And the passage ends thus:—
"Behold, to us a second growth there fares
That with the first like hemp with silk compares;
And stalks and rubbish 'midst the leaves we see;
This is the blackened tea—
It fills the market."
Ibsen has simply given further development to the simile and invested it with the solid mould of verse.
It is a well-known fact, that there is nothing clear in "Love's Comedy" except its mockery. The play presents a satire on marriage which imparts to the reader as little sympathy for the defenders of the conventional standard, as for its assailers, and from which it is impossible to detect whether in the poet's opinion it is better to maintain the present practices of society or to overthrow them. The only thing that is certain is his misanthropic view of the betrothals and marriages that have come under his observation. I remember a conversation with Ibsen in reference to this drama, which revolved about the ideal of love among betrothed couples in general. I said, "There are blighted potatoes and there are sound potatoes." Ibsen replied, "I very much fear I have never seen any of those potatoes that were sound."
Nevertheless, there runs through Ibsen's works a continually increasing faith in woman, and tendency to glorify woman. At times this appears in a rather revolting, dogmatic way, as when Solveig, in "Peer Gynt" after the traditional style of Goethe's "Faust" and Paludan-Müller's "Adam Homo," through her faithful love, saves the soul of her lover,—in this instance an altogether too unworthy being; but this faith in woman, with which Ibsen evidently desires to counterbalance his contempt for man, is ever present, and has been productive of a series of true and beautiful female characterizations, such as Margrete in "The Pretenders," who is represented by a few delicate strokes in imperishable beauty; or Selma in "The Young Men's Union," who may be regarded as the first draught of Nora. When this figure was new, I remarked in a review that the drama did not afford sufficient play for it, that an entire new drama should be written expressly for it. This was done in "Et Dukkehjem" (A Model Home).
As far as I can judge, the idea of woman's emancipation, in the modern acceptation of the phrase, was far from being familiar and dear to Henrik Ibsen at the outset of his career. On the contrary, he did not originally possess a large amount of sympathy for woman. There are authors who have a peculiar affinity for women, who have, indeed, a decided feminine element in their own natures. Ibsen does not belong to this class. I am quite confident he takes far more pleasure in conversation with men than with women, and he has certainly passed much less time in the society of women than is the wont of poets. Moreover, the attempt of modern literature to prove the justice of a change in woman's social status, was at first far from finding an enthusiastic admirer in him.. Mill's book on the woman question was, if I mistake not, actually repulsive to him in the early days of its appearance, and Mill, as a writer, inspired him with no sympathy whatever. Indeed, to Ibsen, with his marked individuality, Mill's statement, or rather confession, that he owed much in his writings, indeed the best they contained, to his wife, seemed absurdly ludicrous. "Only fancy," he said, smiling, "what it would be to read Hegel or Krause with the idea that it was quite uncertain whether we were following the thoughts of Mr. or of Mrs. Hegel, of Mr. or of Mrs. Krause!"
It does not seem to me that this aversion on the part of Ibsen was wholly without a connection with the poet's sentiments in regard to the woman question. I am rather inclined to think there was in his mind an opposition to the latter during its early stages, partly owing to the influences of his education, partly owing to a natural irritation at the caricature forms of female emancipation, but an opposition whose destiny it was to give place to passionate adherence. It is Ibsen's reason that has wrought the change in his emotional nature. Like a true poet, he is capable of becoming, with his whole soul, the organ of an idea which once had left him cold, the moment he feels this idea to be one of those battle-thoughts of the period that are fraught with rich meaning for the future. And when we read those words, that fall like sword-strokes, in the last scene of "A Model Home," Helmer's—
"There is no one who yields up his honor for those whom he loves,"
and Nora's—
"'Tis what hundreds and thousands of women have done,"