clear, for various kinds of symbolic figures drawn from the mythologies of Norway appear on the scene and mingle with the human characters as if there were no distinction between them. But there is no missing the central message of "Peer Gynt." Ibsen proclaims that this aimless life is a terrible misuse of the powers which God has entrusted to us, and that its consequence must be the withdrawal of those powers from our care. We are intended to be something strong and true and if we refuse to be this, though we gain the world, we lose our own souls. A man must, he insists, deal with himself and deny himself if he would be himself. He who indulges himself may avoid unpleasant experiences, may get around" the hill difficulty," but he will find his pampered self becoming less and less. To come to selfhood we must climb mountains-meet opposition with no thought of retreat-burn bridges behind us, in a word take up a cross daily." It is all summed up in our Lord's teaching, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's shall save it."

We meet Peer Gynt for the first time as a

young man of twenty summers, a member of a home in needy circumstances. His father, who had been a drunken spendthrift, is dead; his mother, a foolish, fond, garrulous scold, loves the youth but has never disciplined him. Mother and son appear together in the opening scene, and Peer is talking. He is a great talker. Never were such adventures as those he recounts. He has ridden upon the back of a reindeer which leapt with its rider down thousands of feet into a lake. He tells these wild stories because he is bent upon eluding the consequences of his slackness. For six weeks in the busiest season of the year he has been idling on the mountain and now he would escape his mother's biting tongue. "It's a terrible thing to look fate in the eyes," said Ase. That is exactly what her son will not do. He is by no means wholly bad. In certain moods he might have proved a congenial companion, for in youth a love of pleasure and an aversion to anything difficult are by no means infrequent nor do they make for social ostracism. But the refusal to look fate in the face and deal honestly with oneself, unless it is overcome, leads inevitably to ruin.

- Peer attends a marriage festival at an adjoining farm, and there he meets Solvejg, the pure and modest girl who is the beautiful element in the story, by whom, at last, he will be led to selfrecovery. He is at once attracted by her, but permits himself to be drawn aside by a wild impulse of scorn for those at the wedding who had naturally shrunk from this ragged youth. He carries off Ingrid, the bride, to the mountains, and though he sends her home again, is compelled himself to become an outlaw.

Wandering among the mountains Peer encounters some creatures of modern mythology known in Norway as Trolls. Ibsen uses them as the exponents of absolute selfishness, inhabiting a world in which all moral distinctions have been obliterated. The law of their kingdom is explained by the king:

"Out yonder, under the shining vault,

Among men the saying goes: 'Man, be thyself." At home, here with us, 'mid the tribe of the trolls, The saying goes: 'Troll, to thyself beenough."

The law of human life is "Be thyself," be true to that which God intended when He gave you

being. Here in the world of lawlessness it is different: "To thyself be enough;" heed nothing but your own pleasures and passions and ambitions. It is a choice which confronts every soul. If we make ourselves the centre of our world, and live only to gratify self we shall cease to live a true human life, and shall sink into this lawless world of the degenerates where:

"Black it seems white, and ugly seems fair, Big it seems little, and dirty seems clean."

At first Peer Gynt finds an affinity in this lower world, but his better nature is not dead, and seeing the bestiality about it drives him to escape. In this attempt to flee from unbridled self-indulgence he is opposed by another strange mythical being known as the "Great Boyg," a giant figure, shapeless, cold, slippery, elusive, which meets him wherever he turns. The "Great Boyg" represents that element in human nature which has been described by great spiritual teachers under many different metaphors and which every man is made aware of when he strives to be unselfish and true. Whenever the Boyg was challenged to give his name he replied "Myself."

Ibsen portrays the conflict as hard and fierce, for he knew as we know that there is no enemy so powerful in all the engagements of the spirit as that which we find within ourselves. "A man's enemies are those of his own household." Peer was battling with a ghost at which he struck in vain, and which confronted him at every turn. When at last, he asked how he could escape from this kingdom of the Trolls, the "Great Boyg," anxious to keep him there, answered, "Go roundabout, Peer." To which Peer, rescued for the moment by his better nature, answered manfully, "No, through."

Ibsen here enunciates a fundamental law of self-realization. There is no way of attaining selfhood by "going roundabout;" a man must "go

go through" though the coward in his soul shriek in protest. There is no pleading in the world so persuasive, no threatening so loud and harsh, as that we hear from our lower nature. Something there is within us which we must crucify if we would enter into life. Compromise and vacillation are useless here; a man must strike hard and strike home if he would win through, and escape this dark world of bondage.