A distinguished dramatic critic once said to me that he regarded all of Shaw's works as derivative literature. Shaw's first three plays were traced to Ibsen, to De Maupassant, to Strindberg; and won for him the flattering title of the “second-hand Brummagem Ibsen” (William Winter)! And after witnessing two acts of Arms and the Man at the Avenue Theatre, Mr. Archer began to have a misgiving that he had wandered by mistake into The Palace of Truth. The relation of the art of Bernard Shaw to the art of W. S. Gilbert is one of much delicate intricacy; and deserves more than casual mention. Shaw has declared that those who regard the function of a writer as “creative” are the most illiterate of dupes, that in his business he knows me and te, not meum and tuum, and that he himself is “a crow who has followed many plows.” In a vein of mocking acknowledgment, Shaw once spoke of the seriousness with which he had pondered the jests of W. S. Gilbert. A careful critical examination of the methods of Shaw and Gilbert reveals the undoubted resemblance, as well as the fundamental dissimilarity, of these two satiric interpreters of human nature.[150]
One particular incident in Arms and the Man seems to derive directly from an incident in Gilbert's Engaged. The scene in which Nicola advises Louka, his betrothed, to gain a hold over Sergius, marry him ultimately, and so “come to be one of my grandest customers, instead of only being my wife and costing me money,” is but a paraphrase and inversion of that ludicrous scene in Engaged, in which “puir little Maggie Macfarlane” advises her lover, Angus Macalister, to resign her to Cheviot-Hill for the princely consideration of two pounds. Aside from this one minor similarity, Arms and the Man is very different from a Gilbert play. For purposes of general comparison, turn once more to Engaged—which will serve as well as any of the works of Gilbert—for this passage:
Cheviot-Hill (suddenly seeing her): Maggie, come here. Angus, do take your arm from around that girl's waist. Stand back, and don't you listen. Maggie, three months ago I told you I loved you passionately; to-day I tell you that I love you as passionately as ever; I may add that I am still a rich man. Can you blige me with a postage-stamp?
Here, not only is the comic note struck by the juxtaposition of two essential incongruities: in addition, the farcicality of the idea stamps it as impossible. It is an admirable illustration of that exquisite sense of quaint unexpectedness, evoked by the plays of both Gilbert and Shaw. Take now a scene of somewhat cognate appeal in Arms and the Man. In both scenes the bid is for sudden laughter, through the startle of surprise. Bluntschli flatly tells Raina to her face that he finds it impossible to believe a single thing she says.
Raina (gasping): I! I!!! (She points to herself incredulously, meaning, “I, Raina Petkoff, tell lies!” He meets her gaze unflinchingly. She suddenly sits down beside him, and adds, with a complete change of manner from the heroic to the familiar.) How did you find me out?
Bluntschli (promptly): Instinct, dear young lady. Instinct, and experience of the world.
Raina (wonderingly): Do you know, you are the first man I ever met who did not take me seriously?
Bluntschli: You mean, don't you, that I am the first man that has ever taken you quite seriously?
Raina: Yes, I suppose I do mean that. (Cosily, quite at her ease with him.) How strange it is to be talked to in such a way!...
Gilbert employs a device of the simplest mechanism, giving merely the shock of unexpected contrast. Shaw's spiritual adventure is an excogitated bit of psychology, of intellectual content and rational crescendo. It is the Shavian trick of putting into dialogue the revealing, accusatory words seldom spoken in real life.