The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-03-12

no held most dear beside-his own enjoy
ment. his only child, his wife. Not even
! Ibsen's passion for GENERALIZATION could
! quite stomach this The limits OF IN
| dividualism forced themselves upon lsben 3
| artistic consciousness, if not into his phi
| losophy. In spite of the vigor, the eXhllara-
| ton of Brdnds struggic for seh-realiza-
ton. the end il defeat and the defeat IL
! Is minated, came because his battle cry
Of everything or nothing" became itseh
n tyranny that stamped out divine ana
human love-loVe which is the soul OF com
promise. if compromise have SOUL IT
is only with fumbnR touch. however
that he indicates this counter thought IN
the conclusion of Brand. Brandes. in his
First Impression" Of Ibsen, is shocked by
the lack OF intellectual clnritv and artistic
definition HEREFORD confesses himself ba,lled
by it. and falls back on the very plausible
theory. here outlined of a radical change
OF plan while the work was under way
The rrepressible b. Shaw made handles
out of it with which to set the whole play
on It's head. and from the kicking OF Its
heels proves Brand the villain and not the
hero of the piece
We must not. however. overrate the con-
fusion IN llSFl Illiltl OF III llS iAhNlH p
the nostrums of the political and social
reformer, revolutions in the external
life. in the political. SC, he cries that what
| is important is the revolution in the soul
of man But he is humorousy and, a
/ t1riiori philosoPaicalIy aware that 1T Is
impossible 10 say precisely what this revolu-
/ ton is to he and when it is 20 come. The
/ Serioa asks the SchooimGster when tho
/ future which Brand has promised them
| will arrive why" answers the school
master lit never does come,
-ror when It comes you see. us grown
Tue Present. and the FUTURES flown"
put when then pursues the Serton
ais the promise kept2' The Schoolmdster
/ replies
! The future cannot come at all
Because It's coming is It's end"
! "Thank you,T says the Serion and
| Ibsen grim smile spreads over the page
In spite OF the most plausible theory based
on supposed change OF theme the chief
reason for the seeming lack OF precision
and clarity in Brand is that lbsen, CON
sistent anarch denies all forms OF govern
ment all PHILOSOPHERS OF life. The noblest
ideal OF freedom, once crystalhzcd In
human institutions, becomes -polu-
cal freedoms tyranny. The bravest
and best philosophy. once definitely ak
pressed becomes a lie.
1t is the lack OF any fixed body Of belief
and doctrine in when We Dead Awake,
no doubt which led Tolstoy TO call it
"A delrium of decadent mares nests.
Yet il may he argued that, quito the con-
trary. the play il the preoisest and COM
bletest expression of the thought-or let
us rather say the message which lbsen
broached in Brand and developed along
various lines in each Of the fourteen inter-
vening plays
One Of the souroe' Of confusion in Brand
is the fact that with him, more than with any
of tho rest OF his characters except, per-
haps Stockmdun, Ib,en reveals bond
Of sympathy and admiration. For once,
YOU say 10 yourself, "a the biting north
west wind blows daring into your veins here
is a man after lbsen's own heart On the
page beyond he viii probably give him
an AUTHORITY pat on the back, or az least
a fellow viking clap Of mailed glove on
the shoulder OF course he nayer does.
q pride myself on the objectivity OF
my Brand he once remarked. Objective
Brand clearly is-as a whole But one
is ,eminded none the less Of the good old
childhood verses to the effect that it takes
a mother 10 be so blind she can't tell black
from white Even Mr.. Bernard Shaw's
eyes are probably not so abnormally nor
nal az to blind him to the fact that through
a large part of the play Brand is the Ibsen
supernan-the scorpion discharging his
venom on the rotten apple of Norwegian
vanity and pusllanimity.
With tie sculptor Rubeck no such mistake
is possible Like Brand he began with
chnste and austere ideal Of absolute devo-
ton to what he conceived to lie the best
in him-his art. But while one follows
, Brand from the egg Cas Sir Philip Sidney
said OF the chronicle history hero) TO the
end in which the stormy petrol Of his in
divdualistic Win has become cold roast
fowl in storage for the gods up on the ice
mountain Rubeck is shown only in his
penultimate state Of defeat and ruin.
Irene. the model who inspired him TO his
masterpiece. loved him; but he preferred
art TO life. and so dismissed or az a mere
episode 1t killed her, in the spirit. as
BrGnd's uncompromising loyalty to his
ideal killed his wife and child in the flesh.
and in killing Irene it killed ubeck Thence
forward he was a mere noneygrubbine
artisan, selling technically admirable
portr it, of animal faces in the guise Of
men. lie early died in spirit, az Brand
at last died in the flesh. because he
preferred live. not life, but an ideal Of life.
An men kill the thing they love- sang
Wilde in Reading jail. In Ibsen's view
they kill 1t only when, in order to follow
it, they deny themselves the fulness OF
life in all its phases. What forbid both
Brand and RIbeck was the denial Of the
paramount claim Of love. Irene. as she
said was made 10 bear chidren-not
children Of the mind in cold. hard marble.
but warm, living children Of the flesh
II IL possible that this introduction OF
the child motif had. further reach Of sig
nifcanoe, deeper implication, than Ibsen
quite realized. The wife it ia possible 60
regard as an extension Of the ego The
child, 10 enlarge Wordsworth's saying, is
the father Of organized society. II Ibsen's
mind had been As active alphabetically AZ
it WAS destruotively he must have seen
phliosophically az he saw artistically and
humanity, even at the period Of Brand"
that with The family comes the idea OF
.N...I