unds very like a return to Rousseau, almost a
century after the futility of Rousseau's theories had been made manifest
to all.

There is no denying, however, that Ibsen's doctrine is most appealing to
a dramatist, whose business it is to set on the stage the strivings of
the individual. Perhaps the drama would be the one surviving art if
anarchy should come,--just as it would be certain to die slowly if
socialism should succeed. The self-subordination of socialism would be
as deadening as the self-surrender of fatalism to that will-power which
must ever be the mainspring of a play to move the multitude. Altho it
cannot formulate what it feels, the multitude has no relish for extreme
measures; it may be making up its mind to turn toward either anarchy or
socialism; but it means to move very slowly and it refuses to be
hurried.

Here is a reason why Ibsen's plays are never likely to be broadly
popular in the theater. The anarchistic element they contain helps to
make them more dramatic, no doubt, more vigorous and more vital; but it
is dimly perceived by the plain people who form the crowd of
theater-goers, and by them it is dumbly resented. The excessive
individualism which gives to Ibsen's best plays their tensity of
interest is also the cause of their inacceptability to the multitude
shrinking from any surrender of the hard won conquests of civilization.
There is significance in the fact that Ibsen's plays have totally failed
to establish themselves permanently in France, where the esthetic
appreciation of his mastery of his art has been keenest and most
competent, but where also the value of the social compact is most
clearly understood. Not only in France, but in all other countries
governed by the Latin tradition of solidarity, Ibsen's doctrine was
certain to be unwelcome--even if it might be wholesome. Outside of
Scandinavia it is only in Germany that Ibsen has succeeded in winning
acceptance as a popular dramatist, perhaps because it was there that the
doctrine of individualism was most needed. In Great Britain, and in the
United States, where the individual has his rights, altho with no
relaxing of the social bond, the performances of Ibsen's plays have been
surprisingly infrequent when we consider their delightful craftsmanship,
their indisputable power and their unfailing interest.

X

After all, it is not as a philosopher that Ibsen demands attention, but
as a dramatist, as a playwright who is also a po