The Shining Pyramid (collection)/Mandatum Novissimum
MANDATUM NOVISSIMUM
There is a certain puzzling question that I often think over. It is something like this: Suppose a painter coming from his studio, conscious of hopeless failure in the picture that was to have been the sum of all his art; a writer laying down his pen with the cold conviction that his "great romance" is in reality a tenth-rate novel; a husband standing by the death-bed of his wife. The problem which perplexes me is—would anyone of these three be rendered any happier by the offer of a dinner at a first class restaurant, with a box for one of Mr. Shaw's plays to follow? Personally, I don't think even he finest consommé would be balm in either of these three cases; and so I don't believe Mr. Shaw is right when he says that Poverty is the great Evil of Evils, and that if everybody had a pound a day for life everybody would be happy. I believe on the contrary, that many men with a pound a day could be produced who are not at all happy; that it is a demonstrable fact that there is no connection whatever between money and happiness. I presume, of course, that Mr. Shaw means by "money" that which money can purchase—comfortable houses, nice dinners, and a month in the Highlands—for the universal consent has pronounced the man who loves money for its own sake as above all men miserable.
The fact is, I have been reading the preface to "Major Barbara," called by Mr. Shaw "First Aid to Critics." One may pass by the paragraphs which show the critics to have been mistaken in deriving that which Mr. Shaw calls the Shavian Anschauung from "Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy, or some other heresiarch in northern or eastern Europe." The ingenious author sets us right on this point, and one feels gratified. There are many people who are content to take rather a steep walk from Cheltenham up to the hills where the tiny sources of the Thames are to be seen; and they remember the bubbling wells afterwards when they stand on London Bridge and view the mighty flood roll outward to the sea. But this information as to Mr. Shaw's origins, though deeply interesting in itself, is not altogether to my purpose, which is more concerned with the Anschauung itself than with its primal founts. Mr. Shaw, of course, is a dangerous subject to handle; I am told that he is very fond of jokes, and does not always quite mean what he says; still, one must accept the written word for what it is worth, and bear the inevitable jocularity with the best grace possible.
I gather, then, that our ingenious author thinks that the greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty. This is the firm belief of one of the characters in "Major Barbara," but Mr. Shaw speaks of Undershaft's conviction of this "irresistible natural truth," so with hesitation, I am content to accept this doctrine of poverty as Mr. Shaw's own belief; especially as a few pages farther on Mr. Cobden-Sanderson's plan of Universal Pensions for Life is declared to be the solution of the industrial problem. Again; we have the declaration that any punishment of any kind is a malicious injury, and an act of diabolical cruelty. An instance is given: suppose a burglar broke into Mr. Shaw's house and stole his wife's diamonds, it would be a "monstrous retaliation" on Mr. Shaw's part if he got the man ten years' penal servitude. On the same principle we are told that the Anarchist attempt to blow the King and Queen of Spain to pieces on their wedding day was natural enough, though foolish; while, on the other hand, the attempts of the authorities to arrest the assassin with the view of punishing him were "a raging fire of malice," and the people who wanted to catch him were "human wolves howling for his blood." And here one must speak out. Mr. Shaw, who will be after his jokes, gives, as I have noted, a formidable list of his literary ancestors. These are Charles Lever, a Mr. Ernest Belfort Bax, a Captain Wilson (the captain had a very poor opinion of the Sermon on the Mount), a Mr. Stuart Glennie, and the author of "Erewhon"—all are little rivulets that have gone to feed the great flood called George Bernard Shaw. But Mr. Shaw will be jesting. All that discourse of anarchism to which I have alluded, all the fun about the Spanish Anarchist and the bomb are taken straight out of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Dynamiter"—a capital book, though Mr. William Archer does not like it very much. If I may be "Shavian" for one little moment, if I may for a fleeting instant wear the cloak of the prophet, I may say that I have not yet attempted to give an eager public any insight into the springs and fountains of the "Machenian Anschauung"—it really looks rather well! But—to be serious—I may say that I have some title to speak about "The Dynamiter," because I "conveyed" its manner and methods for a book of mine called "The Three Impostors." I was not so fortunate as Mr. Shaw; the reviewers told me quite simply that I had cribbed from Stevenson. It must be so much nicer to have an Anschauung, and to derive it from a formidable list of heresiarchs. But, as a student of "The Dynamiter," I must reiterate my conviction that the poor Spaniard, striking his little blow for the Good and the True, trying his poor best to make the earth a paradise by inflicting cruel and violent death upon two harmless young people, and then flying, poor hunted creature, from "the wolves howling for his blood"—all this is pure "Dynamiter." The Irish-American in that moving history walks through Leicester Square, full of old men and small children and nursery maids, wondering where he can plant his instrument of wholesale death to the best advantage, and while he looks out for a cosy corner, he suddenly reflects on the fact that the savage hounds of tyranny may even now be on his trail, that if his mission were known he might be torn to pieces by a cruel and ruthless mob. I think he sheds tears; I am sure Mr. Shaw has wept not a little over the fate of the "fulminating" Spaniard. Indeed, as he says, the Spaniards are fond of bullfighting, which, to be sure, is a cruel pastime enough. And, of course, if people like bullfighting, it is simple reason that their young King and Queen should be blown to fragments—and if a few royal servants and spectators and poor folk are blown to bits with them, why, all the better, as such treatment teaches us that we must not be cruel and shut up burglars in nasty prisons. Still, I think G. B. S. might have mentioned R. L. S. Captain Wilson, who didn't approve of the Counsels of Perfection, and Mr. Ernest Belfort Bax, a "ruthless critic of current morality," no doubt sound more serious and respectable; but I wish Mr. Shaw had not forgotten the poor teller of many tales.
