ibsen's genius for the first time utters the clear, unembittered +note of full humanity. He has ceased now to be parochial; he is a +nursling of the World and Time. If the harsh Priest be, in a measure, +Ibsen as Norway made him, Agnes and Einar, and perhaps Gerd also, are +the delicate offspring of Italy.</p> + +<p>Considerable postponements delayed the publication of <i>Brand</i>, which saw +the light at length, in Copenhagen, in March, 1866. It was at once +welcomed by the Danish press, which had hitherto known little of Ibsen, +and the poet's audience was thus very considerably widened. The satire +of the poem awakened an eager polemic; the popular priest Wexels +preached against its tendency. A novel was published, called <i>The +Daughters of Brand</i>, in which the results of its teaching were analyzed. +Ibsen enjoyed, what he had never experienced before, the light and shade +of a disputed but durable popular success. Four large editions of +<i>Brand</i> were exhausted within the year of its publication, and it took +its place, of course, in more leisurely progress, among the few books +which continued, and still continue, steadily to sell. It has always +been, in the countries of Scandinavia, the best known and the most +popular of all Ibsen's writings.</p> + +<p>This success, however, was largely one of sentiment, not of pecuniary +fortune. The total income from four editions of a poem like <i>Brand</i>, in +the conditions of Northern literary life forty years ago, would not much +exceed £100. Hardly had Ibsen become the object of universal discussion +than he found himself assailed, as never before, by the paralysis of +poverty. He could not breathe, he could not move; he could not afford to +buy postage stamps to stick upon his business letters. He was threatened +with the absolute extinction of his resources. At the very time when +Copenhagen was ringing with his praise Ibsen was borrowing money for his +modest food and rent from the Danish Consul in Rome.</p> + +<p>In the winter of 1865 he fell into a highly nervous condition, in the +midst of which he was assailed by a malarious fever which brought him +within sight of the grave. To the agony of his devoted wife, he lay for +some time between life and death, and the extreme poverty from which +they suffered made it difficult, and even impossible, for her to provide +for him the alleviations which his state demanded. He gradually +recovered, however, thanks to his wife's care and to his own magnificent +constitution, but the springs of courage seemed to have snapped within +his breast.</p> + +<p>In March, 1866, worn out with illness, poverty and suspense, he wrote a +letter to Björnson, "my one and only friend," which is one of the most +heart-rending documents in the history of literature. Few great spirits +have been nearer the extinction of despair than Ibsen was, now in his +thirty-ninth year. His admirers, at their wits' end to know what to +advise, urged him to write directly to Carl, King of Sweden and Norway, +describing his condition, and asking for support. Simultaneously came +the manifest success of <i>Brand</i>, and, for the first time, the Norwegian +press recognized the poet's merit. There was a general movement in his +favor; King Carl graciously received his petition of April 15, and on +May 10 the Storthing, almost unanimously, voted Ibsen a "poet's +pension," restricted in amount but sufficient for his modest needs.</p> + +<p>The first use he made of his freedom was to move out of Rome, where he +found it impossible to write, and to settle at Frascati among the hills. +He hired a nest of cheap rooms in the Palazzo Gratiosi, two thousand +feet above the sea. Thither he came, with his wife and his little son, +and there he fitted himself up a study; setting his writing table at a +window that overlooked an immensity of country, and Mont Soracté closing +the horizon with its fiery pyramid. In his correspondence of this time +there are suddenly noticeable a gayety and an insouciance which are +elements wholly new in his letters. The dreadful burden was lifted; the +dreadful fear of sinking in a sea of troubles and being lost for ever, +the fear which animates his painful letter to King Carl, was blown away +like a cloud and the heaven of his temper was serene. At Frascati he +knew not what to be at; he tried that subject, and this, waiting for the +heavenly spark to fall. It seems to have been at Tusculum, and in the +autumn of 1866, that the subject he was looking for descended upon him. +He hurried back to Rome, and putting all other schemes aside, he devoted +himself heart and soul to the composition of <i>Peer Gynt</i>, which he +described as to be "a long dramatic poem, having as its chief figure one +of the half-mythical and fantastical personages from the peasant life of +<i>modern</i> Norway."</p> + +<p>He wrote this work slowly, more slowly than was his wont, and it was a +whole year on the stocks. It was in the summer that Ibsen habitually +composed with the greatest ease, and <i>Peer Gynt</i> did not trove smoothly +until the poet settled in the Villa Pisani, at Casamicciola, on the +island of Ischia. His own account was: "After <i>Brand</i> came <i>Peer Gynt</i>, +as though of itself. It was written in Southern Italy, in Ischia and at +Sorrento. So far away from one's readers one becomes reckless. This poem +contains much that has its origin in the circumstances of my own youth. +My own mother—with the necessary exaggeration—served as the model for +Ase." <i>Peer Gynt</i> was finished before Ibsen left Sorrento at the end of +the autumn, and the MS. was immediately posted to Copenhagen. None of +the delays which had interfered with the appearance of <i>Brand</i> now +afflicted the temper of the poet, and <i>Peer Gynt</i> was published in +November, 1867.</p> + +<p>In spite of the plain speaking of Ibsen himself, who declared that <i>Peer +Gynt</i> was diametrically opposed in spirit to <i>Brand</i>, and that it made +no direct attack upon social questions, the critics of the later poem +have too often persisted in darkening it with their educational +pedantries. Ibsen did well to be angry with his commentators. "They have +discovered," he said, "much more satire in <i>Peer Gynt</i> than was intended +by me. Why can they not read the book as a poem? For as such I wrote +it." It has been, however, the misfortune of Ibsen that he has +particularly attracted the attention of those who prefer to see anything +in a poem except its poetry, and who treat all tulips and roses as if +they were cabbages for the pot of didactic morality. Yet it is +surprising that after all that the author said, and with the lovely poem +shaking the bauble of its fool's cap at them, there can still be +commentators who see nothing in <i>Peer Gynt</i> but the "awful interest of +the universal problems with which it deals." This obsession of the +critic to discover "problems" in the works of Ibsen has been one of the +main causes of that impatience and even downright injustice with which +his writings have been received by a large section of those readers who +should naturally have enjoyed them. He is a poet, of fantastic wit and +often reckless imagination, and he has been travestied in a long black +coat and white choker, as though he were an embodiment of the +Nonconformist conscience.</p> + +<p>Casting aside, therefore, the spurious "lessons" and supposititious +"problems" of this merry and mundane drama, we may recognize among its +irregularities and audacities two main qualities of merit. Above +everything else which we see in <i>Peer Gynt</i> we see its fun and its +picturesqueness. Written at different times and in different moods, +there is an incoherency in its construction which its most whole-hearted +admirers cannot explain away. The first act is an inimitable burst of +lyrical high spirits, tottering on the verge of absurdity, carried along +its hilarious career with no less peril and with no less brilliant +success than Peer fables for himself and the reindeer in their ride +along the vertiginous blade of the Gjende. In the second act, satire and +fantasy become absolutely unbridled; the poet's genius sings and dances +under him, like a strong ship in a storm, but the vessel is rudderless +and the pilot an emphatic libertine. The wild impertinence of fancy, in +this act, from the moment when Peer and the Girl in the Green Gown ride +off upon the porker, down to the fight with the Böig, gigantic +gelatinous symbol of self deception, exceeds in recklessness anything +else written since the second part of <i>Faust</i>. The third act, +culminating with the drive to Soria Moria Castle and the death of Ase, +is of the very quintessence of poetry, and puts Ibsen in the first rank +of creators. In the fourth act, the introduction of which is abrupt and +grotesque, we pass to a totally different and, I think, a lower order of +imagination. The fifth act, an amalgam of what is worst and best in the +poem, often seems divided from it in tone, style and direction, and is +more like a symbolic or mythical gloss upon the first three acts than a +contribution to the growth of the general story.</p> + +<p>Throughout this tangled and variegated scene the spirits of the author +remain almost preposterously high. If it were all hilarity and sardonic +laughter, we should weary of the strain. But physical beauty of the most +enchanting order is liberally provided to temper the excess of irony. It +is, I think, no exaggeration to say that nowhere to the dramatic +literature of the world, not by Shakespeare himself, is there introduced +into a play so much loveliness of scenery, and such varied and exquisite +appeal to the eyes, as there is in <i>Peer Gynt</i>. The fifth act contains +much which the reader can hardly enjoy, but it opens with a scene so +full of the glory of the mountains and the sea that I know nothing else +in drama to compare with it. This again is followed by one of the finest +shipwrecks in all poetry. Scene after scene, the first act portrays the +cold and solemn beauty of Norwegian scenery as no painter's brush has +contrived to do it. For the woodland background of the Saeter Girls +there is no parallel in plastic art but the most classic of Norwegian +paintings, Dahl's "Birch in a Snow Storm." Pages might be filled with +praise of the picturesqueness of tableau after tableau in each act of +<i>Peer Gynt</i>.</p> + +<p>The hero is the apotheosis of selfish vanity, and he is presented to us, +somewhat indecisively, as the type of one who sets at defiance his own +life's design. But is Peer Gynt designed to be a useful, a good, or even +a successful man? Certainly Ibsen had not discovered it when he wrote +the first act, in which scarcely anything is observable except a study, +full of merriment and sarcasm, of the sly, lazy and parasitical class of +peasant rogue. This type was not of Ibsen's invention; he found it in +those rustic tales, inimitably resumed by Asbjörnson and Moe, in which +he shows us that his memory was steeped. Here, too, he found the Böig, a +monster of Norse superstition, vast and cold, slippery and invisible, +capable of infinite contraction and expansion. The conception that this +horror would stand in symbol for a certain development of selfish +national instability seems to have seized him later, and <i>Peer Gynt</i>, +which began as a farce, continued as a fable. The nearest approach to a +justification of the moral or "problem" purpose, which Ibsen's graver +prophets attribute to him, is found in the sixth scene of the fifth act, +where, quite in the manner of Goethe, thoughts and watchwords and songs +and tears take corporeal form and assail the aged <i>Peer Gynt</i> with their +reproaches.</p> + +<p><i>Peer Gynt</i> was received in the North with some critical bewilderment, +and it has never been so great a favorite with the general public as +<i>Brand</i>. But Ibsen, with triumphant arrogance, when he was told that it +did not conform to the rules of poetic art, asserted that the rules must +be altered, not <i>Peer Gynt</i>. "My book," he wrote, "<i>is</i> poetry; and if +it is not, then it shall be. The Norwegian conception of what poetry is +shall be made to fit my book." There was a struggle at first against +this assumption, but the drama has become a classic, and it is now +generally allowed, that so long as poetry is a term wide enough to +include <i>The Clouds</i> and the Second Part of <i>Faust</i>, it must be made +wide enough to take in a poem as unique as they are in its majestic +intellectual caprices.</p> + +<p>[Note.—By far the most exhaustive analysis of <i>Peer Gynt</i> which has +hitherto been given to the world is that published, as I send these +pages to the press, by the executors of Otto Weininger, in his +posthumous <i>Ueber die letzte Dinge</i> (1907). This extraordinary young +man, who shot himself on October 4, 1903, in the house at Vienna where +Beethoven died, was only twenty-three years of age when he violently +deprived philosophical literature in Europe of by far its most promising +and remarkable recruit. If I confess myself unable to see in <i>Peer Gynt</i> +all that Weininger saw in it, the fault is doubtless mine. But in Ibsen, +unquestionably, time will <i>create</i> profundities, as it has in +Shakespeare. The greatest works grow in importance, as trees do after +the death of the mortal men who planted them.]</p> + +<a name="i5"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="dresden.jpg (71K)" src="dresden.jpg" height="770" width="481"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="c5"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<br> +<h3>1868-75</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>Ibsen's four years in Italy were years of rest, of solitude, of calm. +The attitude of Ibsen to Italy was totally distinct from that of other +illustrious exiles of his day and generation. The line of pilgrims from +Stendhal and Lamartine down to Ruskin and the Brownings had brought with +them a personal interest in Italian affairs; Italian servitude had +roused some of them to anger or irony; they had spent nights of insomnia +dreaming of Italian liberty. <i>Casa Guidi Windows</i> may be taken as the +extreme type of the way in which Italy did not impress Ibsen. He sought +there, and found, under the transparent azure of the Alban sky, in the +harmonious murmurs of the sea, in the violet shadows of the mountains, +above all in the gray streets of Rome, that rest of the brain, that +ripening of the spiritual faculties, which he needed most after his +rough and prolonged adolescence in Norway. In his attitude of passive +appreciation he was, perhaps, more like Landor than like any other of +the illustrious exiles—Landor, who died in Florence a few days after +Ibsen settled in Rome. There was a side of character, too, on which the +young Norwegian resembled that fighting man of genius.</p> + +<p>When, therefore, on September 8, 1867, Garibaldi, at Genoa, announced +his intention of marching upon Rome, an echo woke in many a poet's heart +"by rose hung river and light-foot rill," but left Ibsen simply +disconcerted. If Rome was to be freed from Papal slavery, it would no +longer be the somnolent and unupbraiding haunt of quietness which the +Norwegian desired for the healing of his spleen and his moral +hypochondria. In October the heralds of liberty crossed the Papal +frontier; on the 30th, by a slightly prosaic touch, it was the French +who entered Rome. Of Ibsen, in these last months of his disturbed +sojourn—for he soon determined that if there was going to be civil war +in Italy that country was no home for him—we hear but little. This +autumn, however, we find him increasingly observant of the career of +Georg Brandes, the brilliant and revolutionary Danish critic, in whom he +was later on to find his first great interpreter. And we notice the +beginnings of a difference with Björnson, lamentable and hardly +explicable, starting, it would vaguely seem, out of a sense that +Björnson did not appreciate the poetry of <i>Peer Gynt</i> at its due value. +Clemens Petersen, who, since the decease of Heiberg, had been looked +upon as the <i>doyen</i> of Danish critics—had pronounced against the poetry +of <i>Peer Gynt</i>, and Ibsen, in one of his worst moods, in a bearish +letter, had thrown the blame of this judgment upon Björnson.</p> + +<p>All through these last months in Rome we find Ibsen in the worst of +humors. If it be admissible to compare him with an animal, he seems the +badger among the writers of his time, nocturnal, inoffensive, solitary, +but at the rumor of disturbance apt to rush out of its burrow and bite +with terrific ferocity. The bite of Ibsen was no joke, and in moments of +exasperation he bit, without selection, friend and foe alike. Among +other snaps of the pen, he told Björnson that if he was not taken +seriously as a poet, he should try his "fate as a photographer." +Björnson, genially and wittily, took this up at once, and begged him to +put his photography into the form of a comedy. But the devil, as Ibsen +himself said, was throwing his shadow between the friends, and all the +benefits and all the affection of the old dark days were rapidly +forgotten. They quarrelled, too, rather absurdly, about decorations from +kings and ministers; Björnson having determined to reject all such +gewgaws, Ibsen announced his intention of accepting (and wearing) every +cross and star that was offered to him. At this date, no doubt, the +temptation was wholly problematical in both cases, yet each poet acted +on his determination to the end. But Björnson's hint about the comedy +seems to have been, for some years, the last flicker of friendship +between the two. On this Ibsen presently acted in a manner very +offensive to Björnson.</p> + +<p>In March, 1868, Ibsen was beginning to be very much indeed incensed with +things in general. "What Norway wants is a national disaster," he +amiably snarled. It was high time that the badger should seek shelter in +a new burrow, and in May we find him finally quitting Rome. There was a +farewell banquet, at which Julius Lange, who was present, remarks that +Ibsen showed a spice of the devil, but "was very witty and amiable." He +went to Florence for June, then quitted Italy altogether, settling for +three months at Berchtesgaden, the romantic little "sunbath" in the +Salzburg Alps, then still very quiet and unfashionable. There he started +his five-act comedy, <i>The League of Youth</i>. All September he spent in +Munich, and in October, 1868, took root once more, this time at Dresden, +which became his home for a considerable number of years. Almost at once +he sank down again into his brooding mood of isolation and quietism, +roaming about the streets of Dresden, as he hail haunted those of Rome, +by night or at unfrequented hours, very solitary, seeing few visitors, +writing few letters, slowly finishing his "photographic" comedy, which +he did not get off his hands until March, 1869. Although he was still +very poor, he refused all solicitations from editors to write for +journals or magazines; he preferred to appear before the public at long +intervals, with finished works of importance.</p> + +<p>It is impossible for a critic who is not a Norwegian, or not closely +instructed in the politics and manners of the North, to take much +interest in <i>The League of Youth</i>, which is the most provincial of all +Ibsen's mature works. There is a cant phrase minted in the course of it, +<i>de lokale forhold</i>, which we may awkwardly translate as "the local +conditions" or "situation." The play is all concerned with <i>de lokale +forhold</i>, and there is an overwhelming air of Little Pedlington about +the intrigue. This does not prevent <i>The League of Youth</i> from being, as +Mr. Archer has said, "the first prose comedy of any importance in +Norwegian literature," [Note: It is to be supposed that Mr. Archer +deliberately prefers <i>The League of Youth</i> to Björnson's <i>The Newly +Married Couple</i> (1865), a slighter, but, as it seems to me, a more +amusing comedy.] but it excludes it from the larger European view. Oddly +enough, Ibsen believed, or pretended to believe, that <i>The League of +Youth</i> was a "placable" piece of foolery, which could give no annoyance +to the worst of offenders by its innocent and indulgent banter. Perhaps, +like many strenuous writers, he underestimated the violence of his own +language; perhaps, living so long at a distance from Norway and catching +but faintly the reverberations of its political turmoil, he did not +realize how sensitive the native patriot must be to any chaff of "de +lokale forhold." When he found that the Norwegians were seriously angry, +Ibsen bluntly told them that he had closely studied the ways and the +manners of their "pernicious and lie-steeped clique." He was always +something of a snake in the grass to his poetic victims.</p> + +<p>Mr. Archer, whose criticism of this play is extraordinarily brilliant, +does his best to extenuate the stiffness of it. But to my own ear, as I +read it again after a quarter of a century, there rise the tones of the +stilted, the unsmiling, the essentially provincial and boringly solemn +society of Christiania as it appeared to a certain young pilgrim in the +early seventies, condensing, as it then seemed to do, all the +sensitiveness, the arrogance, the crudity which made communication with +the excellent and hospitable Norwegians of that past epoch so difficult +for an outsider—so difficult, in particular, for one coming freshly +from the grace and sweetness, the delicate, cultivated warmth of +Copenhagen. The political conditions which led to the writing of <i>The +League of Youth</i> are old history now. There was the "liberal" element in +Norwegian politics, which was in 1868 becoming rapidly stronger and more +hampering to the Government, and there was the increasing influence of +Sören Jaabaek (1814-94), a peasant farmer of ultra-socialistic views, +who had, almost alone, opposed in the Storthing the grant of any +pensions to poets, and whose name was an abomination to Ibsen.</p> + +<p>Now Björnson, in the development of his career as a political publicist, +had been flirting more and more outrageously with these extreme ideas +and this truculent peasant party. He had even burned incense before +Jaabaek, who was the accursed Thing. Ibsen, from the perspective of +Dresden, genuinely believed that Björnson, with his ardor and his energy +and his eloquence, war, becoming a national danger. We have seen that +Björnson had piqued Ibsen's vanity about <i>Peer Gynt</i>, and nothing +exasperates a friendship more fatally than public principle grafted on a +private slight. Moreover, the whole nature of Björnson was gregarious, +that of Ibsen solitary; Björnson must always be leading the majority, +Ibsen had scuples of conscience if ten persons agreed with him. They +were doomed to disagreement. Meanwhile, Ibsen burned his ships by +creating the figure of Stensgaard, in <i>The League of Youth</i>, a frothy +and mischievous demagogue whose rhetoric irresistibly reminded every one +of Björnson's rolling oratory. What Björnson, not without dignity, +objected to was not so much the personal attack, as that the whole play +attempted "to paint our young party of liberty as a troop of pushing, +phrase-mongering adventurers, whose patriotism lay solely in their +words." Ibsen acknowledged that that was exactly his opinion of them, +and what could follow for such a disjointed friendship but anger and +silence?