r his resolution,
but he roundly told them that he knew that they were reactionaries, and
wanted to annex him to their party, and that he was not blind to their
tricks. They withdrew in confusion, and Ibsen, in an agony of nervous
ness, determined to put the sea between himself and their machinations.
Early in October he retreated, or rather fled, to Copenhagen, and thence
to Munich, where he breathed again. Meanwhile, the extreme liberal
faction among the students claimed that his action had meant that he was
heart and soul with them, as against the reactionaries. A young Mr. Ove
Rode, who had interviewed him, took upon himself to say that these were
Ibsen's real sentiments. Ibsen fairly stamped with rage, and declared,
in furious communications, that all these things were done on purpose.
"It was an opportunity to insult a poet which it would have been a
sad pity to lose," he remarked, with quivering pen. A reverberant
controversy sprang up in the Norwegian newspapers, and Ibsen, in his
Bavarian harbor of refuge, continued to vibrate all through the winter
of 1885. The exile's return to his native country had proved to be far
from a success.

Already his new play was taking shape, and the success of his great
personal ambition, namely that his son, Sigurd, should be taken with
honor into the diplomatic service of his country, did such to calm his
spirits. Ibsen was growing rich now, as well as famous, and if only the
Norwegians would let him alone, he might well be happy. The new play
was _Rosmersholm_, and it took its impulse from a speech which Ibsen had
made during his journey, at Trondhjem, where he expounded the gospel of
individualism to a respectful audience of workingmen, and had laid
down the necessity of introducing an aristocratic strain, _et adeligt
element_, into the life of a truly democratic state, a strain which
woman and labor were to unite in developing. He said: "I am thinking,
of course, not of birth, nor of money, nor even of intellect, but of the
nobility which grows out of character. It is _character_ alone which can
make us free." This nobility of character must be fostered, mainly, by
the united efforts of motherhood and labor. This was quite a new creed
in Norway, and it bewildered his hearers, but it is remarkable to notice
how the best public feeling in Scandinavia has responded to the appeal,
and how little surprise the present generation would express at a
repetition of such sentiments. A