had not yet studied politics minutely enough
from the scientific standpoint. Ibsen replied that what he did not
possess as knowledge came to him, to a certain degree, as intuition or
instinct. "Let this be as it may, the poet's essential task is to see,
not to reflect. For me in particular there would be danger in too much
reflection." Ibsen seems, at this time, to be in an oscillating frame of
mind, now bent on forming some positive theory of life out of which his
imaginative works shall crystallize, harmoniously explanatory; at
another time, anxious to be unhampered by theories and principles, and
to represent individuals and exceptions exactly as experience presents
them to him. In neither attitude, however, is there discernible any
trace of the moral physician, and this is the central distinction
between Tolstoi and Ibsen, whose methods, at first sight, sometimes
appear so similar. Tolstoi analyzes a morbid condition, but always with
the purpose, if he can, of curing it; Ibsen gives it even closer
clinical attention, but he leaves to others the care of removing a
disease which his business is solely to diagnose.
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