But as a stage play, and it has been played, it is not a success. It lacks condensation. A battle-field of two tense souls--for Agnes's almost matches Brand's at times--it is too long and too loosely constructed in its joints for effective dramatic representation. Dr. Wicksteed makes an acute point when he shows that Einar's smug conversion--which fills Brand with loathing--is missed by the priest, for "only a man whose heart is dead can live by that destroying phrase, 'All or Nothing.' The principle which slays the saintly Agnes, and drives her heroic husband mad, fits the miserable Einar like a glove; he is happy and at home with it." Self-realization through self-surrender is the fundamental organ-tone of the masterly, overarching epic. And note the symbolism of the church, the church in the valley, and Gerd's Ice Church! This symbol of architecture reappears in The Master Builder, just as the avalanche motive reappears in When We Dead Awaken. The mountain-tops are the abodes of Ibsen's heroes,--who are his thoughts,--and there he scourges the human soul on this lofty Inferno. In Brand, Ibsen girded against the weaklings, the men of half-hearted measures, the conventional cowards of civilization. In Peer Gynt he makes a hero of such a one, a lying, boastful fellow. The poem is one of the most audacious and fantastic ever written. Yet with all its shifting phantasmagoria, it so stands four-square rooted in the old, brown earth. Peer is a rascal, but a lovable one; a liar from the first page to the last. He "is himself" without a deviation from the crooked paths of selfishness. Again Ibsen puzzles, for the very keystone of his ethical arch is individuality. Peer is a compromiser at every station of his variegated career. He, too, treats his mother cruelly, though from different motives from Brand. He runs off with another man's bride, because he has been too lazy to win her lawfully. He does this in the face of a woman, Solveig, for whom he has entertained the first unselfish desire of his shallow existence; he goes to the trolls and lives in the swamps of sensuality--where Solveig follows him, but is left; he goes to America after his mother's death,--a most affecting page,--makes a fortune by selling Bibles, rum, and slaves, buys a yacht, sets up for a cosmopolitan; "has got his luck from America, his books from Germany, his waist-coat and manners from France, his industry and keen eye for the main chance from England, his patience from the Jews, and a touch of the _dolce far niente_ from the Italians." He makes friends, for he is successful. They maroon him on a savage shore, but blow up his yacht. He thanks God for the swift retribution--as others have done in similar predicaments--though he thinks the Lord is not very economical. Many adventures ensue, from the episode with the dancing girl Anitra to the crowning in a madhouse of Peer as Emperor of Himself.