Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/32

6 THE INNOCENCE OF BERNARD SHAW fully accepting his absurdity as his real contribution to the play. But this performer is such a fine one, his powers are so extraordinary, that any illusion he may suffer from, any mistake he may make, is immeasurably our loss. Our damned century has tripped him up, as Stevenson foretold, and that is, no doubt, very clever of our century. But it is surely a pretty silly sort of cleverness that hoodwinks its own children, fooling the very cleverest of them all to show its strength. True — but listen further ; there is one thing more. How would it be if the benefits of Shaw's work were actually increased by the discovery that their author was a dupe? That is precisely what happens. There are several reasons. It removes the venom from his virulence, for one thing, reduces our resentfulness, leaves him, immensely more likable, just a poor puzzled creature like ourselves. And it also provides the perfect complement and corrective to his con- tribution of ideas. There is only one way to give Shaw's work any adequacy, to make his utility at all proportionate to his powers, and this is to see him as a gull. To watch the man who supremely prides himself on his freedom from illusions, and on the irresistible power of pure thought, being used as an idle toy by superior powers at the very moment he is triumphantly proving their non-existence, is to be the spectator of something far more than a mere final farce to send us away in good humour ; it is to watch an integral scene that entirely alters and immensely deepens the meaning of those that go before. Add Shaw himself to his dramatis personce, and the latter begin to kindle and grow human ; make the story of his deception an extra act to all his plays, and they begin to teach a genial tolerance and to breathe a smiling wisdom which, it must be admitted, they do not otherwise exhale. They lose