otes, but no one
who knows Shaw needs any anecdotes to prove it) that in those days of
desperation he again and again threw up chances and flung back good
bargains which did not suit his unique and erratic sense of honour. The
fame of having first offered Shaw to the public upon a platform worthy
of him belongs, like many other public services, to Mr. William Archer.

I say it seems odd that such a writer should not be appreciated in a
flash; but upon this point there is evidently a real difference of
opinion, and it constitutes for me the strangest difficulty of the
subject. I hear many people complain that Bernard Shaw deliberately
mystifies them. I cannot imagine what they mean; it seems to me that he
deliberately insults them. His language, especially on moral questions,
is generally as straight and solid as that of a bargee and far less
ornate and symbolic than that of a hansom-cabman. The prosperous English
Philistine complains that Mr. Shaw is making a fool of him. Whereas Mr.
Shaw is not in the least making a fool of him; Mr. Shaw is, with
laborious lucidity, calling him a fool. G. B. S. calls a landlord a
thief; and the landlord, instead of denying or resenting it, says, "Ah,
that fellow hides his meaning so cleverly that one can never make out
what he means, it is all so fine spun and fantastical." G. B. S. calls a
statesman a liar to his face, and the statesman cries in a kind of
ecstasy, "Ah, what quaint, intricate and half-tangled trains of thought!
Ah, what elusive and many-coloured mysteries of half-meaning!" I think
it is always quite plain what Mr. Shaw means, even when he is joking,
and it generally means that the people he is talking to ought to howl
aloud for their sins. But the average representative of them undoubtedly
treats the Shavian meaning as tricky and complex, when it is really
direct and offensive. He always accuses Shaw of pulling his leg, at the
exact moment when Shaw is pulling his nose.

This prompt and pungent style he learnt in the open, upon political tubs
and platforms; and he is very legitimately proud of it. He boasts of
being a demagogue; "The cart and the trumpet for me," he says, with
admirable good sense. Everyone will remember the effective appearance of
Cyrano de Bergerac in the first act of the fine play of that name; when
instead of leaping in by any hackneyed door or window, he suddenly
springs upon a chair above the crowd that has so far kept him invisible;
"les bras c