Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (714 page)
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Authors: Henrik Ibsen
DRESDEN, May 9th, 1869
Dear Mr. P. F. Siebold:
I HAVE to ask your pardon for much. First, I must ask you to pardon the state in which I return your manuscript; in destroying some of my useless rough drafts I unfortunately happened to tear your preface in two and only discovered afterward what had happened. My delay in answering your greatly esteemed notes is due to the fact that I have been waiting for answers to certain inquiries I have had made in Leipsic. According to information that I have now received, Dr. Helms is not longer connected with the Scandinavian bookstore there. Literary friends have advised me to handle the matter in the following way: you are connected with the Leipz:
Illustr: Zeitung
; if it were possible for you to get in a biography of me there, I could furnish the necessary portrait. Councillor Hegel would furnish you with the needed material. Such a biography ought only to contain favourable matter; the German critics will surely find enough that is objectionable, later on. I should particularly like, in case you think it helpful, that you would mention what I had to struggle against in the earlier days, and that you would also emphasize the fact that the Cabinet and Storthing, acknowledging the position I hold in Norwegian literature, several years ago unanimously granted me a pension for life, besides providing ample travelling stipends, etc. My dear Mr. Siebold, you must not understand me as wishing this in any way to partake of humbug; that is against my nature; but people assure me those things are necessary. If my name were in that way introduced into Germany it would be far easier to get your translation published. If you would later on send it to me I would take it to Leipzig, have the translation reviewed in some of the periodicals, talk with those concerned, and not yield until the book is published. The preface might then be made considerably shorter, by referring to the biography. If you favor this plan write to me. Henceforth I shall have time at my disposal and will do everything possible to advance an enterprise which is so much to my own interest. I have a belief that “The Pretenders” might also be suitable for translation, and could be performed in German theatres; the content of the play is remarkably well suited to later German conditions; the unification of parts of the country under one head, etc.; and were I first known there, I have no doubt but that I could induce the present theatre manager of Leipsic, Heinrich Laube, to make a beginning. These last plans, however, are for the future. At present I await your answer regarding the biography, and pray you to remember me, as I shall ever remember you, gratefully.
Yours respectfully and obligedly,
HENRIK IBSEN
DRESDEN, March 6th, 1872
My dear Mr. Siebold:
IT was a double pleasure to receive your kind letter after so long a silence. I am quite sure I wrote you after the biography appeared in
lllustr: Zeitung;
immediately afterward the war broke out, I went to Copenhagen, and all interest was entirely taken up by the grand world events. I assure you I often thought of you during that turbulent time; for I did not know whether or not you were an officer in the militia, and I imagined all kinds of possibilities. Fortunately they were only imaginings, and I thank you that you now have seriously set about introducing “Brand” to the German reading world.
I have not received the book yet;
I am very desirous to see it, but do not doubt at all that the translation will satisfy me. It is high time, though, that your work should appear, for here in Dresden there is another translation ready that should even now be at the printer’s. This translation is by the novelist Julie Ruhkopf, who has sent me the manuscript for approval. I consider it a matter of course that she — under the present circumstances — will not publish it. In a Berlin bookseller’s periodical is announced a translation of “The Pretenders” and “The League of Youth” at the same time that this latter play is being
localized
for the theatre in Vienna. I do not know that you have heard of my having been involved this winter in a controversy with the magazine
Im neuen Reich
, which appears in Leipsic under the direction of Dr. A. Dowe and Gustav Freitag. It was occasioned by some utterances in my poems with regard to Prussian politics. The controversy is conducted in a very chivalrous manner, however; the explanation which I have given of my standpoint has been considered satisfactory, and the matter, which was at first very disagreeable to me, will only — as my literary friends here assure me — advertise the translation of my work.
You are mistaken when you think that I do not recognize the greatness of a man like Bismarck; but I see in him an essential obstacle to a good and friendly relation between Germany and Scandinavia. The present estrangement is unnatural between two people so nearly related; there must and ought to be a closer alliance; the interest of both parties demands that. On the whole, during my long stay in Germany I have changed my views in many respects, but that subject is too long to take up in a letter; I shall have to save it until I again have the pleasure of meeting you personally. And so, for this time, a hearty farewell from Yours truly, HENRIK IBSEN
(On a calling card
,
with
“
The Pillars of Society
”)
To Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson:
Y
—
OUR words on the occasion of Georg Brandes’s departure (Georg Brandes moved in 1877 to Berlin) have given me joy and deeply affected me. In them you are entirely yourself. Would you be disposed to receive the enclosed book from me and give it to your wife?
H. I.
MUNICH, October 28th, 1877
VIII. TO BJØRNSTJERNE BJØRNSO
N
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson:
IT was a great pleasure to receive a letter from you; but it would have been a still greater pleasure if the letter had treated of a matter in which I could feel that I might join you. But such is not the case. To the proposal in regard to the flag in its most vital essence I must object and I will briefly show why.
In the first place I think that the protest against the union sign should have been made at the time it was proposed to put the sign there or else not at all. Now the sign has grown to be a fact and hence it must stay. For you cannot eradicate the consciousness of union from our minds; what satisfaction can it be, then, to take the sign from the flag? That it should be a sign of dependency I cannot at all understand. The Swedish flag bears the same mark. That shows that we are not more dependent on the Swedes than they are on us. For that matter, I do not have any great liking for symbols. Symbols are not in keeping with the times any longer, except in Norway. Up there the people are so very busy with symbols and theories and ideas that practical progress can make no advance. And there is something enervating in occupying one’s mind with unproductive problems.
