erely typical
of the moral chaos inevitably produced by re-action from the narrow
conventionalism represented by Manders.

With one consent, the leading theatres of the three Scandinavian
capitals declined to have anything to do with the play. It was more
than eighteen months old before it found its way to the stage at all. In
August 1883 it was acted for the first time at Helsingborg, Sweden, by
a travelling company under the direction of an eminent Swedish actor,
August Lindberg, who himself played Oswald. He took it on tour round the
principal cities of Scandinavia, playing it, among the rest, at a minor
theatre in Christiania. It happened that the boards of the Christiania
Theatre were at the same time occupied by a French farce; and public
demonstrations of protest were made against the managerial policy which
gave _Tete de Linotte_ the preference over _Gengangere_. Gradually the
prejudice against the play broke down. Already in the autumn of 1883 it
was produced at the Royal (Dramatiska) Theatre in Stockholm. When the
new National Theatre was opened in Christiania in 1899, _Gengangere_
found an early place in its repertory; and even the Royal Theatre in
Copenhagen has since opened its doors to the tragedy.

Not until April 1886 was _Gespenster_ acted in Germany, and then only at
a private performance, at the Stadttheater, Augsburg, the poet himself
being present. In the following winter it was acted at the famous Court
Theatre at Meiningen, again in the presence of the poet. The first
(private) performance in Berlin took place on January 9, 1887, at the
Residenz Theater; and when the Freie Buehne, founded on the model of the
Paris Theatre Libre, began its operations two years later (September 29,
1889), _Gespenster_ was the first play that it produced. The Freie Buehne
gave the initial impulse to the whole modern movement which has given
Germany a new dramatic literature; and the leaders of the movement,
whether authors or critics, were one and all ardent disciples of Ibsen,
who regarded _Gespenster_ as his typical masterpiece. In Germany,
then, the play certainly did, in Ibsen's own words, "move some
boundary-posts." The Prussian censorship presently withdrew its veto,
and on, November 27, 1894, the two leading literary theatres of Berlin,
the Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater, gave simultaneous
performances of the tragedy. Everywhere in Germany and Austria it is
now freely performed; but it is naturally