Bernard Shaw

“ Most of the laborious people think they have made themselves what they are—much as if a child should think it had made itself grow.”
“You are the first artist I ever met,” said Lydia, “who did not claim art as the most laborious of all avocations. They all deny the existence of genius, and attribute everything to work.”
“Of course one picks up a great deal from experience; and there is plenty of work on the stage. But it in my genius which enables me to pick up things, and to work on the stage instead of in a kitchen or laundry.”
“You must be very fond of your profession.” ”

“ Society was delightful to her because it was real London society. She acquired a mania for dancing; went out every night, and seemed to herself far more distinguished and attractive than she had ever been in Wiltstoken, where she had nevertheless held a sufficiently favorable opinion of her own manners and person.
Lydia did not share all these dissipations. She easily procured invitations and chaperones for Alice, who wondered why so intelligent a woman would take the trouble to sit out a stupid concert, and then go home, just as the real pleasure of the evening was beginning. ”

“ Cashel laughed cunningly, and shook his head. “Don’t you make any mistake about that,” he said. “You don’t want anybody to be quite as clever as yourself; it isn’t in human nature that you should. You’d like people to be just clever enough to show you off—to be worth beating. But you wouldn’t like them to be able to beat you. Just clever enough to know how much cleverer you are; that’s about the mark. Eh?”
Lydia made no further effort to enlighten him. ”

“ Lydia, for the first time in her life, screamed. Then she saw Cashel, his face fully as fierce as Paradise’s, get his arm about his neck; lift him as a coal-heaver lifts a sack, and fling him over his back, heels over head, to the ground, where he instantly dropped on him with his utmost weight and impetus. The two were at once separated by a crowd of managers, umpires, policemen, and others who had rushed towards the ring when Paradise had taken off his gloves. ”

“ If that gentleman that laughed know how to fight, and his neighbors all knew how to fight too, he wouldn’t need to fear police, nor soldiers, nor Russians, nor Prussians, nor any of the millions of men that may be let loose on him any day of the week, safe though he thinks himself. But, says you, let’s have a division of labor. Let’s not fight for ourselves, but pay other men to fight for us. That shows how some people, when they get hold of an idea, will work it to that foolish length that it’s wearisome to listen to them. Fighting is the power of self-preservation ”

“ He could see only one way to escape the torment of Cashel’s jeering and the self-reproach of a coward. He desperately clenched his fist and struck out. The blow wasted itself on space; and he stumbled forward against his adversary, who laughed uproariously, grasped his hand, clapped him on the back, and exclaimed,
“Well done, my boy. I thought you were going to be mean; but you’ve been game, and you’re welcome to the stakes. I’ll tell Lydia that you have fought me for twenty pounds and won on your merits. Ain’t you proud of yourself for having had a go at the champion?” ”

“ My wealth frightens every man who is not a knave; and your profession frightens every woman who is not a fury.”
“Then you—Just tell me this,” said Cashel, eagerly. “Suppose I were a rich swell, and were not a—”
“No,” said Lydia, peremptorily interrupting him. “I will suppose nothing but what is.”
Cashel relapsed into melancholy. “If you only hadn’t been kind to me!” he said. “I think the reason I love you so much is that you’re the only person that is not afraid of me. Other people are civil because they daren’t be otherwise to the cock of the ring. It’s a lonely thing to be a champion. ”

“ Alice was about to pass in with a cool bow when she saw Miss Carew offer Cashel her hand. Whatever Lydia did was done so well that it seemed the right thing to do. He took it timidly and gave it a little shake, not daring to meet her eyes. Alice put out her hand stiffly. Cashel immediately stepped forward with his right foot and enveloped her fingers with the hardest clump of knuckles she had ever felt. Glancing down at this remarkable fist, she saw that it was discolored almost to blackness. Then she went in through the gate, followed by Lydia, who turned to close it behind her. ”

“ Supposing a fighting man has as good manners as your friends, and is as well born, why shouldn’t he mix with them and be considered their equal?”
“The distinction seems arbitrary, I confess. But perhaps the true remedy would be to exclude the vivisectors and soldiers, instead of admitting the prize-fighters. Mr. Cashel Byron,” added Lydia, changing her manner, “I cannot discuss this with you. Society has a prejudice against you. I share it; and I cannot overcome it. Can you find no nobler occupation than these fierce and horrible encounters by which you condescend to gain a living?” ”

