Bernard Shaw looks down upon contemporary life from many windows. The
world is caught in the dragnet of his infinite variety: few escape.
To each man, Shaw comes in a different capacity. The world at large
knows little, astoundingly little, of Shaw the man. That is why, after
detailing the various features of his literary and public career, I
have put last the study of his personality. From the preceding chapters
the reader may have constructed a more or less imaginary portrait. In
this chapter is portrayed Shaw, if not as in himself he really is,
certainly as one who knows him really sees him.
It may not be devoid of interest to think of Shaw at several stages of
his career. During the epidemic of 1881, he caught small-pox which, as
he expressed it, “left him unmarked, but an anti-vaccinationist for
ever.” The next few years Shaw passed “in desperate want and despair,”
as an acquaintance has expressed it. While this statement is somewhat
exaggerated, certainly the clothes he wore at this period gave it
colour: tawny trousers, extraordinarily, unbelievably baggy; a long,
_soi-disant_ black cut-away coat, and a tall silk hat, which had been
battered down so often that it had a thousand creases in it from top to
crown. “My clothes turned green,” Shaw has confessed, “and I trimmed my
cuffs to the quick with a scissors, and wore my tall hat with the back
part in front, so that the brim should not bend double when I took it
off to an acquaintance.”
Despite the loyal protest of the Secretary of the Fabian Society, who
once wrote me vehemently asserting that Shaw always wore perfectly
normal and conventional clothes, it must be admitted that Shaw has
been associated throughout his life with queer sartorial tastes.
The notorious velvet jacket which he wore during the days of his
activity as a critic of the drama, furnished the _casus belli_ in
Shaw's war with the theatre managers. Shaw refused point-blank to obey
the iron-clad regulation that occupants of stalls must wear evening
clothes. The irrepressible conflict was precipitated one night,
according to a story which Shaw vehemently denies, when Shaw was
stopped at the door of the theatre by an attendant.
“What do you object to?” asked Shaw; “the velvet jacket?”
The attendant nodded assent.
“Very well,” exclaimed Shaw, no whit abashed, “I will remove it.” And
the next instant he was striding up the aisle in his shirt sleeves.
“Here, that won't do!” shouted the attendant in great alarm, hurrying
after Shaw and stopping him with great difficulty.
“Won't do?” cried Shaw, with fine assumption of indignation. “Do you
think I am going to take off any more?”
And with that he promptly redonned his velvet jacket and turning on
his heel, left the house. Shaw finally won the battle and enjoyed his
triumph in face of the objection of managers and the indignation of the
fashionable and wealthy theatre-goers.
Shaw's snuff-coloured suit and flannel shirt made him a marked figure
in London during the 'nineties. He wore it so long that it finally
came to look, as one of his acquaintances said, as if it were made
of brown wrapping paper. So much a part of his individuality had it
become that, when he finally discarded it, some friends of Shaw's,
seeing it depending from a nail, exclaimed--so well had it retained its
shape--“Good heavens! he's done it at last!”
Of peculiar, almost unique, interest is the record of Shaw's physical
proportions and qualities, taken in the Anthropometric Laboratory
arranged by Francis Galton, F.R.S., at the International Health
Exhibition on August 16th, 1884. This was just twenty days before Shaw
joined the Fabian Society. According to this chart, numbered 3,655,
Shaw's anthropometric properties were as follows:
Colour of eyes, blue-grey.
EYESIGHT.
Greatest distance in inches of reading “Diamond” type--Right
eye, 23; left eye, 27.
Colour sense (goodness of)--Good.
JUDGMENT OF EYE.
Error per cent. in dividing a line of 15 inches--in three parts,
1-1/2; in two parts, 1/2.
Error in degrees of estimating squareness--1/4.
HEARING.
Keenness can hardly be tested here owing to the noises and
echoes.
Highest audible note--Between 30,000 and 40,000 vibrations
per second.
BREATHING POWER.
Greatest expiration in cubic inches--298.
STRENGTH.
Of squeeze in lbs. of--right hand, 83; left hand, 80.
Of pull in lbs.--57.
SPAN OF ARMS.
From finger tips of opposite hands--5 feet 11.7 inches.
HEIGHT.
Sitting, measured from seat of chair--3 feet 1.8 inches.
Standing in shoes 6 feet 0.8 inch
Less height of heel 0.7 inch
----------------
Height without shoes 6 feet 0.1 inch.
WEIGHT.
In ordinary indoor clothing in lbs.--142.
The social, physical, mental and moral measurements of the man, at
different periods of his life, have been taken by a thousand hands. Not
the least interesting of these is the record of a chirological expert
in the _Palmist and Chirological Review_, July, 1895.[245] Shaw is
inclined to believe in palmistry to the extent of regarding the hand
to be as good an index of character as the face. He once laughingly
remarked to me that the following chirological study possessed a
curious interest, because it was such a remarkable _mélange_ of acute
character-analysis and hopeless, utter nonsense.
Omitting technical details--the specific _indicia_ of specific
traits--the hands of Shaw yielded the following “results.” The author,
dramatist, musician and critic is betrayed by the long conical
hands--the smallness of which for so tall a man indicates that the
subject will be given to jumping to conclusions on insufficient
grounds in matters of opinion. The subject is very unconventional
and independent, especially in thought, and adaptable to people
and circumstances. His will is very strong, and he is obstinate in
opinion, very argumentative, dogmatic, and unconvincible. He is not
only fond of books and reading, but also has a great love of rule and
power over others. His temperament is a curious compound of caution
and liberality, very dependent upon moods for their expression.
The dramatic power he possesses is that of the dramatist, not of
the actor; he is gifted with great power in carrying out ideas and
turning circumstances to his advantage, due in no small measure to
his remarkable power of words, whether for speaking or writing. While
not entirely tactful, he is constantly scheming and planning; but
he is usually more successful in handling plots than persons. Great
energy, both physical and mental, and cultivated self-control are
distinguishing marks of the man; to these traits are superadded much
aggressiveness and high moral courage. He is endowed with a great
sense of fun, remarkable wit, immense wealth of imagination and
extreme eccentricity of ideas. The subject makes his own career in
the world, and tries to carry out to some extent his eccentric ideas;
but as a rule, his actions are directed by his accurate knowledge of
the world. In many respects, the subject is very genuine and sincere;
but along with this goes an incurable tendency to pose for effect.
His fame will steadily grow with the years; and it is predicted that
he will accomplish fine artistic work, if he will leave the practical
side of things to others, and stick to art as he should. He can make
or mar his own career as he chooses; he possesses the power to turn
circumstances to his own advantage. In a large sense, he is the master
of his fate.
Did the analysis stop here, Mr. Shaw might almost be justified in
believing it impossible to derive such accurate information solely
from a superficial knowledge of his public career. Unfortunately, the
palmist indulged in certain other characterizations which are doubtless
included in Mr. Shaw's category of “utter nonsense.” According to the
palmist, Mr. Shaw has a very good opinion of himself, due to vanity,
not to self-confidence, in which he is conspicuously lacking. He is
very susceptible to criticism, but harsh in his criticism of others;
very apprehensive of consequences, changeable and uncertain in his
moods. Quiet in temper, he is, nevertheless, very revengeful and
vindictive, imbued not only with a great power of hatred, but also
with utter mercilessness in carrying it out. His temperament is very
hard, and, in a refined manner, cruel. He has an extreme disregard for
truth, all notions and opinions being coloured by fancy until facts
are completely lost sight of, thus showing the subject to be utterly
wanting in practical common sense in his opinions and ideas. He is
neither passionate nor benevolent; but he has a laudable tendency to
idealize his friends. It is a very unlucky temperament in affairs of
the heart; his nature has little if any faculty for attachment. He
imagines himself in love, and the more obstacles and impossibilities in
the way of his suit, the more he will delight in it; he imagines the
object of his attachment perfect, and will endeavour, contrary to all
rules and observances, to live in his castles in the air, and when they
dissolve he will throw it all away, perfectly heedless of consequences
to himself or others, and start on a new ambition, or an entirely
different line. “That this has already happened once in his life,” adds
the chirologist, “is shown by the bar line, now fading, from the upper
Mars across to Head and Heart.” _Il ne manquait que ça!_
Let us now skip another eleven, or rather twelve, years, and take a
look at Bernard Shaw as he is to-day. Many people seem to regard Shaw
as too funny to be true--as fanciful as Pierrot, as imaginary as
Harlequin, as remote as the Man in the Moon. In reality, he is the
most unmistakable sort of person. The nervous, almost boyish swing
of his gait, the length and lankiness of his figure, the scraggly
reddish-brown beard, heavily tinged, or rather edged, with grey,
the high and noble brow, the quizzical geniality of his expression,
the sensitive mouth and the challenging directness of his grey-blue
eyes--all proclaim the original of a Coburn print, or a Max Beerbohm
cartoon. The balance between conventionality and _bizarrerie_, between
the serious thinker and the sardonic wit, is symbolized in eyebrows and
moustaches, one of each cocking humorously upward, the other gravely
preserving the level of dignity. This gives him, when he is in a gay
mood, the air of a genial Celtic Mephistopheles; and even when his
face is in repose this hirsute peculiarity imparts a sort of quaint
_diablerie_ to his expression. The delicate texture and excessive
pallor of his skin gives the note of distinction to his face; and his
eyes, whether turned full upon you with level gaze or dancing with
the light of irrepressible humour, are his most distinctive feature.
The frame for an artist's sketch of his profile would be a vertically
elongated rectangle--a curious cephalic conformation ready made to the
hand of the cartoonist.
Mr. Gilbert Chesterton's description, in his book, _The Ball and the
Cross_, of the sane professor of psychology whose ideas are wilder
than those of the lunatics under his charge, gives a rather startling
picture in semi-caricature--with slight variations--of the man Shaw:
“The advancing figure walked with a stoop, and yet, somehow, flung
his forked and narrow beard forward. That carefully cut and pointed
yellow beard was, indeed, the most emphatic thing about him. When he
clasped his hands behind him, under the tails of his coat, he would
wag his beard at a man like a big forefinger. It performed almost all
the gestures; it was more important than the glittering eye-glasses
through which he looked, or the beautiful, bleating voice in which he
spoke. His face and neck were of a lusty red, but lean and stringy;
he always wore his expensive gold-rim eye-glasses slightly askew upon
his aquiline nose, and he always showed two gleaming foreteeth under
his moustache, in a smile so perpetual as to earn the reputation of a
sneer.”
[Illustration: =G. B. S. (A Cartoon).=]
Reproduced from _Three Living Lions_.
_Joseph Simpson._
_Courtesy of the Artist._
The extravagant braggart and arrant _poseur_ of the Shavian myth
vanishes in the presence of the real Shaw. His playful pretence of
vanity is a source of great amusement to himself and his friends.
Socially, it is an admirable resource in the art of entertainment. “I
have never pretended that G. B. S. was real,” said Shaw the other day:
“I have over and over again taken him to pieces before the audience to
show the trick of him. And even those who, in spite of that, cannot
escape from the illusion, regard G. B. S. as a freak. The whole point
of the creature is that he is unique, fantastic, unrepresentative,
inimitable, impossible, undesirable on any large scale, utterly unlike
anybody that ever existed before, hopelessly unnatural, and void of
real passion. Clearly such a monster could do no harm, even were
his example evil (which it never is).” “The G. B. S. you know,” he
laughingly remarked to me one day, with a rapid shrug of the shoulders
and a deprecatory wave of the hand, “is merely a family joke with a
select circle. G. B. S. sometimes gets on my nerves; but he is a great
source of amusement to a small but highly enlightened audience. Of
course, there are lots of people in the world who regard me as a huge
joke; and perhaps I am as much responsible for the G. B. S. legend as
anybody else. But the vast majority of my readers,” he added, “are
serious persons who regard me as a serious person who has something
serious to impart.”
As an instance of the multiplicity of diverse impressions which Bernard
Shaw succeeds in evoking, consider his letter to P. F. Collier and Son.
Unknown to Shaw, his story, _Aërial Football_, was published during a
period within which the best story submitted was to receive a prize of
one thousand dollars. Shaw's letter in “acknowledgment” of Collier's
cheque evoked a thousand different expressions of opinion--ranging
between the opinion at one end of the scale that Shaw, as a great man
of letters, was entirely justified in his indignant protest at being
placed involuntarily in the position of competing for a money prize in
a fiction contest, and the opinion at the other end of the scale that
Shaw was playing a spectacular and sensational prank, and indulging
in a rather expensive form of advertisement. Shaw's letter speaks for
itself:
“SIR,--What do you mean by this unspeakable outrage? You send
me a cheque for a thousand dollars, and inform me that it is
a bonus offered by Messrs. P. F. Collier and Son for the best
story received during the quarter in which my contribution
appeared. May I ask what Messrs. P. F. Collier and Son expected
my story to be?
