Mr. Shaw’s sole contribution to our knowledge of Shakespeare is the coupling of him with Dickens, which is very much the same thing as if one tried to explain Titian by coupling him with Hogarth. This, in my opinion, is Mr. Shaw’s only original observation on the subject, and its perfect originality I should be the last to deny.
I have not yet read or seen Mr. Shaw’s play: I only wish here to draw attention to the fact that he has already annexed a good deal of my work and put it forth as his own, giving me only the most casual and grudging mention. From the larger acknowledgment in The Observer, I naturally infer that in this new play he has taken from me even more than he could hope to pass off as his own.
All this in the England of to-day is looked upon as honourable and customary. If Mr. Shaw can annex my work it only shows that he is stronger than I am or abler, and this fact in itself would be generally held to absolve and justify him: vae victis is the noble English motto in such cases. But if it turns out in the long struggle that Mr. Shaw is only more successful for the moment than I am, if my books and writings on Shakespeare have come to stay, then I can safely leave the task of judging Mr. Shaw to the future.
In any case I can console myself. It amused me years ago to see Mr. Shaw using scraps of my garments to cover his nakedness; he now struts about wearing my livery unashamed. I am delighted that so little of it makes him a complete suit. My wardrobe is still growing in spite of his predatory instincts, and he is welcome to as much of it as I have cast off and he can cut to fit.
But is this the best that Mr. Shaw can do with his astonishing quickness and his admirable gift of lucid, vigorous speech? Will he, who is not poor, always be under our tables for the crumbs? Why should he not share the feast, or, better still, make a feast of his own? Why does he not take himself in hand, and crush the virtue out of himself and distil it into some noble draught? The quintessence of Shaw would be worth having.
I can afford on this matter to be wholly frank and ingenuous, and admit that I am gratified by the ability of my first disciples. Any writer might be proud of having convinced men of original minds like Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. Richard Middleton, and Mr. Bernard Shaw of the truth of a theory so contrary to tradition as mine is and so contemptuous of authority: Shakespeare himself would have been proud of such admirers. And if Mr. Bernard Shaw has done his best to share in the honour of the discovery, one must attribute his excess of zeal to the intensity of his admiration, and to the fact that he was perhaps even a little quicker than the others to appreciate the new view, or perhaps a little vainer even than most able men. In any case, Mr. Shaw’s method of dealing with a new master must be contrasted with that of the professor who also annexed as much as he could of my early articles, and coolly asserted that he had had my ideas ten years before, leaving it to be inferred that he had concealed them carefully.
After all, the chief thing is, here is my play, and Mr. Shaw’s will shortly make its appearance, and in time a true deliverance and judgment on the respective merits of them will be forthcoming.
A few words about this play of mine may be allowed me. It suffers from an extraordinary, and perhaps extravagant, piety: I did not set out to write a great play on the subject. I wanted to give a dramatic picture of Shakespeare and his time; but above all a true picture. It seemed to me that no one had the right to treat the life-story, the soul-tragedy of a Shakespeare as the mere stuff of a play. Within the limits of the truth, however, I did my best. The play, therefore, as a play is full of faults: it is as loosely put together as one of Shakespeare’s own history plays, and the worst fault of it is not poverty of plot and weakness of construction; it is also academic and literary in tone. Much of this is due to my love of the master. I have hardly put a word in Shakespeare’s mouth which I could not justify out of his plays or sonnets. My excessive love of the man has been a hindrance to me as a playwright.
I daresay—in fact, I am sure—that it would be possible to write a great play on the subject, and tell even more of the truth than I have here told; but that could only be done if one knew that the play would be played and had leisure and encouragement to do one’s best. The evil of our present civilisation, from the artist’s point of view, is that he is compelled by the conditions to give of his second best, and be thankful if even this is lucky enough to earn him a living wage.
My book on Shakespeare was many years in type before it found a publisher; my Shakespeare play was printed six years ago and has not yet been acted.