Men always write about woman as they imagine her to be and as they desire her, and it is the same when a woman writes, she always pictures herself as man sees her. It is woman’s nature to mould herself after a form, and to desire a form in which she can mould herself. But of course this manner of speaking, thinking, acting always is and remains only a superficial form. There is something beneath it which follows other laws and is seldom revealed to the gaze of man. This is perhaps the reason why Ibsen, though he did not draw his women from nature, was destined in a few years’ time to meet his Lonas, Noras, and Rebeccas in real life. The Lonas founded high schools for the advanced education of women, became students themselves and educated others, the Noras became authoresses and produced a redundant literature dealing with morals, and the Rebeccas claimed the right of an unmarried woman of thirty to take possession of the man whom they considered worthy of being made happy. V When Ibsen reappeared on the scenes with his _Master Builder_, after an interval during which he had become celebrated, the physiognomy which he presented was one that was quite unexpected. He seems to be in the same predicament as “the old fellow who did not know how to help himself.” Everything goes round in a circle, as it did in Solness’s head before he fell from the tower. And if it is possible to find any meaning at all in this very obscure piece, it is that Ibsen had a presentiment that he was going to fall down off the height of his dialectic scaffolding, but that he was not able to give up his useless habit of climbing, which, for such an old man, was a very break-neck amusement. This presentiment has been fulfilled, for in _Little Eyolf_ he really did fall down and break his leg. And this leg-breaking is quite in keeping with the rest of Ibsen’s dramas. It is as naturalistic as it is symbolic, and its foundation is logical. If we to-day glance back at Ibsen’s works, we can borrow the result of his quiet meditation and say: Henrik Ibsen is himself the little Eyolf of the middle class, begotten by the union of the Gallic formula of the rights of humanity with the Teutonic deterioration of race; compare Rita and Almers. And as soon as the parents had accomplished this, they attempted no more; again compare Rita and Almers. Their only achievement was a brain that developed itself in a logical manner.