“If it were not the best they could get for the price they
were prepared to pay, they had no right to insert it at all.
If it was the best, what right have they to stamp their own
contributors publicly as inferior when they have taken steps
to secure the result beforehand by paying a special price to a
special writer?
“And what right have they to assume that I want to be paid
twice over for my work, or that I am in the habit of accepting
bonuses and competing for prizes?
“Waiving all these questions for a moment, I have another one
to put to you. How do Messrs. P. F. Collier and Son know that
my story was the best they received during the quarter? Are
they posterity? Are they the verdict of history? Have they even
the very doubtful qualification of being professional critics?
“I had better break this letter off lest I should be betrayed
into expressing myself as strongly as I feel. I return the
cheque. If you should see fit to use it for the purpose of
erecting a tombstone to Messrs. P. F. Collier and Son, I shall
be happy to contribute the epitaph, in which I shall do my best
to do justice to their monstrous presumption.
“G. BERNARD SHAW.”
In quite good humour the editor of _Collier's Weekly_ assured Mr.
Shaw that the award was a mistake. The “responsible” readers were out
of town, and the sporting editor, who was a devotee of football, a
vegetarian, a Socialist, a misanthrope, a misogynist--in short, a true
disciple of G. B. S.--made the award. Of course, on receipt of Mr.
Shaw's letter the sporting editor was summarily discharged!
[Illustration: =A Bust of Shaw.=]
By Auguste Rodin.
From the bronze original owned by Bernard Shaw. A marble replica is in
the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin.
_Alvin Langdon Coburn._ _Courtesy of the Sculptor._
The fantastic phenomenon “G. B. S.,” accredited by popular
superstition, after a long campaign on Shaw's part in the interest
of creating and fostering the legend, is a phenomenon that obviously
never could, never did, nor ever will, exist under the heavens. Indeed,
it is one of Mr. Shaw's foibles to insist that he is short of many
accomplishments which are fairly common, and in some ways an obviously
ignorant, stupid and unready man. Certainly it is not a little
strange that with all his remarkable knowledge of modern art, music,
literature, economics and politics, he speaks no language but his own,
and reads no foreign language, save French, with ease. I remember
hearing someone ask Rodin whether Shaw really spoke French. “Ah! no!”
replied Rodin, with his genial smile and a faint twinkle of the eyes;
“Monsieur Shaw does not speak French. But somehow or other, by the very
violence of his manner and gesticulation, he succeeds in _imposing_ his
meaning upon you!” Shaw is fond of relating the incident which laid
the foundation for his reputation as an Italian scholar. “Once I was
in Milan with a party of English folk. We were dining at the railway
restaurant, and our waiter spoke no language other than his own. When
the moment came to pay and rush for the train, we were unable to make
him understand that we wanted not one bill, but twenty-four separate
ones. My friends insisted that I must know Italian, so to act as
interpreter, I racked my memory for chips from the language of Dante,
but in vain. All of a sudden, a line from _The Huguenots_ flashed to my
brain: '_Ognuno per se: per tutti il ciel_' ('Every man for himself:
and heaven for all.') I declaimed it with triumphant success. The army
of waiters was doubled up with laughter, and my fame as an Italian
scholar has been on the increase ever since.”
As a rule, foreign critics rate Shaw higher as a thinker and
philosopher than as wit and dramatist. The painters and sculptors
likewise represent him as a personality of tremendous intellectual
force. The bust by Rodin--intermediate as a work of art between
his busts of Puvis de Chavannes and J. P. Laurens in the Musée de
Luxembourg--reveals the thoughtful student, of philosophic insight and
tremendous cerebration. Rodin, who finds Shaw “charming,” recently said
to Mrs. John van Vorst: “He is perhaps a 'fraud,' as you Americans put
it. But the first victim of Bernard Shaw's charlatanism is Bernard
Shaw himself. Susceptible to impressions as are all artists, and a
philosopher at the same time, he cannot do otherwise than deceive
himself. The cold reason which he could, were it unhampered, apply
to the problems of this life, is modified, reduced to vapour, by his
delicate temperamental sensitiveness and by his keen Irish sense of
humour. It is, in fact, to his Irish blood that Bernard Shaw, as
we know him, is due. With the cold Anglo-Saxon current only in his
veins, he would have proved the 'bore' _par excellence_ who tries
to divert us while reforming society, to win our applause by mere
idol-breaking.”[246] Also, in the Hon. Neville S. Lytton's portrait
of Shaw, after the Innocent X. of Velásquez, there is portrayed the
modern pope of wit and wisdom.[247] And the redoubtable logician, the
philosophic satirist, is admirably bodied forth in that remarkable
photograph of Shaw--the masterpiece in portraiture of Alvin Langdon
Coburn.[248]
The real Bernard Shaw is one of the most genial and delightfully
entertaining of men. In his London quarters, at Adelphi Terrace, or
in the quiet retreat of Ayot St. Lawrence, in Hertfordshire, he is
easy, hospitable and unaffectedly natural.[249] In his manner, the
combination of light spontaneity with a sort of effusive shyness
is peculiarly engaging. There is something strikingly transitory
about his presence: one always feels that he has just managed to
catch Shaw “on the fly.” While he not infrequently plays up to his
reputation for gay self-puffery, in such innocent diversions, for
example, as ecstatically admiring the Rodin bust or rhapsodizing over
Coburn's prints of him, it is always quite obviously with the humorous
consciousness that his listener is sharing in the imposture. The genius
of proverbial classification writes like an angel and talks like
Poor Poll; Shaw possesses the unique distinction of talking, whether
in his own home or upon the public platform, as trenchantly and as
brilliantly as he writes. Unlike many celebrated _raconteurs_, whose
ability consists almost solely in pouring forth a flood of polished
anecdote and personal reminiscence, Shaw talks with apparent ease
and equal wit upon any and every subject that comes to hand, from
Richard Wagner to Anthony Comstock, from spiritualism to bicycling,
from German philosophy to women's clothes. One is amused to discover
that his extreme acuteness in analyzing subjects upon which he is an
authority is equalled only by his marvellous glibness in talking of
things of which he can really know little or nothing. Far from taking
his cue from Coleridge or Wilde and monopolizing the conversation for
hours at a time, he makes an attentive and appreciative listener,
instantaneously responsive to clever characterization or thoughtful
analysis. A great tease and joker, he is perpetually telling upon his
friends devastatingly comic stories which they vehemently deny _in
toto_. When he is not poking fun at your views or drawing your fire by
carefully directed sarcasm, he is entertaining you with some humorous
episode in his own life--a tilt with Anatole France, perhaps, a bit of
repartee with which he turned the tables on Gilbert Chesterton, or an
illiterate person's joke on Shaw which for the time being completely
floored him.
I remember hearing him say that Anatole France and he, among others,
were once dining together in Paris, and with great brilliance France
spoke uninterruptedly for a long time about the strange type of men
called geniuses. At the conclusion, Shaw said: “Yes, I know all about
them, for I myself am a genius.” France, who knew virtually nothing of
Shaw, was taken aback for only a moment. “_Mais oui, monsieur_,” he
replied, “_et une courtisane se nomme une marchande de plaisir!_”
Simplicity and unostentation are the keynotes of Shaw's home life.
The ornate, the gaudy, the useless are banished from his scheme of
things. In his wife, a gracious person of great sweetness, he has
both a charming companion and an enthusiastic supporter in all his
multifarious activities. Mr. Shaw's retirement from the journalistic
lists was signalized by his marriage to Miss Charlotte Frances
Payne-Townshend, who nursed him back to health and strength--and
matrimony--after a serious accident. “I was very ill when I was
married,” Mr. Shaw once wrote, “altogether a wreck on crutches and
in an old jacket which the crutches had worn to rags. I had asked my
friends, Mr. Graham Wallas, of the London School Board, and Mr. Henry
Salt, the biographer of Shelley and De Quincey, to act as witnesses,
and, of course, in honour of the occasion they were dressed in their
best clothes. The registrar never imagined I could possibly be the
bridegroom; he took me for the inevitable beggar who completes all
wedding processions. Wallas, who is considerably over six feet high,
seemed to him to be the hero of the occasion, and he was proceeding to
marry him calmly to my betrothed, when Wallas, thinking the formula
rather strong for a mere witness, hesitated at the last moment and left
the prize to me.”
Shaw is the quintessence of vital energy. He rushes hither and thither,
from one task to another, with a feverish, almost frenzied activity.
“Bernard Shaw reminds me of a locomotive of the most modern type,”
said one of his intimate friends, “perfectly adjusted and running with
lightning speed--an engine of tremendous power and efficiency.” One is
liable to receive a first impression that Shaw is a delicate and anæmic
sort of person--an impression fostered by the mackintosh and gloves
he habitually wears and the umbrella he is fond of carrying. Once you
have seen the man in action, and realized his abundant vitality and
apparently inexhaustible store of nervous energy, you are not surprised
to note, in Coburn's nude portrait of Shaw, in the casually affected
pose of Rodin's _Le Penseur_, very massive shoulders and strong
muscular development in arms and back. “Mr. Bernard Shaw is New York
incarnate,” once wrote Miss Florence Farr. “Both of them are feverish
devotees at the altar of work. Empty Mr. Shaw and New York of work and
hurry, the man has a headache and closes his eyes in pain; he feels
no reason for existence; and the city is a desolation. To Mr. Shaw,
as to New York,” she pointedly added: “'doing nothing' is hell and
damnation.”[250]
As a conversationist, Mr. Shaw is the most witty and delightful person
imaginable. “Shaw is just a great big boy,” one of his intimate friends
said to me, “who enjoys life and the world and himself to the fullest
extent.” His enjoyment of his own anecdotes, witticisms, and strokes
of repartee is irresistibly contagious; you howl with merriment,
even when the joke is on you--and untrue to boot, as it often is.
Brevity is the soul of his wit; and yet his stories pour forth in a
perfect flood, and the coming of the “point” is duly heralded. The
bubbling, chuckling note in his voice, the hands rubbed together with
lightning-like rapidity, his body convulsively rocking back and forth
in his chair--then the “point” with a rush, followed by his mirthfully
expressive: “Well, you know----!”; he fairly doubles up, his head is
thrown back, his body shakes from head to foot, and his eyes dance
and glitter like the sea when struck full by the rays of the sun. His
habit is to turn his light batteries of genial sarcasm, satire and
irony upon those things which he perceives to be the especial objects
of your respect, admiration, or veneration; he invariably depreciates
and even ridicules those works of his own which you express an especial
liking for. In private conversation, as well as on the platform, he
is frequently engaged in drawing your fire and “putting you to your
trumps”; and he once laughingly remarked to me that nothing delighted
him more than to create around him a miniature reign of terror.[251]
Less strongly opinionated persons than himself, when challenged in
this way, are occasionally frightened into concealing or belying their
real views. I once heard one of Shaw's acquaintances say with much
harshness: “The astuteness and acumen of Bernard Shaw is little short
of miraculous. His power of making people say precisely what he wants
to hear, and at the same time what they don't necessarily believe, is
truly phenomenal, almost diabolic.” He always keeps his temper and
seldom goes beyond sharp, but good-humoured banter; but when attacked
upon some fundamental point in which his convictions are profoundly
engaged or the meaning of his life fundamentally misinterpreted, he
becomes a dangerous dialectic antagonist who unmasks upon his opponent
all the batteries of his keen satire, cutting logic and mordant
wit.[252]
[Illustration: =“A Prophet, the Press, and Some People.”=]
Reproduced from the original water-colour.
_Jessie Holliday._
_Courtesy of the Artist._
As a platform speaker and mob orator, Bernard Shaw is unique alike in
his incisive, metallic utterance and in the mystifying directness of
his paradoxes. It is genuinely amusing to watch him--the head and front
of Fabianism--at a meeting of the Fabian Society. Here he is truly
Sir Oracle: his opinion controls the policy of the society, as it has
done for many years. While the speaker is addressing the society, Mr.
Shaw is usually seated to the front and at the right of the platform,
his eye-glasses depending from the hook upon the breast of his coat,
his head bowed slightly forward, the fingers of his right hand lightly
resting across his lips. This striking figure, with face of deadly
pallor, eyes of steel blue, and general appearance of patient, amused
tolerance, is here the chief justice of the court, the critic of
highest authority. When he does not agree with the speaker, he shakes
his head with all the naïve assumption of infallibility; and when some
point is made which supports or clinches some well-known argument of
his own, he gravely nods with equal _sang-froid_--the air of the sage
encouraging promising youth. When he rises to speak, he dabbles with
no graceful preliminaries, but plunges at once in _medias res_, and,
with long forefinger upraised, sharply and mercilessly drives home
his paradoxical point with all the deadly accuracy of the practised
duellist. Whilst Shaw uses the rapier of cold logic in debate, and is
merciless in penetrating the joints in his opponents' armour, he is
scrupulously fair and just. His audiences, even at the Fabian meetings,
seldom fully endorse, or even seem to understand thoroughly, the full
significance and implication of his position; the applause at the
close of one of his speeches is, not infrequently, less vigorous and
unanimous than at the beginning. And after the meeting is over, one may
observe groups of excited Fabians, scattered here and there, vehemently
debating as to what Bernard Shaw really meant, and as to whether, after
all, what he said was to be taken _au grand sérieux_!
