many affirmations, the most conspicuous of them being that nobody acts from an unselfish motive, that everybody is weak or in some way deficient, and that all men are miserable sinners. The novelty of the latter disclosure would be astounding,-were it not for the unfortunate priority of the compilers of the Prayerbook. Writers who vaunt themselves and are vaunted as bringers of New Thought and what Havelock Ellis calls "the New Spirit" are, not unreasonably, expected to say something a little fresher than scraps of morality out of the Jew Bible. This play, moreover, like its fellows, abounds in flat contradictions.

Ibsen's moral tag is, obviously, irreproachable. Some of the ingredients of the mixture of passion, sin, and ́ precept are sufficiently spiced to be obvious, and Alla Nazimova, who is of the twisting, twining, quivering, serpentine sisterhood,-lithesome creatures, who make their eyes large and round, readily fall into convulsions, and, with reckless violence, precipitate themselves upon the floor, seemed, in her acting, heedful that anguish should be liberally supplied and that the physiological nature of Rita's sufferings should be clearly manifested. Her "management," likewise, as though fearful that she might not be understood, widely advertised, by way of commendation, an explanatory comment, stating that she presented "a picture of desire not soon to be forgotten." The impersonation of Rita was of that order which gratifies judges who care nothing for form, but

are quickly responsive to hysterics. Very little of the text, as spoken by Mme. Nazimova and by some of her associates, reached the ear of the auditor, except as partially unintelligible sound, but perhaps that should be remembered as a mercy. On the other hand, there was a superabundance of the booming elocution of Allmers, represented, in a monotonous form of oratorical woe, and with marked Hibernian aspect and intonation, by Mr. Tynan. Seldom have wretched persons had more to say, or been more industrious in verbal prolixity, than the grief-stricken, passion-tossed, moon-eyed interlocutors in this crazy drama.

SUMMARY.

Ibsen has been thrust upon the English-speaking Stage as a Dramatic Messiah, charged with a New Revelation, another Moses emergent from the celestial Presence with a message for mankind, paramount to all other messages that have ever been received. He is, we are assured, the foremost dramatic influence of our age, penetrating all nations and affecting all minds, and society is summoned to bow before this stern and awful Scandinavian person and learn at last the truth. It has come to pass, furthermore, that to disregard that summons, to dissent in any degree from the proposition that Ibsen was a great dramatist and that his dramas ought to be universally acted and admired, is to incur the hideous penalty of denunciation as a reactionist and a fogy.

Yet Ibsen is not a dramatist, in the true sense of that word, and Ibsenism, which is rank, deadly pessimism, is a disease, injurious alike to the Stage and to the Public, in as far as it affects them at all, and therefore an evil to be deprecated. The didactic tendency of which, in his group of "sociological plays," Ibsen is a principal exponent is pernicious, for the reason that it is a tendency to represent human nature as radically and universally vile and human society as hopelessly corrupt. "I go down into the sewers," said the Norwegian writer, and "my business is to ask questions, not to answer them." So be it. But, whatever be the motive, why should the product of an exploration of "sewers" be exploited through the medium of the Theatre? Granting to Ibsen and his followers the highest and best motives, they have altogether mistaken the province of the Theatre in choosing it as the fit medium for the expression of sociological views, views, moreover, which, once adopted, would disrupt society. There are halls to be hired. There is an audience for the lecture,—if lecturing would serve any good purpose. There are societies of learned men who study sociology and are ever ready to accept illumination on the subject, from any one who can provide it. Why inflict the Stage with inquiry as to "original sin," or the consequence of ancestral wickedness, or the moral obliquity resultant from hereditary disease, or the various forms of corruption incident to vice and crime? Since when did the

Theatre become a proper place for a clinic of horrors and the vivisection of moral ailments? It is easy to say, as was said by the despondent, hysterical, inflammatory Jeremiah, in the Bible, that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. But what good have you done when you have made that statement? As a matter of fact it is only half true. There are in the world many kind, pure hearts and noble minds; not a day passes without its deeds of simple heroism; not an hour passes without some manifestation of beautiful self-sacrifice, splendid patience, celestial fidelity to duty, and sweet manifestation of unselfish love. There must be evil to illustrate good, but in art, and emphatically in dramatic art, it must be wisely selected. The spectacle of virtue in human character and loveliness in human conduct will accomplish far more for the benefit of society than ever can be accomplished by the spectacle of imbecile propensity, vicious conduct, or any form of the aberrancy of mental disease. Sunshine and flowers are more propitious than darkness and weeds. It has been well said that "the knowledge of human nature which is exclusive of what is good in it is, at least, as shallow and imperfect as that which is exclusive of what is evil.”

As a moral philosopher Ibsen stultifies himself: "My business is to ask questions, not to answer them!" Did Ibsen seriously suppose,-do his advocates seriously suppose, that the defects of Society were unknown or

unregarded before he noticed them? A moral philosopher, if he is to be of any use to the world, must do something besides "ask questions,"-something more than amble in the streets vociferating "rottenness, sin, and iniquity!" Ibsen's sociological plays neither impart nor enforce helpful significance as to the social themes they present: they suggest no improvement. Their author was not only dreary and dejected himself; he was the cause that dreariness and dejection are in the minds of all clear-brained thinkers who study his writings. His ability, such as it was, and it was not extraordinary, entitles him to fair recognition, which he has received, but neither Ibsen's ability nor that of any other individual is of the slightest practical value to the public unless, whatever be the medium of expression, it is used for the public good. The need of the world is direction and assistance, and its honor and reverence are due to those who help it. Ibsen's "philosophic" plays are intolerable,-one reason being that they deal not with characteristics, but with symptoms: in the expressive phrase of Wordsworth, they "murder to dissect." A reformer who calls you to crawl with him into a sewer, merely to see and breathe its feculence, is a pest. As a thinker, as a moral philosopher, as a commentator, as an artist, whether in writing or in life, Ibsen was so far below and so far behind such a man, for example, as the great novelist and true reformer Charles Reade (whose moral enthusiasm was