University of Virginia Library

SHAW A PROPHET OF HUMILITY TO THE ENGLISH

THUS when, more than two years ago, the whole British nation was struck with grief at the loss of the Titanic, and was reading with a reasonable pride of the splendid behavior of her heroic crew, Bernard Shaw rose in his robe of the prophet and told the public not to exaggerate its vicarious gallantry. Then in August, 1914, when Great Britain was straining every nerve to get her army to the Continent in time to save Belgium from the worst of war, Bernard Shaw published an article in the British press virtually to the effect that Great Britain was not fighting for the sanctity of treaties or the rights of a little nation, but for British homes and British skins. Maliciously he chose for the publication of this assault upon British complacency the most obstinately and hatefully complacent British newspaper at his disposal.

Finally there came the celebrated pamphlet "Commonsense and the War." This must be read as Bernard Shaw's most audacious effort to puncture the self-esteem of the British public. It has caused much brain-searching among those who have simply regarded George Bernard Shaw as a very discreet and financially successful mountebank; for Bernard Shaw, in writing this pamphlet, has done a clearly unpopular thing. Undoubtedly he has angered and estranged many of his admirers. Some regard the pamphlet as an obscure attempt to discredit the allied cause. Others regard it as an escapade of revolting levity, inexpedient from a patriotic point of view and essentially wrong in its conclusions. The real point that concerns us here is that the pamphlet is not a new, unexpected, or isolated performance of Bernard Shaw, but a natural sequel of all he has hitherto written. Those who have followed Bernard Shaw to the threshold of his pamphlet on the war have no right at this time to be astonished or to refuse him their applause. "Commonsense and the War" is simply a topical and a later edition of "Widower's Houses." That is to say, it is a tract in which the case against British complacency is put at a maximum by a fearless and passionate advocate for the prosecution.

Not Bernard Shaw, but the time, has changed. Here we strike at the root of Bernard Shaw's mistake. Hitherto, he was doing salutary work in his campaign

against the silent self-assurance of the mean, sensual man. There are as many complacent persons in Great Britain as elsewhere, and so long as Great Britain was at peace with her neighbors, it was beneficial that Bernard Shaw should imagine that the British, among whom he lived, were more guilty in this respect than any other extant community, and that he should lose no opportunity for satirical, ironical, comic, or didactic reproof. But when Great Britain and her allies had their back to the wall, when there were opponents to be countered and met, Bernard Shaw's insular mistake that the British as a nation are any more complacent than any other nation with a past to be proud of and a future to believe in became a really injurious heresy. It began, indeed, to look rather like giving away his people to the enemy. Of course it was nothing of the kind. "Commonsense and the War," intelligently read, vibrates with patriotism, and it proudly proclaims the essential rightness of the struggle in which Great Britain is now engaged. But the patriotism of "Commonsense and the War" is less apparent to the audiences which laugh at Bernard Shaw in the theater and outrageously regard him as a privileged fool at the court of King Demos, than the fact that it begins by asserting that Sir Edward Grey is a Junker, and goes on to examine whether we really have the right to condemn our enemies without a preliminary inquiry into our own consciences and affairs.

Bernard Shaw has made a mistake, but it is a natural, not an ignoble, mistake. It will have no permanent effect upon those who are sensible, even in Bernard Shaw's most special pleading, of the passionate moral sincerity which gives consistency and fire to all he writes. "Commonsense and the War" was a blunder; but it was also an act of disinterested courage. It was not dictated by any wish to stand in front of the picture or to splash in a sea too deep for purposes of exhibition. Bernard Shaw, in writing "Commonsense and the War," is simply the priest who insists upon sacrifice before going into battle, or believes that every good fight should be preceded by confession, absolution, and high mass.