I
There is a kind of shy, embarrassed man of merit who cannot keep or
even reach to his proper position in the world without making some
sort of pretence about himself. Mr. Bernard Shaw is such a man. He has
created his legend with such extraordinary skill that those who know
him well have great difficulty in persuading the general public, which
has neither the time nor the intelligence to understand a man of marked
personality, to believe that the legend _is_ a legend, that the reputed
Bernard Shaw is not the real Bernard Shaw. The common notion is that
he has an insatiable craving for publicity, is immensely conceited and
self-centred, and does not care what folly of thought or conduct he
commits if by so doing he draws attention to himself. The truth about
him is that he is a shy and nervous man, singularly humble-minded
and sincere, very courageous and full of quick, penetrating wisdom,
and so generous and kindly that he may be said to be willing to do
more for his friends than his friends will do for themselves. He is
a Don Quixote without illusions. When he tilts at windmills, he does
so because they are _wind_mills in private ownership, and he wishes
them to be driven by electricity and owned by the local authority. In
print and on platforms, Mr. Shaw brags and boasts and lays claim to
an omniscience that would scandalize most deities, but no one who has
the ability to distinguish between sincerity and mere capering is in
the least deceived by his platform conceit. He is one of the very few
men in the world who can brag in public without being offensive to his
auditors. He can even insult his audience without hurting its feelings.
There is a quality of geniality and kindliness in his most violent
and denunciatory utterance that reconciles all but the completely
fat-headed to a patient submission to his chastisement; and his most
perverse statements are so swiftly followed by things profoundly true
and sincerely said that those who listen to him are less conscious of
his platform tricks than are those who merely read newspaper reports
of his speeches. This is largely due to the fact that the newspapers
print only his flippant and fantastic stuff, and omit his vital matter.
I have seen reporters at one of his meetings sitting with their pencils
loosely dangling from their fingers while Mr. Shaw spoke wisely and
deeply, and then, when he uttered some trivial or outrageous thing,
coming to life and hastily scribbling the jape into their notebooks.
It is my purpose here to insist that Mr. Shaw is a shy man with a
large element of the gawky school boy in him so that he is awkward
and embarrassed when he comes suddenly into the presence of strangers
without having been warned that strangers are to be encountered. I have
seen him blush like a boy on finding people in a room which he had
expected to find unoccupied, and when one meets him casually in the
street he is at first nonplussed and without conversation or power to
do more than smile amiably. It is not easy to make this shyness of his
plain to those who have met him once or twice because he has remarkable
powers of recovery and can cover up his initial embarrassment with very
great skill; and also because his platform manners are very easy and
his general social manners are exceedingly gracious. He has made many
pretences in his life, but the one pretence that he has never succeeded
in maintaining is the pretence that he is a bad-mannered man. There are
stories told of him that seem to show him in a graceless, even cruel,
character, but these are no more than might be expected from a man of
nervous temperament who is being bothered excessively by the demands of
people who have no right to make demands on him at all. Against those
stories may be set far more stories of acts of exceptional kindliness
to those who are in trouble or in need of advice and encouragement.
Very few great men have given so generously of their time and strength
to helping young men of talent to obtain recognition as Mr. Shaw has
done.
His awkwardness of manner when taken unawares is very different from
that of Mr. Yeats in similar circumstances. Mr. Shaw is shy and
awkward with strangers, but Mr. Yeats, who has never been shy in his
life, is only awkward. Mr. Shaw, because he is naturally gracious,
recovers himself more quickly than Mr. Yeats, who has cultivated his
graciousness; and it may be said of them that Mr. Shaw has the manners
of a man instinctively gentle, whereas Mr. Yeats has the manners of a
man who has practised deportment before a cheval glass.