</p> + +<p>The year 1869, which we now enter, is remarkable in the career of Ibsen +as being that in which he travelled most, and appeared on the surface of +society in the greatest number of capacities. He was enabled to do this +by a considerable increase in his pension. First of all, he was induced +to pay a visit of some months to Stockholm, being seized with a sudden +strong desire to study conditions in Sweden, a country which he had +hitherto professed to dislike. He had a delightful stay of two months, +received from King Carl the order of the Wasa, was feted at banquets, +renewed his acquaintance with Snoilsky, and was treated everywhere with +the highest distinction. Ibsen and Björnson were how beginning to be +recognized as the two great writers of Norway, and their droll balance +as the Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat of letters was already becoming defined. +It was doubtless Björnson's emphatic attacks on Sweden that at this +moment made Ibsen so loving to the Swedes and so beloved. He was in such +clover at Stockholm that he might have lingered on there indefinitely, +if the Khedive had not invited him, in September, to be his guest at the +opening of the Suez Canal. This sudden incursion of an Oriental +potentate into the narrative seems startling until we recollect that +illustrious persons were invited from all countries to this ceremony. +The interesting thing is to see that Ibsen was now so fatuous as to be +naturally so selected; the only other Norwegian guest being Professor J. +D. C. Lieblein, the Egyptologist.</p> + +<p>The poet started for Egypt, by Dresden and Paris, on September 28. <i>The +League of Youth</i> was published on the 29th, and first performed on +October 18; Ibsen, therefore, just missed the scandal and uproar caused +by the play in Norway. In company with eighty-five other people, all +illustrious guests of the Khedive, and under the care of Mariette Bey, +Ibsen made a twenty-four days' expedition up the Nile into Nubia, and +then back to Cairo and Port Said. There, on November 17, in the company +of an empress and several princes of the blood, he saw the Canal +formally opened and graced a grand processional fleet that sailed out +from Port Said towards Ismaila. But on the quay at Port Said Ibsen's +Norwegian mail was handed to him, and letters and newspapers alike were +full of the violent scenes in the course of which <i>The League of Youth</i> +had been hissed down at Christiania. Then and there he sent his defiance +back to Norway in <i>At Port Saïd</i>, one of the most pointed and effective +of all his polemical lyrics. A version in literal prose must suffice, +though it does cruel injustice to the venomous melody of the original:</p> + +<p> The dawn of the Eastern Land<br> + Over the haven glittered;<br> + Flags from all corners of the globe<br> + Quivered from the masts.<br> + Voices in music<br> + Bore onward the cantata;<br> + A thousand cannon<br> + Christened the Canal.</p> + +<p> The steamers passed on<br> + By the obelisk.<br> + In the language of my home<br> + Came to me the chatter of news.<br> + The mirror-poem which I had polished<br> + For masculine minxes<br> + Had been smeared at home<br> + By splutterings from penny whistles.</p> + +<p> The poison-fly stung;<br> + It made my memories loathsome.<br> + Stars, be thanked!—<br> + My home is what is ancient!<br> + We hailed the frigate<br> + From the roof of the river-boat;<br> + I waved my hat<br> + And saluted the flag.</p> + +<p> To the feast, to the feast,<br> + In spite of the fangs of venomous reptiles!<br> + A selected guest<br> + Across the Lakes of Bitterness!<br> + At the close of day<br> + Dreaming, I shall slumber<br> + Where Pharaoh was drowned—<br> + And when Moses passed over.</p> + +<p>In this mood of defiance, with rage unabated, Ibsen returned home by +Alexandria and Paris, and was in Dresden again in December.</p> + +<p>The year of 1870 drove him out of Dresden, as the French occupation had +driven him out of Rome. It was essential for him to be at rest in the +midst of a quiet and alien population. He was drawn towards Denmark, +partly for the sake of talk with Brandes, who had now become a factor in +his life, partly to arrange about the performance of one of his early +works, and in particular of <i>The Pretenders</i>. No definite plan, however, +had been formed, when, in the middle of June, war was declared between +Germany and France; but a fortnight later Ibsen quitted Saxony, and +settled for three months in Copenhagen, where his reception was +charmingly sympathetic. By the beginning of October, after the fall of +Strasburg and the hemming in of Metz, however, it was plain on which +side the fortunes of the war would lie, and Ibsen returned "as from a +rejuvenating bath" of Danish society to a Dresden full of French +prisoners, a Dresden, too, suffering terribly from the paralysis of +trade, and showing a plentiful lack of enthusiasm for Prussia.</p> + +<p>Ibsen turned his back on all such vexatious themes, and set himself to +the collecting and polishing of a series of lyrical poems, the <i>Digte</i> +of 1871, the earliest, and, indeed, the only such collection that he +published. We may recollect that, at the very same moment, with far less +cause to isolate himself from the horrors of war, Théophile Gautier was +giving the last touches to <i>Emaux et Camées</i>. In December, 1870, Ibsen +addressed to Fru Limnell, a lady in Stockholm, his "Balloon-Letter," a +Hudibrastic rhymed epistle in nearly 400 lines, containing, with a good +deal that is trivial, some striking symbolical reminiscences of his trip +through Egypt, and some powerful ironic references to the caravan of +German invaders, with its Hathor and its Horus, which was then rushing +to the assault of Paris under the doleful colors of the Prussian flag. +Ibsen's sarcasms are all at the ugliness and prosaic utilitarianism of +the Germans; "Moltke," he says, "has killed the poetry of battles."</p> + +<p>Ibsen was now greatly developing and expanding his views, and forming a +world-policy of his own. The success of German discipline deeply +impressed him, and he thought that the day had probably dawned which +would be fatal to all revolt and "liberal rebellion" for the future. +More than ever he dreaded the revolutionary doctrines of men like +Jaabaek and Björnson, which would lead, he thought, to bloodshed and +national disaster. The very same events were impressing Goldwin Smith at +the very same moment with his famous prophecy that the abolition of all +dynastic and aristocratic institutions was at hand, with "the tranquil +inauguration" of elective industrial governments throughout the world. +So history moves doggedly on, <i>propheten rechts, propheten links</i>, a +perfectly impassive <i>welt-kind</i> in the middle of them. In Copenhagen +Ibsen had, after all, missed Brandes, delayed in Rome by a long and +dangerous illness; and all he could do was to exchange letters with this +still unseen but increasingly sympathetic and beloved young friend. To +Brandes Ibsen wrote more freely than to any one else about the great +events which were shaking the face of Europe and occupying so much of +both their thoughts:—</p> + +<p>The old, illusory France has collapsed [he wrote to Brandes on December +20, 1870, two days after the engagement at Nuits]; and as soon as the +new, real Prussia does the same, we shall be with one bound in a new +age. How ideas will then come tumbling about our ears! And it is high +time they did. Up till now we have been living on nothing but the crumbs +from the revolutionary table of last century, a food out of which all +nutriment has long been chewed. The old terms require to have a new +meaning infused into them. Liberty, equality and fraternity are no +longer the things they were in the days of the late-lamented Guillotine. +This is what the politicians will not understand, and therefore, I hate +them. They want their own special revolutions—revolutions in externals, +in politics and so forth. But all this is mere trifling. What is +all-important is the revolution of the Spirit of Man.</p> + +<p>This revolution, as exemplified by the Commune in Paris, did not satisfy +the anticipations which Ibsen had formed, and Brandes took advantage of +this to tell him that he .had not yet studied politics minutely enough +from the scientific standpoint. Ibsen replied that what he did not +possess as knowledge came to him, to a certain degree, as intuition or +instinct. "Let this be as it may, the poet's essential task is to see, +not to reflect. For me in particular there would be danger in too much +reflection." Ibsen seems, at this time, to be in an oscillating frame of +mind, now bent on forming some positive theory of life out of which his +imaginative works shall crystallize, harmoniously explanatory; at +another time, anxious to be unhampered by theories and principles, and +to represent individuals and exceptions exactly as experience presents +them to him. In neither attitude, however, is there discernible any +trace of the moral physician, and this is the central distinction +between Tolstoi and Ibsen, whose methods, at first sight, sometimes +appear so similar. Tolstoi analyzes a morbid condition, but always with +the purpose, if he can, of curing it; Ibsen gives it even closer +clinical attention, but he leaves to others the care of removing a +disease which his business is solely to diagnose.</p> + +<p>The <i>Poems</i>, after infinite revision, were published at length, in a +very large edition, on May 3, 1871. One reason why Ibsen was glad to get +this book off his hands was that it enabled him to concentrate his +thoughts on the great drama he had been projecting, at intervals, for +seven years past, the trilogy (as he then planned it) on the story of +Julian the Apostate. At last Brandes came to Dresden (July, 1871) and +found the tenebrous poet plunged in the study of Neander and Strauss, +Gibbon unfortunately being a sealed book to him. All through the autumn +and winter he was kept in a chronic state of irritability by the +intrigues and the menaces of a Norwegian pirate, who threatened to +reprint, for his own profit, Ibsen's early and insufficiently protected +writings. This exacerbated the poet's dislike to his own country, where +the very law courts, he thought, were hostile to him. On this subject he +used language of tiresome over-emphasis. "From Sweden, from Denmark, +from Germany, I hear nothing but what gives me pleasure; it is from +Norway that everything bad comes upon me." It was indicated to would-be +Norwegian visitors that they were not welcome at Dresden. Norwegian +friends, he said, were "a costly luxury" which he was obliged to deny +himself.</p> + +<p>The First Part of <i>Julian</i> was finished on Christmas Day, but it took +over a year more before the entire work, as we now possess it, was +completed. "A Herculean labor," the author called it, when he finally +laid down a weary pen in February, 1873. The year 1872 had been very +quietly spent in unremitting literary labor, tempered by genial visits +from some illustrious Danes of the older generation, as particularly +Hans Christian Andersen and Meyer Aron Goldschmidt, and by more formal +intercourse with a few Germans such as Konrad Maurer and Paul Heyse; all +this time, let us remember, no Norwegians—"by request." The summer was +spent in long rambles over the mountains of Austria, ending up with a +month of deep repose in Berchtesgaden. The next year was like unto this, +except that its roaming, restless summer closed with several months in +Vienna; and on October 17, 1873, <i>nonum in annum</i>, after the Horatian +counsel, the prodigious masterpiece, <i>Emperor and Galilean</i>, was +published in Copenhagen at last.</p> + +<p>Of all the writings of Ibsen, his huge double drama on the rise and fall +of Julian is the most extensive and the most ambitious. It is not +difficult to understand what it was about the most subtle and the most +speculative of the figures which animate the decline of antiquity that +fascinated the imagination of Ibsen. Successive historians have +celebrated the flexibility of intelligence and firmness of purpose which +were combined in the brain of Julian with a passion for abstract beauty +and an enthusiasm for a restored system of pagan Hellenic worship. There +was an individuality about Julian, an absence of the common purple +convention, of the imperial rhetoric, which strongly commended him to +Ibsen, and in his perverse ascetic revolt against Christianity he +offered a fascinating originality to one who thought the modern world +all out of joint. As a revolutionary, Julian presented ideas of +character which could not but passionately attract the Norwegian poet. +His attitude to his emperor and to his God, sceptical, in each case, in +each case inspired by no vulgar motive but by a species of lofty and +melancholy fatalism, promised a theme of the most entrancing complexity. +But there are curious traces in Ibsen's correspondence of the +difficulty, very strange in his case, which he experienced in forming a +concrete idea of Julian in his own mind. He had been vaguely drawn to +the theme, and when it was too late to recede, he found himself baffled +by the paradoxes which he encountered, and by the contradictions of a +figure seen darkly through a mist of historical detraction.</p> + +<p>He met these difficulties as well as he could, and as a prudent dramatic +poet should, by close and observant study of the document. He endeavored +to reconcile the evident superiority of Julian with the absurd +eccentricities of his private manners and with the futility of his +public acts. He noted all the Apostate's foibles by the side of his +virtues and his magnanimities. He traced without hesitation the course +of that strange insurrection which hurled a coarse fanatic from the +throne, only to place in his room a literary pedant with inked fingers +and populous beard. He accepted everything, from the parasites to the +purple slippers. The dangers of so humble an attendance upon history +were escaped with success in the first instalment of his "world drama." +In the strong and mounting scenes of <i>Caesar's Apostacy</i>, the rapidity +with which the incidents succeed one another, their inherent +significance, the innocent splendor of Julian's mind in its first +emancipation from the chains of false faith, combine to produce an +effect of high dramatic beauty. Georg Brandes, whose instinct in such +matters was almost infallible, when he read the First Part shortly after +its composition, entreated Ibsen to give this, as it stood, to the +public, and to let <i>The Emperor Julian's End</i> follow independently. Had +Ibsen consented to do this, <i>Caesar's Fall</i> would certainly take a +higher place among his works than it does at present, when its effect is +somewhat amputated and its meaning threatened with incoherence by the +author's apparent <i>volteface</i> in the Second Part.</p> + +<p>It was a lifelong disappointment to Ibsen that <i>Emperor and Galilean</i>, +on which he expended far more consideration and labor than on any other +of his works, was never a favorite either with the public or among the +critics. With the best will in the world, however, it is not easy to +find full enjoyment in this gigantic work, which by some caprice of +style defiant of analysis, lacks the vitality which is usually +characteristic of Ibsen's least production. The speeches put into the +mouths of antique characters are appropriate, but they are seldom vivid; +as Bentley said of the epistles of Julian's own teacher Libanius, "You +feel by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse with some +dreaming pedant, his elbow on his desk." The scheme of Ibsen's drama was +too vast for the very minute and meticulous method he chose to adopt. +What he gives us is an immense canvas, on which he has painted here and +there in miniature. It is a pity that he chose for dramatic +representation so enormous a field. It would have suited his genius far +better to have abandoned any attempt to write a conclusive history, and +have selected some critical moment in the life of Julian. He should +rather have concentrated his energies, independent of the chroniclers, +on the resuscitation of that episode, and in the course of it have +trembled less humbly under the uplifted finger of Ammianus.</p> + +<p>Of <i>Emperor and Galilean</i> Ibsen afterwards said: "It was the first" (but +he might have added "the only") "poem which I have written under the +influence of German ideas." He was aware of the danger of living too +long away from his own order of thought and language. But it was always +difficult for him, once planted in a place, to pull up his roots. A +weariness took possession of him after the publication of his double +drama, and he did practically nothing for four years. This marks a +central joint in the structure of his career, what the architects call a +"channel" in it, adding to the general retrospect of Ibsen's work an +aspect of solidity and resource. During these years he revised some of +his early writings, made a closer study of the arts of sculpture and +painting, and essayed, without satisfaction, a very brief sojourn in +Norway. In the spring of 1875 he definitely moved with his family from +Dresden to Munich.</p> + +<p>The brief visit to Christiania in 1874 proved very unfortunate. Ibsen +was suspicious, the Norwegians of that generation were constitutionally +stiff and reserved; long years among Southern races had accustomed him +to a plenitude in gesture and emphasis. He suffered, all the brief time +he was in Norway, from an intolerable <i>malaise</i>. Ten years afterwards, +in writing to Björnson, the discomfort of that experience was still +unallayed. "I have not yet saved nearly enough," he said, "to support +myself and my family in the case of my discontinuing my literary work. +And I should be obliged to discontinue it if I lived in Christiania. ... +This simply means that I should not write at all. When, ten years ago, +after an absence of ten years, I sailed up the fjord, I felt a weight +settling down on my breast, a feeling of actual physical oppression. And +this feeling lasted all the time I was at home; I was not myself under +the stare of all those cold, uncomprehending Norwegian eyes at the +windows and in the streets."</p> + +<p>Ibsen had now been more than ten years am exile from Norway, and his +sentiments with regard to his own people were still what they were when, +in July, 1872, he had sent home his <i>Ode for the Millenary Festival</i>. +That very striking poem, one of the most solid of Ibsen's lyrical +performances, had opened in the key of unmitigated defiance to popular +opinion at home. It was intended to show Norwegians that they must alter +their attitude towards him, as he would never change his behavior +towards them. "My countrymen," he said:—</p> + +<p> My countrymen, who filled for me deep bowls<br> + Of wholesome bitter medicine, such as gave<br> + The poet, on the margin of his grave,<br> + Fresh force to fight where broken twilight rolls,—<br> + My countrymen, who sped me o'er the wave,<br> + An exile, with my griefs for pilgrim-soles,<br> + My fears for burdens, doubts for staff, to roam,—<br> + From the wide world I send you greeting home.</p> + +<p> I send you thanks for gifts that help and harden,<br> + Thanks for each hour of purifying pain;<br> + Each plant that springs in my poetic garden<br> + Is rooted where your harshness poured its rain;<br> + Each shoot in which it blooms and burgeons forth<br> + It owes to that gray weather from the North;<br> + The sun relaxes, but the fog secures!<br> + My country, thanks! My life's best gifts were yours.</p> + +<p>In spite of these sardonic acknowledgments. Ibsen's fame in Norway, +though still disputed, was now secure. In Denmark and Sweden it was +almost unchallenged, and he was a name, at least, in Germany. In +England, since 1872, he had not been without a prophet. But in Italy, +Russia, France—three countries upon the intelligence of which he was +presently to make a wide and durable impression—he was still quite +unknown.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, in glancing over the general literature of Europe, we see his +figure, at the threshold of his fiftieth year, taking greater and +greater prominence. He had become, in the sudden exinction of the +illustrious old men of Denmark, the first living writer of the North. He +was to Norway what Valera was to Spain, Carducci to Italy, Swinburne or +Rossetti to England, and Leconte de Lisle to France. These were mainly +lyrical poets, but it must not be forgotten that Ibsen, down at least +till 1871, was prominently illustrious as a writer in metrical form. If, +in the second portion of his career, he resolutely deprived himself of +all indulgence in the ornament of verse, it was a voluntary act of +austerity. It was Charles V at Yuste, wilfully exchanging the crown of +jewels for the coarse brown cowl of St. Jerome. And now, after a year or +two of prayer and fasting, Ibsen began a new intellectual career.</p> + +<br><br> +<a name="c6"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<br> +<h3>1875-82</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>While Ibsen was sitting at Munich, in this climacteric stage of his +career, dreaming of wonderful things and doing nothing, there came to +him, in the early months of 1875, two new plays by his chief rival. +These were <i>The Editor</i> and <i>A Bankruptcy</i>, in which Björnson suddenly +swooped from his sagas and his romances down into the middle of sordid +modern life. This was his first attempt at that "photography by comedy" +which he had urged on Ibsen in 1868. It is not, I think, recorded what +was Ibsen's comment on these two plays, and particularly on <i>A +Bankruptcy</i>, but it is written broadly over the surface of his own next +work. It is obvious that he perceived that Björnson had carried a very +spirited raid into his own particular province, and he was determined to +drive this audacious enemy back by means of greater audacities.</p> + +<p>Not at once, however; for an extraordinary languor seemed to have fallen +upon Ibsen. His isolation from society became extreme; for nearly a year +he gave no sign of life. In September, 1875, indeed, if not earlier, he +was at work on a five-act play, but what this was is unknown. It seems +to have been in the winter of 1876, after an unprecedented period of +inanimation, that he started a new comedy, <i>The Pillars of Society</i>, +which was finished in Munich in July, 1877, that summer being unique in +the fact that the Ibsens do not seem to have left town at all.</p> + +<p>Ibsen was now a good deal altered in the exteriors of character. With +his fiftieth year he presents himself as no more the Poet, but the Man +of Business. Molbech told me that at this time the velveteen jacket, +symbol of the dear delays of art, was discarded in favor of a frock- +coat, too tight across the chest. Ibsen was now beginning, rather shyly, +very craftily, to invest money; he even found himself in frequent +straits for ready coin from his acute impatience to set every rix-dollar +breeding. He cast the suspicion of poetry from him, and with his gold +spectacles, his Dundreary whiskers, his broadcloth bosom and his quick +staccato step, he adopted the pose of a gentleman of affairs, very +positive and with no nonsense about him.</p> + +<p>He had long determined on the wilful abandonment of poetic form, and the +famous statement made in a letter to myself (January 15, 1874) must be +quoted, although it is well known, since it contains the clearest of all +the explanations by which Ibsen justified his new departure:—</p> + +<p>You are of opinion that the drama [<i>Emperor and Galilean</i>] ought to have +been written in verse, and that it would have gained by this. Here I +must differ from you. The play is, as you will have observed, conceived +in the most realistic style: the illusion I wished to produce is that of +reality. I wished to produce the impression on the reader that what he +was reading was something that had really happened. If I had employed +verse, I should have counteracted my own intention and prevented the +accomplishment of the task I had set myself. The many ordinary +insignificant characters whom I have intentionally introduced into the +play would have become indistinct, and indistinguishable from one +another, if I had allowed all of them to speak in one and the same +rhythmical measure. We are no longer living in the days of Shakespeare. +Among sculptors there is already talk of painting statues in the natural +colors. Much can be said both for and against this. I have no desire to +see the Venus of Milo painted, but I would rather see the head of a +negro executed in black than in white marble. Speaking generally, the +style must conform to the degree of ideality which pervades the +representation. My new drama is no tragedy in the ancient acceptation; +what I desired to depict were human beings, and therefore I would not +let them talk "the language of the Gods."