these terse speeches a genius is revealed that, with something of
the divine touch, sounds the depths of the human heart and reveals
its inmost thoughts. "Pariah" was published in 1890 and "Facing
Death" in 1898.

The period of Strindberg's sojourn in Switzerland, 1884-87, was
most important in the evolution of the character and work of the
man who, throughout his career, was to engage himself so
penetratingly and passionately in the psychology of woman, and
love, and the problems of marriage, as to acquire the reputation,
undeserved though it was, of woman-hater. That this observation and
analysis of woman was not induced by natural antipathy to the sex,
nor by unhappiness in his own married experience, is made clear by
the facts of his life up to the time when such investigation was
undertaken. What, then, did sway him to such a choice of theme?
Examination of the data of this period from Strindberg's own annals
reveals the following influences: Ibsen from his Norwegian throne
had hailed woman and the laborer as the two rising ranks of
nobility, and Strindberg asked himself if this was ironic, as
usual, or prophetic. Feminine individualism was the cult of the
hour. The younger generation had, through the doctrines of
evolution, become atheistic. Strindberg tells of asking a young
writer how he could get along without God. "We have woman instead,"
was the reply. This was the last stage of Madonna worship! And how
had it happened that the new generation had replaced God with
woman? "God was the remotest source; when he failed they grasped
at the next, the mother. But then they should at least choose the
real mother, the real woman, before whom, no matter how strong his
spirit, man will always bow when she appears with her life-giving
attributes. But the younger generation had pronounced contempt for