Chapter I: George Bernard Shaw (2)

My school made only the thinnest pretence of teaching
anything but Greek and Latin.... To this day, though I
can still decline a Latin noun and repeat some of the old
paradigms in the old meaningless way, because their rhythm
sticks to me, I have never yet seen a Latin inscription on
a tomb that I could translate throughout. Of Greek I can
decipher perhaps the greater part of the Greek alphabet.
In short I am, as to classical education, another
Shakespeare. I can read French as easily as English; and
under pressure of necessity, I can turn to account some
scraps of German and a little operatic Italian; but these
three were never taught at school. Instead, I was taught
lying, dishonorable submission to tyranny, dirty stories, a
blasphemous habit of treating love and maternity as obscene
jokes, hopelessness, evasion, derision, cowardice, and all
the blackguard's shifts by which the coward intimidates
other cowards.

Why is it that British authors give us such horrible pictures of their school days? They usually look back upon them as a most unpleasant and unprofitable period of their lives, and when they attempt to eulogize it they make it all the more shocking. Kipling in "Stalky and Company" reveals an even more detestable state of affairs than Dickens does of "Dotheboys Hall." Shaw takes the American view of it and condemns with horror the "flagellomania" of the British schoolmaster. It is curious to observe that in Great Britain the schoolmasters have weapons, and the policemen have none. In America clubs have been given to the police, and the canes taken away from the teachers. The New York school-teachers are not allowed to deliver even a casual box on the ear or a friendly shaking, yet they are making very decent citizens out of most unpromising material, and the policemen's clubs are mostly used on the immigrants who have been trained in the flagellant schools of Europe.

It is doubtless a good thing that Shaw did not go through Oxford, but he should have had a course in biology under Huxley such as Wells had. This would have given him an acquaintance with the aims and methods of modern science and freed him from such prejudice as he displayed, for instance, in "The Doctor's Dilemma" and "The Philanderer."

Shaw's early efforts at authorship did not meet with encouragement. If we may take his word for it, he earned six pounds in nine years by his pen, and five of those came from writing a patent medicine advertisement. He wrote five novels in five years, all at first rejected by the book publishers. Four of them, "The Unsocial Socialist", "The Irrational Knot", "Cashel Byron's Profession", and "Love Among the Artists" have since been reprinted from the short-lived Socialist periodicals in which they originally appeared. The first novel he wrote, "Immaturity", has never been printed.

William Archer sent these novels to Robert Louis Stevenson, then trying to recover his health at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. Stevenson's letters refer to them as "blooming gaseous folly", "horrid fun", "a fever dream of the most feverish",

"I say, Archer, my God, what women!" "If Mr. Shaw is below five and twenty, let him go his path; if he is thirty, he had best be told that he is a romantic and pursue romance with his eyes opened; perhaps he knows it; God knows!--my brain is softened."

A plan to relieve struggling authors and secure the earlier recognition of genius by means of an endowment fund and a system of substantial prizes was once proposed by Upton Sinclair, author of "The Jungle", who wrote to a number of authors, asking their opinion of the scheme. Among those who responded were Wells, Bennett, De Morgan, Philpotts, Galsworthy, London, and Shaw.[6] I quote part of what Shaw said about it because of its biographical interest:

There is only one serious and effective way of helping young
men of the kind in view, and that is by providing everybody
with enough leisure in the intervals of well-paid and not
excessive work to enable them to write books in their spare
time and pay for the printing of them. Nothing else seems to
me to be really hopeful. I myself seem an example of a man
who achieved literary eminence without assistance; but as
a matter of fact certain remnants of family property made
all the difference. For fully nine years I had to sponge
shamelessly on my father and mother; but even at that
we only squeezed through because my mother's grandfather
had been a rich man. In fact, I was just the man for whom
Upton wants to establish his fund. Yet for the life of me I
cannot see how any committee in the world could have given
me a farthing. All I had to show was five big novels which
nobody would publish, and as the publishers' readers by
whose advice they were rejected included Lord Morley and
George Meredith, it cannot be said that I was in any worse
hands than those of any committee likely to be appointed. Of
course Sinclair may say to this that if Morley and Meredith,
instead of having to advise a publisher as to the prospects
of a business speculation, had only had to consider how to
help a struggling talent without reference to commercial
consideration, they might have come to my rescue.
Unfortunately, I have seen both their verdicts; and I can
assure Sinclair that I produced on both of them exactly
the impression that is inevitably produced in every such
case: that is, that I was a young man with more cleverness
than was good for me and that what I needed was snubbing
and not encouraging. No doubt there are talents which are
not aggressive and do not smell of brimstone; but these
are precisely the talents which are marketable, except, of
course, in the case of the highest poetry, which, however,
is out of the question anyhow as a means of livelihood.
William Morris, when he was at the height of his fame as a
poet, long after the publication of his popular poem, "The
Earthly Paradise", told me that his income from his poems
was about a hundred a year; and I happen to know that Robert
Browning threatened to leave the country because the
Income Tax Commissioners assessed him with a modest but
wholly imaginary income on the strength of his reputation.
Poetry is thus frankly a matter of endowment, but for the
rest I think a writer's chance of being helped by the fund
would be in inverse ratio to his qualifications as conceived
by Upton Sinclair.

