these people. Perhaps my own associates, then, are the real Public, and
not these others!" Perceiving that this would be the fifth real Public,
he felt discouraged. But presently he began to think: "The past is the
past and cannot be undone, and with this play of mine I shall not please
the Public; but there is always the future! Now, I do not wish to do
what the artist cannot afford to do, I earnestly desire to be true to the
reason of my existence; and since the reason of that existence is to give
the Public what it wants, it is really vital to discover who and what the
Public is!" And he began to look very closely at the faces around him,
hoping to find out from types what he had failed to ascertain from
classes. Two men were sitting near, one on each side of a woman. The
first, who was all crumpled in his arm-chair, had curly lips and wrinkles
round the eyes, cheeks at once rather fat and rather shadowy, and a
dimple in his chin. It seemed certain that he was humourous, and kind,
sympathetic, rather diffident, speculative, moderately intelligent, with
the rudiments perhaps of an imagination. And he looked at the second
man, who was sitting very upright, as if he had a particularly fine
backbone, of which he was not a little proud. He was extremely big and
handsome, with pronounced and regular nose and chin, firm, well-cut lips
beneath a smooth moustache, direct and rather insolent eyes, a some what
receding forehead, and an air of mastery over all around. It was obvious
that he possessed a complete knowledge of his own mind, some brutality,
much practical intelligence, great resolution, no imagination, and plenty
of conceit. And he looked at the woman. She was pretty, but her face was
vapid, and seemed to have no character at all. And from one to the other
he looked, and the more he looked the less resemblance he saw between
them, till the objects of his scrutiny grew restive.... Then, ceasing to
examine them, an idea came to him. "No! The Public is not this or that
class, this or that type; the Public is an hypothetical average human
being, endowed with average human qualities--a distillation, in fact, of