THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN REVIEW 
291 
regular. His daily schedule was followed with military precision. At 
seven o’clock he rose and prepared his own coffee, after the manner 
of Balzac. Then he took a walk, during which he mentally reviewed 
the work upon which he was engaged. During these walks, however, 
he wanted to be alone, and woe betide whoever was unlucky enough to 
approach him and speak to him! His rapid pace and strained expres¬ 
sion showed how his thoughts spurred him on and made him impatient 
of interruptions. When he came home, he went directly to his desk 
and started to work. There lay the blank sheets waiting to be covered 
with his characteristic writing. He had a habit of coloring the edges 
of these loose sheets with crayons, making them red, green, yellow, etc. 
In his room one could often find piles of these papers placed inside 
various covers and frequently provided with elaborate title pages. 
From nine o’clock until twelve he wrote steadily, stopping only now 
and then to fling himself down on the bed to rest for a few minutes 
when he became too tired to go on. During all this time he smoked 
small cigarettes incessantly. These hours of work, however, he con¬ 
sidered the happiest of the day. 
At noon his regular work for the day was over. He dined be¬ 
tween two and three o’clock, the usual hour in Sweden; for his long 
residence abroad had affected him but slightly; he still clung to his 
Swedish habits. He cared very little for wine, however, and would 
only indulge to celebrate some occasion or other. After a long siesta 
came the hours when time hung heaviest upon his hands, unless he 
was so fortunate as to have books that interested him. He liked to 
spend his evenings with intimate friends, among whom he found sym¬ 
pathetic listeners to his ideas and inspirations. Often he would tell 
them what he intended to write, for this was one of his methods of 
working up his subject. He was also very fond of music, but in this 
as everything else he had decided likes and dislikes. At these gather¬ 
ings he enjoyed his glass of punch, to which he would sometimes add 
a bit of whisky or cognac to enliven his spirits. He went home early, 
however, and in the morning he would wake up refreshed and ready 
for another day’s work. 
His health was really quite remarkable; nothing seemed to affect 
it. If his body had not been hardened by early training, he would 
never have been able to accomplish such a tremendous amount of work 
or live through such storms of passion, but there were also weak spots 
and dangerous tendencies. Strindberg himself mentions mad rages 
and fits of destructiveness to which he was subject even in childhood. 
There is no doubt but what his nerves were affected. In later years 
he often had such fits of nervousness that he could not cross a market 
place nor ride in a railway carriage without experiencing peculiar sen¬ 
sations. 
Strindberg was a bundle of contradictions. He was both sensitive 
