Punch: Punch (100.1891)

March u, 1891.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 125

MORE IBSENITY!

Dear Editor,—Noticing that the author of The Doll's House was
to have another morning1, or, to use an equally suitable epithet,
mourning performance devoted to his works, I made up my mind,
-- after bracing uF my nerves, to attend it.

f~ The 23rd ot February (the date of tne

J '£d£^|§|ir proposed function) as the second Monday
in Lent, seemed to me, too, distinctly
^^^^AStiWEL appropriate. By attending the perform-
.J^x^lflSffl^ ance—Ibsen recommends self-execution
—I sentenced myself to three hours and
a half of iboredom, tempered with dis-
' I«s§sHp^v &U8t. I cannot help feeling that what-
■ '•'" fllfPPsPr • -V- ever my Pa8t may have been, the penance
paid to wipe it out was excessive, and
« therefore rendered it unnecessary that I
-x^f^< % ^jmMwLw^ should attend a second performance an-
^'^^~^§k^^^^r nounced for last week.
fsMfflmSfS^ V^- Rosmersholm is in four Acts and one

Scene—a room in Rosmer's House. Act I.
Hector Kroll, who is the brother-in-law of Pastor Rosmer, calls upon
the latter, to ask him to edit a paper in the Conservative interest.
Kroll (who, by the way, is a married man) before seeing the widower
of his dead sister, has a mild flirtation with Rebecca West, a female
of a certain age, who has taken up her abode for some years in the
Rector's house. And here I may observe that the Rector's house-
keeper, Madame Helseth, presumably a highly respectable person,
although she has excellent reasons, from the first, for believing that
the relations between her Master and Rebecca are scarcely platonic,
accepts the domestic arrangements of the Rosmer menage with hearty
acquiescence, not to say enthusiasm. Rosmer interrupts the Rector's
tete-a-tete with the [fascinating Rebecca, and declines the proffered
editorship, because he is a Radical, and an atheist. End of
Act L,—no action to speak of, but a good deal of wordy twaddle. In
Act II. we learn that the late Mrs. Rosmer has committed suicide,
because she was informed that the apostate Pastor could only save
his villainy from exposure by giving immediately the position of wife
to her friend Rebecca, She has had this tip on the most reliable autho-
rity,—it has been furnished by Rebecca herself. Then the Pastor asks
Rebecca to marry him, but is refused, for no apparent reason, un-
less it be that she has tired of her guilty passion. In Act III.
Rebecca admits to the widower and his brother-in-law that she has
deceived the deceased, and prepares to decamp. In the final Act
the apostate Pastor declares that he has been in love with Rebecca
from the first, loves her now, but is not sure that she loves him.
To set his mind at rest on this point, will she do him a small
favour ? Will she be so good as to jump into the mill-stream, and
drown herself ? With pleasure—and she takes a header ! He explains
that courtesy forbids him to keep a lady waiting, and follows her
example ! So both are drowned, and'all ends happily !

And thia is the plot! And what about the characters ? Rebecca
is merely a hysterical old maid, who would have been set right,
in the time of the Tudors, with a sound ducking; and nowadays,
had she consulted a fashionable physician, she would have been
probably ordered a sea-voyage, and a diet free from stimulants. The
Pastor is a feeble, fickle fool, who seemingly has had but one
sensible idea in his life. He has believed his wife to be mad, and,
considering that she married him, his faith in the matter rested
upon evidence of an entirely convincing nature. The Rector Kroll
is a prig and a bore of the first water. When he discovers Rebecca's
perfidy, he suggests that she may have inherited her proneness for
treachery from her father—and, to her distressed astonishment, he
gives the name of a gentleman, not hitherto recognised by her as a
parent! The best line in the piece, to my mind—and it certainly
"went with a roar "—is a question of the housekeeper—answered in
the negative—"Have you ever seen the Pastor laugh?" Laugh!
with such surroundings! Pretentious twaddle, that would ,be
repulsively immoral were it less idiotic. And so dull!

As a theatre-goer for more than a quarter of a century, I dislike
undue severity, and am consequently glad to find my opinion is
shared by others. " Scbutator," the Dramatic Critic of Truth,
wrote last week—" The few independent persons who have sat out a
play by Ibsen, be it The Boll's House, or The Pillars of Society, or
Rosmersholm, have said to themselves, ' Put this stuff before the
playgoing public, risk it at an evening theatre, remove your claque,
exhaust your attendance of the socialist and the sexless, and then
see where your Ibsen will be.' I have never known an audience
that cared to pay to be bored, and the over-vaunted Ros?nershdlm
bored even the Ibsenites." I only hope it did, for they deserve their
martyrdom! I believe that you personally, my dear Editor, have
never seen a dramatic performance of the " Master's " work. I wish
I could say as much, and I shall be surprised if you do not appre-
ciate the feeling, after you too have partaken of this truly Lenten
fare. Yours sincerely,

One who likes Ibsen—at a Distance.