But we must not wander from our proper field. We have seen that Poverty is the greatest of crimes and evils, that £365 per annum for every body would mean the Golden Age, that all punishment is wrong—except punishment inflicted on innocent people by courageous souls. Let it be once more repeated: to "fulminate" those who mean only good is natural, and proper, and excellent, things being as they are; to send a maquereau or a torturer of children to gaol is a horrible and inhuman outrage; it is equivalent to decreeing that everyone found to be suffering from chicken-pox shall be immediately inoculated with smallpox.
Let us also remember that to teach children: "that it is sinful to desire money is to strain upwards the extreme possible limit of impudence in lying, and corruption in hypocrisy. The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilisation, the one sound spot in our social conscience. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honour, generosity and beauty as conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness. . . . Money is the counter that enables life to be distributed socially: it is life as truly as sovereigns and bank notes are money."
This is, indeed, the new Evangel; here is "hustle" with a halo, with a vengeance! Sancte Rockefeller, ora pro nobis; O Blessed Beit, intercede for us; O Holy Barnato, pray for us. O all ye holy and blessed millionaires, who, despising (with the singular Captain Wilson, the vigorous Belfort Bax, the Beatific Butler, with all other adulterating and admirable plutocrats) who, despising the joys of poverty, the delights of Conformity, the pleasures of submission, all ye who, trampling on celestial joys, have gloriously elected to trample on the poor, who have amassed enormous sums in sound Government securities, in investments which nothing can touch, who thinking nought of the treasure in heaven have laid up vast treasure on earth—all ye blessed ones, intercede for us.
Then we should Commemorate and Give Thanks for all who (after the example of blessed and venerable Captain Wilson) despised the meek and humble of the earth, who have trodden on the faces of the oppressed, who have maintained in the Dialectical Society and elsewhere that Great is the glory of the Upper Dog; all good and holy tyrants who have ground the faces of the poor to teach them the evil of poverty, all sanctified manufacturers who have won riches through the lives of helpless men and women, and girls and little children, all hallowed, glorious, and perfect Americans who, despising kings, have made a hell of their own, all excellent and worthy Representative Bodies, who in the Wonderful Name of Democracy have made a very pretty penny out of the People, all Humble and Holy Theorists who out of Love of Humanity have massacred their thousands, and have realised considerable sums by the process—these we commemorate, for these do we give thanks.
Certainly: for money is life.
It is a glorious Canon, is it not: the Rite of Bernard Shaw—the Shavian Liturgy? It is new, it is of the twentieth century, it is made for the "salons" of hopeless old female idiots who must be putting a finger into that which they do not understand, who, lacking the manners of a Hottentot, must be posing as successors of the great ladies of the old régime. It is new, certainly, for it is very different from the cry of the saints under the altar, who know not how long oppression and violence and wrong shall be suffered to continue, from the praise of a Great Failure that has always instinctively issued from all worthy human hearts from the beginning of the world. "The Lamb that was Slain!" We have outgrown all that! Let us sing the Successful Financier who has brought it off, and liveth in Park Lane, who has decided that Poverty is "the one thing he will not tolerate."
Again: let us say that it is very good. We know that poverty is the greatest of crimes and the greatest of evils, that all punishment is ferocious savagery, that bomb-throwing is as innocent as daisies and lambs in spring, that Wealth is Wisdom, that George Bernard Shaw does not believe in Gibbets—differing from St. Paul in that respect. What is the end?
Why, in the blessed future, anybody who does not see eye to eye with that Anschauung must be sent to the Lethal Chamber like a Mad Dog. This is the Final Reward of Non-Conformists in the New Shawrusalem:
"It would be far more sensible to put up with their vices as we put up with their illnesses until they give more trouble than they are worth, at which point we should, with many apologies and expressions of sympathy, and some generosity in complying with their last wishes, place them in the lethal chamber and get rid of them. Under no circumstances should they be allowed to expiate their misdeeds by a manufactured penalty, to subscribe to a charity, or to compensate the victims. . . . Not content with the old scapegoat and sacrificial lamb, we deify human saviours and pray to miraculous Virgin intercessors."
