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IBSEN 31
political thinker or a social reformer ; while
their enemies, the aesthetes, were very willing
to call him a great artist, since by doing so
they excused themselves from paying the
least attention to anything that he said.
Ibsen was a reformer in the sense that all great
artists are reformers it is ; impossible to speak
of
reality without criticizing civilization. In
the same way he was a it is
politician im-
;
possible to care passionately about art without
caring about the fate of mankind. But
Mr. Roberts is certainly right in holding that
to appreciate Ibsen we must consider him as
an artist.
Ibsen approached humanity in the spirit of
an artist. He sought that essential thing in
men and women by which we should know
them if the devil came one night and stole
away their bodies ; we may
call it character
if we choose. He imagined situations in
which character would be revealed clearly.
The subjects of his plays are often " problems,"
because he was interested in people who only
when " problems "
arise are seen to be
essentially different from one another, or,
indeed, from the furniture with which they
live. There is no reason to suppose that
Ibsen had any love for " problems " as such ;
and we are tempted to believe that some
modern " problems " are nothing more than