Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, April 9, 1916, Page 28

_ “He turned and saw Macduff there, glaring at him,” By George Bernard Shaw In The APRIL COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE, N a pleasant Mttle book Arnold Bennett talks shop and debits harmless tosh about technique for the entertafoment of literary amateurs in & very agroeable aud suggestive manuner, as he has every right to do, being so distinguished & master of the craft, Put when 1 found the words, "One reason why a play is easter to write than & novel"— I need have read no further, 1 did not want to know “one reason” for 80 outrageous a plece of novellst's bluff, But the impetus of my reading carried me on, in spite of the shock, and so I learned that this one reason is “that & play 18 shortor than a novel” I is, and so is the Bible shorter than the London Directory. “Excuse the length of my letter,” sald Pascal, “I had no time to write & short one.” Now, 1 am not going to argue. I never do. I will Just take one of the shortest, most intense and most famous scenes in English dramatio literature and rewrite it r of & novel in the style of my friends Bennett and Wells and Galsworthy when they are 0o lazy to write plays, It is the scene from Shakespeare's “Macbeth” in the ffth act beginning with the lines “Why should 1 l{l., the Romaa fool,” and ending with “first cries hold enough!” MACBETH. A Novel, by Anybody. The Last i Chapter. He was to fall, after all, then, The day was going against him, His men were not really fighting. They had conveyed to old Siward that they were open to an offer of quarter; and the hint had not been lost on that anclent csmpalgner, whose son he had just slatn. What was the use of killing? Duncan, Banquo, the Macduft people! He had waded through thelr blood; and how much better would it not be if it were all & dream and they were alive and kind to him? How the martens were singlog! Danquo, always & bit of & fool, had been sentimental about the martens Oruach, the dear, dead wite whom the Southrons per sisted in ealling Lady Macbeth, had argued with Ban quo about thew, telling him that thelr habits wers In sanitary, and that they were infested with small bugs which g0t into the ecastle, already too rieh in inaseol Hie, But Duncan had sgreed with Ranquo; snd when Gruach became queen, she would not et the mariens nesls b brokes ", Ankious to copy Dune: taaton fn every Bould say b did not know b nd w0 Lhe wore singing, singing, yo sloging when (hey wot My catehing 1t oame 10 him, with & twist st the haart, that he had never told Gruach the trulh about Banque. e bad Ioft hor (0 beliove that he had killed hiwm becauss (he witches had toretold that his posterity should be Klngs Pt the real roascn was that Banguo had given hmasit Woral airs, That s hard 40 bear ol any tiime but whe you are wiihin ten mingtes of committing a murdor s lasufferable. Morality wa ¥ for & Wan wha dil B0l ntend 0 do anyihing | but & man of sotlon could Bol stand on serupies These il thanss who sl down on (heir Hitle patrimonies and had wo ambitl Ahey had lavented this morsl twaddie o oxeuse thelr laglnnss What an exquisite marning it was Was there any Ihing o0 Mlue a5 o Dlus sy, sayihing so white as » whilte oloud, any sold su golden s the poren! From the summit of Duustnsne be eouid see Almast to (ke Boman wall on (he soulh, snd | Forth Bridae on he narth 1 b owind bad e i » e 1o Borh . pethape 0 A main aie Hut wieh (oroboding | dod tha wood plgean BAL haw oallod 1o him, “Tak (%0 coos, Tafly | ek teo won, Talty.” Mo siled grimly. He bad Arat 46 laal, nod loen than two Lhousand toos. and funny Bind bopt o Sxhoriing him o lake tw oL he Gl Bot threw & slobe ot 1, as he o would - Tie OvarA SuNpAY BEE MAGAZINE PAG ERNARD SHAW REWRITES SHAKESPEARESMACBETH England’s Brilliant Social Philosopher and Playwright Explains in the April Cosmopolitan Magazine How Much Easier It Is to Write a Novel Than a Play have done. It seemed all so useless, You strove and strove, and killed and killed, and made journeys to consult witches; and at the end of it all the wood- pigoon had no more to say to you than before; and the wky was no bluer, the cloud no whiter, the whins no yellower, Curse the sky! Curse the whins! Doubly damn