Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/59

33 THE INNOCENCE OF BERNARD SHAW 33 juices and chills them with gall, embittering the ultimate fruit ; it is that initial, unnatural theory of the virtue of venom (as though a serpent's wisdom were communicated by its fangs !) that has governed the whole habit of the growth. It makes its pity appear pitiless, it curdles its kindliness, it forces the chivalry to emerge as contempt. The exasperating thing about all Shaw's utterances isn't their surface savagery or cynicism ; it is the sight of the sweet sap being choked and changed behind ; cut through the metallic coating that covers all his leaves with that glib, repellent, acrid shine, and you get generosity, wonder, wistfulness, awe, any amount of lovableness and love. His heart is in the right place ; it is only his tongue that has gone wrong ; it has taken a per- manent twist into his cheek. When he tries to preach gentleness, it turns the words into jeers ; it makes him malevolent in the cause of mercy, quarrelsome in the name of peace ; and when he strives to shout friendly advice this interpreter, tutored too well, changes the message into a cold snarl of disdain. He sits down to write a play (called Widowers' Houses) pleading the cause of the oppressed ; and the result makes the whole world howl him down as heartless and inhuman. He writes another {Major Barbara) to demonstrate "the central truth of Christianity — the vanity of revenge and punishment," and his hearers shiver at the sight of its ferocity. When he tries to stop the practice of cutting up live animals he can only do so by rending the character of doctors. He believes that "every man is a temple of the Holy Ghost " and promptly calls us ** shirks, duffers, malingerers, weaklings, cowards." All his announcements are denouncements ; he must attack to defend, his affirmations reach our ears as denials, all his most positive utterances seem harsh strings of no's. Me7i of Letters. A