He was incompetent to pass judgment upon an
individual woman separately; to him all women
were alike, and that means, all unmitigatedly bad!
To the objection raised by one of the characters
in "The Father": "Oh, there are so many kinds
of women," the author's mouthpiece makes this
clinching answer : "Modern investigation has pronounced that there is only one kind."
The autobiography of Strindberg is largely inspired by his unreasoning hatred of women; the result, in the main, of his three unfortunate ventures into the uncongenial field of matrimony. In its first part, the account of his life is not without some traces of healthy humor, but as the story progresses, his entire philosophy of life becomes more and more aberrant under the increasing pressure of that obsession. He gets beside himself at the mere mention of anything feminine, and blindly hits away, let his bludgeon land where it will; logic, common sense, and common decency go to the floor before his vehement and brutal assault. Every woman is a born liar and traitor. Her sole aim in life is to thrive parasitically upon the revenue of her favors. Since marriage and prostitution cannot provide a living for all, the oversupply now clamor for admission to the work-
