Ibsen is still the most formidable of obstinate individualists.
Absolute self-reliance is the note he constantly strikes. He is
obsessed by the psychology of moral problems; but for him there are no
universal ethical laws--"the golden rule is that there is no golden
rule"--thus while in the Pillars of Society he advocates candid
confession and honest revelation of the truth of things; in the "Wild
Duck" he attacks the pig-headed meddler, who comes "dunning us with
claims of the Ideal." Ultimately, though absorbed in "matters of
conscience," it is as an artist rather than as a philosopher that he
visualizes the world.



22. STRINDBERG. THE CONFESSIONS OF A FOOL.

Strindberg has obtained, because of his own neurotic and almost
feminine clairvoyance, a diabolical insight into the perversities of
the feminine character. This merciless insight manifested in all his
works reaches its intensest degree in the "Confessions of a Fool,"
where the woman implicated surpasses the perversities of the normal as
greatly as the lashing energy with which he pursues her to her inmost
retreats surpasses the vengeance of any ordinary lover.



23. EMERSON. _Routledge's complete works of Emerson, or any other
edition containing everything in one volume_.

The clear, chaste, remote and distinguished wisdom of Emerson with its
shrewd preacher's wit and country-bred humor, will always be of