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starts and the intellectual interest of the drama disappears, though 

 the moral interest undoubtedly remains. But there remains also the 

 semi-paradox that an intellectual dramatist is maintaining interest 

 only by his moral appeal. "Androcles" is much better than "Blanco 

 Posnet" for this reason: it retains an intellectual as well as a moral 

 interest; is the ideal of the early Christian really impracticable? 

 "Suppose" Mr. Shaw is here suggesting — "suppose we really try Chris- 

 tianity for the first time in the world as a real working system." Andro- 

 cles remains his best, or one of his best, dramas; there is nothing 

 intellectually cheap about it, as about Blanco and the Devil's Dis- 

 ciple; but what again the intellectual interest may be in "Widowers 

 Houses" I cannot discover; nor even much moral interest for that matter; 

 it appears to be a misanthropic picture of human nature, so wholly 

 and unrelievedly bad, especially the feminine variety of it, that no 

 hope remains for man, and interest disappears, .except in the sense 

 that Swift, the other Irish misanthrope, may still have an interest 

 for some readers. Ireland is full of misanthropy; its inhabitants 

 apparently enjoy despair; but despair is fatal to all interest, moral 

 and intellectual, in the works it produces, except for Irish readers who 

 love despair and negation and insoluble problems for their own sakes 

 and would feel quite downhearted if a problem were solved. 



I need not run through the catalogue of Mr. Shaw's plays ; some, 

 like "Mrs. Warren's Profession," are quite edifying, but intellectually 

 even cheaper than Blanco Posnet; others are sheer fun and delightful 

 farces, like Pygmalion ; the humour whereof is abundant but does 

 not come under either of the heads with which I am concerned. 



Something reminds me of a stroke of satire from Mr. Goldwin 

 Smith which does fall under these heads; under the Plato, Lowell, 

 Shaw head — " 'Give me liberty, or give me death,' said Patrick Henry, 

 and bought another slave." The interest in that sharp lunge at Irish 

 rhetoric, is moral obviously, and not intellectual. But Mr. Goldwin 

 Smith's epigrams were not always at the expense of common human 

 insincerity; there is another epigram hardly relevant here for it is not 

 humourous or satiric, but not less characteristic of its author, at the 

 expense of one of the most popular humanitarian ideals, universal 

 education; it means, said Mr. Goldwin Smith, "Sensibility without 

 bread." I quote it only to illustrate the point that Mr. Smith coined 

 epigrams on each side against common human nature, and against 

 the idealists; in the vein of Plato and in the vein of Aristophanes; as 

 an intellectual who was also idealistic and humanitarian, he could 

 appreciate in turn each school of humour and satire; but as a moralist 

 and Puritan at heart I think, he probably found greater pleasure or 



Sec. II, Sig. 2 



