" Every Cabinet minister
who has not got an answer suddenly develops a "judgment."
Every sweater who uses vile methods recommends "serious methods."
I said a moment ago that sincerity had nothing to do with solemnity,
but I confess that I am not so certain that I was right.
In the modern world, at any rate, I am not so sure that I was right.
In the modern world solemnity is the direct enemy of sincerity.
In the modern world sincerity is almost always on one side, and solemnity
almost always on the other. The only answer possible to the fierce
and glad attack of sincerity is the miserable answer of solemnity.
Let Mr. McCabe, or any one else who is much concerned that we should be
grave in order to be sincere, simply imagine the scene in some government
office in which Mr. Bernard Shaw should head a Socialist deputation
to Mr. Austen Chamberlain. On which side would be the solemnity?
And on which the sincerity?
I am, indeed, delighted to discover that Mr. McCabe reckons
Mr. Shaw along with me in his system of condemnation of frivolity.
He said once, I believe, that he always wanted Mr. Shaw to label
his paragraphs serious or comic. I do not know which paragraphs
of Mr. Shaw are paragraphs to be labelled serious; but surely
there can be no doubt that this paragraph of Mr.
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