41466855 bernard shaw an epitaph

8/14/2019 41466855 Bernard Shaw an Epitaph

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MRNARDSMW

AN EPITAPHByJohn Palmer

Grant RlcKard* Ltd.


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BERNARD SHAWAN EPITAPH


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BERNARD SHAWAN EPITAPH

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At midniglit on 4th August 1914 allthat literature hitherto described as modern passed quietly away in itssleep. This does not mean that thereimmediately arose a new generation ofauthors and readers. Things will super-ficially go on as before, possibly for yearsto come. It will be some time, evenafter tlie public has won back the leisureto refine upon its late sensations, beforethe literary revolution of August last willbe clear to the observer. Establishedauthors will change a little with thechanged mood of the public ; and thepublic will for long be quite unable todescribe or make effective its sense ofdiscomfort with the past. Nevertheless,there is no doubt at all that the ways ofliterature after the war are to be entirelyaltered. Alreadv we know that certain


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10 BERNARD SHAWliterary styles and methods which oncewere effective, and admirably adaptedto their purpose, have now become de-testable. We have no room for insolenceas a fine art, for dialectic display, forliterary virtuosity. Literary mannersare completely to be reformed ; and withthe manners the matter also will bechanged. The return to simplicity, sofrequently travestied in the age whoseextinction is now decreed, is at last com-ing in sober truth. Every art is going torid itself of the moral and intellectual cas-uistry in which it has so long abounded.Morality, duty, conscience, charactercall it what you willhas suddenly be-come very simple. We shall stand nolonger counting the pulse and taking thetemperature of our deeds. We are goingto be quite careless of the moral andsocial doctor. We shall shortly be look-ing back with wonder on the curiousrhetorical and logical excesses of the firstdecade of the twentieth century.

-J^ The strength of this coming revolt is


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12 BERNARD SHAWthat the great war has put back Art andLetters for a generation. This is awholly false way of regarding the effectof the war upon literature ; but it isperfectly natural in the authors whomthe war has dispossessed to take asombre view of the future. What hasreally happened to literature is some-thing very differentit is really thereversefrom what is imagined by theauthors who see the public turningfrom their books. The war has simplybrought to maturity in a single seasona process which already was in being. Modern literature already had passedthe meridian. We had already begunto turn away from the intellectualcriticism of society and from pre-occupation with the nicer problems ofconduct ; and we were vaguely wait-ing for something simpler and moreuniversal. The war has completed inthe reader a revolution which was boundto occur by suddenly shooting into themind a mass of raw and opulent matter,


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AN EPITAPH 13with which the modern analyst with hissmall scales of the apothecary is unableto deal. Before this sudden unloadingupon the mind of rapid impressions theauthor and his public alike are for themoment helpless. The author is eithersmitten into silence or he is forced tobring out of the heap of raw materialsamples merely, unshaped and untrans-muted, which he offers to the public as literature of the war. There is, ofcourse, no such thing, yet, as literatureof the war. It will be years before therevolution of our point of view canget itself artistically uttered. Whensuddenly we are required to cease count-ing the hairs upon the head of humanityin order to contemplate the sacrificeof humanity in battalions upon altarserected to the simplest of virtues ; whensuddenly the old life is extinguished andan urgent question, never directly putto us before, sits upon every hearth ;when fact becomes so vivid that no workof the imagination not grounded upon


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14 BERNARD SHAWuniversal truth can live in its fierce ray^then we are compelled suddenly torealise that neither literature nor lifeitself can ever seem the same. Thebooks we had in the Press when warbroke out^^books which had to comeout from sheer inertia of the publishingmachinesimply prompted in us all afaint disgust and a mild wonder however we came to write them.The immediate results, the results we

see at present, are disquieting enoughif we look only at the surfaceat thecollapse of the intellectual and imagin-ative interests which satisfied us a yearor so ago. But we have to realisethat this collapse has tinily to be read,not as a collapse of literature and art,but as a crucible of new forms andaspirations. Meantime, until the newliteratureliterature which will im-perishably record the true meaning ofthe events through which we are pass-ingbegins to be written we must becontent to move among the ruins of the


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AN EPITAPH 15old. Life for the moment has put outhterature. We have entered again intoa period of the pamphleta periodwhen the public insists on being its owninterpreter. The public now requiresto hold and handle the raw stuff of lifefor itself, to come into contact with therough ore. It feels that even this isbetter than handling the strange,finished metals which came from theunfamiliar mines of yesterday.

Literary historians have falsely im-agined that the pamphlet was a form ofauthorship peculiar to the Augustanage ; or, more accurately, that it was anatural product of the period immedi-ately preceding the invention of thedaily newspaper. The pamphlet hasbeen regarded as merely the device of aperiod which had not yet discoveredhow to work the newspaper. When thenewspaper came to full competence, itwas supposed that the pamphlet hadbeen finally put out of action. Therewas no longer supposed to be any room


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16 BERNARD SHAWfor the fugitive libellum dealing with atopic of the day. Such, briefly, hasseemed to be the assumption of thehistorian ; but the Great War has dis-proved all this. The pamphlet is nowseen to be, not a mechanical link be-tween two periods in the history ofprinting, but a distinct kind of author-ship, bound to arise when the conditionsof its being are favourable.

If we look at the periods in whichthe pamphlet has most prosperouslyflourishedthe period of the Jacobeanrevolution, of the Marlborough andNapoleonic warswe observe that thesewere times when events were supremelycritical, when hardly anyone could beexpected to escape from the appeal of themoment, when the thrill of life was toointense to suffer any very serious com-petition from the thrill of fancy. Thosewho in long years of security have hadthe untroubled leisure to compile his-tories of literature have hardly realisedthe way life has of suddenly putting out


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AN EPITAPH 17of account everything but its own im-perious need to be observed and grasped.Now, however, they are able to under-stand that there are times when eventhe writer of books is no longer able tolive in his ivory tower, times when heis urged to come down into the street,hawking his ballads, lampoons, accountsand explanations. One very definiteresult of the Great War was felt im-mediately on its proclamation. Ourliterary and aesthetic interests paled asthe stars pale when a house takes fire.It was for weeks impossible to settle toa book. The theatre utterly collapsed,ceasing to exist except as a strainedeffort to be merry. Even music wasunable to come betw^een its audienceand the latest telegrams. Our obses-sion could not, of course, endure at thistemperature and pressure ; but the warremained, and will long remain, the firstinterest of our lives. In fact w^e areprecisely in the position in whichthe English public stood when the


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18 BERNARD SHAWPetitioners and Abhorrers grappled forthe Succession in the seventeenth cen-tury, or when the beacons werewaiting to be fired in warning thatNapoleon had landed on the Englishcoast.

