THE IDEA OF TRAGEDY 701 



human animal is either a knave or a fool, and generally contemptible ; 

 nor does Ibsen even spare men like Master-builder Solness, or 

 wounded Napoleons like Borkman, albeit that they are supposed to 

 enlist our sympathies. 



It is not an age for the male being, Ibsen would seem to tell us; 

 on the other hand, it is emphatically an age for the female being. 

 In this, of course, the dramatist is true to the ideas of his century, 

 the latter half of which has been overridden by the claim of women 

 to fashion their own world as they will, to succeed or fail, self-taught 

 and independent, and to have no kind or manner of reverence for 

 hoary social institutions. In Ibsen the woman is often treated with 

 a tenderness which stands out in vivid contrast with his natural moral 

 suspiciousness. Take, for instance, these lines, from an early play, 

 " The Pretenders." The King says, " Every fair memory from those 

 days have I wasted or let slip;" and Ingeborg, the woman, replies, 

 "It is a man's right," or in the later edition, "It is your right to 

 forget." " And, meantime," the male continues, " you, Ingeborg, 

 loving, faithful woman, have sat there in the north, guarding and 

 treasuring your memories in ice-cold loneliness." To which the 

 woman simply answers, " It was my happiness to remember." As 

 she leaves the stage she utters the beautiful words, " To love, to sacri- 

 fice all, and be forgotten ; that is woman's saga." 



Although this little dialogue is conceived in a tender and gracious 

 spirit, it reminds one of those keen heart thrusts which pass between 

 husband and wife in " A Doll's House." Helmer : " No man sacri- 

 fices his honor even for one he loves." Nora : " Millions of women 

 have done so." We cannot easily forget the piteous wife of the 

 Master-Builder who has kept all her old doll's clothes in a drawer; 

 nor, better still, the figure of Agnes in " Brand." Agnes, poring over 

 her little dead boy's suits, or placing her candle in the window so 

 that its light may fall across the snow on his grave, and give the 

 little one a gleam of Christmas comfort, is drawn with some of the 

 most exquisite touches, full of a soft and radiant sweetness in the 

 midst of an almost habitual gloom. Nor can the man be said to 

 have failed in understanding the feminine nature who has drawn 

 such remarkable figures as Eebekka in " Eosmersholm " and Hedda 

 G abler in the play called after her name. You will find, I think, that 

 many actresses have liked to act in Ibsen's plays, because the heroine 

 appeals to them. Even Eleanora Duse has acted in " A Doll's 

 House," albeit that her masterful vitality and the richness of her 

 artistic nature made the little butterfly Nora, who suddenly wants to 

 discover " whether society is right or she is," a more paradoxical 

 character than before. 



There is, however, in Ibsen, despite the fact that he is above all 

 a thinker and a student, a certain incoherence of ideas which has 



