DR. HENRI IBSEN AT HOME

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11040, 18 April 1899, Page 6

DR. HENRI IBSEN AT HOME

Although" the old maxim of the continual happening of the unexpected may be more of a paradox than of a truism, it seems (says a writer in the Woman at Home) to apply admirably to the circumstances and conditions under which Dr. Henrik Ibsen is, and has for some years been, living in the capital of his country. I do not think the youthful author of •' Catilina," when obliged to sell the greater part of this work as packing-paper to a provision dealer for his daily food, even in his boldest and most ambitious dreams pic- ! hired himself as one day living in luxury, I the world's greatest dramatist, in the same i city where he begun life under such adverse circumstances. Neither did he. I think, when "Kjampe hojeu" had ran its short course of three performances at the Christiania Theatre, imagine the possibility of Norway's most famous sculptor, Professor Stefan Binding, being commissioned to execute a magnificent statue of him, to be placed outside the handsome new theatre of the Christiania of to-day. Still less could Ibsen, when ho, a man of 36, exchanged his unhappy and disappointed life in Christiania for a voluntary and protracted exile, dream of one day becoming the world-famed, all-honoured citizen of that town which up to that time had shown him so much enmit-r and such scanty understanding. But Christiania has, like life, made honourable amends to Dr. Henrik Ibsen, and more and more gladly welcomes every fresh opportunity of showering additional honours on her famous townsman. Dr. Ibsen has always been a lonely and a silent man— is, perhaps, less so now than at any former period of his life— as a child he was a lonely and silent boy —like Joseph, a dreamer of dreams. Living a life of his own, he shut himself up with his books, leaving the joys and the pleasures of childhood to his younger brothers and sister. Misfortune early east a shadow over bis young life, for his father was unfortunate in business, and the Ibsen family had to leave their well-to-do and comfortable home at Skien, when Henrik was only eight years old. and remove to a lonely and desolate farmstead out of the town. " Henrik Ibsen at Home" then meant a reticent, thoughtful boy, pondering over old books in a corner of a passage, which he tried to barricade against the invasion of the outer world. Ibsen seems early to have been strangely susceptible to the seriousness and sadness of life; of pleasures he cared for none, buii in addition to his bonks he was fond of drawing, and had he not become a great writer, he might now have been famous as a painter. Already, as a hoy. he thought, what he in after-life wrote, that he is happiest who is most alone. More than most men has he worked out his own destinv against what seemed at one time overwhelming odds : a lonely man. or at least a lonely writer, jealously guarding his loneliness, creating, as the years rolled on, the one masterpiece after the other, bearing the true and unmistakable hallmark of genius. The outer aspect of Dr. Ibsen's life has for years been one of exceptional quiet and regularity ; it was so in Munich, and it is so in Christiania. Dr. Henrik Ihsen now lives at Drammensveien. one of the smartest streets of modern Christiania. He has a beautiful and thoroughly well-appointed house, handsomely furnished, and full of fine paintings. Dr. Henrik Ibsen has not lost bis old love, thon a purely platonic one, for the fine arts, and he is an admirable connoisseur. . . . Deliberation and preciseness are altogether characteristic of Dr. Ibsen. He takes a long time over his toilet in the morning, for it is his custom, whilst dressing, to think over his work, so that it is generallv an hour and a-half before he has finished. He has always hecn particular in bis dress, especially perhaps as a younger man. A friend of mine, who used to see him occasionally in the seventies, tells me he then always reminded him of a well-dressed English banker. Ibsen dines early, and spends the greater part of the afternoon reading. He generally takes supper at an early hour, and retires to rest ill good time. On special occasions, or j when amongst special friends. Dr. Ibsen does, however, deviate from this daily routine. . . . Dr. Henrik Ibsen was the guest of the Union of Norwegian Women at Christiania at a banquet given in his honour lest Mav. In response to the toast for Dr. Ibsen, he delivered a not very long, but very pregnant speech, which docs not only throw much light upon Dr. Ibsen's views with regard to the question of woman's rights, but also upon much of his writings. At a banquet in Stockholm some weeks previously, a Swedish lady had hailed Ibsen as the apostle of a new order of things, as regards the relations between man and woman ; in Christiania the great writer, without referring to the Stockholm episode, showed that he did not mean to accept the consequences of what had been said of him in the Swedish capital. Dr. Ibsen said. " that he was not a member of the Union of Norwegian Women. What he had written had not been from out of any conscious tendency. He had been more poet, less of a social philosopher, than people generally seemed inclined to think. He must repudiate the honour of having consciously worked for the cause of woman's rights. He was not even quite sure what the ' woman's right' cause really was ; to him it had appeared to be a human matter, and people who read his books attentively would understand it. It was certainly desirable to solve the woman's right question, but this had not been his whole object. His object had been to represent human persons. . . . Not onlv those who write, but also those who read are poets. They are often more poetical than the poet himself. With that modification he would return thanks for the toast; he could see that woman had a great mission in the soecial cause for which this society worked. He would propose the prosperity 'of the society, and wish it all success. ' For himself, it had always been his mission to elevate the country, and rive the people a higher standing. . . ." It has been said of Henrik Ibsen that. should lie choose a pseudonvm, he could not choose a more appropriate one than " Heinrich Frauenlob" (Frauenlob, a latider of women), the old German poet and singer yet I fancy women, at least in some countries, care less for Ibsen, understand him less, perhaps, than men do. although he lif»s always been their chivalrous and powerful champion. It was, however, interesting to see how unanimous and zealous the women of Scandinavia were in doing thenutmost towards honouring Dr. Henrik Ibsen on the occasion of his 70th birthday, and the spontaneous and genial manner in which the great master responded to their attentions. Rarely, if ever, has a great writer been more honoured by so many nations, by high and low, kings and youthful students, and innumerable were the striking and brilliant things which were then said, sung, and written to and of Dr. Ibsen. In one of the many speeches to which he had to listen, it was cleverly remarked that whilst as a nile Mahomet had to go to the mountain, in Ibsen's case, and be it said to his everlasting praise, the usual order of things had been reversed. Ibsen had remained where he was. and what he was and the mountain had now come to him. Does not this quite incidental remark, better than a long oration, illustrate the immense ppwer and influence Henrik Ibsen is oxercising over his own time? King Oscar of Sweden and Norway at once came forward to honour Ibsen, and wrote the following words to his famous suhjecct: " Richly endowed minds are not only an ornament to their country, but thev are also pioneers for development, and utilisation in life of that noble material which Providence has planted deep in the human heart. And even if all the great and beautiful which they reveal cannot at once be grasped and appreciated by everybody, the good seed has all the same not been sown in vain."