two old sisters, who have followed him
in an anxiety which overcomes their mutual hatred, arrive in time to
see him pass away. We leave them in the wood, "a dead man and two
shadows"--so Ella Rentheim puts it--"for _that_ is what the cold has
made of us"; the central moral of the piece being that all the errors of
humanity spring from cold-heartedness and neglect of the natural heat
of love. That Borkman embezzled money, and reduced hundreds of innocent
people to beggary, might be condoned; but there is no pardon for his
cruel bargaining for wealth with the soul of Ella Rentheim, since that
is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. There are points of
obscurity, and one or two of positive and even regrettable whimsicality,
about _John Gabriel Borkman_, but on the whole it is a work of lofty
originality and of poignant human interest.

The veteran was now beginning to be conscious of the approaches of old
age, but they were made agreeable to him by many tokens of national
homage.

On his seventieth birthday, March 20, 1898, Ibsen received the
felicitations of the world. It is pleasing to relate that a group of
admirers in England, a group which included Mr. Asquith, Mr. J. M.
Barrie, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. Pinero and
Mr. Bernard Shaw took part in these congratulations and sent Ibsen
a handsome set of silver plate, this being an act which, it had been
discovered, he particularly appreciated. The bearer of this gift was the
earliest of the long stream of visitors to arrive on the morning of the
poet's birthday, and he found Ibsen in company with his wife, his son,
his son's wife (Bjoernson's daughter), and his little grandson, Tankred.
The poet's surprise and pleasure were emphatic. A deputation from the
Storthing, headed by the Leader of the House, deputations representing
the University, the various Christiania Theatres, and other official or
academic bodies arrived at intervals during the course of the day;
and all the afternoon Ibsen was occupied in taking these hundreds of
visitors, in parties, up to the case containing the English tribute, in
showing the objects and in explaining their origin. There could be no
question that the gift gave genuine pleasure to the recipient; it
was the first, as it was to be the last, occasion on which any public
testimony to English appreciation of his genius found its way to Ibsen's
door.

Immediately after the birthday festivities, which it was obser