I
BERNARD SHAW[ToC]
It is doubtful if any person in England exercises so many-sided and so considerable an influence as that of Mr. Bernard Shaw. It is not that his books are read by very many thousands of readers; that his plays have long runs or can compete in popularity with those of Mr. Barrie or the Gaiety Theatre; that his lectures and speeches are reported so fully as those of an ordinary Cabinet Minister; that his letters to the newspapers are as numerous as those of Mr. Algernon Ashton or Dr. Clifford in his prime. He seldom demonstrates his power by passing Acts of Parliament or organising garden parties. He figures less often in the Social and Personal columns than Sir H. Beerbohm Tree. He is not so well known in the law courts as Mr. Horatio Bottomley. Yet there is no other man in England who is so conspicuous in so many spheres of activity, and wherever he appears he is always facile princeps in the public eye. Everyone who has any knowledge of him is compelled to think about him, and those who have no direct knowledge of him—so insidious is his influence—are to be found constantly thinking in terms of Bernard Shaw. The active, talking, persuading, book-writing, lecturing, propagandist population of England has been bitten by him; it re-writes and popularises him; it even talks his jargon when it is criticising him. It began by regarding him as a brilliant and witty writer whom no one could take seriously; it now regards him as a serious, and indeed responsible, thinker whose wit is a matter of harmless inspiration, and often a tactical advantage.
Mr. Shaw, in fact, has thrust himself upon English public life. Wherever anything is doing or being talked about he is in the thick of it. Whenever he rises to speak, he is supreme. He sweeps away all the false issues in a few sentences; he attacks the very heart of the problem under discussion, and makes the most practical proposals. He can cover a hostile argument with ridicule, and drive it out of the field with good-tempered laughter. But his method is not only that of raillery. He is remorselessly logical. He can pursue the logical sequence of his case, and set it forth with a fusillade of perfectly relevant and illuminating instances and analogies. He never loses his thread like Mr. Chesterton; he never wanders off into vague rhetoric like Mr. Wells. He chases his enemies and his subject until he has subdued the first and set forth the second so that it shines with crystal clearness. There is no man in England who can state a case, on the platform or in the Press, with such perfect lucidity, such logical order, with such brightness and lightness, or with such force as Mr. Bernard Shaw. He is the greatest debater in England, the greatest pamphleteer, the most observable personality in public life.
That is not all. As an organiser there is no one who has more driving power. He can set himself to committee work, and keep every member of a committee active, himself included. He can, when necessary, pester responsible persons till they are goaded into action. Whilst his attention is always fixed on the central object, he has an eye for the most trifling details.
He is a first-rate business man. He knows as much about the trade of publishing as any publisher. He refuses to employ a literary agent, and personally transacts the business of placing his work—and sometimes that of his friends—in the literary and dramatic market all over the world.