</p> + +<p>This revolt against dramatic verse was a feature of the epoch. In 1877 +Alphonse Daudet was to write of a comedy, "Mais, hélas! cette pièce est +en vers, et l'ennui s'y promène librement entre les rimes."</p> + +<p>No poet, however, sacrificed so much, or held so rigidly to his +intention of reproducing the exact language of real life, as did Ibsen +in the series of plays which opens with <i>The Pillars of Society</i>. This +drama was published in Copenhagen in October, 1877, and was acted almost +immediately in Denmark, Sweden and Norway; it had the good fortune to be +taken up warmly in Germany. What Ibsen's idea was, in the new sort of +realistic drama which he was inventing, was, in fact, perceived at once +by German audiences, although it was not always approved of. He was the +guest of the theatromaniac Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and <i>The Pillars of +Society</i> was played in many parts of Germany. In Scandinavia the book of +the play sold well, and the piece had some success on the boards, but it +did not create anything like so much excitement as the author had hoped +that it would. Danish taste pronounced it "too German."</p> + +<p>For the fact that <i>The Pillars of Society</i>, except in Scandinavia and +Germany, did not then, and never has since, taken a permanent hold upon +the theatre, Mr. William Archer gives a reason which cannot be +controverted, namely, that by the time the other foreign publics had +fully awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown +the phase of his development marked by <i>Pillars of Society</i>, that the +play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned. It exactly suited the +German public of the eighties; it was exactly on a level with their +theatrical intelligence. But it was above the theatrical intelligence of +the Anglo-American public, and ... below that of the French public. This +is of course an exaggeration. What I mean is that there was no possible +reason why the countrymen of Augier and Dumas should take any special +interest in <i>Pillars of Society</i>. It was not obviously in advance of +these masters in technical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment +running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of +that period.</p> + +<p>The subject of <i>The Pillars of Society</i> was the hollowness and +rottenness of those supports, and the severe and unornamented prose +which Ibsen now adopted was very favorable to its discussion. He was +accused, however, of having lived so long away from home as to have +fallen out of touch with real Norwegian life, which he studied in the +convex mirror of the newspapers. It is more serious objection to <i>The +Pillars of Society</i> that in it, as little as in <i>The League of Youth</i>, +had Ibsen cut himself off from the traditions of the well-made play. +Gloomy and homely as are the earlier acts, Ibsen sees as yet no way out +of the imbroglio but that known to Scribe and the masters of the "well- +made" play. The social hypocrisy of Consul Bernick is condoned by a sort +of death-bed repentance at the close, which is very much of the usual +"bless-ye-my-children" order. The loss of the Indian Girl is +miraculously prevented, and at the end the characters are solemnized and +warned, yet are left essentially none the worse for their alarm. This, +unfortunately, is not the mode in which the sins of scheming people find +them out in real life. But to the historical critic it is very +interesting to see Björnson and Ibsen nearer one another in <i>A +Bankruptcy</i> and <i>The Pillars of Society</i> than they had ever been before. +They now started on a course of eager, though benevolent, rivalry which +was eminently to the advantage of each of them.</p> + +<p>No feature of Ibsen's personal career is more interesting than his +relation to Björnson. Great as the genius of Ibsen was, yet, rating it +as ungrudgingly as possible, we have to admit that Björnson's character +was the more magnetic and more radiant of the two. Ibsen was a citizen +of the world; he belonged, in a very remarkable degree, to the small +class of men whose intelligence lifts them above the narrowness of local +conditions, who belong to civilization at large, not to the system of +one particular nation. He was, in consequence, endowed, almost +automatically, with the instinct of regarding ideas from a central +point; if he was to be limited at all, he might be styled European, +although, perhaps, few Western citizens would have had less difficulty +than he in making themselves comprehended by a Chinese, Japanese or +Indian mind of unusual breadth and cultivation. On the other hand, in +accepting the advantages of this large mental outlook, he was forced to +abandon those of nationality. No one can say that Ibsen was, until near +the end of his life, a good Norwegian, and he failed, by his utterances, +to vibrate the local mind. But Björnson, with less originality, was the +typical patriot in literature, and what he said, and thought, and wrote +was calculated to stir the local conscience to the depths of its being.</p> + +<p>When, therefore, in 1867, Ibsen, who was bound by all natural +obligations and tendencies to remain on the best terms with Björnson, +allowed the old friendship between them to lapse into positive +antagonism, he was following the irresistible evolution of his fate, as +Björnson was following his. It was as inevitable that Ibsen should grow +to his full height in solitude as it was that Björnson should pine +unless he was fed by the dew and sunlight of popular meetings, +torchlight processions of students and passionate appeals to local +sentiment. Trivial causes, such as those which we have chronicled +earlier, might seem to lead up to a division, but that division was +really inherent in the growth of the two men.</p> + +<p>Ibsen, however, was not wholly a gainer at first even in genius, by the +separation. It cut him off from Norway too entirely, and it threw him +into the arms of Germany. There were thirteen years in which Ibsen and +Björnson were nothing to one another, and these were not years of +unmingled mental happiness for either of them. But during this long +period each of these very remarkable men "came into his kingdom," and +when there was no longer any chance that either of there could warp the +nature of the other, fate brought them once more together.</p> + +<p>The reconciliation began, of course, with a gracious movement from +Björnson. At the end of 1880, writing for American readers, Björnson had +the generous candor to say: "I think I have a pretty thorough +acquaintance with the dramatic literature of the world, and I have not +the slightest hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen possesses more +dramatic power than any other play-writer of our day." When we remember +that, in France alone, Augier and Dumas <i>fils</i> and Hugo, Halévy and +Meilhac and Labiche, were all of them alive, the compliment, though a +sound, was a vivid one. Sooner or later, everything that was said about +Ibsen, though it were whispered in Choctaw behind the altar of a Burmese +temple, came round to Ibsen's ears, and this handsome tribute from the +rival produced its effect. And when, shortly afterwards, still in +America, Björnson was nearly killed in a railway accident, Ibsen broke +the long silence by writing to him a most cordial letter of +congratulation.</p> + +<p>The next incident was the publication of <i>Ghosts</i>, when Björnson, now +thoroughly roused, stood out almost alone, throwing the vast prestige of +his judgment into the empty scale against the otherwise unanimous black- +balling. Then the reconcilement was full and fraternal, and Ibsen wrote +from Rome (January 24, 1882), with an emotion rare indeed for him: "The +only man in Norway who has frankly, boldly and generously taken my part +is Björnson. It is just like him; he has, in truth, a great, a kingly +soul; and I shall never forget what he has done now." Six months later, +on occasion of Björnson's jubilee, Ibsen telegraphed: "My thanks for the +work done side by side with me in the service of freedom these twenty- +five years." These words wiped away all unhappy memories of the past; +they gave public recognition to the fact that, though the two great +poets had been divided for half a generation by the forces of +circumstance, they had both been fighting at wings of the same army +against the common enemy.</p> + +<p>This, however, takes us for the moment a little too far ahead. After the +publication of <i>The Pillars of Society</i>, Ibsen remained quiet for some +time; indeed, from this date we find him adopting the practice which was +to be regular with him henceforth, namely, that of letting his mind lie +fallow for one year after the issue of each of his works, and then +spending another year in the formation of the new play. Munich gradually +became tedious to him, and he justly observed that the pressure of +German surroundings was unfavorable to the healthy evolution of his +genius. In 1878 he went back to Rome, which, although it was no longer +the quiet and aristocratic Rome of Papal days, was still immensely +attractive to his temperament. He was now, in some measure, "a person of +means," and he made the habit of connoisseurship his hobby. He formed a +small collection of pictures, selecting works with, as he believed, +great care. The result could be seen long afterwards by those who +visited him in his final affluence, for they hung round the rooms of the +sumptuous flat in which he spent his old age and in which he died. His +taste, as far as one remembers, was for the Italian masters of the +decline, and whether he selected pictures with a good judgment must be +left for others to decide. Probably he shared with Shelley a fondness +for the Guercinos and the Guido Renis, whom we can now admire only in +defiance of Ruskin.</p> + +<p>In April, 1879, it is understood, a story was told him of an incident in +the Danish courts, the adventure of a young married woman in one of the +small towns of Zealand, which set his thoughts running on a new dramatic +enterprise. He was still curiously irritated by contemplating, in his +mind's eye, the "respectable, estimable narrowmindedness and +worldliness" of social conditions in Norway, where there was no +aristocracy, and where a lower middle-class took the place of a +nobility, with, as he thought, sordid results. But he was no longer +suffering from what he himself had called "the feeling of an insane man +staring at one single, hopelessly black spot." He went to Amalfi for the +summer, and in that delightful spot, so curiously out of keeping with +his present rigidly prosaic mood, he set himself to write what is +probably the most widely famous of all his works, <i>A Doll's House</i>. The +day before he started he wrote to me from Rome (in an unpublished letter +of July 4, 1879): "I have been living here with my family since +September last, and most of that time I have been occupied with the idea +of a new dramatic work, which I shall now soon finish, and which will be +published in October. It is a serious drama, really a family drama, +dealing with modern conditions and in particular with the problems which +complicate marriage." This play he finished, lingering at Amalfi, in +September, 1879. It was an engineer's experiment at turning up and +draining a corner of the moral swamp which Norwegian society seemed to +be to his violent and ironic spirit.</p> + +<p><i>A Doll's House</i> was Ibsen's first unqualified success. Not merely was +it the earliest of his plays which excited universal discussion, but in +its construction and execution it carried out much further than its +immediate precursors Ibsen's new ideal as an unwavering realist. Mr. +Arthur Symons has well said [Note: The <i>Quarterly Review</i> for October, +1906.] that "<i>A Doll's House</i> is the first of Ibsen's plays in which the +puppets have no visible wires." It may even be said that it was the +first modern drama in which no wires had been employed. Not that even +here the execution is perfect, as Ibsen afterwards made it. The arm of +coincidence is terribly shortened, and the early acts, clever and +entertaining as they are, are still far from the inevitability of real +life. But when, in the wonderful last act, Nora issues from her bedroom, +dressed to go out, to Helmer's and the audience's stupefaction, and when +the agitated pair sit down to "have it out," face to face across the +table, then indeed the spectator feels that a new thing has been born in +drama, and, incidentally, that the "well-made play" has suddenly become +as dead as Queen Anne. The grimness, the intensity of life, are amazing +in this final scene, where the old happy ending is completely abandoned +for the first time, and where the paradox of life is presented without +the least shuffling or evasion.</p> + +<p>It was extraordinary how suddenly it was realized that <i>A Doll's House</i> +was a prodigious performance. All Scandinavia rang with Nora's +"declaration of independence." People left the theatre, night after +night, pale with excitement, arguing, quarrelling, challenging. The +inner being had been unveiled for a moment, and new catchwords were +repeated from mouth to mouth. The great statement and reply—"No man +sacrifices his honor, even for one he loves," "Hundreds of thousands of +women have done so!"—roused interminable discussion in countless family +circles. The disputes were at one time so violent as to threaten the +peace of households; a school of imitators at once sprang up to treat +the situation, from slightly different points of view, in novel, poem +and drama. [Note: The reader who desires to obtain further light on the +technical quality of <i>A Doll's House</i> can do no better than refer to Mr. +William Archer's elaborate analysis of it (<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, July, +1906.)]</p> + +<p>The universal excitement which Ibsen had vainly hoped would be awakened +by <i>The Pillars of Society</i> came, when he was not expecting it, to greet +<i>A Doll's House</i>. Ibsen was stirred by the reception of his latest play +into a mood rather different from that which he expressed at any other +period. As has often been said, he did not pose as a prophet or as a +reformer, but it did occur to him now that he might exercise a strong +moral influence, and in writing to his German translator, Ludwig +Passarge, he said (June 16, 1880):</p> + +<p>Everything that I have written has the closest possible connection with +what I have lived through, even if it has not been my own personal +experience; in every new poem or play I have aimed at my own spiritual +emancipation and purification—for a man shares the responsibility and +the guilt of the society to which he belongs.</p> + +<p>It was in this spirit of unusual gravity that he sat down to the +composition of <i>Ghosts</i>. There is little or no record of how he occupied +himself at Munich and Berchtesgaden in 1880, except that in March he +began to sketch, and then abandoned, what afterwards became <i>The Lady +from the Sea</i>. In the autumn of that year, indulging once more his +curious restlessness, he took all his household gods and goods again to +Rome. His thoughts turned away from dramatic art for a moment, and he +planned an autobiography, which was to deal with the gradual development +of his mind, and to be called <i>From Skien to Rome</i>. Whether he actually +wrote any of this seems uncertain; that he should have planned it shows +a certain sense of maturity, a suspicion that, now in his fifty-third +year, he might be nearly at the end of his resources. As a matter of +fact, he was just entering upon a new inheritance. In the summer of 1881 +he went, as usual now, to Sorrento, and there [Note: So the authorities +state: but in an unpublished letter to myself, dated Rome, November 26, +1880, I find Ibsen saying, "Just now I am beginning to exercise my +thoughts over a new drama; I hope I shall finish it in the course of +next summer." It seems to have been already his habit to meditate long +about a subject before it took any definite literary form in his mind.] +the plot of <i>Ghosts</i> revealed itself to him. This work was composed with +more than Ibsen's customary care, and was published at the beginning of +December, in an edition of ten thousand copies.</p> + +<p>Before the end of 1881 Ibsen was aware of the terrific turmoil which +<i>Ghosts</i> had begun to occasion. He wrote to Passarge: "My new play has +now appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian +press. Every day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or +praising it. I consider it absolutely impossible that any German theatre +will accept the play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to +play it in any Scandinavian country for some time to come." It was, in +fact, not acted publicly anywhere until 1883, when the Swedes ventured +to try it, and the Germans followed in 1887. The Danes resisted it much +longer.</p> + +<p>Ibsen declared that he was quite prepared for the hubbub; he would +doubtless have been much disappointed if it had not taken place; +nevertheless, he was disconcerted at the volume and the violence of the +attacks. Yet he must have known that in the existing condition of +society, and the limited range of what was then thought a defensible +criticism of that condition, <i>Ghosts</i> must cause a virulent scandal. +There has been, especially in Germany, a great deal of medico- +philosophical exposure of the under-side of life since 1880. It is +hardly possible that, there, or in any really civilized country, an +analysis of the causes of what is, after all, one of the simplest and +most conventional forms of hereditary disease could again excite such a +startling revulsion of feeling. Krafft-Ebing and a crew of +investigators, Strindberg, Brieux, Hauptmann, and a score of probing +playwrights all over the Continent, have gone further and often fared +much worse than Ibsen did when he dived into the family history of +Kammerherre Alving. When we read <i>Ghosts</i> to-day we cannot recapture the +"new shudder" which it gave us a quarter of a century ago. Yet it must +not be forgotten that the publication of it, in that hide-bound time, +was an act of extraordinary courage. Georg Brandes, always clearsighted, +was alone in being able to perceive at once that <i>Ghosts</i> was no attack +on society, but an effort to place the responsibilities of men and women +on a wholesomer and surer footing, by direct reference to the relation +of both to the child.</p> + +<p>When the same eminent critic, however, went on to say that <i>Ghosts</i> was +"a poetic treatment of the question of heredity," it was more difficult +to follow him. Now that the flash and shock of the playwright's audacity +are discounted, it is natural to ask ourselves whether, as a work of +pure art, <i>Ghosts</i> stands high among Ibsen's writings. I confess, for my +own part, that it seems to me deprived of "poetic" treatment, that is to +say, of grace, charm and suppleness, to an almost fatal extent. It is +extremely original, extremely vivid and stimulating, but, so far as a +foreigner may judge, the dialogue seems stilted and uniform, the +characters, with certain obvious exceptions, rather types than persons. +In the old fighting days it was necessary to praise <i>Ghosts</i> with +extravagance, because the vituperation of the enemy was so stupid and +offensive, but now that there are no serious adversaries left, cooler +judgment admits—not one word that the idiot-adversary said, but—that +there are more convincing plays than <i>Ghosts</i> in Ibsen's repertory.</p> + +<p>Up to this time, Ibsen had been looked upon as the mainstay of the +Conservative party in Norway, in opposition to Björnson, who led the +Radicals. But the author of <i>Ghosts</i>, who was accused of disseminating +anarchism and nihilism, was now smartly drummed out of the Tory camp +without being welcomed among the Liberals. Each party was eager to +disown him. He was like Coriolanus, when he was deserted by nobles and +people alike, and</p> + +<p>suffer'd by the voice of slaves to be Whoop'd out of Rome.</p> + +<p>The situation gave Ibsen occasion, from the perspective of his exile, to +form some impressions of political life which were at once pungent and +dignified:</p> + +<p>"I am more and more confirmed" [he said, Jan, 3, 1882] "in my belief +that there is something demoralizing in politics and parties. I, at any +rate, shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its +side. Björnson says, 'The majority is always right'; and as a practical +politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, of +necessity say, 'The minority is always right.'"</p> + +<p>In order to place this view clearly before his countrymen, he set about +composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most +successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward +in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with +preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, which he spent at +what was now to be for many years his favorite summer resort, Gossensass +in the Tyrol, a place which is consecrated to the memory of Ibsen in the +way that Pornic belongs to Robert Browning and the Bel Alp to Tyndall, +holiday homes in foreign countries, dedicated to blissful work without +disturbance. Here, at a spot now officially named the "Ibsenplatz," he +composed <i>The Enemy of the People</i>, engrossed in his invention as was +his wont, reading nothing and thinking of nothing but of the persons +whose history he was weaving. Oddly enough, he thought that this, too, +was to be a "placable" play, written to amuse and stimulate, but +calculated to wound nobody's feelings. The fact was that Ibsen, like +some ocelot or panther of the rocks, had a paw much heavier than he +himself realized, and his "play," in both senses, was a very serious +affair, when he descended to sport with common humanity.</p> + +<p>Another quotation, this time from a letter to Brandes, must be given to +show what Ibsen's attitude was at this moment to his fatherland and to +his art:</p> + +<p>"When I think how slow and heavy and dull the general intelligence is at +home, when I notice the low standard by which everything is judged, a +deep despondency comes over me, and it often seems to me that I might +just as well end my literary activity at once. They really do not need +poetry at home; they get along so well with the party newspapers and the +<i>Lutheran Weekly</i>."