Now you cannot say this of the works of the artist-philosophers.
You cannot say it, for instance, of The Pilgrim's Progress. Put your
Shakespearian hero and coward, Henry V and Pistol or Parolles, beside
Mr Valiant and Mr Fearing, and you have a sudden revelation of the abyss
that lies between the fashionable author who could see nothing in the
world but personal aims and the tragedy of their disappointment or the
comedy of their incongruity, and the field preacher who achieved virtue
and courage by identifying himself with the purpose of the world as
he understood it. The contrast is enormous: Bunyan's coward stirs your
blood more than Shakespear's hero, who actually leaves you cold and
secretly hostile. You suddenly see that Shakespear, with all his flashes
and divinations, never understood virtue and courage, never conceived
how any man who was not a fool could, like Bunyan's hero, look back
from the brink of the river of death over the strife and labor of his
pilgrimage, and say "yet do I not repent me"; or, with the panache of
a millionaire, bequeath "my sword to him that shall succeed me in my
pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it." This
is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by
yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you
are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a
feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that
the world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the only
real tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men for
purposes which you recognize to be base. All the rest is at worst mere
misfortune or mortality: this alone is misery, slavery, hell on earth;
and the revolt against it is the only force that offers a man's work
to the poor artist, whom our personally minded rich people would so
willingly employ as pandar, buffoon, beauty monger, sentimentalizer and
the like.

It may seem a long step from Bunyan to Nietzsche; but the difference
between their conclusions is purely formal. Bunyan's perception that
righteousness is filthy rags, his scorn for Mr Legality in the village
of Morality, his defiance of the Church as the supplanter of religion,
his insistence on courage as the virtue of virtues, his estimate of the
career of the conventionally respectable and sensible Worldly Wiseman
as no better at bottom than the life and death of Mr Badman: all
this, expressed by Bunyan in the terms of a tinker's theology, is what
Nietzsche has expressed in terms of post-Darwinian, post-Schopenhaurian
philosophy; Wagner in terms of polytheistic mythology; and Ibsen in
terms of mid-XIX century Parisian dramaturgy. Nothing is new in these
matters except their novelties: for instance, it is a novelty to
call Justification by Faith "Wille," and Justification by Works
"Vorstellung." The sole use of the novelty is that you and I buy and
read Schopenhaur's treatise on Will and Representation when we should
not dream of buying a set of sermons on Faith versus Works. At bottom
the controversy is the same, and the dramatic results are the same.
Bunyan makes no attempt to present his pilgrims as more sensible or
better conducted than Mr Worldly Wiseman. Mr W. W.'s worst enemies, as
Mr Embezzler, Mr Never-go-to-Church-on-Sunday, Mr Bad Form, Mr Murderer,
Mr Burglar, Mr Co-respondent, Mr Blackmailer, Mr Cad, Mr Drunkard, Mr
Labor Agitator and so forth, can read the Pilgrim's Progress without
finding a word said against them; whereas the respectable people who
snub them and put them in prison, such as Mr W.W. himself and his young
friend Civility; Formalist and Hypocrisy; Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and
Pragmatick (who were clearly young university men of good family
and high feeding); that brisk lad Ignorance, Talkative, By-Ends of
Fairspeech and his mother-in-law Lady Feigning, and other reputable
gentlemen and citizens, catch it very severely. Even Little Faith,
though he gets to heaven at last, is given to understand that it served
him right to be mobbed by the brothers Faint Heart, Mistrust, and
Guilt, all three recognized members of respectable society and veritable
pillars of the law. The whole allegory is a consistent attack on
morality and respectability, without a word that one can remember
against vice and crime. Exactly what is complained of in Nietzsche and
Ibsen, is it not? And also exactly what would be complained of in all
the literature which is great enough and old enough to have attained
canonical rank, officially or unofficially, were it not that books are
admitted to the canon by a compact which confesses their greatness in
consideration of abrogating their meaning; so that the reverend rector
can agree with the prophet Micah as to his inspired style without being
committed to any complicity in Micah's furiously Radical opinions. Why,
even I, as I force myself; pen in hand, into recognition and civility,
find all the force of my onslaught destroyed by a simple policy of
non-resistance. In vain do I redouble the violence of the language in
which I proclaim my heterodoxies. I rail at the theistic credulity of
Voltaire, the amoristic superstition of Shelley, the revival of tribal
soothsaying and idolatrous rites which Huxley called Science and
mistook for an advance on the Pentateuch, no less than at the welter
of ecclesiastical and professional humbug which saves the face of the
stupid system of violence and robbery which we call Law and Industry.
Even atheists reproach me with infidelity and anarchists with nihilism
because I cannot endure their moral tirades. And yet, instead of
exclaiming "Send this inconceivable Satanist to the stake," the
respectable newspapers pith me by announcing "another book by this
brilliant and thoughtful writer." And the ordinary citizen, knowing that
an author who is well spoken of by a respectable newspaper must be all
right, reads me, as he reads Micah, with undisturbed edification from
his own point of view. It is narrated that in the eighteen-seventies an
old lady, a very devout Methodist, moved from Colchester to a house in
the neighborhood of the City Road, in London, where, mistaking the Hall
of Science for a chapel, she sat at the feet of Charles Bradlaugh
for many years, entranced by his eloquence, without questioning
his orthodoxy or moulting a feather of her faith. I fear I small be
defrauded of my just martyrdom in the same way.

