George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit
of Dying
Heartbreak House was far too lazy and shallow to extricate
itself from this palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized
about love; but it believed in cruelty. It was afraid of the
cruel people; and it saw that cruelty was at least effective.
Cruelty did things that made money, whereas Love did noth-
ing but prove the soundness of Larochefoucauld’s saying that
very few people would fall in love if they had never read
about it. Heartbreak House, in short, did not know how to

---

11
GB Shaw
live, at which point all that was left to it was the boast that at
least it knew how to die: a melancholy accomplishment which
the outbreak of war presently gave it practically unlimited
opportunities of displaying. Thus were the firstborn of Heart-
break House smitten; and the young, the innocent, the hope-
ful, expiated the folly and worthlessness of their elders.