The works of Henrik Ibsen Author:Henrik, Ibsen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ROSMERSHOLM INTRODUCTION one who ever saw Henrik Ibsen, in his later years at any rate, could doubt that he was a born aristocrat. It is said that a change ... more »came over his appearance and manner after the publication of Brand—that he then put off the Bohemian and put on the reserved, correct, punctilious man-of-the-world. When I first saw him in 1881, he had the air of a polished statesman or diplomatist. Distinction was the note of his personality. Sc early as 1872, he had written to George Brandes, who was then involved in one of his many controversies, "Be dignified! Dignity is the only weapon against such assaults." His actual words, Veer fornem! mean, literally translated, "Be distinguished!" No democratic movement which implied a levelling-down, eould ever command Ibsen's sympathy. He was a leveller-up, or nothing. This deep-rooted trait in his character found its supreme expression in Rosmcrsholm. One of his first remarks (to Brandes, January 3, 1882) after the storm had broken out over Ghosts was: "I feel most painfully affected by the crudity, the plebeian element in all our public discussion. The very praiseworthy attempt to make of our people a democratic community Copyright, 1907, by Charles Scribner's Sons has inadvertently gone a good way towards making us a plebeian community. Distinction of soul seems to be on the decline at home." The same trend of thought makes itself felt again and again in Dr. Stockmann's great speech in the fourth act of An Enemy of the People; but it appears only incidentally in that play, and not at all in Tlie Wild Ditck. It was a visit which he paid to Norway in the summer of 1885 that brought the need for "ennoblement" of character into the foreground of his thought, and inspired him with the idea of Rosmersholm. "Since he ...« less