However, I am digressing, as a man with a grievance always does. And
after all, the main thing in determining the artistic quality of a book
is not the opinions it propagates, but the fact that the writer has
opinions. The old lady from Colchester was right to sun her simple soul
in the energetic radiance of Bradlaugh's genuine beliefs and disbeliefs
rather than in the chill of such mere painting of light and heat as
elocution and convention can achieve. My contempt for belles lettres,
and for amateurs who become the heroes of the fanciers of literary
virtuosity, is not founded on any illusion of mind as to the permanence
of those forms of thought (call them opinions) by which I strive to
communicate my bent to my fellows. To younger men they are already
outmoded; for though they have no more lost their logic than an
eighteenth century pastel has lost its drawing or its color, yet, like
the pastel, they grow indefinably shabby, and will grow shabbier until
they cease to count at all, when my books will either perish, or, if
the world is still poor enough to want them, will have to stand, with
Bunyan's, by quite amorphous qualities of temper and energy. With this
conviction I cannot be a bellettrist. No doubt I must recognize, as even
the Ancient Mariner did, that I must tell my story entertainingly if I
am to hold the wedding guest spellbound in spite of the siren sounds of
the loud bassoon. But "for art's sake" alone I would not face the toil
of writing a single sentence. I know that there are men who, having
nothing to say and nothing to write, are nevertheless so in love with
oratory and with literature that they keep desperately repeating as much
as they can understand of what others have said or written aforetime.
I know that the leisurely tricks which their want of conviction leaves
them free to play with the diluted and misapprehended message supply
them with a pleasant parlor game which they call style. I can pity their
dotage and even sympathize with their fancy. But a true original style
is never achieved for its own sake: a man may pay from a shilling to a
guinea, according to his means, to see, hear, or read another man's act
of genius; but he will not pay with his whole life and soul to become a
mere virtuoso in literature, exhibiting an accomplishment which will not
even make money for him, like fiddle playing. Effectiveness of assertion
is the Alpha and Omega of style. He who has nothing to assert has no
style and can have none: he who has something to assert will go as far
in power of style as its momentousness and his conviction will carry
him. Disprove his assertion after it is made, yet its style remains.
Darwin has no more destroyed the style of Job nor of Handel than Martin
Luther destroyed the style of Giotto. All the assertions get disproved
sooner or later; and so we find the world full of a magnificent debris
of artistic fossils, with the matter-of-fact credibility gone clean out
of them, but the form still splendid. And that is why the old masters
play the deuce with our mere susceptibles. Your Royal Academician thinks
he can get the style of Giotto without Giotto's beliefs, and correct
his perspective into the bargain. Your man of letters thinks he can
get Bunyan's or Shakespear's style without Bunyan's conviction or
Shakespear's apprehension, especially if he takes care not to split
his infinitives. And so with your Doctors of Music, who, with their
collections of discords duly prepared and resolved or retarded or
anticipated in the manner of the great composers, think they can learn
the art of Palestrina from Cherubim's treatise. All this academic art
is far worse than the trade in sham antique furniture; for the man who
sells me an oaken chest which he swears was made in the XIII century,
though as a matter of fact he made it himself only yesterday, at least
does not pretend that there are any modern ideas in it, whereas your
academic copier of fossils offers them to you as the latest outpouring
of the human spirit, and, worst of all, kidnaps young people as pupils
and persuades them that his limitations are rules, his observances
dexterities, his timidities good taste, and his emptinesses purities.
And when he declares that art should not be didactic, all the people who
have nothing to teach and all the people who don't want to learn agree
with him emphatically.

I pride myself on not being one of these susceptible: If you study
the electric light with which I supply you in that Bumbledonian public
capacity of mine over which you make merry from time to time, you will
find that your house contains a great quantity of highly susceptible
copper wire which gorges itself with electricity and gives you no light
whatever. But here and there occurs a scrap of intensely insusceptible,
intensely resistant material; and that stubborn scrap grapples with the
current and will not let it through until it has made itself useful to
you as those two vital qualities of literature, light and heat. Now if I
am to be no mere copper wire amateur but a luminous author, I must also
be a most intensely refractory person, liable to go out and to go wrong
at inconvenient moments, and with incendiary possibilities. These are
the faults of my qualities; and I assure you that I sometimes dislike
myself so much that when some irritable reviewer chances at that moment
to pitch into me with zest, I feel unspeakably relieved and obliged. But
I never dream of reforming, knowing that I must take myself as I am and
get what work I can out of myself. All this you will understand; for
there is community of material between us: we are both critics of life
as well as of art; and you have perhaps said to yourself when I have
passed your windows, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." An awful
and chastening reflection, which shall be the closing cadence of this
immoderately long letter from yours faithfully,

G. BERNARD SHAW.

WOKING, 1903




ACT I

Roebuck Ramsden is in his study, opening the morning letters. The study,
handsomely and solidly furnished, proclaims the man of means. Not
a speck of dust is visible: it is clear that there are at least two
housemaids and a parlormaid downstairs, and a housekeeper upstairs who
does not let them spare elbow-grease. Even the top of Roebuck's head is
polished: on a sunshiny day he could heliograph his orders to distant
camps by merely nodding. In no other respect, however, does he suggest
the military man. It is in active civil life that men get his broad air
of importance, his dignified expectation of deference, his determinate
mouth disarmed and refined since the hour of his success by the
withdrawal of opposition and the concession of comfort and precedence
and power. He is more than a highly respectable man: he is marked out
as a president of highly respectable men, a chairman among directors,
an alderman among councillors, a mayor among aldermen. Four tufts of
iron-grey hair, which will soon be as white as isinglass, and are in
other respects not at all unlike it, grow in two symmetrical pairs above
his ears and at the angles of his spreading jaws. He wears a black frock
coat, a white waistcoat (it is bright spring weather), and trousers,
neither black nor perceptibly blue, of one of those indefinitely mixed
hues which the modern clothier has produced to harmonize with the
religions of respectable men. He has not been out of doors yet to-day;
so he still wears his slippers, his boots being ready for him on the
hearthrug. Surmising that he has no valet, and seeing that he has no
secretary with a shorthand notebook and a typewriter, one meditates
on how little our great burgess domesticity has been disturbed by new
fashions and methods, or by the enterprise of the railway and hotel
companies which sell you a Saturday to Monday of life at Folkestone as a
real gentleman for two guineas, first class fares both ways included.