</p> + +<p>If Ibsen thought that he was offering them "poetry" in <i>The Enemy of the +People</i>, he spoke in a Scandinavian sense. Our criticism has never +opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as +poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser +or more unqualified prose than <i>The Enemy of the People</i>, without a +tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book. It is, +nevertheless, one of the most certainly successful of its author's +writings; as a stage-play it rivets the attention; as a pamphlet it +awakens irresistible sympathy; as a specimen of dramatic art, its +construction and evolution are almost faultless. Under a transparent +allegory, it describes the treatment which Ibsen himself had received at +the hands of the Norwegian public for venturing to tell them that their +spa should be drained before visitors were invited to flock to it. +Nevertheless, the playwright has not made the mistake of identifying his +own figure with that of Dr. Stockmann, who is an entirely independent +creation. Mr. Archer has compared the hero with Colonel Newcome, whose +loquacious amicability he does share, but Stockmann's character has much +more energy and initiative than Colonel Newcome's, whom we could never +fancy rousing himself "to purge society."</p> + +<p>Ibsen's practical wisdom in taking the bull by the horns in his reply to +the national reception of <i>Ghosts</i> was proved by the instant success of +<i>The Enemy of the People</i>. Presented to the public in this new and +audacious form, the problem of a "moral water-supply" struck sensible +Norwegians as less absurd and less dangerous than they had conceived it +to be. The reproof was mordant, and the worst offenders crouched under +the lash. <i>Ghosts</i> itself was still, for some time, tabooed, but <i>The +Enemy of the People</i> received a cordial welcome, and has remained ever +since one of the most popular of Ibsen's writings. It is still extremely +effective on the stage, and as it is lightened by more humor than the +author is commonly willing to employ, it attracts even those who are +hostile to the intrusion of anything solemn behind the footlights.</p> + + +<a name="i4"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="ibsen2.jpg (22K)" src="ibsen2.jpg" height="647" width="483"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="c7"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<br> +<h3>1883-91</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>With the appearance of <i>An Enemy of the People</i>, which was published in +November, 1882, Ibsen entered upon a new stage in his career. He had +completely broken with the Conservative party in Norway, without having +gratified or won the confidence of the Liberals. He was now in personal +relations of friendliness with Björnson, whose generous approval of his +work as a dramatist sustained his spirits, but his own individualism had +been intensified by the hostile reception of <i>Ghosts</i>. His life was now +divided between Rome in the winter and Gossensass in the summer, and in +the Italian city, as in the Tyrolese village, he wandered solitary, +taciturn, absorbed in his own thoughts. His meditations led him more and +more into a lonely state. He floated, as on a prophet's carpet, between +the political heavens and earth, capriciously refusing to ascend or to +alight. He had come to a sceptical stage in his mental evolution, a +stage in which he was to remain for a considerable time, gradually +modifying it in a conservative direction. One wonders what the simple- +minded and stalwart Björnson thought of being quietly told (March 28, +1884) that the lower classes are nowhere liberal-minded or self- +sacrificing, and that "in the views expressed by our [Norwegian] +peasants there is not an atom more of real Liberalism than is to be +found among the ultramontane peasantry of the Tyrol." In politics Ibsen +had now become a pagan; "I do not believe," he said, "in the +emancipatory power of political measures, nor have I much confidence in +the altruism and good will of those in power." This sense of the +uselessness of effort is strongly marked in the course of the next work +on which he was engaged, the very brilliant, but saturnine and sardonic +tragi-comedy of <i>The Wild Duck</i>. The first sketch of it was made during +the spring of 1884 in Rome, but the dramatist took it to Gossensass with +him for the finishing touches, and did not perfect it until the autumn. +It is remarkable that Ibsen invariably speaks of <i>The Wild Duck</i>, when +he mentions it in his correspondence, in terms of irony. He calls it a +collection of crazy tricks or tomfooleries, <i>galskaber</i>, an expression +which carries with it, in this sense, a confession of wilful paradox. In +something of the same spirit, Robert Browning, in the old days before he +was comprehended, used to speak of "the entirely unintelligible +<i>Sordello</i>," as if, sarcastically, to meet criticism half-way.</p> + +<p>When <i>The Wild Duck</i> was first circulated among Ibsen's admirers, it was +received with some bewilderment. Quite slowly the idea received +acceptance that the hitherto so serious and even angry satirist was, to +put it plainly, laughing at himself. The faithful were reluctant to +concede it. But one sees now, clearly enough, that in a sense it was so. +I have tried to show, we imagine Ibsen saying, that your hypocritical +sentimentality needs correction—you live in "A Doll's House." I have +dared to point out to you that your society is physically and morally +rotten and full of "Ghosts." You have repudiated my honest efforts as a +reformer, and called me "An Enemy of the People." Very well, then, have +it so if you please. What a fool am I to trouble about you at all. Go +down a steep place in Gadara and drown yourselves. If it amuses you, it +can amuse me also to be looked upon as Gregers Werle. <i>Vogue la galère</i>. +"But as the play is neither to deal with the Supreme Court, nor the +right of absolute veto, nor even with the removal of the sign of the +union from the flag," burning questions then and afterwards in Norwegian +politics, "it can hardly count upon arousing much interest in Norway"; +it will, however, amuse me immensely to point out the absurdity of my +caring. It is in reading <i>The Wild Duck</i> that for the first time the +really astonishing resemblance which Ibsen bears to Euripedes becomes +apparent to us. This is partly because the Norwegian dramatist now +relinquishes any other central object than the presentation to his +audience of the clash of temperament, and partly because here at last, +and for the future always, he separates himself from everything that is +not catastrophe. More than any earlier play, more even than <i>Ghosts</i>, +<i>The Wild Duck</i> is an avalanche which has begun to move, and with a +movement unaffected by the incidents of the plot, long before the +curtain rises. The later plays of Ibsen, unlike almost all other modern +dramas, depend upon nothing that happens while they are being exhibited, +but rush downwards to their inevitable close in obedience to a series of +long-precedent impulses. In order to gain this effect, the dramatist has +to be acquainted with everything that has ever happened to his +personages, and we are informed that Ibsen used to build up in his own +mind, for months at a time, the past history of his puppets. He was now +master of this practice. We are not surprised, therefore, to find one of +the most penetrating of dramatic critics remarking of <i>The Wild Duck</i> +that "never before had the poet displayed such an amazing power of +fascinating and absorbing us by the gradual withdrawal of veil after +veil from the past."</p> + +<p>The result of a searching determination to deal with personal and not +typical forms of temperament is seen in the firmness of the portraiture +in <i>The Wild Duck</i>, where, I think, less than ever before, is to be +found a trace of that incoherency which is to be met with occasionally +in all the earlier works of Ibsen, and which seems like the effect of a +sudden caprice or change of the point of view. There is, so far as I can +judge, no trace of this in <i>The Wild Duck</i>, where the continuity of +aspect is extraordinary. Confucius assures us that if we tell him our +past, he will tell us our future, and although several of the characters +in <i>The Wild Duck</i> are the most sordid of Ibsen's creations, the author +has made himself so deeply familiar with them that they are absolutely +lifelike. The detestable Hialmar, in whom, by the looking-glass of a +disordered liver, any man may see a picture of himself; the pitiable +Gregers Werle, perpetually thirteenth at table, with his genius for +making an utter mess of other people's lives; the vulgar Gina; the +beautiful girlish figure of the little martyred Hedvig—all are wholly +real and living persons.</p> + +<p>The subject of the play, of course, is one which we do not expect, or +had not hitherto expected, from Ibsen. It is the danger of "a sick +conscience" and the value of illusion. Society may be full of poisonous +vapors and be built on a framework of lies; it is nevertheless prudent +to consider whether the ideal advantages of disturbing it overweigh the +practical disadvantages, and above all to bear in mind that if you rob +the average man of his illusions, you are almost sure to rob him of his +happiness. The topsy-turvy nature of a this theme made Ibsen as nearly +"rollicking" as he ever became in his life. We can imagine than as he +wrote the third act of <i>The Wild Duck</i>, where so horrible a luncheon +party—"we'll all keep a corner"—gloats over the herring salad, he +indulged again and again in those puffs of soundless and formidable +mirth which Mr. Johan Paulsen describes as so surprising an element of +conversation with Ibsen.</p> + +<p>To the gossip of that amiable Boswell, too, we must turn for a valuable +impression of the solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about +this time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now +successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family saw +him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if +sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to +catch him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study, +into which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to +believe, did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his +own mind, which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast and +rich than that which lay spread around him." [Note: <i>Samliv med Ibsen</i>, +1906, p. 30.]</p> + +<p>And now the celebrated afternoons at the cafes had begun. In Rome Ibsen +had his favorite table, and he would sit obliquely facing a mirror in +which, half hidden by a newspaper and by the glitter of his gold +spectacles, he could command a sight of the whole restaurant, and +especially of the door into the street. Every one who entered, every +couple that conversed, every movement of the scene, gave something to +those untiring eyes. The newspaper and the cafe mirror—these were the +books which, for the future, Ibsen was almost exclusively to study; and +out of the gestures of a pair of friends at a table, out of a paragraph +in a newspaper, even out of the terms of an advertisement, he could +build up a drama. Incessant observation of real life, incessant capture +of unaffected, unconsidered phrases, actual living experience leaping in +his hands like a captive wild animal, this was now the substance from +which all Ibsen's dreams and dramas were woven. Concentration of +attention on the vital play of character, this was his one interest.</p> + +<p>Out of this he was roused by a sudden determination to go at last and +see for himself what life in Norway was really like. A New England wit +once denied that a certain brilliant and Europe-loving American author +was a cosmopolitan. "No," he said, "a cosmopolitan is at home even in +his own country." Ibsen began to doubt whether he was not too far off to +follow events in Norway—and these were now beginning to be very +exciting—well enough to form an independent judgment about them; and +after twenty years of exile there is no doubt that the question was +fairly put. <i>The Wild Duck</i> had been published in November, 1884, and +had been acted everywhere in Scandinavia with great success. The critics +and the public were agreed for the first time that Ibsen was a very +great national genius, and that if Norway was not proud of him it would +make a fool of itself in the eyes of Europe.</p> + +<p>Ibsen had said that Norway was a barbarous country, inhabited by two +millions of cats and dogs, but so many agreeable and highly-civilized +compliments found their way to him in Rome that he began to fancy that +the human element was beginning to be introduced. At all events, he +would see for himself, and in June, 1885, instead of stopping at +Gossensass, he pushed bravely on and landed in Christiania.</p> + +<p>At first all went well, but from the very beginning of the visit he +observed, or thought he observed, awkward phenomena. The country was +thrilled with political excitement, and it vibrated with rhetorical +resolutions which seemed to Ibsen very empty. He had a constitutional +horror of purely theoretical questions, and these were occupying Norway +from one end to the other. The King's veto, the consular difficulty, the +Swedish emblem in the national flag, these were the subjects of frenzied +discussion, and in none of these did Ibsen take any sort of pleasure. He +was not politically far-sighted, it must be confessed, nor did he guess +what practical proportions these "theoretical questions" were to assume +in the immediate future.</p> + +<p>That great writer and delightful associate, the Swedish poet, Count +Snoilsky, one of the few whose company never wearied or irritated Ibsen, +joined him in the far north. They spent a pleasant, quiet time together +at Molde, that enchanting little sub-arctic town, where it looks +southward over the shining fjord, with the Romsdalhorn forever guarding +the mountainous horizon. Here no politics intruded, and Ibsen, when +Snoilsky had left him, already thinking of a new drama, lingered on at +Molde, spending hours on hours at the end of the jetty, gazing into the +clear, cold sea. His passion for the sea had never betrayed him, and at +Rome, where he had long given up going to any galleries or studios, he +still haunted the house of a Norwegian marine painter, Nils Hansteen, +whose sketches reminded him of old days and recollected waters.</p> + +<p>But the autumn comes on apace in these high latitudes, and Ibsen had to +return to Christiania with its torchlight processions, and late noisy +feasts, and triumphant revolutionary oratory. He disliked it extremely, +and he made up his mind to go back to the indifferent South, where +people did not worry about such things. Unfortunately, the inhabitants +of Christiania did not leave him alone. They were not content to have +him among them as a retired observer, they wanted to make him stand out +definitely on one political side or the other. He was urged, at the end +of September, to receive the inevitable torchlight procession planned in +his honor by the Union of Norwegian Students. He was astute enough to +see that this might compromise his independence, but he was probably too +self-conscious in believing that a trap was being laid for him. He said +that, not having observed that his presence gave the Union any great +pleasure, he did not care to have its expression of great joy at t his +departure. This was not polite, for it does not appear that the students +had any idea that he intended to depart. He would not address a reply to +the Union as a body, but to "my friends among the students."</p> + +<p>A committee called upon him to beg him to reconsider his resolution, but +he roundly told them that he knew that they were reactionaries, and +wanted to annex him to their party, and that he was not blind to their +tricks. They withdrew in confusion, and Ibsen, in an agony of nervous +ness, determined to put the sea between himself and their machinations. +Early in October he retreated, or rather fled, to Copenhagen, and thence +to Munich, where he breathed again. Meanwhile, the extreme liberal +faction among the students claimed that his action had meant that he was +heart and soul with them, as against the reactionaries. A young Mr. Ove +Rode, who had interviewed him, took upon himself to say that these were +Ibsen's real sentiments. Ibsen fairly stamped with rage, and declared, +in furious communications, that all these things were done on purpose. +"It was an opportunity to insult a poet which it would have been a sad +pity to lose," he remarked, with quivering pen. A reverberant +controversy sprang up in the Norwegian newspapers, and Ibsen, in his +Bavarian harbor of refuge, continued to vibrate all through the winter +of 1885. The exile's return to his native country had proved to be far +from a success.</p> + +<p>Already his new play was taking shape, and the success of his great +personal ambition, namely that his son, Sigurd, should be taken with +honor into the diplomatic service of his country, did such to calm his +spirits. Ibsen was growing rich now, as well as famous, and if only the +Norwegians would let him alone, he might well be happy. The new play was +<i>Rosmersholm</i>, and it took its impulse from a speech which Ibsen had +made during his journey, at Trondhjem, where he expounded the gospel of +individualism to a respectful audience of workingmen, and had laid down +the necessity of introducing an aristocratic strain, <i>et adeligt +element</i>, into the life of a truly democratic state, a strain which +woman and labor were to unite in developing. He said: "I am thinking, of +course, not of birth, nor of money, nor even of intellect, but of the +nobility which grows out of character. It is <i>character</i> alone which can +make us free." This nobility of character must be fostered, mainly, by +the united efforts of motherhood and labor. This was quite a new creed +in Norway, and it bewildered his hearers, but it is remarkable to notice +how the best public feeling in Scandinavia has responded to the appeal, +and how little surprise the present generation would express at a +repetition of such sentiments. And out of this idea of "nobility" of +public character <i>Rosmersholm</i> directly sprang.</p> + +<p>We are not left to conjecture in this respect. In a letter to Björn +Kristensen (February 13, 1887), Ibsen deliberately explained, while +correcting a misconception of the purpose of <i>Rosmersholm</i>, that "the +play deals with the struggle which all serious-minded human beings have +to wage with themselves in order to bring their lives into harmony with +their convictions. ... Conscience is very conservative. It has its deep +roots in tradition and the past generally, and hence the conflict." When +we come to read <i>Rosmersholm</i> it is not difficult to see how this order +of ideas dominated Ibsen's mind when he wrote it. The mansion called by +that name is typical of the ancient traditions of Norwegian bourgeois +aristocracy, which are not to be subservient to such modern and timid +conservatism as is represented by Rector Kroll, with his horror of all +things new because they are new. The Rosmer strain, in its inherent +nobility, is to be superior to a craven horror of the democracy, and is +to show, by the courage with which it fulfils its personal destiny, that +it looks above and beyond all these momentary prejudices, and accepts, +from all hands, whatever is wise and of good report.</p> + +<p>The misfortune is that Ibsen, in unconscious bondage to his ideas, did +not construct his drama sturdily enough on realistic lines. While not +one of his works is more suggestive than <i>Rosmersholm</i>, there is not one +which gives the unbeliever more opportunity to blaspheme. This ancestral +house of a great rich race, which is kept up by the ministrations of a +single aged female servant, stands in pure Cloud-Cuckoo Land. The +absence of practical amenities in the Rosmer family might be set down to +eccentricity, if all the other personages were not equally ill-provided. +Rebecca, glorious heroine according to some admirers, "criminal, thief +and murderess," as another admirer pleonastically describes her, is a +sort of troll; nobody can explain—and yet an explanation seems +requisite—what she does in the house of Rosmer. In his eagerness to +work out a certain sequence of philosophical ideas, the playwright for +once neglected to be plausible. It is a very remarkable feature of +<i>Rosmersholm</i> that in it, for the first time, and almost for the last, +Ibsen, in the act of theorizing, loses his hold upon reality. He places +his ingenious, elaborate and—given the premises—inevitable dénouement +in a scene scarcely more credible than that of a Gilbert and Sullivan +opera, and not one-tenth as amusing. Following, as it does, immediately +on the heels of <i>The Wild Duck</i>, which was as remarkable a slice of real +life as was ever brought before a theatrical audience, the artificiality +of <i>Rosmersholm</i> shows Ibsen as an artist clearly stepping backward that +he may leap the further forward.</p> + +<p>In other words, <i>Rosmersholm</i> is the proof of Ibsen's desire to conquer +another field of drama. He had now for some years rejected with great +severity all temptations from the poetic spirit, which was nevertheless +ineradicable in him. He had wished to produce on the mind of the +spectator no other impression than that he was observing something which +had actually happened, exactly in the way and the words in which it +would happen. He had formulated to the actress, Lucie Wolf, the +principle that ideal dramatic poetry should be considered extinct, "like +some preposterous animal form of prehistoric times." But the soul of man +cannot be fed with a stone, and Ibsen had now discovered that perfectly +prosaic "slices of life" may be salutary and valuable on occasion, but +that sooner or later a poet asks for more. He, therefore, a poet if ever +there was one, had grown weary of the self-made law by which he had shut +himself out from Paradise. He determined, grudgingly, and hardly knowing +how to set about it, that he would once more give the spiritual and the +imaginative qualities their place in his work. These had now been +excluded for nearly twenty years, since the publication of <i>Peer Gynt</i>, +and he would not resume them so far as to write his dramas again in +verse. Verse in drama was doomed; or if not, it was at least a juvenile +and fugitive skill not to be rashly picked up again by a business-like +bard of sixty. But he would reopen the door to allegory and symbol, and +especially to fantastic beauty of landscape.</p> + +<p>The landscape of Rosmersholm has all, or at least much, of the old +enchantment. The scene at the mill-dam links us once more with the woods +and the waters which we had lost sight of since <i>Peer Gynt</i>. But this +element was still more evident in <i>The Lady from the Sea</i>, which was. +published in 1888. We have seen that Ibsen spent long hours, in the +summer of 1885, at the end of the pier at Molde, gazing down into the +waters, or watching the steamers arriving and departing, coming from the +great sea beyond the fjord or going towards it. As was his wont, he +stored up these impressions, making no immediate use of them. He +actually prepared <i>The Lady from the Sea</i> in very different, although +still marine surroundings. He went to Jutland, and settled for the +summer at the pretty and ancient, but very mild little town of Saeby, +with the sands in front of him and rolling woods behind. From Saeby it +was a short journey to Frederikshavn, "which he liked very much—he +could knock about all day among the shipping, talking to the sailors, +and so forth. Besides, he found the neighborhood of the sea favorable to +contemplation and constructive thought." So Mr. Archer, who visited him +at Saeby; and I myself, a year or two later, picked up at Frederikshavn +an oral tradition of Ibsen, with his hands behind his back, and the +frock-coat tightly buttoned, stalking, stalking alone for hours on the +interminable promenade between the great harbor moles of Frederikshaven, +no one daring to break in upon his formidable contemplation.