THE INNOCENCE OF BERNARD SHAW 35 Some people call that courage ; it is really self- indulgence. It is poetry perverted, imagination amok, a pure love of harmony, gaiety, sufficiency, intoxicated by the rush of recitative and simply carried away out of joyfulness into a rising crescendo of wrath. Stifle a virtue and you always get a vice — and out- bursts like these are simply the revenges taken by his temperament for being thwarted. And, regarded as revenges, their success is profound — for they utterly ruin the cause for which the sacrifice was made. No doubt at all about that. Exactly as in Ruskin's case, the piston-rod rhetoric sinks the ship it was invented to drive ; the imaginations of both these men, turned into wrong channels, ruined the cases they were kidnapped to plead. Shavian rhap- sodies like that either produce patronizing titters, as at the newest caper of our mountebank ; or else an irritation that ends in opposition. Whilst poor humanity's humblest answer to such trouncings and tirades would after all be by far the most crushing : " You say I am a duffer, a weakling, a coward ? My kindheartedness merely cowardice, my morals a mush, my honour a pitiable sham? Very well. You are wiser than I am ; are indeed (if I take you aright) the very Universe become articulate and aware ; I am therefore bound to believe what you say. Only, if these are my qualities, then they must also be your keyboard. It is upon them you must play in order to alter and guide me. Deftly adapting your message to my stupidity and cowardice, you will tactfully teach me the truth. Yet — you don't do this. I misunderstand you completely — you say so yourself. But to me, in my darkness, that seems simply a proof that — you must have misunderstood me. You say you see all my weaknesses ; I appoint you my teacher ; five minutes later you start flogging me like a positive Squeers for my failure to comprehend