How old is Roebuck? The question is important on the threshold of a
drama of ideas; for under such circumstances everything depends on
whether his adolescence belonged to the sixties or to the eighties. He
was born, as a matter of fact, in 1839, and was a Unitarian and Free
Trader from his boyhood, and an Evolutionist from the publication of
the Origin of Species. Consequently he has always classed himself as an
advanced thinker and fearlessly outspoken reformer.

Sitting at his writing table, he has on his right the windows giving
on Portland Place. Through these, as through a proscenium, the curious
spectator may contemplate his profile as well as the blinds will permit.
On his left is the inner wall, with a stately bookcase, and the door
not quite in the middle, but somewhat further from him. Against the wall
opposite him are two busts on pillars: one, to his left, of John Bright;
the other, to his right, of Mr Herbert Spencer. Between them hang an
engraved portrait of Richard Cobden; enlarged photographs of Martineau,
Huxley, and George Eliot; autotypes of allegories by Mr G.F. Watts (for
Roebuck believed in the fine arts with all the earnestness of a man who
does not understand them), and an impression of Dupont's engraving of
Delaroche's Beaux Artes hemicycle, representing the great men of
all ages. On the wall behind him, above the mantelshelf, is a family
portrait of impenetrable obscurity.

A chair stands near the writing table for the convenience of business
visitors. Two other chairs are against the wall between the busts.

A parlormaid enters with a visitor's card. Roebuck takes it, and nods,
pleased. Evidently a welcome caller.

RAMSDEN. Show him up.

The parlormaid goes out and returns with the visitor.

THE MAID. Mr Robinson.

Mr Robinson is really an uncommonly nice looking young fellow. He must,
one thinks, be the jeune premier; for it is not in reason to suppose
that a second such attractive male figure should appear in one story.
The slim shapely frame, the elegant suit of new mourning, the small head
and regular features, the pretty little moustache, the frank clear eyes,
the wholesome bloom and the youthful complexion, the well brushed glossy
hair, not curly, but of fine texture and good dark color, the arch of
good nature in the eyebrows, the erect forehead and neatly pointed chin,
all announce the man who will love and suffer later on. And that he will
not do so without sympathy is guaranteed by an engaging sincerity and
eager modest serviceableness which stamp him as a man of amiable nature.
The moment he appears, Ramsden's face expands into fatherly liking and
welcome, an expression which drops into one of decorous grief as the
young man approaches him with sorrow in his face as well as in his black
clothes. Ramsden seems to know the nature of the bereavement. As the
visitor advances silently to the writing table, the old man rises and
shakes his hand across it without a word: a long, affectionate shake
which tells the story of a recent sorrow common to both.

RAMSDEN. [concluding the handshake and cheering up] Well, well,
Octavius, it's the common lot. We must all face it someday. Sit down.

Octavius takes the visitor's chair. Ramsden replaces himself in his own.

OCTAVIUS. Yes: we must face it, Mr Ramsden. But I owed him a great deal.
He did everything for me that my father could have done if he had lived.

RAMSDEN. He had no son of his own, you see.

OCTAVIUS. But he had daughters; and yet he was as good to my sister as
to me. And his death was so sudden! I always intended to thank him--to
let him know that I had not taken all his care of me as a matter
of course, as any boy takes his father's care. But I waited for an
opportunity and now he is dead--dropped without a moment's warning. He
will never know what I felt. [He takes out his handkerchief and cries
unaffectedly].

RAMSDEN. How do we know that, Octavius? He may know it: we cannot
tell. Come! Don't grieve. [Octavius masters himself and puts up his
handkerchief]. That's right. Now let me tell you something to console
you. The last time I saw him--it was in this very room--he said to me:
"Tavy is a generous lad and the soul of honor; and when I see how little
consideration other men get from their sons, I realize how much better
than a son he's been to me." There! Doesn't that do you good?

OCTAVIUS. Mr Ramsden: he used to say to me that he had met only one man
in the world who was the soul of honor, and that was Roebuck Ramsden.

RAMSDEN. Oh, that was his partiality: we were very old friends, you
know. But there was something else he used to say about you. I wonder
whether I ought to tell you or not!

OCTAVIUS. You know best.

RAMSDEN. It was something about his daughter.

OCTAVIUS. [eagerly] About Ann! Oh, do tell me that, Mr Ramsden.

RAMSDEN. Well, he said he was glad, after all, you were not his son,
because he thought that someday Annie and you--[Octavius blushes
vividly]. Well, perhaps I shouldn't have told you. But he was in
earnest.

OCTAVIUS. Oh, if only I thought I had a chance! You know, Mr Ramsden, I
don't care about money or about what people call position; and I can't
bring myself to take an interest in the business of struggling for them.
Well, Ann has a most exquisite nature; but she is so accustomed to be
in the thick of that sort of thing that she thinks a man's character
incomplete if he is not ambitious. She knows that if she married me she
would have to reason herself out of being ashamed of me for not being a
big success of some kind.