Is it therefore surprising that ourauthors have returned to the pamphlet ?They were compelled to do so for self-preservation alone. No one at this timewill seriously read anything but thelatest news, information or argumentabout the war. They desire only first-hand records and experiences from thefront. When, as some for a diversionwill, they turn to literature it is eitherto classical or romantic literaturenone of it later than the eighteenninetiesor to the lightest of contem-porary adventurous or comic fiction.It follows that, if a modern author de-sires to be read, he must turn from thewriting of books to the writing of pam-phlets. It is unfair, however, to authorsto assume that this is a true and com-


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AN EPITAPH 21last July is due to far graver and morepermanent reasons than they have yetdiscovered. The present outburst ofpamphleteering does not merely meanthat there is temporarily a strong desireto write and read about the war. Italso means that the war has virtuallykilled one period of literature, and thatit is preparing another. The energywhich to-day inspires the pamphlet willto-moiTow inspire the poet, dramatistand novelist. The crude and suddenheightening of our interest in life cannotimmediately find adequate literary ex-pression. There is energy enough, butthe means for employing it are notyet found. New vessels will have to befound for the new liquor. Meantime,as we cannot produce out of the waranything describable as literature, wehave to be content with producing exe-crable divertissements and topicalities forthe music hall and theatre, indifferentverse for the magazines, and, above all,pamphlets of every sort and size for the


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22 BERNARD SHAWbook-stall. The state of literature isthe state of Brutus waiting in hisorchard :

All the interim isLike a phantasma or a hideous dream ;The genius and the mortal instrumentsAre then in council, and the state of man,Like to a little kingdom, suffers thenThe nature of an insurrection.

It is not possible to foretell what willbe the exact character of this insur-rection what sort of literature is go-ing to be wrought of the crude mass ofenergy and fact which to-day is flungrawly into the market from the sheerinability of the old dispensation to dealwith it. One thing alone is clear. Itis the fact with which we started andthe fact which we have to take into fullaccount in writing of Mr Bernard Shawto-day : the fact, namely, that all litera-ture hitherto described as modern isfinally dead. Partly it is an instinctiverealisation of this fact that has broughtits authors down into the street crying


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AN EPITAPH 23to be heard. There is hardly an estab-hshed author of any repute who hasnot written letters, pamphlets, articles,poems or stories about the war in thelast six months, partly out of an uncon-scious determination to assert publiclythat he still intends to hold the publicear and that the war has not put a termto his reputation. It is equally truethat the great majority of these authorshave only succeeded in demonstratinghow grievously they have aged in thesix months since August 1914. All thatwas brilliant, clever, forcible, urgent andmomentous but half-a-year ago thestyle which pleased us then and thesubject which intrigued our imaginationhas as completely lost its appeal as anoutlived tailor's fashion or popular song.It will be at least fifty years beforeEnglish literary historians will even be-gin to understand why, for example, thecomedies of Mr Bernard Shaw werepopular in 1913. Whatever literaturemay be like in 1923, it will certainly be


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24 BERNARD SHAWquite unlike the literature of 1913. Itis more likely to resemble the literatureof the late nineties of the fifteenthcentury or the middle years of the nine-teenth century. For the moment wemust wait among our pamphlets, andbe satisfied with imagining a renaissancewhich we may not live to see.Mr Shaw has particularly sufferedbecause of all living writers he was most

- > in touch with the life that has passed.^ i He was intellectually representative of

I very nearly all that kept our theatrej vital and free. Paradoxically our im-I mense debt to him yesterday, as aI cleansing and enlivening power, simplyI intensifies our recoil from his work to-} day. He laboured to destroy much^ that was evil and stupefying. Then

suddenly the war came upon us all andf kept away the critic with the life heI criticised. Mr Shaw is in the position ofI o;ne who suddenly sees the work of his lifeI so thoroughly done that it becomes\ almost impossible for his friends to


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AN EPITAPH 25realise that it was ever necessary. Socatastrophic was the change in our out-look that its purport could not begrasped either by Mr Shaw himselfor his readers. For once the elasticityof his supple mind was insufficient.Mr Shaw has made some grave mis-takes of latemistakes which havepuzzled his friends and raised in thepublic varying degrees of enmity, fromthe exasperated shrug of the stranger,who only knows the comic mask ofG.B.S.now so out of fashion with thetimeto the active dislike of those whomore seriously regard him. This presentdefence of Mr Shaw is based on a com-plete absence of partiality for his errors,together with a fairly clear perception oftheir motive. It is addressed to thoseof the public who know, without requir-ing further proof or discussion, that MrShaw is utterly wrong in the greater partof what he has lately written concerningthe great events of the last five months.It is, indeed, a postulate of this defence


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26 BERNARD SHAWthat Mr Shaw's speeches, letters, andarticles on the War are misinformed anduntimelyerrors of policy and tact. Itis the intention of this defence, not toprove that Mr Shaw is right aboutBelgium and Russia (he is blindly anddisastrously wrong), but to show that,though he can be accused of misreadingevents, and of being utterly out of tuneand temper with the present hour, yet hecannot be accused of wilfully detestablelevity or of the wish to thrust himselfpersonally forward. His worst offence isthat, without being clearly aware of it,he has outlived the time when everythingunder the sun was also under discussion.

It will be necessary for the purpose ofthis defence to destroy once for all thepopular legend of G.B.S. This legendstands in the way of any just or sensibleappreciation of Mr Shaw's present posi-tion. It consists of at least seven distinctfallaciesevery one of which now weightsthe balance of public opinion againsthim.


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AN EPITAPH 27II

The first fallacy is that Mr Shaw is animmensely public person ; that he is asort of twentieth-century Grand Mon-arch, who, if manners allowed, woulddine like Louis XIV. in the presence ofthe people. Now it is true that Mr Shawat one period of his career almost livedupon a public platform ; that he in-variably tells us the private history ofeach of his books and plays ; that, partlyfrom a sense of fun, and partly from adetermination that what he has seriouslyto say shall be heard, he talks and writesa good deal about himself ; and that hehas allowed Mr Archibald Henderson tocompile a sort of concordance to hispersonality. Nevertheless, it is not truethat Mr Shaw is an immensely publicperson. Or perhaps I should put it thisway : Mr Shaw whom the public knowsis not an authentic revelation of the ex-tremely private gentleman who lives in


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28 BERNARD SHAWAdelphi Terrace. Mr Bernard Shawwhom the public knows might moreaccurately be described as a screen.What the public knows about Mr Shawis either trivial or misleading. Thus thepublic knows that Mr Shaw can readdiamond type with his left eye at adistance of twenty-eight inches andthat he can hear a note whose pitch doesnot exceed thirty thousand vibrationsa second. These things are trivial. Orthe public knows that Mr Shaw is awriter of plays, who is a Socialist andpublicly conducts himself with a calcu-lated insolence ; and these things aremisleading. The authentic author ofMan and Superman has never reallybeen interviewed ; has never really plucked me ope his doublet and offeredhim his throat to cut to anyone who islikely to betray him. Mr Shaw of theinterviews and the funny stories is publicenough ; but this Mr Shaw is preciselythe legend it is necessary to destroy.When this destruction is accomplished


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AN EPITAPH 29it will be possible to ussert wherein MrShaw's talent truly consists ; exactly howserious he is ; and, more particularly,why he has written articles about thewar, and why he should henceforth berestrained from doing so.