It is a strange and inexplicable mystery that, whenever a man makes a
genuine effort to disencumber himself of all traditional sentiment and
contemporary prejudice, and to express himself with perfect _naïveté_
and impartiality, the British public immediately concludes that
he is a frivolous jester. Mr. William Archer, however, is of opinion
that Shaw is far less free from sentiment than he appears. “I suspect
Bernard Shaw of being constitutionally an arrant sentimentalist,
whose abhorrence of sentiment is as the shrinking of the dipsomaniac
from the single drop of alcohol which he knows will make his craving
ungovernable!” If this humorous conjecture be correct, the mania is
assuredly a furtive one. On occasion Bernard Shaw enjoys to the full
playing with his public and flaunting a red rag at the British Bull,
named John; when he chooses he airily plays to perfection the parts of
_jongleur_ and _matador_ rolled into one. “It is an astounding thing
that people so thoroughly fail to understand me,” Mr. Shaw remarked to
me one day. “All that is necessary is discrimination, a strong sense of
humour, and ability to occupy my point of view for the time being. Of
course, I get no end of fun out of fluttering the dove-cotes. I love
to leave fire and desolation in my path--to create the impression that
I am a terrible fellow to deal with. The great difficulty with most
people is to distinguish between my moods--when I am joking, and when I
am serious; they can't see how anyone can joke about serious things. I
am continually being asked all sorts of silly questions, and I am human
enough”--this with a twinkle in the grey-blue eyes and an expressive
wave of the hand--“to enjoy mystifying people who labour under the
misfortune of being born without a sense of humour. Why, only the other
day some innocent had the temerity to ask me if I were really serious
in all that I said, wrote and did.
“'My dear sir,' I replied, with the air of all earnestness and
conviction, 'if you really believe me to be serious, it is unnecessary
for me to assure you of the fact. If you do not believe me to be
serious, it is equally unnecessary to assure you of something you would
not believe.'”
It is related that on one occasion a student just beginning his studies
as a naturalist, walked into a bookstore and ignorantly asked: “Have
you any books by the great Buffoon (meaning Buffon, of course)?”
Whereupon the clerk, without the slightest hesitation, presented the
applicant with the latest work of Bernard Shaw!
I have been interested to discover, through acquaintance with Bernard
Shaw and the late Mark Twain, that their views as to the fundamental
nature of man are in many respects identical. Their thoroughly
human, wise views of man, his failings and limitations, might easily
be regarded as cynical by thoughtless persons; in reality, their
“cynicism” is nothing more nor less than a profound knowledge of human
nature. Shaw, who has the very highest admiration for Mark Twain, both
as sociologist and humorist, once said: “Of course, he is in very much
the same position as myself. He has to put matters in such a way as
to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking.”
Shaw was once asked why he was always so cynical; to which he replied,
without hesitation or embarrassment, that he could not account for his
cynicism--that it must be accepted as the primary and original product
of his own genius. “I am not a cynic at all,” Mr. Shaw once told me,
leaning forward in his chair and speaking with convincing earnestness,
“if by cynic is meant one who disbelieves in the inherent goodness of
man. Nor am I a pessimist, if by pessimist is meant one who despairs
of human virtue or the worth of living. But all this babble about the
search for happiness does not impose on me in the slightest degree.
Remember the incident of Napoleon:
“'Could I be what I am, little one, cared I only for happiness?'
“Life is worth living for its own sake, and for the sake of the general
welfare of humanity. It is a common error to mistake a penetrating
critic for a confirmed cynic. I owe my success as a critic, not to any
quality of cynicism, but to a searching power of analysis.”
Strangely enough, this advocate of life for its own sake is charged
in many quarters, and notably by Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, with being
feelingless, rationalistic and a Puritan of the Puritans. It is quite
true that in matters of food, drink, dress and sanitation, Shaw is
scientifically hygienic and Puritanical--if Puritanical be the just
word for this attitude of mind. In his views concerning the relations
of the sexes, there is no evidence to show that he is one whit more
Puritanical than George Meredith, who advocated marriages limited
to a specified time. Mr. Shaw one day told me a good story about an
argument he had with Mr. Gilbert Chesterton. “Chesterton _would_
insist upon calling _me_, the author of _Mrs. Warren's Profession_
and _Man and Superman_, a Puritan,” explained Shaw. “'Of course,
Shaw, I admire your hard and frigid Puritanism,' said Chesterton,
'but, for Heaven's sake, indulge in a little frivolity now and then.
Fling away, if only for the moment, your terrible burden of duty.'
'My dear Chesterton,' I replied, 'you cannot deceive me by declaring
me to be a Puritan. You pretend to be attacking Puritanism when you
say that, despite my splendid love of truth, my deficiency in fully
comprehending truth springs from a neglect of the great gaieties out
of which Romance is born. What you call an attack on Puritanism is
nothing but a veiled defence of excess.'” “And do you know,” added
Shaw--clearly exhibiting the irreconcilability of the two philosophies
of life--“Chesterton--Chesterton, our English Rabelais--actually
admitted it!”
Most persistent of all these accusations made against Shaw is that
he is a case of intellect almost pure, without feelings and without
heart. Were it fitting, I could cite many instances of Mr. Shaw's
generosity, benevolence and philanthropy--true stories which have come
to me without my seeking and without Mr. Shaw's knowledge. I happen to
know that Shaw has the utmost abhorrence for “those abominable bastard
Utopias of genteel charity, in which the poor are first robbed and
then pauperized by way of compensation, in order that the rich man
may combine the idle luxury of the protected thief with the unctuous
self-satisfaction of the pious philanthropist.” Shaw is continually
engaged in assisting people in various ways--frequently without their
knowledge and always in such a way as to avoid the radical error of
permitting them to suffer in self-respect. Shaw believes in helping
other people to help themselves. He will take any amount of trouble
for a friend, and he has materially assisted innumerable people who
had not one iota of claim upon his time or his services. His courtesy
is of the truest sort, without affectation or pretence; and one of his
acquaintances recently said: “My memory of the cheerful and easy grace
of Bernard Shaw's instant considerateness and simple courtesy, when he
believed himself to be unobserved and unrecognized, remains with me as
among the most delightful impressions I have ever collected of a large
mind taking pleasant and friendly cognizance of the importance of the
little everyday acts of good-fellowship which make this world a less
irksome place to sojourn in than it would otherwise be.” If Shaw has
deeply angered many people by his unrestrained outspokenness, he has
also given many people both pleasure and happiness, by his generosity,
his brilliant wit, and his sanity of spirit. Recall one of the finest
of his maxims: “We have no more right to consume happiness without
producing it than we have to consume wealth without producing it.”
I once asked Mr. Shaw what answer he had to make to the statement that
he was a bloodless, passionless, intellectual machine. His answer made
upon me a more profound impression than anything that has ever occurred
in my association with him.
“Look here,” he replied, the utmost earnestness moulding his
expression, “real feeling is the most difficult thing in the world to
recognize. A parable will serve. Two men are walking down the crowded
Strand, gazing at the vast throng of people as they hurry along with
a thousand different aims. To one, the spectacle signifies nothing
more than the ordinary metropolitan aspect of the greatest city in the
world. The other sees in the spectacle a company of men and angels
ascending and descending an endless ladder which reaches from earth to
heaven. The one passes a starving child whose face is pinched with the
cold; he shudders with discomfort, draws his greatcoat tighter around
him, and, after giving the child a penny, passes on, thanking God that
he is not as other men are. The other man regards the little waif with
infinite compassion, his heart goes out in profoundest sympathy, and
his whole being protests against the social system which makes such
things possible. And he devotes his life, not to giving pennies to
individual sufferers, but to exposing the conditions which produce
such horrors and to agitating for such reforms as will mitigate these
horrors, and eventually render them impossible.”
The close and searching student of Bernard Shaw's work and personality
cannot fail to detect, beneath the surface, the profound and passionate
sentiment which runs through his entire life. In his fierce reaction
against the puerile sentimentalities, the fraudulent romance, the
loathsome eroticism of modern art and life, one can detect the spur
of real sentiment and passion. The pure love of man and woman,
physically congruent and temperamentally compatible, he regards as
the ideal condition for the progressive evolution of the race. And he
once assured me of his conviction that such marriages, eventuating
in children sound in mind and body, were best from every possible
standpoint; but that in actual experience, marriages of this sort are
in a hopeless minority. Shaw's fundamental Socialism prompts him to
batter down the social barriers which set off the aristocrats from the
common people--those barriers which result in the aristocracy feeding
upon its own vitality, breeding and in-breeding, until the sexual
product is hopelessly anæmic and degenerate. Stronger, better, saner
men and women, Shaw believes, would be bred through the intermarriage
of the duchess and the navvy; he strongly advocates the experiment, not
simply for the sake of breaking down the social barriers, but primarily
for the cause of the ultimate betterment of the race.
It is Shaw's chief distinction that, for the sake of sentiment, he
would deny sentiment. “I verily believe,” a distinguished author once
remarked to me, “that Mr. Shaw lives in mortal terror of the public
for fear it will discover his great secret: the possession of a warm
heart.” His reaction is not against the sentiment which civic virtue
and personal integrity bespeak, but against the popular clap-trap,
romanticized notion of sentiment which to the unilluded goes by
the name of sentimentality. Bernard Shaw is a man of tremendous
sentiment--social and humanitarian sentiment. Sociologic thought and
social service are the ruling moral passions of his life.
“The final ideal for civic life,” he said in a public address not long
ago, “is that every man and every woman should set before themselves
this goal--that by the labour of their lifetime they shall pay
the debt of their rearing and their education, and also contribute
sufficient for a handsome maintenance during their old age. And more
than that: why should not a man say: 'When I die my country shall be in
my debt.' Any man who has any religious belief will have the dream that
it is not only possible to die with his country in his debt but with
God in his debt also.”
The germ of Shaw's philosophy of life may be found in these words:
“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and
as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatsoever I can.
“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work,
the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief
candle' for me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold
of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible
before handing it on to future generations.”
FOOTNOTES:
[245] The journal of the Chirological Society, edited by Mrs. K. St.
Hill and Mr. Charles F. Rideal.
[246] _Rodin and Bernard Shaw_, by Mrs. John van Vorst; in _Putnam's
Monthly and the Critic_, February, 1908.
[247] Unfortunately this portrait has a somewhat flouting and cynical
expression, produced chiefly by the protruding under-lip. In answer
to a question of mine on the subject, in which I pointed out that
the feature was untrue to life, Mr. Lytton replied: “The unfortunate
expression to which you refer does not represent my interpretation of
Bernard Shaw's character or attitude towards the world, but is the
result of my effort to accentuate the likeness of Shaw to the original
of Velásquez. Personally, I am a great admirer of Bernard Shaw.”
[248] The photogravure facing page 468.
[249] One night about eleven o'clock, just after finishing the
discussion of certain portions of the present work, I remember asking
Mr. Shaw how he happened to take the place in Hertfordshire. “Come with
me and I will show you,” he said; and we wandered across the common
in the moonlight over to the old English church, redolent of mystery
and sanctity. Shaw pointed to the inscription on a tomb near by: “Jane
Eversley. Born, 1815. Died, 1895. Her time was short.” “I thought,”
said Shaw, “that if it could be truthfully said of a woman who lived to
be eighty years old that her time was short, then this was just exactly
the climate for me.”
[250] Shaw suffers from periodical headaches, which come about once
a month, and last a day. “Don't you ever suffer any ill effects from
the terrible hardships you have to undergo in the bleak northern
latitudes?” Shaw inquired one day of Fridtjof Nansen, the great
Arctic explorer. “Yes,” replied Nansen, “I suffer with the most
frightful headaches.” “Have you never tried to discover a cure for the
headache?” asked Shaw. “Why, no!” replied Nansen. “I never thought of
such a thing!” “Well, my dear fellow,” said Shaw, “that is the most
astonishing thing I have ever heard. Here you have spent a lifetime
trying to discover the North Pole, that nobody in the world cares
tuppence about, and you have never even tried to discover a cure for
the headache, which the whole world is crying for.”
