At first everything went smoothly. The editorial office was like an observatory, from which one could study the world and watch history in the making. By inapt comparison between the old University and the potentialities of the new Press, his contempt for the former grew.
The pressman is invested with authority. By the aid of modern inventions and the efficient organisation of the news-service, he is enabled to survey events on the world's stage, and to seize its acting personalities whilst they are still warm with speech. He becomes the central nervous system of pulsating humanity; he is expected to interpret its sensory impressions and to enrich the body-social by concepts and opinions. Strindberg saw the power of the Press, and in the anticipatory joy of being able to express himself freely, he buried his old disgust at the wickedness of journalism.
But the peace was short-lived. He was soon taught that one must not aim at too wide a view-point or express oneself too freely. The ideal and the real newspaper are two very different things. The idea that a newspaper must offer its comment and its opinions to the buying and subscribing public in strict conformity with party colour and convention was not one to which he could give loyal allegiance. He reported the debates in the Riksdag in such a disrespectful manner that a less critical man had to take his place. He reviewed a Christian journal by declaring that the publisher had incurred a heavy responsibility by spreading such errors, with the result that his editor had to appease the indignant publisher.
He gave vent to highly original views on art, and when allowed to act as dramatic critic of the performances at the Royal Theatre, took the opportunity of paying off old scores. There were many complaints against him, and he was even threatened with a thrashing by a theatrical company which was smarting under his attacks. It was evident that his services were not appreciated, and Strindberg relieved the newspaper of his embarrassing presence.
Starvation followed, and under the lash of that whip a few months of distasteful work on another paper. This time, he tells us, was a period of bitter want, illness and humiliation. He dared' not go home; his friends regarded him with pity and suspicion. The circle of the Red Room was dissolved. Depression and dislike of human society overtook him. There were days when he preferred to go without food to meeting people in the restaurant. On other days he followed the same course through want of money. Sometimes he spent the whole day lying on a sofa, his thoughts spun in a circle which held the hope that death or lunacy would set him free, but, when hunger came in the evening, he was driven out to seek help.
At this time of utter misery there occurred one of those sudden changes of circumstance which are interwoven in the sombre warp and woof of Strindberg's destiny like a thread of scarlet. Following a friend's advice he had applied for the post of assistant librarian in the Royal Library of Stockholm. His application was successful, and in 1874 he again placed his foot on the step-ladder of social respectability, redeemed by the titles of Royal Secretary and "extraordinarie amanuens."
He threw himself into the depths of human thought, contained in the books of which he was now master, with the eagerness of one who is so thirsty that he wants to drink the sea. New passion, new disillusionment. The great problems of life, those that last through centuries and chaff the impotence of the human mind, remained problems. Like a cow chewing the cud, the philosophers of mankind laboured with the same unanswerable questions. Away then from the intellectual fields where the mind is poisoned and left in irremediable misery! His new work demanded a useful and acceptable contribution to the resources of the library.
He undertook to catalogue Chinese Manuscripts, and devoted a year to the study of the Chinese language. When the catalogue was ready, he handed it with a certain pride of victory to the authorities of the library, for he was now the sinologue of the institution. The ancient culture of the yellow empire attracted him with its atmosphere of somnolent mysticism. It was an opiate to his restlessness. In the Chinese literature he searched for information about Sweden and Swedes, and in the Swedish literature he looked for references to China and its inhabitants.
The result was a "Memoir," which was read at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Correspondence with sinologues all over the world followed, together with membership of learned societies and a medal from the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. "Thus," Strindberg tells us, "he succeeded in contracting a healthy idiotism which seriously threatened to extinguish all intelligence." He advanced so far on his new path that he even coveted a Russian order.
He was at last somebody and something in the eyes of the world.