IllThe second fallacy is that Mr Shaw is

a profoundly original thinker and a pro-pagandist of absolutely new ideas. MrShaw, who is a modest, conscientious,kindly, industrious, and well-read manof letters, is commonly regarded as areckless firebrand who lives by the cartand the trumpet ; is up to his neck in allthat is lawless and improper ; is withoutcompassion or shame ; speaks always inparadoxes, and claims to be greater thanShakespeare. Mr Shaw lias himself re-peatedly denied all this without effect.Not less than fourteen years ago he toldthe world the exact truth about himself


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30 BERNARD SHAWand was not believed. He said he wasan elderly gentleman who made animmense reputation by being the best ofa bad lot and by plagiarising the Englishclassics. He really meant what heaffirmed ; but the preface in which heaffirmed it is still supposed to be the locusclassicus of his claim to supersede theauthor of Macbeth. Mr Shaw has re-peatedly warned his critics and followersto reject utterly the legend of G.B.S.

/ I find myself, he wrote in 1900,

j while still in middle life, almost as

^ / legendary a person as the Flying Dutch-] man. Critics, like other people, see whatthey look for, not what is actually beforethem. In my plays they look for mylegendary qualities and find originalityand brilliancy in my most hackneyedclaptrap. Were I to republish Buck-stone's Wreck Ashore as my latest comedyit would be hailed as a masterpiece ofperverse paradox and scintillating satire.Nothing in modern literary history is^ more remarkable than Mr Shaw's reputa-


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AN EPITAPH 31tion for original and daring speculation. \^Mr Sluuv's true position has always beenthat of a popular lecturer and pam-phleteer rather than that of a philosopher.He has popularly presented to the Britishpublic the music of Wagner, the dramaof Ibsen, an optimist version of the philo-sophy of Schopenhauer, and an individualblend of Socialist ideas collected out ofrecognised economic authorities fromOwen to Gide. He has never been, orclaimed to be, an original and creativespeculator.

IVThis brings us to the third fallacy.

The third fallacy is that Mr Shaw hasmade enormous and extravagant claimsfor himself as a critic, political thinker,and dramatist. Let us take a passage ofhis preface to the Plays for Puritans. Itis the famous Better than Shakespearepassagethe foundation of a publiccharge that Mr Shaw thinks too highly of


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32 BERNARD SHAWhimself. It is a conclusive proof that hedoes nothing of the kind. Observe alsothat it harks back to our second fallacy :My stories are the old stories ; my characters

are the familiar harlequin and columbine, clown andpantaloon (note the harlequin's leap in the ThirdAct of CcBsar and Cleopatra) ; my stage tricks andsuspenses and thrills and jests are the ones in voguewhen I was a boy, by which time my grandfatherwas tired of them. ... It is a dangerous thing tobe hailed at once, as a few rash admirers have hailedme, as above all things original ; what the worldcaUs originality is only an unaccustomed methodof tickling it. Meyerbeer seemed prodigiouslyoriginal to the Parisians when he first burst onthem. To-day he is only the crow who followedBeethoven's plough. I am a crow who havefollowed many ploughs.Who, after this, will say that Mr Shawhas in him a particle of author's conceit ?He has very rarely claimed more than isdue to him. It is true that he has fre-quently and vigorously asserted himselfto be not entirely foolish. But it is alsotrue that no critic has more persistentlyassured the public that there is nothing


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54 BERNARD SHAWShaw was for many years of his Hfe aprofessional critic, and that he was bynature able to regard himself and his ownperformances with complete detachment.Naturally, when he came to write plays,and found that these plays were incom-petently criticised, he used his native giftfor regarding himself impartially, and hisacquired skill as a professional critic, toinform his readers exactly how good andhow bad his plays really were. Hencehe has acquired a reputation for vain-glory, for it is a rooted idea that a manwho talks about himself is necessarilyvainglorious. Mr Shaw's detached anddisinterested observation of his owncareer and achievements is not within thepower of the average man of letters.It was accordingly misunderstood. Noteveryone can discuss his own work asthough it were the work of a stranger.Mr Shaw's self-criticism, read as a whole,shows an amazing literary altruism. MrShaw, in his prefaces, is not a prophetclaiming inspiration for his script ; he


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AN EPITAPH 35is one of the crowd that reads and judgesfor itselfonly he reads and judges alittle more closely and severely than therest.Mr Shaw's curious aloofness from hisown fame is the more attractive in that itis absolutely innocent of stage-manage-ment. There are men who are famousfor their retirementmen of whom itis at once exclaimed how humble andunspoiled they are. Mr Shaw, of course,is entirely free from this organised andblushing humility. His very real modestyconsists in his being able to assess him-self correctly. He is one of the fewliving authors who have not been takenin by their own performances. It doesnot occur to him to divide the literatureof the day into (a) the works of Mr Shawand {b) other people's works. He thinksof Man and Superman as he thinks ofThe Silver Box. It is a play of contem-porary interest and of some merit, andhe does not see why he should be barredfrom discussing it as an expert critic


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36 BERNARD SHAWjust because he happens to be theauthor.

There is another and more obviousreason why Mr Shaw is regarded by someas the modern Thraso. Mr Shaw wasonce fighting an uphill battle to be heard,and one of his principal weapons was agood-humoured insolence in controversywhich assumed a truculence not seriouslyintended, and certainly not correspond-ing with any loud conceit. He alwaysput things at a maximum, and in a waycalculated to anger and arrest his readers.It is hardly necessary to point out howthe survival of Mr Shaw's old methodsinto a period which has suddenly out-grown them has exaggerated his lateoffences beyond all proportion to theirguilt.

The fourth fallacy is that Mr Shaw isan incorrigible jester. Almost the firstthing to realise about Mr Shaw is his


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AN EPITAPH 37overflowing gravity. He lias taken morethings seriously in his career than anyliving and notable person. He has takenmusic seriously, and painting, and Social-ism, and philosophy, and politics, andpublic speaking. He has taken thetrouble to make up his mind upon scoresof things to which the average heedlessman hardly gives a second thought, andwill give no thought at all in the futurethings like diet, hygiene, photography,phonetic spelling, and vivisection. Hehas even taken seriously the Englishtheatre, unlike virtually every otherEnglishman of letters who has had any-thing to do with it. It is only becausehe is so immensely serious that he has


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38 BERNARD SHAWabout them. The more brilhantly hesparkles upon a given theme the moresober has been his education in itsrudiinents. Unfortunately, many peoplehave come to exactly the opposite con-clusion. Because Mr Shaw has a rapidand vital way of writing, because he pre-sents his argument at a maximum,seasons it with boisterous analogies, andfrequently drives it home at the pointof a foolborn jest, he is suspected ofsacrificing sense to sound. The dancingof his manner conceals the severe de-corum of his matter.

