His meditations led him more and
more into a lonely state. He floated, as on a prophet's carpet, between
the political heavens and earth, capriciously refusing to ascend or to
alight. He had come to a sceptical stage in his mental evolution, a
stage in which he was to remain for a considerable time, gradually
modifying it in a conservative direction. One wonders what the simple-
minded and stalwart Bjoernson thought of being quietly told (March 28,
1884) that the lower classes are nowhere liberal-minded or self-
sacrificing, and that "in the views expressed by our [Norwegian]
peasants there is not an atom more of real Liberalism than is to be
found among the ultramontane peasantry of the Tyrol." In politics Ibsen
had now become a pagan; "I do not believe," he said, "in the
emancipatory power of political measures, nor have I much confidence in
the altruism and good will of those in power." This sense of the
uselessness of effort is strongly marked in the course of the next work
on which he was engaged, the very brilliant, but saturnine and sardonic
tragi-comedy of _The Wild Duck_. The first sketch of it was made during
the spring of 1884 in Rome, but the dramatist took it to Gossensass with
him for the finishing touches, and did not perfect it until the autumn.
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