comprehended, used to speak of “the entirely unintelligible Sordello,” as if, sarcastically, to meet criticism half-way.
When The Wild Duck was first circulated among Ibsen’s admirers, it was received with some bewilderment. Quite slowly the idea received acceptance that the hitherto so serious and even angry satirist was, to put it plainly, laughing at himself. The faithful were reluctant to concede it. But one sees now, clearly enough, that in a sense it was so. I have tried to show, we imagine Ibsen saying, that your hypocritical sentimentality needs correction—you live in “A Doll’s House.” I have dared to point out to you that your society is physically and morally rotten and full of “Ghosts.” You have repudiated my honest efforts as a reformer, and called me “An Enemy of the People.” Very well, then, have it so if you please. What a fool am I to trouble about you at all. Go down a steep place in Gadara and drown yourselves. If it amuses you, it can amuse me also to be looked upon as Gregers Werle. Vogue la galère. “But as the play is neither to deal with the Supreme Court, nor the tight of absolute veto, nor even with the removal of the sign of the union from the flag,” burning questions then and afterwards in Norwegian politics, “it can hardly count upon arousing much
