THE INNOCENCE OF BERNARD SHAW
"Let him beware of his damned century; his gifts of insane chivalry and animated narration are just those that might be slain and thrown out like an untimely birth by the Dæmon of the Epoch."—Robert Louis Stevenson, in a Letter.
"He is perhaps a 'fraud,' as the Americans put it; but the first victim of Bernard Shaw's charlatanism is Bernard Shaw himself. Susceptible to impressions (as are all artists) and a philosopher at the same time, he cannot do otherwise than deceive himself."—Auguste Rodin, in a Conversation.
When part of this impression first appeared (in a special number of The Bookman) it was hailed as "a brilliant attack." I want to say at once that it is only a diffident defence. Quite simply and sincerely, with a strong sense of presumption, it comes forward to make excuses for our most mordant accuser; it is an honest attempt to discover the cause of the disparity between Mr. Shaw's superb powers and his performances, between the work he might have done for us—the work he wanted to do for us—and the work he has actually done; and as it gropes and taps sympathetically it does come delightedly on evidence which seems to prove overwhelmingly that the real villain of the piece is—not the author of Androcles—but that wasteful, wanton mocker whose present alias is The Life Force, which actually completed its frustration of Mr. Shaw's career by sardonically setting him to work to sing its praises. There is something positively conspiratorial in the cunning logic of events which drove this splendid Irishman astray; he was plucked about like a puppet
2
