One day I met him with a companion. He was holding a little girl by the hand and talking to her. The child looked up in his face and Strindberg's expression was changed. Love for the child, respect for the questions and joys of childhood shone out of the face of the hater. He was not obsessed by the ugliness of things or the cruelty of human deception. His face was aglow with the early enthusiasm which, though slain a thousand times, rises again at the bidding of the Self that knows the answer to the riddle. In the early morning of Sunday, May 19th, August Strindberg's body was laid to rest. It was a glorious spring day with sunshine and blue sky. Some sixty thousand people were astir to do homage to the memory of one whom they knew to have been intrinsically true and tragically great. Royalty, Riksdag, universities, capital and labour, statesmen, writers and artists assembled to say a united farewell to the man of mystery who, by his intense sincerity and the exuberance of genius, had at last melted hatred, and ascended the steps from shame to glory. In a message after Strindberg's death, Maxim Gorki likened him to Danko, the hero of the old Danube legend, who, in order to help humanity out of the darkness of problems, tore his heart out of his breast, lit it and holding it high, led the way. The masses who mock and praise so easily, who crucify and raise idols with the same haste, seldom recognise their real friends. Strindberg patiently burnt his heart for the illumination of the people, and on the day when his body was laid low in the soil the flame of his self-immolation was seen pure and inextinguishable. CHAPTER I THE STRUGGLE WITH ENVIRONMENT Strindberg's childhood and youth, as described by himself in his autobiographical novel _The Bondswoman's Son_, present psychological features of exceptional interest. The circumstances of his early home-life and their effect upon the unfolding forces of his genius cannot be ignored by anyone who attempts to explain the varied strata of his artistic production.