And here speaks the ordinary man in his moment of introspection: in that rare moment when standing aside from the hurry and dust of it all he asks himself whence? why? and to what end? The other qualified critics of the time are scarcely less discomforting. Mr. Bernard Shaw, after devoting half his lifetime to the satirising of the advocates of order, seems determined to devote the other half to the satirising of the advocates of change. Ridicule of the hypocrisy and self-deceptions which are the permanent accompaniments of reform, is a task not only easy in itself, but exceedingly agreeable to all those to whom Reform itself is tiresome. The satirist enjoys, therefore, a widespread popularity. The portrait of the blatent Liberal phrasemonger in _John Bull’s Other Island_, the failure of philanthropy and the triumph of efficiency in _Major Barbara_, the universal confusion which falls upon the new moralists in the conversation in _Getting Married_, seems extraordinarily pleasant to all those to whom Liberal ideas and philanthropic ardours and new moralities are undesirable intruders in a well-regulated existence. Only occasionally, and then through the intervention of a “madman,” does the voice of the prophet declare “woe” to a world of blindness and illusion. Little Rosscullen, the Irish parallel to the remote Montenegrin village, invaded by the representatives of “Progress” is found far from any condition of idyllic innocence. Amid the splendour of the natural scene, the granite rock and heather in the setting sun, poverty, selfishness, superstition, ignorance, indifferent cruelty compete for mastery. The priest tyrannises and bullies, the farmer cheats the labourer; furtive cunning and idleness and revengeful memories occupy the place of the simple devotion and pastoral rejoicings of the popular picture. But the new world which is to civilise this dreary swamp of humanity out of existence offers to the observer food no more satisfying to the hungry heart of man. The “Progress” which modern life here unfolds to the medieval is a “progress” which terminates in blind endings--the product of the Town of Vanity. “I shall bring money here,” is the twentieth-century promise to all Rosscullens. “I shall raise wages. I shall found public institutions, a library, a polytechnic (undenominational, of course), a gymnasium, a cricket club, perhaps an art school. I shall make a garden city of Rosscullen. The round tower shall be thoroughly repaired and restored.” To which the twelfth century replies in an epitaph written over the graves of many kings. “Believe me, I do every justice to the efficiency of you and your syndicate. Mr. Broadbent will get into Parliament most efficiently; which is more than St. Patrick could do if he were alive now. You may even build the hotel efficiently, if you can find enough efficient masons, carpenters, and plumbers, which I rather doubt. When the hotel becomes insolvent your English business habits will