champagne, but they did not touch it." The champagne incident leads me to wonder whether the relation between Rita and Allmers may not have been partly suggested to Ibsen by the relation between Charlotte Stieglitz and her weakling of a husband. Their story must have been known to him through George Brandes's _Young Germany_, if not more directly. "From time to time," says Dr. Brandes, "there came over her what she calls her champagne-mood; she grieves that this is no longer the case with him." [Note: _Main Currents of Nineteenth Century Literature_, vol. vi. p. 299] Did the germ of the incident lie in these words? The first performance of the play in Norway took place at the Christiania Theatre on January 15, 1895, Fru Wettergren playing Rita And Fru Dybwad, Asta. In Copenhagen (March 13, 1895) Fru Oda Nielsen and Fru Hennings played Rita and Asta respectively, while Emil Poulsen played Allmers. The first German Rita (Deutsches Theater, Berlin, January 12, 1895) was Frau Agnes Sorma, with Reicher as Allmers. Six weeks later Frl. Sandrock played Rita at the Burgtheater, Vienna. In May 1895 the play was acted by M. Lugne-Poe's company in Paris. The first performance in English took place at the Avenue Theatre, London, on the afternoon of November 23, 1896, with Miss Janet Achurch as Rita, Miss Elizabeth Robins as Asta, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell as the Rat-Wife. Miss Achurch's Rita made a profound impression. Mrs. Patrick Campbell afterwards played the part in a short series of evening performances. In the spring of 1895 the play was acted in Chicago by a company of Scandinavian amateurs, presumably in Norwegian. Fru Oda Nielsen has recently (I understand) given some performances of it in New York, and Madame Alla Nazimova has announced it for production during the coming season (1907-1908). As the external history of _Little Eyolf_ is so short. I am tempted to depart from my usual practice, and say a few words as to its matter and meaning. George Brandes, writing of this play, has rightly observed that "a kind of dualism has always been perceptible in Ibsen; he pleads the cause of Nature, and he castigates Nature with mystic morality; only sometimes Nature is allowed the first voice, sometimes morality. In _The Master Builder_ and in _Ghosts_ the lover of Nature in Ibsen was predominant; here, as in _Brand_ and _The Wild Duck_, the castigator is in the ascendant." So clearly is this the case in _Little Eyolf_ that Ibsen seems almost to fall into line with Mr. Thomas Hardy. To say nothing of analogies of detail between _Little Eyolf_ and _Jude the Obscure_, there is this radical analogy, that they are both utterances of a profound pessimism, both indictments of Nature. But while Mr. Hardy's pessimism is plaintive and passive, Ibsen's is stoical and almost bracing. It is true that in this play he is no longer the mere "indignation pessimist" whom Dr. Brandes quite