his own heart. There have been times, and there will be more of
them, when I could not otherwise than speak as the champion of Bernard
Shaw; but, after all, what single piece of furniture is there that
George Bernard Shaw, living with his great attic of not-things all
around him, is able to offer to furnish me for me single, little, warm,
lighted room to keep my thoughts in? Nor has he furnished me with one
thing with which I would care to sit down in my little room and
think--looking into the cold, perfect hygienic ashes he has left upon my
hearth. Even if I were a revolutionist, and not a mere, plain human
being, loving life and wanting to live more abundantly, I am bound to
say I do not see what there is in Mr. Galsworthy's photographs, or in
Mr. Wells's rich, bottomless murk of humanity to make a revolution for.
And Mr. Bernard Shaw, with all his bottles of disinfectants and shelves
of sterilized truths, his hard well-being and his glittering comforts,
has presented the vision of a world in which at the very best--even if
it all comes out as he says it will--a man would merely have things
without wanting them, and without wanting anything.

* * * * *

And so it has seemed to me that even if he is quite unimportant, any man
to-day who, in some public place, like a book, shall paint the picture
of his heart's desire, who shall throw up, as upon a screen, where all
men may see them, his most immediate and most pressing ideals, would
perform an important service. If a man's sole interest were to find out
what all men in the world want, the best way to do it would be for him
to say quite definitely, so that we could all compare notes, what he
wanted himself. Speaking for a planet has gone by, but possibly, if a
few of us but speak for ourselves, the planet will talk back, and we
shall find out at last what it really is that it wants.

The thing that many of us want most in the present grayness and din of
the world is some one to play with, or if the word "play" is not quite
the right word, some one with whom we can work with freedom and
self-expressiveness and joy. Nine men out of ten one meets to-day talk
with one as it were with their watches in their hands. The people who
are rich one sees everywhere, being run away with by their motor-cars;
and the people who are poor one sees struggling pitifully and for their
very souls, under great wheels and beneath machines.

Of course, I can o