Arthur Machen

“ Shaw had not forgotten the poor teller of many tales.
But we must not wander from our proper field. We have seen that Poverty is the greatest of crimes and evils, that £365 per annum for every body would mean the Golden Age, that all punishment is wrong—except punishment inflicted on innocent people by courageous souls. Let it be once more repeated: to "fulminate" those who mean only good is natural, and proper, and excellent, things being as they are; to send a maquereau or a torturer of children to gaol is a horrible and inhuman outrage ”

“ Shaw has penetrated beyond this; he sees that a successful manufacturer is, by many degrees, more poisonous than a burglar; he sees that the great majority of people are poor and wretched, and he concludes that they are wretched because they are poor. Here, I think, is the deadly error. It is really quite obvious; it is past denial. The poor are not inevitably wretched; the wealthy are by no means happy because of their wealth. Not a pound a day, not a thousand pounds a day can make any man a whit happier ”

“ It is new, certainly, for it is very different from the cry of the saints under the altar, who know not how long oppression and violence and wrong shall be suffered to continue, from the praise of a Great Failure that has always instinctively issued from all worthy human hearts from the beginning of the world. "The Lamb that was Slain!" We have outgrown all that! Let us sing the Successful Financier who has brought it off, and liveth in Park Lane, who has decided that Poverty is "the one thing he will not tolerate." ”

“ One is afraid that the whole Socialist movement is vitiated by this monstrous fallacy: that the people with big incomes are well off, and therefore happy; therefore, everybody should have big incomes. Mr. Shaw, of course, who knew a Captain Wilson (with a very poor opinion of the Sermon on the Mount) , is quite certain that everything would be all right if only everybody could live in Park Lane—because, then, of course, there could be no burglars—but he has really lived long enough on the earth to know that the true riches are not in having and gaining, but in refusing and renouncing. ”

“ Let us also remember that to teach children: "that it is sinful to desire money is to strain upwards the extreme possible limit of impudence in lying, and corruption in hypocrisy. The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilisation, the one sound spot in our social conscience. Money is the most important thing in the world. ”

“ I come back to my original illustration: the wounds of the spirit cannot ever be healed by the exhibition of a consommé, however artfully prepared; and when one has said this, one has answered the whole question of the distribution of wealth. It is quite true that the meek shall inherit the earth; but that does not precisely mean that those who exercise the lodger franchise shall be as happy as they who dwell in Park Lane. They may be much happier, or not nearly so happy. ”

“ The Irish-American in that moving history walks through Leicester Square, full of old men and small children and nursery maids, wondering where he can plant his instrument of wholesale death to the best advantage, and while he looks out for a cosy corner, he suddenly reflects on the fact that the savage hounds of tyranny may even now be on his trail, that if his mission were known he might be torn to pieces by a cruel and ruthless mob. ”

“ Shaw is simply an ordinary case of a man brought up in that horrible travesty of religion called Protestantism—only in this especial case the man happens to have brains and a heart. In the usual run of circumstances these items are missing, and one goes into business and subscribes to the Society for the Conversion of the Jews, and builds a factory, and lays waste a pleasant country, and enters Parliament—and, very likely, professes an enormous enthusiasm for the people that one has enslaved. ”

“ It represents health, strength, honour, generosity and beauty as conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness. . . . Money is the counter that enables life to be distributed socially: it is life as truly as sovereigns and bank notes are money. ”

“ One is sorry for a man of intelligence who is not aware of the fact that a beggar dying in the gutter may be infinitely happier than a millionaire of advanced views living in a sham Gothic palace, in a country without an Established Church. ”

“ Shaw is one, and perhaps the strongest, of the influences that have brought about this good result.
But——the fact of having written a play that is not a decoction of rice-pudding and whisky-and-soda is not in itself a degree in philosophy. One may even fill the Court Theatre and not be in a position to rise superior to all the thought of all the ages; though I am sure that to fill any theatre is a very stimulating and exciting feat. ”

“ It would be far more sensible to put up with their vices as we put up with their illnesses until they give more trouble than they are worth, at which point we should, with many apologies and expressions of sympathy, and some generosity in complying with their last wishes, place them in the lethal chamber and get rid of them. ”