the background. This first act, even to
its note of interrogation hung in the air at the end, might have been
constructed by Augier,--just as the scene in the second act between
_Hedda_ and _Brack_ recalls the manner of the younger Dumas, even in its
lightness and its wit. Yet we may doubt whether any of the modern French
playwrights could have lent the same curt significance to this
commonplace interview between a married _demi-vierge_ and an
_homme-a-femmes_;--of their own accord these French terms come to the
end of the pen to describe these French types.

Interesting as 'Hedda Gabler' is on the stage and in the study,
suggestive as it is, it cannot be called one of Ibsen's best-built
plays. Technically considered it falls below his higher level; it does
not sustain itself even at the elevation of the 'Demi-monde' or of the
'Effrontes.' It does not compel us to accept its characters and its
situations without question. It leaves us inquiring, and, if not
actually protesting, at least unconvinced. We might accept the heroine
herself as an incarnate spirit of cruel curiosity, inflicting
purposeless pain, and to be explained, even if not to be justified, only
by her impending maternity,--which she recoils from and is unworthy of.
But I, for one, cannot help finding _Hedda_ inconsistent artistically,
as tho she was a composite photograph of irreconcilable figures. For
example, she shrinks from scandal, yet she burns _Eilert's_ manuscript,
she gives him one of her pistols, and finally she commits suicide
herself, than which nothing could more certainly provoke talk. The
pistols themselves seem lugged in solely because the playwright needed
to have them handy for two suicides,--just as _Brack_ walks into
_Hedda's_ house in the early morning, not of his own volition, but
because the playwright insisted on it. So at the end _Mrs. Elvsted_
could not have had with her all the notes of _Eilert's_ bulky book, tho
she might have had a rough draft; and she would never have sat down
calmly to look over these notes instead of rushing madly to the hospital
to _Eilert's_ bedside. Again, _Inspector Brack_, when he hears of
_Eilert's_ death, has really little or no warrant in jumping to the
conclusion that _Hedda_ is an accessory before the fact; and even if she
was, this would not give him the hold on her which she admits too
easily. More than once, we find a summary swiftness in the motives
alleged, for things done before the spectat