Introduction - Page 2

peers
and millionaires and be dressed in stilted language. Marvellously he
succeeded, but in a way he least intended. We have not yet, after so
many years, determined whether it is a work to laugh or cry over. "It is
our joyfullest modern book," says Carlyle, while Landor thinks that
"readers who see nothing more than a burlesque in 'Don Quixote' have but
shallow appreciation of the work."

Shaw in like manner comes upon the scene when many of our social usages
are outworn. He sees the fact, announces it, and we burst into guffaws.
The continuous laughter which greets Shaw's plays arises from a real
contrast in the point of view of the dramatist and his audiences. When
Pinero or Jones describes a whimsical situation we never doubt for a
moment that the author's point of view is our own and that the abnormal
predicament of his characters appeals to him in the same light as to his
audience. With Shaw this sense of community of feeling is wholly
lacking. He describes things as he sees them, and the house is in a
roar. Who is right? If we were really using our own senses and not
gazing through the glasses of convention and romance and make-believe,
should we see things as Shaw does?

Must it not cause Shaw to doubt his own or the public's sanity to hear
audiences laughing boisterously over tragic situations? And yet, if they
did not come to laugh, they would not come at all. Mockery is the price
he must pay for a hearing. Or has he calculated to a nicety the power of
reaction? Does he seek to drive us to aspiration by the portrayal of
sordidness, to disinterestedness by the picture of selfishness, to
illusion by disillusionment? It is impossible to believe that he is
unconscious of the humor of his dramatic situations, yet he stoically
gives no sign. He even dares the charge, terrible in proportion to its
truth, which the most serious of us shrinks from--the lack of a sense of
humor. Men would rather have their integrity impugned.

In "Arms and the Man" the subject which occupies the dramatist's
attention is that survival of barbarity--militarism--which raises its
horrid head from time to time to cast a doubt on the reality of our
civilization. No more hoary superstition survives than that the donning
of a uniform changes the nature of the wearer. This notion pervades
society to such an extent that when we find some soldiers placed upon
the stage acting rationally, our conventionalized senses are shocked.
The only men who have no illusions about war are those who have recently
been there, and, of course, Mr. Shaw, who has no illusions about
anything.

It is hard to speak too highly of "Candida." No equally subtle and
incisive study of domestic relations