know and to be the self the Master designed, to have the law of life and rule of conduct within, in a word, if I may say it with all reverence, to be God in man and man in God. The divine without (as in Julian's case) is useless to a man. The law without is ineffectual. Duty from without is meaningless. As was said elsewhere, "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." The human within you must be made divine; the divine without you must be brought in and made human. Brand seems to suggest that the divine must be so incorporated that service is instinct and love, and not duty. While it is duty it cannot be done. Mrs Solness, in The Master Builder, is an example of the person whose conceptions of duty come from without and are dreary and burdensome in consequence. Dr Stockmann, "the Enemy of Society," is the opposite. He has realised the "Master's intention," and opposition and ill-will fail to keep him from displaying it. A very large number of Ibsen's dramas are devoted to proving what failures men and women make when they live on any other principle. We have seen Brand and Peer fail so. In the other plays we have many flabby people with no conception of their proper "self," who make messes of their lives with dodges and "round about" policies and shirkings of the true. You have them in almost every play, and, if you like to look, in daily life too. A good deal of the dislike of Ibsen seems to be caused by this. He draws "the flabby gentleman" of the common sort too truly to be popular with him. He shews up the paltriness of the policy-mongerer, his shuffles, pettinesses, and lies. He makes it clear that nothing is ever to be gained in the long run by bating a jot or tittle of the truth. Mrs Alving, in Ghosts, tried to do this. She screened her vicious husband, till he became a popular saint, leaving their son in such ignorance of his heirloom of tendencies as to ruin him. The play is dismal, but its moral is that of Marcus Aurelius-"No one was ever yet hurt by the truth." Comment. 6, 21). Similarly in Pillars of Society Ibsen gives a wonderful picture of men of worthy and respectable exterior engaged in deceiving the public, lest a scandal should occur. We see blame shifted on to innocent shoulders for the same reason. Finally all the hollowness is discovered, and the play ends with the repentance and confession of Bernick, the chief sinner. In close connexion with this part of the subject we must consider two important points, with which is bound up most closely the common conception of Ibsen. They are Convention and Marriage. Convention may perhaps be defined roughly as the codified experience of society. The observance of it occupies an important part of Ibsen's plays. Though commonly his characters are supposed to be unconventional, I believe that in reality this is far from being the case. As a general rule the most striking situations in his plays arise from some previous deference to Convention on the part of the actors. There may be said to be three reasons for deferring to Convention—an outward, an inward, and a mixed. The first is very clear. One can observe a convention because it is "the thing," because to disregard it may involve trouble of any sort, or simply because it is generally observed by other people. This type of reason Ibsen shows to be no sort of reason at all. It is the law without, against which Julian revolted. It is an utterly insufficient guide for action. You may in the end be right in following the convention, but you can claim no credit for it. You may be wrong, and you are to blame, for sinking your own intelligence for an outsider's. The unhappy Hedda Gabler acts on such motives throughout, until her mind becomes upset, as her conduct clearly shows. She "renounces the world, because she has not the courage to make it her own," that is of course so far as she has a world to renounce. (C.A., Act v., p. 150, Archer). In the second case an inward reason turns convention into conviction, and the man, who has it, acts with con vention rather than after it. It is, as was said before, the law within. In this case to act otherwise would be fatal. The third case is that of people who, distrusting their own judgment, accept the common finding in the idea that it is more likely to be right than their own. They are better that those who act merely because others act, for they have thought of reasons for and against their course of action. But they too are liable to misadventure. For example, in Ghosts, Mrs Alving has a very clear notion of what she ought to do, but she allows herself to be led by her clergyman. The result is terrible, and she realises in the end the mistake she made. It may perhaps be said that the two poor reasons are the most widely accepted, otherwise there would not be so many "flabby" people in Ibsen's plays and the world they represent. To my mind "the flabby gentleman" in The Wild Duck is a very common type. As to Marriage, nothing could be wilder than the popular estimate of Ibsen's view of it. So far from disregarding its sanctity, it seems to me he could hardly insist on its sacred character more strongly than he does. It is not by any to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in accordance with "the Master's intention." (P.G., v. 9, p. 261, Archer). The true "self" of each is to be kept sacred. Any other sort of marriage is about as great a crime as can be committed. In three plays in particular Marriage is the chief subject. In A Doll's House we have the picture of Torvald Helmer and his wife Nora. They were very fond of each other, and lived in great happiness. But there was a lack of confidence. Nora tells him fibs now and then. By and by Helmer finds out from a stranger that an action of his wife's may get him into trouble. She has forged her father's name,— it is true, with no idea that she was doing anything wrong. Should the case come into court, he cannot but be involved, though utterly unaware of her action. It is too much for him, and the essential selfishness of the man comes out. Nora discovers that she and her husband are strangers after eight years, that she has been living on him "by performing tricks for him," and that they have no real communion at all. So feeling that she cannot and does not love him, she leaves him, not to return till they "both so change that communion between them shall be a marriage." In Hedda Gabler and The Lady from the Sea we have pictures of women. who have married to save themselves annoyance. Hedda is very like Diana of the Crossways. She marries the student Jörgen Tesman, knowingly in defiance of what she is and must be. Of course she finds marriage a failure. So she shuffles out of it in the weakest and worst way by shooting herself. The "Lady from the Sea," Mrs Dr Wangel, on the other hand, bears her unhappiness more bravely, till in a great crisis she realises the love and trust her husband has for her and finds her own go out to him in response. In other words her marriage is converted from a sort of commercial pact into a real communion of soul. One word more. How action of some of his far Ibsen would approve the women in abandoning wrong marriages, he only can say. The ordinary individual will rather cherish the belief that the best way out of a bad business is to make it a good. This I think will commend itself to most people. Ibsen One or two more points remain to be noticed. is a strong believer in heredity. The sins of the father come out in the son. This is writ large in Ghosts. On the other hand his virtues may come out equally well. Petra Stockmann is very like her father (An Enemy of Society). Nemesis, too, plays a large part in Ibsen's plays. So far as I can understand The Master Builder at all, retribution strikes me as its main feature. Solness has wronged anybody who came in his way in order to his own success. Hilda Wangel causes him VOL. XVIII. E to lose his life with a view to gratify her. But as some say the whole play is an allegory, and as it certainly is very obscure, I leave it. In The Pillars of Society the idea of Nemesis is strongly brought out, and it is this which accomplishes the change in that respectable hypocrite, Bernick. In Brand, too, there is a notable scene where Brand has his own measure meted out to him. Ejnar, a man to whom he looked for sympathy, turns from him as harshly as he had himself turned from those who looked to him. Here I end my discussion. I have set forth one view of Ibsen, and there are many others. The best plan is to read for oneself and learn at first hand what are his intentions and his meaning. No fair-minded reader can deny that Ibsen is a great dramatist. I do not think that he is a second Shakespeare; but then I cannot read Norwegian. T. R. G. CROSSING THE BAR. After Tennyson. DIE Sonne sinkt, die Abendsterne glühn, Es führe mich die stille Fluth dahin, Die ohne Tosen, ohne Schaum, erschwillt: Die Dämmrung sinkt, die Abendglocken läuten, Wenn ich besteig' den Kahn zur letzten Fahrt. Denn ob die Fluth auch über Zeit und Ort, Der Menschheit Schranken, weit mich trägt: Vertraun! Ich hoffe doch am Hafenausgang dort Den Antlitz meines Lootsen anzuschaun. D. MACALISTER. |