He was hardly dead before a little book appeared in German, its title being _Ibsen. With Unpublished Letters to a Friend_, by Georg Brandes. The friend was the girl. There were twelve letters, including a set of album verses and the dedication of a photograph. The romance came about in this wise. In the late summer of 1889 Ibsen and his family spent a holiday in the Tyrolese watering-place Gossensass, where they made the acquaintance of a young Viennese girl who was also staying there. She was eighteen years of age, the poet sixty-one; but that wide disparity did not prevent a warm friendship springing up between them, which apparently was cultivated more assiduously on her side than on his, and was eventually brought to a close, as far as overt manifestations were concerned at any rate, by his decision. On separating, the dramatist gave her a copy of his photograph, on the back of which was written: “To the May sun of a September life—in the Tyrol; 27-9-89.—HENRIK IBSEN.” By the following February Ibsen was already troubled in his mind over the development which the friendship was taking. He wrote: “Long, very long, have I let your last dear letter lie, read it and read it again, without sending you an answer. Please accept my most heartfelt thanks in a few words. And henceforward, till we see one another personally, you will hear from me by letter little and seldom. Believe me—it is better so. It is the only right thing to do. I feel it a matter of conscience to put a stop to this correspondence with you, or, at any rate, to restrict it.... You will understand all this as I have meant it. And if we meet again I will explain exactly. Till then and for ever you remain in my thoughts. And that all the more if this troublesome letter-writing causes no disturbance. A thousand greetings. “Your “HENRIK IBSEN.” In spite of Ibsen’s entreaties his young friend continued to send him letters, and a little present accompanied one of them at the close of 1890. He replied: “I have safely received your dear letter. Also the bell with the lovely picture. I thank you for them from my heart. My wife, too, thinks the picture is very well painted. Soon I will send you my new play. Receive it in friendship—but in silence. “Your ever devoted “HENRIK IBSEN.” That was the end of the letter-writing. They never saw one another again after the meeting in the Tyrol, and from then the Viennese girl kept silence. Only once did she break it—on the poet’s seventieth birthday, in 1898, when she sent him a congratulatory telegram. Three days later she received from him a photograph, on the back of which was written: “The summer in Gossensass was the happiest, the most beautiful in my life. Hardly dare to think of it. And yet must always—always.” So Love came tapping at the window of the old gentleman who had described Youth knocking at the door.