Note 221 — Chapter XIV

The celebrated account Shaw once gave of his visit to an ophthalmic surgeon clearly sets before us his conception of the nature and value of his critical faculty: “He tested my eyesight one evening, and informed me that it was quite uninteresting to him because it was 'normal.' I naturally took this to mean that it was like everybody else's; but he rejected this construction as paradoxical, and hastened to explain to me that I was an exceptional and highly fortunate person optically, 'normal' sight conferring the power of seeing things accurately, and being enjoyed by only about ten per cent. of the population, the remaining ninety per cent. being abnormal. I immediately perceived the explanation of my want of success in fiction. My mind's eye, like my body's, was 'normal'; it saw things differently from other people's eyes, and saw them better.”—Mainly About Myself, Preface to Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant, Vol. I., p. 11.