Publisher's Synopsis
The English public has commonly professed, with a kind of pride, that it cannotunderstand Mr. Bernard Shaw. There are many reasons for it which ought to beadequately considered in such a book as this. But the first and most obvious reasonis the mere statement that George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856. Atleast one reason why Englishmen cannot understand Mr. Shaw is that Englishmenhave never taken the trouble to understand Irishmen. They will sometimes begenerous to Ireland; but never just to Ireland. They will speak to Ireland; they willspeak for Ireland; but they will not hear Ireland speak. All the real amiability whichmost Englishmen undoubtedly feel towards Irishmen is lavished upon a class ofIrishmen which unfortunately does not exist. The Irishman of the English farce, with his brogue, his buoyancy, and his tender-hearted irresponsibility, is a man whoought to have been thoroughly pampered with praise and sympathy, if he had onlyexisted to receive them. Unfortunately, all the time that we were creating a comicIrishman in fiction, we were creating a tragic Irishman in fact. Never perhaps hasthere been a situation of such excruciating cross-purposes even in the three-actfarce. The more we saw in the Irishman a sort of warm and weak fidelity, the morehe regarded us with a sort of icy anger. The more the oppressor looked down withan amiable pity, the more did the oppressed look down with a somewhat unamiablecontempt. But, indeed, it is needless to say that such comic cross-purposes couldbe put into a play; they have been put into a play. They have been put into what isperhaps the most real of Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays, John Bull's Other Island