VIThe fifth fallacy has to do with the all-

head-and-no-heart formula. It is said ofMr Bernard Shaw by some very excellentcritics that he is an expert logician argu-ing in vacuo ; that he has exalted Reasonas a God : that his mind is a wonderful


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AN EPITAPH 39machine which never goes wrong becauseits owner is not swayed by the ordinarypassions, hkes, prejudices, sentiments,impulses, infatuations, enthusiasms, andweaknesses of ordinary mankind. Mainlythis last superstition has grown out ofthe fact that Mr Shaw as a criticof music, art, and the drama wasactually a critic. He took his criticismseriously, and found it necessary to tellthe cruel truth concerning the artisticachievements of many sensitive andagreeable young people. Later, whenhe came to write plays, there was moreevidence of his insensibility, of his aridand merciless rationalism, of his im-penetrable indifference to all that warmsthe blood of common humanity. ForMr Shaw's plays were the work of acritical and destructive intelligence looseamong amiable pretences which wereonce very dear to the playgoer. He de-picted young women who hated thepoor, and young men who appreciatedfour per cent. But all this had nothing


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40 BERNARD SHAWto do with a triumph of Reason.^ Wemust really put all this aside. It is notfundamental. If there is one idea morethan another that persists all throughMr Shaw's work it is to be found inhis perpetual repudiation of Reason.Almost his whole literary career has beenspent in adapting the message of Schopen-hauer to his own optimism and belief inthe goodness of life. Not Reason andnot the Categories determine or create ;but Passion and Will. Mr Shaw hasalways insisted that Reason is no motivepower ; that the true motive power inthe world is Will ; that the setting upof Reason above Will is a damnableerror. Life is the satisfaction of apower in us of which we can give norational account whateverthat is hisfinal declaration ; and it correspondsiThe significance and character of Mr Shaw's

mihtant work of destruction and purification in theEnglish theatre is discussed in detail in The Futureof the Theatre (John Palmer). Pubhshed by MessrsBell. 2s. 6d. net.


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AN EPITAPH 41with the temperament of its author.Mr Rudyard Kiphng has described therationahsts as men who deal withpeople's insides from the point of viewof men who have no stomachs. MrShaw would agree. No one, in habitor opinion, lives more remotely than liefrom the clear, hard, logical, devitalised,and sapless world of Comte and Spencer.

VIIThe sixth fallacy is that Mr Shaw is

an anarchist, a disturber of the peace, achampion of the right of every man to doas he pleases and to think for himself.This idea of Mr Shaw is altogetherat fault. The practical extent of MrShaw's anarchismas was instanced inthe British Bluebook wherein a com-mittee of the most respectable gentlemenof the British Bar and Church agreedwitli Mr Shaw that British divorce wasunnecessarily expensive, inequitable, and


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44 BERNARD SHAWthey contained. Entirely the reversewas true. Far from being an irre-sponsible amateur with a literary knack,Mr Shaw, in all he has undertaken, has,if anything, erred from an excessiveknowledge and interest in the expert,professional, and technical side of hissubject. He knew years ago all aboutthe enormity of exploding undiminishedchords of the ninth and thirteenth onthe unsuspecting ear, just as to-day hethoroughly understands the appallinglyscientific progressions of Scriabin. Simi-larly he can tell the difference at aglance between real sunshine in an openfield and the good north light of a Chel-sea studio ; or explain why values are more difficult to capture when coloursare bright than when they are looked forin a dark interior. As to the techniqueof the theatrewell, the subject is hardlyworth discussing. Some of his later playsare nothing if they are not technical. Thefallacy that Mr Shaw was a happy savageamong critics and artistsignorant and


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AN EPITAPH 45careless of form, unread in the necessaryconventions, speaking always at randomwith the confidence that only a perfectignorance can giveis particularly de-plorable, because it necessarily blinds itsadherents to his most serious defect.Usually he knows too much, rather thantoo little, of his subject. He is too keenlyinterested in its bones and its mechanism.His famous distinction between musicwhich is decorative and music which isdramatic is quite unsound ; but it is notthe mistake of a critic ignorant of music.It is rather the mistake of a critic tookeenly absorbed in the technique ofmusic. If the professors in the earlynineties had objected to Corno di Bas-setto because he was liable to lapses intothe pedantry of which they themselveswere accused, they would have beennearer the mark than they were in fool-ishly dismissing him as an ignoramus.Similarly, as a dramatic critic, G.B.S.erred, not by attaching too little value tothe forms and conventions of the theatre,


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46 BERNARD SHAWbut by attaching too much. It is truethat he did not make the absurd mistakeof some of his followers, and regard Ibsenas a great dramatist on account of oneor two pettifogging and questionablereforms in dramatic conventionsuch asthe abolishing of soliloquies and extradoors to the sitting-room. But he cer-tainly attached too much importance tothese thingsmainly because he knewso much about them ; and this insistenceof his as a critic has had its revenge insome of his own plays where his purelytechnical mastery of theatrical devices,his stage-cleverness, and his craftsman'svirtuosity, have led him into mechanicalhorse-play and stock positions unworthyof the author of John BulVs Other Islandand Major Barbara.

There was a conspicuous instance ofthis in a late production at the VaudevilleTheatrepossibly the best instance whichcould be taken of Mr Shaw's readinessto be engrossed in theatrical technique.Mr Shaw not only wrote, he also pro-


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AN EPITAPH 47duced Great Catherine. The mere con-senting of Mr Shaw to produce hisplays is a clear warning not to regardhim as one whose chief talent is to becasual. Only an author with an almostpedantic interest in the technique of thetheatre would undertake the drudgeryof conducting his own rehearsals.Authors who bring sanity, literary ex-pression, live fun, ideas, sincere feelingin a word, authors who bring any sort oftalent or originality into the professionaltheatre from outsideare usually too lazyor too contemptuous of the censor-riddenstage of to-day to give their mindseriously to the myriad small things thatgo to the producing of plays. Theyleave all this to the professional expert,and sit modestly apart at rehearsal insome corner of the stage where in theirinexperience they imagine themselvesleast likely to be in the way. On thewhole it is well that they should. Theauthor's rehearsing, though it may begood for the author's play, is usually bad


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48 BERNARD SHAWfor the author. It may turn an authorwho has original matter into an authorwho has only a successfully conventionalmanner. Almost certainly it will do thisif the rehearsing author, like Mr Shaw,is personally kind and tolerant, ex-tremely susceptible to the ideas and in-fluences amid which he moves, easilythrowing himself with enormous energyinto the fun of doing something pro-fessionally difficult and entirely new,and always ready to believe that thething he happens to be tremendouslyinterested in at the time is the thingthat he is by nature best fitted to do.

