Shaw was a lunatic of
more than usually abrupt conversation and disconnected mind. The other
two methods would certainly have done Mr. Shaw more justice: the
reporter should either have taken down verbatim what the speaker really
said about Capital, or have given an outline of the way in which this
idea was connected with the idea about patriotic songs.
But we have not the advantage of knowing what Mr. Shaw really did say,
so we had better illustrate the different methods from something that we
do know. Most of us, I suppose, know Mark Antony's Funeral Speech in
"Julius Caesar." Now Mark Antony would have no reason to complain if he
were not reported at all; if the _Daily Pilum_ or the _Morning Fasces_,
or whatever it was, confined itself to saying, "Mr. Mark Antony also
spoke," or "Mr. Mark Antony, having addressed the audience, the meeting
broke up in some confusion." The next honest method, worthy of a noble
Roman reporter, would be that since he could not report the whole of the
speech, he should report some of the speech. He might say--"Mr. Mark
Antony, in the course of his speech, said--
'When that the poor have cried Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
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