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He remained for a few moments while this almost audible hymn to the Good and the Beautiful died away within him. He seemed so good, like a child that could see the bright side of life only, this weather-beaten champion with the gray lion's mane, he, who could forget himself so completely and become absorbed in a life as immediate and sublime as that of the flowers.

This image of the aged poet before his altar of flowers absorbed in silent ecstacy, seems to me to prove that Strindberg, in spite of all the hideous and disgusting that life continually poured upon him, had nevertheless been able to guard in his inmost being the sacred flowers of beauty just as uncontaminated as when they grow in a paradise wrought out of the wakeful dreams of a child's soul.

When we said good-night, he stood leaning against the door-post, tired but at the same time happy over an evening in which he had rejoiced, and smiling at us, even in the moment of parting, just as though he had to give a free outlet to the sunshine which glowed within his own soul.