Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 6).djvu/23

 technical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of that period. Thus it is not in the least surprising that, outside of Germany and Scandinavia, Pillars of Society had everywhere to follow in the wake of A Doll's House and Ghosts, and was everywhere found something of an anti-climax. Possibly its time may be yet to come in England and America. A thoroughly well-mounted and well-acted revival might now appeal to that large class of play-*goers which stands on very much the same intellectual level on which the German public stood in the eighteen-eighties.

But it is of all Ibsen's works the least characteristic, because, acting on a transitory phase of theory; he has been almost successful in divesting it of poetic charm. There is not even a Selma in it. Of his later plays, only An Enemy of the People is equally prosaic in substance; and it is raised far above the level of the commonplace by the genial humour, the magnificent creative energy, displayed in the character of Stockmann. In Pillars of Society there is nothing that rises above the commonplace. Compared with Stockmann, Bernick seems almost a lay-figure, and even Lona Hessel is an intellectual construction—formed of a blend of new theory with old sentiment—rather than an absolute creation, a living and breathing woman, like Nora, or Mrs. Alving, or Rebecca, or Hedda. This is, in brief, the only play of Ibsen's in which plot can be said to preponderate over character. The plot is extraordinarily ingenious and deftly pieced together. Several of the scenes are extremely effective from the theatrical point of view, and in a good many individual touches we may recognise the