[251] The delightful way in which Lady Randolph Churchill “squelched”
him on the occasion of one of his terrorizing utterances is eminently
worthy of quotation. In answer to her invitation to a luncheon party,
Shaw wrote: “Certainly not! What have I done to provoke such an attack
on my well-known habit?” To which she replied: “Know nothing of your
habits; hope they are not as bad as your manners.” Shaw then wrote
her a long letter of “explanation”--leaving the victory with the
lady.--_Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill_, in the _Century
Magazine_, September, 1908.
[252] Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Adelphi Terrace
quarters is the inscription cut in the enamel headboard of the
mantelpiece--an inscription vitally characteristic of Shaw, the
free-thinker and _intransigéant_--taken from the walls of Holyrood
Palace:
“_Thay say. Quhat say thay? Lat thame say!_”
APPENDIX
[Illustration: =Genealogical Chart of the Shaw Family
OF COUNTIES TIPPERARY, KILKENNY AND DUBLIN,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER LINEAL ANCESTORS OF
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.=]
INDEX
Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 400-1.
_Academy_, 246, 287.
Achurch, Janet, 299, 304, 353-4.
_Actors' Society Monthly Bulletin, The_, 369.
Adams, Maurice, 104.
Addison, Joseph, 199.
Ade, George, 136.
Adelphi Terrace, 20.
_Admirable Bashville, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Aldwych Theatre, 401.
Alexander, George, 183, 282.
Allen, Grant, 279.
Allen, Rev. G. W., 102.
Alma-Tadema, Sir L., 287.
_Amateur Photographer_, 226.
Anderton's Hotel, 115, 131.
Angelo, Michael, 31, 46, 90, 153, 218-9, 225, 243, 291, 393.
Archer, William, 20, 75, 84, 90, 91, 142, 251, 297, 306,
315, 327, 333, 369, 413, 417, 443;
and _Cashel Byron's Profession_, 61, 76;
first sees Shaw, 97;
and Shaw's career as a critic, 195;
and Shaw's musical criticisms, 232-3;
and Shaw's dramatic criticisms, 279 _et sqq._, 286;
collaborates with Shaw, 293, 295;
and Shaw as a dramatist, 299;
and _Mrs. Warren's Profession_, 307-8, 363, 425;
and _Arms and the Man_, 316-17;
and _You Never Can Tell_, 325;
and Shaw's greatest work, 378;
and _Major Barbara_, 387;
and _The Doctor's Dilemma_, 390 _et sqq._;
and stage directions, 419;
and _Widowers' Houses_, 445;
and Shaw's sentiment, 507.
_Arms and the Man._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Arnold, Matthew, 96.
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 299.
_Art Moderne, L'_, 348.
_Atlantic Monthly, The_, 484.
Augier, E., 294.
_Author, The_, 91.
Aveling, Dr., 114, 160, 164, 261.
Avenue Theatre, 312 _et sqq._, 316.
Bab, Julius, 85, 249, 402.
Bach, 236, 240, 252.
Bahr, Hermann, 198, 353, 358, 410, 414, 424.
Bakunin, Michel, 98, 189, 247.
Balfour, Right Hon. A. J., 372, 404.
Ball Publishing Co., 111.
Barker, Granville, 286, 368, 371-2, 388, 398, 446.
Barnby, Sir Joseph, 237.
Barrie, J. M., 404.
Barry, James, 200.
Bashkirtseff, Marie, 5, 273.
Bax, Belfort, 51, 98, 164, 485-6;
his article, _Socialism and Bourgeois Culture_, 159.
Beaumarchais, 23.
Beaumont and Fletcher, 264, 366.
Bebel, F. A., 152, 180, 186.
Beerbohm, Max, 231, 288, 339, 363, 394, 425, 496.
Beethoven, 18, 23-4, 73, 153, 240, 243, 250, 257, 393.
Beeton, 158.
Bell, Chichester, 34-5, 44.
Bellamy, Edward, 152.
Bellini, 18.
Bennett, Sterndale, 237.
Berlioz, 234, 257.
Bernstein, Eduard, 165.
Besant, Mrs. Annie, 52, 92, 109, 113 _et sqq._, 125, 133,
144, 160, 165, 178, 283, 484.
Beyle, Henri, 20, 412, 463.
Birmingham, George A., 401.
Bispham, David, 238.
Bizet, 24, 61.
Blake, William, 447, 454 _et sqq._, 466, 469, 473.
Bland, Hubert, 67, 99, 102, 114 _et sqq._, 128-9, 169, 175, 178.
Bland, Mrs. Hubert, 128-9.
Blavatsky, Madame, 127.
Blum, M. Jean, 337.
Booth, General, 387.
Borchardt, Miss, 484.
Borsa, Mario, 270.
_Boston Transcript_, 287.
Bouguereau, W. A., 222.
Bourget, Paul, 416, 464.
Bradlaugh, Charles, 137-8, 144, 160, 176.
Braekstad, Hans L., 272.
Brahms, 241, 243.
Brandes, Dr. Georg, 306, 307, 311, 313, 347, 359-60, 418, 464.
Brentanos, 54-5.
Brieux, Eugène, 432, 439.
Brooke, Stopford, 15, 93, 208.
Brown, Ford Madox, 212, 219-20.
Browning, Robert, 31-2, 40, 219, 412, 415, 466.
Browning Society, 135.
Bruneau, 245.
Brunetière, Ferdinand, 307, 309.
Bryant, D. Sophia, 37-8.
Bülow, Hans Von, 241.
Bunyan, John, 268, 447, 473.
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, 206, 212, 221, 225.
Burne-Jones, Lady, 206.
Burns, Right Hon. John, 112 _et sqq._, 127, 142, 166, 174.
Burrows, 113.
Butler, Samuel, 480, 483.
Byron, Lord, 143, 215, 364.
_Cæsar and Cleopatra._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Cairnes, J. E., 155.
Calderon, 432.
Calvé, Mme., 245.
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 372.
Campbell, Lady Colin, 212.
Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 228, 392.
_Candida._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
_Candid Friend, The_, 42, 60, 98, 147, 202, 476.
_Captain Brassbound's Conversion._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Carlyle, Thomas, 253, 271, 336, 434, 457, 474.
Carnegie, Andrew, 383, 385.
Carpaccio, 227.
Carpenter, Captain Alfred, 99.
Carpenter, Edward, 50, 99, 114.
Carroll, Rev. William George, 15.
_Cashel Byron's Profession._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
_Caxton Magazine_, 211.
Cellier, Alfred, 233.
_Century Magazine_, 505.
Chamberlain, Right Hon. Joseph, 404.
Chamfort, Nicholas, 456.
Champion, Henry Hyde, 48, 51, 52-3, 102, 112 _et sqq._, 125, 155.
_Chap-Book, The_, 29, 57, 149.
Chapman and Hall, 47.
Chapman, George, 264.
Charrington, Charles, 354.
Charrington, Mrs. _See_ ACHURCH.
Chaucer, 221.
Chesterton, Gilbert K., 9, 190, 202, 354, 413, 415, 435, 436,
453, 472, 489, 496, 503, 508-9.
Chopin, 23, 25.
_Christian Socialist, The_, 47.
Chubb, Percival, 102.
Civic and Dramatic Guild, 402.
_Clarion, The_, 385, 390, 422.
Clarke, M.A., William, 100 _et sqq._;
his _The Fabian Society_, 111, 129, 136.
_Clerk, The_, 22.
Cobden, Richard, 168.
Coburn, Alvin L., 224 _et sqq._, 496, 501 _et sqq._
Collier and Son, P. F., 498-9.
Colvin, Sidney, 53.
Comedy Theatre, 295.
_Common Sense of Municipal Trading, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Common, Thomas, 485.
Comte, Auguste, 102, 168.
Constable and Co., Archibald, 55, 183, 399.
_Contemporary Review_, 183, 385.
Corbett, James J., 72.
Corbin, John, 319, 321, 344, 373.
Correggio, 221.
Courtney, W. L., 63, 80, 81, 177, 286.
Court Theatre, 277, 285, 286, 324, 345, 368-9, 371-2, 388, 402.
Cowen, Sir Fred, 237.
Crane, Walter, his _An Artist's Reminiscences_, 112.
Crawford, Rev. William, 16.
Criterion Theatre, 295.
Cunningham, Edward, 158.
Cunningham, W., 159.
_Daily Chronicle, The_, 100, 164, 212, 248, 305, 312, 331.
_Daily News, The_, 75, 91, 419.
Daly, Arnold, 315, 326, 346.
D'Annunzio, Gabriel, 416, 419.
_Dark Lady of the Sonnets, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Darwin, Charles, 92, 94, 96, 102, 123, 153, 261, 476, 483;
his _Descent of Man_, 97.
Davidson, Thomas, 102-4, 173.
Davis, 114.
Day, Holland, 228.
Delaroche, Paul, 200, 224.
Delia Robbia, 221.
Demachy, 228.
De Quincey, Thomas, 51, 153, 161, 359, 503.
De Reszke, Édouard, 238, 445.
De Reszke, Jean, 238, 245, 445.
_Devil's Disciple, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Dialectical Society, 92-3, 271.
Dickens, Charles, 41, 253, 361, 416, 443, 473.
_Die Zeit_, 165.
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 98, 124, 144, 205, 262.
_Doctor's Dilemma, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Dolmetsch, Arnold, 237.
Donald, 114.
Donatello, 221.
_Don Giovanni_, 18, 23.
Donisthorpe, Wordsworth, 114, 125.
Donizetti, 18, 23.
_Don Juan in Hell._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
_Dramatic Opinions and Essays._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Dryden, John, 476.
Drysdale, Dr., 93.
Dublin, Shaw born at, 3;
Shaw's early life in, 3 _et sqq._
Dumas, Alexandre, 61, 67.
Dumas, Alexandre _fils_, 413.
Düsel, Friedrich, 337.
Dvorak, 241.
_Echo, The_, 231.
Economic Club, The, 158.
_Economic Journal, The_, 158.
Edgeworth, F. Y., 158-9.
Edison, Thomas A., 44.
Edward VII., 311, 372.
Edwards, Clement, 142.
Edwards, Osmon, 270.
Eliot, George, 92, 94, 96, 305.
Ellis, Alexander, 91.
Ellis, Ashton, 393.
Ellis, Havelock, 102.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 3, 439.
Engel, Louis, 235.
Engels, Friedrich, 106, 163, 167, 181.
_English Illustrated Magazine_, 244.
English Land Restoration League, The, 47, 99.
Fabian Essays in Socialism. _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Fabian Society, The, 39, 47, 52, 56, 89 _et sqq._,
173 _et sqq._, 231, 280.
Faguet, Émile, 84, 250.
Farr, Florence, 329, 504.
_Faust_, 18.
_Fellowship of the New Life, The._ _See_ THE FABIAN SOCIETY.
_Figaro, Le_, 348.
Filon, Augustin, 300, 336, 344-5, 367, 445, 449.
Fitzgerald, C. L., 111.
Fontenelle, 416.
Foote, G. W., 114, 131, 138 _et sqq._, 482.
Ford, Rev. F. W., 125.
_Fortnightly Review, The_, 24, 60, 187.
Foxwell, 158-9.
France, Anatole, 144, 449, 502-3.
_Freethinker, The_, 482.
Freiligrath, Ferdinand, 51.
Frost, Percy, 155-6.
Funk and Wagnalls Co., 268.
Furniss, Harry, 327.
Furnival, Dr. F. J., 135.
Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, 402.
Galsworthy, John, 372.
Galton, Sir Francis, F.R.S., 492.
Garcke, Emil, 91.
Garland, Hamlin, 152.
Garrick, David, 196.
Garrick Theatre, 295.
George, Henry, 47-8, 50, 56, 90, 117, 153 _et sqq._, 176, 178;
his _Progress and Poverty_, 94, 96, 102, 152, 154-5, 178.
George, Henry, Jr., 95, 152.
George, Right Hon. Lloyd, 175.
Gerster, 239.
_Gestalten und Gedanken_, 313.
_Getting Married._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Gibson, Dr. Burns, 102, 104.
Gilbert, Sir W. S., 237, 303, 316 _et sqq._, 433, 456 _et sqq._;
his _Palace of Truth_, 318 _et sqq._
Gissing, George, 415.
Godard, J. G., 91.
Goethe, 23, 306, 364, 412, 434.
Goncourt, Edmond de, 440.
Gonner, E. C. K., 135.
Gordon, General, 312.
Gorki, Maxim, 432.
Gounod, 18, 24.
Graham, Cunninghame, 113, 306, 314, 328.
Grant, Corrie, 125.
_Great Thoughts_, 480.
Greene, Robert, 264.
Greenwood, Frederick, 200.
Gregory, Lady, 400.
Grein, J. T., 293, 295, 309, 321, 358.
Greuze, 228.
