they did into the plays of Ibsen.  Hamsun would seem to take life as it
is, not with any pretense at its complete acceptability, but without
hope or avowed intention of making it over.  If his tolerance be never
free from satire, his satire is on the other hand always easily
tolerant.  One might almost suspect him of viewing life as something
static against which all fight would be futile.  Even life's worst
brutalities are related with an offhandedness of manner that makes you
look for the joke that must be at the bottom of them.  The word
_reform_ would seem to be strangely eliminated from his dictionary,
or, if present, it might be found defined as a humorous conception of
something intrinsically unachievable. 

Hamsun would not be the artist he is if he were less deceptive.  He has
his problems no less than Ibsen had, and he is much preoccupied with
them even when he appears lost in ribald laughter.  They are different
from Ibsen's, however, and in that difference lies one of the chief
explanations of Hamsun's position as an artist.  All of Ibsen's problems
became in the last instance reducible to a single relationship--that
between the individual and his own self.  To be himself was his cry and
his task.  With this consummation in view, he plumbed every depth of