THE IDEA OF TEAGEDY 705 



In some dim way we realize that the broken down heroes or heroines 

 of Ibsen have had some task which they ought to have been able to 

 perform, and some object of life which, under happier circumstances, 

 they might have achieved, and their disappointment and disgust make 

 the tragedy. This, of course, might be the description of every 

 tragedy in the world's history. To know that one has a life vocation, 

 to sin against it, and consequently to acknowledge oneself a failure, 

 is of the very essence of the tragic idea. Nevertheless, if we are 

 thinking of the impression upon ourselves, the character of the per- 

 sonages and the circumstances which are too strong for them have 

 both to be considered. 



Well, the indubitably great thing about Ibsen's characters, perhaps 

 the only great thing about them, is their vanity; while the circum- 

 stances against which they have to struggle are, for the most part, 

 relative to the circumscribed conditions of life in a young, crude, im- 

 mature civilization in Norway. We know that when Ibsen had pro- 

 duced his extraordinarily impressive play of " Ghosts," and found 

 that instead of sympathy he had won derision, he shook the dust off 

 his feet against his native country and lived abroad. He realized that 

 he was too advanced in thought and feeling for his Norwegian home. 

 He is always full of the idea that the cramping circumstances of life 

 in Norway are fatal to individuality, to human liberty. But he is a 

 real revolutionary in this respect, that he does not care for liberty as 

 a possession, but only as a pursuit. If heaven were to offer him 

 freedom in a socialistic community on the one hand, and a vehement 

 conflict on behalf of liberty in an old aristocratic and oligarchic state 

 on the other hand, he would unhesitatingly choose the latter. For 

 him it is the conflict which is sweet, not the victory. 



Nor is he a pessimist in the proper sense of the term. He does 

 not despair of human happiness under all circumstances, he only 

 despairs of it under special and limited conditions. So much of the 

 early idealism belongs to the disappointed and bitter poet that he 

 thinks happiness well worth striving for. He will put all social insti- 

 tutions into the melting-pot, and wage ceaseless war against the es- 

 tablished, the conventional, and the decorous, because the individual 

 human being has a right to struggle ceaselessly for happiness. A later 

 Ibsen play, " When We Dead Awaken," leads to much the same con- 

 clusions. 



I have left myself but small space in which to deal with the con- 

 temporary movements of the drama. For many reasons it is better 

 that I should pass over such points as still remain with only a brief 

 notice. There is something invidious, perhaps almost distasteful, in 

 the criticism of one who has no very large knowledge of the English 

 theatre, and yet ventures to lay down dogmas in an authoritative way 

 on artists who know their business a great deal better than he can 



