MUNICH, March 26th, 1889
My dear Professor:
EVERY day since my return have I thought of you and the other friends in Berlin, and intended to send you a few words. But during my absence there had accumulated such a stack of business letters that I have not yet quite mastered them all.
Still to-day I write a few preliminary words to ask that you accept and — when you have an opportunity — forward my most cordial thanks to our many mutual acquaintances who contributed toward making the week in Berlin the brightest time in my life. When I look back upon it, all seems to me like a dream. It makes me almost uneasy.
The following week I spent in Weimar. There also “The Lady from the Sea” was quite excellently played. The interpretation and representation of the characters had a strange resemblance to that at the Scliauspielhaus. Here Wangel, however, was not quite so finely finished in details. Nor was Lyngstrand so incomparably and truly conceived and individualized. But “The Strange Man” I cannot wish or hardly imagine better done than here — a tall, slender figure with the face of a hawk, piercing black eyes, and a splendid, deep, and subdued voice.
I have gone through my whole collection of books without finding any copy of the second edition of “Love’s Comedy,” in which the preface appears, — for in the later editions it is left out. I have therefore some days since written to Chief Clerk Larsen requesting him to secure a copy and send it to you. I hope he will succeed.
From Vienna I have received various letters, from which I can see that Dr. Schlenther’s lecture has had a strong effect there. And the strangest part is that these communications and declarations do not arise from German, but from Magyarian and Polish circles, the whole fundamental view of which, on life as well as on literature and its advancing aims, would seem to be so exceedingly divergent from our Germanic view. I suppose the explanation lies in the universality of the Germanic nature and the Germanic mind, which predestines it to a future empire of the world.
That I have been allowed to take part in these currents I clearly and deeply feel that I owe to my having entered into the life of German society.
I have to stop for to-day; hope soon to hear from you; send most cordial regards to our mutual circle, and am,
Yours truly and obligedly,
HENRIK IBSEN
P. S. — I wish to express gratefulness, particularly for Dr. Brahm’s article in Frankfurter Zeitung and for Dr. Schlenter’s in Die Nation.
H. I.