Page:Strindberg the Man (1920).djvu/108

AFTER the mental and physical illnesses and sufferings with which the old century closed for him, the ever hypersensitive Strindberg had become even more sensitive and delicate. Although the mental disorder had been overcome, he had the mania of his Inferno-period, in that he insisted upon seeing direct evidence of the supernatural powers in every incident, nay the least trifle, that graced his eyes.

His constant planning to shut himself up in a Catholic monastery was thus caused by a desire to get away from the painful external world, not by any newly aroused religious inclination inducing him to throw himself into the arms of the Roman church.

Since for many reasons he considered himself unfit for the monastery, he hit upon the idea of establishing himself as a “private hermit” right in the midst of the Swedish capital. This isolation of his he put into effect shortly after he had moved up there in 1899. Previously he had lived for a short time at Furusund.^[1]

At first he had hunted up his old friends and comrades, but he soon found that associating with them had no charm for him. He rediscovered himself only when he returned home to his seclusion and quiet and became