se they wished to be nothing of the sort. He did not
understand that this passionate individualism, this sense of personal
responsibility, this claim to private judgment, is what no modern State,
be it democratic, bureaucratic or autocratic, can tolerate. Men long
for the ease and assurance of conformity and so soon as they are
sufficiently organized enforce it. Truth is the enemy--_ecrasez
l'infame!_ Poor, silly old Stockmann in _An Enemy of the People_ blurts
it out, blurts out that the water-supply is contaminated and his native
health-resort no better than a death-trap, for no better reason than
that he feels it is what he ought to do. He fails to consider the
feelings and, what is even more important, the financial interests of
his neighbours, and the neighbours make short work of him, as they
generally do of people who think and feel and act for themselves--of
saints and artists in fact. Thus it comes about that the prophets are
stoned and the best plays censored, while people such as Ibsen loathe
the State with its herd-instincts, now decently baptized however, and
known as Morality and Idealism.

Whether Ibsen was in the right is not for a reviewer to decide. Mr.
Roberts has strong views on the subject, which he is at no pains to
conceal. For this we are far from blaming him. Indeed, we feel that the
personal note imported by the author's intellectual bias gives some
flavour to a book which, owing to the complete absence of charm or
distinction, would be otherwise insipid. It is a competent, but woefully
uninspiring, piece of work. Above all things, Mr. Roberts lacks
humour--a quality indispensable in a writer on Ibsen. For Ibsen, like
other men of genius, is slightly ridiculous. Undeniably, there is
something comic about the picture of the Norwegian dramatist, spectacled
and frock-coated, "looking," Mr. Archer tells us, "like a distinguished
diplomat," at work amongst the orange-groves of Sorrento on _Ghosts_.

"Ibsen was keenly sensitive to place, and if we would get the
utmost feeling out of his plays we must remember how large a part
was played by fortunate or unfortunate position and circumstances
in contributing to the wonderful 'atmosphere' of the dramas."

That is what Mr. Roberts thinks. A sense of humour would also have saved
him from the one black note of sentimentality in the book:

"Ellida might be Solveig analysed--but analysed with how loving a
touch, how une