The San Francisco call., 1904-08-23

duced last night to US at the Columpla
by Arnold Daly-the gifted critic of the
Sun wrote him asking him what he did
know. In his paper on The Truth
About Candida" in the current Metro
politan Mr.. Huneker gives Mr.. Shaw's
reply. Here it is, Shaw on Shaw" IN
dubitably the most fitting preface to
anything one may have to say about
Candida" He says:
Don't ask me conundrums about
that very immoral female, Candida.
Observe the entry of w. Burgess:
You're the lady as hused to typrite
for him. No, naaow, she was younger.
And therefore Candida sacked her
PrcSsy is a very select person, indeed,
devoted to Morell to the extent Of help
ing in the kitchen, but to him the
merest pet rabbit, unable to get the
slightest hold on him. Candida is as
INSCRIPTIONS as Siegfried-Morell him
self sees that no law will bind her. She
seduces Eugene just exactly as far as
1t is worth while for her to seduce him.
She is a woman without character IN
the conventional sense. Without brains
and strength of mind she would be a
useblied slattern or voluptuary. She Is
straight for natural reasons, not for
conventional ones. Nothing can be
more coldbloodedly reasonable than her
farewell to Eugene. All will be well,
my lad; but 1 don't quite see myself at
fifty with a husband of thirty-f1ve.' 1t
is just this freedom from emotional
slop, this unerring wisdom on the emo
tional plane, that makes her so COM
pletely mistress of the situation.
Then consider the poet. She makes
a man of him finally by showing him
his own strength-that David must DO
without poor Uriah's wife. And then
she pitches in her picture of the home,
the onions and the tradesmen and the
cosseting of big baby Morell. The
New York hausfrau thinks it a little
Paradise, but the poet rises up and
says, out then into the night with
me-Tristan's holy night. If this
greasy fools Paradise is happiness,
then 1 give it to you with both hands;
life is nobler than that That is the
poets secret. The young things in
front weep to see the poor boy going
out lonely and broken-hearted into
the cold night to save the proprieties
of New England Puritanism, but he is
really a god going back to his heaven,
proud, unspeakably contemptuous of
the happiness he envied in the days
of his blindness, clearly seeing that he
has higher business o inland than
Candida. She has a little quaint in
tuition of the completeness of his cure;
she says, he has learned to do with
out happiness
WAS SHAW JOKING?
With a wise instinct of self-preser-
vation where the "heartless Hibern-
IAN is concerned, Mr.. Huneker plants
a dart of doubt as to his seriousness
here. IF in this letter he is playing
fair in the game he says. Is he ?
Or is it that with what DIR. Daily
stigmatizes as our shocking looseness
of language even Mr.. Huneker has
failed to read him Alright? To Mr..
Huneker, by implication, Candida is
a woman who has gone through the
Venusberg and still reached the
heights For this he has Shaw's
immoral female" and she seduces
Eugene just exactly as far as it is
worth her while to seduce him." be-
sides the lady's own famous Shawl
speech, about which, however, Mr.
Huneker says he has never deceived
himself"
But the sense immoral is much
wider than its narrowed modern sig
nificance. Does not Shaw, who uses
words with exquisite exactness, mean
here a general immortality of inter
course, Candida's pretense of belief in
her husband as a great man, for ex-
ample, her apparent Difference and real
dominance in the domestic relation, hel
! tact" generally, in short? And the
seduction" Of the poet. The phrase
has been everywhere pounced upon as
evidence Of immoral" relations be-
tween the poet and Candida Yet al
the evidence in the play points to the
contrary conclusion. Is 1t not here
again in the use of words that misun.
derstanding comes? "As far as it is
worth her while she has seduced Eu.
| gene"-that she has stopped at g
psychical liaison does not concern Mr.
| Shaw, with whom thought and motive
| alone count.
AS REGARDS THE PLAYERS.
And now with the illuminative aid o,
the players. headed by Arnold DAILY, tc
whose five years long crusade we owe
last nights production. AS humorously
as a musical comedy-heaven save the
mark! 1t is Mr.. Daly's, not minei-goe.
'Candida" Again it thrills with the DO
tent pulse of a "Hedda Gabler." Al
playmaking 1t is the best of Shaw.
work, the half-dozen characters posed
with life-likeness. the magnificent
sense of contrast Of the consummatt
artist. The drama is inevitable from
their juxtaposition. Candida is tn,
hundredth woman, the poet the thou
sandth-perhaps the millionth-man