d up the two objects of his worship. Some
time after, Holm appeared at Ibsen's rooms. He talked quite rationally,
but professed to have no knowledge whatever of the letter-incident,
though he admitted the truth of Ibsen's conjecture that the "belle dame
sans merci" had demanded the return of her letters and portrait. Ibsen
was determined to get at the root of the mystery; and a little inquiry
into his young friend's habits revealed the fact that he broke his fast
on a bottle of port wine, consumed a bottle of Rhine wine at lunch, of
Burgundy at dinner, and finished off the evening with one or two more
bottles of port. Then he heard, too, how, in the course of a night's
carouse, Holm had lost the manuscript of a book; and in these traits he
saw the outline of the figure of Eilert Lovborg.

Some time elapsed, and again Ibsen received a postal packet from Holm.
This one contained his will, in which Ibsen figured as his residuary
legatee. But many other legatees were mentioned in the instrument--all
of them ladies, such as Fraulein Alma Rothbart, of Bremen, and Fraulein
Elise Kraushaar, of Berlin. The bequests to these meritorious spinsters
were so generous that their sum considerably exceeded the amount of
the testator's property. Ibsen gently but firmly declined the proffered
inheritance; but Holm's will no doubt suggested to him the figure of
that red-haired "Mademoiselle Diana," who is heard of but not seen
in _Hedda Gabler_, and enabled him to add some further traits to the
portraiture of Lovborg. When the play appeared, Holm recognised
himself with glee in the character of the bibulous man of letters,
and thereafter adopted "Eilert Lovborg" as his pseudonym. I do not,
therefore, see why Dr. Brandes should suppress his real name; but I
willingly imitate him in erring on the side of discretion. The poor
fellow died several years ago.

Some critics have been greatly troubled as to the precise meaning of
Hedda's fantastic vision of Lovborg "with vine-leaves in his hair."
Surely this is a very obvious image or symbol of the beautiful, the
ideal, aspect of bacchic elation and revelry. Antique art, or I am much
mistaken, shows us many figures of Dionysus himself and his followers
with vine-leaves entwined their hair. To Ibsen's mind, at any rate, the
image had long been familiar. In _Peer Gynt_ (Act iv. sc. 8), when Peer,
having carried off Anitra, finds himself in a particularly festive mood,
he cries: "Were there vine-lea