RAMSDEN. [Getting up and planting himself with his back to the
fireplace] Nonsense, my boy, nonsense! You're too modest. What does she
know about the real value of men at her age? [More seriously] Besides,
she's a wonderfully dutiful girl. Her father's wish would be sacred to
her. Do you know that since she grew up to years of discretion, I don't
believe she has ever once given her own wish as a reason for doing
anything or not doing it. It's always "Father wishes me to," or "Mother
wouldn't like it." It's really almost a fault in her. I have often told
her she must learn to think for herself.

OCTAVIUS. [shaking his head] I couldn't ask her to marry me because her
father wished it, Mr Ramsden.

RAMSDEN. Well, perhaps not. No: of course not. I see that. No: you
certainly couldn't. But when you win her on your own merits, it will be
a great happiness to her to fulfil her father's desire as well as her
own. Eh? Come! you'll ask her, won't you?

OCTAVIUS. [with sad gaiety] At all events I promise you I shall never
ask anyone else.

RAMSDEN. Oh, you shan't need to. She'll accept you, my boy--although
[here he suddenly becomes very serious indeed] you have one great
drawback.

OCTAVIUS. [anxiously] What drawback is that, Mr Ramsden? I should rather
say which of my many drawbacks?

RAMSDEN. I'll tell you, Octavius. [He takes from the table a book bound
in red cloth]. I have in my hand a copy of the most infamous, the most
scandalous, the most mischievous, the most blackguardly book that ever
escaped burning at the hands of the common hangman. I have not read
it: I would not soil my mind with such filth; but I have read what the
papers say of it. The title is quite enough for me. [He reads it]. The
Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion by John Tanner, M.I.R.C.,
Member of the Idle Rich Class.

OCTAVIUS. [smiling] But Jack--

RAMSDEN. [testily] For goodness' sake, don't call him Jack under my
roof [he throws the book violently down on the table, Then, somewhat
relieved, he comes past the table to Octavius, and addresses him at
close quarters with impressive gravity]. Now, Octavius, I know that my
dead friend was right when he said you were a generous lad. I know that
this man was your schoolfellow, and that you feel bound to stand by
him because there was a boyish friendship between you. But I ask you
to consider the altered circumstances. You were treated as a son in my
friend's house. You lived there; and your friends could not be turned
from the door. This Tanner was in and out there on your account almost
from his childhood. He addresses Annie by her Christian name as freely
as you do. Well, while her father was alive, that was her father's
business, not mine. This man Tanner was only a boy to him: his opinions
were something to be laughed at, like a man's hat on a child's head.
But now Tanner is a grown man and Annie a grown woman. And her father
is gone. We don't as yet know the exact terms of his will; but he often
talked it over with me; and I have no more doubt than I have that you're
sitting there that the will appoints me Annie's trustee and guardian.
[Forcibly] Now I tell you, once for all, I can't and I won't have Annie
placed in such a position that she must, out of regard for you, suffer
the intimacy of this fellow Tanner. It's not fair: it's not right: it's
not kind. What are you going to do about it?

OCTAVIUS. But Ann herself has told Jack that whatever his opinions are,
he will always be welcome because he knew her dear father.

RAMSDEN. [out of patience] That girl's mad about her duty to her
parents. [He starts off like a goaded ox in the direction of John
Bright, in whose expression there is no sympathy for him. As he speaks,
he fumes down to Herbert Spencer, who receives him still more coldly]
Excuse me, Octavius; but there are limits to social toleration. You
know that I am not a bigoted or prejudiced man. You know that I am plain
Roebuck Ramsden when other men who have done less have got handles to
their names, because I have stood for equality and liberty of conscience
while they were truckling to the Church and to the aristocracy.
Whitefield and I lost chance after chance through our advanced opinions.
But I draw the line at Anarchism and Free Love and that sort of thing.
If I am to be Annie's guardian, she will have to learn that she has a
duty to me. I won't have it: I will not have it. She must forbid John
Tanner the house; and so must you.

The parlormaid returns.

OCTAVIUS. But--

RAMSDEN. [calling his attention to the servant] Ssh! Well?

THE MAID. Mr Tanner wishes to see you, sir.

RAMSDEN. Mr Tanner!

OCTAVIUS. Jack!

RAMSDEN. How dare Mr Tanner call on me! Say I cannot see him.

OCTAVIUS. [hurt] I am sorry you are turning my friend from your door
like that.

THE MAID. [calmly] He's not at the door, sir. He's upstairs in the
drawingroom with Miss Ramsden. He came with Mrs Whitefield and Miss Ann
and Miss Robinson, sir.

Ramsden's feelings are beyond words.

OCTAVIUS. [grinning] That's very like Jack, Mr Ramsden. You must see
him, even if it's only to turn him out.

RAMSDEN. [hammering out his words with suppressed fury] Go upstairs and
ask Mr Tanner to be good enough to step down here. [The parlormaid goes
out; and Ramsden returns to the fireplace, as to a fortified position].
I must say that of all the confounded pieces of impertinence--well, if
these are Anarchist manners I hope you like them. And Annie with him!
Annie! A-- [he chokes].

OCTAVIUS. Yes: that's what surprises me. He's so desperately afraid of
Ann. There must be something the matter.

