ts
entering into this current are not only mystical, but occult. They
are derived in part from Swedenborg, and in part from that
picturesque French dreamer who signs himself "Sar Peladan"; but
mostly they have sprung out of Strindberg's own experiences in
moments of abnormal tension.

What happened, or seemed to happen, to himself at Paris in 1895,
and what he later described with such bewildering exactitude in
his "Inferno" and "Legends," all this is here presented in
dramatic form, but a little toned down, both to suit the needs of
the stage and the calmer mood of the author. Coincidence is law.
It is the finger-point of Providence, the signal to man that he
must beware. Mystery is the gospel: the secret knitting of man to
man, of fact to fact, deep beneath the surface of visible and
audible existence. Few writers could take us into such a realm of
probable impossibilities and possible improbabilities without
losing all claim to serious consideration. If Strindberg has thus
ventured to our gain and no loss of his own, his success can be
explained only by the presence in the play of that second,
parallel current of thought and feeling.

This deeper current is as simple as the one nearer the surface is
fantastic. It is the manifestation of that "rock-firm Certitude"
to which I have already referred. And nothing will bring us nearer
to it than Strindberg's own confession of faith, given in his
"Speeches to the Swedish Nation" two years ago. In that pamphlet
there is a chapter headed "Religion," in which occurs this
passage: "Since 1896 I have been calling myself a Christian. I am
not a Catholic, and have never been, but during a stay of seven
years in Catholic countries and among Catholic relatives, I
discovered that the difference between Catholic and Protestant
tenets is either none at all, or else wholly superficial, and that
the division which once occurred was merely political or else
concerned with theological problems not fundamentally germane to
the religion itself. A registered Protestant I am and will remain,
but I can hardly be called orthodox or evangelistic, but come
nearest to being a Swedenborgian. I use my Bible Christianity
internally and privately to tame my somewhat decivilized nature--
decivilised by that veterinary philosophy and animal science
(Darwinism) in which, as student at the university, I was reared.
And I assure my fellow-beings that they have no right to complain
because, according to