le, humane spirit. I read it first in Eiksdal when I was writing
_Arne_, and I felt rebuked for the gloomy feelings under the spell of
which that book was written. But I took the lesson to heart: I felt
that I had in my soul something that could produce a play with a
little of the fancy and joy of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_--and I made
resolutions. But the conditions under which a worker in art lives in
Norway are hard, and all we say or promise avails nothing. But this I
know: I am closer to the ideal of this play now than then, I have a
fuller capacity for joy and a greater power to protect my joy and keep
it inviolate. And if, after all, I never succeed in writing such a play,
it means that circumstances have conquered, and that I have not achieved
what I have ever sought to achieve.

"And one longs to present a play which has been a guiding star to
oneself. I knew perfectly well that a public fresh from _Orpheus_ would
not at once respond, but I felt assured that response would come in
time. As soon, therefore, as I had become acclimated as director and
knew something of the resources of the theater, I made the venture. This
is not a play to be given toward the end; it is too valuable as a means
of gaining that which is to be the end--for the players and for the
audience. So far as the actors are concerned, our exertions have been
profitable. The play might doubtless be better presented--we shall
give it better next year--but, all in all, we are making progress.
You may call this naivete, poetic innocence, or obstinacy and
arrogance--whatever it is, this play is of great moment to me, for it
is the link which binds me to my public, it is my appeal to the public.
If the public does not care to be led whither this leads, then I am not
the proper guide. If people wish to get me out of the theater, they may
attack me here. Here I am vulnerable."

In _Morgenbladet_ for May 1st the reviewer made a sharp reply. He
insists again that the local theater is not equal to _A Midsummer
Night's Dream_. But it is not strange that Bjornson will not admit his
own failure. His eloquent tribute to the play and all that it has meant
to him has, moreover, nothing to do with the question. All that he says
may be true, but certainly such facts ought to be the very thing to
deter him from giving Shakespeare into the hands of untrained actors.
For if Bjornson feels that the play was adequately presented, then we
are at a loss to understand