Mr John Tanner suddenly opens the door and enters. He is too young to be
described simply as a big man with a beard. But it is already plain that
middle life will find him in that category. He has still some of the
slimness of youth; but youthfulness is not the effect he aims at: his
frock coat would befit a prime minister; and a certain high chested
carriage of the shoulders, a lofty pose of the head, and the Olympian
majesty with which a mane, or rather a huge wisp, of hazel colored
hair is thrown back from an imposing brow, suggest Jupiter rather than
Apollo. He is prodigiously fluent of speech, restless, excitable (mark
the snorting nostril and the restless blue eye, just the thirty-secondth
of an inch too wide open), possibly a little mad. He is carefully
dressed, not from the vanity that cannot resist finery, but from a sense
of the importance of everything he does which leads him to make as
much of paying a call as other men do of getting married or laying a
foundation stone. A sensitive, susceptible, exaggerative, earnest man: a
megalomaniac, who would be lost without a sense of humor.

Just at present the sense of humor is in abeyance. To say that he is
excited is nothing: all his moods are phases of excitement. He is now in
the panic-stricken phase; and he walks straight up to Ramsden as if with
the fixed intention of shooting him on his own hearthrug. But what he
pulls from his breast pocket is not a pistol, but a foolscap document
which he thrusts under the indignant nose of Ramsden as he exclaims--

TANNER. Ramsden: do you know what that is?

RAMSDEN. [loftily] No, Sir.

TANNER. It's a copy of Whitefield's will. Ann got it this morning.

RAMSDEN. When you say Ann, you mean, I presume, Miss Whitefield.

TANNER. I mean our Ann, your Ann, Tavy's Ann, and now, Heaven help me,
my Ann!

OCTAVIUS. [rising, very pale] What do you mean?

TANNER. Mean! [He holds up the will]. Do you know who is appointed Ann's
guardian by this will?

RAMSDEN. [coolly] I believe I am.

TANNER. You! You and I, man. I! I!! I!!! Both of us! [He flings the will
down on the writing table].

RAMSDEN. You! Impossible.

TANNER. It's only too hideously true. [He throws himself into Octavius's
chair]. Ramsden: get me out of it somehow. You don't know Ann as well
as I do. She'll commit every crime a respectable woman can; and
she'll justify every one of them by saying that it was the wish of
her guardians. She'll put everything on us; and we shall have no more
control over her than a couple of mice over a cat.

OCTAVIUS. Jack: I wish you wouldn't talk like that about Ann.

TANNER. This chap's in love with her: that's another complication. Well,
she'll either jilt him and say I didn't approve of him, or marry him
and say you ordered her to. I tell you, this is the most staggering blow
that has ever fallen on a man of my age and temperament.

RAMSDEN. Let me see that will, sir. [He goes to the writing table and
picks it up]. I cannot believe that my old friend Whitefield would have
shown such a want of confidence in me as to associate me with-- [His
countenance falls as he reads].

TANNER. It's all my own doing: that's the horrible irony of it. He told
me one day that you were to be Ann's guardian; and like a fool I began
arguing with him about the folly of leaving a young woman under the
control of an old man with obsolete ideas.

RAMSDEN. [stupended] My ideas obsolete!!!!!

TANNER. Totally. I had just finished an essay called Down with
Government by the Greyhaired; and I was full of arguments and
illustrations. I said the proper thing was to combine the experience of
an old hand with the vitality of a young one. Hang me if he didn't take
me at my word and alter his will--it's dated only a fortnight after that
conversation--appointing me as joint guardian with you!

RAMSDEN. [pale and determined] I shall refuse to act.

TANNER. What's the good of that? I've been refusing all the way from
Richmond; but Ann keeps on saying that of course she's only an orphan;
and that she can't expect the people who were glad to come to the house
in her father's time to trouble much about her now. That's the latest
game. An orphan! It's like hearing an ironclad talk about being at the
mercy of the winds and waves.

OCTAVIUS. This is not fair, Jack. She is an orphan. And you ought to
stand by her.

TANNER. Stand by her! What danger is she in? She has the law on her
side; she has popular sentiment on her side; she has plenty of money
and no conscience. All she wants with me is to load up all her moral
responsibilities on me, and do as she likes at the expense of my
character. I can't control her; and she can compromise me as much as she
likes. I might as well be her husband.

RAMSDEN. You can refuse to accept the guardianship. I shall certainly
refuse to hold it jointly with you.

TANNER. Yes; and what will she say to that? what does she say to it?
Just that her father's wishes are sacred to her, and that she shall
always look up to me as her guardian whether I care to face the
responsibility or not. Refuse! You might as well refuse to accept the
embraces of a boa constrictor when once it gets round your neck.

OCTAVIUS. This sort of talk is not kind to me, Jack.

TANNER. [rising and going to Octavius to console him, but still
lamenting] If he wanted a young guardian, why didn't he appoint Tavy?

RAMSDEN. Ah! why indeed?

OCTAVIUS. I will tell you. He sounded me about it; but I refused the
trust because I loved her. I had no right to let myself be forced on her
as a guardian by her father. He spoke to her about it; and she said I
was right. You know I love her, Mr Ramsden; and Jack knows it too. If
Jack loved a woman, I would not compare her to a boa constrictor in his
presence, however much I might dislike her [he sits down between the
busts and turns his face to the wall].

RAMSDEN. I do not believe that Whitefield was in his right senses
when he made that will. You have admitted that he made it under your
influence.

TANNER. You ought to be pretty well obliged to me for my influence. He
leaves you two thousand five hundred for your trouble. He leaves Tavy a
dowry for his sister and five thousand for himself.

OCTAVIUS. [his tears flowing afresh] Oh, I can't take it. He was too
good to us.

TANNER. You won't get it, my boy, if Ramsden upsets the will.

RAMSDEN. Ha! I see. You have got me in a cleft stick.

