_Casa Guidi Windows_ may be taken as the
extreme type of the way in which Italy did not impress Ibsen. He sought
there, and found, under the transparent azure of the Alban sky, in the
harmonious murmurs of the sea, in the violet shadows of the mountains,
above all in the gray streets of Rome, that rest of the brain, that
ripening of the spiritual faculties, which he needed most after his
rough and prolonged adolescence in Norway. In his attitude of passive
appreciation he was, perhaps, more like Landor than like any other of
the illustrious exiles--Landor, who died in Florence a few days after
Ibsen settled in Rome. There was a side of character, too, on which the
young Norwegian resembled that fighting man of genius.
When, therefore, on September 8, 1867, Garibaldi, at Genoa, announced
his intention of marching upon Rome, an echo woke in many a poet's heart
"by rose hung river and light-foot rill," but left Ibsen simply
disconcerted. If Rome was to be freed from Papal slavery, it would no
longer be the somnolent and unupbraiding haunt of quietness which the
Norwegian desired for the healing of his spleen and his moral
hypochondria.
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