The pride of some gifted men is not pride in their person, but in something within them, of which they regard themselves the guardians and servants. If there is dignity in their demeanour it is a reflected, impersonal dignity. Just so a peasant might feel ennobled who guarded a king in danger and exile.
74
The Modern Devil
The devil is not wicked but corrupt, in modern phraseology, decadent. The qualities of the mediæval devil, rage, cruelty, hatred, pride, avarice, are in their measure necessary to Life, necessary to virtue itself. But corruption is wholly bad; it contaminates even those who fight it. Hell relaxes: Mr. Shaw's conception is profoundly true.
But if the devil is corruption, cannot the devil be abolished? It is true, Man cannot extirpate cruelty, hatred and pride without destroying Life; but Life is made more powerful by the destruction of the corrupt. God created Man; but it was Man that created the devil.
75
Master and Servant
To summon out of the void a task, and then incontinently to make of himself its slave: that is the happiness of many a man. A great means of happiness!
76
Criterions