ho never sacrifices
his Self generously for another's good, nor surrenders it to a decided
course of action. Diagram II. is Solveig, a woman who has no dread of
self-committal, who surrenders Self and is, in short, Peer's perfect
antithesis. When Peer is an outlaw she forsakes all and follows him to
his hut in the forest. Peer deserts her and roams the world, where he
finds his theory of Self upset by one adventure after another and at
last reduced to absurdity in the madhouse at Cairo. But though his own
theory is discredited, he has not yet found the true one. To find this
he must be brought face to face in the last scene with his deserted
wife. There, for the first time, he asks the question and receives the
answer. "Where," he asks, "has Peer Gynt's true self been since we
parted:--

"Where was I, as myself, as the whole man, the true man?
Where was I with God's sigil upon my brow?"

And Solveig answers:--

"In my faith, in my hope, in my love."

In these words we have the main ethical problem solved; and Peer's
_perception_ of the truth (_vide_ Mr. Wicksteed's remarks quoted
above) is the one necessary climax of the poem. We do not care a
farthing--at least, I do not care a farthing--whether Peer escape the
Button-Moulder or not. It may be too late for him, or there may be yet
time to live another life; but whatever the case may be, it doesn't
alter what Ibsen set out to prove. The problem which Ibsen shirks (if
indeed he does shirk it) is a subsidiary problem--a rider, so to
speak. Can Solveig by her love redeem Peer Gynt? Can the woman save
the man's soul? Will she, after all, cheat the Button-Moulder of his
victim?

The poet, by giving Solveig the last word, seems to think it possible.
According to Mr. Archer, the Ibsen of to-day would know it to be
impossible. He knows (none better) that "No man can save his brother's
soul or pay his brother's debt." "No, nor women neither," adds Mr.
Archer.

Is Peer's Redemption a romantic Fallacy?

But is this so? _Peer Gynt_ was published in 1867. I turn to _A Doll's
House_, written twelve years later, and I find there a woman preparing
to redeem a man just as Solveig prepares to redeem Peer. I find in Mr.
Archer's translation of that play the following page of dialogue:--

_Mrs. Linden_: There's no happiness in working for oneself, Nils;
give me somebody and something to work for.

_Krogstad_: No, no; that can never be. It's simp