"I do not know any one but M. August Ehrhard who has, with such painstaking erudition, disengaged Ibsen's thought from his principal works. And although the learned critic committed the great fault of never attempting one single time to assimilate the rugged thought of the great dramaturge, it must, nevertheless, be allowed his conclusions were happy. I may cite this phrase from the letter to Ibsen which terminates his volume, 'In truth you will renew the miracle of Sophocles--at eighty years of age you will give us a new Œdipus.' "To-day that which Ehrhard prophesied is already three-quarters realized. Since Hedda Gabler, Ibsen has given us The Master Builder, that heroic drama of pride, and John Gabriel Borkman, the secular legend of the human chimera." Even an indifferent performance which I saw at the Schiller Theatre, Berlin, could not quite destroy the impression of a wounded Titan struggling against fate. John Gabriel Borkman is a prodigious figure, a second Mercadet, but fashioned by a Balzac of the theatre. * * * * * XVII WHEN WE DEAD AWAKE DRAMATIC EPILOGUE (1899) Mr. William Archer sees in this closing drama of the social series little else than a resuscitation of the characters and motives that have done duty in his earlier plays. It is true that there is much familiar music, that the themes have been treated in the previous works; nevertheless the variation is of enthralling interest. This epilogue is closely related to The Master Builder. Solness the architect is differentiated from Arnold Rubek, the sculptor in character; but both men are successful artists; both men have failed in the one achievement worth the while--love. As in Brand, Rubek goes to the snow-covered heights with his only love--Brand's was an ideal; Rubek's is a woman--and the avalanche sweeps both to eternity. The _Deus caritatis_, whose voice thunders in the ears of the dying Brand, is in the epilogue the voice of the sister of mercy who cries, _Pax vobiscum_, as Rubek and Irene are whirled away. Ibsen, always disdainful of stage settings, evidently experienced a change of mind, for, following Richard Wagner's example, he makes some exceedingly severe demands upon the ingenuity of the stage manager, beginning with The Lady from the Sea and John Gabriel Borkman.