</p> + +<p>In several respects, though perhaps not in concentration of effect, <i>The +Lady from the Sea</i> shows a distinct advance on <i>Rosmersholm</i>. It is +never dull, never didactic, as its predecessor too often was, and there +is thrown over the whole texture of it a glamour of romance, of mystery, +of beauty, which had not appeared in Ibsen's work since the completion +of <i>Peer Gynt</i>. Again, after the appearance of so many strenuous +tragedies, it was pleasant to welcome a pure comedy. <i>The Lady from the +Sea</i> [Note: In the <i>Neue Rundschau</i> for December, 1906, there was +published a first draft of <i>The Lady from the Sea</i>, dating as far back +as 1800.] is connected with the previous plays by its emphatic defence +of individuality and its statement of the imperative necessity of +developing it; but the tone is sunny, and without a tinge of pessimism. +It is in some respects the reverse of <i>Rosmersholm</i>; the bitterness of +restrained and balked individuality, which ends in death, being +contrasted with the sweetness of emancipated and gratified +individuality, which leads to health and peace. To the remarkable +estimate of <i>The Lady from the Sea</i> formed by some critics, and in +particular by M. Jules de Gaultier, we shall return in a general +consideration of the symbolic plays, of which it is the earliest. Enough +to say here that even those who did not plunge so deeply into its +mysteries found it a remarkably agreeable spectacle, and that it has +continued to be, in Scandinavia and Germany, one of the most popular of +its author's works.</p> + +<p>Ibsen left his little tavern at Saeby towards the end of September, +1887, in consequence of an invitation to proceed directly to Stockholm, +where his Swedish admirers, now very numerous and enthusiastic, would no +longer be deprived of the pleasure of entertaining him publicly. He +appeared before them, the breast of his coat sparkling with foreign +stars and crosses, the Urim and Thummim of general European recognition. +He was now in his sixtieth year, and he had out lived all the obscurity +of his youth. In the three Scandinavian countries—even in recalcitrant +Norway—he was universally hailed as the greatest dramatist of the age. +In Germany his fame was greater than that of any native writer of the +sang class. In Italy and Russia he was entering on a career of high and +settled popularity. Even in France and England his work was now +discussed with that passionate interest which shows the vitality of what +is even, for the moment, misinterpreted and disliked. His admirers at +Stockholm told him that he had taken a foremost place in re-creating +their sense of life, that he was a fashioner and a builder of new social +forms, that he was, indeed, to thousands of them, the Master-Builder. +The reply he made to their enthusiasm was dignified and reserved, but it +revealed a sense of high gratification. Skule's long doubt was over; he +believed at last in his own kingdom, and that the world would be +ultimately the better for the stamp of his masterful soul upon its +surface.</p> + +<p>It was in an unusually happy mood that he sat dreaming through the early +part of the uneventful year 1889. But it gradually sank into melancholy +when, in the following year, he settled down to the composition of a new +play which was to treat of sad thoughts and tragic passions. He told +Snoilsky that for several reasons this work made very slow progress, +"and it robbed him of his summer holidays." From May to November, 1890, +he was uninterruptedly in Munich writing what is known to us now as +<i>Hedda Gabler</i>. He finished it at last, saying as he did so, "It has not +been my desire to deal in this play with so-called problems. What I +principally wanted to do was to depict human beings, human emotions and +human destinies, upon a groundwork of certain of the social conditions +and principles of the present day." It was a proof of the immense growth +of Ibsen's celebrity that editions of <i>Hedda Gabler</i> were called for +almost simultaneously, in the winter of 1890, in London, New York, St. +Petersburg, Leipzig, Berlin and Moscow, as well as in Copenhagen, +Stockholm and Christiania. There was no other living author in the world +at that moment who excited so much curiosity among the intellectual +classes, and none who exercised so much influence on the younger +generation of authors and thinkers.</p> + +<p>In <i>Hedda Gabler</i> Ibsen returned, for the last time, but with +concentrated vigor, to the prosaic ideal of his central period. He never +succeeded in being more objective in drama, he never kept more closely +to the bare facts of nature nor rejected more vigorously the ornaments +of romance and rhetoric than in this amazing play. There is no poetic +suggestion here, no species of symbol, white horse, or gnawing thing, or +monster from the sea. I am wholly in agreement with Mr. Archer when he +says that he finds it impossible to extract any sort of general idea +from <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, or to accept it as a satire of any condition of +society. Hedda is an individual, not a type, and it was as an individual +that she interested Ibsen. We have been told, since the poet's death, +that he was greatly struck by the case, which came under his notice at +Munich, of a German lady who poisoned herself because she was bored with +life, and had strayed into a false position. <i>Hedda Gabler</i> is the +realization of such an individual case. At first sight, it seemed as +though Ibsen had been influenced by Dumas <i>fils</i>, which might have been +true, in spite of the marked dislike which each expressed for the other; +[Note: It is said that <i>La Route de Thebes</i>, which Dumas had begun when +he died, was to have been a deliberate attack on the methods and +influence of Ibsen. Ibsen, on his part, loathed Dumas.] but closer +examination showed that Hedda Gabler had no sort of relation with the +pamphlets of the master of Parisian problem-tragedy.</p> + +<p>The attempt to show that <i>Hedda Gabler</i> "proved" anything was annoying +to Ibsen, who said, with more than his customary firmness, "It was not +my purpose to deal with what people call problems in this play. What I +chiefly tried to do was to paint human beings, human emotions and human +fate, against a background of some of the conditions and laws of society +as it exists to-day." The German critics, a little puzzled to find a +longitude and latitude for Tesman's "tastefully decorated" villa, +declared that this time Ibsen had written an "international," not a +locally Norwegian, play. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the +contrary, <i>Hedda Gabler</i> is perhaps the most fatally local and Norwegian +of all Ibsen's plays, and it presents, not of course the highly +civilized Christiania of to-day, but the half-suburban, half-rural +little straggling town of forty years ago. When I visited Norway as a +lad, I received kind but sometimes rather stiff and raw hospitality in +several tastefully decorated villas, which were as like that of the +Tesmans as pea is like pea. Why Ibsen chose to paint a "west end of +Christiania" of 1860 rather than of 1890 I cannot guess, unless it was +that to so persistent an exile the former was far more familiar than the +latter.</p> + +<p>A Russian actress of extreme talent, Madame Alla Nazimova, who has had +special opportunities of studying the part of Hedda Gabler, has lately +(1907) depicted her as "aristocratic and ill-mated, ambitious and doomed +to a repulsive alliance with a man beneath her station, whom she had +mistakenly hoped would give her position and wealth. In other +circumstances, Hedda would have been a power for beauty and good." If +this ingenious theory be correct, <i>Hedda Gabler</i> must be considered as +the leading example of Ibsen's often-repeated demonstration, that evil +is produced by circumstances and not by character. The portrait becomes +thrillingly vital if we realize that the stains upon it are the impact +of accidental conditions on a nature which might otherwise have been +useful and fleckless. Hedda Gabler is painted as Mr. Sargent might paint +a lady of the London fashionable world; his brush would divine and +emphasize, as Ibsen's pen does, the disorder of her nerves, and the +ravaging concentration of her will in a sort of barren and impotent +egotism, while doing justice to the superficial attractiveness of her +cultivated physical beauty. He would show, as Ibsen shows, and with an +equal lack of malice prepense, various detestable features which the +mask of good manners had concealed. Each artist would be called a +caricaturist because his instinctive penetration had taken him into +regions where the powder-puff and the rouge-pot lose their power.</p> + +<a name="i6"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="laerum.jpg (64K)" src="laerum.jpg" height="770" width="482"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="c8"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<br> +<h3>LAST YEARS</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>With the publication of <i>Hedda Gabler</i> Ibsen passed into what we may +call his final glory. Almost insensibly, and to an accompaniment of his +own growls of indignation, he had taken his place, not merely as the +most eminent imaginative writer of the three Scandinavian countries, but +as the type there of what literature should be and the prophet of what +it would become. In 1880, Norway, the youngest and long the rawest of +the three civilizations, was now the foremost in activity, and though +the influence of Björnson and Jonas Lie was significant, yet it was not +to be compared for breadth and complexity with that of Ibsen. The nature +of the revolution, exercised by the subject of this memoir between 1880 +and 1890, that is to say from <i>Ghosts</i> to <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, was +destructive before it was constructive. The poetry, fiction and drama of +the three Northern nations had become stagnant with commonplace and +conventional matter, lumbered with the recognized, inevitable and +sacrosanct forms of composition. This was particularly the case in +Sweden, where the influence of Ibsen now proved more violent and +catastrophic than anywhere else. Ibsen destroyed the attraction of the +old banal poetry; his spirit breathed upon it in fire, and in all its +faded elegance it withered up and vanished.</p> + +<p>The next event was that the new generation in the three Northern +countries, deprived of its traditional authorities, looked about for a +prophet and a father, and they found what they wanted in the exceedingly +uncompromising elderly gentleman who remained so silent in the cafes of +Rome and of Munich. The zeal of the young for this unseen and +unsympathetic personage was extraordinary, and took forms of amazing +extravagance. Ibsen's impassivity merely heightened the enthusiasm of +his countless admirers, who were found, it should be stated, almost +entirely among persons who were born after his exile from Norway. His +writings supplied a challenge to character and intelligence which +appealed to those who disliked the earlier system of morals and +aesthetics against which he had so long fought single-handed.</p> + +<p>Among writers in the North Ibsen began to hold very much the position +that Whistler was taking among painters and etchers in this country, +that is to say the abuse and ridicule of his works by a dwindling group +of elderly conventional critics merely stung into more frenzied +laudation an ever-widening circle of youthful admirers. Ibsen repented, +for a time almost exclusively, "serious" aims in literature, and with +those of Herbert Spencer, and in less measure of Zola, and a little +later of Nietzsche, his books were the spiritual food of all youthful +minds of any vigor or elasticity.</p> + +<p>In Sweden, at this time, the admiration for Ibsen took forms of almost +preposterous violence. The great Swedish novelist, Gustaf af Geijerstam, +has given a curious and amusing account of the rage for Ibsen which came +to its height about 1880. The question which every student asked his +friend, every lover his mistress, was "What do you think of Ibsen?" Not +to be a believer in the Norwegian master was a reef upon which love or +friendship might easily be shipwrecked. It was quoted gravely as an +insufferable incompatibility for the state of marriage. There was a +curious and secret symbolism running through the whole of youthful +Swedish society, from which their elders were cunningly excluded, by +which the volumes of Ibsen, passed from hand to hand, presented on +solemn occasions, became the emblems of the problems interesting to +generous youth, flags carried in the moral fight for liberty and truth. +The three Northern countries, in their long stagnation, had become +clogged and deadened with spiritual humbug, which had sealed the sources +of emotion. It seemed though, after the long frost of the seventies, +spring had come and literature had budded a at last, and that it was +Ibsen who had blown the clarion of the West Wind and heralded the +emancipation.</p> + +<p>The enthusiasm for the Norwegian dramatist was not always according to +knowledge, and sometimes it took grotesque forms. Much of the abuse +showered in England and France upon Ibsen at the time we are now +describing was due to echoes of the extravagance of his Scandinavian and +German idolaters. A Swedish satirist [Note: "Stella Kleve" (Mathilda +Malling, in <i>Framat</i> 1886)] said that if Ibsen could have foreseen how +many "misunderstood" women would leave their homes in imitation of Nora, +and how many lovesick housekeepers drink poison on account of Rebecca, +he would have thrown ashes on his head and have retreated into the +deserts of Tartary. The suicide of the novelist, Ernst Ahlgren, was the +tragic circumstance where much was so purely comic. But if there were +elements of tragicomedy in the Ibsen idolatry, there were far more +important elements of vigorous and wholesome intellectual independence; +and it was during this period of Ibsen's almost hectic popularity that +the foundations of a new fiction and a new drama were laid in Sweden, +Denmark and Norway. A whole generation sucked strength and energy from +his early writings, since it is to be remarked that, from 1880 to 1890, +the great prestige of Ibsen did not depend so much on the dramas he was +then producing, as on the earlier works of his poetic youth, now reread +with an unexampled fervor. So, with us, the tardy popularity of Robert +Browning, which faintly resembles that of Ibsen, did not attract the +younger generation to the volumes which succeed <i>The Ring and the Book</i>, +but sent them back to the books which their fathers had despised, to +<i>Pippa Passes</i> and <i>Men and Women</i>. To the generation of 1880, Ibsen was +not so much the author of the realistic social dramas as of those old +but now rediscovered miracles of poetry and wit, <i>The Pretenders</i>, +<i>Brand</i> and <i>Peer Gynt</i>.</p> + +<p>In 1889 Ibsen had been made very pleasantly conscious of this strong +personal feeling in his favor among young men and women. Nor did he find +it confined to Scandinavia. He had travelled about in Germany, and +everywhere his plays were being acted. Berlin was wild about him; at +Weimar he was fêted like a conqueror. He did not settle down at Munich +until May, and here, as we have seen, he stayed all the summer, hard at +work. After the success of <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, which overpowered all adverse +comment, Ibsen began to long to be in Norway again, and this feeling was +combined, in a curious way, with a very powerful emotion which now +entered into his life. He had lived a retired and peaceful existence, +mainly a spectator at the feast, as little occupied in helping himself +to the dishes which he saw others enjoy as is an eremite in the desert +in plucking the grape-clusters of his dreams. No adventure, of any +prominent kind, had ever been seen to diversify Ibsen's perfectly +decorous and domestic career. And now he was more than sixty, and the +gray tones were gathering round him more thickly than ever, when a real +ray of vermilion descended out of the sky and filled his horizon with +color.</p> + +<p>In the season of 1889, among the summer boarders at Gossensass, there +appeared a young Viennese lady of eighteen, Miss Emilie Bardach. She +used to sit on a certain bench in the Pferchthal, and when the poet, +whom she adored from afar, passed by, she had the courage to smile at +him. Strange to say, her smile was returned, and soon Ibsen was on the +bench at her side. He readily discovered where she lived; no less +readily he gained an introduction to the family with whom she boarded. +There was a window-seat in the <i>salle à manger</i>; it was deep and shaded +by odorous flowering shrubs; it lent itself to endless conversation. The +episode was strange, the passion improbable, incomprehensible, +profoundly natural and true. Perhaps, until they parted in the last days +of September, neither the old man nor the young girl realized what their +relations had meant to each. Youth secured its revenge, however; Miss +Bardach soon wrote from Vienna that she was now more tranquil, more +independent, happy at last. Ibsen, on the other hand, was heart-broken, +quivering with ecstasy, overwhelmed with joy and despair.</p> + +<p>It was the enigma in his "princess," as he called her; that completed +Miss Bardach's sorcery over the old poet. She seems to have been no +coquette; she flung her dangerous fascinations at his feet; she broke +the thread which bound the charms of her spirit and poured them over +him. He, for his part, remaining discreet and respectful, was shattered +with happiness. To a friend of mine, a young Norwegian man of letters, +Ibsen said about this time: "Oh, you can always love, but I am happier +than the happiest, for I am beloved." Long afterwards, on his seventieth +birthday, when his own natural force was failing, he wrote to Miss +Bardach, "That summer at Gossensass was the most beautiful and the most +harmonious portion of my whole existence. I scarcely venture to think of +it, and yet I think of nothing else. Ah! forever!" He did not dare to +send her <i>The Master-Builder</i>, since her presence interpenetrated every +line of it like a perfume, and when, we are told, she sent him her +photograph, signed "Princess of Orangia," her too-bold identification of +herself with Hilda Wangel hurt him as a rough touch, that finer tact +would have avoided. There can be no doubt at all that while she was now +largely absorbed by the compliment to her own vanity, he was still +absolutely enthralled and bewitched, and that what was fun to her made +life and death to him.</p> + +<p>This very curious episode [Note: It was quite unknown until the +correspondence—which has not been translated into English—was +published by Georg Brandes at the desire of the lady herself (September, +1906).], which modifies in several important respects our conception of +the dramatist's character, is analogous with the apparent change of +disposition which made Renan surprise his unthinking admirers so +suddenly at the epoch of <i>L'Eau de Jouvence</i> and <i>L'Abbesse de Jouarre</i>. +It was founded, of course, on that dangerous susceptibility to which an +elderly man of genius, whose life had been spent in labor and +reflection, may be inclined to resign himself, as he sees the sands +running out of the hour-glass, and realizes that in analyzing and +dissecting emotion he has never had time to enjoy it. Time is so short, +the nerves so fragile and so finite, the dreadful illusion, the <i>maia</i>, +so irresistible, that the old man gives way to it, and would sooner die +at once than not make one grasp at happiness.</p> + +<p>It will have been remarked that Ibsen's habit was to store up an +impression, but not to use it immediately on creative work. We need, +therefore, feel no surprise that there is not a trace of the Bardach +episode in <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, although the composition of that play +immediately followed the <i>hohes, schmerzliches Glück</i> at Gossensass. He +was, too, no moonlight serenader, and his intense emotion is perfectly +compatible with the outline of some of the gossip which was repeated at +the time of his death; Ibsen being reported to have said of the Viennese +girl: "She did not get hold of me, but I got hold of her—for my play." +These things are very complex, and not to be hastily dismissed, +especially on the rough and ready English system. There would be give +and take in such a complicated situation, when the object was, as Ibsen +himself says, out of reach <i>unversichtbar</i>. There is no question that +for every pang which Hilda made her ancient lover suffer, he would +enrich his imagination with a dozen points of experience. There is no +paradox in saying that the poet was overwhelmed with a passion and yet +consciously made it serve as material for his plays. From this time +onwards every dramatic work of his bears the stamp of those hours among +the roses at Gossensass.</p> + +<p>To the spring of 1891 belongs Ibsen's somewhat momentous visit to +Vienna, where he was invited by Dr. Max Burckhard, the director of the +Burg Theatre, to superintend the performance of his <i>Pretenders</i>. Ibsen +had already, in strict privacy, visited Vienna, where his plays enjoyed +an increasing success, but this was his first public entrance into a +city which he admired on the whole more than any other city of Europe. +"Mein schöner Wien!" he used to murmur, with quite a clan of affection. +In April, 1891, after the triumph of his tragedy on the stage, Ibsen was +the guest at a public banquet at Vienna, when the ovations were +overwhelming and were extended until four o'clock next morning. A +performance of <i>The Wild Duck</i> produced, what was almost as dear to +Ibsen as praise, a violent polemic, and he passed on out of a world of +storm and passion to Buda-Pesth, where he saw <i>A Doll's House</i> acted in +Hungarian, amid thunders of applause, and where he was the guest of +Count Albert Apponyi. These were the happy and fruitful years which +consoled the heart of the poet for the bitter time when</p> + +<p>"Hate's decree Dwelt in his thoughts intolerable."</p> + +<p>In the ensuing summer, in July, 1891, Ibsen left Munich with every +intention of returning to it, but with the plan of a long summer trip in +Norway, where the triumphant success of <i>Hedda Gabler</i> had been very +agreeable to his feelings. Once more he pushed up through the country to +Trondhjem, a city which had always attracted him and pleased him. Here +he presently embarked on one of the summer coasting-steamers, and saw +the shores of Nordland and Finmark for the first time, visiting the +North Cape itself. He came back to Christiania for the rest of the +season, with no prospect of staying. But he enjoyed a most flattering +reception; he was begged to resume his practical citizenship, and he was +assured that life in Norway would be made very pleasant to him. In the +autumn, therefore, in his abrupt way, he took an apartment in Viktoria +Terrasse, and sent to Munich for his furniture. He said to a friend who +expressed surprise at this settlement: "I may just as well make +Christiania my headquarters as Munich. The railway takes me in a very +short time wherever I want to go; and when I am bored with Norway I can +travel elsewhere." But he never felt the fatigue he anticipated, and, +but for brief visits to Copenhagen or Stockholm, he left his native +country no more after 1891, although he changed his abode in Christiania +itself.