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about him and chosen him as their chief despite the fact that he never had asked them for that honor.

This was their gratitude for his clear and candid statement pertaining to one of the burning questions of the day and for his having chosen his words so that the statement will be valid for long years to come,—probably as long as men and women shall foolishly get into their heads to give one another—before clergyman or magistrate—the rash promise of partnership for life.

In the obscure circle of a provincial town where I sojourned the year when Married appeared, I had a splendid opportunity to study the remarkable manner in which Swedish society received the work.

A long time before the book appeared and before its contents became known, it had been condemned unanimously. The New Kingdom had not been read in vain. They knew, therefore, how boldly free this social critic was, how little reverence he showed for certain of our time-honored grievances, and they were convinced beforehand that Strindberg would put his foot in it most decidedly, if he actually undertook to discuss such a delicate question as that of woman and marriage.

They knew, therefore, several weeks in advance that Married pleaded for nothing less than “free love,” the more accidental the better. All ties were to be severed, for the parents must not know to whom their children belonged, and on that account all were to be educated by the state in a national institution for foundlings. Thus parental love was to be blotted out of the world. And the women—well, what their fate might be one