f
her triumph.

We may now pass to the more important of the plays. For some time
Bernard Shaw would seem to have been brooding upon the soul of Julius
Caesar. There must always be a strong human curiosity about the soul of
Julius Caesar; and, among other things, about whether he had a soul. The
conjunction of Shaw and Caesar has about it something smooth and
inevitable; for this decisive reason, that Caesar is really the only
great man of history to whom the Shaw theories apply. Caesar _was_ a Shaw
hero. Caesar was merciful without being in the least pitiful; his mercy
was colder than justice. Caesar was a conqueror without being in any
hearty sense a soldier; his courage was lonelier than fear. Caesar was a
demagogue without being a democrat. In the same way Bernard Shaw is a
demagogue without being a democrat. If he had tried to prove his
principle from any of the other heroes or sages of mankind he would have
found it much more difficult. Napoleon achieved more miraculous
conquest; but during his most conquering epoch he was a burning boy
suicidally in love with a woman far beyond his age. Joan of Arc achieved
far more instant and incredible worldly success; but Joan of Arc
achieved worldly success because she believed in another world. Nelson
was a figure fully as fascinating and dramatically decisive; but Nelson
was "romantic"; Nelson was a devoted patriot and a devoted lover.
Alexander was passionate; Cromwell could shed tears; Bismarck had some
suburban religion; Frederick was a poet; Charlemagne was fond of
children. But Julius Caesar attracted Shaw not less by his positive than
by his negative enormousness. Nobody can say with certainty that Caesar
cared for anything. It is unjust to call Caesar an egoist; for there is
no proof that he cared even for Caesar. He may not have been either an
atheist or a pessimist. But he may have been; that is exactly the rub.
He may have been an ordinary decently good man slightly deficient in
spiritual expansiveness. On the other hand, he may have been the
incarnation of paganism in the sense that Christ was the incarnation of
Christianity. As Christ expressed how great a man can be humble and
humane, Caesar may have expressed how great a man can be frigid and
flippant. According to most legends Antichrist was to come soon after
Christ. One has only to suppose that Antichrist came shortly before
Christ; and Antichrist might very well be Caesar.

It is, I think, no injustice