V
One entertains oneself with noting how differently an experience of life presents itself to Mr. Galsworthy from the way in which it presents itself to Mr. Bernard Shaw. Mr. Galsworthy sends Falder, in his play "Justice," to prison and flattens him out. Mr. Shaw sends Margaret Knox and Bobby Gilbert, in "Fannie's First Play," to prison and amazingly enlarges their lives. What utterly depresses Mr. Galsworthy, stimulates and even exalts Mr. Shaw. If Mr. Galsworthy tortures us to the point at which we wish to rush out of the theatre and raze Wormwood Scrubbs and Pentonville to the ground, Mr. Shaw causes us to feel that each of us might be considerably benefitted by a sojourn there. Mr. Galsworthy sees a gaol as a place where thought is destroyed or embittered: Mr. Shaw sees it as a place where thought is provoked and clarified; and between them, a simple-minded person cannot make up his mind whether to subscribe to the funds of the Howard League for Penal Reform or to advocate penal servitude for every one in the interests of Higher Thought. Adversity, says Mr. Galsworthy, knocks a man down. Adversity, says Mr. Shaw, braces him up. The first statement may fill a man with pity, but the latter is more likely to make a hero of him.