man before her is not the creature of her dreams,
but a very commonplace, selfish person. In the
excitement of this new discovery, her own conscious-
ness of having done something the world at least
would think wrong, disappears. She has touched
ground, and has begun to hope. She has found out
what manner of man she had been living with, and
she has in the discovery realised a latent spark of
independent womanhood in lierself.
The selfishness of Helmer, which has been dis-
closed in various previous liints, comes fully out.
He fails to realise that the crime has been committed
solely for him, and sees alone the consequences to
himself of its discovery. He looks upon his wife as
a serpent whom he has been unconsciously cherish-
ing. The scene between them is full of power. It
is so epigrammatic, so telling. There is not an un-
necessary word. The blatant selfishness is not over-
done, nor is the prompt revulsion of feeling, when
Helmer finds that the danger is over, and that he is
safe, for awkward consequences are avoided by the
holder of the forged security foregoing his claim.
Helmer jTorgives his wife ; but the consequences of
her discovery now appear. She has realised that
she has been living in a doll's house, that she has
grown up, not as an indejiendent person, but as the
shadow of another, — first of her father, and then of
her husband. She realises that her nature, morally
and intellectually, has been crippled, that she has
not grown as she ought to have grown, that there
are many strange anomalies that she must examine
and understand, as, for example, how in saving a
husband's life a woman may commit a crime ; how
in saving a dying father trouble a woman should do
a shameful deed ; how she could live for years with a
man and not understand him ; how, in short, she
could grow up without thinking and knowing as an
independent organism ought. She feels that she
can no longer be a doll in Helmer's house, she must
lead a life of her own. She must leave him.
Helmer's sensuous passion comes to plead against
this ; but it is unavailing, and Nora goes, leaving
her children and Helmer to lead their own lives.
She herself embarks upon a life which is hence-
forward to be her own. The charm of Nora is to be
felt rather than expressed. Part of Ibsen's peculiar
power is the facility with which, working in simple
materials, he creates a pervasive atmosphere. One
feels as if a window were opened into everyday
affairs, and as if a fresh breeze were blown in upon
them. A thousand questions suggest themselves
from studying Nora. Does the education of girls
fit them to become ' perfect mothers ' . Are they
so well developed themselves that they may be
trusted with the development of generations yet to
be ? In this, as in some other lines, Ibsen is in full
accord with ^Vhitman, who pleads in his SpecimeH
Days for ' a new-founded literature, a literature
underlying life, religious, consistent with science,
handling the elements and forces with competent
power, teaching and training men, and — perhaps the
most precious of its results — achieving the entire
redemption of woman out of these incredible holds
and webs of silliness, millinery, and every kind of
dyspeptic depletion, and thus ensuring a strong
and sweet Female Race — a race of Perfect Mothers.'
This passage might be entirely applied to the
Ibsen dramas ; for they fulfil the conditions of such
a literature precisely. Ibsen nowhere, as yet, gives
us with any completeness what he conceives to be
the jjositive side. Nora is not a ' perfect mother.'
She is the product of evil conditions, and we are left
to speculate on the possibility of her emancipation
from them. But the conditions which resulted in
her growth are not foreign to us ; and what Ibsen
has done has been to set them in a clear, strong light
for our understanding.
Jasies Mavor,
REVIEWS AND NOTES.
Chaucer. [The Canterbury Poeis.) Selected and edited by
Frederick Noel Paton. London: Walter Scott, iSSS.
If the publication in the dainty volumes of the Canterbury Series,
of examples from English and other classics, should induce, as it
is said to be doing, the rank and file of the reading public to explore
the fields of English literature in true scholar's fashion for them-
selves, the objections that are made against mere extracts are
answered by events. When we remember, however, into whose
hands these volumes come, and realise that for many of these they
must comprise the sum-total of their knowledge of the author in.
question, a serious responsibility is seen to rest upon the editor of
the examples and the writer of the Introduction. He acts as a kind
of mediator between the scholar and the ingenuous public.
However heavy the temptation to hit oft" his subject in a few
phrases, it must be resisted, and as much information and solid
criticism given as may be.
The editors of the Canterbuiy Series have almost invariably suc-
ceeded in fulfilling this condition ; and although we are disinclined
to criticise sharply an introduction necessarily hedged about by
limitations of space, it must be pointed out that that on Chaucer is
in many ways unsatisfactory. The strain of it is extremely factual,
but the facts are, for the most part, trivial. No one unacquainted
with the position of Chaucer, as the father of English poetry,
would realise it from perusing the Introduction— not that there is
any attempt to dethrone Chaucer, but simply that the writer does
not seem to realise the proportions of his subject. When he does
generalise, he discusses useless questions. *It is impossible,' he
says, 'to insist too strongly on the fact that Chaucer was by
instinct and upbringing a gentleman.' One maybe permitted to
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