' His observations would take a longer or shorter time
as the case might be, and would always contribute to some work of art."
The principal model for Hilda was doubtless Fraulein Emilie Bardach,
of Vienna, whom he met at Gossensass in the autumn of 1889. He was
then sixty-one years of age; she is said to have been seventeen. As
the lady herself handed his letters to Dr. Brandes for publication,
there can be no indiscretion in speaking of them freely. Some
passages from them I have quoted in the introduction to _Hedda
Gabler_--passages which show that at first the poet deliberately put
aside his Gossensass impressions for use when he should stand at a
greater distance from them, and meanwhile devoted himself to work
in a totally different key. On October 15, 1889, he writes, in
his second letter to Fraulein Bardach: "I cannot repress my summer
memories, nor do I want to. I live through my experiences again
and again. To transmute it all into a poem I find, in the meantime,
impossible. In the meantime? Shall I succeed in doing so some time
in the future? And do I really wish to succeed? In the meantime,
at any rate, I do not. .
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