W. S. GILBERT STORIES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1142, 1 June 1911, Page 5

W. S. GILBERT STORIES.

"4 MAN OF INFINITE JEST." ■ The late Sir W. S. Gilbert/tho jester genius, who, bracketed with Sir Arthur Sullivan, made the world laugh for twenty, years with their brilliant work, was one of England's, great wits and satirists. Many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas havo been translated into every European language, and even \yhere Gilbert's humour has not been understood'/ the wonderful melodica of : Sullivan have conquered the nations in a way that no other writer of light opera has. The late,Sir.W. S, Gilbert was a lightning Wit, arid his gift of brilliant repartee was abnormal.' It was at a rehearsal of one of tho earlier operas (most of which were produced originally at the Savoy Theatre, London, undor the direction of iho late Mr. D'Oyley Carte) that ho casually asked one of- the performers if he knew his part. "My dear Mr. Gilbert," said tho actor, "I know it' backwards!" "Yes," replied Mr. Gilbert, drily, "but you don't have to say it backwards!" : Mr. Gilbert was proceeding townwards one morning when he met a friend. "Where aro 'yon going?" said W. S. |]Down to Piccadilly," said the friend. Mind you pick a good one," came tho quick reply from the humorist. Tho well-known joko about the man "who sat down on the spur of the moment" is also attributed to the, late Mr. Gilbert. Since then it has done duty in a hundred farces and stories. His "Patience" was a satire on the aesthetic 'craze which seized on London a quarter of a century ago. ''H.M.S. Pinafore" was a joko in operatic form based on the Lords of Admiralty, who had had no maritime experience, and "The Mikado" had its foundation in the Japanese craze,, which prevailed about a score of years ago or more in London. Tho earliest trace, of, the modern suffragette movement is embodied in "The Palace 'of Truth" and later in "Princess Ida" (the basic idea, of. which is taken from Tennyson's "Princess"). 'The famous, but regrettable, split between the late Sir W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan did not arise out of anything personal between the two parties whose peculiar, affinity' gave the world bo much. Mr. Gilbert "himself in writing to a London paper correcting a garbled statement about tho matter, said:—"The 'separation' was not between,' Gilbert and Sullivan,' but between myself and Mr. D'Oyly Carte. It aTose from a question whether a sum of £1500 for refurnishing the front of tho Savoy Theatre was properly included in the preliminary expenses of producing 'The Gondoliers.' I had no quarrel with Sir A. Sullivan, though a coolness existed between us for a time in consequence of his declinin" to Interfere in tho difference between Mr. Carte and myself. This coolness lasted a ra-y short time, and was quickly done iway with by mutual explanations."

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