in the tide has borne him into quieter waters, and if the hum of
the world reaches his solitude, it no longer rouses him to headlong
action.

Secure in his position as the foremost man of letters Sweden has
produced in modern times, the last representative of that
distinguished group of Scandinavian writers which included Ibsen,
Bjornson and Brandes, with a Continental reputation surpassing that
of any one of them, Strindberg well may be entitled to dream of the
past.

One day when in the evolution of the drama Strindberg's technique
shall have served its purpose and like Ibsen's, be forced to give
way before the advance of younger artists, when his most radical
views shall have become the commonplaces of pseudo-culture, the
scientific psychologist will take the man in hand and, from the
minute record of his life, emotions, thoughts, fancies,
speculations and nightmares, which he has embodied in
autobiographical novels and that most remarkable perhaps of all his
creations, abysmal in its pessimism, "The Inferno," will be drawn a
true conception of the man.

That the individual will prove quite as interesting a study as his
literary work, even the briefest outline of Strindberg's life will
suggest.

The lack of harmony in his soul that has permeated his life and
work with theses and antitheses Strindberg tries to explain through
heredity, a by no means satisfying or complete solution for the
motivation of his frequently unusual conduct and exceptional