Henrik Ibsen | Page 8

show that the oration of Cicero moved him
nearly so much as the narratives of Sallust. After all, the object of
Cicero was to crush the conspiracy, but what Ibsen was interested in
was the character of Catiline, and this was placed before him in a more
thrilling way by the austere reserve of the historian. No doubt, to a
young poet, when that poet was Ibsen, there would be something
deeply attractive in the sombre, archaic style, and icy violence of
Sallust. How thankful we ought to be that the historian, with his long
sonorous words--flagitiosorum ac facinorosorum--did not make of our
perfervid apothecary a mere tub-thumper of Corinthian prose!
Ibsen now formed the two earliest friendships of his life. He had
reached the age of twenty without, as it would seem, having been able
to make his inner nature audible to those around him. He had been to
the inhabitants of Grimstad a stranger within their gates, not speaking
their language; or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at all,
but indulging in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like
Caliban, and tamed, and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship.
One of those who thus interpreted him was a young musician, Due,
who held a post in the custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud
(1827-59), who deserves a cordial acknowledgment from every admirer
of Ibsen. He also was in the receipt of custom, and a young man of
small independent means. To Schulerud and to Due, Ibsen revealed his
poetic plans, and he seems to have found in them both sympathizers
with his republican enthusiasms and transcendental schemes for the
liberation of the peoples. It was a stirring time, in 1848, and all
generous young blood was flowing fast in the same direction.

Since Ibsen's death, Due has published a very lively paper of
recollections of the old Grimstad days. He says:
His daily schedule admitted few intervals for rest or sleep. Yet I never
heard Ibsen complain of being tired. His health was uniformly good.
He must have had an exceptionally strong constitution, for when his
financial conditions compelled him to practice the most stringent
economy, he tried to do without underclothing, and finally even
without stockings. In these experiments he succeeded; and in winter he
went without an overcoat; yet without being troubled by colds or other
bodily ills.
We have seen that Ibsen was so busy that he had to steal from his
duties the necessary hours for study. But out of these hours, he tells us,
he stole moments for the writing of poetry, of the revolutionary poetry
of which we have spoken, and for a great quantity of lyrics of a
sentimental and fanciful kind. Due was the confidant to whom he
recited the latter, and one at least of these early pieces survives, set to
music by this friend. But to Schulerud a graver secret was intrusted, no
less than that in the night hours of 1848-49 there was being composed
in the garret over the apothecary's shop a three-act tragedy in blank
verse, on the conspiracy of Catiline. With his own hand, when the first
draft was completed, Schulerud made a clean copy of the drama, and in
the autumn of 1849 he went to Christiania with the double purpose of
placing Catilina at the theatre and securing a publisher for it. A letter
(October 15, 1849) from Ibsen, first printed in 1904--the only
document we possess of this earliest period--displays to a painful
degree the torturing anxiety with which the poet awaited news of his
play, and, incidentally, exposes his poverty. With all Schulerud's
energy, he found it impossible to gain attention for Catilina at the
theatre, and in January, 1850, Ibsen received what he called its "death
warrant," but it was presently brought out as a volume, under the
pseudonym of Brynjolf Bjarme, at Schulerud's expense. Of Catilina
about thirty copies were sold, and it attracted no notice whatever from
the press.
Meanwhile, left alone in Grimstad, since Due was now with Schulerud

in Christiania, Ibsen had been busy with many literary projects. He had
been writing an abundance of lyrics, he had begun a one-act drama
called "The Normans," afterwards turned into Kaempehöjen; he was
planning a romance, The Prisoner at Akershus (this was to deal with
the story of Christian Lofthus); and above all he was busy writing a
tragedy of Olaf Trygvesön. [Note: On the authority of the Breve, pp. 59,
59, where Halvdan Koht prints "Olaf Tr." and "Olaf T." expanding
these to Tr[ygvesön]. But is it quite certain that what Ibsen wrote in
these letters was not "Olaf Li." and "Olaf L.," and that the reference is
not to Olaf Liljekrans, which was certainly begun at Grimstad? Is there
any other evidence that