entional exposition of the French
stage, conducted by a footman and a parlour-maid engaged in dusting the
furniture. On the other hand, there never was a more masterly opening,
in its sheer simplicity, than Nora's entrance in _A Doll's House_, and
the little silent scene that precedes the appearance of Helmer.

Regarding _The Vikings_ as Ibsen's first mature production, and
surveying the whole series of his subsequent works in which he had stage
presentation directly in view,[8] we find that in only two out of the
fifteen plays does the whole action come within the frame of the
picture. These two are _The League of Youth_ and _An Enemy of the
People_. In neither of these have any antecedents to be stated; neither
turns upon any disclosure of bygone events or emotions. We are, indeed,
afforded brief glimpses into the past both of Stensgaard and of
Stockmann; but the glimpses are incidental and inessential. It is
certainly no mere coincidence that if one were asked to pick out the
pieces of thinnest texture in all Ibsen's mature work, one would
certainly select these two plays. Far be it from me to disparage _An
Enemy of the People_; as a work of art it is incomparably greater than
such a piece as _Pillars of Society_; but it is not so richly woven,
not, as it were, so deep in pile. Written in half the time Ibsen usually
devoted to a play, it is an outburst of humorous indignation, a _jeu
d'esprit_, one might almost say, though the _jeu_ of a giant _esprit_.

Observing the effect of comparative tenuity in these two plays, we
cannot but surmise that the secret of the depth and richness of texture
so characteristic of Ibsen's work, lay in his art of closely
interweaving a drama of the present with a drama of the past. _An Enemy
of the People_ is a straightforward, spirited melody; _The Wild Duck_
and _Rosmersholm_ are subtly and intricately harmonized.

Going a little more into detail, we find in Ibsen's work an
extraordinary progress in the art of so unfolding the drama of the past
as to make the gradual revelation no mere preface or prologue to the
drama of the present, but an integral part of its action. It is true
that in _The Vikings_ he already showed himself a master in this art.
The great revelation--the disclosure of the fact that Sigurd, not
Gunnar, did the deed of prowess which Hioerdis demanded of the man who
should be her mate--this crucial revelation is brought about in a scene
of the utmost dramatic intensi