as involved
Shaw in some perversities and refinements which are almost mere
insincerities, and which make it necessary to disentangle the good he
has done from the evil in this dazzling course. I will attempt some
summary by stating the three things in which his influence seems to me
thoroughly good and the three in which it seems bad. But for the
pleasure of ending on the finer note I will speak first of those that
seem bad.

The primary respect in which Shaw has been a bad influence is that he
has encouraged fastidiousness. He has made men dainty about their moral
meals. This is indeed the root of his whole objection to romance. Many
people have objected to romance for being too airy and exquisite. Shaw
objects to romance for being too rank and coarse. Many have despised
romance because it is unreal; Shaw really hates it because it is a great
deal too real. Shaw dislikes romance as he dislikes beef and beer, raw
brandy or raw beefsteaks. Romance is too masculine for his taste. You
will find throughout his criticisms, amid all their truth, their wild
justice or pungent impartiality, a curious undercurrent of prejudice
upon one point: the preference for the refined rather than the rude or
ugly. Thus he will dislike a joke because it is coarse without asking if
it is really immoral. He objects to a man sitting down on his hat,
whereas the austere moralist should only object to his sitting down on
someone else's hat. This sensibility is barren because it is universal.
It is useless to object to man being made ridiculous. Man is born
ridiculous, as can easily be seen if you look at him soon after he is
born. It is grotesque to drink beer, but it is equally grotesque to
drink soda-water; the grotesqueness lies in the act of filling yourself
like a bottle through a hole. It is undignified to walk with a drunken
stagger; but it is fairly undignified to walk at all, for all walking is
a sort of balancing, and there is always in the human being something of
a quadruped on its hind legs. I do not say he would be more dignified if
he went on all fours; I do not know that he ever is dignified except
when he is dead. We shall not be refined till we are refined into dust.
Of course it is only because he is not wholly an animal that man sees he
is a rum animal; and if man on his hind legs is in an artificial
attitude, it is only because, like a dog, he is begging or saying thank
you.

Everything important is in that sense absurd fr