Bernard Shaw

“ O'FLAHERTY. The only one I could think of was Shakespeare, sir; and she says he was born in Cork.
SIR PEARCE [exhausted] . Well, I give it up [he throws himself into the nearest chair] . The woman is—Oh, well! No matter.
O'FLAHERTY [sympathetically] . Yes, sir: she's pigheaded and obstinate: there's no doubt about it. She's like the English: they think there's no one like themselves. It's the same with the Germans, though they're educated and ought to know better. You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. ”

“ I knew by personal experience and observation what anyone might have inferred from the records of Irish emigration, that all an Irishman's hopes and ambitions turn on his opportunities of getting out of Ireland. Stimulate his loyalty, and he will stay in Ireland and die for her; for, incomprehensible as it seems to an Englishman, Irish patriotism does not take the form of devotion to England and England's king. ”

“ No one will ever know how many men joined the army in 1914 and 1915 to escape from tyrants and taskmasters, termagants and shrews, none of whom are any the less irksome when they happen by ill-luck to be also our fathers, our mothers, our wives and our children. Even at their amiablest, a holiday from them may be a tempting change for all parties. That is why I did not endow O'Flaherty V.C. with an ideal Irish colleen for his sweetheart, and gave him for his mother a Volumnia of the potato patch rather than a affectionate parent from whom he could not so easily have torn himself away. ”

“ I'll fight for who I like; and I'll shake hands with what kings I like; and if your own son is not good enough for you, you can go and look for another. Do you mind me now?
MRS O'FLAHERTY. And was it the Belgians learned you such brazen impudence?
O'FLAHERTY. The Belgians is good men; and the French ought to be more civil to them, let alone their being half murdered by the Boshes.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Good men is it! Good men! ”

“ Why should I read the papers to be humbugged and lied to by them that had the cunning to stay at home and send me to fight for them? Don't talk to me or to any soldier of the war being right. No war is right; and all the holy water that Father Quinlan ever blessed couldn't make one right. There, sir! Now you know what O'Flaherty V.C. thinks; and you're wiser so than the others that only knows what he done.
SIR PEARCE [making the best of it, and turning goodhumoredly to him again] . ”

“ And how is your honor's good self? And how is her ladyship and all the young ladies? Oh, it's right glad we are to see your honor back again and looking the picture of health.
SIR PEARCE [forcing a note of extreme geniality] . Thank you, Mrs O'Flaherty. Well, you see we've brought you back your son safe and sound. I hope you're proud of him.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. And indeed and I am, your honor. It's the brave boy he is; and why wouldn't he be, brought up on your honor's estate and with you before his eyes for a pattern of the finest soldier in Ireland. ”

“ O'FLAHERTY. One of them Frenchwomen would cook you a meal twice in the day and all days and every day that Sir Pearce himself might go begging through Ireland for, and never see the like of. I'll have a French wife, I tell you; and when I settle down to be a farmer I'll have a French farm, with a field as big as the continent of Europe that ten of your dirty little fields here wouldn't so much as fill the ditch of. ”

“ O'FLAHERTY. It's a queer way of doing business. If they'd tell you straight out what they was going to give you, you wouldn't mind; but if there was twenty ways of telling the truth and only one way of telling a lie, the Government would find it out. It's in the nature of governments to tell lies.
Teresa Driscoll, a parlor maid, comes from the house,
TERESA. You're to come up to the drawing-room to have your tea, Mrs. O'Flaherty.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Mind you have a sup of good black tea for me in the kitchen afterwards, acushla. ”

“ It's kept Ireland poor, because instead of trying to better ourselves we thought we was the fine fellows of patriots when we were speaking evil of Englishmen that was as poor as ourselves and maybe as good as ourselves. The Boshes I kilt was more knowledgable men than me; and what better am I now that I've kilt them? What better is anybody?
SIR PEARCE [huffed, turning a cold shoulder to him] . I am sorry the terrible experience of this war—the greatest war ever fought—has taught you no better, O'Flaherty.
O'FLAHERTY [preserving his dignity] . I don't know about it's being a great war, sir. ”

“ Oh, sure I'm coming. [She tries to smile at Denny, not very convincingly, and hurries into the house.]
O'FLAHERTY [alone] . And if I do get a pension itself, the divil a penny of it you'll ever have the spending of.
MRS O'FLAHERTY [as she comes from the porch] . Oh, it's a shame for you to keep the girl from her juties, Dinny. You might get her into trouble.
O'FLAHERTY. Much I care whether she gets into trouble or not! I pity the man that gets her into trouble. He'll get himself into worse. ”

“ What use is all the lying, and pretending, and humbugging, and letting on, when the day comes to you that your comrade is killed in the trench beside you, and you don't as much as look round at him until you trip over his poor body, and then all you say is to ask why the hell the stretcher-bearers don't take it out of the way. ”

“ Have you no respect for yourselves or your betters? [Peremptorily.] Let me have no more of it, I tell you. Och! the divil's in the whole crew of you. In with you into the house this very minute and tear one another's eyes out in the kitchen if you like. In with you.
The two men seize the two women, and push them, still violently abusing one another, into the house. Sir Pearce slams the door upon them savagely. Immediately a heavenly silence falls on the summer afternoon. The two sit down out of breath: and for a long time nothing is said. Sir Pearce sits on an iron chair. ”

“ SIR PEARCE [running out of the house] . What's this infernal noise? What on earth is the matter?
O'FLAHERTY. Arra hold your whisht, mother. Don't you see his honor?
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh, Sir, I'm ruined and destroyed. Oh, won't you speak to Dinny, Sir: I'm heart scalded with him. He wants to marry a Frenchwoman on me, and to go away and be a foreigner and desert his mother and betray his country. It's mad he is with the roaring of the cannons and he killing the Germans and the Germans killing him, bad cess to them! My boy is taken from me and turned agen me ”

“ SIR PEARCE [sympathetically] . Oh yes: we all have to think seriously sometimes, especially when we're a little run down. I'm afraid we've been overworking you a bit over these recruiting meetings. However, we can knock off for the rest of the day; and tomorrow's Sunday. I've had about as much as I can stand myself. [He looks at his watch.] It's teatime. I wonder what's keeping your mother.
O'FLAHERTY. It's nicely cocked up the old woman will be having tea at the same table as you, sir, instead of in the kitchen. She'll be after dressing in the heighth of grandeur ”

“ SIR PEARCE. Not at all. It won't disturb me in the least. And he's too big a boy to be taken into the yard now. He has made a front seat for himself. Eh? [He goes into the house.]
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Sure he has that, your honor. God bless your honor! [The General being now out of hearing, she turns threateningly to her son with one of those sudden Irish changes of manner which amaze and scandalize less flexible nations, and exclaims.] And what do you mean, you lying young scald, by telling me you were going to fight agen the English? ”

“ There was another consideration, unmentionable by the recruiting sergeants and war orators, which must nevertheless have helped them powerfully in procuring soldiers by voluntary enlistment. The happy home of the idealist may become common under millennial conditions. ”