Henrik Ibsen, 1828-1888; A Critical Biography (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CONTROVERSIAL PERIOD. traveller from the North, who first catches -- sight of Italy or of the Mediterranean, is always deeply impressed; and especially he who, like Ibsen, goes by way of Trieste. During the night one passes through southern Austria, and, waking up before sunrise, looks out of the railway carriage window. One can hardly imagine anything more barren and desert-like than the surrounding landscape. The way leads over a vast plain, over which are scattered weather-beaten rocks, which tower up in the most singular shapes. This is the so-called " Karst." The sun rises, but its light cannot make this gray and stony desert appear less barren or more cheerful. Suddenlythe train turns, a sharp curve, the way leads down a terraced ana vine-clad slope, and the blue Adriatic appears ar below, decked with white sails that gleam in the tunlightfar out upon the horizon. He who has known such a morning hour, can never forget it. From Trieste the road goes on to Venice and farther, amid the loveliest and most smiling landscapes. How luxuriant the vegetation and how bright the colors! Wherever we go, the light shines, gleams, sparkles; it seems to us as if we had never seen any color but gray before; the very sky is different, loftier, more transparent, deeper of hue. And when the sun goes down, and the night falls, sudden as a surprise, the moon comes out, the radiant moon of the Italian summer night. One may perhaps faintly conceive it by recalling the moonlight of an August evening in Norway. The brightness and beauty of the light make one fairly wild with enthusiasm, make N one wander for hours over moonlit fields and through dark groves where the fireflies flit about, sparkling like diamonds in the foliage. And besides these impressions of nature, Ibsen received al...