Mr. Shaw represents no one but himself, and, like all small men, he reviles others greater than he, such as Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith, but it does not become him, looking at his own life's history, to cast cheap sneers at anonymous journalists in cheap newspapers, who, though they may lack his literary style, possess, at least, one virtue which he boasts that he has not—patriotism! Yours very truly,
LAWRENCE GRANT.
New York, Nov. 18.
Antidote to "Long Infliction of Dreary Stuff."
To the Editor of The New York Times:
Hail to Bernard Shaw! Could anything be more refreshing? After the long infliction upon us of the flood of dreary stuff from London and Paris, and all the talk of German militarism, and what is to become of it at the hands of such immaculately unmilitary apostles of peace and international righteousness and treaty observances as Russia, France, and England, and all the maudlin denunciations of the German Nietzsche and Bernhardi, and the terrible Kaiser, could anything be more refreshing than Shaw's advent in the field of current war history?
Though an Anglo-Saxon of American birth and long descent, and no believer in militarism of any sort of itself, yet I see in that no reason to distort ancient history by an attempt to make it appear that German militarism is at all the chief sinner, or, for that matter, not a very necessary and desirable thing in order that Germany may have her rightful place in the world, or any place at all.
V.A.W. Warwick, N.Y., Nov. 16.