Discors Concordia
HERE is a sign of the times as cheering as it is charming : a " retort courteous " to Mr. Bernard Shaw's last outburst in his own manner, so much so that even he (being an Irish- man) will enjoy the rapier play. The cover is a clever parody of the curious original, and the White Girl is apparently at work on a very unkempt golf-course, in place of the jungle. For preface there is this " Note " :
"Let not the reader think it strange that the White Girl should carry a 'niblick.' To anyone acquainted with things African, this is far less extraordinary than that a Bantu Girl should carry a • knobkerry,' as happens in Mr. Bernard Shaw's Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God."
And so we set out. " ' Where is God ? ' said the white girl to the dramatist who had so often and so wittily instructed her. ' I will show him to you,' he replied, and you will see that he is not yet there 1 ' " There follow neat references to some of the dramatist's recent works, St. Joan and The Applecart. " Later on he assumed the same position [standing on his head] to tell of things and people too true to be good. This amused a few folk, but not very many, so that the effort was called ' a frost.' This may be the reason why he went to Africa, where it is warm enough to forget about frosts. . . ." The white girl suspects " that some of the good things that he said were so very good that they were too good to be true," and adopts a critical attitude, with, results revealed
as the Black Girl's route through the jungle is fol- lowed.
When the serious business begins, the Christian reply to the amazing tangle of misconception and misrepresentation in the original is given with admirable restraint and taste and brevity :
" After a time, they came to the edge of the forest. In the distance there was a hill, and on the hill-top three crosses. . . . Come along,' said the dramatist, ' don't waste time gazing at that vulgarity. Plenty of other .people have been nailed to crosses like that. . .
" That,' said the girl thoughtfully, would rather seem to be the point. I notice that there is not one cross only, but throe, and
His cross between the other two. . .
Mr. Shaw's tedious ending is dropped altogether, and the result is a book of but twenty-four pages which can be sold for a shilling, against Mr. Shaw's half-crown. But it covers a great deal of ground and will reassure and enlighten any who took Mr. Shaw's effusion seriously, and delight the majority who probably did not. As a specimen of " the new Christian propaganda " it is, as I have said, a cheering sign of the times ; and the writer (who throws no light on his own identity) deserves for his reply as wide a public as that which read the original.
AnTnun RIPON.
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