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land with a gesture full of promise and new happiness, pointing out the way for us.

We had passed through the same horrible awakening as Strindberg. With all the ecstasy of youth, we had approached what we considered the highest ideal. We had been told from childhood that nobody can be a good individual without religion, and since youth is naïve enough to believe itself goodness personified, we had all done our level best to penetrate deeper and deeper into that treasury of religion which is hidden from view by innumerable veils.

We had had the same experiences as Strindberg, but when we believed we had reached our goal, when it seemed as though the last veil would be drawn aside, then everything burst like the iridescent soap-bubble, and there we stood viewing it all from the wrong side.

His despair was ours, and every word he spoke was received by us like fresh spring water which brought us to life again.

What did we care that the so-called literary critique in the capital annihilated everything he wrote? We had entered through the lofty portal of poetic creation; we had followed his progress line for line in the characters of Master Olof and Gerdt the Printer. And we had learned how to love this Master Olof who made the walls of the old, crumbling temple fall in order to make room for a greater, freer, and more worthy structure. We loved our new Swedish master just as highly as we loved the gentle Master of Galilee.

Already the introduction to Master Olof had for us the