</p> + +<p>For the first twelve months Ibsen enjoyed the pleasures of the prodigal +returned, and fed with gusto on the fatted calf. Then, when three years +separated him from the illuminating soul-adventures of Gossensass, he +began to turn them into a play. It proved to be <i>The Master-Builder</i>, +and was published before the close of December, 1892, with the date 1893 +on the title-page. This play was running for some time in Germany and +England before it was played in Scandinavia. But on the evening of March +8, 1893, it was simultaneously given at the National Theatre in +Christiania and at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. It was a work which +greatly puzzled the critics, and its meaning was scarcely apparent until +it had been seen on the stage, for which the oddity of its arrangements +are singularly well adapted. It was, however, almost immediately noticed +that it marked a new departure in Ibsen's writings. Here was an end of +the purely realistic and prosaic social dramas, which had reigned from +<i>The League of Youth</i> to <i>Hedda Gabler</i>, and here was a return to the +strange and haunting beauty of the old imaginative pieces. Mr. Archer +was happily inspired when he spoke of "the pure melody" of the piece, +and the best scenes of <i>The Master-Builder</i> were heroically and almost +recklessly poetical.</p> + +<p>This remarkable composition is full of what, for want of a better word, +we must call "symbolism." In the conversations between Solness and Hilda +much is introduced which is really almost unintelligible unless we take +it to be autobiographical. The Master-Builder is one who constructs, not +houses, but poems and plays. It is the poet himself who gives +expression, in the pathetic and erratic confessions of Solness, to his +doubts, his craven timidities, his selfish secrets, and his terror at +the uniformity of his "luck." It is less easy to see exactly what Ibsen +believed himself to be presenting to us in the enigmatical figure of +Hilda, so attractive and genial, so exquisitely refreshing, and yet +radically so cruel and superficial. She is perhaps conceived as a symbol +of Youth, arriving too late within the circle which Age has trodden for +its steps to walk in, and luring it too rashly, by the mirage of +happiness, into paths no longer within its physical and moral capacity. +"Hypnotism," Mr. Archer tells us, "is the first and last word of the +dramatic action"; perhaps thought-transference more exactly expresses +the idea, but I should not have stated even this quite so strongly. The +ground of the dramatic action seems to me to be the balance of Nemesis, +the fatal necessity that those who enjoy exceptional advantages in life +shall pay for them by not less exceptional, but perhaps less obvious, +disadvantages. The motto of the piece—at least of the first two of its +acts—might be the couplet of the French tragedian:—</p> + +<p>C'est un ordre des dieux qui jamais ne se rompt De nous vendre bien cher +les grands biens qu'ils nous font.</p> + +<p>Beneath this, which we may call the transcendental aspect of the play, +we find a solid and objective study of the self-made man, the headstrong +amateur, who has never submitted to the wholesome discipline of +professional training, but who has trusted to the help of those trolls +or mascots, his native talent and his unfailing "luck." Upon such a man +descends Hilda, the disorganizer, who pierces the armor of his conceit +by a direct appeal to his passions. Solness has been the irresistible +sorcerer, through his good fortune, but he is not protected in his +climacteric against this unexpected attack upon the senses. Samson +philanders with Delila, and discovers that his strength is shorn from +him. There is no doubt that Ibsen intended in <i>The Master-Builder</i> a +searching examination of "luck" and the tyranny of it, the terrible +effects of it on the Broviks and the Kajas whom nobody remembers, but +whose bodies lie under the wheels of its car. The dramatic situation is +here extremely interesting; it consists in the fact that Solness, who +breaks every one else, is broken by Hilda. The inherent hardness of +youth, which makes no allowances, which demands its kingdom here and now +upon the table, was never more powerfully depicted. Solness is smashed +by his impact with Hilda, as china is against a stone. In all this it +would be a mistake to see anything directly autobiographical, although +so much in the character and position of Solness may remind us, +legitimately enough, of Ibsen himself, and his adventures.</p> + +<p>The personal record of Ibsen in these years is almost silent. He was +growing old and set in his habits. He was growing rich, too, and he +surrounded himself with sedentary comforts. His wealth, it may here be +said, was founded entirely upon the success of his works, but was +fostered by his extreme adroitness as a man of business. Those who are +so fond of saying that any man of genius might have excelled in some +other capacity are fully justified if they like to imagine Ibsen as the +model financier. He certainly possessed a remarkable aptitude for +affairs, and we learn that his speculations were at once daring and +crafty. People who are weary of commiserating the poverty of poets may +be pleased to learn that when Ibsen died he was one of the wealthiest +private citizens of Christiania, and this was wholly in consequence of +the care he had taken in protecting his copyrights and administering his +receipts. If the melancholy couplet is correct which tells us that</p> + +<p>Aux petits des oiseaux Dieu donne la pature, +Mais sa bonte s'arrkete a la litterature,</p> + +<p>we must believe, with Ibsen's enemies, that his fortunes were not under +the divine protection.</p> + +<p>The actual numbers of each of his works printed since he first published +with Hegel in Copenhagen—a connection which he preserved without a +breach until the end—have been stated since his death. They contain +some points of interest. After 1876 Hegel ventured on large editions of +each new play, but they went off at first slowly. <i>The Lady from the +Sea</i> was the earliest to appear, at once, in an issue of 10,000 copies, +which was soon exhausted. So great, however, had the public interest in +Ibsen become in 1894 that the edition of 10,000 copies of <i>Little Eyolf</i> +was found quite inadequate to meet the first order, and it was enlarged +to 15,000, all of which were gone in a fortnight. This circulation in so +small a reading public as that of Denmark and Norway was unprecedented, +and it must be remembered that the simultaneous translations into most +of the languages of Europe are not included.</p> + +<p><i>Little Eyolf</i>, which was written in Christiania during the spring and +summer of 1894, was issued, according to Ibsen's cometary custom, as the +second week of December rolled round. The reception of it was stormy, +even in Scandinavia, and led to violent outbursts of controversy. No +work from the master's pen had roused more difference of opinion among +the critics since the bluster over <i>Ghosts</i> fourteen years before. Those +who prefer to absolute success in the creation of a work of art the +personal flavor or perfume of the artist himself were predisposed to +place <i>Little Eyolf</i> very high among his writings. Nowhere is he more +independent of all other influences, nowhere more intensely, it may even +be said more distressingly, himself. From many points of view this play +may fairly be considered in the light of a <i>tour de force</i>. Ibsen—one +would conjecture—is trying to see to what extremities of agile +independence he can force his genius. The word "force" has escaped me; +but it may be retained as reproducing that sense of a difficulty not +quite easily or completely overcome which <i>Little Eyolf</i> produces. To +mention but one technical matter; there are but four characters, +properly speaking, in the play—since Eyolf himself and the Rat-Wife are +but illustrations or symbolic properties—and of these four, one +(Borgheim) is wholly subsidiary. Ibsen, then, may be said to have +challenged imitation by composing a drama of passion with only three +characters in it. By a process of elimination this has been done by +Aeschylus (in the <i>Agamemnon</i>), by Racine (in <i>Phe*dre</i> and +<i>Andromaque</i>), and in our own day by Maeterlinck (in <i>Pelle*as et +Me*lisande</i>). But Ibsen was accustomed to a wider field, and his +experiment seems not wholly successful. <i>Little Eyolf</i>, at least, is, +from all points of view, an exercise on the tight-rope. We may hazard +the conjecture that no drama gave Ibsen more satisfaction to write, but +for enjoyment the reader may prefer less prodigious agility on the +trapeze.</p> + +<p>If we turn from the technical virtuosity of <i>Little Eyolf</i> to its moral +aspects, we find it a very dreadful play, set in darkness which nothing +illuminates but the twinkling sweetness of Asta. The mysterious symbol +of the Rat-Wife breaks in upon the pair whose love is turning to hate, +the man waxing cold as the wife grows hot. The Angel of God, in the +guise of an old beggar-woman, descends into their garden, and she drags +away, by an invisible chain, "the little gnawing thing," the pathetic +lame child. The effect on the pair of Eyolf's death by drowning is the +subject of the subsequent acts. In Rita jealousy is incarnate, and she +seems the most vigorous, and, it must be added, the most repulsive, of +Ibsen's feminine creations. The reckless violence of Rita's energy, +indeed, interpreted by a competent actress—played, for instance, as it +was in London most admirably by Miss Achurch—is almost too painful for +a public exhibition, and to the old criticism, "nec pueros coram populo +Medea trucidet," if a pedant chooses to press it, there teems no reply. +The sex question, as treated in <i>Little Eyolf</i>, recalls <i>The Kreutzer +Sonata</i> (1889) of Tolstoi. When, however, I ventured to ask Ibsen +whether there was anything in this, he was displeased, and stoutly +denied it. What, an author denies, however, is not always evidence.</p> + +<p>Nothing further of general interest happened to Ibsen until 1896, when +he sat down to compose another drama, <i>John Gabriel Borkman</i>. This was a +study of the mental adventures of a man of high commercial imagination, +who is artificially parted from all that contact with real affairs which +keeps such energy on the track, and who goes mad with dreams of +incalculable power, a study, in fact, of financial megalomania. It was +said, at the time, that Ibsen was originally led to make this analysis +of character from reading in the Christiania newspapers a report of the +failure and trial of a notorious speculator convicted of fraud in 1895, +and sentenced to a long period of penal servitude.</p> + +<p>Whether this be so or not, we have in the person of John Gabriel Borkman +a prominent example of the ninteenth century type of criminous +speculator, in whom the vastness of view and the splendidly altruistic +audacity present themselves as elements which render it exceedingly +difficult to say how far the malefactor is morally responsible for his +crime. He has imagined, and to a certain point has carried out, a +monster metal "trust," for the success of which he lacks neither courage +nor knowledge nor practical administrative capacity, but only that +trifling concomitant, sufficiency of capital. To keep the fires blazing +until his vast model is molten into the mould, he helps himself to money +here, there, and everywhere, scarcely giving a thought to his +responsibilities, so certain is he of ultimate and beneficent triumph. +He will make rich beyond the dreams of avarice all these his involuntary +supporters. Unhappily, just before his scheme is ready and the metal +runs, he is stopped by the stupidity of the law, and finds himself in +prison.</p> + +<p>Side by side with this study of commercial madness runs a thread of that +new sense of the preciousness of vital joy which had occupied Ibsen so +much ever since the last of the summers at Gossensass. The figure of +Erhart Borkman is a very interesting one to the theatrical student. In +the ruin of the family, all hopes concentre in him. Every one claims +him, and in the bosoms of each of his shattered parents a secret hope is +born, Mrs. Borkman believing that by a brilliant career of commercial +rectitude her son will wipe out the memory of his father's crime; +Borkman, who has never given up the ambition of returning to business, +reposing his own hopes on the co-operation of his son.</p> + +<p>But Erhart Borkman disappoints them all. He will be himself, he will +enjoy his life, he will throw off all the burdens both of responsibility +and of restitution. He has no ambition and little natural feeling; he +simply must be happy, and he suddenly elopes, leaving all their +anticipations bankrupt, with a certain joyous Mrs. Wilton, who has +nothing but her beauty to recommend her. Deserted thus by the <i>ignis +fatuus</i> of youth, the collapse of the three old people is complete. +Under the shock the brain of Borkman gives way, and he wanders out into +the winter's night, full of vague dreams of what he can still do in the +world, if he can only break from his bondage and shatter his dream. He +dies there in the snow, and the two old sisters, who have followed him +in an anxiety which overcomes their mutual hatred, arrive in time to see +him pass away. We leave them in the wood, "a dead man and two shadows"— +so Ella Rentheim puts it—"for <i>that</i> is what the cold has made of us"; +the central moral of the piece being that all the errors of humanity +spring from cold-heartedness and neglect of the natural heat of love. +That Borkman embezzled money, and reduced hundreds of innocent people to +beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his cruel +bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that is the +unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of obscurity, +and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality, about +<i>John Gabriel Borkman</i>, but on the whole it is a work of lofty +originality and of poignant human interest.</p> + +<p>The veteran was now beginning to be conscious of the approaches of old +age, but they were made agreeable to him by many tokens of national +homage.</p> + +<p>On his seventieth birthday, March 20, 1898, Ibsen received the +felicitations of the world. It is pleasing to relate that a group of +admirers in England, a group which included Mr. Asquith, Mr. J. M. +Barrie, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. Pinero and Mr. +Bernard Shaw took part in these congratulations and sent Ibsen a +handsome set of silver plate, this being an act which, it had been +discovered, he particularly appreciated. The bearer of this gift was the +earliest of the long stream of visitors to arrive on the morning of the +poet's birthday, and he found Ibsen in company with his wife, his son, +his son's wife (Björnson's daughter), and his little grandson, Tankred. +The poet's surprise and pleasure were emphatic. A deputation from the +Storthing, headed by the Leader of the House, deputations representing +the University, the various Christiania Theatres, and other official or +academic bodies arrived at intervals during the course of the day; and +all the afternoon Ibsen was occupied in taking these hundreds of +visitors, in parties, up to the case containing the English tribute, in +showing the objects and in explaining their origin. There could be no +question that the gift gave genuine pleasure to the recipient; it was +the first, as it was to be the last, occasion on which any public +testimony to English appreciation of his genius found its way to Ibsen's +door.</p> + +<p>Immediately after the birthday festivities, which it was observed had +fatigued him, Ibsen started on a visit to Copenhagen, where he was +received by the aged King of Denmark, and to Stockholm, where he was +overpowered with ovations from all classes. There can be no doubt that +this triumphal progress, though deeply grateful to the aged poet's +susceptibilities, made a heavy drain upon his nervous resources. When he +returned to Norway, indeed, he was concealed from all visitors at his +physician's orders, and it is understood that he had some kind of +seizure. It was whispered that he would write no more, and the biennial +drama, due in December, 1898, did not make its appearance. His stores of +health, however, were not easily exhausted; he rested for several +months, and then he was seen once more in Carl Johans Gade, smiling; in +his usual way, and entirely recovered. It was announced that winter that +he was writing his reminiscences, but nothing more was heard of any such +book.</p> + +<p>He was able to take a vivid interest in the preparations for the +National Norwegian Theatre in Christiania, which was finally opened by +the King of Sweden and Norway on September 1, 1899. Early in the +morning, colossal bronze statues of Ibsen and Björnson were unveiled in +front of the theatre, and the poets, now, unfortunately, again not on +the best of terms, were seen making vast de*tours for the purpose of +satisfying their curiosity, and yet not meeting one another in flesh or +in metal. The first night, to prevent rivalry, was devoted to +antiquarianism, and to the performance of extracts from the plays of +Holberg. Ibsen and Björnson occupied the centre of the dress circle, +sitting uplifted in two gilded fauteuils and segregated by a vast +garland of red and white roses. They were the objects of universal +attention, and the King seemed never to have done smiling and bowing to +the two most famous of his Norwegian subjects.</p> + +<p>The next night was Ibsen's fe*te, and he occupied, alone, the manager's +box. A poem in his honor, by Niels Collet Vogt, was recited by the +leading actor, who retired, and then rushed down the empty stage, with +his arms extended, shouting "Long live Henrik Ibsen." The immense +audience started to its feet and repeated the words over and over again +with deafening fervor. The poet appeared to be almost overwhelmed with +emotion and pleasure; at length, with a gesture which was quite +pathetic, smiling through his tears, he seemed to beg his friends to +spare him, and the plaudits slowly ceased. <i>An Enemy of the People</i> was +then admirably performed. At the close of every act Ibsen was called to +the front of his box, and when the performance was over, and the actors +had been thanked, the audience turned to him again with a sort of +affectionate ferocity. Ibsen was found to have stolen from his box, but +he was waylaid and forcibly carried back to it. On his reappearance, the +whole theatre rose in a roar of welcome, and it was with difficulty that +the aged poet, now painfully exhausted from the strain of an evening of +such prolonged excitement, could persuade the public to allow him to +withdraw. At length he left the theatre, walking slowly, bowing and +smiling, down a lane cleared for him, far into the street, through the +dense crowd of his admirers. This astonishing night, September 2, 1899, +was the climax of Ibsen's career.</p> + +<p>During all this time Ibsen was secretly at work on another drama, which +he intended as the epilogue to his earlier dramatic work, or at least to +all that he had written since <i>The Pillars of Society</i>. This play, which +was his latest, appeared, under the title of <i>When We Dead Awaken</i>, in +December, 1899 (with 1900 on the title-page). It was simultaneously +published, in very large editions, in all the principal languages of +Europe, and it was acted also, but it is impossible to deny that, +whether in the study or on the boards, it proved a disappointment. It +displayed, especially in its later acts, many obvious signs of the +weakness incident on old age.</p> + +<p>When it is said that <i>When We Dead Awaken</i> was not worthy of its +predecessors, it should be explained that no falling off was visible in +the technical cleverness with which the dialogue was built up, nor in +the wording of particular sentences. Nothing more natural or amusing, +nothing showing greater, command of the resources of the theatre, had +ever been published by Ibsen himself than the opening act of <i>When We +Dead Awaken</i>. But there was certainly in the whole conception a +cloudiness, an ineffectuality, which was very little like anything that +Ibsen had displayed before. The moral of the piece was vague, the +evolution of it incoherent, and indeed in many places it seemed a parody +of his earlier manner. Not Mr. Anstey Guthrie's inimitable scenes in +<i>Mr. Punch's Ibsen</i> were more preposterous than almost all the +appearances of Irene after the first act of <i>When We Dead Awaken</i>.</p> + +<p>It is Irene who describes herself as dead, but awakening in the society +of Rubek, whilst Maia, the little gay soulless creature whom the great +sculptor has married, and has got heartily tired of, goes up to the +mountains with Ulpheim the hunter, in pursuit of the free joy of life. +At the close, the assorted couples are caught on the summit of an +exceeding high mountain by a snowstorm, which opens to show Rubek and +Irene "whirled along with the masses of snow, and buried in them," while +Maia and her bear-hunter escape in safety to the plains. Interminable, +and often very sage and penetrating, but always essentially rather +maniacal, conversation fills up the texture of the play, which is +certainly the least successful of Ibsen's mature compositions. The +boredom of Rubek in the midst of his eminence and wealth, and his +conviction that by working in such concentration for the purity of art +he merely wasted his physical life, inspire the portions of the play +which bring most conviction and can be read with fullest satisfaction. +It is obvious that such thoughts, such faint and unavailing regrets, +pursued the old age of Ibsen; and the profound wound that his heart had +received so long before at Gossensass was unhealed to his last moments +of consciousness. An excellent French critic, M. P. G. La Chesnais, has +ingeniously considered the finale of this play as a confession that +Ibsen, at this end of his career, was convinced of the error of his +earlier rigor, and, having ceased to believe in his mission, regretted +the complete sacrifice of his life to his work. But perhaps it is not +necessary to go into such subtleties. <i>When We Dead Awaken</i> is the +production of a very tired old man, whose physical powers were +declining.</p> + +<p>In the year 1900, during our South African War, sentiment in the +Scandinavian countries was very generally ranged on the side of the +Boers. Ibsen, however, expressed himself strongly and publicly in favor +of the English position. In an interview (November 24, 1900), which +produced a considerable sensation, he remarked that the Boers were but +half-cultivated, and had neither the will nor the power to advance the +cause of civilization. Their sole object had come to be a jealous +exclusion of all the higher forms of culture. The English were merely +taking what the Boers themselves had stolen from an earlier race; the +Boers had pitilessly hunted their precursors out of house and home, and +now they were tasting the same cup themselves. These were considerations +which had not occurred to generous sentimentalists in Norway, and +Ibsen's defence of England, which he supported in further communications +with irony and courage, made a great sensation, and threw cold water on +the pro-Boer sentimentalists. In Holland, where Ibsen had a wide public, +this want of sympathy for Dutch prejudice raised a good deal of +resentment, and Ibsen's statements were replied to by the fiery young +journalist, Cornelius Karel Elout, who even published a book on the +subject. Ibsen took dignified notice of Elout's attacks (December 9, +1900), repeating his defence of English policy, and this was the latest +of his public appearances.