Hedda. Could you not contrive that it should be done gracefully?
Lövborg. Gracefully? With vine-leaves in my hair?
‘With vine-leaves in his hair;’ ‘the passion for life’—these are words meaning, in the connection assigned to them, absolutely nothing, but giving scope for dreaming. In a few instances Ibsen employs these dreamily-nebulous, shadowy expressions with poetic licence, e.g., when we read in The Pillars of Society (p. 19):
Rörlund. Tell me, Dina, why you do like so much to be with me?
Dina. Because you teach me so much that is beautiful.
Rörlund. Beautiful? Do you call what I can teach you beautiful?
Dina. Yes; or, rather, you teach me nothing; but when I hear you speak, it makes me think of so much that is beautiful.
Rörlund. What do you understand, then, by a beautiful thing?
Dina. I have never thought of that.
Rörlund. Then think of it now. What do you understand by a beautiful thing?