Greville, Eden, 293.
Grove, Sir George, 236.
_Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre_, 161.
Grundy, Sydney, 282, 284.
Guèsde, 152, 166, 180.
Guilbert, Yvette, 345.
Gurly, Lucinda Elizabeth. _See_ MRS. G. C. SHAW.
Gurly, Walter Bagenal, 7.
Hadden, Caroline, 104.
Hagemann, Herr Carl, 410.
Haldane, Right Hon. R. B., 132 _et sqq._
Hale, Professor, 426.
Hall, Andrew, 113.
Hals, Franz, 227.
Hamon, Auguste, 165, 309-10, 353, 439.
Hampstead Historic Club, 128 _et sqq._, 157.
Handel, 18, 23, 233, 257.
Hankin, St. John, 372.
Hapgood, Norman, 325, 411.
Hardie, Keir, 187.
Hardy, Thomas, 55, 368.
Hare, Sir John, 282.
Harper and Brothers, 54-5.
_Harper's Bazaar_, 85.
Harris, Frank, 261, 266.
Harris, Sir Augustus, 216, 245, 278, 287.
Hart, Sir Robert, 16.
Hauptmann, Gerhart, 413, 464.
Hausemann, William A., 340, 456, 486.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 25.
Hay, John, 189.
Haydn, 36.
Haymarket Theatre, 321.
Headlam, Rev. Stewart, 48, 114.
Hebbel Theater, 301.
Heine, Heinrich, 3, 47, 201, 413, 457.
Helmholtz, Hermann Von, 44.
Henderson, Archibald, 484.
Henley, W. E., 53, 212, 214 _et sqq._, 282.
Henry and Co., 205, 298.
Hensley, Lewis, his _The Scholar's Algebra_, 158.
Herwegh, Georg, 51.
_Hibbert Journal_, 471.
Hichens, Robert, 261.
Hinton, Horsley, 228.
Hinton, Mrs., 104.
Hodgskin, 155.
Hodgson, R., 127.
Hogarth, William, 227-8, 422, 473.
Holbein, 227.
Hollman, 239.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, his _Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, 89.
Hooghe, Peter de, 224.
Hope, Laurence, 392.
Hoppner, John, 228.
Horniman, Miss, 401.
_How He Lied to Her Husband._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Hudson Theatre, 365.
Hughes, 114.
Hugo, Victor, 23, 59, 250, 432, 434, 443.
Humanitarian League, The, 49.
_Humanitarian, The_, 435.
Huneker, James G., 84-5, 246, 275, 350, 366, 375, 418.
Huxley, Thomas, 92, 94, 96-7, 443, 476-7.
Hyndman, H. M., 98, 110, 112-3, 127, 138, 152, 156-7, 159, 160, 164-5,
167 _et sqq._, 173-4, 200, 206, 302, 368;
his _Economics of Socialism_, 162;
his _Marx's Theory of Value_, 164-5.
Ibsen, Henrik, 14, 25, 39, 59, 90, 143, 198, 237, 247, 299 _et sqq._,
415, 432, 447, 455, 460, 471, 480;
Shaw compared to, 61-2, 304, 316, 420 _et sqq._, 458;
his _Love's Comedy_, 78, 347;
his _Little Eyolf_, 81;
his _The Master Builder_, 81;
the controversy on, 248-9;
Shaw's championship of, 263, 272 _et sqq._, 305,
389-90;
his mission, 269;
Shaw's admiration for, 270;
his _A Doll's House_, 271, 274, 299, 314, 338, 433, 439;
his _Peer Gynt_, 273;
his _Emperor and Galilean_, 273, 460;
his _The Pillars of Society_, 271, 274;
his _An Enemy of the People_, 274, 297, 439, 456-7;
his _Ghosts_, 274, 296, 305, 307;
his _The Wild Duck_, 274;
his _Rosmersholm_, 274;
his _The Lady from the Sea_, 274, 347;
his _Hedda Gabler_, 274;
criticized by Shaw, 303;
his death, 389;
and stage directions, 417-18.
_Immaturity._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Independent Theatre Society, 293, 295, 309, 321.
Ingersoll, Robert G., 92.
Ingres, Jean, 219.
_Interlude at the Playhouse, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Ireland, its irreligion, 8-9;
National Gallery of, 19, 31;
land agency in, 21;
described in _John Bull's Other Island_, 372 _et sqq._
Irish National Theatre Society, 401.
_Irish Times, The_, 400.
_Irrational Knot, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Irving, Sir Henry, 216, 287 _et sqq._
Irwin, Will, 270.
Jackson, Holbrook, 11, 175, 447.
James, Henry, 64, 284, 394, 416, 454.
James, S. T., 259.
Jaurès, Jean, 144, 152, 166, 180, 186, 486.
Jefferies, Richard, 51.
Jevons, Stanley, 155-6, 159 _et sqq._;
his _Letters and Journal_, 160;
his _Theory of Political Economy_, 161.
Joachim, Joseph, 240-1.
_John Bull's Other Island._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Johnson, Dr., 479.
Jones, Benjamin, 132.
Jones, Henry Arthur, 210, 257, 263, 282 _et sqq._
Jonson, Ben, 264, 266.
_Journal des Débats_, 350.
Jowett, Benjamin, 262.
Joynes, James Leigh, 48, 50-1, 90, 94, 155.
Jupp, W. I., 104.
_Justice_, 164-5.
Kaulbach, Wilhelm von, 200, 224.
Keats, John, 40, 215.
Kerr, Alfred, 340, 438.
Kingsway Theatre, The, 402, 403.
Knight, William, his _Memorials of Thomas Davidson_, 104.
Knowles, Sheridan, 415.
Kropotkin, Prince, 98, 108, 152, 170, 173.
Lamarck, Jean, 480, 483-4, 488.
Lamb, Charles, 6, 266, 447.
_Land Nationalization Society_, 95.
Land Reform Union. _See_ ENGLISH LAND RESTORATION LEAGUE.
Lane, John, 270.
Lane, Joseph, 114.
Lassalle, Ferdinand, 98, 127, 152, 165, 168, 173, 176, 178, 271, 457.
“Law and Liberty League,” 113.
Lecky, James, 90 _et sqq._, 122, 235.
Leeds Art Club, 175.
Lee, George J. V., 17-8, 22, 37.
Le Gallienne, Richard, 232.
Leighton, Sir Frederick, 219.
Leschetizky, 239.
_Le Temps_, 277.
Levy, 131.
Lewes, George H., 201, 233.
_Liberty_, 189, 246.
Liebknecht, Wilhelm, 98, 152, 166, 172-3, 180-1.
Lind, Letty, 254.
Linnell, John, 228.
Lippi, Fra Filippo, 221.
Liszt, Abbé, 23, 257.
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 385.
_Lohengrin_, 35.
London Stage Society, 380.
Longfellow, Henry W., 24.
Loraine, Robert, 43, 302, 315, 368.
_Love Among the Artists._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
_Lucrezia Borgia_, 18.
Luther, Martin, 469-70.
Lyceum Theatre, 282, 343.
Lytton, Hon. Neville S., 501.
Lytton, Lord, 297.
Macaulay, Thomas B., 199.
MacCarthy, Desmond, 324, 339.
_McClure's Magazine_, 329.
Macdonald, J., 111.
McEvoy, Charles, 380.
McKail, J. W., 212.
McKee, Rev. T. A., 16.
Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 236.
Macmillan Co., The, 340, 456.
McNulty, Edward, 34;
his _Misther O'Ryan_, _The Son of a Peasant_ and _Maureen_, 33.
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 134, 224, 368, 415, 463-4.
_Mainly About People_, 1.
Mallock, W. H., 59, 60, 186-7.
Malthus, Thomas R., 92-3, 168.
_Man and Superman._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Mann, Tom, 113.
_Man of Destiny, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Mansfield, Richard, 54, 315, 342-3, 355, 358.
Mantegna, 46, 225, 227.
Marbot, his _Memoirs_, 312.
Maris, James, 222.
Marlowe, Christopher, 264.
Marshall, Alfred, 158.
Marston, John, 264.
Marx, Eleanor, 261, 272.
Marx, Karl, 50, 79, 90, 128, 151-2, 159, 173, 176, 178, 181,
261, 271, 457;
his _Das Kapital_, 96 _et sqq._, 106, 155 _et sqq._,
160 _et sqq._, 293.
Masefield, John, 372.
Massenet, Jules, 245.
Massingham, H. W., 231.
Mathews, Charles, 317.
Matthews, Brander, 416.
Maude, Aylmer, his _Life of Tolstoy_, 399.
Maude, Cyril, 321, 328.
Maupassant, Guy de, 304-5, 316.
Melba, Mme., 24.
Mendelssohn, Felix, 18, 24, 233, 243.
Menger, Anton, 161.
Meredith, George, 46-47, 77, 201, 278, 461, 471, 509;
his _Essay on Comedy_, 278.
Merimée, Prosper, 24.
Methuen and Co., 112.
_Metropolitan Magazine_, 227, 351.
Meyerbeer, 24, 243.
Meyerfeld, Dr. Max, 43, 426.
Millerand, 166.
Mill, John Stuart, 91-2, 94, 96, 102, 123, 153, 157, 466.
Milton, John, 139.
Mirabeau, 339.
_Misalliance._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Modern Press, The, 155.
Moffat, Yard and Co., 343.
Molière, 23, 130, 270, 278, 306, 320, 361, 364, 370, 378, 394,
439, 443, 449.
Mommsen, Theodor, 335.
Monet, Claude, 222.
Moody and Sankey, 10-11, 27, 33.
Moore, George, 202.
Moore, Samuel, 160.
Moore, Thomas, 243.
_Morning Leader_, 91.
Morris, May, 261.
Morris, William, 90, 98, 152, 173, 261, 271, 434, 457, 473;
makes Shaw's acquaintance, 52;
and _Cashel Byron's Profession_, 74;
on parents and children, 92;
his influence on Shaw, 99, 205;
and the Fabian Society, 114-5;
and the Socialist League, 137;
and the value theory, 164;
Shaw's ignorance of, 206;
his Socialist views, 207;
Shaw's obituary notice of, 209, 212;
his artistic integrity, 210-11;
his mastery of English, 221;
and Shaw's article on Nordau, 246.
Mozart, 18, 24, 32, 36, 90, 214, 218, 240, 243-4, 248-9, 257, 364, 393.
_Munsey's Magazine_, 293.
Muret, M. Maurice, 349-50.
Nansen, Fridtjof, 504.
Napier, Dr. T. B., 125.
Napoleon, 342 _et sqq._, 508.
Napoleon III., 93.
_Nation_, 250, 287, 401.
_National Observer_, 214.
_National Reformer_, 160, 164.
National Secular Society, 114, 160.
National Service League, 405.
Nesbit, E. _See_ MRS. H. BLAND.
_Neue Freie Presse_, 287, 343.
_New Age, The_, 175, 246, 396.
Newman, Ernest, 249.
Newman, Professor F. W., 95.
_New Review, The_, 313, 462.
New Shakespeare Society, 135, 263.
_New York Herald_, 54.
_New York Sun_, 373.
_New York Times_, 342, 361, 393.
_New York Tribune_, 317.
Nicol, Commissioner, 387.
Nietzsche, 20, 39, 81, 90, 151, 247, 261, 273, 339, 413, 455 _et sqq._,
464, 468, 471 _et sqq._, 480, 484 _et sqq._;
his _Genealogy of Morals_, 340, 364, 456, 486.
_Nineteenth Century_, 246, 439.
Nordau, Max, 35, 346, 436.
_North American Review_, 286-7.
O'Connor, Fergus, 173.
O'Connor, T. P., 231, 232, 235-6.
Offenbach, 233, 243, 340.
Olivier, Sir Sydney, 48, 99, 107, 128-9, 174;
his play, _Mrs. Maxwell's Marriage_, 100;
his career, 100.
_One and All_, 43.
Orage, A. R., 175.
Ouida, 392.
_Our Corner_, 52, 109, 195.
Owen, Miss Dale, 104.
Owen, Robert, 178, 209.
Paderewski, I. J., 237-8, 254.
_Pall Mall Budget_, 244.
_Pall Mall Gazette_, 48, 50-1, 98, 127, 135, 160, 164-5, 195-6,
200, 215, 483.
_Palmist and Chirological Review_, 493.
Pankhurst, Dr., 114.
Pardon, Sidney, 261.
Parker, Dr. H. R., 16.
Parnell, Charles Stewart, 101.
Parry, Sir Charles H. H., 236-7.
_Passion, Poison and Petrifaction._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Pater, Walter, 433, 438.
Patmore, Coventry, 445.
Patti, Adelina, 237, 239, 254.
Pease, Edward R., 102, 104, 127, 139.
Pepys, Samuel, 45.
