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I am, indeed, delighted to discover that Mr. McCabe reckons
Mr. Shaw along with me in his system of condemnation of frivolity.
He said once, I believe, that he always wanted Mr. Shaw to label
his paragraphs serious or comic. I do not know which paragraphs
of Mr. Shaw are paragraphs to be labelled serious; but surely
there can be no doubt that this paragraph of Mr. McCabe's is
one to be labelled comic. He also says, in the article I am
now discussing, that Mr. Shaw has the reputation of deliberately
saying everything which his hearers do not expect him to say.
I need not labour the inconclusiveness and weakness of this, because it
has already been dealt with in my remarks on Mr. Bernard Shaw.
Suffice it to say here that the only serious reason which I can imagine
inducing any one person to listen to any other is, that the first person
looks to the second person with an ardent faith and a fixed attention,
expecting him to say what he does not expect him to say.
It may be a paradox, but that is because paradoxes are true.
It may not be rational, but that is because rationalism is wrong.
But clearly it is quite true that whenever we go to hear a prophet or
teacher we may or may not expect wit, we may or may not expect eloquence,
but we do expect what we do not expect. We may not expect the true,
we may not even expect the wise, but we do expect the unexpected.
If we do not expect the unexpected, why do we go there at all?
If we expect the expected, why do we not sit at home and expect
it by ourselves? If Mr. McCabe means merely this about Mr. Shaw,
that he always has some unexpected application of his doctrine
to give to those who listen to him, what he says is quite true,
and to say it is only to say that Mr. Shaw is an original man.
But if he means that Mr. Shaw has ever professed or preached any
doctrine but one, and that his own, then what he says is not true.
It is not my business to defend Mr. Shaw; as has been seen already,
I disagree with him altogether. But I do not mind, on his behalf
offering in this matter a flat defiance to all his ordinary opponents,
such as Mr. McCabe. I defy Mr. McCabe, or anybody else, to mention
one single instance in which Mr. Shaw has, for the sake of wit
or novelty, taken up any position which was not directly deducible
from the body of his doctrine as elsewhere expressed. I have been,
I am happy to say, a tolerably close student of Mr. Shaw's utterances,
and I request Mr. McCabe, if he will not believe that I mean
anything else, to believe that I mean this challenge.
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