commercially and politically. But both observation and knowledge are
left behind when journalists go to the theatre. Once in their stalls,
they assume that it is "natural" for clergymen to be saintly, for
soldiers to be heroic, for lawyers to be hard-hearted, for sailors to
be simple and generous, for doctors to perform miracles with little
bottles, and for Mrs Warren to be a beast and a demon. All this is not
only not natural, but not dramatic. A man's profession only enters into
the drama of his life when it comes into conflict with his nature. The
result of this conflict is tragic in Mrs Warren's case, and comic in the
clergyman's case (at least we are savage enough to laugh at it); but
in both cases it is illogical, and in both cases natural. I repeat,
the critics who accuse me of sacrificing nature to logic are so
sophisticated by their profession that to them logic is nature, and
nature absurdity.

Many friendly critics are too little skilled in social questions and
moral discussions to be able to conceive that respectable gentlemen like
themselves, who would instantly call the police to remove Mrs Warren if
she ventured to canvass them personally, could possibly be in any way
responsible for her proceedings. They remonstrate sincerely, asking me
what good such painful exposures can possibly do. They might as well ask
what good Lord Shaftesbury did by devoting his life to the exposure
of evils (by no means yet remedied) compared to which the worst things
brought into view or even into surmise by this play are trifles.
The good of mentioning them is that you make people so extremely
uncomfortable about them that they finally stop blaming "human nature"
for them, and begin to support measures for their reform.

Can anything be more absurd than the copy of The Echo which contains a
notice of the performance of my play? It is edited by a gentleman who,