Phelps, William L., 366.
_Philanderer, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
_Photography_, 222.
Pinero, Arthur Wing, 3, 279 _et sqq._, 364, 447.
Plançon, P., 24.
_Play, The_, 335, 338.
_Playhouse, The_, 327.
_Plays for Puritans._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
_Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Podmore, Frank, 102, 104, 114, 127, 177.
Poe, Edgar Allan, 5, 24, 130.
Pope, Alexander, 59, 243.
Porter, General Horace, 312.
Praxiteles, 32.
Proudhon, P. J., 128, 186.
Psychical Research Society, The, 127.
_Public Opinion_, 11, 33.
_Putnam's Monthly_, 501.
Queensberry, Marquess of, 387.
_Quintessence of Ibsenism._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Rabelais, 201, 509.
_Radical, The_, 132.
Raphael, 208, 221, 224.
Reade, Charles, 432-3.
Reclus, Elisée, 486.
Reinhardt, Max, 345.
Rembrandt, 227, 393.
Renan, Ernest, 449.
Repertory Theatre, 285.
_Review of Reviews_ (London), 386.
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 300, 445.
Rhodes, Cecil, 385.
Ricardo, David, 155, 159, 161.
Richards, Grant, 55, 309, 319, 321.
Robertson, Forbes, 282, 335, 338, 402, 417.
Robertson, John Mackinnon, 45, 114.
Robins, Elizabeth, 372.
Rockefeller, John D., 384.
Rodin, Auguste, 226, 500-1, 504.
Roeckel, August, 247.
Rogers, Professor A. K., 471.
Rook, Clarence, 141, 198, 335.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 384, 484.
Rossetti, D. G., 219, 446.
Rossini, 18.
Rossiter, 115.
Rostand, Edmond, 432.
Rousseau, J. J., 5.
Runciman, James, 214.
Runciman, J. F., 214.
Ruskin, John, 7, 168, 210-11, 253, 271, 434, 451, 457.
Sainte Beuve, Charles A., 251, 297, 474.
Saint Saëns, Camille, 241, 243.
St. Simon, Claude H., Comte de, 178.
Salt, Henry, 48 _et sqq._, 90, 503.
Sanders, W., 184.
Sargent, J. S., 227, 449.
_Saturday Review, The_, 53, 181, 199, 208-9, 212, 220-1, 231, 245,
261 _et sqq._, 266, 269, 272, 275, 279, 288, 364, 421, 427-9, 455.
_Savoy Magazine, The_, 14.
Savoy Theatre, 285, 337, 388.
Scheffer, Ary, 24.
Schiller, Friedrich, 23, 432, 454.
Schiller Theater, 355.
Schopenhauer, 81, 271, 364, 366, 435, 457, 459, 473-4, 476,
480, 483 _et sqq._
Schumann, 23, 240, 243, 252.
Scott and Co., Walter, 53, 179.
Scott, Clement, 279, 299, 302.
Scott, Sir Walter, 61, 67.
Scribner's Sons, Charles, 343.
Sedgwick, Anne D., her _Confounding of Camellia_, 367.
Shakespeare, William, 26, 55, 74, 81, 135, 196, 341, 391,
417, 447, 473, 476;
his plays criticized by Shaw, 262 _et sqq._, 288, 321;
Shaw's preface on, 336.
Shaw, Agnes, 22, 25.
Shaw, Frederick, 10.
Shaw, George Bernard, his birth, 3;
his complex characteristics, 4;
on autobiographies, 5-6;
his parentage and ancestry, 6 _et sqq._;
his early life, 8 _et sqq._, 39;
on church going, 8-9, 11-12 _et sqq._;
enters his uncle's office, 10;
on Moody and Sankey, 10-11, 27, 33;
his dislike of snobbery, 14-5, 21, 35, 41;
his education, 15 _et sqq._;
his great love of music, 18-9, 22 _et sqq._, 36-7, 216;
his early love of art, 19;
enters Mr. Townshend's office, 20;
his original musical technique, 23, 218;
goes to London, 25;
his religious training, 26;
his asceticism, 26-7;
choosing a profession, 31 _et sqq._;
his friendship with Edward McNulty, 33-4;
and Chichester Bell, 34-35, 44;
first introduction to Wagner's music, 35, 234;
his resemblance to his mother, 38-9;
his struggles in London, 39 _et sqq._;
his dress, 40-1, 491-2;
on poverty, 41-2, 46;
on the artistic temperament, 43;
first literary earnings, 43, 47;
his egotism, 44-5;
his _Immaturity_, 46-7;
and land nationalization, 47-8;
makes new friends, 47 _et sqq._;
his vegetarianism, 49, 471;
and the Salts, 48 _et sqq._;
on Shelley and Wagner's principles, 49-50;
and the death of J. L. Joynes, 50-51;
publication
of his novels, 51 _et sqq._;
becomes acquainted with William Morris, 52;
on _Cashel Byron's Profession_, 52;
his _Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant_, published, 54;
his plays, _Arms and the Man_ and _The Devil's Disciple_,
produced, 54;
on American publishing, 54 _et sqq._;
on novel-writing, 59, 60;
Stevenson on, 61;
and Ibsen, 61-2, 297 _et sqq._, 316, 420 _et sqq._;
his _The Irrational Knot_, 62 _et sqq._;
his _Love Among the Artists_, 65 _et sqq._;
his _Cashel Byron's Profession_, 69, 71 _et sqq._;
on the education of children, 70-1;
his _The Admirable Bashville_, 74 _et sqq._;
his _An Unsocial Socialist_, 77 _et sqq._;
his attitude towards women, 80 _et sqq._;
as a novelist, 83 _et sqq._;
his versatility, 89, 409, 424;
various influences on, 90, 99, 100;
his friendship with Lecky, 90 _et sqq._;
studies phonetics, 91;
joins the Zetetical Society, 92-3;
joins the Dialectical Society, 93;
on Sidney Webb, 93;
practices public speaking, 94;
his admiration for Henry George, 96;
studies Marx, 97-8;
and the Darwinian School, 97;
an enthusiastic Socialist, 98 _et sqq._, 385;
and William Clarke, 100-1;
and the Fabian Society, 102 _et sqq._, 173 _et sqq._, 279-80, 385;
Sidney Webb's great influence on, 106-7, 125-7;
his powers of oratory, 121 _et sqq._, 412, 505-6;
his early training for public speaking, 121 _et sqq._;
and the Hampstead Historic Club, 128 _et sqq._;
his love of debating, 130-1, 135;
and Mr. Haldane, 133-4;
and literary societies, 135;
his strenuous work, 136-7;
and Bradlaugh, 138;
debates with G. W. Foote, 138 _et sqq._;
his independent attitude, 140-1;
his appearance, 145, 338;
his Socialistic philosophy, 151 _et sqq._, 188 _et sqq._;
his letter to Hamlin Garland, 152;
influence of Henry George on, 153 _et sqq._;
studies economics, 155 _et sqq._;
and Wicksteed, Jevons and Marx, 155 _et sqq._;
attends International Socialist Congress at Zurich, 171;
as a Vestryman and Borough
Councillor, 181 _et sqq._;
on municipal trading, 182-3;
invited to stand for Battersea, 184-5;
his career as an art critic, 193 _et sqq._;
his criticism of the _Taming of the Shrew_, 196-7;
and the New Journalism, 199;
compared to Heine and Meredith, 201;
his affected levity, 201 _et sqq._;
compared with Whistler, 204;
his opinion of criticism, 205;
William Morris's influence on, 205, 208, 211;
Morris's appreciation of, 208;
his obituary of Morris, 209 _et sqq._;
his integrity as an art critic, 212-13;
becomes a musical critic, 212;
and Henley, 214 _et sqq._;
his admiration for Michelangelo, 218-9;
and Madox Brown, 219-20;
and the Impressionists, 221;
and the Dutch school, 222;
and photography, 222 _et sqq._;
photographed by A. L. Coburn, 225 _et sqq._;
as a music critic, 231 _et sqq._;
on the staff of the _Star_, 231 _et sqq._;
his _nom-de-plume_ of Corno di Bassetto, 232 _et sqq._;
on Offenbach, 233, 243;
his admiration for Wagner, 235;
on some modern composers, 236 _et sqq._;
on Paderewski, 238;
on Patti and Bispham, 238-9;
on Hollman, Essipoff, Joachim and Ysaye, 239, 240;
on Mozart, 240;
on Saint Saëns and Meyerbeer, 243;
on Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, 243;
his championship of Wagner, 243 _et sqq._;
his Bayreuth criticisms, 244;
on Covent Garden Opera, 244-5;
on Strauss' _Elektra_, 249-50;
his attitude as a critic, 251 _et sqq._;
dramatic critic on the _Saturday Review_, 261 _et sqq._;
his aim as dramatic critic, 262, 427;
on Shakespeare, 263 _et sqq._;
on modern problems, 271;
champions Ibsen, 272 _et sqq._;
on Church and Stage, 276-7;
on comedy, 278 _et sqq._;
leading critics on, 279 _et sqq._;
on Pinero, 282 _et sqq._;
on some modern playwrights, 283;
on Irving and Ellen Terry, 287-8;
his income from journalism, 288;
as a playwright, 293 _et sqq._;
his first play produced, 293 _et sqq._;
Archer's article on, 293 _et sqq._;
and the writing of _Mrs. Warren's Profession_, 305-6;
his new phase as a dramatist, 309 _et sqq._;
and W. S. Gilbert, 316 _et sqq._;
and Cyril Maude, 321-2, 327-8;
and Arnold Daly, 326-7;
and Ellen Terry, 328 _et sqq._, 343;
and Richard Mansfield, 342-3;
Sir Charles Wyndham on, 346;
Dr. Brandes on, 347;
and William Terriss, 354;
William Archer's admiration for, 363, 378;
and the modern drama, 363 _et sqq._, 413 _et sqq._;
his _magnum opus_, 370 _et sqq._;
Walkley's criticism on, 374, 460-1;
and politics at the theatre, 388;
and the plot of the _Doctor's Dilemma_, 391 _et sqq._;
his letter to Tolstoy, 399;
as a technician, 409 _et sqq._;
his world-wide reputation, 409-10;
his prefaces, 413;
his descriptive powers, 414;
and stage directions, 417 _et sqq._;
his defects, 424-5;
a _résumé_ of his plays, 425-6, 448-9;
as a dramatist, 431 _et sqq._;
and the problem play, 433 _et sqq._;
G. K. Chesterton on, 436;
on illusions, 436 _et sqq._;
philosophy of his plays, 439 _et sqq._, 481;
as artist and philosopher, 453 _et sqq._;
on Schopenhauer, 459;
his optimism, 459 _et sqq._;
on self-knowledge, 467 _et sqq._;
and science, 477;
on vivisection, 478-9;
on progress, 480;
his atheism, 482;
his religion, 484;
alleged influences on, 484 _et sqq._;
Sir Francis Galton's anthropometric chart, 492-3;
his characteristics, 494-5, 501 _et sqq._;
as he is to-day, 495;
his prize story, 498-9;
foreign critics on, 500-1;
his marriage, 503;
his energy, 503;
as a conversationist, 504;
his Puritanism, 508-9;
his kindness of heart, 509-10;
on marriage, 511-12.
Shaw, G. B., his works:--
_Cashel Byron's Profession_, 32, 51 _et sqq._, 61, 71 _et sqq._,
205, 304, 381, 451, 478.
_Common Sense of Municipal Trading, The_, 183.
_Dramatic Opinions and Essays_, 208, 276, 285.
_Fabian Essays in Socialism_, 178.
_Immaturity_ (Unpublished), 46-7.
_Irrational Knot, The_, 45, 52, 55, 62 _et sqq._
_Love Among the Artists_, 52, 54, 67 _et sqq._, 85, 235.
_Perfect Wagnerite, The_, 247.
_Quintessence of Ibsenism_, 138, 272-3, 299, 413, 480, 484.
_Unsocial Socialist, An_, 51, 54, 77, 81-2, 206, 222.
Shaw, G. B., Pamphlets, Articles, etc.:--
_Aërial Football_ (_Collier's Weekly_), 498.
_Author to the Dramatic Critics_ (_Widowers' Houses_), 205.
_Author's View, The_ (_Caxton Magazine_), 211.
_Authors of the Court Theatre, The_, 446.
_Blaming the Bard_ (_Saturday Review_), 269.
_Bluffing the Value Theory_, 164-5.
_Censorship of Plays_ (_The Nation_), 287.
_Censorship of the Stage in England_ (_North American Review_), 286-7.
_Class War, The_ (_Clarion_), 167-8.
_Coburn the Camerist_ (_Metropolitan Magazine_), 227.
_Conflict Between Science and Common Sense_, 51, 477.
_Darwin Denounced_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_), 483.
