When public opinion was quite sure that Strindberg was evil, mad, and improper, when he stood convicted out of his own mouth of anti-social and satanic designs, he stayed the verdict by his own magic. He wrote more and more, and there came from his pen artistic creations endowed with virtues which could not have risen in a mind submerged in vice; pictures of scenery which bespoke a delicate and spiritualised nature-worship. His mind held a garden of flowers as well as a pile of putrescence.
On May 14th, 1912, the stillness of death descended on the battlefield which was Strindberg's life. The literary historian who justly passes the suspended verdict must hold peculiar and special qualifications. For the winds of literary taste and fashion cannot touch the giant of expression. Condemnation by temporary systems of morality and creed did not alter his course in life and will not disturb him in death. He was—himself; and he worked ceaselessly at the task of finding more of himself. Strindberg the atheist, Strindberg the scientist, Strindberg the spiritualist, Strindberg the mystic, Strindberg the sensualist, and Strindberg the ascetic, took equally important parts in his theatre of life. The critic met him day by day in different attire and pose, incarnations of the elusive self which was stage-manager of this extraordinary performance. A soul in conflict with itself, good and evil, fair and foul; sparkling with life and tense with passion to create, he could not give us peace or contentment. Like Jacob, he wrestled with God, though not for a night only, but throughout life, and he fought with the desperation of one who knows that upon the issue of the struggle depends, not his own blessing, but the liberation of countless prisoners.
An epitome of humanity, a fragment of the world's eternal and real drama of birth and death, he cannot be fully understood save by those who share his cosmic consciousness.
He studied chemistry, astronomy, botany, physics, geology, entomology, medicine, philology and political economy with a voracity which made him ridiculous in the eyes of the specialists who are satisfied with a few well-established formulæ. For him there were no barriers between specialised departments of human knowledge—all sciences were thrown into the melting-pot, in which he was preparing the new brew which would slake the thirst of parched souls. A solipsist who assimilated, rejected and transmuted the patiently accumulated theories of morals as the supreme duty of existence, he scorned the slaves of ethical communism.
The iconoclasm of Ibsen was fired by the realisation of the duties of the wise prophet amongst his foolish people. The hypocrisies and foibles of the little souls were the objects of the thundering chastisement of his trumpet. The white heat of Nietzsche's forge for the making of Superman was engendered by contempt for the feeble and sickly. The misanthropy which breathed poison out of Strindberg's writings, which showed souls and things in hideous nakedness, and painted sores and disease with horrible realism, was the darkness which he held high so as to call forth the cry for tight.
The collected works of Strindberg, which will shortly be published in a new edition, consist of some 115 plays, novels, collections of stories, essays and poems. Amongst these some seem absolutely antithetical. It is the constant changeability, the self-contradictions, which made Strindberg so incomprehensible to his contemporaries. The measure of his life-force was so liberal that he could afford to continue where others stop. He shed his skins like the snake and altered his colour like the chameleon, because he was the personification of perpetual movement and change. Thus he was endowed with ever-recurring youth; the decay of the old was immediately followed by birth of the new. The diary, in which, during the last fourteen years, he recorded his visions and supernatural experiences, will not be given to the world for many years to come. Though it depicts the last phase of his spiritual evolution, the postponement of publication is no doubt wise. Meanwhile, those who have poured curses on Strindberg's blatant atheism have been perplexed by his last words.
When death was drawing near, he took the Bible—which always lay on the table by his bed—held it up and said in a clear voice:
"Everything personal is now obliterated. I have settled with life. My account has been rendered. This alone is right."
He expressed a last wish that the Bible and a little crucifix which he used to wear should be placed on his breast after death, and that he should be buried early in the morning, and not amongst the rich. He desired to be laid to rest alone on the top of a hill under the firs.
This love of the early morning was part of his craving for more light. For many years he used to take a solitary morning walk. At seven o'clock he emerged from his "blue tower" in Stockholm and walked briskly through the streets and squares of his native town. At nine he was back at his writing-table—of late years a recluse for the rest of the day, absorbed in his work.