racter-drawing is admirable.'" M. Hamon himself
goes on, however, to suggest an important contrast between the
characterization in Mr. Shaw and the characterization in Moliere:--

In Shaw's plays the characters are less representative of vices or
passions than those of Moliere, and more representative of class,
profession, or sect. Moliere depicts the miser, the jealous man,
the misanthrope, the hypocrite; whereas Shaw depicts the bourgeois,
the rebel, the capitalist, the workman, the Socialist, the doctor.
A few only of these latter types are given us by Moliere.

M. Hamon's comparison, made in the course of a long book, between the
genius of Mr. Shaw and the genius of Moliere is extraordinarily
detailed. Perhaps the detail is overdone in such a passage as that which
informs us regarding the work of both authors that "suicide is never one
of the central features of the comedy; if mentioned, it is only to be
made fun of." The comparison, however, between the sins that have been
alleged against both Moliere and Mr. Shaw--sins of style, of form, of
morals, of disrespect, of irreligion, of anti-romanticism, of farce, and
so forth--is a suggestive contribution to criticism. I am not sure that
the comparison would not have been more effectively put in a chapter
than a book, but it is only fair to remember that M. Hamon's book is
intended as a biography and general criticism of Mr. Shaw as well as a
comparison between his work and Moliere's. It contains, it must be
confessed, a great deal that is not new to English readers, but then so
do all books about Mr. Shaw. And it has also this fault that, though it
is about a master of laughter, it does not contain even the shadow of a
smile. Mr. Shaw is made an idol in spite of himself: M. Hamon's volume
is an offering at a shrine.

The true things it contains, however, make it worth reading. M. Hamon
sees, for instance, what many critics have failed to see, that in his
dramatic work Mr. Shaw is less a wit than a humorist:--

In Shaw's work we find few studied jests, few epigrams even, except
those which are the necessary outcome of the characters and the
situations. He does not labour to be witty, nor does he play upon
words.... Shaw's brilliancy does not consist in wit, but in humour.

Mr. Shaw was at one time commonly regarded as a wit of the school of
Oscar Wilde. That view, I imagine, is seldom found nowadays, but even
now ma