r Allan Poe. It
was his first acquaintance with the work of Poe, though not with
American literature--for among his first printed work was a
series of translations from American humourists; and not long ago
a Swedish critic (Gunnar Castren in _Samtiden_, Christiania, June,
1912) wrote of Strindberg's literary beginnings that "he had
learned much from Swedish literature, but probably more from Mark
Twain and Dickens."

The impression Poe made on Strindberg was overwhelming. He returns
to it in one letter after another. Everything that suits his mood
of the moment is "Poesque" or "E. P-esque." The story that seems
to have made the deepest impression of all was "The Gold Bug,"
though his thought seems to have distilled more useful material
out of certain other stories illustrating Poe's theories about
mental suggestion. Under the direct influence of these theories,
Strindberg, according to his own statements to Hansson, wrote the
powerful one-act play "Simoom," and made _Gustav_ in "Creditors"
actually _call forth_ the latent epileptic tendencies in _Adolph_.
And on the same authority we must trace the method of: psychological
detection practised by _Mr. X._ in "Pariah" directly to "The Gold
Bug."

Here we have the reason why Mr. Hansson could find so little of
his story in the play. And here we have the origin of a theme
which, while not quite new to him, was ever afterward to remain a
favourite one with Strindberg: that of a duel between intellect
and cunning. It forms the basis of such novels as "Chandalah" and
"At the Edge of the Sea," but it recurs in subtler form in works
of much later date. To readers of the present day, _Mr. X._--that
striking antithesis of everything a scientist used to stand for in
poetry--is much less interesting as a superman _in spe_ than as an
illustration of what a morally and mentally normal man can do with
the tools furnished him by our new understanding of human ways and
human motives. And in giving us a play that holds our interest as
firmly as the best "love plot" ever devised, although the stage
shows us only two men engaged in an intellectual wrestling match,
Strindberg took another great step toward ridding the drama of its
old, shackling conventions.

The name of this play has sometimes been translated as "The
Outcast," whereby it becomes confused with "The Outlaw," a much
earlier play on a theme from the old Sagas. I think it better,
too, that the Hindu allusion in the Swedis