But the main reason why I am not satisfied that such a proposal was made is that I think it is a sin against our people to make burning questions of those that are not so. More than
one
burning question at a time can never seriously come to the front among a people; if there are more; then they naturally detract from each other in interest. Now we have with us a single question which ought to be a burning one, but which — I am sorry to say — does not seem to be so. We have with us not more than a single matter for which I think it worth while to fight; and that is the introduction of a modernized popular education. This matter includes all other matters; and if it is not carried through, then we may easily let all the others rest. It is quite unessential for our politicians to give society more liberties so long as they do not provide individuals with liberty. It is said that Norway is a free and independent state, but I do not value much this liberty and independence so long as I know that the individuals are neither free nor independent. And they are surely not so with us. There do not exist in the whole country of Norway twenty-five free and independent personalities. It is impossible for such ones to exist. I have tried to acquaint myself with our educational matters — with school courses, with schedules, with educational topics, etc. It is revolting to see how the educational hours, particularly in the lower grades of the public school, are taken up with the old Jewish mythology and legendary history and with the medieval distortion of a moral teaching, which in its original form undoubtedly was the purest that has ever been preached. Here is the field where we, one and all, should claim that a “pure flag” be displayed. Let the union sign remain, but take the monkhood sign out of the minds; take out the sign of prejudice, narrow-mindedness, wrong-headed notions, dependence, and the belief in groundless authority, — so that individuals may come to sail under their own flag. The one they are now sailing under is neither pure, nor their own. But this is a practical matter, and it is hard for such matters to attract interest to themselves with us in Norway. Our whole educational system has not yet enabled us to reach that far. For this reason also our politics still appear as if we were under a constituent assembly. We are still engaged in discussing principles. Other countries have long ago arrived at clearness concerning principles, and the struggle concerns the practical applications of them. When with us a new task turns up it is not faced with assurance and presence of mind, but with bewilderment. It is our popular education which has brought us to a point where the Norwegian people are thus confused. It appeared clearly in the flag matter, and that on both sides. The seamen, undoubtedly, had the clearest view, after all; and that is natural, for their occupation carries with it a freer development of the personality. But when mountain peasants from the remotest valleys express, in addresses, their need of ridding the flag of the union sign, then it cannot possibly be anything but the merest humbug; for where there is no need of setting free one’s own personality there can much less be any need of setting free such an abstract thing as a society symbol.
I must limit myself to these few suggestions of my view in this matter. I am entirely unable to agree therein; nor can I agree with you, when you say in your letter that we poets are preferably called to forward this affair. I do not think it is our task to take charge of the state’s liberty and independence, but certainly to awaken into liberty and independence the individual, and as many as possible. Politics is not, so far as I can see, the most important business of our people; and perhaps it already holds a greater sway with us than is desirable in view of the necessity for personal emancipation. Norway is both sufficiently free and independent, but much is lacking to enable us to say the same with regard to the Norwegian man and the Norwegian woman.
With our best regards to you and yours,
HENRIK IBSEN
Rome, March 8th, 1882
Dear Bjornson:
I HAVE been thinking for a long time that I should write to you and ask you to accept my thanks because you so frankly and honestly stood up to my defence at a time when I was attacked on so many sides. It was really no more than I might have expected of your great courageous chieftain mind. But after all, there was no compelling reason for you to step forward and express yourself as you did, and because you did not hesitate, nevertheless, to throw yourself into the struggle, of that, you may rest assured, I shall never cease to be mindful.
I am also aware that during your stay in America you have written of me in kind and complimentary terms. For this also I thank you, and let me at the same time tell you that you were hardly out of my thoughts all the time you were away. I was unusually nervous just at that time, and an American trip has always seemed to me to be an uncomfortably daring deed. Then, too, I heard that you were ill over there, and I read about storms on the ocean just when you were expected to return. It then became so vividly impressed on my mind of what infinite importance you are to me — as to all the rest of us. I felt should anything happen to you, should a great calamity befall our countries, then all the joy of production would depart from me.
Next summer it will be twenty-five years since “Synnove” appeared. I travelled up through Valders and read it on the way. I hope this memorable year will be celebrated as it deserves to be.
If circumstances arrange themselves as I wish, I too would like to go home for the celebration.
One matter I ought to mention to you. Through
Dagbladet
, or in some other way, you have probably become acquainted with the contents of the letter which I wrote Auditor Berner about a year ago. I had then no opportunity to confer with you; but I do not think I could well imagine that you would have any essential objection to either the contents of the letter or the application itself. To me it seems a burning injustice that we should so long remain without any legal protection for our literary property. I have now written to Berner again and given him a survey of what I think I, for one, have lost. This amounts, considering only the two royal theatres of Stockholm and Copenhagen, to about twenty-five thousand kroner. “A Doll’s House,” which was paid according to the regulation, yielded me in Copenhagen nine thousand kroner. Each one of your plays that were performed there would surely have yielded you at least as much had we had the convention. Count over what this all amounts to. And then Germany!
To be able to work with full and undivided power in the service of the mental emancipation one must be placed in a position economically somewhat independent. The stagnation party plainly counteracts the spread of our books, and there are theatres which refuse to perform our plays. It will be best for the people themselves if in our future production we are not compelled to pay any regard to this.
I therefore hope that you will not disapprove of the step I have taken. I have simply asked for justice, nothing further.
Give your wife our best regards, and you yourself accept repeated thanks from,
Yours truly and obligedly,
HENRIK IBSEN
