W. S. GILBERT STORIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3241, 10 June 1911, Page 9

W. S. GILBERT STORIES.

“A MAN GF INFINITE JEST.” The late Sir W. S. Gilbert, the jestei cr-eiii us "\vliOj bracketed 1 'ftitli fen thur 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 have been translated m*to every European, language, and even where Gilbert’s humor has not been understood,- the wonderful melodies Sullivan have conquered the nations in a- way that no other writer ;.f ligut opera has. , The late Sir AY. S. Gilbert was a ug.uning wit, and his gift of 'brilliant repartee was abnormal. It was at a rehearsal of one of the earlier operas (most of which were produced originally at the Savoy Theatre, London, under the direction of the late Mr D Oyley Carte) that he casually asked 1 one of the performers if lie knew his part. “Alv dear Mr Gilbert,” - said the actor, I know it backwards!” “Yes,” replied Mr Gilbert, dryly, “but you don't have to sav it backwards!” Mr Gilbert was proceeding townwards one morning when he met a friend. “Where are von going?” said AY. S. “Down to Piccadilly,” said the friend. “Mind you pick a good one,” came the quick reply from the humorist. The well-known joke about the man “who sat . down on the spur of the moment” is also attributed to the late Air Gilbert. Since then it has done duty in a hundred farces and stories. -His “Patience” was a satire on the aesthetic craze which seized oni London a quarter of a. century ago. “HALS. Pinafore” was a joke 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. The 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. ,9. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan did not arise out of anything personal between the two parties whose peculiar affinity gave the world so much. Air Gilbert himself, in writing to a* London paper correcting a garbled statement about the matter, said: “The ‘separation’ was not between ‘Gilbert and Sullivan,’ but- between myself and Air D’Oyly Carte. It arose‘from a question whether a sum. <ff £ISOO for refurnishing the front of the Savoy Theatre was properly included in the preliminary expenses of producing‘The Gondoliers.’ I bad no quarrel with Sir A. Sullivan, though a coolness existed between us for a time in consequence of his declining to interfere in the difference between Air Carte and myself. This coolness lasted a very short time, and was quickly done away with by mutual explanations.”