Page:Strindberg the Man (1920).djvu/25

model for the entire world. The leading men in the province of religion and literature were scarcely less than gods, and it never would have occurred to anyone to approach this Olympus with criticising glances.

And then there came an underrated dramaturgist who not only laid bare a great many flaws in them, but looked at the whole matter from such an elevation that the loftiness disappeared and the proud height of Olympus caved in, until it became as flat as a newly tilled field, and the resplendent temples seemed to be situated in mud-puddles instead of upon the brow of the famous mountain.

The New Kingdom could not have aroused a discussion more animated had it been a new, half intelligible play by Ibsen. We, the young blood, we revelled in the social emancipation to which we had now attained, just as we did in the case of The Red Room, which had prepared the way for the younger artists and art theories in the province of literature and painting. The older generation was thoroughly frightened and endeavored to deny the facts with which Strindberg tormented his times. They regarded us as irretrievably lost and heading towards a sad future, where, perhaps, some fine day we would be swallowed up by the earth.

In one respect they were right. It was a hard blow to a young mind to be obliged to tear to shreds, piece by piece, all that had been regarded as the loftiest and the most noble. It is like going through a series of operations and having the old members replaced by new ones.