“Would you put up with strong language from me,” queries Mrs. Farrell pertinently, “because I've risked me life eight times in childbed?”
“My dear Mrs. Farrell,” expostulates the General, “you surely would not compare a risk of that harmless kind to the fearful risks of the battlefield?”
“I wouldn't compare risks run to bear livin' people into the world to risks run to blow them out of it,” replies Mrs. Farrell conclusively. “A mother's risk is jooty; a soldier's is nothin' but divilment.”
The popular hysteria in the fear of German invasion is reflected with great cleverness in the discussions between Mitchener and Balsquith, and Mitchener's vigorous asseveration caps the climax.
“Let me tell you, Balsquith, that in these days of aeroplanes and Zeppelin airships the question of the moon is becoming one of the greatest importance. It will be reached at no very distant date. Can you, as an Englishman, tamely contemplate the possibility of having to live under a German moon?”
Shaw's admirable art in character-creation is portrayed in the figure of the orderly, a very minor part. In a brief scene or two, he shows us a definite, clear-cut character, full of humour, consistency and point. The orderly, with the sharpened vision of common sense, has penetrated the great drawback to military service in England. The National Service League might well ponder Shaw's words: “With regard to military service, the only real objection to it in this country is the fact that at present the man who enlists as a soldier loses all his civil rights and becomes simply an abject slave. Sooner than submit to such conditions, which are wholly unnecessary and mischievous, the country, I consider, would be perfectly justified in resisting any such measure by violent revolution.
“On the other hand, there is no reason why a man should not be compelled to do military service just as he is compelled to serve on a jury or to pay his taxes, provided that his civil rights are unimpaired.”
FOOTNOTES:
[181] In a subsequent volume will be indicated in detail Mr. Archer's intimate relation to the growth of popular interest in Shaw's plays.
[182] This parallel was called to my attention by Professor William Lyon Phelps, of Yale University. Compare, for example, Tanner's long outburst against the chains of wedlock with Mirabell's, “I must not lose my liberty, dear lady, and like a wanton slave cry for more shackles,” etc., etc. In reply to a question of mine in regard to indebtedness, Mr. Shaw replied: “Why, I never thought of such a thing! As a matter of fact, the old English comedies are so artificial and mechanical, that I always forget them before I have finished reading them.”