O wonderful condescension, O admirable compassions! No longer do we send the cruel rascal to his cell: we suffocate him in the lethal chamber, with many apologies and expressions of sympathy. Must we not all pray that the Kingdom of Bernard Shaw may come? How sweet to be poisoned with many apologies and expressions of sympathy, in place of the cruel savagery of "forty shillings or a month."
Frankly, I am tired of all this. Mr. Shaw is, I am sure, a very clever man. His dramatic entertainments seem, on the whole, the only reason for regarding the English stage with the slightest atom of respect; and, quite seriously, I think that if he had given his mind to the work he might have assumed a high place in the company of the great English comic dramatists—with Sheridan and Oscar Wilde. Those who are honest know the go and come of the English theatre, they know how in certain remote days a wild orgy of rubbishy plays and of rubbishy criticism rioted on the English stage and in the English newspapers. There were depths and depths; the frantically idiotic was praised by Mr. Clement Scott, and then again Mr. William Archer announced that a new heaven and a new earth had arrived with the coming of Ibsen—not only as a playwright, but as a prophet of all things. One would have reverenced Mr. William Archer, if he had not turned out to be the most accomplished apologist of the clever fraud—of the box-office "substitute"—that has ever existed. Now let it be said that Mr. Shaw's plays are, at all events, intelligent, and interesting. They are not a succession of clever tricks; but the genuine pronouncements of a genuine thinker, who has chosen the dramatic form—without much respect, be it said, to the conventions of the theatre. It is excellent; and one lifts one's hat to Mr. George Bernard Shaw for his honest endeavour to show that the English stage is not, of necessity, the cynosure of nursery-maids and of saloon-bar Solomons. I remember a far-off night: the late Sir Henry Irving had produced at the Lyceum the shameful, putrid, and abominable travesty of a noble spiritual legend called the Morte d'Arthur. I was sitting, groaning, and smoking a pipe, to the scandal of the habitués, when there entered two typical first-nighters—the shiny, bediamonded, beshirted ruffians who infest the London stalls at a production.
"Wonderful," said Number I.
"Admirable," said Number II.
"We come here expecting perfection—and we get it," said Number I.
And they swallowed their bad whisky at one-and-sixpence a glass, which was not so venomous as the poison that was being discussed on the stage. We may be thankful that to some extent these bad old days are over—that it is no longer possible to travesty the noblest masterpieces amidst flatulent and universal approval, and I think that Mr. Shaw is one, and perhaps the strongest, of the influences that have brought about this good result.
Butthe fact of having written a play that is not a decoction of rice-pudding and whisky-and-soda is not in itself a degree in philosophy. One may even fill the Court Theatre and not be in a position to rise superior to all the thought of all the ages; though I am sure that to fill any theatre is a very stimulating and exciting feat. I am not forgetting Mr. Shaw's other achievements; he said some very smart things about the Holy Trinity in the Savoy. I know what courage this sort of thing needs, and personally I think that there ought to be an Order in recognition of these daring sallies. Still, there may be some things hidden from an Irish Protestant.
The fact is that Mr. Shaw is simply an ordinary case of a man brought up in that horrible travesty of religion called Protestantism—only in this especial case the man happens to have brains and a heart. In the usual run of circumstances these items are missing, and one goes into business and subscribes to the Society for the Conversion of the Jews, and builds a factory, and lays waste a pleasant country, and enters Parliament—and, very likely, professes an enormous enthusiasm for the people that one has enslaved. The recognised method of showing that one is the people's friend is to say some hard things of the Bishops. Mr. Shaw has penetrated beyond this; he sees that a successful manufacturer is, by many degrees, more poisonous than a burglar; he sees that the great majority of people are poor and wretched, and he concludes that they are wretched because they are poor. Here, I think, is the deadly error. It is really quite obvious; it is past denial. The poor are not inevitably wretched; the wealthy are by no means happy because of their wealth. Not a pound a day, not a thousand pounds a day can make any man a whit happier; for that there needs some inward miracle, some process of the spirit that is beyond all social systems, that knows nothing of aristocracy or democracy, that laughs at poor and rich alike. I come back to my original illustration: the wounds of the spirit cannot ever be healed by the exhibition of a consommé, however artfully prepared; and when one has said this, one has answered the whole question of the distribution of wealth. It is quite true that the meek shall inherit the earth; but that does not precisely mean that those who exercise the lodger franchise shall be as happy as they who dwell in Park Lane. They may be much happier, or not nearly so happy.
One is afraid that the whole Socialist movement is vitiated by this monstrous fallacy: that the people with big incomes are well off, and therefore happy; therefore, everybody should have big incomes. Mr. Shaw, of course, who knew a Captain Wilson (with a very poor opinion of the Sermon on the Mount), is quite certain that everything would be all right if only everybody could live in Park Lane—because, then, of course, there could be no burglars—but he has really lived long enough on the earth to know that the true riches are not in having and gaining, but in refusing and renouncing. One is sorry for a man of intelligence who is not aware of the fact that a beggar dying in the gutter may be infinitely happier than a millionaire of advanced views living in a sham Gothic palace, in a country without an Established Church.