in the newspapers are
the work of people who know better. In Norway, however, I am willing to
believe that the stultification has in most cases been unintentional;
and the reason is not far to seek. In that country a great many of the
critics are theologians, more or less disguised; and these gentlemen
are, as a rule, quite unable to write rationally about creative
literature. That enfeeblement of judgment which, at least in the case
of the average man, is an inevitable consequence of prolonged occupation
with theological studies, betrays itself more especially in the judging
of human character, human actions, and human motives. Practical business
judgment, on the other hand, does not suffer so much from studies of
this order. Therefore the reverend gentlemen are very often excellent
members of local boards; but they are unquestionably our worst critics."
This passage is interesting as showing clearly the point of view from
which Ibsen conceived the character of Manders. In the next paragraph
of the same letter he discusses the attitude of "the so-called Liberal
press"; but as the paragraph contains the germ of _An Enemy of the
People_, it may most fittingly be quoted in the introduction to that
play.

Three days later (January 6) Ibsen wrote to Schandorph, the Danish
novelist: "I was quite prepared for the hubbub. If certain of our
Scandinavian reviewers have no talent for anything else, they have
an unquestionable talent for thoroughly misunderstanding and
misinterpreting those authors whose books they undertake to judge....
They endeavour to make me responsible for the opinions which certain of
the personages of my drama express. And yet there is not in the whole
book a single opinion, a single utterance, which can be laid to the
account of the author. I took good care to avoid this. The very method,
the order of technique which imposes its form upon the play, forbids
the author to appear in the speeches of his characters. My object was
to make the reader feel that he was going through a piece of real
experience; and nothing could more effectually prevent such an
impression than the intrusion of the author's private opinions into the
dialogue. Do they imagine at home that I am so inexpert in the theory of
drama as not to know this? Of course I know it, and act accordingly.
In no other play that I have written is the author so external to the
action, so entirely absent from it, as in this last one."

"They say," he