It is Shaw's chief distinction that, for the sake of sentiment, he would deny sentiment. “I verily believe,” a distinguished author once remarked to me, “that Mr. Shaw lives in mortal terror of the public for fear it will discover his great secret: the possession of a warm heart.” His reaction is not against the sentiment which civic virtue and personal integrity bespeak, but against the popular clap-trap, romanticized notion of sentiment which to the unilluded goes by the name of sentimentality. Bernard Shaw is a man of tremendous sentiment—social and humanitarian sentiment. Sociologic thought and social service are the ruling moral passions of his life.
“The final ideal for civic life,” he said in a public address not long ago, “is that every man and every woman should set before themselves this goal—that by the labour of their lifetime they shall pay the debt of their rearing and their education, and also contribute sufficient for a handsome maintenance during their old age. And more than that: why should not a man say: 'When I die my country shall be in my debt.' Any man who has any religious belief will have the dream that it is not only possible to die with his country in his debt but with God in his debt also.”
The germ of Shaw's philosophy of life may be found in these words:
“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatsoever I can.
“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' for me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
FOOTNOTES:
[245] The journal of the Chirological Society, edited by Mrs. K. St. Hill and Mr. Charles F. Rideal.
[246] Rodin and Bernard Shaw, by Mrs. John van Vorst; in Putnam's Monthly and the Critic, February, 1908.
[247] Unfortunately this portrait has a somewhat flouting and cynical expression, produced chiefly by the protruding under-lip. In answer to a question of mine on the subject, in which I pointed out that the feature was untrue to life, Mr. Lytton replied: “The unfortunate expression to which you refer does not represent my interpretation of Bernard Shaw's character or attitude towards the world, but is the result of my effort to accentuate the likeness of Shaw to the original of Velásquez. Personally, I am a great admirer of Bernard Shaw.”
[248] The photogravure facing page 468.