And then the obscurity which envelops the motives of the principal persons in the play! "The spectator is left in uncertainty regarding such an important point as Ophelia's and Hamlet's madness. Moreover in King Lear, Edward's treachery is so palpable that not the most ordinarily intelligent man could have been deceived by it!"
If then the drama was defective precisely in the chief elements of a drama, construction and characterisation, how could it be incomparable? The reverence for what is ancient and celebrated is rooted in the same instinct which creates gods; and pulling down the ancient has the same effect as attacking the divine. Why else should a sensible unprejudiced man fly in a rage when he hears some one express a different opinion to his own (or what he thinks his own) about some old classic? It ought to be a matter of indifference to him. The national and intellectual Pantheon can be as angrily defended by atheists as by monotheists, perhaps more so. People who are otherwise sincere, cringe before a well-established reputation, and John had heard a pietistic clergyman say that Shakespeare was a "pure" writer. In his mouth that was certainly false. A determinist, on the other hand, would not have used the words "pure" or "impure" because they would have been meaningless to him. But the poor Christ-worshipper did not dare to bear a cross for Shakespeare; he had enough already to bear for his own Master.
Meanwhile John's method of judging old things from the modern point of view seemed to be justified, for it gained him a following. That was the whole secret of what was so little understood later on by theistic and atheistic theologians—his irreverent handling of ancient things and persons; they thought in their simplicity quite innocently that it was what one calls in children a spirit of contradiction. His aim rather was to bring people's confused ideas into order, and to teach them to apply logically their materialistic point of view. If they were materialists, they should not borrow phrases from Christianity, nor think like idealists. This gave rise to a catchword, which showed how what was ancient was despised—"That is old!" As new men, they must think new thoughts, and new thoughts demanded a new phraseology. Anecdotes and old jokes were done away with; stereotyped phrases and borrowed expressions were suppressed. One might be plain-spoken and call things by their right names, but one might not be vulgar; the latest opera was not to be quoted, nor jokes from the newest comic paper repeated. Thereby each became accustomed to produce something from his own stock of original observation and acquired the faculty of judging from a fresh point of view.
John had discovered that men in general were automata. All thought the same; all judged in the same fashion; and the more learned they were, the less independence of mind they displayed. This made him doubt the whole value of book education. The graduates who came from Upsala had, one and all, the same opinions on Rafael and Schiller, though the differences in their characters would have led one to expect a corresponding difference in their judgments. Therefore these men did not think, although they called themselves free-thinkers, but merely talked and were merely parrots.
But John could not perceive that it was not books quá books which had turned these learned men into automata. He himself and his unlearned philosophical friends had been aroused to self-consciousness through books. The danger of the university education was that it was derived from inferior books published under sanction of the government, and written by the upper classes in the interest of the upper classes, i.e. with the object of exalting what was old and established, and therefore of hindering further development.
Meanwhile John's scepticism had made him sterile. He had perceived that art had nothing to do with social development, that it was simply a reflection or phenomena, and was more perfect as art the more it confined itself to this function. He still preserved the impulse to re-mould things and it found expression in his painting. His poetic art, on the other hand, went to pieces since it had to express thoughts or serve a purpose.
His failure to have his play accepted had an adverse effect on his pecuniary circumstances. The friends from whom he had borrowed money came one evening to John's rooms in order to hear the play read, but they were so tired after the day's work that, after hearing the first act, they asked him to put off the rest for another occasion. One of the audience who had kept more awake than the others thought that there were too many Biblical quotations in the piece, and that these were not suitable for the stage.
John's resources were dried up, and the spectre of want loomed upon him, unbribeable and stone-deaf. After he had gone without his dinners for a time, he began to feel weary of life, and looked about him for the means of subsistence. How should he get bread in the wilderness? The best means that suggested itself was to seek an engagement in a provincial theatre. There mere nobodies often played leading roles in tragedies, made themselves a name, and finished by getting an appointment at the Theatre Royal. He quickly made his resolve, packed his travelling bag, borrowed money for his fare, and went to Göteborg. It was just about the time of the great November storm of 1872.
Since the environment in which he had been living had had a great effect on him, he conceived a great dislike to this town. Gloomy, correct, expensive, proud, reserved it lay, pent in its circle of stone hills, and depressed the lively native of Upper Sweden, accustomed to the rich and smiling landscape of Stockholm. It was a copy of the capital but on a small scale, and John, as one of the upper class, felt alienated from its inhabitants, who were in a lower stage of development. But he noticed that there was something here that was wanting in the capital. When he went down to the harbour he saw ships which were nearly all destined for foreign parts, and large vessels kept up continual communication with the continent. The people and buildings did not look so exclusively Swedish, the papers took more account of the great movements which were going on in the world. What a short way it was from here to Copenhagen, Christiania, London, Hamburg, Havre! Stockholm should have been situated here in a harbour of the North Sea, whereas it lay in a remote corner of the Baltic. Here was in truth the nucleus of a new centre, and he now understood that that position was no longer occupied by Stockholm, but that Göteborg was about to be the centre of the north. At present, however, this reflection had no comfort for him since he was only in the insignificant position of an actor.
John sought out the theatre-director and introduced himself as a person who wished to do the theatre a service. The director, however, considered himself very well served by his present staff. But he allowed John to give a trial performance in the rôle in which he wished to make his début. This was Dietrichson's Workman, the great success of the day. John had discovered a certain likeness between Stephenson's first locomotive and his rejected play; he wished to show how he, like the engineer, had to face the ridicule of the ignorant crowd, the apprehensions of the learned, and the fears of a wasted life on the part of relatives. He gave his trial performance one evening by the light of a candle and between bare walls. Naturally he felt hampered and asked to repeat it in costume. But the director said it was not necessary; he had heard enough. John, in his opinion, possessed talent, but it was undeveloped. He offered him an engagement at twelve hundred kronas yearly, to commence from the first of January. John considered: Should he spend two months idly in Göteborg and then only have a supernumerary's part in a provincial theatre? No! He would not! What remained to be done? Nothing except to borrow money and return home, which he did.