resents as Englishmen of all opinions will resent any imputation to the contrary”—­just what I said he would say and that he entirely agrees with my denunciation of secret diplomacy and undemocratic control of foreign policy and that I am a perverse and wayward harlequin, mischievous, unveracious, scurrilous, monstrous, disingenuous, flippant, unjust, inexact, scandalous, and objectionable, and that on all points to which he takes exception and a good many more I am so magnificent, brilliant, and convincing that no citizen could rise from perusing me without being illuminated.

That is just a little what I meant by saying that Englishmen are muddle-headed, because they never have been forced by political adversity to mistrust their tempers and depend on a carefully stated case as Irishmen have been.

Showed Germany the Way.

I did with great pains what nobody else had done.  I showed what Germany should have done, knowing that I had no right to reproach her for doing what she did until I was prepared to show that a better way had been open to her.

Bennett says, in effect, that nobody but a fool could suppose that my way was practicable and proceeds to call Germany a burglar.  That does not get us much further.  In fact, to me it seems a step backward.  At all events it is now up to Mr. Bennett to show us what practical alternative Germany had except the one I described.  If he cannot do that, can he not, at least, fight for his side?  We, who are mouthpieces of many inarticulate citizens, who are fighting at home against the general tumult of scare and rancor and silly cinematograph heroics for a sane facing of facts and a stable settlement, are very few.  We have to bring the whole continent of war-struck lunatics to reason if we can.

What chance is there of our succeeding if we begin by attacking one another because we do not like one another’s style or confine ourselves to one another’s pet points?  I invite Mr. Bennett to pay me some more nice compliments and to reserve his fine old Staffordshire loathing for my intellectual nimbleness until the war is over.—­G.  BERNARD SHAW.

[Illustration:  G.K.  CHESTERTON. See Page 108]

[Illustration:  SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. (Photo by Arnold Genthe) See Page 132]

Flaws in Shaw’s Logic

By Cunninghame Graham.

Letter to The Daily News of London.

To the Editor of The Daily News:

The controversy between men of peace as to the merits, demerits, causes, and possible results of the great war is becoming almost as dangerous and little less noisy than the real conflict now being waged in and around Ypres.  The only difference between the two conflicts is that the combatants in Flanders only strive to kill the body.  Those who fire paper bullets aim at the annihilation of the soul.