deadly—a life, easy enough mayhap, but wholly devoid of idealism; before them is the new life of freedom, of revolt against outworn beliefs and conventions—a life of great difficulty, mayhap, but a life cheered by a noble ideal—an ideal in whose realization the socialist materialists believe as fully, as passionately as the ancient Hebrews believed in the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies.
Theirs is a hard case. Without ideals they cannot, in any worthy sense, live. The only possible ideal, that even the keen eyes of so shrewd an observer as Mr. Street can perceive, is the ideal of Socialism. But they cannot accept this ideal without abandoning much, I do not say that is dear to them, but much that by habit and tradition has become part and parcel of their intellectual being.
If they decide to go forward into the New, the old world of dolls' houses must become a strange land to them. In the difficulties and trials of the new life, they cannot send back for aid to the old world, which will have become a world of strangers to them. Nora's woman's instinct did not fail her here; when Torvald asked if he could send help to her in case of
