Having now warned the reader against allowing the search for symbolic or satiric meanings to impair his enjoyment of the pure poetry of _Peer Gynt_, I may proceed to point out some of the implications which do indubitably underlie the surface aspects of the poem. These meanings fall under three heads. First, we have universal-human satire and symbolism, bearing upon human nature in general, irrespective of race or nationality. Next we have satire upon Norwegian human nature in particular, upon the religious and political life of Norway as a nation. Lastly, we find a certain number of local and ephemeral references—what, in the slang of our stage, are called “topical allusions.” In order to provide the reader with a clue to the complex meanings of _Peer Gynt_, on its higher lines or planes of significance, I cannot do better than quote some paragraphs from the admirable summary of the drama given by Mr. P. H. Wicksteed in his _Four Lectures on Henrik Ibsen_.[15] Mr. Wicksteed is in such perfect sympathy with Ibsen in the stage of his development marked by _Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_, that he has understood these poems, in my judgment, at least as well as any other commentator, whether German or Scandinavian. He writes as follows: “In _Brand_ the hero is an embodied protest against the poverty of spirit and half-heartedness that Ibsen rebelled against in his countrymen. In _Peer Gynt_ the hero is himself the embodiment of that spirit. In _Brand_ the fundamental antithesis, upon which, as its central theme, the drama is constructed, is the contrast between the spirit of compromise on the one hand, and the motto ‘everything or nothing’ on the other. And Peer Gynt is the very incarnation of a compromising dread of decisive committal to any one course. In _Brand_ the problem of self-realisation and the relation of the individual to his surroundings is obscurely struggling for recognition, and in _Peer Gynt_ it becomes the formal theme upon which all the fantastic variations of the drama are built up. In both plays alike the problems of heredity and the influence of early surroundings are more than touched upon; and both alike culminate in the doctrine that the only redeeming power on earth or in heaven is the power of love. “Peer Gynt, as already stated, stands for the Norwegian people, much as they are sketched in _Brand_, though with more brightness of colouring. Hence his perpetual ‘hedging’ and determination never so to commit himself that he cannot draw back. Hence his fragmentary life of smatterings. Hence his perpetual brooding over the former grandeur of his family, his idle dreams of the future, and his neglect of every present duty. Hence his deep-rooted selfishness and cynical indifference to all higher motives; and hence, above all, his sordid and superstitious religion; for to him religion is the apotheosis of the art of ‘hedging.’