Like John Knox with Mary Stuart, he rudely
raps at the door of our hearts, bidding us awaken
and open them. He is a voice crying in the
wilderness of shams--shams social, the shams
of sentiment, of money-getting. And he some-
times fails to discriminate the sheep and goats,
tweaking the foolish, self-satisfied noses of the
former so sadly, that he has been accused of
mixing his moral values. But like Tennyson
he knows that there is often honest faith in
doubt. His words and works may be compared
to that serpent of brass erected by Moses in the
midst of his ailing nation, which was at once a
symbol and a prophylactic.

Ibsen, the cunning contriver of sinewy, vital
dramas, swift in action, with all extraneous flesh
lopped away like the muscular figure of a Greek
athlete, this Ibsen of overarching poetic power,
is a man disdainful of our praise or our blame,
knowing, with the subtle prevision of genius,
that one day the world will go to him for the
consolations of his austere art.

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