In the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy (of Literature), the late Dr. C.D. af Wirsén, Strindberg had a persistent enemy. Wirsén acted as Secretary to the Academy from 1884 to his death in 1912, and exercised considerable influence over the selection of recipients of the Nobel Prize in literature which is awarded by the Swedish Academy. To Wirsén who wrote idyllic and elegiac poetry, and who held everything that is old in reverence, Strindberg was incomprehensible. By his attacks on Strindberg, and also by his derisive criticism of another free-thinking Swedish writer, Ellen Key,[4] Wirsén shows a close resemblance to the type of foolish biographer for which Mr. A.C. Benson has found an admirable name: the eagle-eating monkey. There is a pseudo-aristocracy of mind which receives not truth in its house, unless she be arrayed in garments of classical cut, and has not journeyed along the highways of humankind. Wirsén looked upon Strindberg as a parvenu of intelligence, just as certain academicians regarded Spencer as a parvenu of science. Wirsén's diligent criticisms of Strindberg range over twenty years,[5] and may in some measure explain Strindberg's delusions of persecution. In 1882 Wirsén gave qualified praise to _Master Olof_, and took the opportunity of reminding his readers that _The Red Room_ was pervaded by "evil but empty wit." His virtuous indignation over "the blasphemous effusions" and "ridiculous vanity" of Strindberg's autobiography was sustained by the discovery that it contained much boastfulness, but no solid thought, and he searched in vain for any proof that the unlucky author was--what he might have been--a noble, though eccentric personality. He received _The Father_ with feelings of pity for he could see nothing in it, but the impotence of a diseased imagination and a mixture of coarseness and paradoxicality. When Comrades was published Wirsén expressed his astonishment that such a play had found a publisher. He dismissed _The Stronger_, as giving "no evidence of strength in the composition. Anything weaker has seldom been put together." He could find no artistic merit in _At the Edge of the Sea_. In 1897 he condemned _The Link_ and _Playing with Fire_ by declaring that both were equally "unpleasant and painful." He naturally found Strindberg's verses bad, and shuddered over their invectives of hatred and revenge. When _Inferno_ was published he derived comfort from announcing that Strindberg's intellect "has now gone to pieces," but recorded mournfully that the pen that wrote _Legends_ was as evil as ever. Wirsén did not believe in Strindberg's delusions; he claimed to see through them: they were nothing but coquetry with the public, sensational advertisement. _To Damascus_ was to him "a horrid and depressing work--excessively loathsome." The most unjust of all Wirsén's accusations against Strindberg is, perhaps, that of dulness. The autopsychological quest for truth in Strindberg's writings