Seldom has a man gone through such profound religious changes as thisSwede, who died last May. The demonic element in him, which spurredhim on restlessly, made him scale heaven and fathom hell, gave himglimpses of bliss and damnation. He bore the Cain's mark on his brow:"A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be."
He was fundamentally religious, for everyone who searches after Godis so,—a commonplace truth certainly, but one which needs to beconstantly reiterated. And Strindberg's search was more painful,exact, and persevering than that of most people. He was never contentwith superficial formulas, but pressed to the heart of the matter,and followed each winding of the labyrinthine problem with endlesspatience. Too often the Divinity which he thought he had discoveredturned out a delusion, to be scornfully rejected the moment afterwards.Until he found the God, whom he worshipped to the end of his days,and whose existence he resolutely maintained against deniers.
As a child he had been brought up in devout belief in God, insubmission to the injustice of life, and in faith in a betterhereafter. He regarded God as a Father, to Whom he made known hislittle wants and anxieties. But a youth with hard experiences followedhis childhood. The struggle for daily bread began, and his heavenlyFather seemed to fail him. He appeared to regard unmoved, from someOlympian height, the desperate struggles of humanity below. Then thedefiant element which slumbered in Strindberg wrathfully awoke, and hegradually developed into a free-thinker. It fared with him as it oftendoes with young and independent characters who think. Beginning withdissent from this and that ecclesiastical dogma, his criticism embracedan ever-widening range, and became keener and more unsparing. At lastevery barrier of respect and reverence fell, the defiant spirit ofyouth broke like a flood over all religious dogmas, swept them away,and did not stop short of criticising God Himself.
Meanwhile his daily life, with its hard experiences, went on. Bookswritten from every conceivable point of view came into his hands.Greedy for knowledge as he was, he read them all. Those of thefree-thinkers supported his freshly[Pg v] aroused incredulity, which as yetneeded support. His study of philosophical and scientific works made aclean sweep of what relics of faith remained. Anxiety about his dailybread, attacks from all sides, the alienation of his friends, allcontributed towards making the free-thinker into an atheist. How canthere be a God when the world is so full of ugliness, of deceit, ofdishonour, of vulgarity? This question was bound to be raised at last.About this time he wrote the New Kingdom, full of sharp criticisms ofsociety and Christianity.
As an atheist Strindberg made various attempts to come to terms withthe existing state of things. But being a genius out of harmony withhis contemporaries, and always longing for some vaster, fairer future,this was impossible for him. When he found that he came to no goal,a perpetual unrest tortured him. His earlier autobiographic writingsappeared, marked by a strong misanthropy, and composed with an obscureconsciousness of the curse: "A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou