The Land and the People 9

considered that Dickens surpassed in popular appeal.
Maeterlinck and Ibsen had a message for their
own time. Nietsche clears away the fog of the great,
laboured thinking of Immanuel Kant, but at the same
time steals the sweetness from life and leaves vinegar
in its place. Spencer is the finest and most wide-
visioned mind in philosophy but lacks Kant’s depth.
Bernard Shaw was brilliant, like a dazzling flare
that brings out surrounding things with startling
clearness. Shaw and Wells play their game magni-
ficently, but it is anybody’s game of exposing and
ridiculing mistakes. With flourish of banner and
stirring note of trumpet, Shaw marches the cripples
of humanity past us in procession, and as they
hobble along he uncovers their blemishes, and
laughs delightfully at the crooked forms and ugli-
ness of our heroes. It is rare fun, but, when stripped
of all its scintillating genius, isn’t it only making
sport of cripples? A mean game, he thought, say
what we will in its favour, even though we enjoy it
and often practise it in our own lives. Shaw, in St.
Joan, his best work, is happily changing his habit
of ridicule. In this play he shows a tenderness to-
wards stumbling humanity, a sympathy with fal-
tering faith, that makes him appeal not only to the
intellect, but also to the heart of his readers. The
jester is giving place to the prophet and a welcome
kindliness and humility is evident in his later
writings. Wells does try to be constructive, but it
is in a wild and smashing way that takes little
account of the real, slow-working laws of permanent