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consideration as a play, because it is not a play at all. It marks the
culmination and completeness of that victory of Bernard Shaw over the
British public, or rather over their official representatives, of which
I have spoken. Shaw had fought a long fight with business men, those
incredible people, who assured him that it was useless to have wit
without murders, and that a good joke, which is the most popular thing
everywhere else, was quite unsalable in the theatrical world. In spite
of this he had conquered by his wit and his good dialogue; and by the
time of which we now speak he was victorious and secure. All his plays
were being produced as a matter of course in England and as a matter of
the fiercest fashion and enthusiasm in America and Germany. No one who
knows the nature of the man will doubt that under such circumstances his
first act would be to produce his wit naked and unashamed. He had been
told that he could not support a slight play by mere dialogue. He
therefore promptly produced mere dialogue without the slightest play for
it to support. _Getting Married_ is no more a play than Cicero's
dialogue _De Amicitia_, and not half so much a play as Wilson's _Noctes
Ambrosianae_. But though it is not a play, it was played, and played
successfully. Everyone who went into the theatre felt that he was only
eavesdropping at an accidental conversation. But the conversation was so
sparkling and sensible that he went on eavesdropping. This, I think, as
it is the final play of Shaw, is also, and fitly, his final triumph. He
is a good dramatist and sometimes even a great dramatist. But the
occasions when we get glimpses of him as really a great man are on these
occasions when he is utterly undramatic.

From first to last Bernard Shaw has been nothing but a
conversationalist. It is not a slur to say so; Socrates was one, and
even Christ Himself. He differs from that divine and that human
prototype in the fact that, like most modern people, he does to some
extent talk in order to find out what he thinks; whereas they knew it
beforehand. But he has the virtues that go with the talkative man; one
of which is humility. You will hardly ever find a really proud man
talkative; he is afraid of talking too much. Bernard Shaw offered
himself to the world with only one great qualification, that he could
talk honestly and well. He did not speak; he talked to a crowd. He did
not write; he talked to a typewriter. He did not really