To
Brandes Ibsen wrote more freely than to any one else about the great
events which were shaking the face of Europe and occupying so much of
both their thoughts:--
The old, illusory France has collapsed [he wrote to Brandes on December
20, 1870, two days after the engagement at Nuits]; and as soon as the
new, real Prussia does the same, we shall be with one bound in a new
age. How ideas will then come tumbling about our ears! And it is high
time they did. Up till now we have been living on nothing but the crumbs
from the revolutionary table of last century, a food out of which all
nutriment has long been chewed. The old terms require to have a new
meaning infused into them. Liberty, equality and fraternity are no
longer the things they were in the days of the late-lamented Guillotine.
This is what the politicians will not understand, and therefore, I hate
them. They want their own special revolutions--revolutions in externals,
in politics and so forth. But all this is mere trifling. What is
all-important is the revolution of the Spirit of Man.
This revolution, as exemplified by the Commune in Paris, did not satisfy
the anticipations which Ibsen had formed, and Brandes took advantage of
this to tell him that he .
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