Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/31

THE INNOCENCE OF BERNARD SHAW 5 ring the curtain up. Your deliberate martyr, after all, no matter how he fails, has a certain splendour that makes the Comic Spirit feel respectful ; and the more undignified Shaw became for the sake of a high purpose, the more dignified would he actually appear. It is not futility, it is fatuity, that legitimates laughter ; and in Shaw's case the fun only really begins when we see that this self-sacrifice was quite unintentional, that the martyrdom which he now mentions with such a brave lightness and sad pride was not only a mistaken policy, but actually quite a mistake. It was to cook his own dinner that he kindled the fire that turned and tortured him. He went to Smithfield because he thought it a good market-place. The entire proceeding was a practical joke lazily played on an overeager young innocent by the world he imagined he was taking firmly in hand. His " disguise " was a dress he slipped on as unsuspectingly as a man whose clothes have been changed overnight ; and when he began to skip about in it like " a privileged lunatic " (a mad mixture of harlequin and hermit), it was he who was the dupe, not society. . . . And if some one suggests (as some one ought to do) that no practical joke fails so wretchedly as the one that entirely succeeds, we can still defend, with quiet dignity, our present proposal for a few minutes* mirth. It is true, indeed, that the game has gone rather far — that the joke of Shaw thinking of him- self as the joker when he was actually the victimized jokee, proves after all to have been made at our expense. If it had been merely a case of a mediocrity smirking self-satisfied when he ought to be feeling subdued, like an actor persuading himself that his involuntary tumble was a brilliant impromptu, then we might chuckle unchecked, undeterred by any danger of hurting the hero's complacency, and thank-