between soul and circumstance, but the stronger by virtue of the conviction of hope which lies at the root of achievement, is Björnson.[321] Ibsen's long career as a dramatist exhibits a succession of many changes, but at no point any failure in the self-trust of his genius. His early masterpieces were dramatic only in form.[322] His world-drama of _Emperor and Galilean_ was still unsuited to a stage rarely trodden to much purpose by idealists of Julian's type. The beginnings of his real and revolutionary significance as a dramatist date from the production of his first plays of contemporary life, the admirable satirical comedy _The Pillars of Society_ (1877), the subtle domestic drama _A Doll's House_ (1879), and the powerful but repellent _Ghosts_ (1881),[323] which last, with the effects of its appearance, modern dramatic literature may even to this day be said to have failed altogether to assimilate. Ibsen's later prose comedies--(verse, he writes, has immensely damaged the art of acting, and a tragedy in iambics belongs to the species Dodo)--for the most part written during an exile which accounts for the note of isolation so audible in many of them, succeeded one another at regular biennial intervals, growing more and more abrupt in form, cruel in method, and intense in elemental dramatic force. The prophet at last spoke to a listening world, but without the amplitude, the grace and the wholeheartedness which are necessary for subduing it. But it may be long before the art which he had chosen as the vehicle of his comments on human life and society altogether ceases to show the impress of his genius. j. _Drama of the Slav Peoples._ Polish.