Topsy- Turvydom

Topsy-Turvydom

THE STORY OF GILBERT AND SULLIVAN --Isaac Goldberg--Simon &; Schuster ($6.00).

The Story. Siamese twins, Mary and her little lamb, Smith Brother beards, are not more indissolubly linked than Gilbert and Sullivan; yet two more disparate temperaments could hardly be imagined. "Gilbert had been born with a genius for petulance, for hostility. Sullivan made friends as naturally as Gilbert made enemies; he was a social creature in whom conformity at times could take on the contours of self-surrender. Gilbert domineered; Sullivan insinuated himself.'' And yet, in their repeated quarrels, it was Gilbert who made the first overtures of reconciliation, it was Gilbert who conceded everything, agreed to Sullivan's wishes, then blandly pursued his original intent. William Schwenck Gilbert was early initiated to drama. At two, he was kidnaped by Italian brigands--his parents were visiting Naples--and redeemed for -L-25, a sound investment. At 15, he ran away from school to be an actor, but he was sent back to his Aristophanes and Virgil. He became instead a soldier, a clerk, a barrister, and to all outward appearances

An every day young man,

A matter-of-fact young man. . . .

But already he was scribbling skits for Fun, curtain-raisers, burlesques; and very shortly he was squabbling with insubordinate actresses, and spiting their conceits by planning non-star librettos.

Arthur Seymour Sullivan, meanwhile, was a serious-minded music student for all his Irish-Italian blood and romantic ancestry: his grandfather was favorite in Napoleon's body guard at St. Helena, and had the grim duty of protecting the dead Little Corporal's heart from voracious rats. But Arthur was a sweet-faced choirboy, beloved mascot of his father's band, successful candidate for a Leipzig Mendelssohn scholarship. Returned to London, he wrote cantatas, oratorios, 56 hymns (among them Onward Christian Soldiers), and also popular lyrics (The Lost Chord), and operetta-burlesque (Cox and Box). Victoria smiled on him, the masses adored him.

Quite by chance librettist and musician were brought together to do a curtain-raiser. An astute and sporting manager, D'Oyly Carte, saw the possibilities, launched the inimitable comic operas which have been wide favorites these 50 years--H. M. S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzancc, Patience, lolanthe, The Mikado, Ruddigore. But it was also D'Oyly Carte who charged the famous -L-140 carpet to The Gondoliers, thereby traditionally starting the passionate if intermittent quarrel between the gifted collaborators. Gilbert objected to the extravagance, and flew into a rage because Sullivan refused to join in the objection. But in those days of their affluence the trouble obviously lay deeper than -L-140.

Sullivan, for all the delirious ridiculousness inherent in his music, had long been chafing at Gilbert's contagiously ridiculous topsy-turvydom. He had long cherished the ambition to do something more dignified, more pretentious, more "worthy" of his musical ability. Already he had demanded that Gilbert write something more substantial "without the supernatural and improbable;" Gilbert had bridled, rued, agreed to. capitulate, then blithely written--The Mikado! Superbly Sullivan matched improbable for improbable, comic for comic, and suspected miserably that he was belittling his art.

Lewis Carroll, Bret Harte, and even Tennyson flirted with him for his musical collaboration; but he was faithful to his intention of doing something in the grand manner. The result was an unsuccessful opera, after which Sullivan returned to his Gilbert. The librettist was only too eager for reconciliation, because he too had been making false pretenses to the greater heights of legitimate stage.

The Significance. That the happiest extant combination of word and tune so often and so narrowly escaped disintegration titillates thousands of Savoyards.* And they marvel at the paradox that the Topsy-Turvy Twins are actually product of the Victorian Age. The fitness of this origin, and the reasons for continued popularity in a totally disparate age, are logically developed in the present duo-biography. An informative digest of material scattered in diverse enthusiastic G. and S. literature, The Story is designed for the uninitiated rather than the hobbyist Savoyard. The narrative of two colorful careers in discord and in unison, is amplified by the history of the various operettas, and enriched by hitherto unpublished scores--a valuable record and sound appraisal, readable, entertaining.