_Das Kapital_ (_National Reformer_), 160.
_Degenerate's View of Nordau, A_, 465, 471.
_De Mortuis_ (_Saturday Review_), 245.
_Diabolonian Ethics, On_ (_Three Plays for Puritans_), 119, 355.
_Does Modern Education Ennoble?_ (_Great Thoughts_), 481.
_Dramatic Realist to His Critics_ (_New Review_), 313, 462.
_Elektra of Strauss and Hoffmansthal_ (_Nation_), 250.
_Ellen Terry_ (_Neue Freie Presse_), 343.
_Exhibitions, The_ (_Amateur Photographer_), 226, 228.
_Fabian Essays_, 109, 116, 136.
_Fabian Society Tracts, The_, 87, 105 _et sqq._,
110, 111, 115, 131, 171, 174, 177, 183, 207-8, 385.
_Failures of Inept Vegetarians_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_), 50.
_Fitzthunder, My Friend_ (_To-Day_), 169.
_Fitzthunder on Himself_ (_To-Day_), 169.
_Giving the Devil His Due_ (_Saturday Review_), 455.
_Haymarket Theatre, The_ (Chap. XIV.), 321.
_Ibsen_ (_The Clarion_), 390, 422.
_Illusions of Socialism, The_, 165, 188.
_Impossibilities of Anarchism, The_, 171.
_In the Days of Our Youth_ (_Star_), 234.
_King Arthur_ (_Saturday Review_), 221.
_Life of Madame Blavatsky, A_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_), 127, 195.
_Madox Brown, Watts and Ibsen_ (_Saturday Review_), 220.
_Marx and Modern Socialism_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_), 165.
_Meredith on Comedy_ (_Saturday Review_), 278-9, 429.
_Morris as Actor and Dramatist_ (_Saturday Review_), 208.
_Music_ (_The World_), 239, 257.
_Notes on the Clarendon Press Rules for Compositors and Readers_
(_The Author_), 91.
_On Going to Church_ (_Savoy Magazine_), 14.
_On Mr. Mallock's Proposed Trumpet Performance_
(_Fortnightly Review_), 60, 187.
_Our Saturday Talk_ (_Westminster Gazette_), 442.
_Phonetic Spelling; a Reply to Some Criticisms_
(_Morning Leader_), 91.
_Plea for Speech Nationalization, A_ (_Morning Leader_), 91.
Prefaces:--
_Author's Apology_ (_Dramatic Opinions and Essays_), 276.
_Author's Apology_ (_Mrs. Warren's Profession_), 286, 309, 435.
_Better than Shakespeare?_ (_Three Plays for Puritans_), 336, 364.
_First Aid to Critics_ (_Major Barbara_), 486.
_Mainly About Myself_ (_Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant_), 309,
411, 438.
_Problem Play_ (_Humanitarian_), 435.
_Religion of the Pianoforte, The_ (_Fortnightly Review_), 24, 50.
_Sanity of Art, The, An Exposure of the Current Nonsense About Artists
Being Degenerate_, 246, 396.
_Scotland Yard for Spectres, A_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_), 127.
_Shakespeare's Merry Gentlemen_ (_Saturday Review_), 266.
_Shaw, Bernard_, 489.
_Shaw Abashed, Bernard_ (_Daily News_), 75.
_Shaw, George Bernard: A Conversation_ (_The Tatler_), 374.
_Shaw and the Heroic Actor, Bernard_ (_The Play_), 335, 338.
_Shaw as a Clerk, Bernard_ (_The Clerk_), 22.
_Shaw, Letter from Mr. G. Bernard_ (_Tolstoy on Shakespeare_), 268.
_Shaw's Method and Secret, Mr._ (_Daily Chronicle_), 305.
_Shaw's Works of Fiction, Mr. Bernard_ (_Novel Review_), 80.
_Socialism and Republicanism_ (_Saturday Review_), 181.
_Socialism at the International Congress_, 190.
_Socialism for Millionaires_ (_Contemporary Review_), 183, 385.
_Socialists at Home_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_), 165.
_Solution of the Censorship Problem_ (_Academy_), 287.
_Spelling Reform v. Phonetic Spelling_ (_Daily News_), 91.
_Stanley Jevons: His Letters and Journal_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_),
160, 195.
_Sunday on the Surrey Hills_ (_Pall Mall Gazette_), 48.
_Theatrical World_ (_Archer's_), 315.
_Transition to Social Democracy_, 208.
_Valedictory_ (_Saturday Review_), 288.
_Who I Am, and What I Think_ (_Candid Friend_), 42, 60, 98, 147, 202.
_A Word About Stepniak_ (_To-Morrow_), 313.
_A Word More About Verdi_ (_Anglo-Saxon Review_), 241.
Shaw, G. B., his plays:--
_Admirable Bashville, The, or Constancy Unrewarded_, 74 _et sqq._
_Arms and the Man_, 54, 142, 311, 313 _et sqq._, 320, 359, 404,
422, 425, 458.
_Cæsar and Cleopatra_, 335 _et sqq._, 340.
_Candida_, 54, 85, 326, 341, 346 _et sqq._, 409-10, 418.
_Captain Brassbound's Conversion_, 91, 288, 320, 328 _et sqq._
_Dark Lady of the Sonnets_, 398.
_Devil's Disciple, The_, 54, 288, 328, 341, 354 et seq., 401, 419,
422-3, 425, 438, 458.
_Doctor's Dilemma, The_, 389 _et sqq._, 422-3, 425.
_Don Juan in Hell_ (_Man and Superman_), 369 _et sqq._
_Getting Married_, 398.
_How He Lied to Her Husband_, 320, 326.
_Interlude at the Playhouse, The_, 327.
_John Bull's Other Island_, 15-16, 34, 370 _et sqq._, 388, 425.
_Major Barbara_, 297, 337, 380, 381, 382, 384 _et sqq._, 401,
425, 486.
_Man and Superman_, 27, 81-2, 152, 363 _et sqq._, 368, 378, 388,
414, 444, 458, 471, 481, 489, 509.
_Man of Destiny, The_, 341 _et sqq._, 374.
_Misalliance_, 398.
_Passion, Poison and Petrifaction; or the Fatal Gazogene_, 327.
_Philanderer, The_, 51, 299 _et sqq._, 422, 425, 478.
_Plays for Puritans_, 27, 119, 193, 328, 333, 336, 364, 407.
_Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant_, 49, 54, 288, 291, 309, 411.
_Press Cuttings_, 402, 404.
_Showing-up of Blanco Posnet_, 27, 398 _et sqq._
_Warren's Profession, Mrs._, 220, 286, 304 _et sqq._, 341, 363,
380 _et sqq._, 398, 425, 458, 509.
_Widowers' Houses_, 22, 205, 220, 270, 293 _et sqq._, 420, 425, 445.
_You Never Can Tell_, 320, 321 _et sqq._, 404, 414, 425.
Shaw, G. B., Books and Articles on:--
Archer, William, _Shaw's Phonetic World-English_, 91;
_About the Theatre_, 390;
_Shaw on Stage Directions_, 419;
Article in _The World_, 295.
Bab, Julius, _Bernard Shaw_, 249.
Bahr, Hermann, _Bernard Shaw_, 424.
Brandes, Georg, _Der Dramatiker Bernard Shaw_, 313.
Chesterton, G. K., _The Meaning of Mr. Bernard Shaw_, 436.
Corbin, John, _Bernard Shaw and His Mannikins_, 373.
Filon, Augustin, _M. Bernard Shaw et son Théâtre_, 300, 445.
Greville, Eden, _Bernard Shaw and His Plays_, 293.
Hale, E. E., Jr., _Dramatists of To-Day_ (_Bernard Shaw_), 426.
Hamon, Auguste, _Un Nouveau Molière_, 439.
Henderson, Archibald, _The Philosophy of Bernard Shaw_, 484.
Huneker, James, _Bernard Shaw and Woman_, 84-5;
_The Truth About Candida_, 351.
Irwin, Will, _Crankidoxology, Being a Mental Attitude from
Bernard Pshaw_, 270.
Jackson, Holbrook, _Bernard Shaw_, 183.
Play, The, _Bernard Shaw and the Heroic Actor_, 335, 338.
Rogers, Professor A. K., _Mr. Bernard Shaw's Philosophy_, 471.
Rook, Clarence, _Mr. Shaw's Future_, 335.
Stead, W. T., _Impressions of the Theatre_ (_Major Barbara_), 386.
Terry, Ellen, _From Lewis Carroll to Bernard Shaw_, 329.
Walkley, A. B., _Mr. Bernard Shaw's Plays_, 319.
Shaw, Mrs. G. B., 388-9, 401, 495.
Shaw, George Carr (G. B. Shaw's father), 6 _et sqq._, 20, 22.
Shaw, Mrs. George Carr (G. B. Shaw's mother), 7, 8, 17;
her musical talent, 17 _et sqq._, 22, 36 _et sqq._
Shaw, Lucy Carr, 22, 26.
Shaw, Sir Robert, 33.
Shelley, P. B., 32, 40, 48 _et sqq._, 90, 92, 152-3, 215, 234,
271, 273, 346, 412, 434, 457, 473, 480, 482, 503.
_Shelley Society_, 135.
Sheridan, Richard B., 3, 40, 433.
Shields, Frederick, 220.
Shorter, Clement K., 232.
_Showing-up of Blanco Posnet._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Sims, George R., 43.
Smith, Adam, 155.
Smith, Armitage, 158.
Social Democratic Federation, 96, 102, 108, 110 _et sqq._,
138, 173, 206.
Socialist League, 137-8, 207, 261.
Socialist Society, Hammersmith, 207.
_Sozialistische Monatshefte_, 165.
_Speaker, The_, 107.
_Spectator, The_, 401, 486.
Spencer, Herbert, 92, 94, 96-7, 102, 168, 443, 467;
his _The Coming Slavery_, 189.
_Standard Elocutionist, The_, 34.
_Standard, The_, 393.
Standring, G., 132, 139.
Stanford, Sir Charles V., 237.
Stange, Stanislaus, 72, 315.
Stapleton, 114.
_Star, The_, 113, 171, 231 _et sqq._, 237, 295, 387.
Stead, W. T., 112-3, 215, 386-7.
Steichen, Éduard J., 225.
Stephens, Yorke, 312.
Stevenson, R. L., 85, 241;
letters of, 53, 61, 73, 215-16, 282, 297.
Stirner, Max, his _The Ego and His Own_, 468, 472, 484 _et sqq._
Stone and Co., H. S., 54, 309.
Straus, Oscar, 314, 315.
Strauss, Richard, his _Elektra_, 250.
Strindberg, August, 316, 366, 484 _et sqq._
Stuart-Glennie, J. S., 114, 431, 485-6.
Stümcke, Herr Heinrich, 340, 438.
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 237.
Sweet, Henry, 91, 331.
Swift, Jonathan, 3, 60, 476.
Swinburne, Algernon C., 266, 447, 455.
Symes, Rev. --, 48.
Symons, Arthur, 237, 240, 473.
Taine, Hippolyte, 266.
_Taming of the Shrew, The_, 196-7.
Tarpey, W. K., 346.
_Tatler, The_, 377.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 8, 24;
his _Charge of the Light Brigade_, 312.
Terriss, William, 354.
Terry, Ellen, 287-8, 328 _et sqq._, 342-3.
Théâtre des Arts, 348-9.
Théâtre Royal du Parc, 353.
Thomas, Agnes, 405.
Thomas, Goring, his _Golden Web_, 237.
Thomson, James, 51.
Thoreau, 50.
Thorpe, Courtenay, 354.
Thorwaldsen, Bertel, 221.
_Times, The_, 94, 187, 232, 287, 400, 486.
Titian, 200.
Tochatti, 114.
_To-Day_, 51 _et sqq._, 114, 155-6, 158, 165, 206.
Tolstoy, Leo, 145, 168, 173, 268, 398-9, 401, 413, 464, 473.
Tourneur, Cyril, 264.
Townshend, Uniacke, 10, 20, 33-4.
Traill, H. D., 199.
Trebitsch, Herr Siegfried, 420.
Tree, Sir H. Beerbohm, 282, 288, 398.
Treherne and Co., A., 327.
_Tribune, The_, 390, 391.
Trollope, Anthony, 39, 41.
_Trovatore, Il_, 18, 24.
_Truth_, 195.
Tucker, Benjamin R., 189, 245-6, 396, 468.
Turner, J. M. W., 210-11, 473.
Twain, Mark, 10, 38, 413, 440, 456, 508.
Tyndall, Professor, 35, 44, 94, 96, 153.
_Unsocial Socialist, The._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Unwin, T. Fisher, 104.
Vandervelde, Émile, 186, 486.
Van Uhde, 222.
