IN DEFENCE OF GILBERT'S LADIES

This is the title of a privately published "book" by Reginald Davis, published in 1927, It is now rare, realizing that I had not read it, I did so recently. It is more of a bound paper than a book, and it does not contain much that is of great import. However, one section, Davis's defence of Elsie Maynard, I felt was sufficiently provocative to have a second look at, and ask readers for their views:

Elsie Maynard is, probably, the most maligned of all Gilbert's ladies, and why? Merely, I submit, because Jack Point, who makes himself supremely popular with the audience, is broken-hearted at her marrying another, and "a victim must be found'' to appease him. Point is a very vain man ... nothing in what he does or says could possibly lead Elsie to imagine that he has any passion for her, but, on the contrary his words are flippant and must suggest that she is nothing to him but a partner in his business … Elsie meets Fairfax, whom she believes to be Leonard Meryll, and is won by his charming manners and ideal love-making [sic]. But, like the true woman that she is, she will not listen to his protestations until she hears that her real husband is dead, and that it would no longer be dishonorable for her to do so. Later she discovers that Fairfax is still alive ... when ... she is prepared to give up all the happiness which was almost within her grasp, to go to the man who has legal right to her. Is this the action of a fickle girl, with which she has been charged, or of a "little pale fool"? ... To my mind all these accusations which have been hurled at her by some very eminent students of the operas, are utterly unfounded, "Fickle" she certainly was not, as the only man for whom she had shown any affection, or from whom the had received any expressions of love [sic] was Fairfax and she stuck to him to the end ... She certainly never "jilted" Point, for the same reason ... Elise is staunch, not only to her husband, but to her mother. In order to provide the means of saving the poor old lady's life, she actually consents to marry a man whom she does not know and whom she has never seen, and we are shown how terrible the prospect is to her. She is willing, however, to sacrifice herself absolutely for her mother's sake. It is not till after she has fallen in love with Fairfax, that she learns of Point's passion for her [sic]. It can scarcely be suggested that she should throw over the man she loves for the one she doesn't, but even so she shows the greatest pity for the jester in his hour of grief ... Elsie has been accused, also, of callously turning her back on Point, but I contend that there is no callousness in her turning away; it is, in fact, a great effort on her part to hide from her erstwhile partner the deep grief she is suffering by reason of his sorrow. There was also nothing in the nature of lack of gratitude, though I fail to see in what respect she owed any to Point. He taught her the profession, no doubt, but he must have been more than repaid by the prominent part she played in the partnership. If one judges Elsie, as one should, solely from her own actions, and does not allow oneself to be led away by sympathy with Point, it seeps to me that one is bound to admit that she is a loveable and admirable woman in every way, and that not one of the charges so recklessly made against her has any justification whatever.

Comments please.

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