Let us consider what happens in Ibsen's plays. He often leads us far
down into human consciousness, but the drama remains possible only
because there goes with us a singular flame, a sort of red light, which,
sombre, capricious--unhallowed, one almost might say--falls only on
singular phantoms. And indeed nearly all the duties which form the
active principle of Ibsen's tragedies are duties situated no longer
within, but without, the healthy, illumined consciousness; and the
duties we believe we discover outside this consciousness often come
perilously near an unjust pride, or a kind of soured and morbid madness.
Let it not be imagined, however--for indeed this would be wholly to
misunderstand me--that these remarks of mine in any way detract from my
admiration for the great Scandinavian poet. For, if it be true that
Ibsen has contributed few salutary elements to the morality of our time,
he is perhaps the only writer for the stage who has caught sight of, and
set in motion, a new, though still disagreeable poetry, which he has
succeeded in investing with a kind of age, gloomy beauty and grandeur
(surely too savage and gloomy for it to become general or definitive);
as he is the only one who owes nothing to the poetry of the violently
illumined dramas of antiquity or of the Renaissance.
But, while we wait for the time when human consciousness shall recognise
more useful passions and less nefarious duties, for the time when the
world's stage shall consequently present more happiness and fewer
tragedies, there still remains, in the depths of every heart of loyal
intention a great duty of charity and justice that eclipses all others.
And it is perhaps from the struggle of this duty against our egoism and
ignorance that the veritable drama of our century shall spring. When
this goal has been attained--in real life as on the stage--it will be
permissible perhaps to speak of a new theatre, a theatre of peace, and
of beauty without tears.