oes of a thousand years ago. She faces death without
flinching, and despite all her goodness, her delicacy, her kindly love
for the old and the young, for the humble and the poor, for animals
and plants, at the bottom of her nature she is heathen. In life's last
moments, with death and revenge in mind, she can still pretend, invent,
dupe. Such profound and exquisite womanhood, such inflexible masculine
will, have hardly ever been seen combined on the stage before.

GEORG BRANDES.

INTRODUCTION

Iceland has always been famous for the quality of her literature,
although nowadays but little of it comes to our shores. It is,
therefore, an especial pleasure to introduce the author of "Hadda
Padda."

Godmundur Kamban, son of a merchant of an old and well known Icelandic
family, was born near Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, on June 8,
1888. He was graduated twenty-two years later from the College of
Reykjavik, where he received honoris causa in literature and language,
the first and only time this prize has ever been awarded. While still
at college, he was made assistant editor of the best known newspaper in
Iceland, edited by Bjorn Jonsson, the late Prime Minister, in whose home
Mr. Kamban lived during his college career. In 1910, he proceeded to
the University of Copenhagen, where he specialized in literature and
received his Master's degree. In Copenhagen, Peter Jerndorff, the famous
Acteur Royal, practically regarded him as his own son. Under Jerndorff's
direction for five years, he obtained that thorough dramatic education
which is so essential to the fastidious Scandinavian Theatre, and to
which Ibsen also served an apprenticeship.

"Hadda Padda," Mr. Kamban's first dramatic work, was written in Denmark
in 1912, while he was still a student at the University of Copenhagen.
Originally written in Icelandic, it was translated into Danish and
submitted to the Royal Theatre, a fortress difficult of access to the
newcomer. This theatre did not even fully recognise such masters as
Ibsen and Bjornson until they stood on the heights of achievement. Our
author was but twenty-four years old, unknown, and offering his first
play.

From the outset "Hadda Padda" caused the directors unexpected trouble.
It took them four times as long as usual to come to a decision. They
finally accepted it "on account of its literary merit," but without any
obligation on their part to produce it, as the scenery of the last act
was of