uestion.

The verse quoted on pp. 52 and 53 [Transcriber's Note: "There stood the
champagne," etc., in ACT I] is the last line of a very well-known poem
by Johan Sebastian Welhaven, entitled _Republikanerne_, written in 1839.
An unknown guest in a Paris restaurant has been challenged by a noisy
party of young Frenchmen to join them in drinking a health to Poland. He
refuses; they denounce him as a craven and a slave; he bares his breast
and shows the scars of wounds received in fighting for the country whose
lost cause has become a subject for conventional enthusiasm and windy
rhetoric.

"De saae pas hverandre. Han vandred sin vei.
De havde champagne, men roerte den ei."

"They looked at each other. He went on his way. There stood their
champagne, but they did not touch it." The champagne incident leads me
to wonder whether the relation between Rita and Allmers may not have
been partly suggested to Ibsen by the relation between Charlotte
Stieglitz and her weakling of a husband. Their story must have been
known to him through George Brandes's _Young Germany_, if not more
directly. "From time to time," says Dr. Brandes, "there came over her
what she calls her champagne-mood; she grieves that this is no longer
the case with him." [Note: _Main Currents of Nineteenth Century
Literature_, vol. vi. p. 299] Did the germ of the incident lie in these
words?

The first performance of the play in Norway took place at the
Christiania Theatre on January 15, 1895, Fru Wettergren playing Rita And
Fru Dybwad, Asta. In Copenhagen (March 13, 1895) Fru Oda Nielsen and Fru
Hennings played Rita and Asta respectively, while Emil Poulsen played
Allmers. The first German Rita (Deutsches Theater, Berlin, January 12,
1895) was Frau Agnes Sorma, with Reicher as Allmers. Six weeks later
Frl. Sandrock played Rita at the Burgtheater, Vienna. In May 1895 the
play was acted by M. Lugne-Poe's company in Paris. The first performance
in English took place at the Avenue Theatre, London, on the afternoon
of November 23, 1896, with Miss Janet Achurch as Rita, Miss Elizabeth
Robins as Asta, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell as the Rat-Wife. Miss
Achurch's Rita made a profound impression. Mrs. Patrick Campbell
afterwards played the part in a short series of evening performances.
In the spring of 1895 the play was acted in Chicago by a company of
Scandinavian amateurs, presumably in Norwegian. Fru Oda Nielsen has
recently (I understand) given some performan