the wood-pigeon! Why not make an end of it, like the Toman fool at Philippl? He stoad his claymore on its bilt on the flag and bent over the point, Just to lean on it, snd let it go through him; then the wood- pigeon might coo itself black In the face: Macheth would be at rest with Duncan. Where had he heard about Philippi? It seemed un- lkely that he could have learned Roman history; and yot bo found that he did know. Do men know everything be- fore death? He shuddered. #Btrange that he, who rather enjoyed killing other people, should feel an intense repug nance to kill himself! Besides, there was an advantage in sul- cide that no thrifty Scot would waste, You could kill as many people as you liked first, with- out considering the conse- quences, He would, please God, spit & few more of his enemies on that sword before his own turn came. He tossed it into the alr by the point and caught the bilt as it came down. He no longer heard the wood-pigeon, And yet, what was that? Had the wood-pigeon called him a hell-hound? He turned and saw Macduft there, be- tween him and the sun, glar- fog st him. If the sun had been In his eyes, he could not have glared. Tt was clever of bim to come that way and get the andvantage of the sun, Macduft! Yes, Macduft— the man of whom the mpirit called up by the witches had bade him beware the man whose wife and child he had slnughtered. Could he blame him for glaring? Would not any man glare after such an experience? Macduff had stopped to sharpen his claymore on the flags. He was squatting down in an attitude which brought his bony knees into promi- nence just below his kilt, and drawing his blade to and fro with a harsh, rhythmical grat- ing on the granite, By the mere {nstinet of Imitation, Macbeth did the same. His knees were fleshier, and it was harder for him to stoop; but he did ft, It was neve for a king to stoop; but fi will have it mso sometim Now there were two blades scraping, » The birds stopped then he could clineh and try to get In ha dirk somewhere.” “He could fight as well as ever for forty-five seconds, and NE of the most brilliantly amusing articles ever written by George Ber- nard Bhaw appears In the Cosmopolitan Magazine for April. Mr, Bhaw by rewriting & scene of Shakespeare’s Mae- beth wets himself the task of proving how much easler it is to write f novel than it is to write & ; ay. Mr. Shaw's delightful essay is reprinted here by courtesy of the Cosmopolitan Magazine. “The innocent blunder gave him an impulse to untimely laughter.” singing, and listened In astonighed, suspicious silence Only a Jay laughed, Macheth heard it, Something stirred In him, and distorted his lips Into a grin. It seemed to him that he wuddenly opened a book that had always been senled to him, When Gruach was dying, he had asked the doctor for some physie for the mind; and the doctor bad falled him, Then he had asked the porter, because he had noticed that the porter, alone among all the men of his acqualntance, was light-hearted, snd would laugh, even when nobody was belng hurt or ridiculed, and seemed to despise ambition, And the porter had told bim that Iife {s not so bad It you #ee the fun of it, Old Biward bad nalled the porter to the door that morn- Ing, because he refused to open it to the enemy. Did he see the fun of that, Macbeth won- dered? Yet here, as he squatted be- fore Macduff, and they both sharpened thelr blades on the flags, & deep wense of some- thing laughable In the situation touched him, though, God knows, there was nothing to laugh at If the warning witches were trustworthy, The spiri* had sald that no man born of woman ghould harm Macheth T'hat seemed pretty conclusive, But they had also sald that he would not be vanquished until Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane. That also scemed conclusive; yet the thing had happened; he had scen the wood walking, He decided to glve Macduff a shance, He was tired of killing people ‘pamed Macduff. He said so, He advised Macduft to go away, Macduft tried to speak, gulped, and came on, His voice was in his sword. Macbeth was not afrald, though he knew he was not the man he had been. He had drunk heavily since he had #elzed the throne; the Scots expected that from a king. But he could fight as well as ever