r we read the history of the play in the official
"Correspondence."(1) Some interesting glimpses into the poet's moods
during the period between the completion of _The Lady from the Sea_
and the publication of _Hedda Gabler_ are to be found in the series of
letters to Fraulein Emilie Bardach, of Vienna, published by Dr. George
Brandes.(2) This young lady Ibsen met at Gossensass in the Tyrol in
the autumn of 1889. The record of their brief friendship belongs to the
history of _The Master Builder_ rather than to that of _Hedda Gabler_,
but the allusions to his work in his letters to her during the winter of
1889 demand some examination.

So early as October 7, 1889, he writes to her: "A new poem begins to
dawn in me. I will execute it this winter, and try to transfer to it
the bright atmosphere of the summer. But I feel that it will end in
sadness--such is my nature." Was this "dawning" poem _Hedda Gabler_? Or
was it rather _The Master Builder_ that was germinating in his mind? Who
shall say? The latter hypothesis seems the more probable, for it is hard
to believe that at any stage in the incubation of _Hedda Gabler_ he can
have conceived it as even beginning in gaiety. A week later, however,
he appears to have made up his mind that the time had not come for the
poetic utilisation of his recent experiences. He writes on October 15:
"Here I sit as usual at my writing-table. Now I would fain work, but
am unable to. My fancy, indeed, is very active. But it always wanders
away ours. I cannot repress my summer memories--nor do I wish to. I live
through my experience again and again and yet again. To transmute it
all into a poem, I find, in the meantime, impossible." Clearly, then,
he felt that his imagination ought to have been engaged on some theme
having no relation to his summer experiences--the theme, no doubt, of
_Hedda Gabler_. In his next letter, dated October 29, he writes: "Do not
be troubled because I cannot, in the meantime, create (_dichten_). In
reality I am for ever creating, or, at any rate, dreaming of something
which, when in the fulness of time it ripens, will reveal itself as
a creation (_Dichtung_)." On November 19 he says: "I am very busily
occupied with preparations for my new poem. I sit almost the whole day
at my writing-table. Go out only in the evening for a little while." The
five following letters contain no allusion to the play; but on September
18, 1890, he wrote: "My wife and son are at present at