g this is not
any clear-sightedness or experience, it is simply a habit of pedantic
and fastidious comparisons between one thing and another. Mr. Shaw, on
the practical side perhaps the most humane man alive, is in this sense
inhumane. He has even been infected to some extent with the primary
intellectual weakness of his new master, Nietzsche, the strange notion
that the greater and stronger a man was the more he would despise other
things. The greater and stronger a man is the more he would be
inclined to prostrate himself before a periwinkle. That Mr. Shaw keeps
a lifted head and a contemptuous face before the colossal panorama of
empires and civilizations, this does not in itself convince one that he
sees things as they are. I should be most effectively convinced that he
did if I found him staring with religious astonishment at his own feet.
"What are those two beautiful and industrious beings," I can imagine
him murmuring to himself, "whom I see everywhere, serving me I know not
why? What fairy godmother bade them come trotting out of elfland when I
was born? What god of the borderland, what barbaric god of legs, must
I propitiate with fire and wine, lest they run away with me?"

The truth is, that all genuine appreciation rests on a certain mystery
of humility and almost of darkness. The man who said, "Blessed is he
that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed," put the
eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth "Blessed is he
that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised." The man
who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, and
greener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that expecteth
nothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; blessed is
the meek, for he shall inherit the earth. Until we realize that things
might not be we cannot realize that things are. Until we see the
background of darkness we cannot admire the light as a single and
created thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light is
lightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we picture nonentity we
underrate the victory of God, and can realize none of the trophies of
His ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we
know nothing until we know nothing.

Now this is, I say deliberately, the only defect in the greatness of
Mr. Shaw, the only answer to his claim to be a great man, that he is
not easily pleased. He is an almost sol