Excerpt from George Bernard Shaw: A Critical Study A few years ago I was invited to break a courteous lance with Mr G. K. Chesterton The ensuing experi ence - the uncomfortable feeling that one was wasting good blows on a display of fireworks - is instinctively recalled by an invitation to discuss Mr G. B. Shaw. One needs, however, little acquaintance with the two to discover a large and important difference. In Chesterton's work it is difficult to dissociate the wit from the thought in Shaw the pyrotechnic element is but the advertisement of a very serious and original View of life, which existed before the humour, and can easily be formulated apart from it. The common habit of linking the names of the two humorists as birds of paradox is unsound. Paradox is truth f'dlsgiiisedaunullth; and the disguise must be some thing subtler than exaggeration and more frivolous than honest error. But most of what is regarded as paradox in Shaw's personal expressions is either a strategical exaggeration of what he believes to be a fact or a sincere conviction which is so unusual as to seem insincere. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.