STRIKING TIMES.

New Version or an Old Street Ballad.
{By a Labouring Elector.)

Cheer up, cheer up, you sons of toil, and listen to my song.
The times should much amuse you ; you are up, and going strong.
The Working Men of England at length begin to see
That their parsnips for to butter now the Parties all agree.

Chorus.

It's high time that the Working Men should have it their own way,
And their prospect of obtaining it grows brighter every day !

This is the time for striking, lads ; at least, it strikes me so.
Monopoly has had some knocks, and under it must go.
Norwood we licked ; Livesey licked us; his was an artful plan ;
But luck now turns. Ask Johnny Burns, and also Tommy
Mann !

Chorus—It's high time, &c.

It isn't "Agitators'" now, but Parties and M.P.'s,
Who swear we ought to have our way, and do as we darn please.
Upon my word it's proper fun! A man should love his neighbour ;
Yet Whigs hate Tories, Tories Whigs; but oh! they all love
Labour !

Chorus—It's high time, &c.

There's artful Joey Chamberlain, he looks as hard'as nails,
But when he wants to butter us, the Dorset never fails;
He lays it on so soft and slab, not to say thick and messy.
He couldn't flummerify us more were eaeh of us a Jesse !

Chorus—It's high time, &c.

There's Parnell ups and poses as the genuine Labourer's Friend!
Chorus—It's high time, &c.

Comrades, it makes me chortle. The Election's drawing nigh,
And Eight Hours' Bills, or anything, they '11 promise for to try,
They '11 spout and start Commissions ; but, 0 mighty Labouring Host,
Mind your eye, and keep it on them, or they '11 have you all on toast!

Chorus.

It's high tune that the Working Men should have it their own way.
They'll strain their throats,—you mind your votes, and you may
find it pay ! _

WILDE FLOWERS.

Some other fellow, in the P. M. G., has been beforehand with us
in spotting "A Preface to Dorian Gray," by our Oscar WiLDE-r
than ever, in this month's Fortnightly. Dorian Gray was published
some considerable time ago, so it belongs to ancient history, and
now, after this lapse of time, out comes the preface. And this
"preface" occupies the better part, I use this expression in all
courtesy, of two pa^es ; which two pages represent a literary flower-
bed, where rows of bright asterisks are planted between lines of
brilliant aphorisms. The rule of the arrangement 6eems to be,—
"when in doubt, plant asterisks." Sic itur ad astra. The garden
is open to all, let us cull here one and there one. "To reveal Art
and conceal the Artist, is Art's aim." Is there not in this the scent
of " Ars est eelare artem" ? "Art" includes "the Artist," of
course. Then " Puris omnia pura" is to be found in two other
full-blown aphorisms, if I mistake not. St. Paul's advice to
Timothy is engrafted on to the stalk of another aphorism. "Why
lug in Timothy ?" Well, to " adapt" Scripture to one's purpose is
not to quote it. Vade retro ! Do we not recognise something familiar
in " When Critics disagree the Artist is in accord with himself f "

But after it is all done, and the little flower-show is over, then
arises the despairing cry of our own cherished Oscar. It is in the
Last of the Aphorisms ; after which, exhausted, he can only sign his
name, fling away the goose-quill, and then sink back in his luxurious
arm-chair exhausted with the mental efforts of years concentrated
into the work of one short hour. Ah I " La plupart des livres d'd
present ont Vair d'avoir ete faits en un four avec des livres lus de
la veille." Ask Messrs. Rochefoucauld, Chameort, Rivarol, and
Jean Morle. "Ai.'Ai! Papai! Papai! Phillaloo! Murther
in Irish!" Let us be natural, or shut up shop. Yet there is a
chance,—to be supernatural. The great Pan is dead, so there is a
seat vacant among the gods, open to any aspirant for immortality.
"All Art is quite useless ! " cries Oscar WiLDE-ly. And has it
come to this? "Is this the Hend?" Yes, this is his last word—
for the present. Pan is dead! Vive Pannikin !