Little Eyolf
LITTLE EYOLF. By Henrik Ibsen Translated, With an Introduction, by William Archer INTRODUCTION. Little Eyolf was written in Christiania during 1894, and published in Copenhagen on December 11 in that year. By this time Ibsen's correspondence has become so scanty as to afford us no clue to what may be called the biographical antecedents of the play. Even of anecdotic history very little attaches to it. For only one of the characters has a definite model been suggested. Ibsen himself told his French translator, Count Prozor, that the original of the Rat-Wife was "a little old woman who came to kill rats at the school where he was educated. She carried a little dog in a bag, and it was said that children had been drowned through following her." This means that Ibsen did not himself adapt to his uses the legend so familiar to us in Browning's _Pied Piper of Hamelin_, but found it ready adapted by the popular imagination of his native
couldn't understand a word she said. I could just catch the sound of her
voice and that was all."
"Humph!" was Jane's sole reply.
"Yes, 'humph' if you want to. It goes to show that the ignoble Noble
never got her information that way. The question is, 'How did she get
it?'"
"I don't know and I don't care," returned Jane wearily. "Please, Judy, I
want to forget the whole thing."
"I don't. I'm going to be an investigating investigator and solve the
mystery. Watch slippery Judy, the dauntless detective of Madison Hall.
Leave it to her to puzzle out the puzzle."
"Better forget it," advised Jane shortly.
"Oh, never! Let me have at least one worthy object in life, won't you?"
was Judith's blithe plea. "Never mind, Imp will support and admire my
ambition, even if you don't."
Judith was not in the least cast down by the defeat of an unworthy foe.
She was glad of it. Brought up among girls, she was too much used to
such squabbles to take them to heart.
LITTLE EYOLF. By Henrik Ibsen Translated, With an Introduction, by William Archer INTRODUCTION. Little Eyolf was written in Christiania during 1894, and published in Copenhagen on December 11 in that year. By this time Ibsen's correspondence has become so scanty as to afford us no clue to what may be called the biographical antecedents of the play. Even of anecdotic history very little attaches to it. For only one of the characters has a definite model been suggested. Ibsen himself told his French translator, Count Prozor, that the original of the Rat-Wife was "a little old woman who came to kill rats at the school where he was educated. She carried a little dog in a bag, and it was said that children had been drowned through following her." This means that Ibsen did not himself adapt to his uses the legend so familiar to us in Browning's _Pied Piper of Hamelin_, but found it ready adapted by the popular imagination of his native