GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

“In the best of all lights: that of a comfortable husband. I am in dread for you lest your notions of high art should make you do something foolish. When you have had as much experience as I, you will know that genius no more qualifies a man to be a husband than good looks, or fine manners, or noble birth, or anything else out of a story book.”

“But want of genius is still less a qualification.”

“Genius, Mary, is a positive disqualification. Geniuses are morbid, intolerant, easily offended, sleeplessly self-conscious men, who expect their wives to be angels with no further business in life than to pet and worship their husbands. Even at the best they are not comfortable men to live with; and a perfect husband is one who is perfectly comfortable to live with. Look at the matter practically. Do you suppose, you foolish child, that I am a bit less happy because Sir John does not know a Raphael from a Redgrave, and would accept the last waltz cheerfully as a genuine something-or-other by Bach in B minor? Our tastes are quite different; and, to confess the truth, I was no more romantically in love with him when we were married than you are at present with Mr Hoskyn. Yet where will you find such a modern Darby and Joan as we are? You hear Belle Saunders complaining that she has ‘nothing in common’ with her husband. What cant! As if any two beings living in the same world must not have more things in common than not; especially a husband and wife living in the same house, on the same income, and owning the same children. Why, I have something in common with Macalister, the gardener. I can find you a warning as well as an example, I knew Mr Conolly’s wife well before she was married. She was a woman of whom it was impossible to believe anything bad. In an evil hour she met Conolly at a charity concert where they had both promised to sing. Of course he sang as if he was all softness and gentleness, much as he did just now, probably. Then there was a charming romance. She like you, was fond of books, pictures, and music. He knew all about them. She was very honest and candid: he a statue of probity. He was a genius too; and his fame was a novelty then: everybody talked of him. Never was there such an match. She was the only woman in England worthy of him: he the only man worthy of her. Well, she married him, in spite of the patent fact that with all his genius, he is a most uncomfortable person. She endured him for two years then ran away with an arrogant blockhead who had nothing to recommend him to her except an imposing appearance and an extreme unlikeness to her husband. She has never been heard of since. If she had married man like Hoskyn, she could have been a happy wife and mother today. But she was like you she thought that taking a husband was the same thing as engaging gentleman to talk art criticism with.”

“I think I had better advertise, ‘Wanted: a comfortable husband. Applicants need not be handsome, as the lady is shortsighted. It sounds very prosaic, Lady Geraldine.”

“It is prosaic. I told you once before that the world is is not a stage for you to play the heroine on. Like all young people, you want an exalted motive for every step you take.”

“I confess I do. However, you have forgotten to apply your argument to Mr. Hoskyn’s case. If people with artistic tastes are all uncomfortable, I must be uncomfortable; and that is not fair to him.”

“No matter. He is in love with you. Besides, you are not artistic enough to be uncomfortable. You have been your father’s housekeeper too long.”

“And you really advise me to marry Mr. Hoskyn?”

Lady. Geraldine hesitated. “I think you can hardly expect me to take the responsibility of directly advising you to marry any man. It is one of the things that people must do for themselves. But I certainly advise you not to be deterred from marrying him by any supposed incompatibility in your tastes, or by his not being a man of genius.”

“I wonder would Mr. Conolly marry me.”

“Mary!”

“It was an unmaidenly remark,” said Mary, laughing.”

“It is undignified for a sensible girl to play at being silly, Mary. I hope you have no serious intention beneath your jesting. If you have, I shall be very sorry indeed for having allowed Mr. Conolly to meet you here.”

“Not the slightest, I assure you. Why, Lady Geraldine, you look quite alarmed.”

“I do not trust Mr. Conolly much. Marian Lind was infatuated by him; and another woman may share her fate — unless she happens to share my feeling towards him, in which case she may be regarded as perfectly safe. He is a dangerous subject. Let us leave him and come back to our main business. Is Mr. Hoskyn to be made happy or not?”

“I don’t want to marry at all. Let him have Miss Cairns: she would suit him exactly.”

“Well, if you don’t want to marry at all, my dear, there is an end of it. I have said all I can. You must decide for yourself.”

Mary, perceiving that Lady Geraldine felt offended, was about to make a soothing speech, when she heard a chair move, and, looking up saw that Conolly was in the room.

“Do I disturb you?”

Not at all,” Said Lady Geraldine with dignity, looking at him rather severely and wondering how long he had been there.

“We were discussing sociology.” said Mary.

“Ah!” he said, serenely. “And have you arrived at any important generalizations?”

“Most important ones.”

“What about? — if I may ask.”

“About marriage.” Lady Geraldine stamped hastily on Mary’s foot, and looked reproachfully at her.

Mary felt her color deepen, but she faced him boldly.

“And have you come the usual conclusions?” he said, sitting down near them.

“What are the usual conclusions?” said Mary.

“That marriage is a mistake. That men who surrender their liberty, and women who surrender their independence are fools. That children are a nuisance, and so forth.”

“We have come to any such conclusions. We rather started in with the assumption that marriage is a necessary evil, and were debating how to make the best of it.”

“On which point you differed, of course.”

“Why of course?”

“Because Lady Geraldine is married and you are not. Can I help you to arrive at a compromise? I am peculiarly fitted for the task, because I am not married, and yet I have been married.”

Lady Geraldine, who had turned her chair so as to avert her face from him, looked round. Disregarding this mute protest, he continued, addressing Mary. “Will you tell me the point at issue?”

“It is not so very important,” said Mary, a little confused. “We were only exchanging a few casual remarks. A question arose as to whether the best men make the best husbands. I mean the cleverest men — men of genius, for instance. Lady Geraldine said no. She maintains that a goodnatured blockhead makes a far better husband than a Caesar or a Shakespeare.”

“Did you say that?” said Conolly to Lady Geraldine, with a smile.

“No,” she replied, almost uncivilly. “Blockheads are never goodnatured. At best, they are only lazy. I said that a man might be a very good husband without any special culture in the arts and sciences. Mary seemed to think that any person who understands as much of painting as an artist, is a person who sympathizes with that artist, and therefore a suitable match for her — or him. I disagree with her. I believe that community of taste for art has just as much to do with matrimonial happiness as community of taste for geography or roast mutton, and no more.”

“And no more,” repeated Conolly. “You are quite right. Heroes are ill adapted to domestic purposes. That is what you mean, is it not? Perhaps Miss Sutherland will be content with nothing less than a hero.”