IBSEN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1259, 14 October 1911, Page 9

IBSEN.

Reviewing (for tho "Morning Post") tho • recently published volume of "Speeches s and New Letters" of Ibsen, Mr. Edmond a Gosso says:— J It is surprising that the speeches of 1 Ibsen havo not been translated before, <\ since they are extremely characteristic v of his temperament. It would seem I hat * only ton of them have been preserved, " and there may very probably have b?cn " few others or none. Ho was always an I unwilling'and'sometimes an ungracious - orator. His nature was one of the least u rhetorical that modern times havo e .shown us, and in tin's ho was curiously ' opposed to his most eminent rival anil i contemporary. Bjornsou was an orator c born; he had a splendid presence, a voice v like an organ, a flow of passionate lan- s guage which never betrayed him, a pecu- e Jiar love of the physical exercise of f speaking., Even at a private breakfast it v was ten to one that Bjornson would leap t to his feet, toss back his white mane or f hair, and deliver a' thrilling speech. - Ibsen, with hi.s irony, his acid reserve, a his extreme dread of being ridiculous, li was not easily and not kindly moved to t any sort of public harangue. There used o to be a story told of his being entertained f at a banquet Jn his honour, through the c whole, of which he preserved a morose t silence. At the in response to the h plaudits of his admirers, he rose and « said: "Gentlemen, I will now go home!" n and proceeded to do so. r It must have been at a Norwegian din- n nor -that this disconcerting iacident took t place, if it tor,!; place at all. The reader 'I will note a remarkable diffeienco of tone fc between the poet's addresses to hi.s own p countrymen and those to Swedes and r Danes. In Sweden Ibsen was always 1 happy, and the compliments paid him t in Stockholm were among . the h sweetest ho received. Among the I b

speeches here translated, three were delivered at banquets in Stockholm, and tho difference ot toue is laughable. That' of April 11, 181)8, is almost luscious: "In conclusion, will you let me say that I always enjoy myself so much here iu Sweden?" Even at the close of the most obsequious banquet Ibsen never allowed himself to admit that he enjoyed being in Norway; his most enthusiastic concession is to acknowledge that his countiynien seem to have improved since ho met them last. Nevertheless, these brief, concise addresses must have been very interesting to listen to. If tho speaker was ' a little crabbed, he spoke, with sincerity, ardour, and a kind of flattering plainness. Several of the speeches, especially that delivered at Christ'iania on his seventieth birthday, arc really valuable contributions to his philos)phy of life and literature. Ibsen's attitude to Norway, and the causes of it, have to be borno in mind by tlioso who deal with what seem like ebullitions of petulance' and spleen. Among the great writers of Europe in tho sscond half of Ihe Nineteenth Century there was no other who came so lato into his inheritance as Ibsen. His very talent was contested, his existence almost ignored, by tho critics of his own country, until ho was nearly forty years of age. It seems amazing that in Norway, where, so few writers of permanent: importance had ever flourished,- the apparition of a genius of the highest class should not have been welcomed with excessive and even dangerous alacrity. But it was not so; Ibsen had to struggle against not merely poverty and enmity, which could have been endured, but against blank indifference. The writer of such u magnificent piece as "The Pretenders" found hiuiselt ignored in his own Norway. This great playwright was not a successful letter-writer.. He evidently hated j the task of writing, aud he was not will-1 ing, and apparently not able, to express | himself easily and gracefully in the con- j ventional form. ' The modern' world likes self-revealing letters, and those of Ibsen reveal.-no morn than does- a locked'-up portmanteau. We.need not be surprised at this. He was an observer, a listener, a silent'-presence at tho feast of life. In his genius thcro was no element of tho garrulity which makes music for us by prattling on about itself. Ibsen was almost crudely devoid of affectation as regards his own literary career. He wished for money, because the lack of it distracted him with anxiety. He wished for distinctions and decorations, partly out of opposition, because it was tho fashion in Norway to despise such things, partly because his early life had been squalid and ho liked the colour of fame. Ho was consumed with ambition t'o impress his forms of art on the rest of Europe. All these aims he reached. When he died he was'one of the richest men in Norway; he was covered with all manner of ribands and stars; he was, beyond comparison, the dramatist who had exercised (ho greatest influence on the European stage of his day. Ibsen might, therefore, be called happy by those who had seen Ms end; But through tho greater part of his long life he had not been at peace with fortune or the world. There had never grown upin him the habit-of taking strangers into his confidence. His heart was a fountain sealed, and the seal is on it yet. The personal character of no man of enual eminence is less translucent t'o posterity, than Ibsen's, and his letters —starched, 'ormal. perfunctory as they'are—must be regarded as blank windows painted on the outside of a hon?» into which no one will ever-be permitted to peep.