orm of Halvard Solness, the cowardly architect of genius, fearless
of ideas but fearful of action, or in the form of the symbolical
master-builder, the artist who tries to have the best of both worlds,
matters not a straw. The medium of expression changes, but the theme is
constant: the conception is whole. That is more than can be said of _The
Lady from the Sea_, where the symbolism comes perilously near padding;
or of _When We Dead Awaken_, where it often expresses nothing relevant,
merely standing picturesquely for commonplaces, and filling gaps.

To read one of Ibsen's great plays is always thrilling; to read one for
the first time is an event. If a savage who took locomotives and
motor-cars for granted, as inexplicable creatures of whim and fancy,
suddenly were shown, not by vague adumbration, but by straightforward
exposition, that they were expressions of intelligible laws controlled
by comprehensible machinery, he could not be more amazed than was the
nineteenth century by Ibsen. For Ibsen took nothing for granted. He saw
little on the surface of life that corresponded with reality; but he did
not cease to believe in reality. That was where he differed both from
the Philistines and from the elect. He saw that the universe was
something very different from what it was generally supposed to be: he
saw the futility of popular morals and popular metaphysics; but he
neither swallowed the conventions nor threw up his hands in despair,
declaring the whole thing to be an idiotic farce. He knew that truth and
goodness had nothing to do with law and custom; but he never doubted
that there were such things; and he went beneath the surface to find
them. It was Ibsen's revelation of a new world, in which moral values
were real and convincing, that thrilled the nineteenth century, and
thrills us yet. Can any one read sedately that scene in _Ghosts_ in
which Mrs. Alving shows with bewildering simplicity that, however
respectable the Pastor's morality may be, it is pure wickedness?

PASTOR MANDERS. You call it "cowardice" to do your plain duty? Have
you forgotten that a son ought to love and honour his father and
mother?

MRS. ALVING. Do not let us talk in such general terms. Let us ask:
Ought Oswald to love and honour Chamberlain Alving?

MANDERS. Is there no voice in your mother's heart that forbids you
to destroy your son's ideals?

MRS. ALVING. But what about the truth?