[Illustration: Strindberg's Funeral, May 19th, 1912. Trades-Unions and Undergraduates in Procession.] The little Anne-Marie Bosse-Strindberg, his daughter in the last marriage, was very dear to his heart. He had found her gifted with something of the second sight which was his own, and his great tenderness for children found response in her. Amongst his three children by the first marriage his daughter Greta, married to Dr. Henry von Philp in Stockholm, understood him best. She was an actress, and took the part of Kerstin in _The Crown Bride_ during the national festivities in his honour in January, 1912. Happily he did not live to mourn over the tragic fate that overtook her. She was killed in a terrible railway accident which took place a few weeks after her father's death. The illness which was to end his life had long been battling with his wonderful vitality. He caught cold during the Christmas of 1911, when he went to pay a visit to his daughter Greta. Pneumonia supervened and laid him low for some time. He regained strength and once again put on his warrior's armour. Of this illness he gave an account in Berliner Tageblatt of February 4th, 1912. After describing an etymological challenge which he had sent to three Finnish friends he writes: "The challenge had hardly been accepted before I fell ill; I first noticed it on the morning of Christmas Day, when I was so tired, so tired, that I would neither get up, nor drink my coffee. I had no pains, but experienced a great calm and an indifference towards the outer world, and felt as if I had at last found peace. Usually I get up punctually at seven, take a walk, and hurry home, driven by an irresistible longing for work. Now this restlessness had left me; I felt my life-work was completed. I had said all I wished to say, and my unprinted manuscripts were put away in perfect order in boxes." But the recovery was apparent only. The real trouble was cancer of the stomach. An operation was performed, but could not check the advance of the disease. On January 22nd, 1912, the whole Swedish nation celebrated his sixty-third birthday. It was nearly too late. The breath of death was already upon him as he stood on his balcony, waving his hand to the torchlight procession which passed his house, bending his head before the deafening cheers which rose from the multitudes, from whose lips the cry for August Strindberg rose in tones of jubilant hero-worship. As he stood there, raised above the bands and banners of the festive acclamation, it may be that the memories of past mistakes, past humiliation, and past struggle for goodness, rose within that mighty brow, and kept pace with the steps of the marching crowd below. For he knew, as few have known, the comedy and the tragedy of life.