ood the storms of autumn.

Nor, as regards the characters, the action, and the contents of
the plays generally, is there any other or any greater resemblance
between them than that which is a natural consequence of the
derivation of the subjects of both from the narrow circle of
ideas in which the ancient ballads move.

It might be maintained with quite as much, or even more, reason
that Hertz in his _Svend Dyring's House_ had borrowed, and that
to no inconsiderable extent, from Heinrich von Kleist's _Kathchen
von Heilbronn_, a play written at the beginning of this century.
Kathchen's relation to Count Wetterstrahl is in all essentials
the same as Tagnhild's to the knight, Stig Hvide. Like Ragnhild,
Kathchen is compelled by a mysterious, inexplicable power to follow
the man she loves wherever he goes, to steal secretly after him,
to lay herself down to sleep near him, to come back to him, as by
some innate compulsion, however often she may be driven away. And
other instances of supernatural interference are to be met with
both in Kleist's and in Hertz's play.

But does any one doubt that it would be possible, with a little
good--or a little ill-will, to discover among still older dramatic
literature a play from which it could be maintained that Kleist had
borrowed here and there in his _Kathchen von Heilbronn_? I, for
my part, do not doubt it. But such suggestions of indebtedness
are futile. What makes a work of art the spiritual property of
its creator is the fact that he has imprinted on it the stamp of
his own personality. Therefore I hold that, in spite of the
above-mentioned points of resemblance, _Svend Dyring's House_ is
as incontestably and entirely an original work by Henrick Hertz as
_Katchen von Heilbronn_ is an original work by Heinrich von Kleist.

I advance the same claim on my own behalf as regards _The Feast at
Solhoug_, and I trust that, for the future, each of the three
namesakes* will be permitted to keep, in its entirety, what
rightfully belongs to him.

In writing _The Feast of Solhoug_ in connection with _Svend Dyring's
House_, George Brandes expresses the opinion, not that the former
play is founded upon any idea borrowed from the latter, but that it
has been written under an influence exercised by the older author
upon the younger. Brandes invariably criticises my work in such a
friendly spirit that I have all reason to be obliged to him for
this suggestion, as for so much else.