George Bernard Shaw | Page 9

with anything lighter or milder
than the most fierce concentration of the intellect. A Puritan meant
originally a man whose mind had no holidays. To use his own favourite
phrase, he would let no living thing come between him and his God; an
attitude which involved eternal torture for him and a cruel contempt for
all the living things. It was better to worship in a barn than in a
cathedral for the specific and specified reason that the cathedral was
beautiful. Physical beauty was a false and sensual symbol coming in
between the intellect and the object of its intellectual worship. The
human brain ought to be at every instant a consuming fire which burns
through all conventional images until they were as transparent as glass.
This is the essential Puritan idea, that God can only be praised by direct
contemplation of Him. You must praise God only with your brain; it is
wicked to praise Him with your passions or your physical habits or
your gesture or instinct of beauty. Therefore it is wicked to worship by
singing or dancing or drinking sacramental wines or building beautiful
churches or saying prayers when you are half asleep. We must not
worship by dancing, drinking, building or singing; we can only worship

by thinking. Our heads can praise God, but never our hands and feet.
That is the true and original impulse of the Puritans. There is a great
deal to be said for it, and a great deal was said for it in Great Britain
steadily for two hundred years. It has gradually decayed in England and
Scotland, not because of the advance of modern thought (which means
nothing), but because of the slow revival of the mediaeval energy and
character in the two peoples. The English were always hearty and
humane, and they have made up their minds to be hearty and humane in
spite of the Puritans. The result is that Dickens and W. W. Jacobs have
picked up the tradition of Chaucer and Robin Hood. The Scotch were
always romantic, and they have made up their minds to be romantic in
spite of the Puritans. The result is that Scott and Stevenson have picked
up the tradition of Bruce, Blind Harry and the vagabond Scottish kings.
England has become English again; Scotland has become Scottish
again, in spite of the splendid incubus, the noble nightmare of Calvin.
There is only one place in the British Islands where one may naturally
expect to find still surviving in its fulness the fierce detachment of the
true Puritan. That place is the Protestant part of Ireland. The Orange
Calvinists can be disturbed by no national resurrection, for they have
no nation. In them, if in any people, will be found the rectangular
consistency of the Calvinist. The Irish Protestant rioters are at least
immeasurably finer fellows than any of their brethren in England. They
have the two enormous superiorities: first, that the Irish Protestant
rioters really believe in Protestant theology; and second, that the Irish
Protestant rioters do really riot. Among these people, if anywhere,
should be found the cult of theological clarity combined with barbarous
external simplicity. Among these people Bernard Shaw was born.
There is at least one outstanding fact about the man we are studying;
Bernard Shaw is never frivolous. He never gives his opinions a holiday;
he is never irresponsible even for an instant. He has no nonsensical
second self which he can get into as one gets into a dressing-gown; that
ridiculous disguise which is yet more real than the real person. That
collapse and humorous confession of futility was much of the force in
Charles Lamb and in Stevenson. There is nothing of this in Shaw; his
wit is never a weakness; therefore it is never a sense of humour. For wit
is always connected with the idea that truth is close and clear. Humour,

on the other hand, is always connected with the idea that truth is tricky
and mystical and easily mistaken. What Charles Lamb said of the
Scotchman is far truer of this type of Puritan Irishman; he does not see
things suddenly in a new light; all his brilliancy is a blindingly rapid
calculation and deduction. Bernard Shaw never said an indefensible
thing; that is, he never said a thing that he was not prepared brilliantly
to defend. He never breaks out into that cry beyond reason and
conviction, that cry of Lamb when he cried, "We would indict our
dreams!" or of Stevenson, "Shall we never shed blood?" In short he is
not a humorist, but a great wit, almost as great as Voltaire. Humour is
akin to agnosticism, which is only the negative side of mysticism. But
pure wit is akin to Puritanism; to the perfect and painful consciousness