“ She shrank from the people who attached themselves to her strength and riches even when they had not calculated her gain, and were conscious only of admiration and gratitude. Alice, as a companion, had proved a failure. She was too young, and too much occupied with the propriety of her own behavior, to be anything more to Lydia than an occasional tax upon her patience. Lydia, to her own surprise, thought several times of Miss Gisborne, and felt tempted to invite her, but was restrained by mistrust of the impulse to communicate with Cashel’s mother, and reluctance to trace it to its source. ”

“ Only think, dear Miss Carew, of the infinite patieuce with which you must tend a child, of the necessity of seeing with its little eyes and with your own wise ones at the same time, of bearing without reproach the stabs it innocently inflicts, of forgiving its hundred little selfishnesses, of living in continual fear of wounding its exquisite sensitiveness, or rousing its bitter resentment of injustice and caprice. Think of how you must watch yourself, check yourself, exercise and develop everything in you that can help to attract and retain the most jealous love in the world! ”

“ On the whole, by dint of imitating Miss Oarew, who did not plague her with any hostess-like vigilance, she came off without discredit to her breeding.
Lydia, on her part, acknowledged no obligation to entertain her guest by chatting, and enjoyed her thoughts and her dinner in silence. Alice began to be fascinated by her, and to wonder what she was thinking about. She fancied that the footman was not quite free from the same influence. Even the butler might have been meditating himself to sleep on the subject. Alice felt tempted to offer her a penny for her thoughts. ”

“ The luck is against me. I hope, Miss Carew, that you’ll excuse me for making such an ass of myself. It’s all my blessed innocence; I never was taught any better.”
“I have no quarrel with you except on the old score of hiding the truth from me; and that I forgive you—as far as the evil of it affects me. As for your declaration of attachment to me personally, I have received many similar ones that have flattered me less. But there are certain scruples between us. You will not court a woman a hundred-fold richer than yourself; and I will not entertain a prize-fighter. ”

“ THERE’S a humane and manly way of spending a Saturday afternoon! Lord Worthington, that comes to see you when he likes, though he’s too much of a man or too little of a shot to kill pigeons, thinks nothing of fox-hunting. Do you think foxes like to be hunted, or that the people that hunt them have such fine feelings that they can afford to call prize-fighters names? Look at the men that get killed or lamed every year at steeple-chasing, fox-hunting, cricket, and foot-ball! Dozens of them! Look at the thousands killed in battle! Did you ever hear of any one being killed in the ring? ”

“ Lydia, and a woman whose noble carriage and elegant form would, have raised hopes of beauty in a man less preoccupied than Cashel. But he, after advancing some distance with his eyes on Lydia, suddenly changed countenance, stopped, and was actually turning to fly, when the ladies, hearing his light step, faced about and rooted him to the spot. As Lydia offered him her hand, her companion, who had surveyed the visitor first with indifference, and then with incredulous surprise, exclaimed, with a burst of delighted recognition, like a child finding a long-lost plaything, “My darling boy!” ”

“ Lydia did not retort. She waited a minute in pensive silence, and then said,
“Why do you not marry Alice Goff?”
“Oh, hang Alice Goff!”
“It is so easy to come at the man beneath the veneer by expertly chipping at his feelings,” said Lydia, laughing. “But I was serious, Lucian. Alice is energetic, ambitious, and stubbornly upright in questions of principle. I believe she would assist you steadily at every step of your career. Besides, she has physical robustness. Our student-stock needs an infusion of that.” ”

“ Cashel, with a start, relaxed his grasp; and Teddy rolled on the ground. He went away thrusting his hands iuto his sleeves, and out-facing his disgrace by a callous grin. Cashel, without speaking, offered Lydia his arm; and she, seeing that her best course was to get away from that place with as few words as possible, accepted it, and then turned and thanked the butcher, who blushed and became speechless. The little man whose exclamation had interrupted the combat, now waved his hat, and cried,
“The British Lion forever! Three cheers for Cashel Byron.” ”

“ Lydia, hearing this, looked again, and saw Cashel Byron, exactly as she had seen him for the first time in the elm vista at Wiltstoken, approaching the ring with the indifferent air of a man going through some tedious public ceremony.
“A god coming down to compete with a gladiator,” whispered Lord Worthington, eagerly. “Isn’t it, Miss Carew? Apollo and the satyr! You must admit that our mutual friend is a splendid-looking fellow. ”