Vasa-Theater, 326.
_Vaudeville Magazine_, 11.
Vedrenne, J. E., 371-2, 398, 446.
Velásquez, 200, 224, 227, 393.
Verdi, 18, 23, 241, 245.
Victoria, Queen, 312.
Vieuxtemps, Henri, 254.
Vizetelly, Henry, 202.
Voltaire, 144, 183-4, 449, 459, 477.
Vorst, Mrs. John van, 501.
Wagner, Richard, 24, 69, 73, 81, 90, 198, 214, 241, 257, 271, 447,
457, 473, 481, 502;
his _Tannhäuser_, 23, 234, 245;
Shaw's first acquaintance with music of, 35, 234;
his ascetic temperament, 49;
his _Tristan und Isolde_, 97, 244, 293;
Shaw's admiration for, 218, 243;
Shaw studies music of, 235;
Shaw's defence of, 237;
Shaw's criticisms on, 244 _et sqq._, 252-3;
his _Die Meistersinger_, 244;
his _Die Walküre_, 245;
his _Das Rheingold_, 245, 250;
his _Ring of the Niblungs_, 247, 460;
his _Lohengrin_, 248;
his _Parsifal_, 250;
his _Götterdämmerung_, 377;
his story, _An End in Paris_, 393;
his philosophy, 434.
Walkley, Arthur Bingham, 20, 121, 203, 232, 279, 324, 333, 363, 364,
374, 387, 412, 444, 460, 489;
his _Frames of Mind_, 319.
Wallace, Alfred Russel, 94;
his work on _Land Nationalization_, 95.
Wallace, Vincent, 24.
Wallas, Graham, 99, 100, 113, 128-9, 158, 174, 178, 503;
his _Life of Francis Place_, 100;
his _An Economic Eirenicon_, 164-5.
_Warren's Profession, Mrs._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Washington, George, 477.
Webb, Sidney, 90-1, 93, 99, 102, 105 _et sqq._, 114, 116-7,
125 _et sqq._, 133, 152, 157, 174-5, 178, 225, 314.
Weber, his _Der Freischütz_, 234.
Webster, John, 264.
Wedmore, Frederick, 299.
Wesley College, Dublin, 15-6, 34.
_Wesley College Quarterly_, 16.
_Westermann's Monatshefte_, 337.
Whibley, Charles, 215.
Whistler, J. McNeill, 204, 222-3, 413-4.
Whitcroft, Ellen, 7.
Whitman, Walt, 50, 243, 268.
Whitney, F. C., 315.
Wicksteed, Philip H., 155 _et sqq._, 160 _et sqq._;
his _Alphabet of Economics_, 158.
_Widowers' Houses._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Wilde, Oscar, 3, 227, 282, 284, 366, 394, 412, 426, 442, 460, 502.
Williams, 112.
Willis's Rooms, 131.
Wilshire, Gaylord, 186.
_Wilshire's Magazine_, 159.
Wilson, Mrs., 108, 114-5.
Winter, William, 343.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 419, 469.
Wolseley, Lord, 312.
_World, The_, 98, 135-6, 195, 231, 237, 239, 244-5, 255, 257, 261, 295.
Wright, Charles, 158.
Wyndham, Sir Charles, 342, 345-6, 442.
Yates, Edmund, 195, 212, 261.
Yeats, W. B., 371, 378, 400.
_You Never Can Tell._ _See_ G. B. SHAW.
Ysaye, Eugen, 240.
_Zeit, Die_, 431.
Zetetical Society, The, 91 _et sqq._, 122, 144, 271.
Zola, Émile, 40, 59, 84, 146, 202, 297, 432, 440, 457;
his _La Débâcle_, 312.
REVIEWS,
from Foreign Journals of Opinion, of
“George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works”
By
ARCHIBALD HENDERSON, M.A., Ph.D.,
of The University of North Carolina
“The book is a most remarkable achievement.”--George Bernard
Shaw, in the _Morning Post_ (London), May 3, 1911.
“Mr. Shaw is explored from every point of view.... Newspaper
files have been ransacked, forgotten controversies between
dramatic critics or different kinds of Socialists have
been unearthed, profound researches made into contemporary
literature suggesting parallels and illustrations, stray
thoughts gathered up and traced in their development from
childhood to middle age....
“We cannot praise Mr. Henderson too highly. We know of nothing
in the literature of biography that is so exhaustively
complete.”--_Westminster Gazette_ (London), April 22, 1911.
“Its comprehensiveness gives it the importance of an historical
document.... It is something more than a chronicle of the life
of Mr. Bernard Shaw, it is a remarkable chronicle of English
revolutionary movements during the last twenty-five years....
In the sixteen chapters of his book, Dr. Henderson tells the
history of the idea movements of the last quarter of a century
_apropos_ of Bernard Shaw.... The reader who cannot find
instruction and entertainment within its covers lacks the art
of reading.”--Holbrook Jackson, in the _Bookman_ (London), May,
1911.
“Dr. Henderson's authorized and critical biography ... is
indispensable.... The fullest, the best informed, and the most
carefully studied account of Bernard Shaw that has yet been
published.... The book will rank immediately after Mr. Shaw's
own works as material for students of the advanced tendencies
of which in this country the author of John Bull's Other Island
is the most conspicuous representative....”--_The Scotsman_
(Edinburgh), April 13, 1911.
“A biography that could scarcely be bettered.... It is
full, minute, and exact. Biographer and autobiographer have
joined forces, and the result is a masterly study of the
most complicated personality of our time.... The author has
spared no pains in verifying his references and arranging
his materials. Here you have Shaw in his quiddity.... Dr.
Henderson out-Boswells Boswell in his enormous pertinacity,
his prodigious fidelity. He has not left a crumb for other
biographers.”--James Douglas, in the _Star_ (London), April 15,
1911.
“It would be hard to find anyone perfectly equipped for the
task (of writing Shaw's biography). Mr. Granville Barker ...
would have shown a more intelligent sympathy in Mr. Shaw's
ideals. But we should have had as much Barker as Shaw. Our
lily would have been painted. Mr. Archer might have seized the
opportunity to set up that guillotine for which he once sighed.
Mr. Webb would have been unreliable once inside the theatre. We
might have had a score of articles from various writers, each
qualified to speak on one aspect of Mr. Shaw, but we should
then have been like children with the pieces of a puzzle,
unable to fit them together. No, Professor Henderson is not
easily dethroned....
“The book is almost a history of the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, and ... it has not a dull
moment.”--_Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette_ (London),
April 11, 1911.
“At length comes the really big thing, ... and following
precedent, it comes from the home of big things, America. Dr.
Henderson ... is not only elaborate in his interpretation of
our leading dramatist and controversialist, but comprehensive
as well. His book is ... a mine in which all future students
of George Bernard Shaw will be forced to dig and delve....
Nothing is impossible to this amazingly energetic American
professor.... Professor Henderson is an interpreter of modern
ideas. He feels that we are in the midst of a remarkable
intellectual awakening, and he is impelled ... to give his
complex and multiplex period a coherent voice....
“Professor Archibald Henderson is the modern counterpart of
the old chronicler; they saw the romance and significance of
events, he sees the romance and significance of ideas; he is
a Hakluyt of ideas, of personalities.... His interests and
his enthusiasms embrace the hemispheres.”--_Black and White_
(London), April 22, 1911.
“Ce livre n'est pas seulement une étude magistrale sur la
personnalité la plus compliquée de notre temps, il est aussi
un exposé fort complet des divers mouvements d'idées qui ont
agité l'Angleterre en ces derniers vingt-cinq ans.... Mr.
Henderson mérite qu'on lui sache gré des six ans de labeur
qu'il a consacrés à ce livre, qui restera un document des
plus précieux.”--Henry D. Davray, in the _Mercure de France_
(Paris), June 16, 1911.
“The reader's astonishment when the book is laid down is not
at its length but at its brevity.... Here things regain their
true proportions, and much of our astonishment and admiration
for the book, its author, and its hero are due to this....
Nowhere does Dr. Henderson's critical faculty show to greater
advantage than in his deductions as to the general aim of the
plays.... Dr. Henderson is a critic before he is a biographer.
There is nothing of the attitude of a Boswell in his work....
There remains the possibility that others may gauge the results
of Shaw's secret with more acumen than he himself. There is
no probability, however, that this will ever be done with
more discretion, discernment, and distinction than by Mr.
Henderson.”--_Manchester Courier_ (England), April 11, 1911.
“An elaborate and detailed history of Bernard Shaw and
his effects as a dramatist, Socialist, and general
revolutionary.... George Bernard Shaw is looked at, sounded,
discussed, examined, and appraised from every point of view....
It is a well into which all future students of Bernard Shaw
will have to dip their buckets.... The biographical chapters
are brimming over with lively anecdote.... In the three
chapters devoted to Shaw as a dramatist, Mr. Henderson gives
a critical analysis of the plays of G. B. S. which is as
penetrating as it is painstaking, and will easily give him a
front seat among Bernard Shaw's commentators.... Shaw's ...
biographer has succeeded, and it is no small praise to say
that throughout the whole of his book you feel that you are in
the presence of a living personality....”--_T. P.'s Weekly_
(London), April 21, 1911.
“This notable book ... is a long one, but we have noticed very
few faults either in fact or of taste in reading it.... Nothing
in it is so salutary as the final impression it leaves of the
power to which a man can attain through the old-fashioned
virtues of energy, industry, and determination.... As critic,
political thinker, and dramatist, Mr. Shaw has managed to do
a great deal of splendid work ...; and Dr. Henderson gives us
a capital picture of it all.”--_Pall Mall Gazette_ (London),
April 11, 1911.
“A record which, in completeness, is unique among the _Men of
Our Time_. What would we not give to know as much of some of
the mighty intellects of the past!”--_Daily Graphic_ (London),
April 11, 1911.
“Acknowledgment should be made of Dr. Henderson's critical
sanity.... A most interesting and weighty book. It is the
nearest thing to that ideal autobiography which Mr. Shaw will
never write, and is a worthy tribute to a man of whom this
country ought to be proud.”--George Sampson, in the _Daily
Chronicle_ (London), April 11, 1911.
“The large and exceedingly handsome volume ... deals with
its distinguished subject in every variety of aspect,
while managing to remain itself both interesting and
entertaining.”--_Punch_ (London), May 10, 1911.
“Mr. Henderson's book is full of good things.... He analyses
and explains, watches and reports, exploits the whys and
retails the wherefores.... He is a searchlight....”--_Sketch_
(London), May 3, 1911.
“Mr. Henderson's criticism of the plays of George Bernard
Shaw is, indeed, acute and painstaking to an extraordinary
degree.”--_Lloyd's Weekly_ (Liverpool), April 30, 1911.
“Mr. Henderson's illuminating Life.... His task has been
carried out with remarkable thoroughness.”--_Globe_ (London),
April 12, 1911.
“Dr. Henderson has done his work with the Boswellian
thoroughness and assiduity. He has tracked Mr. Shaw down
through the files of remote and forgotten newspapers; he has
ransacked libraries; he has unearthed and pumped Mr. Shaw's
friends and critics in all countries; he has zealously studied
the social movements in which his hero was involved, and got
the atmosphere of the London intellectual cliques as if he had
lived his life among them instead of being a Professor in an
American University. Finally, he has compelled Mr. Shaw himself
to take an interest in the work, to contribute to it, criticise
it, and thoroughly overhaul it, so much so indeed as to lead
to the suggestion that it should be called a biography and
autobiography.... If he (Dr. Henderson) has not given us the
verdict which history will pronounce on his subject ..., he has
pronounced the verdict of the clever people of to-day.”--R. A.
Scott-James, in the _Daily News_ (London), April 11, 1911.
“A document of value. Immense pains have been taken by the
author and by Mr. Shaw to bring together within its covers
as many of the facts about Mr. Shaw's life and character and
opinion as Mr. Shaw wishes to be generally known.... Best
of all the chapters is that called 'The Cart and Trumpet,'
the record of the days when his personal force was in full
flood.”--_Outlook_ (London), April 22, 1911.
“The chapters which tell of the rise of the Socialistic spirit
in London, dating as it does from about 1880, of the genesis of
the Fabian Society, and of various controversies upon economic
matters, are capital reading and form valuable contributions to
the history of the period.... Another excellent feature is the
portion of the book dealing with the brilliant Vedrenne-Barker
seasons at the Court Theatre--seasons which made theatrical
history rapidly and forced both the critics and the public
to sit up and look around.”--_Wilfred L. Randall_, in the
_Academy_ (London), April 29, 1911.
“We are agreeably surprised to find a critic who can consider
the Shavian drama without going to extremes of laudation or
disapproval. Mr. Henderson has found the golden mean.”--_Irish
Times_ (Dublin), May 12, 1911.