The versatility of mind and production which was the despair of his critics became apparent. In 1880 _The Secret of the Guild_, a comedy in four acts, was published. The theme of the play is the unsuccessful attempt to complete a church by a guild of masons in Upsala in 1402. For fifty years the work has proceeded, but envy, dishonesty and pride of trade have stood in the way of its completion. The old alderman is deposed and his son becomes master of the work. Jacques, the son, is a man of action, ambitious and unscrupulous, who urges on the work without the cautiousness of old age. The roof is laid, the tower is built, but the secret of success has eluded Jacques. The tower falls as a result of ignorance of the spiritual secret which would have preserved it. "The church was built in sin and therefore it lies in ruins," says the old alderman. The play faithfully reflects the Middle-Age atmosphere, and harmonises with Strindberg's earlier plays in its vivid presentation of the struggle between two generations. Its infusion of faith and Christian symbology had the effect of modifying the storm of execration, with which pious respectability strove to break the author of _The Red Room_. The performance of _Master Olof_ at the Swedish Theatre in 1880 was a great success, and it was no longer possible to ignore Strindberg as a dramatist. Revised five times in deference to criticism and technique, the play had at last conquered opposition by the richness of its historical imagination, the splendour of its form and the fiery youthfulness of its treatment of the oldest of spiritual problems. The tardy acknowledgment was balm even to Strindberg's sceptical soul, and the two plays which he now wrote breathed "faith, hope, and charity," as if the gloomy truths of _The Red Room_ had been forgotten. _The Journey of Lucky Peter_[4] satirises humanity and Society in its narrative of what befell Peter who wanted to see the world and taste its luxuries, but like all good fairy-tales the drama ends happily, and Peter regains peace of heart, and finds his dual-soul. And the satire is tempered with a humour, so sympathetic, an understanding of the doers and victims of evil, so delicate, that the reader of this fairy-play puts down the book with a sigh of satisfaction that, after all, the worst experiences in this world prove themselves to be but necessary milestones of the pilgrim's progress. Lucky Peter who discovers the nothingness of the rich man's pleasures, of the king's power, the bitterness of fame, the changeability of human institutions! We envy him his rapid liberation from the chains of flesh, the severe tuition under his fairy-teacher. The charm of the play is irresistible; it has the mysterious eventfulness of _Peter Pan_ and _The Blue Bird_, but none of the fatuities which often distort plays for children of all ages. Even when he entered fairyland Strindberg could not leave his intelligence behind.