ABSTRACT
There is a great future for Ibsen in England. The great Norwegian is now fairly naturalized on English soil. The play is perhaps the most “actable,” in the ordinary sense, of Ibsen’s social dramas. In the Pecksniffian, hypocritical, and humdrum society of a Norwegian provincial town, Consul Bernick, the owner of the great shipyard, is at once the petty magnate and the model of all the virtues. In the crash of conflicting emotions, urged on by Lona Hessel, Bernick at length makes a clean breast of it, and all ends happily. Mr. Archer’s excellent translation was handicapped by certain omissions. The good man must have been told that Ibsen was dreadfully improper, and so felt bound to cut out something. Especially lamentable was the omission of some characteristically sardonic humour enlivening the presentation to the capitalists.