Great Catherine is clearly the play ofan author who from long practice andfamiliarity with the uses of the stage hascome to believe that it matters more thathis characters shall utter their lines left-centre or back-stage than that their linesshall be worth uttering anywhere. Ithas every indelible mark of the play ofa producing authorof an author whohas lost touch for the time being with his


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AN EPITAPH 49native and original gifts in an enthu-siasm for the pedantries of his craft.Tliere is in Great Catherine always morecare that no point shall be missed by theaudience than that the point which mustnot be missed shall be worth making.There is all through exactly that absolutereliance upon stage business and stageeffect, and the neglect of everything else,which makes the script of the modernfashionable play unreadable. There isplainly to be detected in every line ofGreat Catherine an absurd reliance upontechnical devices of the theatre tomultiply the author's intention, evenwhen the author's intention stands atartistic zero.

Great Catherine, in a word, admirablyillustrates our seventh fallacy.Mr Shaw has continually suffered fromknowing his subject too well from theangle of the expert ; and he has fre-quently fallen into the mistakes of theexpert. Far from being the happy andcareless privateer of popular belief, he is


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50 BERNARD SHAWusually to be found struggling for freedomunder the oppression of things stored forreference in his capacious memory. Thegreat critic, like any ordinary, unskilledspectator, should be able to look at awork of art without prejudice in favourof any particular form or fashion. Itshould not influence his judgment in theslightest whether the music he hears issymphonic or metrical, whether thethirteenth is exploded as a thirteenthor prepared as a six-four chord. Heshould be similarly indifferent whether adramatist talks to him in a blank versesoliloquy or in conversational duologue.Preoccupation with manner, apart frommatterusually implying an a prioriprejudice in favour of one manner overanotheris the mark of pedantry ; andof this pedantryalways the pedantryof a man who is expert and knows toomuchMr Shaw is not always free,though he is far too good a critic to beoften at fault.


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AN EPITAPH 51IX

We will now turn from G.B.S., whois as legendary as the Flying Dutchman,to the very positive and substantialauthor of Commonsense and the War. Ithas yet to be explained why Mr Shaw,stripped of his professional masks andrescued from the misconceptions of hisadmirers, remains one of the most strik-ing public figures of yesterday and mustfairly be regarded as the most importantapparition in the British theatre sinceGoldsmith and Sheridan. We have seenthat he is not original in what he preaches,is erudite rather than adventurous, is inno sense revolutionary or anarchical, isextremely serious, and is far from beingan orgiastic and impudent rationalist forwhom drifting humanity is mere stufffor a paradox. Mr Shaw has not wonthe notice of mankind because he hasthought of things which have hithertooccurred to no one else ; nor has he won


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52 BERNARD SHAWthe notice of mankind because he has anative gift for buffoonery and a talentfor the stage. His merit has to be soughtoutside his doctrine. The secret of histalent lies deeper than his fun, and hasscarcely anything to do with his craft.

XIt ironically happens that Mr Shaw as

a critic has virtually made it impossiblefor those who accept his criticism toallow that, as a dramatic author, he hasany right to be really famous. Mr Shawas a critic repeatedly fell into the griev-ous critical error of separating the stuffhe was criticising into manner andmatter. Thus, confronted with th^Elizabethan dramatists, Mr Shaw alwaysmaintained that they had nothing tosay, and that they were only tolerablebecause they had an incomparablywonderful way of saying it. ComparingShakespeare with Ibsen, for example, he


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AN EPITAPH 53would point out that, if you paraphrasedIbsen's Peer Gijnt, it still remained goodintellectual stuff, and that, if you para-phrased Shakespeare's Life's but awalking shadow, it became the merestcommonplace. He thence proceeded todraw the moral that Ibsen, apart frommere favour and prettiness, was thegreater and more penetrating dramatist.Fortunately for Mr Shaw, as we shallshortly realise, this criticism of his wasnot only false in fact, but it was alsononsense in theory. It was false in factbecause it is quite untrue that Shake-speare paraphrased is commonplace,whereas Ibsen paraphrased is an in-tellectual feast. It would be more tothe point if Mr Shaw had said thatShakespeare paraphrased is common-place for all time, and that Ibsen para-phrased is commonplace for only thenineteenth century. It would be stillmore to the point if Mr Shaw had saidthat it is quite impossible to paraphraseany work of genius in so far as genius has


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54 BERNARD SHAWgone to its making. It is absurd to talkof paraphrasing Shakespeare, becauseShakespeare is of genius all compact. Itis as true of Ibsen as of Shakespeare that,so far as he is a genius and not merely ascientific naturalist, it is absurd to sepa-rate what he says from his way of sayingit. When Shakespeare has written :

Out, out brief candle Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing

he has written more than the equivalentof Life is not worth living. If MrShaw will not admit that Shakespearein this passage is no more than an uttererof a universal platitude for pessimists, hewill have to agree that Ibsen is no morethan an utterer of parochial platitudesfor the eugenist platform. Probably,however, now that Mr Shaw has himselfbecome a classical author, he has realised


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AN EPITAPH 55that to distinguish between the ideas of aliterary genius and the language in whichthey are expressed is as absurd as to dis-tinguish between the subject of a painterand the way in which it is painted, or be-tween the feeling of a musician and thetheme whereby it is rendered.At any rate, Mr Shaw must realise how

badly he himself would fare under sucha distinction. We have seen that, indoctrine and idea, he is in no senseoriginal. His conception of the State isas old as Plato. His particular sort ofPuritanism is as old as Cromwell. Hisparticular brand of Socialism is as oldas Owen. A paraphrase of Mr Shawreduction of Mr Shaw to the bare bonesof his subject-matterwould be as in-tolerable as the speeches of his disciplesand some of his masters usually are. Ina word, if Mr Shaw is worth reading, heis worth reading, not because he has any-thing new to say, but because he has apassionate and a personal way of sayingit. If Mr Shaw can claim an immortality,


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56 BERNARD SHAWhowever brief, it will not be by virtue ofhis original, novel, and startling opinions,but by virtue of his literary presentationof them in a manner entirely his own.

