But if his work is to have any claim to artistic
value, he must not assume all sorts of different stages of
development at every second word his creation utters. He must not
make her a child in one speech, a woman of the world in the next,
and an idiot in the next again. Of course, it would be an extremely
difficult task clearly to define in all its bearings and details the
particular intellectual condition assumed at the outset, and then
gradually to indicate the natural growth of a fuller consciousness.
Difficult it would be, but by no means impossible; nay, it would be
this very problem which would tempt the true dramatist to adopt such
a theme. Mr. Gilbert has not essayed the task. He regulates
Galatea's state of consciousness by the fluctuating exigencies of
dialogue whose humour is levelled straight at the heads of the old
Haymarket pit.
To indicate the nature of the inconsistencies which abound in every
scene, I may say that, in the first act, Galatea does not know that she
is a woman, but understands the word "beauty," knows (though Pygmalion
is the only living creature she has ever seen) the meaning of agreement
and difference of taste, and is alive to the distinction between an
original and a copy.
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