[118] The conclusive cryptographic proof that Bernard Shaw wrote the plays usually attributed to Shakespeare—discovered by Mr. S. T. James, of Leeds.
CHAPTER IX
When the history of the last quarter of the nineteenth century comes to be written, it will be seen that the name of Bernard Shaw is inextricably linked with five epoch-making movements of our contemporary era. The Collectivist movement in politics, ethics and sociology; the Ibsen-Nietzschean movement in morals; the reaction against the materialism of Marx and Darwin; the Wagnerian movement in music; and the anti-romantic movement in literature and art—these are the main currents of modern thought for which Shaw has unfalteringly sought to open a passage into modern consciousness.
On the death of Mr. Edmund Yates, the editor of the World, in 1894, Shaw gave up his “labour of Hercules” as music critic of that paper, and was succeeded by Mr. Robert Hichens. By this time Shaw had only one more critical continent to conquer; but he wanted the right editor, he has told us—“one with the virtues of Yates—and some of his faults as well, perhaps.” On Mr. Frank Harris's revival of the Saturday Review, it was matter for no surprise that the author of The Quintessence of Ibsenism and of four plays besides, should have been offered the post of dramatic critic on that magazine. Shaw did not begin his career as an actor, as is sometimes stated; he never was on the stage, nor ever dreamt of going on it. He has taken part in a copyrighting performance, and once acted at some theatricals, got up for the benefit of an old workman member of the “International,” with Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx, May Morris, and Sidney Pardon, all amateurs; and impersonated a photographer at William Morris's house at one of the soirées of the Socialist League. But there is not the remotest foundation for the statement that he began his career as an actor. Although Shaw had written a number of plays, he realized that dramatic authorship no more constitutes a man a critic than actorship constitutes him a dramatic author; but he rightly judged that a dramatic critic learns as much from having been a dramatic author as Shakespeare or Pinero from having been actors. It was his chief distinction to have touched life at many points; unlike many contemporary dramatic critics, he had not specialized to such an extent as to lose his character as man and citizen, and become a mere playgoer. “My real aim,” he asserted in reference to his work on the Saturday Review, “is to widen the horizon of the critic, especially of the dramatic critic, whose habit at present is to bring a large experience of stage life to bear on a scanty experience of real life, although it is certain that all really fruitful criticism of the drama must bring a wide and practical knowledge of real life to bear on the stage.”
Jowett's characterization of Disraeli as “a curious combination of the Arch-Priest of Humbug and a great man,” has a certain appropriateness for Bernard Shaw. That fictitious personage known as G. B. S. is Shaw's most remarkable creation. With characteristic daring, his very first article broke the sacred tradition of anonymity, inviolate till then in the conservative columns of the Saturday Review. With the innate instinct of the journalist, he devoted himself to sedulous self-advertisement, creating a traditionary character unrivalled in conceit, in cleverness, and in iconoclastic effrontery. Charged with being conceited, he replied: “No, I am not really a conceited man: if you had been through all that I have been through, and done all the things I have done, you would be ten times as conceited. It's only a pose, to prevent the English people from seeing that I am serious. If they did, they would make me drink the hemlock.” Do not make the mistake of concluding, from this confession, that Shaw was merely a ghastly little celebrity posing in a vacuum. If “New lamps for old” is the cry of this ultra-modern fakir, “Remember Aladdin” is the warning of the suspicious populace. Shaw's chief claim for consideration is not merely that he has spent his life in crying down the futility and uselessness of the old lamps, but that with equal earnestness he has advertised the merits of the new. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in his attitude towards Shakespeare and Ibsen.
Pope Innocent X.
Original in the Doria Palace, Rome.By Velásquez.
The Modern Pope of Wit and Wisdom.