The Author. Born in Boston some 40 years ago, educated conventionally at Harvard, Isaac Goldberg nevertheless displays the versatility characteristic of bright Jews, interested as much in music as in romance? languages he is author of numerous Haldeman-Julius "Little Blue Books" on music and musicians; translator from the Spanish, Portuguese, Yiddish; authority on Spanish-American literature; biographer of such heterogeneous characters as Havelock Ellis, Mencken, Nathan, and now the Topsy-Turvy Twins.

Modern Aristotle

WHITHER MANKIND--Edited by Charles A. Beard--Longmans Green ($3).

From the kaiser-by-grace-of-god who declared in 1905: "We are the salt of the earth," to the American Bar Association committee on citizenship who quite recently formulated a credo: "I believe that we Americans have the best government that has been created" smug pride of nation still persists, but it is steadily and increasingly challenged by Jeremiads such as Spengler's Decline of the West, Einstein's scorn of U. S. intelligence, Siegfried's despair of U. S. materialism. Just how science and the machine have affected civilization; just what the possibilities are of self-destruction, "decline," as compared with perpetuity--these are questions for a modern Aristotle with "all knowledge" in his mastermind. But all knowledge having expanded beyond the scope of one mind, Editor Beard has assembled 17 minds to answer the riddle. Their guesses carry the weight of authority, for their names read like an honor roll of intelligentsia.

To clear the Occidental air of "yellow peril" the distinguished Chinese philosopher, Hu Shih, denies, startlingly, conclusively, that the Western machine-age man controlled, is "materialistic" while the Oriental hand-to-mouth, disease-ridden existence is "spiritual," and therefore potentially superior.

To rebut the prevalent wail that man, the individual, has fallen from his former high estate to the status of cog in machine. Historian Van Loon raises considerable doubt as to that former altitude, these present depths. And in a sound exposition of business expansion, Julius Klein recalls that an ancient Periclean law gave each Athenian the right to own five slaves, whereas every inhabitant of the U. S. today has at his disposal the power equivalent of 150 slaves. Human happiness lies in using the machine without worshiping it. Brilliantly, Bertrand Russell predicates the only remedy for science as not less, but more science--applied to human nature.

Havelock Ellis shows that, whether for better or for worse, the family is not disappearing, but its status and quality improving by control of wasteful and unnecessary births.

Further survival of the fittest is listed by Emil Ludwig as one of seven reasons still advanced in favor of war, but all seven he devastates with withering, vigorous logic. Then wistfully he places a little hope in peace conferences, a great deal more in the give-your-child-no-toy-soldiers brand of education.

Of education, alas, so much is expected that the distracted modern university publishes a catalogue quite as alluring as Sears Roebuck's. Everett Dean Martin deplores an educational system which, pandering to a materialistic age, offers equal "credit" for a course in Aristotle's Ethics and another in High Power Salesmanship. But the fault lies not so much with the age as with the perennial lack of a consistent philosophy of education.

In fact, philosophy is challenged as never before. John Dewey, that supreme genius of mind and spirit, recognizes the philosophic possibility of subjecting this industrial civilization "to a more ordered dominion of the spirit."

A fine optimism pervades this symposium (only Stuart Chase is unqualifiedly pessimistic: he analyzes the passivity of fun--listening to radio instead of doing amateur singing, fiddling), but the optimism is qualified with a recognition of arrant abuses, grave dangers. Thus, the Webbs on Labor, McBain on Law and Government, Winslow on Health, Dorsey on Race, James Harvey Robinson on Religion, Lewis Mumford on Art.

Brilliantly conceived by Beard, executed with talent that varies from the sound expert to the high genius, Whither Mankind is a stimulating contribution to that very civilization which it so cogently analyzes.

*The term originates from the Savoy Theatre which was built on G. and S. profits for G. and S. productions. Savoyard first meant those who had a part in the productions, has since included all and legion G. and S. fans.