ns they
have generally shown that it was not natural to them, by their
hysterical cruelty and insolence; it was the men who fought in the
Revolution; it was the women who tortured the prisoners and mutilated
the dead. And because Shakespeare could sing better than he could spell,
it does not follow that his spelling and ours ought to be abruptly
altered by a race that has lost all instinct for singing. But I do not
wish to discuss these points; I only quote them as examples of the
startling ability which really brought Shaw to the front; the ability to
brighten even our modern movements with original and suggestive
thoughts.

But while Bernard Shaw pleasantly surprised innumerable cranks and
revolutionists by finding quite rational arguments for them, he
surprised them unpleasantly also by discovering something else. He
discovered a turn of argument or trick of thought which has ever since
been the plague of their lives, and given him in all assemblies of their
kind, in the Fabian Society or in the whole Socialist movement, a
fantastic but most formidable domination. This method may be
approximately defined as that of revolutionising the revolutionists by
turning their rationalism against their remaining sentimentalism. But
definition leaves the matter dark unless we give one or two examples.
Thus Bernard Shaw threw himself as thoroughly as any New Woman into the
cause of the emancipation of women. But while the New Woman praised
woman as a prophetess, the new man took the opportunity to curse her and
kick her as a comrade. For the others sex equality meant the
emancipation of women, which allowed them to be equal to men. For Shaw
it mainly meant the emancipation of men, which allowed them to be rude
to women. Indeed, almost every one of Bernard Shaw's earlier plays might
be called an argument between a man and a woman, in which the woman is
thumped and thrashed and outwitted until she admits that she is the
equal of her conqueror. This is the first case of the Shavian trick of
turning on the romantic rationalists with their own rationalism. He
said in substance, "If we are democrats, let us have votes for women;
but if we are democrats, why on earth should we have respect for women?"
I take one other example out of many. Bernard Shaw was thrown early into
what may be called the cosmopolitan club of revolution. The Socialists
of the S.D.F. call it "L'Internationale," but the club covers more than
Socialists. It covers