The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-12-21

OF her people we are AFRAID oil each other.
II Ibsen had written these chilly truths Of
America or OF the Social Democratic party
on the Continent. lie would have been de-
nounced a. an enemy OF the people, as an
efiete aristocrat. Yet there Ii no evading
their general truth. We wee 1t in the way
Ibsen is received here. The majority await
the decision of critical authorities-and
these fear the hurting terms Of abuse from
the majority. In the interim a few fearless
women like Mrs. Fiske-ten years ago
Mary Shaw. Elizabeth Robins and others,
present the plays. The women. as usual,
are THE real pioneers.
We do not mean that one should like Ibsen
lly-nilly-that were an insane PROPOSE
ton. For my own part-if I may be per-
mitted to emerge from the cumbrous and
vermicular shell of the editorial ve-an act
of Twelfth Night" gives me more heartfelt
pleasure than Ghosts" But Ibsen is an
intellectual stimulant and a moral tonic.
As he il first a great poet he conceals his
moral purpose; you grasp wildly at his
meanings, for his men and women arc not
all bad or all good as in the melodramas that
mask as real plays nowadays; his people are
compounded of the normal clay and air. are
beings midway between angels and devils.
Above, all they match the skein Of life.
Ibsen's forbears were Scotch. The strain
counts heavily What Matthew Arnold
found in Wordsworth may be ascribed TO
the dramatist-moral grandeur. II is this
supreme quality that sets him aside from
the platituoinc us, withal brilliant Dumas and
the theatric prestidie Citations Of the virtuoso
Sardou.
genuine antiseptic for all the feverish
follies of the French stage. Ibeen will one
day be read and played In America. At
present he is only name to oonjure with
or abuse. No self-respecting manager
dreams of an Ibsen theatre. Press and
pulpit would thunder against such an insti-
tuition. Yet will he be heard-after We
tire Of the theatrical compound watered for
general consumption-as was the genius
OF Flaubert strained through the smaller
sleeves of the Goncourts. lola. Maupassant
and Daudet-that Jones, Grundy. Pnero.
Hauptmann. Suderinann and the rest
proffer their public. There is no danger Of
Ibsen becoming popular; genius Is ever
lonely. He peers into the human soul and
is not fearful Of reporting what he discerns
therein. Like the John Henry Newman
Of Apologize Pro Vita Sua.' his chief con-
Germ is with the soul; as it should be the
concern Of every thinking man and woman.
To call him hard names is to betray the
inner anxieties that assail all OF us at some
time of our existence. what II this man
be telling the TRUTH" We shiveringly ask.
Then We incontinently proceed to stone him
to death with scabrous adjectives!
And this brings Ills back to the detection
Of Mrs. Fiske. We refuse to take il seriously
She has won fame, wealth. in plays removed
from well-worn paths-why should she
turn her shapely shoulders on Ibsen, that
Ibsen who was her greatest inspiration!
A woman has the privilege OF changing
her mind and is it not Emerson who says
that only fools are consistent? We are
quite willing in this case that the nine and
ninety be lost II the one wanderer from the
Ibsen fold he gathered safely therein.
All this ia neither an apology nor an at
tempt at an illuminating exposition Of the
Ibsen drama. To know him one must
the truism is unacceptable study him
at first hand. Unlike Milton and Wagner,
he never condeecended to enthusiastically
the refuge Of second-rate men. And his
scorn and cruelty are but disguised kind
ness; il he lays bare our rickety social syn
TENS, our buckram politics. exposes the
fcisetto Of our ideals. the habbiness Of our
culture. the cowardice OF our ethics, the
sleek optimism Of our public councillors
and the dry-rot OF loveless marriage, it
Ia to blazon our moral maladies that we
may seek their cure.
Like John Knox with Mary Stuart, he
rudely raps q; the door of our hearts bid
ding us awaken and open thsm- He Ia
a voice crying in the wilderness Of shams-
shams. social. the shams Of sentiment, OF
money getting. And he sometimes fails
to discriminate the sheep and goats, tweak-
ing the foolish. self-satisfied noses Of the
former 40 sadly, that he has been accused
of mixing his moral values But like Ten
nyson he knows that there is lots OF honest
faith in doubt His words and works may
be compared to that serpent of brass
erected nv Moses in the midst OF his ailing
nation. which was. at once. a symbol and
a prophylactic.
IL sen. the cunning contriver OF sinewy,
vital dramas. swift in action. with all
extraneous flesh Topped away like the
muscular figure Of a Greek athlete, this
lsben Of overarching poetic power, is a
man disdainful Of our praise OF our blame,
knowing, with the subtle provision OF genius,
that one day the world will 60 to him for
the consultations of his strange austere art