GETTING MARRIED
A monologue from the
play by George
Bernard Shaw
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Doctor's Dilemma, Getting Married, and The Shewing-Up
of Blanco Posnet. Bernard Shaw. New York: Brentano's, 1909. |
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HOTCHKISS: How kind of you to say so, General! You're
quite right: I am a snob. Why not? The whole strength of England
lies in the fact that the enormous majority of the English people
are snobs. They insult poverty. They despise vulgarity. The love
nobility. They admire exclusiveness. They will not obey a man
risen from the ranks. They never trust one of their own class.
I agree with them. I share their instincts. In my undergraduate
days I was a Republican--a Socialist. I tried hard to feel toward
a common man as I do towards a duke. I couldn't. Neither can
you. Well, why should we be ashamed of this aspiration towards
what is above us? Why don't I say that an honest man's the noblest
of work of God? Because I don't think so. If he's not a gentleman,
I don't care whether he's honest or not: I shouldn't let his
son marry my daughter. And that's the test, mind. That's the
test. You feel as I do. You are a snob in fact: I am a snob,
not only in fact, but on principle. I shall go down in history,
not as the first snob, but as the first avowed champion of English
snobbery, and its first martyr in the army. The navy boasts of
two such martyrs in Captains Kirby and Wade, who were shot for
refusing to fight under Admiral Benbow, a promoted cabin boy.
I have always envied them their glory.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW |
