under Ibsen's supervision), we have the rivalry of an older and a
younger woman for the love of a man who is proscribed on an unjust
accusation, and pursued by the emissaries of the royal power. One
might even, though this would be forcing the point, find an analogy
in the fact that the elder woman (in both plays a strong and
determined character) has in Scribe's comedy a cowardly suitor,
while in Ibsen's tragedy, or melodrama, she has a cowardly husband.
In every other respect the plays are as dissimilar as possible; yet
it seems to me far from unlikely that an unconscious reminiscence
of the _Bataille de Dames_ may have contributed to the shaping of
_The Feast at Solhoug_ in Ibsen's mind. But more significant than
any resemblance of theme is the similarity of Ibsen's whole method
to that of the French school--the way, for instance, in which
misunderstandings are kept up through a careful avoidance of the
use of proper names, and the way in which a cup of poison, prepared
for one person, comes into the hands of another person, is, as a
matter of fact, drunk by no one but occasions the acutest agony to
the would-be poisoner. All this ingenious dovetailing of incidents
and working-up of misunderstandings, Ibsen unquestionably learned
from the French. The French language, indeed, is the only one which
has a word--_quiproquo_--to indicate the class of misunderstanding
which, from _Lady Inger_ down to the _League of Youth_, Ibsen
employed without scruple.

Ibsen's first visit to the home of his future wife took place after
the production of _The Feast at Solhoug_. It seems doubtful whether
this was actually his first meeting with her; but at any rate we
can scarcely suppose that he knew her during the previous summer,
when he was writing his play. It is a curious coincidence, then,
that he should have found in Susanna Thoresen and her sister Marie