Lastly, there is the creed of the dying artist, beginning with the words: “I believe in Michelangelo, Velásquez, and Rembrandt”—universally deplored as impossible, to say nothing of its being in execrable taste. “This creed of the dying artist,” Shaw found himself forced to explain, “which has been reprobated on all hands as a sally of which only the bad taste of a Bernard Shaw could be capable, is openly borrowed with gratitude and admiration by me from one of the best known prose writings of the most famous man of the nineteenth century. In Richard Wagner's well-known story, dated 1841, and translated under the title, An End in Paris, by Mr. Ashton Ellis (Vol. VII. of his translation of Wagner's prose works), the dying musician begins his creed with 'I believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven.'”[202]
In The Doctor's Dilemma medical quackery and humbug are portrayed with a satiric verve truly Molièresque. The long first act does little to further the action beyond indicating that “to put a tube of serum into Bloomfield-Bonington's hands is murder—simple murder,” and suggesting that Ridgeon has a temporary “idiosyncrasy” to fall in love with the first pretty woman that comes along. The real purpose of the first act is to portray the state of modern medical science; the quackeries of M. Purgon and Mr. Diafoirus come at once to mind, and one feels that the picture drawn by Shaw is done much as Molière would have done it, had he been alive to-day. In Dubedat Mr. Max Beerbohm has discovered a strong resemblance to the Roderick Hudson of Henry James. One catches here and there, too, a suggestion of the Oscar Wilde who said: “If one love art at all, one must love it beyond all things in the world, and against such love the reason, if one listened to it, would cry out. There is nothing sane about the worship of beauty. It is something entirely too splendid to be sane. Those of whose lives it forms the dominant note will always seem to the world to be pure visionaries.” This figure of a clever young artist, of rare charm of temperament and phenomenal executive skill, who came to an early, untimely end through disease had several prototypes in actual life; but on the whole Dubedat must be regarded as a composite picture, and not a portrait.” Dubedat raises the eternal question as to how far genius is a morbid symptom.[203] The most notable passage in the play is the discussion between Sir Colenso Ridgeon and Sir Patrick Cullen as to the worthlessness of Dubedat, and the value of Blenkinsop.
“Well, Mr. Saviour of Lives,” asks Sir Patrick, “which is it to be—that honest man, Blenkinsop, or that rotten blackguard of an artist, eh?”
Playbill of The Doctor's Dilemma.
Schauspielhaus, Cologne. January 23d, 1910. One hundred and sixty-first performance.
Playbill of Arms and the Man.
Schauspielhaus, Frankfurt. October 6th, 1906. First performance at this theatre.
“It's not an easy case to judge, is it?” queries Ridgeon. “Blenkinsop's an honest, decent man; but is he any use? Dubedat's a rotten blackguard; but he's a genuine source of pretty and pleasant and good things.”