These Norwegian enthusiasts have yet to learn that though foreign tourists, foreign literature, and foreign art place temptations in the way of their single-minded nation, there are in every country large numbers of people who fight for progress as sedulously as themselves, and whose co-operation would outweigh the dangers of European modernity. In the old culture, in the past life of nations, especially in nations like Norway, there are great virtues and noble features which may well serve as a goal. But to again render them a reality, to base them on lasting foundations, a people must pass through the fiery trials of modern temptations, and, instead of yielding plastically to outward circumstances, must shape their destiny through sheer strength of character. What Norway has of good and noble she should give to other nations, and freely accept their best from them. This is an exchange which, like mercy, blesses both giver and receiver. Though the struggle against degeneration is, in Norway, hampered by the national prejudices of the leaders, it is still progressing. Ibsen’s mission in the fight is to ruthlessly expose the stagnant pools of corruption. He finds them in the cities and among the middle class, where the old German Philistine features have been most distinctly preserved. Many of his characters bear German names, and those who take the part of the traditional villain wear often the garb of that respectable, common-sense, matter-of-fact, self-absorbed German whom Nordau would exempt from any stigma of degeneration. Thorvald Helmer, in _The Doll’s House_, has, or would have, the sympathies of millions, not in Germany alone, but in England and everywhere, of people whose emotional nature, whose love for the high and noble, has been compressed by that worldly wisdom which in our large crowded cities becomes prudence, and to obey which is often a duty—people who are not aware that it is not only possible, but even easy, to be both diplomatic and discreet in obedience to noble emotions and exalted aspirations, and that to root these out of our nature is degeneration.