for fortyfive seconds; and try to get in his dirk some- where, After all, Macduff was no teetotaler, if one might judge by his nose, which was red and swollen, Only, the doubt came; was the redness and the swelling from drink or from weeping over his slaughtered family? With that thought came Macduft's first blow—a teint, followed by a vicious thrust at the groin. Macbeth was quick enough to drop his targe and stop the thrust, even while he guarded the blow dWd not come. “Macduff had stooped to sharpen his claymore on the flags.” That reassured him and took some of the bounce out of Macduft, He was equally wuccessful the next time, and the mnext, He became elated, At last his pride in his charmed life got the better of his prudence, He told Macduff that he was losing his labor, and told him why. The effect was exactly the contrary of what he had anticipated. A gleam of savage delight came into Macduff's eyes, What did it mean? Macbeth was not left long In doubt. He petrified while a tale poured from Macduff’s lips such 88 had never before blasted the ears of mortal man It cannot be repeated here—there Is such a thing as the Ifbrary censorship. Let it suffice that It was a tale of the rude but efficient obstetric surgery of thosa anefent times, and that it established, beyond all ques- tion, the fact that Macduff had never been born. After that, Macbeth felt that he simply could not fight with him. It was pot that he was afrald, even now. Nor was it that he was utterly disgusted at the way the witches had let him down sgain. He Just could not bring himself to hack at a man who was not natural. It was like trylng to eat a cat. He flatly refused further combat. Of course, Macduff called him coward, He did not mind that so much; for he had given his proofs, and nobody would belleve Macduff; nor, indeed, would any reasonable man expect him to fight an unborn sdversary, But Macduff hinted at unbearable things. At defeat, disgrace, the pillory, even. A surge of wrath went through Macheth, He was, above all things, a country gentleman; and that an other country gentleman should move his timber with- out acquiring any rights infuriated him. He became reckless, Birnam Wood—his wood—had been taken to Dunsinane! Was that a thing he could be ex- pected to stand? What though Macduff had not been properly born? Was it not all the more likely that he had a weak constitution and could mot stick it out if he were pressed hard in the fight? Anyhow, Macbeth would try. He braced himself, grasped his claymore power- fully, thrust his shield under the chin of his ad- versary, and cried, “Lay on, Macduff!” He could not have chosen a more unfortunate form of deflance. When the news had come to Macduff of stood the slaughter of his wife and boy, he had astonished the messenger by exclalming: “What! All my pretty chickens and thelr dam at ome fell swoop!" Ac- customed from his earliest youth to deal with horses, he knew hardly anything of poultry, which wa n woman's business. When he used the word “dam,” properly applicable only to a mare, in referring to a hen, Malcolm, though deeply moved by his distress, had a narrow escape from a fit of hysterics; for the {nnocent blunder gave him an impulse to untimely laughter, The story had been repeated; and something of it had come to Macduft's ears. He was a highly strung sensitive to ridicule. Since that man, exquisitely time, the slightest allusion to chickens had driven him to transports of fury. At the words, “Lay on!” he saw red, Macbeth, from the instant those fatal words passed his lips, had not a dog's cha In any case, 1ot have be ady to meet subject to & ander sudden attack lisoursiveness ANE® nd 10 fauna and ing to the landscape, and tc a of the district, at the most exciting crises of his fate When he meant to t ach that he had ar ranged to have Banque 1, he had sald to her, in ead, “Light thickens; and the w muk ving to the rooky pod And b had strayed to the wood-plgeon when Ma y ft t his oars, and, at the same w \ w6 through his nose and his foe I h s ribs Wh Maleolm ar 1, the . ft ot Macheth a plle of mi \ That will teach ) A ¢ suffiioate They lald Macbeth beside ' acre In the Nitle ¢ ! yard oted & handsome tomb titution of Kingship, and | Jored, was . de i ¥ U N 4 . : And