TANNER. He leaves me nothing but the charge of Ann's morals, on the
ground that I have already more money than is good for me. That shows
that he had his wits about him, doesn't it?

RAMSDEN. [grimly] I admit that.

OCTAVIUS. [rising and coming from his refuge by the wall] Mr Ramsden:
I think you are prejudiced against Jack. He is a man of honor, and
incapable of abusing--

TANNER. Don't, Tavy: you'll make me ill. I am not a man of honor: I am
a man struck down by a dead hand. Tavy: you must marry her after all and
take her off my hands. And I had set my heart on saving you from her!

OCTAVIUS. Oh, Jack, you talk of saving me from my highest happiness.

TANNER. Yes, a lifetime of happiness. If it were only the first half
hour's happiness, Tavy, I would buy it for you with my last penny. But
a lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on
earth.

RAMSDEN. [violently] Stuff, sir. Talk sense; or else go and waste
someone else's time: I have something better to do than listen to your
fooleries [he positively kicks his way to his table and resumes his
seat].

TANNER. You hear him, Tavy! Not an idea in his head later than
eighteen-sixty. We can't leave Ann with no other guardian to turn to.

RAMSDEN. I am proud of your contempt for my character and opinions, sir.
Your own are set forth in that book, I believe.

TANNER. [eagerly going to the table] What! You've got my book! What do
you think of it?

RAMSDEN. Do you suppose I would read such a book, sir?

TANNER. Then why did you buy it?

RAMSDEN. I did not buy it, sir. It has been sent me by some foolish
lady who seems to admire your views. I was about to dispose of it when
Octavius interrupted me. I shall do so now, with your permission. [He
throws the book into the waste paper basket with such vehemence that
Tanner recoils under the impression that it is being thrown at his
head].

TANNER. You have no more manners than I have myself. However, that saves
ceremony between us. [He sits down again]. What do you intend to do
about this will?

OCTAVIUS. May I make a suggestion?

RAMSDEN. Certainly, Octavius.

OCTAVIUS. Aren't we forgetting that Ann herself may have some wishes in
this matter?

RAMSDEN. I quite intend that Annie's wishes shall be consulted in every
reasonable way. But she is only a woman, and a young and inexperienced
woman at that.

TANNER. Ramsden: I begin to pity you.

RAMSDEN. [hotly] I don't want to know how you feel towards me, Mr
Tanner.

TANNER. Ann will do just exactly what she likes. And what's more, she'll
force us to advise her to do it; and she'll put the blame on us if it
turns out badly. So, as Tavy is longing to see her--

OCTAVIUS. [shyly] I am not, Jack.

TANNER. You lie, Tavy: you are. So let's have her down from the
drawing-room and ask her what she intends us to do. Off with you, Tavy,
and fetch her. [Tavy turns to go]. And don't be long for the strained
relations between myself and Ramsden will make the interval rather
painful [Ramsden compresses his lips, but says nothing--].

OCTAVIUS. Never mind him, Mr Ramsden. He's not serious. [He goes out].

RAMSDEN [very deliberately] Mr Tanner: you are the most impudent person
I have ever met.

TANNER. [seriously] I know it, Ramsden. Yet even I cannot wholly conquer
shame. We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything
that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our
incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as
we are ashamed of our naked skins. Good Lord, my dear Ramsden, we are
ashamed to walk, ashamed to ride in an omnibus, ashamed to hire a hansom
instead of keeping a carriage, ashamed of keeping one horse instead of
two and a groom-gardener instead of a coachman and footman. The more
things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. Why, you're
ashamed to buy my book, ashamed to read it: the only thing you're not
ashamed of is to judge me for it without having read it; and even that
only means that you're ashamed to have heterodox opinions. Look at the
effect I produce because my fairy godmother withheld from me this gift
of shame. I have every possible virtue that a man can have except--

RAMSDEN. I am glad you think so well of yourself.

TANNER. All you mean by that is that you think I ought to be ashamed of
talking about my virtues. You don't mean that I haven't got them: you
know perfectly well that I am as sober and honest a citizen as yourself,
as truthful personally, and much more truthful politically and morally.

RAMSDEN. [touched on his most sensitive point] I deny that. I will
not allow you or any man to treat me as if I were a mere member of
the British public. I detest its prejudices; I scorn its narrowness; I
demand the right to think for myself. You pose as an advanced man. Let
me tell you that I was an advanced man before you were born.

TANNER. I knew it was a long time ago.

RAMSDEN. I am as advanced as ever I was. I defy you to prove that I have
ever hauled down the flag. I am more advanced than ever I was. I grow
more advanced every day.

TANNER. More advanced in years, Polonius.

RAMSDEN. Polonius! So you are Hamlet, I suppose.

TANNER. No: I am only the most impudent person you've ever met. That's
your notion of a thoroughly bad character. When you want to give me a
piece of your mind, you ask yourself, as a just and upright man, what
is the worst you can fairly say of me. Thief, liar, forger, adulterer,
perjurer, glutton, drunkard? Not one of these names fit me. You have
to fall back on my deficiency in shame. Well, I admit it. I even
congratulate myself; for if I were ashamed of my real self, I should
cut as stupid a figure as any of the rest of you. Cultivate a little
impudence, Ramsden; and you will become quite a remarkable man.

RAMSDEN. I have no--

TANNER. You have no desire for that sort of notoriety. Bless you, I knew
that answer would come as well as I know that a box of matches will come
out of an automatic machine when I put a penny in the slot: you would be
ashamed to say anything else.

