George Bernard Shaw

“ GUNNER. And you call that justice!
LORD SUMMERHAYS. No. Justice was not my business. I had to govern a province; and I took the necessary steps to maintain order in it. Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both. I used both when law and persuasion failed me. Every ruler of men since the world began has done so, even when he has hated both fraud and force as heartily as I do. ”

“ LORD SUMMERHAYS. The danger of public business is that it never ends. A man may kill himself at it.
JOHNNY. Or he can spend more on it than it brings him in: thats how I look at it. What I say is that everybody's business is nobody's business. I hope I'm not a hard man, nor a narrow man, nor unwilling to pay reasonable taxes, and subscribe in reason to deserving charities, and even serve on a jury in my turn; and no man can say I ever refused to help a friend out of a difficulty when he was worth helping. ”

“ TARLETON. No matter.
Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton.
TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. ”

“ Lord Summerhays: I ask you to excuse me for a few moments. There are times when a man needs to meditate in solitude on his destiny. A chord is touched; and he sees the drama of his life as a spectator sees a play. Laugh if you feel inclined: no man sees the comic side of it more than I. In the theatre of life everyone may be amused except the actor. ”

“ You can have Johnny.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Thank you. Ive lived so long in a country where a man may have fifty sons, who are no more to him than a regiment of soldiers, that I'm afraid Ive lost the English feeling about it.
TARLETON. [restless again] You mean Jinghiskahn. Ah yes. Good thing the empire. Educates us. Opens our minds. Knocks the Bible out of us. And civilizes the other chaps.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Yes: it civilizes them. And it uncivilizes us. Their gain. Our loss, Tarleton, believe me, our loss.
TARLETON. Well, why not? Averages out the human race. Makes the nigger half an Englishman. ”

“ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Youve done your best, Mr Percival. But the correct thing depends for its success on everybody playing the game very strictly. As a single-handed game, it's impossible.
BENTLEY. [suddenly breaking out lamentably] Joey: have you taken Hypatia away from me?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. [severely] Bentley! Bentley! Control yourself, sir.
TARLETON. Come, Mr Percival! the shutters are up on the gentlemanly business. Try the truth.
PERCIVAL. I am in a wretched position. If I tell the truth nobody will believe me.
TARLETON. Oh yes they will. The truth makes everybody believe it. ”

“ I ought to have been a writer. I'm essentially a man of ideas. When I was a young man I sometimes used to pray that I might fail, so that I should be justified in giving up business and doing something: something first-class. But it was no good: I couldnt fail. I said to myself that if I could only once go to my Chickabiddy here and shew her a chartered accountant's statement proving that I'd made 20 pounds less than last year, I could ask her to let me chance Johnny's and Hypatia's future by going into literature. ”

“ Johnny Tarleton, an ordinary young business man of thirty or less, is taking his weekly Friday to Tuesday in the house of his father, John Tarleton, who has made a great deal of money out of Tarleton's Underwear. The house is in Surrey, on the slope of Hindhead; and Johnny, reclining, novel in hand, in a swinging chair with a little awning above it, is enshrined in a spacious half hemisphere of glass which forms a pavilion commanding the garden, and, beyond it, a barren but lovely landscape of hill profile with fir trees, commons of bracken and gorse, and wonderful cloud pictures. ”

“ All the pictures are about love-making. The eyes of all of you are sheep's eyes. You are steeped in it, soaked in it: the very texts on the walls of your bedrooms are the ones about love. It is disgusting. It is not healthy. Your women are kept idle and dressed up for no other purpose than to be made love to. I have not been here an hour; and already everybody makes love to me as if because I am a woman it were my profession to be made love to. First you, old pal. I forgave you because you were nice about your wife.
HYPATIA. Oh! oh! oh! Oh, papa!
LINA. Then you, Lord Summerhays, come to me ”

“ LORD SUMMERHAYS. When my council in Jinghiskahn reached the point of coming to blows, I used to adjourn the sitting. Let us postpone the discussion. Wait until Monday: we shall have Sunday to quiet down in. Believe me, I'm not making fun of you; but I think theres something in this young gentleman's advice. Read something.
TARLETON. I'll read King Lear.
HYPATIA. Dont. I'm very sorry, dear.
TARLETON. Youre not. Youre laughing at me. Serve me right! Parents and children! No man should know his own child. No child should know its own father. Let the family be rooted out of civilization! ”

“ LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you.
LINA. Thank you.
Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door.
TARLETON. [going to her] Listen to me. [She turns quickly] . What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh?
LINA. Yes. [She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left] . ”

“ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Shew me what?
HYPATIA. Girls withering into ladies. Ladies withering into old maids. Nursing old women. Running errands for old men. Good for nothing else at last. Oh, you cant imagine the fiendish selfishness of the old people and the maudlin sacrifice of the young. It's more unbearable than any poverty: more horrible than any regular-right-down wickedness. ”

