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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE EVIDENCE OF THE PLAYS "WIDOWERS' HOUSES" TO "ARMS AND THE MAN" It will be an aid to the proper understanding of Shaw, if from the first we distinguish between his matter and his manner. The proof of his genuineness as thinker and writer lies in an open- minded examination of his works, approaching them with a fortifying comprehension of his personality and private history; also, as especially important, with a clear-eyed realization of certain peculiarities in his way of conveying his message. These idiosyncrasies involve method and style, and must be accepted as the condition of a right relation between him and us. The danger, at least in Anglo-Saxon lands, of mixing fun and philosophy has been already referred to: as well try to blend oil and water. Yet has Bernard Shaw boldly chosen, and at his peril, to jest while serious, to be serious, although jesting. That he has confused, pained, dazzled not a few by such a procedure, cannot be doubted; the proofs are all about us. And as part of this danger, Shaw elected to use a form, the play, traditionally associated with entertainment, dedicate to frivolous themes and moods. When a man seizes upon the drama as a vehicle for instruction, while he is only reverting to first principles of English drama, and indeed, of all drama, the trouble may be trusted to begin. The majority is sure to chant in plaintive chorus: " We don't want to be taught, to be made to think in the playhouse: we want to be amused. There is thinking enough, and unpleasantness enough in life," a wail that rivals in hoary antiquity that other pathetic protest of the Philistine, " I know what I like! " Shaw began play-writing confronted by the historical attitude which declares that the playhouse is a secular indulgence; it belongs to a S...