The crushing retort for which Ramsden has been visibly collecting his
forces is lost for ever; for at this point Octavius returns with Miss
Ann Whitefield and her mother; and Ramsden springs up and hurries to the
door to receive them. Whether Ann is good-looking or not depends upon
your taste; also and perhaps chiefly on your age and sex. To Octavius
she is an enchantingly beautiful woman, in whose presence the world
becomes transfigured, and the puny limits of individual consciousness
are suddenly made infinite by a mystic memory of the whole life of the
race to its beginnings in the east, or even back to the paradise from
which it fell. She is to him the reality of romance, the leaner good
sense of nonsense, the unveiling of his eyes, the freeing of his soul,
the abolition of time, place and circumstance, the etherealization of
his blood into rapturous rivers of the very water of life itself,
the revelation of all the mysteries and the sanctification of all the
dogmas. To her mother she is, to put it as moderately as possible,
nothing whatever of the kind. Not that Octavius's admiration is in any
way ridiculous or discreditable. Ann is a well formed creature, as far
as that goes; and she is perfectly ladylike, graceful, and comely, with
ensnaring eyes and hair. Besides, instead of making herself an eyesore,
like her mother, she has devised a mourning costume of black and
violet silk which does honor to her late father and reveals the family
tradition of brave unconventionality by which Ramsden sets such store.

But all this is beside the point as an explanation of Ann's charm.
Turn up her nose, give a cast to her eye, replace her black and violet
confection by the apron and feathers of a flower girl, strike all the
aitches out of her speech, and Ann would still make men dream. Vitality
is as common as humanity; but, like humanity, it sometimes rises to
genius; and Ann is one of the vital geniuses. Not at all, if you please,
an oversexed person: that is a vital defect, not a true excess. She is
a perfectly respectable, perfectly self-controlled woman, and looks
it; though her pose is fashionably frank and impulsive. She inspires
confidence as a person who will do nothing she does not mean to do; also
some fear, perhaps, as a woman who will probably do everything she means
to do without taking more account of other people than may be necessary
and what she calls right. In short, what the weaker of her own sex
sometimes call a cat.

Nothing can be more decorous than her entry and her reception by
Ramsden, whom she kisses. The late Mr Whitefield would be gratified
almost to impatience by the long faces of the men (except Tanner, who is
fidgety), the silent handgrasps, the sympathetic placing of chairs, the
sniffing of the widow, and the liquid eye of the daughter, whose heart,
apparently, will not let her control her tongue to speech. Ramsden and
Octavius take the two chairs from the wall, and place them for the two
ladies; but Ann comes to Tanner and takes his chair, which he offers
with a brusque gesture, subsequently relieving his irritation by sitting
down on the corner of the writing table with studied indecorum. Octavius
gives Mrs Whitefield a chair next Ann, and himself takes the vacant
one which Ramsden has placed under the nose of the effigy of Mr Herbert
Spencer.

Mrs Whitefield, by the way, is a little woman, whose faded flaxen hair
looks like straw on an egg. She has an expression of muddled shrewdness,
a squeak of protest in her voice, and an odd air of continually elbowing
away some larger person who is crushing her into a corner. One guesses
her as one of those women who are conscious of being treated as silly
and negligible, and who, without having strength enough to assert
themselves effectually, at any rate never submit to their fate. There
is a touch of chivalry in Octavius's scrupulous attention to her, even
whilst his whole soul is absorbed by Ann.

Ramsden goes solemnly back to his magisterial seat at the writing table,
ignoring Tanner, and opens the proceedings.

RAMSDEN. I am sorry, Annie, to force business on you at a sad time like
the present. But your poor dear father's will has raised a very serious
question. You have read it, I believe?

[Ann assents with a nod and a catch of her breath, too much affected to
speak].

I must say I am surprised to find Mr Tanner named as joint guardian
and trustee with myself of you and Rhoda. [A pause. They all look
portentous; but they have nothing to say. Ramsden, a little ruffled by
the lack of any response, continues] I don't know that I can consent to
act under such conditions. Mr Tanner has, I understand, some objection
also; but I do not profess to understand its nature: he will no doubt
speak for himself. But we are agreed that we can decide nothing until we
know your views. I am afraid I shall have to ask you to choose between
my sole guardianship and that of Mr Tanner; for I fear it is impossible
for us to undertake a joint arrangement.

ANN. [in a low musical voice] Mamma--

MRS WHITEFIELD. [hastily] Now, Ann, I do beg you not to put it on me. I
have no opinion on the subject; and if I had, it would probably not be
attended to. I am quite with whatever you three think best.

Tanner turns his head and looks fixedly at Ramsden, who angrily refuses
to receive this mute communication.

ANN. [resuming in the same gentle voice, ignoring her mother's bad
taste] Mamma knows that she is not strong enough to bear the whole
responsibility for me and Rhoda without some help and advice. Rhoda
must have a guardian; and though I am older, I do not think any young
unmarried woman should be left quite to her own guidance. I hope you
agree with me, Granny?

TANNER. [starting] Granny! Do you intend to call your guardians Granny?

ANN. Don't be foolish, Jack. Mr Ramsden has always been Grandpapa
Roebuck to me: I am Granny's Annie; and he is Annie's Granny. I
christened him so when I first learned to speak.

RAMSDEN. [sarcastically] I hope you are satisfied, Mr Tanner. Go on,
Annie: I quite agree with you.

ANN. Well, if I am to have a guardian, CAN I set aside anybody whom my
dear father appointed for me?

RAMSDEN. [biting his lip] You approve of your father's choice, then?

ANN. It is not for me to approve or disapprove. I accept it. My father
loved me and knew best what was good for me.

