ough I do not feel the need of attacking
myself in this connection, I cannot but regard all that pottering
with stage properties as useless."

It has been customary in this country to speak of the play now
presented to the public as "Countess Julie." The noble title is, of
course, picturesque, but incorrect and unwarranted. It is, I fear,
another outcome of that tendency to exploit the most sensational
elements in Strindberg's art which has caused somebody to translate
the name of his first great novel as "The Scarlet Room,"--instead
of simply "The Red Room,"--thus hoping to connect it in the reader's
mind with the scarlet woman of the Bible.

In Sweden, a countess is the wife or widow of a count. His daughter
is no more a countess than is the daughter of an English earl. Her
title is that of "Froeken," which corresponds exactly to the German
"Fraeulein" and the English "Miss." Once it was reserved for the
young women of the nobility. By an agitation which shook all Sweden
with mingled fury and mirth, it became extended to all unmarried
women.

The French form of _Miss Julia's_ Christian name is, on the other
hand, in keeping with the author's intention, aiming at an
expression of the foreign sympathies and manners which began to
characterize the Swedish nobility in the eighteenth century, and
which continued to assert themselves almost to the end of the
nineteenth. But in English that form would not have the same
significance, and nothing in the play makes its use imperative. The
valet, on the other hand, would most appropriately be named _Jean_
both in England and here, and for that reason I have retained this
form of his name.

Almost every one translating from the Scandinavian languages
insists on creating a difficulty out of the fact that the three
northern nations--like the Germans and the French--still use the
second person singular of the personal pronoun to indicate a closer
degree of familiarity. But to translate the Swedish "du" with the
English "thou" is as erroneous as it is awkward. Tytler laid down
his "Principles of Translation" in 1791--and a majority of
translators are still unaware of their existence. Yet it ought to
seem self-evident to every thinking mind that idiomatic
equivalence, not verbal identity, must form the basis of a good and
faithful translation. When an English mother uses "you" to her
child, she establishes thereby the only rational equivalent for the
"du" used under similar c