unexpectedness of a fairy-tale. The thing which prevents a man
from realizing this is not any clear-sightedness or experience,
it is simply a habit of pedantic and fastidious comparisons
between one thing and another. Mr. Shaw, on the practical side
perhaps the most humane man alive, is in this sense inhumane.
He has even been infected to some extent with the primary
intellectual weakness of his new master, Nietzsche, the strange
notion that the greater and stronger a man was the more he would
despise other things. The greater and stronger a man is the more
he would be inclined to prostrate himself before a periwinkle.
That Mr. Shaw keeps a lifted head and a contemptuous face before
the colossal panorama of empires and civilizations, this does
not in itself convince one that he sees things as they are.
I should be most effectively convinced that he did if I found
him staring with religious astonishment at his own feet.
"What are those two beautiful and industrious beings," I can imagine him
murmuring to himself, "whom I see everywhere, serving me I know not why?
What fairy godmother bade them come trotting out of elfland when I
was born? What god of the borderland, what barbaric god of legs,
must I propitiate with fire and wine, lest they run away with me?"

The truth is, that all genuine appreciation rests on a certain
mystery of humility and almost of darkness. The man who said,
"Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed,"
put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth "Blessed
is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised."
The man who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see,
and greener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that
expecteth nothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains;
blessed is the meek, for he shall inherit the earth. Until we