I, at any
rate, shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its
side. Bjoernson says, 'The majority is always right'; and as a practical
politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, of
necessity say, 'The minority is always right.'"
In order to place this view clearly before his countrymen, he set about
composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most
successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward
in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with
preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, which he spent at
what was now to be for many years his favorite summer resort, Gossensass
in the Tyrol, a place which is consecrated to the memory of Ibsen in the
way that Pornic belongs to Robert Browning and the Bel Alp to Tyndall,
holiday homes in foreign countries, dedicated to blissful work without
disturbance. Here, at a spot now officially named the "Ibsenplatz," he
composed _The Enemy of the People_, engrossed in his invention as was
his wont, reading nothing and thinking of nothing but of the persons
whose history he was weaving.
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