“ BENTLEY. [running forward between Lina and Gunner] But what did you mean by what you said about Miss Tarleton and Mr Percival, you beastly rotter, you?
GUNNER. [to Tarleton] Oh! is Hypatia your daughter? And Joey is Mister Percival, is he? One of your set, I suppose. One of the smart set! One of the bridge-playing, eighty-horse-power, week-ender set! One of the johnnies I slave for! Well, Joey has more decency than your daughter, anyhow. The women are the worst. I never believed it til I saw it with my own eyes. Well, it wont last for ever. The writing is on the wall. Rome fell. Babylon fell. ”

“ MRS TARLETON. I dont believe a word of it. If the poor lad was there in the Turkish bath, who has a better right to say what was going on here than he has? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Patsy; and so ought you too, Mr Percival, for encouraging her. [Hypatia retreats to the pavilion, and exchanges grimaces with Johnny, shamelessly enjoying Percival's sudden reverse. They know their mother] . ”

“ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Yes. Democracy reads well; but it doesnt act well, like some people's plays. No, no, my friend Tarleton: to make Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy. ”

“ LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons.
TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons?
MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother?
PERCIVAL. [quickly] Or your husband?
LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother?
HYPATIA. [aside to Percival] That was clever of you, Mr Percival.
PERCIVAL. What?
HYPATIA. To find out.
TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. ”

“ I am a woman of the world: I have thousands of friends: every night crowds of people applaud me, delight in me, buy my picture, pay hard-earned money to see me. I am strong: I am skilful: I am brave: I am independent: I am unbought: I am all that a woman ought to be ”

“ MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child!
TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. [He imitates a juggler tossing up balls] . Eh?
LINA. [going to him, past his wife] Just so.
TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand.
LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. I can do silver bullets. That is really hard. [She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table] . ”

“ TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room.
LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. [She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule] .
A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. ”

“ TARLETON. She'd have done that anyhow, my lad. We all grow old. Look at me! [Seeing that the man is embarrassed by his pistol in fumbling for the photographs with his left hand in his breast pocket] Let me hold the gun for you.
THE MAN. [retreating to the worktable] Stand back. Do you take me for a fool?
TARLETON. Well, youre a little upset, naturally. It does you credit.
THE MAN. Look here, upon this picture and on this. [He holds out the two photographs like a hand at cards, and points to them with the pistol] .
TARLETON. Good. Read Shakespear: he has a word for every occasion. ”

“ Bentley and Mr Tarleton (an immense and genial veteran of trade) come into view and enter the pavilion.
JOHN TARLETON. You think youre young, do you? You think I'm old? [energetically shaking off his motoring coat and hanging it up with his cap] .
BENTLEY. [helping him with the coat] Of course youre old. Look at your face and look at mine. What you call your youth is nothing but your levity. Why do we get on so well together? Because I'm a young cub and youre an old josser. [He throws a cushion at Hypatia's feet and sits down on it with his back against her knees] . ”

“ What a pity young Bentley is not a painter! Tarleton meditating on his destiny. Not in a toga. Not in the trappings of the tragedian or the philosopher. In plain coat and trousers: a man like any other man. And beneath that coat and trousers a human soul. Tarleton's Underwear! [He goes out gravely into the vestibule] .
MRS TARLETON. [fondly] I suppose it's a wife's partiality, Lord Summerhays; but I do think John is really great. I'm sure he was meant to be a king. My father looked down on John, because he was a rate collector, and John kept a shop. ”

“ HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do?
PERCIVAL. Bolt. [He runs out through the pavilion] .
HYPATIA. I'll catch you. [She dashes off in pursuit] .
During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise. ”

“ LORD SUMMERHAYS. My dear: after thirty years of managing other people's business, men lose the habit of considering what they want or dont want.
HYPATIA. Oh, dont begin to talk about what men do, and about thirty years experience. If you cant get off that subject, youd better send for Johnny and papa and begin it all over again. ”

“ I talked like a duchess; and if Johnny or Hypatia let slip a word that was like old times, I was down on them like anything. And now I'm beginning to do it myself at every turn.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. There comes a time when all that seems to matter so little. Even queens drop the mask when they reach our time of life.
MRS TARLETON. Let you alone for giving a thing a pretty turn! Youre a humbug, you know, Lord Summerhays. John doesnt know it; and Johnny doesnt know it ”

“ After what that countess said to me I wasnt going to lose another child or trust John. And I don't want my grandchildren to die any more than my children.
HYPATIA. Do you think Bentley will ever be as big a man as his father? I dont mean clever: I mean big and strong.
MRS TARLETON. Not he. Hes overbred, like one of those expensive little dogs. I like a bit of a mongrel myself, whether it's a man or a dog: theyre the best for everyday. But we all have our tastes: whats one woman's meat is another woman's poison. ”