form: but the nature of the focus is immaterial. It is almost, though
not quite, true to say that one problem is as good as another. Indeed
all problems are, in themselves, equally good, though, owing to human
infirmity, there are two which tend to turn out badly. One, as we have
seen, is the pure aesthetic problem; the other is the problem of
accurate representation.

The vulgar imagine that there is but one focus, that "right" means
always the realisation of an accurate conception of life. They cannot
understand that the immediate problem of the artist may be to express
himself within a square or a circle or a cube, to balance certain
harmonies, to reconcile certain dissonances, to achieve certain rhythms,
or to conquer certain difficulties of medium, just as well as to catch a
likeness. This error is at the root of the silly criticism that Mr. Shaw
has made it fashionable to print. In the plays of Shakespeare there are
details of psychology and portraiture so realistic as to astonish and
enchant the multitude, but the conception, the thing that Shakespeare
set himself to realise, was not a faithful presentation of life. The
creation of Illusion was not the artistic problem that Shakespeare used
as a channel for his artistic emotion and a focus for his energies. The
world of Shakespeare's plays is by no means so lifelike as the world of
Mr. Galsworthy's, and therefore those who imagine that the artistic
problem must always be the achieving of a correspondence between printed
words or painted forms and the world as they know it are right in
judging the plays of Shakespeare inferior to those of Mr. Galsworthy. As
a matter of fact, the achievement of verisimilitude, far from being the
only possible problem, disputes with the achievement of beauty the
honour of being the worst possible. It is so easy to be lifelike, that
an attempt to be nothing more will never bring into play the highest
emotional and intellectual powers of the artist. Just as the aesthetic