“ She was even a little out of countenance, but not so much so as Cashel, who nevertheless could not take his eyes away.
“Do you think,” said Alice, as they crossed the orchard, “that that man is a gentleman?”
“How can I possibly tell? We hardly know him.”
“But what do you think? There is always a certain something about a gentleman that one recognizes by instinct.”
“Is there? I have never observed it.”
“Have you not?” said Alice, surprised, and beginning uneasily to fear that her superior perception of gentility was in some way the effect of her social inferiority to Miss Carew. ”

“ Panley Common, viewed from the back windows of Moncrief House, is a tract of grass, furze and rushes, stretching away to the western horizon.
One wet spring afternoon the sky was full of broken clouds, and the common was swept by their shadows, between which patches of green and yellow gorse were bright in the broken sunlight. The hills to the northward were obscured by a heavy shower, traces of which were drying off the slates of the school, a square white building, formerly a gentleman’s country-house. ”

“ That pleases me, Lydia, because I believe you. But such things are better left unsaid. They seem to belong to the art of pleasing, which you will perhaps soon be tempted to practise, because it seems to all young people easy, well paid, amiable, and a mark of good breeding. In truth it is vulgar, cowardly, egotistical, and insincere: a virtue in a shopman; a vice in a free woman. ”

“ Cashel.”
“Mrs. Skene!” said Lydia, reproachfully.
Mrs. Skene understood all that Lydia’s tone implied. “I know, ma’am,” she pleaded. “I know well. But what could I do but come to you? Whatever you said to him, it has gone to his heart; and he’s dying.”
“Pardon me,” said Lydia, promptly; “men do not die of such things; and Mr. Cashel Byron is not so deficient either in robustness of body or hardness of heart as to be an exception to THAT rule.”
“Yes, miss,” said Mrs. Skene, sadly. “You are thinking of the profession. You can’t believe he has any feelings because he fights. ”

“ Believe me, it is a priceless trial to be a mother. It is a royal compensation for having been born a woman.”
“Nevertheless,” said Lydia, “I wish I had been born a man. Since you seem to have thought deeply into these problems, I will venture to ask you a question. Do you not think that the acquirement of an art demanding years of careful self-study and training—such as yours, for example—is also of great educational value? Almost a sufficient discipline to make one a good mother?”
“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Byron, decidedly. “People come into the world ready-made. ”

“ It was Bashville who now entered the library with a salver, which he proffered to Alice, saying, “The gentleman is waiting in the round drawing-room, miss.”
Alice took the gentleman’s card, and read, “Mr. Wallace Parker.”
“Oh!” she said, with vexation, glancing at Bashville as if to divine his impression of the visitor. “My cousin—the one we were speaking of just now—has come to see me.”
“How fortunate!” said Lydia. “He will tell me the meaning of pug. Ask him to lunch with us.”
“You would not care for him,” said Alice. “He is not much used to society. ”

“ I warned you that I should give you expensive habits.”
Alice hesitated. She had a healthy inclination to take whatever she could get on all occasions; and she had suffered too much from poverty not to be more thankful for her good-fortune than humiliated by Miss Carew’s bounty. But the thought of being driven, richly attired, in one of the castle carriages, and meeting Janet trudging about her daily tasks in cheap black serge and mended gloves, made Alice feel that she deserved all her mother’s reproaches. ”

“ Imagine, now, this poor phoenix meeting with a man who had never been guilty of self-analysis in his life—who complained when he was annoyed, and exulted when he was glad, like a child (and unlike a modern man) —who was honest and brave, strong and beautiful. You open your eyes, Lucian: you do not do justice to Cashel’s good looks. ”

“ Cashel Byron. Are you curious about him?”
“I!” exclaimed Alice, superbly. “Not in the least.”
“I am. He interests me. I seldom see anything novel in humanity; and he is a very singular man.”
“I meant,” said Alice, crestfallen, “that I take no special interest in him.”
Lydia, not being curious as to the exact degree of Alice’s interest, merely nodded, and continued, “He may, as you suppose, be a man of humble origin who has seen something of society; or he may be a gentleman unaccustomed to society. ”