When we come to subsidiary meanings, we must proceed more carefully, for we have the poet’s own word for it that many have been read into the poem whereof he never dreamt. For example, in his first letter to Björnson after reading Clemens Petersen’s criticism, he protested against that critic’s assumption that the Strange Passenger (Act V. Scs. 1 and 2) was symbolic of “dread.” “If my head had been on the block,” he said, “and such an explanation would have saved my life, it would never have occurred to me. I never thought of such a thing. I stuck in the scene as a mere caprice.” For this element of caprice we must always allow. The whole fourth act, the poet told the present writer, was an afterthought, and did not belong to the original scheme of the play. Here we come upon the question whether Ibsen consciously designed _Peer Gynt_ as a counterblast to Björnson’s idyllic peasant-novel, _Synnöve Solbakken_. This theory, put forward by a judicious French critic, M. Auguste Ehrhard,[16] among others, has always seemed to me very far-fetched; but as Dr. Brandes, in the introduction to _Peer Gynt_ in the German collected edition, appears to give it his sanction, I quote what he says on the point: “German critics have laid special emphasis on the fact that Ibsen here placed himself in conscious opposition to Björnson’s glorification, in his early novels, of the younger generation of Norwegian peasants. Quarrelsomeness and love of fighting were represented in Thorbjörn, the hero of _Synnöve Solbakken_, as traits of the traditional old-Norse viking spirit; in _Arne_ the poetic proclivities of the people were placed in an engaging light. The vaunted fisticuff-heroism was, in Ibsen’s view, nothing but rawness, and the poetic proclivities of Norwegian youth appeared to him, in the last analysis, simply a very prevalent love of lying and gasconading. The Norwegians appear in the caricaturing mirror of this brilliant poem as a people who, in smug contentment, are ‘to themselves enough,’ and therefore laud everything that is their own, however insignificant it may be, shrink from all decisive action, and have for their national vice a tendency to fantastication and braggadocio.” That _Peer Gynt_ is a counterblast to national romanticism and chauvinism in general there can of course be no doubt; but I see no reason to suppose that Ibsen had Björnson’s novels specially in view, or intended anything like a “caricature” of them. It is pretty clear, too, that Björnson himself had no such idea in his mind when he reviewed the poem in the _Norsk Folkeblad_ for November 23, 1867. His long article is almost entirely laudatory, and certainly shows no smallest sign of hostile party-spirit. “_Peer Gynt_,” says Björnson, “is a satire upon Norwegian egoism, narrowness, and self-sufficiency, so executed as to have made me not only again and again laugh till I was sore, but again and again give thanks to the author in my heart—as I here do publicly.” Beyond