RAMSDEN. Of course I understand your feeling, Annie. It is what I should
have expected of you; and it does you credit. But it does not settle the
question so completely as you think. Let me put a case to you. Suppose
you were to discover that I had been guilty of some disgraceful
action--that I was not the man your poor dear father took me for. Would
you still consider it right that I should be Rhoda's guardian?

ANN. I can't imagine you doing anything disgraceful, Granny.

TANNER. [to Ramsden] You haven't done anything of the sort, have you?

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] No sir.

MRS. WHITEFIELD. [placidly] Well, then, why suppose it?

ANN. You see, Granny, Mamma would not like me to suppose it.

RAMSDEN. [much perplexed] You are both so full of natural and
affectionate feeling in these family matters that it is very hard to put
the situation fairly before you.

TANNER. Besides, my friend, you are not putting the situation fairly
before them.

RAMSDEN. [sulkily] Put it yourself, then.

TANNER. I will. Ann: Ramsden thinks I am not fit be your guardian; and I
quite agree with him. He considers that if your father had read my book,
he wouldn't have appointed me. That book is the disgraceful action he
has been talking about. He thinks it's your duty for Rhoda's sake to ask
him to act alone and to make me withdraw. Say the word and I will.

ANN. But I haven't read your book, Jack.

TANNER. [diving at the waste-paper basket and fishing the book out for
her] Then read it at once and decide.

RAMSDEN. If I am to be your guardian, I positively forbid you to read
that book, Annie. [He smites the table with his fist and rises].

ANN. Of course, if you don't wish it. [She puts the book on the table].

TANNER. If one guardian is to forbid you to read the other guardian's
book, how are we to settle it? Suppose I order you to read it! What
about your duty to me?

ANN. [gently] I am sure you would never purposely force me into a
painful dilemma, Jack.

RAMSDEN. [irritably] Yes, yes, Annie: this is all very well, and, as I
said, quite natural and becoming. But you must make a choice one way or
the other. We are as much in a dilemma as you.

ANN. I feel that I am too young, too inexperienced, to decide. My
father's wishes are sacred to me.

MRS WHITEFIELD. If you two men won't carry them out I must say it is
rather hard that you should put the responsibility on Ann. It seems to
me that people are always putting things on other people in this world.

RAMSDEN. I am sorry you take it that way.

ANN. [touchingly] Do you refuse to accept me as your ward, Granny?

RAMSDEN. No: I never said that. I greatly object to act with Mr Tanner:
that's all.

MRS. WHITEFIELD. Why? What's the matter with poor Jack?

TANNER. My views are too advanced for him.

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] They are not. I deny it.

ANN. Of course not. What nonsense! Nobody is more advanced than Granny.
I am sure it is Jack himself who has made all the difficulty. Come,
Jack! Be kind to me in my sorrow. You don't refuse to accept me as your
ward, do you?

TANNER. [gloomily] No. I let myself in for it; so I suppose I must face
it. [He turns away to the bookcase, and stands there, moodily studying
the titles of the volumes].

ANN. [rising and expanding with subdued but gushing delight] Then we are
all agreed; and my dear father's will is to be carried out. You don't
know what a joy that is to me and to my mother! [She goes to Ramsden and
presses both his hands, saying] And I shall have my dear Granny to help
and advise me. [She casts a glance at Tanner over her shoulder]. And
Jack the Giant Killer. [She goes past her mother to Octavius]. And
Jack's inseparable friend Ricky-ticky-tavy [he blushes and looks
inexpressibly foolish].

MRS WHITEFIELD. [rising and shaking her widow's weeds straight] Now that
you are Ann's guardian, Mr Ramsden, I wish you would speak to her about
her habit of giving people nicknames. They can't be expected to like it.
[She moves towards the door].

ANN. How can you say such a thing, Mamma! [Glowing with affectionate
remorse] Oh, I wonder can you be right! Have I been inconsiderate? [She
turns to Octavius, who is sitting astride his chair with his elbows on
the back of it. Putting her hand on his forehead the turns his face up
suddenly]. Do you want to be treated like a grown up man? Must I call
you Mr Robinson in future?

OCTAVIUS. [earnestly] Oh please call me Ricky-ticky--tavy, "Mr Robinson"
would hurt me cruelly. [She laughs and pats his cheek with her finger;
then comes back to Ramsden]. You know I'm beginning to think that Granny
is rather a piece of impertinence. But I never dreamt of its hurting
you.

RAMSDEN. [breezily, as he pats her affectionately on the back] My dear
Annie, nonsense. I insist on Granny. I won't answer to any other name
than Annie's Granny.

ANN. [gratefully] You all spoil me, except Jack.

TANNER. [over his shoulder, from the bookcase] I think you ought to call
me Mr Tanner.

ANN. [gently] No you don't, Jack. That's like the things you say on
purpose to shock people: those who know you pay no attention to them.
But, if you like, I'll call you after your famous ancestor Don Juan.

RAMSDEN. Don Juan!

ANN. [innocently] Oh, is there any harm in it? I didn't know. Then I
certainly won't call you that. May I call you Jack until I can think of
something else?

TANKER. Oh, for Heaven's sake don't try to invent anything worse. I
capitulate. I consent to Jack. I embrace Jack. Here endeth my first and
last attempt to assert my authority.

ANN. You see, Mamma, they all really like to have pet names.

MRS WHITEFIELD. Well, I think you might at least drop them until we are
out of mourning.

ANN. [reproachfully, stricken to the soul] Oh, how could you remind me,
mother? [She hastily leaves the room to conceal her emotion].