</p> + +<p>He took an interest, however, in the preparation of the great edition of +his <i>Collected Works</i>, which appeared in Copenhagen in 1901 and 1902, in +ten volumes. Before the publication of the latest of these, however, +Ibsen had suffered from an apoplectic stroke, from which he never wholly +recovered. It was believed that any form of mental fatigue might now be +fatal to him, and his life was prolonged by extreme medical care. He was +contented in spirit and even cheerful, but from this time forth he was +more and more completely withdrawn from consecutive interest in what was +going on in the world without. The publication, in succession, of his +juvenile works (<i>Kaempehöjen</i>, <i>Olaf Liljekrans</i>, both edited by Halvdan +Koht, in 1902), of his <i>Correspondence</i>, edited by Koht and Julius +Elias, in 1904, of the bibliographical edition of his collected works by +Carl Naerup, in 1902, left him indifferent and scarcely conscious. The +gathering darkness was broken, it is said, by a gleam of light in 1905; +when the freedom of Norway and the accession of King Håkon were +explained to him, he was able to express his joyful approval before the +cloud finally sank upon his intelligence.</p> + +<p>During his long illness Ibsen was troubled by aphasia, and he expressed +himself painfully, now in broken Norwegian, now in still more broken +German. His unhappy hero, Oswald Alving, in <i>Ghosts</i>, had thrilled the +world by his cry, "Give me the sun, Mother!" and now Ibsen, with glassy +eyes, gazed at the dim windows, murmuring "Keine Sonne, keine Sonne, +keine Sonne!" At the table where all the works of his maturity had been +written the old man sat, persistently learning and forgetting the +alphabet. "Look!" he said to Julius Elias, pointing to his mournful +pothooks, "See what I am doing! I am sitting here and learning my letters +—my <i>letters</i>! I who was once a Writer!" Over this shattered image of +what Ibsen had been, over this dying lion, who could not die, Mrs. Ibsen +watched with the devotion of wife, mother and nurse in one, through six +pathetic years. She was rewarded, in his happier moments, by the +affection and tender gratitude of her invalid, whose latest articulate +words were addressed to her—"<i>min söde, kjaere, snille frue</i>" (my +sweet, dear, good wife); and she taught to adore their grandfather the +three children of a new generation, Tankred, Irene, Eleonora.</p> + +<p>Ibsen preserved the habit of walking about his room, or standing for +hours staring out of window, until the beginning of May, 1906. Then a +more complete decay confined him to his bed. After several days of +unconsciousness, he died very peacefully in his house on Drammensvej, +opposite the Royal Gardens of Christiania, at half-past two in the +afternoon of May 23, 1906, being in his seventy-ninth year. By a +unanimous vote of the he was awarded a public funeral, which the King of +Norway attended in person, while King Edward VII was represented there +by the British Minister. The event was regarded through out Norway as a +national ceremony of the highest solemnity and importance, and the poet +who had suffered such bitter humiliation and neglect in his youth was +carried to his grave in solemn splendor, to the sound of a people's +lamentation.</p> + +<a name="i7"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="peterson.jpg (95K)" src="peterson.jpg" height="768" width="484"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="c9"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<br> +<h3>PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>During the latest years of his life, which were spent as a wealthy and +prosperous citizen of Christiania, the figure of Ibsen took forms of +legendary celebrity which were equalled by no other living man of +letters, not even by Tolstoi, and which had scarcely been surpassed, +among the dead, by Victor Hugo. When we think of the obscurity of his +youth and middle age, and of his consistent refusal to advertise himself +by any of the little vulgar arts of self-exhibition, this extreme +publicity is at first sight curious, but it can be explained. Norway is +a small and a new country, inordinately, perhaps, but justly and +gracefully proud of those—an Ole Bull, a Frithjof Nansen, an Edvard +Grieg—who spread through the world evidences of its spiritual life. But +the one who was more original, more powerful, more interesting than any +other of her sons, had persistently kept aloof from the soil of Norway, +and was at length recaptured and shut up in a golden cage with more +expenditure of delicate labor than any perverse canary or escaped macaw +had ever needed. Ibsen safely housed in Christiania!—it was the +recovery of an important national asset, the resumption, after years of +vexation and loss, of the intellectual regalia of Norway.</p> + +<p>Ibsen, then—recaptured, though still in a frame of mind which left the +captors nervous—was naturally an object of pride. For the benefit of +the hundreds of tourists who annually pass through Christiania, it was +more than tempting, it was irresistible to point out, in slow advance +along Carl Johans Gade, in permanent silence at a table in the Grand +Cafe, "our greatest citizen." To this species of demonstration Ibsen +unconsciously lent himself by his immobility, his regularity of habits, +his solemn taciturnity. He had become more like a strange physical +object than like a man among men. He was visible broadly and quietly, +not conversing, rarely moving, quite isolated and self-contained, a +recognized public spectacle, delivered up, as though bound hand and +foot, to the kodak-hunter and the maker of "spicy" paragraphs. That +Ibsen was never seen to do anything, or heard to say anything, that +those who boasted of being intimate with him obviously lied in their +teeth—all this prepared him for sacrifice. Christiania is a hot-bed of +gossip, and its press one of the most "chatty" in the world. Our +"greatest living author" was offered up as a wave-offering, and he +smoked daily on the altar of the newspapers.</p> + +<p>It will be extremely rash of the biographers of the future to try to +follow Ibsen's life day by day in the Christiania press from, let us +say, 1891 to 1901. During that decade he occupied the reporters +immensely, and he was particularly useful to the active young men who +telegraph "chat" to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Berlin. +Snapshots of Ibsen, dangerous illness of the playwright, quaint habits +of the Norwegian dramatist, a poet's double life, anecdotes of Ibsen and +Mrs.——, rumors of the King's attitude to Ibsen—this pollenta, dressed +a dozen ways, was the standing dish at every journalist's table. If a +space needed filling, a very rude reply to some fatuous question might +be fitted in and called "Instance of Ibsen's Wit." The crop of fable was +enormous, and always seemed to find a gratified public, for whom nothing +was too absurd if it was supposed to illustrate "our great national +poet." Ibsen, meanwhile, did nothing at all. He never refuted a calumny, +never corrected a story, but he threw an ironic glance through his gold- +rimmed spectacles as he strolled down Carl Johan with his hands behind +his back.</p> + +<p>His personal appearance, it must be admitted, formed a tempting basis +upon which to build a legend. His force of will had gradually +transfigured his bodily forms until he thoroughly looked the part which +he was expected to fill. At the age of thirty, to judge by the early +photographs, he had been a commonplace-looking little man, with a shock +of coal-black hair and a full beard, one of those hirsute types common +in the Teutonic races, which may prove, on inquiry, to be painter, +musician, or engraver, or possibly engineer, but less probably poet. +Then came the exile from Norway, and the residence in Rome, marked by a +little bust which stands before me now, where the beard is cut away into +two round whiskers so as to release the firm round chin, and the long +upper lip is clean-shaved. Here there is more liveliness, but still no +distinction. Then comes a further advance—a photograph (in which I feel +a tender pride, for it was made to please me) taken in Dresden (October +15, 1873), where the brow, perfectly smooth and white, has widened out, +the whiskers have become less chubby, and the small, scrutinizing eyes +absolutely sparkle with malice. Here, you say at last, is no poet, +indeed, but an unusually cultivated banker or surprisingly adroit +solicitor. Here the hair, retreating from the great forehead, begins to +curl and roll with a distinguished wildness; here the long mouth, like a +slit in the face, losing itself at each end in whisker, is a symbol of +concentrated will power, a drawer in some bureau, containing treasures, +firmly locked up.</p> + +<p>Then came Munich, where Ibsen's character underwent very considerable +changes, or rather where its natural features became fixed and +emphasized. We are not left without precious indication of his gestures +and his looks at this time, when he was a little past the age of fifty. +Where so much has been extravagantly written, or described in a +journalistic key of false emphasis, great is the value of a quiet +portrait by one of those who has studied Ibsen most intelligently. It is +perhaps the most careful pen-sketch of him in any language.</p> + +<p>Mr. William Archer, then, has given the following account of his first +meeting with Ibsen. It was in the Scandinavia Club, in Rome, at the +close of 1881:—</p> + +<p>I had been about a quarter of an hour in the room, and was standing +close to the door, when it opened, and in glided an undersized man with +very broad shoulders and a large, leonine head, wearing a long black +frock-coat with very broad lapels, on one of which a knot of red ribbon +was conspicuous. I knew him at once, but was a little taken aback by his +low stature. In spite of all the famous instances to the contrary, one +instinctively associates greatness with size. His natural height was +even somewhat diminished by a habit of bending forward slightly from the +waist, begotten, no doubt, of short-sightedness, and the need to peer +into things. He moved very slowly and noiselessly, with his hands behind +his back—an unobtrusive personality, which would have been +insignificant had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest of +the frame. But there was nothing insignificant about the high and +massive forehead, crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the +small and pale but piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or +the thin lipped mouth, depressed at the corners into a curve indicative +of iron will, and set between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as +the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power and +character in the head; yet one would scarcely have guessed it to be the +power of a poet, the character of a prophet. Misled, perhaps, by the +ribbon at the buttonhole, and by an expression of reserve, almost of +secretiveness, in the lines of the tight-shut mouth, one would rather +have supposed one's self face to face with an eminent statesman or +diplomatist.</p> + +<p>With the further advance of years all that was singular in Ibsen's +appearance became accentuated. The hair and beard turned snowy white; +the former rose in a fierce sort of Oberland, the latter was kept square +and full, crossing underneath the truculent chin that escaped from it. +As Ibsen walked to a banquet in Christiania, he looked quite small under +the blaze of crosses, stars and belts which he displayed when he +unbuttoned the long black overcoat which enclosed him tightly. Never was +he seen without his hands behind him, and the poet Holger Drachmann +started a theory that as Ibsen could do nothing in the world but write, +the Muse tied his wrists together at the small of his back whenever they +were not actually engaged in composition. His regularity in all habits, +his mechanical ways, were the subject of much amusement. He must sit day +after day in the same chair, at the same table, in the same corner of +the cafe, and woe to the ignorant intruder who was accidentally +beforehand with him. No word was spoken, but the indignant poet stood at +a distance, glaring, until the stranger should be pierced with +embarrassment, and should rise and flee away.</p> + +<p>Ibsen had the reputation of being dangerous and difficult of access. But +the evidence of those who knew him best point to his having been +phlegmatic rather than morose. He was "umbrageous," ready to be +discomposed by the action of others, but, if not vexed or startled, he +was elaborately courteous. He had a great dislike of any abrupt +movement, and if he was startled, he had the instinct of a wild animal, +to bite. It was a pain to him to have the chain of his thoughts suddenly +broken, and he could not bear to be addressed by chance acquaintances in +street or café*. When he was resident in n Munich and Dresden, the +difficulty of obtaining an interview with Ibsen was notorious. His wife +protected him from strangers, and if her defences broke down, and the +stranger contrived to penetrate the inner fastness, Ibsen might suddenly +appear in the doorway, half in a rage, half quivering with distress, and +say, in heartrending tones, "Bitte um Arbeitsruhe"—"Please let me work +in peace!" They used to tell how in Munich a rich baron, who was the +local Maecenas of letters, once bored Ibsen with a long recital of his +love affairs, and ended by saying, with a wonderful air of fatuity, "To +you, Master, I come, because of your unparalleled knowledge of the +female heart. In your hands I place my fate. Advise me, and I will +follow your advice." Ibsen snapped his mouth and glared through his +spectacles; then in a low voice of concentrated fury he said: "Get home, +and—go to bed!" whereat his noble visitor withdrew, clothed with +indignation as with a garment.</p> + +<p>His voice was uniform, soft and quiet. The bitter things he said seemed +the bitterer for his gentle way of saying them. As his shape grew burly +and his head of hair enormous, the smallness of his extremities became +accentuated. His little hands were always folded away as he tripped upon +his tiny feet. His movements were slow and distrait. He wasted few words +on the current incidents of life, and I was myself the witness, in 1899, +of his <i>sang-froid</i> under distressing circumstances. Ibsen was +descending a polished marble staircase when his feet slipped and he fell +swiftly, precipitately, downward. He must have injured himself severely, +he might have been killed, if two young gentlemen had not darted forward +below and caught him in their arms. Once more set the right way up, +Ibsen softly thanked his saviours with much frugality of phrase—"Tak, +mine Herrer!"—tenderly touched an abraded surface of his top-hat, and +marched forth homeward, unperturbed.</p> + +<p>His silence had a curious effect on those in whose company he feasted; +it seemed to hypnotise them. The great Danish actress, Mrs. Heiberg, +herself the wittiest of talkers, said that to sit beside Ibsen was to +peer into a gold-mine and not catch a glitter from the hidden treasure. +But his dumbness was not so bitterly ironical as it was popularly +supposed to be. It came largely from a very strange passivity which made +definite action unwelcome to him. He could never be induced to pay +visits, yet he would urge his wife and his son to accept invitations, +and when they returned he would insist on being told every particular— +who was there, what was said, even what everybody wore. He never went to +a theatre or concert-room, except on the very rare occasions when he +could be induced to be present at the performance of his own plays. But +he was extremely fond of hearing about the stage. He had a memory for +little things and an observation of trifles which was extraordinary. He +thought it amazing that people could go into a room and not notice the +pattern of the carpet, the color of the curtains, the objects on the +walls; these being details which he could not help observing and +retaining. This trait comes out in his copious and minute stage +directions.</p> + +<p>Ibsen was simplicity itself; no man was ever less affected. But his +character was closed; he was perpetually on the defensive. He was seldom +confidential, he never "gave way"; his emotions and his affections were +genuine, but his heart was a fenced city. He had little sense of +domestic comfort; his rooms were bare and neat, with no personal objects +save those which belonged to his wife. Even in the days of his wealth, +in the fine house on Drammensvej, there was a singular absence of +individuality about his dwelling rooms. They might have been prepared +for a rich American traveller in some hotel. Through a large portion of +his career in Germany he lived in furnished rooms, not because he did +not possess furniture of his own, which was stored up, but because he +paid no sort of homage to his own penates. He had friends, but he did +not cultivate them; he rather permitted them, at intervals, to cultivate +him. To Georg Brandes (March 6, 1870) he wrote: "Friends are a costly +luxury; and when one has devoted one's self wholly to a profession and a +mission here in life, there is no place left for friends." The very +charming story of Ibsen's throwing his arms round old Hans Christian +Andersen's neck, and forcing him to be genial and amiable, [Note: +<i>Samliv med Ibsen.</i>] is not inconsistent with the general rule of +passivity and shyness which he preserved in matters of friendship.</p> + +<p>Ibsen's reading was singularly limited. In his fine rooms on Drammensvej +I remember being struck by seeing no books at all, except the large +Bible which always lay at his side, and formed his constant study. He +disliked having his partiality for the Bible commented on, and if, as +would sometimes be the case, religious people expressed pleasure at +finding him deep in the sacred volume, Ibsen would roughly reply: "It is +only for the sake of the language." He was the enemy of anything which +seemed to approach cant and pretension, and he concealed his own views +as closely as he desired to understand the views of others. He possessed +very little knowledge of literature. The French he despised and +repudiated, although he certainly had studied Voltaire with advantage; +of the Italians he knew only Dante and of the English only Shakespeare, +both of whom he had studied in translations. In Danish he read and +reread Holberg, who throughout his life unquestionably remained Ibsen's +favorite author; he preserved a certain admiration for the Danish +classics of his youth: Heiberg, Hertz, Schack-Steffelt. In German, the +foreign language which he read most currently, he was strangely ignorant +of Schiller and Heine, and hostile to Goethe, although <i>Brand</i> and <i>Peer +Gynt</i> must owe something of their form to <i>Faust</i>. But the German poets +whom he really enjoyed were two dramatists of the age preceding his own, +Otto Ludwig (1813-65) and Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). Each of these +playwrights had been occupied in making certain reforms, of a realistic +tendency, in the existing tradition of the stage, and each of them +dealt, before any one else in Europe did so, with "problems" on the +stage. These two German poets, but Hebbel particularly, passed from +romanticism to realism, and so on to mysticism, in a manner fascinating +to Ibsen, whom it is possible that they influenced. [Note: It would be +interesting to compare <i>Die Niebelungen</i>, the trilogy which Hebbel +published in 1862, in which the struggle between pagan and Christian +ideals of conduct is analyzed, with Ibsen's <i>Emperor and Galilean</i>.] He +remained, in later years, persistently ignorant of Zola, and of Tolstoi +he had read, with contemptuous disapproval, only some of the polemical +pamphlets. He said to me, in 1899, of the great Russian: "Tolstoi?—he +is mad!" with a screwing up of the features such as a child makes at the +thought of a black draught.</p> + +<p>If he read at all, it was poetry. His indifference to music was +complete; he had, in fact, no ear whatever, and could not distinguish +one tune from another. His efforts to appreciate the music which Grieg +made for <i>Peer Gynt</i> were pathetic. But for verse his sense was +exceedingly delicate, and the sound of poetry gave him acute pleasure. +At times, when his nerves were overstrained, he was fatigued by the riot +of rhymes which pursued him through his dreams, and which his memory +vainly strove to recapture. For academic philosophy and systems of +philosophic thought he had a great impatience. The vexed question of +what he owed to the eminent Danish philosopher, Sören Kierkegaard, has +never been solved. Brandes has insisted, again and again, on the close +relation between <i>Brand</i> and other works of Ibsen and the famous +<i>Either-Or</i> of Kierkegaard; "it actually seems," he says, "as though +Ibsen had aspired to the honor of being called Kierkegaard's poet." +Ibsen, however, aspired to no such honor, and, while he never actually +denied the influence, the relation between him and the philosopher seems +to be much rather one of parallelism than of imitation. Ibsen was a +poetical psychologist of the first order, but he could not bring himself +to read the prose of the professional thinkers.</p> + +<p>In his attitude both to philosophical and poetical literature Ibsen is +with such apparently remote figures as Guy de Maupassant and Shelley; in +his realism and his mysticism he is unrelated to immediate predecessors, +and has no wish to be a disciple of the dead. His extreme interest in +the observation of ethical problems is not identified with any curiosity +about what philosophical writers have said on similar subjects. +Weininger has pointed out that Ibsen's philosophy is radically the same +as that of Kant, yet there is no evidence that Ibsen had ever studied or +had even turned over the pages of the <i>Criticism of Pure Reason</i>. It is +not necessary to suppose that he had done so. The peculiar aspect of the +Ego as the principal and ultimately sole guide to truth was revealed +anew to the Norwegian poet, and references to Kant, or to Fichte, or to +Kierkegaard, seem, therefore, to be beside the mark. The watchword of +<i>Brand</i>, with his cry of "All or Nothing," his absolute repudiation of +compromise, was not a literary conception, but was founded, without the +help of books, on a profound contemplation of human nature, mainly, no +doubt, as Ibsen found it in himself. But in these days of the tyranny of +literature it is curious to meet with an author of the first rank who +worked without a library.</p> + +<p>Ibsen's study of women was evidently so close, and what he writes about +them is usually so penetrating, that many legends have naturally sprung +up about the manner in which he gained his experience. Of these, most +are pure fiction. As a matter of fact, Ibsen was shy with women, and +unless they took the initiative, he contented himself with watching them +from a distance: and noting their ways in silence. The early flirtation +with Miss Rikke Hoist at Bergen, which takes so prominent a place in +Ibsen's story mainly because such incidents were extremely rare in it, +is a typical instance. If this young girl of sixteen had not taken the +matter into her own hands, running up the steps of the hotel and +flinging her posy of flowers into the face of the young poet, the +incident would have closed in his watching her down the street, while +the fire smouldered in his eyes. It was not until her fresh field- +blossoms had struck him on the cheek that he was emboldened to follow +her and to send her the lyrical roses and auriculas which live forever +in his poems. If we wish to note the difference of temperament, we have +but to contrast Ibsen's affair with Rikke Holst with Goethe's attitude +to Christiana Vulpius; in doing so, we bring the passive and the active +lover face to face.