Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 8).djvu/24

 notions." This word, or galskab in the singular, was Ibsen's favourite term for his conceptions as they grew up in his mind. I well remember his saying to me, while he was engaged on The Lady from the Sea, "I hope to have some tomfoolery [galskab] ready for next year." Sometimes he would vary the expression and say djœvelskab, or "devilry."

Of this particular "tomfoolery" we hear no more for a full year. Then, at the end of June 1884, he writes in almost identical terms to Brandes and to Theodor Caspari, announcing its completion in the rough. His letter to Caspari is dated Rome, June 27. "All last winter," he says, "I have been pondering over some new whimsies, and have wrestled with them till at last they took dramatic form in a five-act play which I have just completed. That is to say, I have completed the rough draft of it. Now comes the more delicate elaboration, the more energetic individualisation of the characters and their methods of expression. In order to find the requisite quiet and solitude for this work, I am going in a few days to Gossensass, in the Tyrol." This little glimpse into his workshop is particularly interesting.

From Gossensass he wrote to Hegel on September 2: "Herewith I send you the manuscript of my new play, The Wild Duck, which has occupied me daily for the past four months, and from which I cannot part without a sense of regret. The characters in this play, despite their many frailties, have, in the course of our long daily association, endeared themselves to me. However, I hope they will also find good and kind friends among the great reading public, and not least among the player-folk, to whom they all, without exception, offer problems worth the solving. But the study and presentation of these personages will not be