By the beginning of October, after the fall of
Strasburg and the hemming in of Metz, however, it was plain on which
side the fortunes of the war would lie, and Ibsen returned "as from a
rejuvenating bath" of Danish society to a Dresden full of French
prisoners, a Dresden, too, suffering terribly from the paralysis of
trade, and showing a plentiful lack of enthusiasm for Prussia.
Ibsen turned his back on all such vexatious themes, and set himself to
the collecting and polishing of a series of lyrical poems, the _Digte_
of 1871, the earliest, and, indeed, the only such collection that he
published. We may recollect that, at the very same moment, with far less
cause to isolate himself from the horrors of war, Theophile Gautier was
giving the last touches to _Emaux et Camees_. In December, 1870, Ibsen
addressed to Fru Limnell, a lady in Stockholm, his "Balloon-Letter," a
Hudibrastic rhymed epistle in nearly 400 lines, containing, with a good
deal that is trivial, some striking symbolical reminiscences of his trip
through Egypt, and some powerful ironic references to the caravan of
German invaders, with its Hathor and its Horus, which was then rushing
to the assault of Paris under the doleful colors of the Prussian flag.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147