</p> + +<p>Ibsen would gladly have married his flower of the field, a vision of +whose bright, untrammelled adolescence reappears again and again in his +works, and plainly in <i>The Master-Builder</i>. But he escaped a great +danger in failing to secure her as his wife, for Rikke Holst, when she +had lost her girlish freshness, would probably have had little character +and no culture to fall back upon. He waited, fortunately for his +happiness, until he secured Susannah Thoresen. Mrs. Ibsen, his faithful +guide, guardian and companion for half a century, will live among the +entirely successful wives of difficult men of genius. In the midst of +the spiteful gossip of Christiania she had to traverse her <i>via +dolorosa</i>, for it was part of the fun of the journalists to represent +this husband and wife as permanently alienated. That Ibsen was easy to +live with is not probable, but his wife not merely contrived to do it, +but by her watchfulness, her adroitness, and, when necessary, by her +firmness of decision, she smoothed the path for the great man whom she +adored, and who was to her a great wilful child to be cajoled and +circumvented. He was absolutely dependent on her, although he affected +amusing airs of independence; and if she absented herself, there were +soon cries in the house of "My Cat, My Cat!" the pet name by which he +called his wife. Of their domestic ways little is yet known in detail, +but everything can be imagined.</p> + +<p>To the enigma of Ibsen's character it was believed that his private +correspondence might supply a key. His letters were collected and +arranged while he was still alive, but he was not any longer in a mental +condition which permitted him to offer any help in comment to his +editors. His son, Mr. Sigurd Ibsen, superintended the work, and two +careful bibliographers, Mr. Halvdan Koht and Mr. Julius Elias, carried +out the scheme in two volumes [Note: <i>Breve fra Henrik Ibsen</i>, +Gyldendalske Boghadel, 1904.], with the execution of which no fault can +be suggested. But the enigma remained unsolved; the sphinx spoke much, +but failed to answer the questions we had been asking. These letters, in +the first place, suffer from the fact that Ibsen was a relentless +destroyer of documents; they are all written by him; not one single +example had been preserved of the correspondence to which this is the +reply. Then Ibsen's letters, as revealers of the unseen mood, are +particularly unsatisfactory. With rare exceptions, he remains throughout +them tightly buttoned up in his long and legendary frock-coat. There is +no laughter and no tears in his letters; he is occasionally extremely +angry, and exudes drops of poison, like the captive scorpion which he +caught when he was in Italy, and loved to watch and tease. But there is +no self-abandonment, and very little emotion; the letters are +principally historical and critical, "finger-posts for commentators." +They give valuable information about the genius of his works, but they +tell almost less about his inner moral nature than do his imaginative +writings.</p> + +<p>In his youth the scorpion in Ibsen's heart seems to have stung him +occasionally to acts which afterwards filled him with embarrassment. We +hear that in his Bergen days he sent to Lading, his fellow-teacher at +the theatre, a challenge of which, when the mood was over, he was +greatly ashamed. It is said that on another occasion, under the pressure +of annoyance, maddened with fear and insomnia, he sprang out of bed in +his shirt and tried to throw himself into the sea off one of the quays +in the harbor. Such performances were futile and ridiculous, and they +belong only to his youth. It seems certain that he schooled himself to +the suppression of such evidences of his anger, and that he did so +largely by shutting up within his breast all the fire that rose there. +The <i>Correspondence</i>—dark lantern as it is—seems to illuminate this +condition of things; we see before us Ibsen with his hands clenched, his +mouth tightly shut, rigid with determination not to "let himself go," +the eyes alone blazing behind the gleaming spectacles.</p> + +<p>An instance of his suppression of personal feeling may be offered. The +lengthiest of all Ibsen's published letters describes to Brandes (April +25, 1866) the suicide, at Rome, of a young Danish lawyer, Ludvig David, +of whom Ibsen had seen a good deal. The lad threw himself head-foremost +out of window, in a crisis of fever. Ibsen writes down all the minutest +details with feeling and refinement, but with as little sympathetic +emotion as if he was drawing up a report for the police. With this trait +may be compared his extreme interest in the detailed accounts of public +trials; he liked to read exactly what the prisoner said, and all the +evidence of the witnesses. In this Ibsen resembled Robert Browning, +whose curiosity about the small incidents surrounding a large event was +boundless. When Ibsen, in the course of such an investigation, found the +real purpose of some strange act dawn upon him, he exhibited an almost +childish pleasure; and this was doubled when the interpretation was one +which had not presented itself to the conventional legal authorities.</p> + +<p>In everything connected with the execution of his own work there was no +limit to the pains which he was willing to take. His handwriting had +always been neat, but it was commonplace in his early years. The +exquisite calligraphy which he ultimately used on every occasion, and +the beauty of which was famous far and wide, he adopted deliberately +when he was in Rome in 1862. To the end of his life, although in the +latest years the letters lost, from the shakiness of his hand, some of +their almost Chinese perfection, he wrote his smallest notes in this +character. His zeal for elaboration as an artist led him to collect a +mass of consistent imaginary information about the personages in his +plays, who became to him absolutely real. It is related how, some one +happening to say that Nora, in <i>A Doll's House</i>, had a curious name, +Ibsen immediately replied, "Oh! her full name was Leonora; but that was +shortened to Nora when she was quite a little girl. Of course, you know, +she was terribly spoilt by her parents." Nothing of this is revealed in +the play itself, but Ibsen was familiar with the past history of all the +characters he created. All through his career he seems to have been long +haunted by the central notion of his pieces, and to have laid it aside, +sometimes for many years, until a set of incidents spontaneously +crystallized around it. When the medium in which he was going to work +became certain he would put himself through a long course of study in +the technical phraseology appropriate to the subject. No pains were too +great to prepare him for the final task.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Archer visited Ibsen in the Harmonien Hotel at Saeby in 1887 he +extracted some valuable evidence from him as to his methods of +composition:—</p> + +<p>It seems that the <i>idea</i> of a piece generally presents itself before the +characters and incidents, though, when I put this to him flatly, he +denied it. It seems to follow, however, from his saying that there is a +certain stage in the incubation of a play when it might as easily turn +into all essay as into a drama. He has to incarnate the ideas, as it +were, in character and incident, before the actual work of creation can +be said to have fairly begun. Different plans and ideas, he admits, +often flow together, and the play he ultimately produces is sometimes +very unlike the intention with which he set out. He writes and rewrites, +scribbles and destroys, an enormous amount before he makes the +exquisite fair copy he sends to Copenhagen.</p> + +<p>He altered, as we have said, the printed text of his earlier works, in +order to bring them into harmony with his finished style, but he did not +do this, so far as I remember, after the publication of <i>Brand</i>. In the +case of all the dramas of his maturity he modified nothing when the work +had once been given to the world.</p> + +<br><br> +<a name="c10"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<br> +<h3>INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>Having accustomed ourselves to regard Ibsen as a disturbing and +revolutionizing force, which met with the utmost resistance at the +outset, and was gradually accepted before the close of his career, we +may try to define what the nature of his revolt was, and what it was, +precisely, that he attacked. It may be roughly said that what peculiarly +roused the animosity of Ibsen was the character which has become +stereotyped in one order of ideas, good in themselves but gradually +outworn by use, and which cannot admit ideas of a new kind. Ibsen +meditated upon the obscurantism of the old régime until he created +figures like Rosmer, in whom the characteristics of that school are +crystallized. From the point of view which would enter sympathetically +into the soul of Ibsen and look out on the world from his eyes, there is +no one of his plays more valuable in its purely theoretic way than +<i>Rosmersholm</i>. It dissects the decrepitude of ancient formulas, it +surveys the ruin of ancient faiths. The curse of heredity lies upon +Rosmer, who is highly intelligent up to a certain point, but who can go +no further. Even if he is persuaded that a new course of action would be +salutary, he cannot move—he is bound in invisible chains. It is useless +to argue with Rosmer; his reason accepts the line of logic, but he +simply cannot, when it comes to action, cross the bridge where Beate +threw herself into the torrent.</p> + +<p>But Ibsen had not the ardor of the fighting optimist. He was one who +"doubted clouds would break," who dreamed, since "right was worsted, +wrong would triumph." With Robert Browning he had but this one thing in +common, that both were fighters, both "held we fall to rise, are baffled +to fight better," but the dark fatalism of the Norwegian poet was in +other things in entire opposition to the sunshiny hopefulness of the +English one. Browning and Ibsen alike considered that the race must be +reformed periodically or it would die. The former anticipated reform as +cheerily as the sower expects harvest. Ibsen had no such happy +certainty. He was convinced of the necessity of breaking up the old +illusions, the imaginative call for revolt, but his faith wavered as to +the success of the new movements. The old order, in its resistance to +all change, is very strong. It may be shaken, but it is the work of a +blind Sampson, and no less, to bring it rattling to the ground. In +<i>Rosmersholm</i>, all the modern thought, all the vitality, all the +lucidity belong to Rebecca, but the decrepit formulas are stoutly +intrenched. In the end it is not the new idea who conquers; it is the +antique house, with its traditions, its avenging vision of white horses, +which breaks the too-clairvoyant Rebecca.</p> + +<p>This doubt of the final success of intelligence, this obstinate question +whether, after all, as we so glibly intimate, the old order changeth at +all, whether, on the contrary, it has not become a Juggernaut car that +crushes all originality and independence out of action, this breathes +more and more plainly out of the progressing work of Ibsen. Hedda Gabler +condemns the old order, in its dulness, its stifling mediocrity, but she +is unable to adapt her energy to any wholesome system of new ideas, and +she sinks into deeper moral dissolution. She hates all that has been +done, yet can herself do nothing, and she represents, in symbol, that +detestable condition of spirit which cannot create, though it sees the +need of creation, and can only show the irritation which its own +sterility awakens within it by destruction. All Hedda can actually do, +to assert her energy, is to burn the MS. of Lövborg, and to kill herself +with General Gabler's pistol. The race must be reformed or die; the +Hedda Gablers which adorn its latest phase do best to die.</p> + +<p>We have seen that Ibsen's theory was that love of self is the +fundamental principle of all activity. It is the instinct of self- +preservation and self-amelioration which leads to every manifestation of +revolt against stereotyped formulas of conduct. Between the excessive +ideality of Rebecca and the decadent sterility of Hedda Gabler comes +another type, perhaps more sympathetic than either, the master-builder +Solness. He, too, is led to condemn the old order, but in the act of +improving it he is overwhelmed upon his pinnacle, and swoons to death, +"dizzy, lost, yet unupbraiding." Ibsen's exact meaning in the detail of +these symbolic plays will long be discussed, but they repay the closest +and most reiterated study. Perhaps the most curious of all is <i>The Lady +from the Sea</i>, which has been examined from the technically +psychological view by a learned French philosopher, M. Jules de +Gaultier. For M. de Gaultier the interest which attaches to Ibsen's +conception of human life, with its conflicting instincts and +responsibilities, is more fully centred in <i>The Lady from the Sea</i> than +in any other of his productions.</p> + +<p>The theory of the French writer is that Ibsen's constant aim is to +reconcile and to conciliate the two biological hypotheses which have +divided opinion in the nineteenth century, and which are known +respectively by the names of Cuvier and Lamarck; namely, that of the +invariability of species and that of the mutability of organic forms. In +the reconciliation of these hypotheses Ibsen finds the only process +which is truly encouraging to life. According to this theory, all the +trouble, all the weariness, all the waste of moral existences around us +comes from the neglect of one or other of these principles, and true +health, social or individual, is impossible without the harmonious +application of them both. According to this view, the apotheosis of +Ibsen's genius, or at least the most successful elucidation of his +scheme of ideological drama, is reached in the scene in <i>The Lady from +the Sea</i> where Wangel succeeds in winning the heart of Ellida back from +the fascination of the Stranger. It is certainly in this mysterious and +strangely attractive play that Ibsen has insisted, more than anywhere +else, on the necessity of taking physiology into consideration in every +discussion of morals. He refers, like a zoölogist, to the laws which +regulate the formation and the evolution of species, and the decision of +Ellida, on which so much depends, is an amazing example of the +limitation of the power of change produced by heredity. The +extraordinary ingenuity of M. de Gaultier's analysis of this play +deserves recognition; whether it can quite be accepted, as embraced by +Ibsen's intention, may be doubtful. At the same time, let us recollect +that, however subtle our refinements become, the instinct of Ibsen was +probably subtler still.</p> + +<p>In 1850, when Ibsen first crept forward, with the glimmering taper of +his Catilina, there was but one person in the world who fancied that the +light might pass from lamp to lamp and in half a century form an +important part of the intellectual illumination of Europe. The one +person who did suspect it was, of course, Ibsen himself. Against all +probability and common-sense, this apothecary's assistant, this ill- +educated youth who had just been plucked in his preliminary examination, +who positively was, and remained, unable to pass the first tests and +become a student at the University, maintained in his inmost soul the +belief that he was born to be "a king of thought." The impression is +perhaps not uncommon among ill-educated lads; what makes the case +unique, and defeats our educational formulas, is that it happened to be +true. But the impact of Ibsen with the social order of his age was +unlucky, we see, from the first; it was perhaps more unlucky than that +of any other great man of the same class with whose biography we have +been made acquainted. He was at daggers drawn with all that was +successful and respectable and "nice" from the outset of his career +until near the end of it.</p> + +<p>Hence we need not be surprised if in the tone of his message to the +world there is something acrimonious, something that tastes in the mouth +like aloes. He prepared a dose for a sick world, and he made it as +nauseous and astringent as he could, for he was not inclined to be one +of those physicians who mix jam with their julep. There was no other +writer of genius in the nineteenth century who was so bitter in dealing +with human frailty as Ibsen was. By the side of his cruel clearness the +satire of Carlyle is bluster, the diatribes of Leopardi shrill and thin. +All other reformers seem angry and benevolent by turns, Ibsen is +uniformly and impartially stern. That he probed deeper into the problems +of life than any other modern dramatist is acknowledged, but it was his +surgical calmness which enabled him to do it. The problem-plays of +Alexandre Dumas <i>fils</i> flutter with emotion, with prejudice and pardon. +But Ibsen, without impatience, examines under his microscope all the +protean forms of organic social life and coldly draws up his diagnosis +like a report. We have to think of him as thus ceaselessly occupied. We +have seen that, long before a sentence was written, he had invented and +studied, in its remotest branches, the life-history of the characters +who were to move in his play. Nothing was unknown to him of their +experience, and for nearly two years, like a coral-insect, he was +building up the scheme of them in silence. Odd little objects, fetiches +which represented people to him, stood arranged on his writing table, +and were never to be touched. He gazed at them until, as if by some feat +of black magic, he turned them into living persons, typical and yet +individual.</p> + +<p>We have recorded that the actual writing down of the dialogue was often +swift and easy, when the period of incubation was complete. Each of +Ibsen's plays presupposes a long history behind it; each starts like an +ancient Greek tragedy, in the full process of catastrophe. This method +of composition was extraordinary, was perhaps, in modern times, +unparalleled. It accounted in measure for the coherency, the +inevitability, of all the detail, but it also accounted for some of the +difficulties which meet us in the task of interpretation. Ibsen calls +for an expositor, and will doubtless give occupation to an endless +series of scholiasts. They will not easily exhaust their theme, and to +the last something will escape, something will defy their most careful +examination. It is not disrespectful to his memory to claim that Ibsen +sometimes packed his stuff too closely. Criticism, when it marvels most +at the wonder of his genius, is constrained to believe that he sometimes +threw too much of his soul into his composition, that he did not stand +far enough away from it always to command its general effect. The +result, especially in the later symbolical plays, is too vibratory, and +excites the spectator too much.</p> + +<p>One very curious example of Ibsen's minute care is found in the +copiousness of his stage directions. Later playwrights have imitated him +in this, and we have grown used to it; but thirty years ago such +minuteness seemed extravagant and needless. As a fact, it was essential +to the absolutely complete image which Ibsen desired to produce. The +stage directions in his plays cannot be "skipped" by any reader who +desires to follow the dramatist's thought step by step without losing +the least link. These notes of his intention will be of ever-increasing +value as the recollection of his personal wishes is lost. In 1899 Ibsen +remarked to me that it was almost useless for actors nowadays to try to +perform the comedies of Holberg, because there were no stage directions +and the tradition was lost. Of his own work, fortunately, that can never +be said. Dr. Verrall, in his brilliant and penetrating studies of the +Greek Tragedies, has pointed out more than once the "undesigned and +unforeseen defect with which, in studying ancient drama, we must +perpetually reckon," namely, the loss of the action and of the +equivalent stage directions. It is easy to imagine "what problems +Shakespeare would present if he were printed like the <i>Poetae Scenici +Graeci</i>," and not more difficult to realize how many things there would +be to puzzle us in <i>Ghosts</i> and <i>The Wild Duck</i> if we possessed nothing +but the bare text.</p> + +<p>The body of work so carefully conceived, so long maintained, so +passionately executed, was far too disturbing in its character to be +welcome at first. In the early eighties the name of Ibsen was loathed in +Norway, and the attacks on him which filled the press were often of an +extravagant character. At the present moment any one conversant with +Norwegian society who will ask a priest or a schoolmaster, an officer or +a doctor, what has been the effect of Ibsen's influence, will be +surprised at the unanimity of the reply. Opinions may differ as to the +attractiveness of the poet's art or of its skill, but there is an almost +universal admission of its beneficial tendency. Scarcely will a voice be +found to demur to the statement that Ibsen let fresh air and light into +the national life, that he roughly but thoroughly awakened the national +conscience, that even works like <i>Ghosts</i>, which shocked, and works like +<i>Rosmersholm</i>, which insulted the prejudices of his countrymen, were +excellent in their result. The conquest of Norway by this dramatist, who +reviled and attacked and abandoned his native land, who railed at every +national habit and showed a worm at the root of every national +tradition, is amazing. The fierce old man lived long enough to be +accompanied to his grave "to the noise of the mourning of a nation," and +he who had almost starved in exile to be conducted to the last resting +place by a Parliament and a King.</p> + +<p>It must always be borne in mind that, although Ibsen's appeal is to the +whole world—his determination to use prose aiding him vastly in this +dissemination—yet it is to Norway that he belongs, and it is at home +that he is best understood. No matter how acrid his tone, no matter how +hard and savage the voice with which he prophesied, the accord between +his country and himself was complete long before the prophet died. As he +walked about, the strange, picturesque little old man, in the streets of +Christiania, his fellow-citizens gazed at him with a little fear, but +with some affection and with unbounded reverence. They understood at +last what the meaning of his message had been, and how closely it +applied to themselves, and how much the richer and healthier for it +their civic atmosphere had become. They would say, as the soul of Dante +said in the <i>New Life</i>:—</p> + +<p>è costui Che viene a consolar la nostra mente, Ed è la sua tanto +possente, Ch'altro pensier non lascia star con nui.</p> + +<p>No words, surely, could better express the intensity with which Ibsen +had pressed his moral quality, his <i>virtù</i>, upon the Norwegian +conscience, not halting in his pursuit till he had captured it and had +banished from it all other ideals of conduct. No one who knows will +doubt that the recent events in which Norway has taken so chivalric, and +at the same time so winning and gracious, an attitude in the eyes of the +world, owe not a little to their being the work of a generation nurtured +in that new temper of mind, that <i>spiritel nuovo d'amore</i> which was +inculcated by the whole work of Ibsen.</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Henrik Ibsen, by Edmund Gosse + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRIK IBSEN *** + +This file should be named 8ibsn10h.htm or 8ibsn10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8ibsn11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8ibsn10ah.htm + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Nicole Apostola and David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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