Grimstad he had but himself to consult, and the mind of a young poet who
has not yet enjoyed any generous communication with life is invariably
sentimental and romantic. The critics of the North have expended a great
deal of ingenuity in trying to prove that Ibsen exposed his own
temperament and character in the course of _Catilina_. No doubt there is
a great temptation to indulge in this species of analysis, but it is
amusing to note that some of the soliloquies which have been pointed out
as particularly self-revealing are translated almost word for word out
of Sallust. Perhaps the one passage in the play which is really
significant is that in which the hero says:--

If but for one brief moment I could flame
And blaze through space, and be a falling star;
If only once, and by one glorious deed,
I could but knit the name of Catiline
With glory and with deathless high renown,--
Then should I blithely, in the hour of conquest,
Leave all, and hie me to an alien shore,
Press the keen dagger gayly to my heart,
And die; for then I should have lived indeed.

This has its personal interest, since we know, on the evidence of his
sister, that such was the tenor of Ibsen's private talk about himself at
that precise time.

Very imperfect as _Catilina_ is in dramatic art, and very primitive as
is the development of plot in it, it presents one aspect, as a literary
work, which is notable. That it should exist at all is curious, since,
surprising as it seems, it had no precursor. Although, during the
thirty-five years of Norwegian independence, various classes of