In versatility of dramatic form Hauptmann stands nearest Strindberg. He has almost as many strings to his harp as the Swede--he has written naturalistic plays and fairy drama, social plays and mystical drama, farce, comedy, romance and realism. Both dramatists are impelled by pity for human suffering, but the pity that guides Hauptmann, and which is typified by _The Weavers_, is an elemental, earthbound pity, concerned with food and poverty, lack of shelter and work. Strindberg's pity is transcendentalised; it hovers round the greater mysteries of existence itself, seeks to extract the human spirit from the curse of illusions. Hence the absence of finality in his writings. No book gives the impression of being quite finished; they all transmit the ache for a new point of view. Whilst Maeterlinck has evolved a philosophy of spiritualised tranquillity, and administers a soothing narcotic for the Soul Rampant in the twilight of his charmed castles, Strindberg walks on, acutely conscious of the thorns upon which he treads. Whilst Björnson, satisfied, proclaims his ideal of physical purity, and throws down _A Gauntlet_ at vice, Strindberg is haunted by the ideal of the human soul's unattainable purity from dross. Whilst Bernard Shaw cuts the world's perplexities with a joke, a flashing paradoxical joke, Strindberg raises his bands in threatening condemnation at the God-head Himself. In Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's _Elën_, Samuel says to Goetze: "Science will not suffice. Sooner or later you will end by coming to your knees." Goetze: "Before what?" Samuel: "Before the Darkness." Strindberg was brought to his knees by the Darkness, but he rose with the dawn that followed. During the thirteen years that passed between the quiet celebration of Strindberg's fiftieth birthday, and the national festivities with which the Swedish people acclaimed him on January 22nd, 1912, his countrymen were gradually made aware of his greatness. Men of all parties fearlessly proclaimed his genius over the open grave, though some would never have ventured to do so if they had not felt quite sure that he could not prepare any further shocks of surprise.