Page:Strindberg the Man (1920).djvu/121
And then he bursts out in these accents which testify to an unbroken self-esteem:
Which suffers, suffers from thy gift of life!
Me first who suffered most!
These words: “Me, thy humanity,” and “Me first, who suffered most,” do not proceed from the lips of a man who has languished under the burden of life and laid his cross on the shoulders of another, but rather from a blond giant of the Viking-type who personally has carried the cross to his own Calvary, and who claims a reward for it. That he had not been able to be what he had wished to be—the closing word in the drama—does not detract from the proud self-assertion in the consciousness of the greatness of his life's work.
If we wish to hear Strindberg speak from his heart in an even stronger tone, we need only read his words to the Japanese on the latter's question as to “how he sees life”:
The Hunter:
To take this monstrous mockery in earnest—
To hold as sacred that which was so beastly.