ociety, nothing of
the time surpasses such dramas as _Lady Windermere's Fan_ and _A Woman
of No Importance_. The author's farce--farce, yet more than farce in
dialogue and characterization--_The Importance of Being Earnest_, is
also a genuine contribution in its kind. And the strange, somber,
intensely poetic _Salome_ is a remarkable _tour de force_ in an unusual
field.

The tendency to turn from fiction to the drama as another form of story
telling fast coming into vogue is strikingly set forth and embellished
in the case of Sir James Barrie, who, after many successes in novel and
short story, became a dramatist some twenty years ago and is now one of
the few men of genius writing for the stage. His _Peter Pan_, _The
Little Minister_, _The Admirable Crichton_, and _What Every Woman Knows_
are four of over a dozen dramas which have given him world fame.
Uniquely, among English writers whose work is of unquestionable literary
quality, he refrains from the publication of plays; a very regrettable
matter to countless who appreciate his rare quality. He is in his droll
way of whimsy a social critic beneath the irresponsible play of a poet's
fancy and an idealist's vision. His keen yet gentle interpretations of
character are solidly based on truth to the everlasting human traits,
and his poetry is all the better for its foundation of sanity and its
salt of wit. One has an impulse to call him the Puck of the English
theater; then feels compelled to add a word which recognizes the loving
wisdom mingling with the pagan charm. Sir James is as unusual in his way
as Shaw in his. Of late he has shown an inclination to write brief,
one-act pieces, thereby adding to our interest in a form of drama
evidently just beginning to come into greater regard.

For daring originality both of form and content Bernard Shaw is easily
the first living dramatist of England. He is a true son of Ibsen, in
that he insists on thinking in the theater, as well as in the
experimental nature of his technic, which has led him to shape for
himself the drama of character and thesis he has chosen to write. To the
thousands who know his name through newspaper publicity or the vogue of
some piece of his in the playhouse, Shaw is simply a witty Irishman,
dealer in paradox and wielder of a shillelah swung to break the heads of
Philistines for the sheer Celtic love of a row. To the few, however, an
honorable minority now rapidly increasing, he is a deeply earnest,