The quote from Reginald Davis's In Defence of Gilbert's Ladies in the last issue, provoked more immediate reaction than any other single item so far. Below is a selection of the replies I received:- AIDAN EVANS:- I quite agree; she owed no allegiance to Point. They were just good friends and working partners. It seems that he had never spoken a word of love; the first time ever was that "time works wonders" speech, and that was only a hint not a proposal. One imagines that whenever the topic of matrimony happened to crop up he world refer to it flippantly ... "there is a limit to my folly." I do not think, however, that one can quite describe Elsie as "sacrificing herself absolutely for her mother's sake." It was only upon the firmest understanding that she would be free of the entanglement within minutes of the ceremony.

COLIN ENGEL:- Doubtless Reginald Davis' impassioned defense of Elsie will inspire many varied responses from the readers of Gilbertian Gossip, depending upon their emotional reactions to the character as Gilbert presents her to us. However, I feel that judgement of Elsie whether favourable or hostile should be suspended temporarily in deference to a wider question which concerns us here. That is the conflicting interests of characterization and plot development within the drama. As Michael Walters has himself pointed out on occasion Gilbert set himself a trickier task than usual in Yeomen not resorting to the familiar topsy-turvy world, where he could disport himself with ease and agility. As the author presents in Yeomen a more realistic world, so the inconsistencies of the denouements which matter little in the world of Iolanthe and which are the task of the pedant to discuss, are of more serious consequence here, since they are less acceptable on Tower Green. So, without wishing to cause any offence to lovers of Yeomen (I am one myself) we can at least establish the principle that Gilbert was struggling, albeit struggling productively. Given these difficulties we can see how the author came up against the conflicting priorities of development of plot and characterization. Where a character is not central to the plot, the author can have a free hand to develop a brilliant cameo. Mad Margaret has little concern with the central argument of Ruddigore. Of course, where Gilbert has succeeded in moulding a complex character roundly developed in the centre of the action, his skill as a dramatist is most keenly displayed. We have the examples in Point and Phoebe. I would suggest then that what we have in Elsie is a character whom Gilbert subordinated to the demands of the plot, during the writing of the piece, and that it is consequently difficult to generalize on the worthiness or lack of it in her character, since what we have of her is being forced through various near-impossible emotional upheavals with Gilbert at the very end attempting to instill some credibility into it. I would therefore assert that the facts which Davis cites in support of his argument (and indeed which his opponents would cite in favour of their own) are far less significant than he or they would suppose. Having said that, I shall now fall into exactly the same folly by commenting just a little on her supposed goodness, secundum Davis. Granted that Elsie does appear to be altruistically inspired by concern for her mother etc., she never tires of reminding others just how virtuous she is. She does this to Point, to Fairfax when he teases her in Act II and to the Lieut. - "Bear this in mind I pray, if I consent to do this thing." We should always remember that Elsie 's "pity" for the jester at the end is evidenced by the line "Who loved her lord, but who dropped a tear" was only a post first-night amendment by Gilbert to soften the hardness produced by an unaltered restatement of the "Merryman & his Maid" song. This touching up, of course, further illustrates my thesis about Gilbert's construction of this particular character.

RICHARD MOORE:- Regarding Elsie Maynard - she has always struck me as a typically Victorian sweet young thing transposed into an early Tudor setting. She is certainly nothing like a genuine 'gypsy' or even a strolling player (in any case weren't strolling players all male in those days?). That said, I must say I find her appealing. She has that lovely line about weeping for her “dead” husband because after all, he was a fellow human being and now he is lost from the fellowship of Man. This (although expressed less pompously than in my phrasing) is a rather beautiful thought and shows her in a most attractive light. Her moral virtue is well attested - and again rather Victorian. Real strolling singers and acrobats would be more used to 'unmannerly' citizens than sweet Elsie Maynard seems to be - and the whole business about sick old Bridget Maynard (who is never mentioned again afterwards) is a patent ruse to make Elsie marry an unknown man without loss of finer feelings or the revelation of mere fickleness or financial greed. It is often pointed out (quite rightly) that Sullivan stresses the selfishness of Point in the emphatic repetition of "woe is me I rather think". This is a useful touch on both Gilbert's and Sullivan's part, since it prevents the jester from seeming over sentimentalised or even emotionally distraught at this stage in the piece. His feelings at the end of Act one seem to be largely a matter of indignant hurt pride and we are deliberately left unable to use up our energies in sympathizing deeply with him yet. The real emotional crunch has to be delayed until the climax at the end of Act 2. Its effect would be dissipated if a “mini” version of the same had already occurred at the end of Act I. Point, as the libretto clearly shows in his Act 1 scenes with Elsie (and the Lieutenant) 'knows not how to woo' and it is hardly Elsie's fault if he has failed to inspire any real tender attachment on her part. She seems (in Victorian mode again) to be an inexperienced girl who has had no one to compare Point with before the appearance of the more suave "Leonard": so love is more a word than an experience to her at the start of the Point-Elsie plot; and her relationship with Point is a matter of habit of the girl's being likely in the future to fulfil expectations (in Bridget Maynard etc.,) by settling down with apparently the only remotely "safe" bachelor she knows. Even "though tear & long drawn sigh" does not belie her essential innocence. She is repeating in generalized terms what she has learned about love from other women - not what she has herself experienced. That Gilbert meant us to retain our sympathy for Elsie even at the end is seen in the fact that he changed the 'peerly proud' allusion to the maid who laughed aloud at the merryman's sorrow in a revival of the opera in the 1890s. The 'ladye' now comes to 'nestle near' and 'drop a tear' - which is less apt as a verbal echo of the great Act 1 duet but is kinder to the character of Elsie. So all in all, she is a sweet thing, untaught as Patience, winsome as Rose Maybud and less satirically treated than either of them.