XIMr Shaw, then, won the attention of

his generation, not because he had newtheories about the world, but because byvirtue of strictly personal and inalienablequalities he was able to give to the most hackneyed claptrap (Mr Shaw's owndescription) an air of novelty. Had hebaldly said to us that incomes shouldbe equally divided, and that interest wasan iniquitous and profoundly unsocialdevice invented by those who have toomuch money for the purpose of levyingblackmail upon those who have notenough, we should simply have re-membered that we had read all this yearsago in an old book and turned to some-thing rather more worth our time and


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58 BERNARD SHAWsensible in his best work of a horse-power, of a spiritual energy, which couldno more be the product of his doctrinalprejudice against rent and interest thanthe energy which drove Wagner tocompose the Nibelungen Ring was theproduct of his desire to justify his re-volutionary principles or to improve theoperatic stage scenery of his generation.We knew that Mr Shaw's inspirationmust be something deeper than a dislikeof Roebuck Ramsden or a desire toabolish Mr Sartorius. We knew, in fact,that Mr Shaw, so far as he had anypositive genius at all, was the happyagent of a power and a passion whichused his prejudices, memories, anddoctrines in a way he was intellectuallypowerless to resist. Has he not himselfwritten these remarkable words :This is the true joy of Hfe : the being used for a

purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one ;the being thoroughly worn out before you arethrown on the scrap-heap ; the being a force ofnature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of


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AN EPITAPH 59ailments and grievances, complaining that theworld will not devote itself to making you happy ?To apply this passage to the work of MrShaw is again to destroy the popularconception of him as merely the acuteraisonneur, the intellectual critic of hiskind, witli a wallet of revolutionary pro-paganda whereby his reputation lives ordies. Not his doctrine, and not his de-liberate pamphleteering, made him aninfluence in modern literature. Thereal secret of liis influence could be ex-plained in only one way. Mr Shaw hadpassion and he had style. Therefore hewas driven to say more than he intended,and to say it with an arresting voice.

XIIIt remains to ask what was the prime

irritant of this passion in Mr Shaw. Hehas himself revealed it in the preface,which, more than any other, gives us thekey to his work and character :


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60 BERNARD SHAWI have, I think, always been a Puritan in myattitude towards Art. I am as fond of fine music

and handsome buildings as Milton was, or Cromwell,or Bunyan ; but, if I found that they were becom-ing the instruments of a systematic idolatry ofsensuousness, I would hold it good statesmanshipto blow every cathedral in the world to pieces withdynamite, organ and all, without the least heedto the screams of the art critics and culturedvoluptuaries.

Mr Shaw's inspiration, that is to say, isnot aesthetic, but moral. We have toreckon with a moral fury where he mostindividually rages. The daemon whichseizes his pen at the critical moment,and uses him for its OAvn enthusiasticpurpose, is the daemon which droveMilton to destroy Salmasius. Like everyother prophet who has succeeded inmoving an audience, Mr Shaw beginswith a passion and a prejudice, and after-wards manufactures the evidence. Thathe talked Socialism was an accident ofthe time. The essential thing was thathe passionately hated all that was com-placent, malevolent, callous, inequitable,


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AN EPITAPH 61oppressive, unsocial, stupid, irreligious,enervating, narrow, misinformed, un-imaginative, lazy, envious, unclean,disloyal, mercenary, and extravagant.Hating all tliis with the positive, ener-getic and proselytising hatred of an in-corrigible preacher, he naturally seizedthe most adequate stick in reach withwhich to beat the nineteenth-centurysinner. This stick happened to be theSocialist stick. If Mr Shaw had livedwith Grossetete in the fourteenth centuryit would have been the no-taxation-without-representation stick. K he hadlived with the Star Chamber in the six-teenth century it would have been theHabeas Corpus stick. If he had livedwith Rousseau in the eighteenth centuryit would have been the social-contract-and-law-of-nature stick. Mr Shaw'sSocialism stick was simply his weaponthe most convenient weapon to handwith which to convict a society foundedupon capitalism of the greatest possibleamount of sin with the least possible


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62 BERNARD SHAWopportunity of an overwhelming retortfrom the sinner. The important thingwas, not that Mr Shaw, as a morahst,preached Sociahsm, but that he used thedoctrines of Sociahsm as Cromwell'stroopers used the psalms of David, or asTolstoy used the gospel of St Matthew,namely, to put the unjust man and hisevil ways out of court and countenance.To this end he employed also his craftas a dialectician, his gift as a stylist, hisclear exposition and wit, his fun, irony,observation of men, talent for mystifica-tion and effective poseall, indeed, thatnow enters into the public idea of G.B.S.These things were merely auxiliary.Any moment they were liable to becaught up in the service of his passion-ate missiona mission of which MrShaw was often himself unconsciouswhen he was most firmly under itsdominion.No better proof that morality has beenthe main motive of Mr Shaw's careercould be offered than his scandalous


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64 BERNARD SHAWto talk criticism, and is all the while feed-ing in himself the secret fires of an un-scrupulous moral fervour which pervertshis judgment, is guilty of the worstoffence against his profession which acritic is able to commit. Mr Shaw'sonly excuse, morally, is that he did notknow what he was doing ; but that is noexcuse intellectually. His preface tothe plays of M. Brieux calls urgently forexplanation and apology, more especiallyas many respectable critics, includingthat noisy section of the talking publicwhich lives by every word that proceedsout of the mouth of a Fabian orator,have accepted Mr Shaw's estimate ofM. Brieux without examination, and havebegun to require from their friends a fullconsent to his greatness as a preliminaryto any sort of decent social intercourse.For Mr Shaw, who is responsible for allthis, his worst enemy can wish no worseretribution than that of having to appearbefore the bar of our coming generationas the sometime sponsor to the public of


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AN EPITAPH 65Ills day for the high dramatic merit ofLes Avaries.

]\Ieantime Mr Shaw's contemporarieshave to choose between two alternativeexplanations of his blunder. Was it thedeliberate conspiracy of an ardentmoralist to strengthen the weak kneesof a colleague ? It is clear to anyonewho has tried to write even a short essayon the state of the nation that LesAvaries is, intellectually, from end toend a brief mismanaged^that far fromhaving any of the qualities of a good playit has not even the qualities of a goodsermon. Almost any bishop in Englandcould do better. Nevertheless Mr Shawhas coolly written that M. Brieux is theone peak in the barren plain of Frenchdramatic literature since Moliere. Ishe here sinning against the light ofcriticism as an unsci'upulous sectarydeliberately making the worse appearthe better cause ?

Or, on the other hand, is his derelic-tion the result of a passion for morality


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66 BERNARD SHAWwhich causes him helplessly to go wrong,without aforethought or malicewhichblurs his vision and compels him to writelike a planchette ?

