PREFACE

PREFACE

Maximilian Harden, the well-known critic, writes in the Zukunft (7th September 1907) of the Historical Miniatures:

“A very interesting book, as might be expected, for it is Strindberg’s. And I am bold enough to say a book which should and must be successful with the public. The writer is not here concerned with Sweden, nor with Natural History. A philosopher and poet here describes the visions which a study of the history of mankind has called up before his inner eye. Julian the Apostate and Peter the Hermit appear on the stage, together with Attila and Luther, Alcibiades and Eginhard. We see the empires of the Pharaohs and the Czars, the Athens of Socrates and the ‘Merry England’ of Henry VIII. There are twenty brief episodes, and each of them is alive. So powerful is the writer’s faculty of vision, that it compels belief in his descriptions of countries and men.”

“The question whether these cultured circles really were as described, hardly occurs to us. Never has the remarkable writer shown a more comprehensive grasp. Since the days of the Confession of a Fool, Strindberg has become a writer of world-wide significance.”

[Footnote: one collection of Maximilian Harden’s essays is published by Messrs. Blackwood, and another by Mr. Eveleigh Nash.]

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE EGYPTIAN BONDAGE

THE HEMICYCLE OF ATHENS

ALCIBIADES

SOCRATES

FLACCUS AND MARO

LEONTOPOLIS

THE LAMB

THE WILD BEAST

ATTILA

THE SERVANT OF SERVANTS

ISHMAEL

EGINHARD TO EMMA

THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST MILLENNIUM

PETER THE HERMIT

LAOCOON

THE INSTRUMENT

OLD MERRY ENGLAND

THE WHITE MOUNTAIN

THE GREAT CZAR

THE SEVEN GOOD YEARS

DAYS OF JUDGMENT

STRINDBERG’S DEATH-BED