DERRICK McCLURE:- The special difficulty in judging Elsie is twofold: firstly, the inappropriateness, if not absurdity, of applying realistic standards to a character in so melodramatic a story; and secondly, the fact that her lyrics, her dialogue, and her part in the plot give conflicting impressions of her personality. All allowances being made, however, I can find little to love or to admire in this "most maligned of all Gilbert's ladies." Reginald Davis's contention that she did not know of Point's love for her is wholly untenable. Point's crack about there being a limit to his folly is (as Audrey Williamson, if I remember rightly, has already argued) mere professional fooling: in discussing the Lieutenant's proposal, he puts his case with entire seriousness. He takes the lead in the discussion, without Elsie raising any objection: would she allow a mere business partner to arrange her personal affairs for her? And in the trio he calls her "My promised wife, my lovely bride that is to be." No man, however vain, would describe a lady who was present in those terms without having at least some reason to believe that the description was true; nor, most certainly, would the lady allow him to stand uncorrected if it were not. That Elsie and Point had, if not a formal engagement, at least an understanding, there can be no doubt. And presumably she would not have become engaged to Point if she had not loved him. From the charge that she jilted her former lover, there is therefore no exoneration. Mitigating circumstances? The gallant and dashing Colonel Fairfax puts on a courtship display that simply dazzles her. His combination of aggressive charm, reputed bravery, and (though this point is not emphasised, it certainly would play a part) higher social status is irresistible to her. So, swept off her feet by her infatuation, she gaily abandons her fiancé - a man who, whatever his faults, would surely make a more reliable husband than Fairfax is likely to turn out. All very understandable, no doubt - one does not expect sensible behaviour from pretty maids of seventeen - but admirable; No. By all means, there are points in Elsie's favour. She is no "Little pale fool" (that, in any case, is scarcely an impartial verdict!) - she has spirit, as is shown in the crowd scene. She does what she can for her sick mother - though that scarcely counts: what would one say of a girl who didn't do what she could for a sick mother? Nor am I very sure that she merits such a high moral score (so to speak) for her rejection of "Leonard's" wooing as Davis would give her: she was right to reject it per se of course; but her priorities are haywire: she pleads the claim of the anonymous figure with whom she has gone through the legal form of marriage, and does not appear even to consider that of the man whom she had known for (presumably) years and to whom she has voluntarily become engaged. She certainly shows courage and dignity in the final scene when about to be taken, as she thinks, from her Leonard; and here at least we have to admire her; but the fact remains that the situation arises from her disloyalty to Point. And where does Davis find evidence for her "showing the greatest pity for the jester in his hour of grief"? I see none: on the contrary, I think that in accepting Fairfax's proposal right under Point's nose, and then walking off with her new beau without so much as a word to him, she shows a monstrous callousness - of a type shown every day by young girls; and readily explained, if not excused by the fact that her entire vision is filled by Fairfax; but no less monstrous for that. In stage performances, Elsie in the final scene customarily takes a tender and touching farewell of her Point; but it should be remembered that the text gives only a partial justification for this and the stage direction none at all; and that the line about the merrymaid "dropping a tear" is a revision: originally she "laughed aloud". One is glad that Gilbert rescued Elsie from being as totally repellant as this. All the same, I don't think Gilbert was particularly interested in Elsie, or saw her as anything more than a conventional heroine in the Phyllis-Yum-Yum-Gianetta mould. She's there for the sake of the two main characters: to Jack Point, she's a necessary partner in the plot; and to Phoebe, the other half of a contrasting pair of the Katherine-Bianca type: as often, the contrast is weakened by one member of the pair being much more interesting and convincing than the other. Davis's gallant championship of her, if we consider her as a portrait of a woman, is scarcely merited: if we consider her simply as a dramatic creation, it's not even called for.

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