Perhaps the alternative explanationsare not exclusive. Mr Shaw is willing tobe deceived by M. Brieux. He openshimself out to be deceived. He sees thatM. Brieux has one redeeming qualityand he allows that quality to cover allthe aesthetic sins, all the technical in-competence and puzzle-headedness ofM. Brieux. The one redeeming qualityof M. Brieuxa quality which may wellsave him in the eyes of a fervent moralist,but which would not influence a dis-interested critic of dramatic literature inthe leastis a blundering moral sinceritywhich prompts him to do unskilfullyand tediously what Mr Shaw has done inan original and an arresting fashion.There is a kind of dignity which is quiteindependent of intellectual competence,aesthetic perception, taste, humour, orthe power of intelligible expression. It


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68 BERNARD SHAWnot necessary. Why should we requirethese qualities and talents ? M. Brieuxhas one supreme quality which out-weighs them all. He is a prophet. Heburns. In spite of the clumsiness withwhich he presents his doctrine ; in spiteof the aridity of his speech, his words alldead and mean and vulgar ; in spite ofhis inability to marshal his evidence togood advantage, to drive his pointslogically into our heads, or to conveyinterest or emotion into our heartsinspite of all this, M. Brieux commandsthe respect of Mr Shaw. He has thatsupreme dignity of the moralist whicha thoroughly stupid and unimaginativeperson can have in the highest degree.Mr Shaw has heard better expositions ofour social disgrace in Hyde Park thananything M. Brieux has yet writtenmore skilfully arranged and more elo-quently expressed. But he has neverheard anything anywhere which matchesLes Avaries in its ferocious and unassail-able determination to be thoroughly in


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AN EPITAPH 69earnest. He has seized upon tlie onlyargument that survives a moment'scriticism of any one of the plays ofM. Brieuxthe argument, namely, thatM. Brieux himself solemnly feels what heis unable intelligibly to express. Nor, ofcourse, is Mr Shaw alone in his instinc-tive treachery to art and commonsense.Since mankind in bulk is always readierto attend to someone who believes tlianto someone who explains, being readierto fall under the spell of a really earnestman who blunders than under that of areally clever man who keeps his head,M. Brieux is to-day a member of theFrench Institute, a moral force inAmerica,and has in England fallen under the banof the Lord Chamberlain. Meantime it isenough for the purpose of this epitaph tonote that Mr Shaw's offence in the matterof ]M. Brieux is the offence of an un-scrupulous preacher who wrests his read-ing to fit the need of his doctrine. It isa classic instance of his dereliction inthat kind. He has committed many


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AN EPITAPH 71impaired liis personal humour, his toler-ance (disguised though it be under anhabitually indignant manner) for all thatis sweet and commendable, his broad-ness of view and eagerly inquisitive out-look upon life, his generous welcome ofnew ideas, his love of beautiful things,his magpie annexation of all that appealsto his inveterately roving intelhgence,his ability to appreciate and sympathiseeven with these forces which are bandedto destroy him. These qualities haveobscured from his contemporaries theessential simplicity of his mind.

There is a real rift in Mr Shaw wherebyall kinds of things which are not popularlyassociated with the puritan spirit haveentered into his work. Though he wasborn to labour in vain towards convictinghis generation of sin he has also had thesecret ambitions of an artist. He can-not help enjoying the best songs eventhough they belong to the devil. Hecannot help seeing that some pictures aregreat and good which have in them no


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72 BERNARD SHAWrelish of salvation. Moreover he him-self, though balked at every turn by theinstinct which whitewashed Englishchurches in the seventeenth century andsmashed the stained glass of theirwindows, cannot help, in a blind andunsuccessful way, yearning towards theaesthetic Jezebel and her gauds. Thoughhe has never once succeeded in creatinga beautiful thing for beauty's sake,there are everywhere pathetic hints thathe has had the thwarted impulse to try.

Take, for example, the play in whichMr Forbes Robertson once tried toshow us Caesar in colloquy with theSphinx. This play is full of defeatedlonging to arrive at beauty ; but thebeauty is everywhere nipped. Ccesarand Cleopatra proves to us that Mr Shaw,even when he would fly with Icarus, can-not escape the pulpit and the gown.This play can only be grasped as a moralthesis. It is not witty, nor historical,nor poetical, nor heroic. It is simply theurgent presentation by a born preacher


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AN EPITAPH 73of a man after the preacher's own heart.Mr Shaw's moral earnestness is nowheremore unhappily apparent than in Ccesarand Cleopatra. It is sheer doctrine fromstart to finish. Some critics have dealtwith it as a funny play ; but Ccesar andCleopatra is not funny. People who pre-tend that Mr Shaw really means in this history to be funny, that he is pullingCaesar's nose for the amusement ofspectators with a taste for coarsepleasantry, that he really intends to getlaughter after the cheap fashion of amusic-hall entertainer who travestiesShakespeare in references to the Princeof Denmark as Mr Gimlet, must be askedto realise that from end to end of Ccesarand Cleopatra the one attribute of MrShaw whicli is conspicuously working atleast pressure is his sense of fun. GiveMr Shaw his due. It is insulting tosuppose of tlie author of John BulVsOther Island that he is for one momenttrying to be funny in conscientiously sus-tained mispronunciations of Flatateeta,


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76 BERNARD SHAWnineteenth century was lieir. Just asCromwell's troopers smashed the saintsand heroes in the windows of the churchesso Mr Shaw has striven to cut off thehaloes from their reputation. We are inCcesar and Cleopatra invited to admireCaesar without the laurelMr Shaw'sconception of a hero. The genius of thishero is in hard work ; in seeing men andthings as they are ; in being capable ofthe intellectual detachment which ishumour ; in being susceptible to greatideas ; in professional enthusiasm forhis task of the moment. Moreover, thishero exhibits his superiority to thecommon run of men by talking on occa-sion vigorously and at length, not unlikeMr Bernard Shaw, on the immorality ofjudicial vengeance.

Nevertheless, and it is this whichmakes Ccesar and Cleopatra worthespecial attention, there is, all throughthe play, a parallel effort of the authorto create an illusion of grandeur andbeauty, of poetic glamour and illusion.


