bored Wirsén, and he thought others must be bored too. Between the chastisements Wirsén exhibited a truly Christian forbearance, and graced a corner of his literary column by beseeching Strindberg and his followers to return to the path of goodness. He assured the sinners that their return to sounder ideas and purer production would be met with a warm welcome and undisguised joy in spite of the past. But the prodigal son of Swedish literature did not return to the house of the Academy. He had been well castigated for his brilliant satire on that somnolent institution in The _New Kingdom_, but he continued to mock "the Gods of Time" until the end of his days. In 1910 he took the Academy to task for its admiration of Baron Klinkowström, a poetaster, whose puerile and pompous verses were free from any menace to the existing order of things. It is true that Wirsén did not represent the whole of literary criticism in Sweden. It is also true that Strindberg always had a small circle of faithful followers who admired him, believed in him--and copied him. But during the many years when Strindberg was absent from Sweden a new school of literature was formed which was equally out of touch with his early realism and his late mysticism. Oscar Levertin, Werner von Heidenstam, Gustaf af Geijerstam and Selma Lagerlöf are the most prominent names of modern Swedish literature. Geijerstam's Erik Grane is an offshoot of early Strindbergism, and Heidenstam's brilliant stories of the soldiers of Charles XII, _Karolinerna_, are not without traces of the influence of Strindberg's _Swedish Destinies and Adventures_. But Strindberg was always too sceptical to stake his fortune on any particular breed of Pegasus. In his last two "terrible" novels, _The Gothic Rooms_ (1904) and _Black Flags_ (1907), he again delivered himself of violent and personal attacks upon society in general and the priests of literature and art in particular, thereby widening the gulf that lay between him and them. The many attacks made upon Strindberg in Sweden had one practical effect which caused him bitter disappointment. Theatrical managers fought shy of his plays. Fourteen years passed between the successful production of _The Father_ in Paris and its performance in Stockholm. _Lady Julie_ had to wait eighteen years before she was allowed to appear in Stockholm. In 1906 the play had a run of several weeks at "Folkteatern," in Stockholm, a playhouse for the working classes, where the aristocratic lady's downfall was appreciated in a crude, but wholehearted manner. Whilst the theatrical managers of Sweden were hesitating as to the expediency of allowing Strindberg to overshadow the stage, Herr Lauthenburg gave popular performances at the "Residenz Theater" in Berlin of _Creditors_, _Playing with Fire_ and _Facing Death_. Together with Hauptmann and Ibsen, Strindberg now won theatrical triumphs all over Germany.