The result of a searching determination to deal with personal and not typical forms of temperament is seen in the firmness of the portraiture in _The Wild Duck_, where, I think, less than ever before, is to be found a trace of that incoherency which is to be met with occasionally in all the earlier works of Ibsen, and which seems like the effect of a sudden caprice or change of the point of view. There is, so far as I can judge, no trace of this in _The Wild Duck_, where the continuity of aspect is extraordinary. Confucius assures us that if we tell him our past, he will tell us our future, and although several of the characters in _The Wild Duck_ are the most sordid of Ibsen's creations, the author has made himself so deeply familiar with them that they are absolutely lifelike. The detestable Hialmar, in whom, by the looking-glass of a disordered liver, any man may see a picture of himself; the pitiable Gregers Werle, perpetually thirteenth at table, with his genius for making an utter mess of other people's lives; the vulgar Gina; the beautiful girlish figure of the little martyred Hedvig--all are wholly real and living persons.
The subject of the play, of course, is one which we do not expect, or had not hitherto expected, from Ibsen. It is the danger of "a sick conscience" and the value of illusion. Society may be full of poisonous vapors and be built on a framework of lies; it is nevertheless prudent to consider whether the ideal advantages of disturbing it overweigh the practical disadvantages, and above all to bear in mind that if you rob the average man of his illusions, you are almost sure to rob him of his happiness. The topsy-turvy nature of a this theme made Ibsen as nearly "rollicking" as he ever became in his life. We can imagine than as he wrote the third act of _The Wild Duck_, where so horrible a luncheon party--"we'll all keep a corner"--gloats over the herring salad, he indulged again and again in those puffs of soundless and formidable mirth which Mr. Johan Paulsen describes as so surprising an element of conversation with Ibsen.
To the gossip of that amiable Boswell, too, we must turn for a valuable impression of the solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about this time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family saw him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to catch him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study, into which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to believe, did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his own mind, which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast and rich than that which lay spread around him." [Note: _Samliv med Ibsen_, 1906, p. 30.]