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AN EPITAPH 77This, again, we miss if we insist on read-ing Ccesar and Cleopatra as a funny play.To read it as a funny play wherein MrShaw, to make people laugh, dresses upan elderly gentleman in a toga, calls himJulius Csesar, feeds him on dates andbarley-water, and so forth, is to miss avery real tragedy of the modern theatre.Ccesar and Cleopatra is not the comedy ofJulius Caesar, but the tragedy of Mr Shaw.One feels so distinctly that Mr Shaw,who understands and can estimate socompetently the beauty which poetshave created, would give his head, andbecome as an idiot or a little child,if for five minutes he could compass inimagination a tithe of what he so clearlysees and understands ; but one also feelsthat the making of things beautiful is be-yond him . See with what critical acumen[Mr Shaw has contrived the opening of hisplay. Cultivated intelligence could nofurther go than the actual building of hissceneCaesar confronting the Sphinx,Cleopatra sleeping between her mighty


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78 BERNARD SHAWpaws. It is a perfect setting. Nor needwe quarrel with Mr Shaw's understand-ing of Csesar. There, as he stands beforetlie Sphinx, is Mr Shaw's extremely com-petent inventory of a great man. Wewait upon his wordsthat we may some-how share the emotion of this great manon this great occasion. Soon we areattending coldly and carefully to areasoned analysis in excellent prose ofthe feelings and ideas the Sphinx wouldprobably suggest to a successful personat the height of his career. There is acertain pleasure in following this veryefficient bit of exposition. But there isjust one thing conspicuously lackingthere is never one moment of illusion.Mr Shaw has formed certain conclusionsabout Caesar ; but we never for onemoment, after he begins to speak, be-lieve that here is Csesar before the Sphinxin 45 B.C. It is the same unhappy talethroughout. In vain are crowded intoa single actwith every invention thata brilliant intellect can suggest, with


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80 BERNARD SHAWwhen he aims at beauty he brings downa text. He has just enough aestheticvirtue in himself to make of him a toler-ably sure critic of the great art of theworld ; and this only makes the sadderhis own failure to create in that high kind.He cannot believe that the poor talk ofhis poet in Candida is really beautiful,and he cannot believe that his Cleopatrasits beside Antony's serpent of old Nile.He can only take upon Shakespeare themoralist's revenge of declaring thatthe immortal longings of Shakespeare'slovers are ethically reprehensible. Thatis all Mr Shaw's criticism of Shake-speare's Antony and of Shakespeare'splays at large really comes to in the end.

XIVMr Shaw's puritanism being estab-

lished, we at once come within view ofMr Shaw's letters and speeches on thewar. It is natural in a preacher that the


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AN EPITAPH 81most unpardonable sin of the many lie iscalled to denounce should be the sin ofcomplacency ; for the sin of complacencyvirtually amounts to the sin of refusingto hear what the preacher has to say ; or,at all events, of refusing to take it veryseriously. Mr Shaw has said continu-ously for many years that the averageman is an unsocial sinner ; and the aver-age man, instead of hanging his head andmending his ways, has smiled in the faceof the prophet. At one time the prophetwas stoned, and at another he waspoisoned, or ostracised, or pelted. Butwe have learned a more effective way ofdealing with a prophet. Either we turnhim into a society preacher, and enjoyhis denunciation of what our neighboursdo ; or we pay him handsomely to amuseus in the Press. We thus aim at destroy-ing not only the body of the prophet, butalso his conscienceusually with somesuccess.But we have never quite succeededwith Mr Shaw, who has continued to be


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AN EPITAPH 83he was born to chastise, he has madesome serious mistakes.

XVThus, when more than two years ago

the whole British nation was struck withgrief at the loss of the Titanic, and wasreading with a reasonable pride of thesplendid behaviour of her heroic crew,Mr Shaw rose in his robe of the prophet,and told the public not to exaggerate itsvicarious gallantry. Then in August1914, when Great Britain was strainingevery nerve to get her army to theContinent in time to save Belgium fromthe worst of war, Mr Shaw published anarticle in the British Press to the mis-taken and mischievous effect that GreatBritain's action had very little to do withthe sanctity of treaties, or the rights of alittle nation. Finally he wrote a pam-phlet entitled Commonsense and the War.This pamphlet has caused much brain-


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84 BERNARD SHAWsearching among those who have simply-regarded Mr Shaw as a very discreet andfinancially successful mountebank ; forMr Shaw, in writing this pamphlet, hasdone a clearly unpopular thing, whichhas undoubtedly angered and estrangedmany of his admirers. Some regard thepamphlet as an obscure attempt to dis-credit the Allied cause. Others regardit as an escapade of hateful levity, in-expedient from a patriotic point of viewand essentially wrong in its conclusions.The real point that concerns us here isthat the pamphlet is not a new, unex-pected, or isolated performance. It issimply a topical and a later edition ofWidowers' Houses : that is to say, it isa tract in which the case against com-placencyit differs from Widowers'Houses only in being a wholly imaginarycaseis put at a maximum by a fearlessand passionate advocate for the prosecu-tion.Not Mr Shaw, but the time, has

changed. Here we strike at the root of


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AN EPITAPH 85Mr Shaw's mistake. Hitherto he wasdoing salutary work in his campaignagainst the silent self-assurance of themean, sensual man. So long as GreatBritain was at peace with her neighbours,it was not altogether amiss that Mr Shawshould imagine that the Britisli, amongwhom he lived, were guiltier of the sinshe was eager to chastise than any otherextant community, and that he shouldlose no opportunity for satirical, ironical,comic, or didactic reproof. But, whenGreat Britain and her Allies had theirback to the wallwhen there wereopponents to be countered and metMrShaw's insular mistake that the Britishas a nation are any more complacentthan any other nation with a past tobe proud of, and a future to believe in,became a really injurious heresy. Itbegan, indeed, to look rather like givingaway his own people to the enemy. Thepatriotism of Commonsense and the Waris less apparent to tlie audiences whichlaugh at Bernard Shaw in the theatre.


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86 BERNARD SHAWand regard him as a privileged Fool at thecourt of King Demos, than the fact thatit begins by asserting that Sir E. Greyis a Junker, and goes on to examine veryparticularly whether we have really theright to condemn our enemies without apreliminary inquiry into our own affairs.Mr Shaw has looked so long for compla-cency in the British people that he hasneglected to perceive that, when Britishcomplacency is scratched, there is founda very solid prejudice beneath it infavour of fair dealing and honour. Theleast of the politicians knew in Augustlast that the British public, which couldnot be made to realise its own immediateperil, or to perceive that our friendshipwith France and Russia committed usabsolutely to waras assuredly it didthat this complacent and immovablepublic would be raised as one man by thecry of Belgium invaded. That is whyour public orators in those days invari-ably pinned our whole case upon theviolation of Belgian neutrality. It was


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AN EPITAPH 87the surest and quickest way to drivehome the necessity of war to the nation.It was not the prime motive of the states-men and diplomatists. These under-stood that peace with honour was im-possible from the moment that Franceand Russia were engaged. But Belgiumwas certainly the motive which raisedand united the whole country. Thatwas why the half of the Cabinet whichthinks first of popular feeling waited andwatched ; and that is where Mr Shawwas profoundly wrong. He has groundedupon the shallows where at last alllogical craft are wrecked which steer bysyllogisms at the English character.Mr Shaw's Commonsense and the Warwas a mischievous document which wasless than fair to his own people at a timewhen we could not afford to give pointsaway to the enemy. But it was notprompted by a wish to splash in waterstoo deep for the purposes of exhibition.It was the fruit of its autlior's moral wishthat we should go into the war with clean


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88 BERNARD SHAWconsciences and an open view. Common-sense and the War falls naturally into linewith the Plays for Puritans and theFabian Tracts.


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