Shaw's first essays in the field where he was to attain his greatest success were as discouraging as his efforts at novel writing. His first play, "Widower's Houses", dealing with tainted money, shocked but did not attract the public. His "The Philanderer" was published before a theater would accept it. His third play, "Mrs. Warren's Profession", was prohibited by the censor. Of the seven that followed only one could be called a decided success on its first presentation in London. But in book form, with attractively written stage directions and argumentative prefaces, they found a host of readers who wanted to see them in the theater. "Candida" was not presented in London till 1904, nearly ten years after it was written. It was with "Candida" that Arnold Daly introduced Shaw to the theater-going public of America, and for the last few years there have often been three Shaw plays running at the same time in New York.

Shaw's plays were popular in America when they were tabooed or pooh-poohed in England. His "Pygmalion" had its _première_ in the Hofburg-theater in Vienna instead of London. I saw it, or rather heard it, since it is a phonetic instead of a spectacular play, at the Deutsches Theater of Irving Place, New York, in March, 1914, six months before Mrs. Patrick Campbell gave it here in English. In spite of the fact that the play depends upon variations in English dialects, it was given better in the German than in the English.

Shaw is in fact an internationalist, much more honored in America, Russia, Germany, France, Scandinavia, and Japan than in his own country, that is, Ireland. It must be interesting to see "You Never Can Tell" or "Man and Superman" on the Tokyo stage. The _Kobe Herald_ says: "He appeals to the Japanese of progressive ideas because he prefers potatoes, cabbages and beans to porter-house steak and lamb chops."

The reason why Shaw's prefaces read so well and his plays go better on the stage than would be anticipated is because they are composed by ear. Since reading aloud has gone out of fashion, there has arisen a generation of young writers who do not realize that language is intended to be spoken. Consequently one has to read them by eye only, switching off for the time the internal auditory apparatus so as to avoid their discords and dull rhythm. A little girl who was trying to read to herself a story by one of our pyrotechnic authors suddenly threw down the magazine with the cry: "I can't read this any more! It dazzles my ears."

Shaw is a musician, and he writes musical prose. He uses shorthand in composing, which is the next best thing to dictating to a phonograph. Naturally he resents the established spelling of English which preserves the form of words while allowing the words themselves to decay, thus sacrificing speech to print. He has often argued for phonetic spelling,[7] and has used as much of it in his works as his publisher would permit. The point he makes in the following passage is undeniably proving true:

All that the conventional spelling has done is to conceal
the one change that a phonetic spelling might have checked;
namely, the changes in pronunciation, including the waves
of debasement that produced the half-rural cockney of Sam
Weller and the modern metropolitan cockney of Drinkwater
in "Captain Brassbound's Conversion."... Refuse to teach
the Board School legions your pronunciation, and they will
force theirs on you by mere force of numbers. And serve you
right.

Shaw's treatment of the Salvation Army in "Major Barbara" showed that he knew more about religion than some of his churchly critics. So, too, his defense of the Salvation Army music in the London Standard in 1905 proved that he knew more about music than those who sneered at the Army bands. The Germans, who are now fond of analyzing the English character, have discussed at length the question of why such an unmusical people should have good music in the Salvation Army.[8]

The 125-page preface to "Androcles and the Lion" is devoted to a rereading of the Gospels and a rewriting of the life of Christ. Shaw interprets the New Testament like a higher critic but applies it like an early Christian. He rejects the resurrection but accepts the communism. He believes in the Life Force and Its Superman as others do in God and His Messiah. Shaw's Superman obviously belongs to another genus from Nietzsche's Uebermensch. He says in the preface to "Misalliance":

The precise formula for the Superman, _ci-devant_ The Just
Made Perfect, has not yet been discovered. Until it is,
every birth is an experiment in a Great Research which
is being conducted by the Life Force to discover that
formula.

This eugenical and well meaning, but far from omnipotent creator, bears a strong resemblance to Bergson's _Elan vital_, but Shaw was writing about the Life Force long before Bergson wrote his "Creative Evolution." If there was any borrowing about it, both borrowed from Schopenhauer. But Shaw and Bergson, being kindly men and no pessimists, have put a kind heart into Schopenhauer's ruthless Will.

If I were to sum up Shaw in two words it would be that his distinguishing characteristics are courage and kind-heartedness. The sight of suffering and injustice drives him mad, and then he runs amuck, slashing right and left, without much regard to whom he hits and no regard at all as to who hits him. He is, like Swift, a cruel satirist through excess of sympathy. If Ibsen is right, that "the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone", then George Bernard Shaw is not to be ignored.

HOW TO READ SHAW

It does not matter much which of Shaw's books you read first, for after reading it, whichever it is, you will probably read all the others that you can get your hands on. If I must be more specific in recommending a book to begin on, I would suggest that "Major Barbara", "Man and Superman", and "Androcles and the Lion" will give you an idea of what Shaw is like; then, if you are interested, you can pick out others from the following chronological list in which I have indicated by a few words the theme, scene, or argument of the play and its preface. All Shaw's works are published by Brentano's, New York, three plays in one volume, or separately.

"Widowers' Houses", 1892 (tainted money). "The Philanderer", 1893 (Ibsenites and esthetes). "Mrs. Warren's Profession", 1893 (prostitution). "Arms and the Man", 1894 (Serbian and Bulgarian war; anti-militarism). "Candida", 1894 (triangle). "You Never Can Tell", 1895 (farce comedy; the most popular of Shaw's plays on the stage). "The Man of Destiny", 1895 (one act, Napoleon in an unconventional aspect). "The Devil's Disciple", 1896 (American revolution). "Caesar and Cleopatra", 1898 (Egypt Anglicized). "Captain Brassbound's Conversion", 1899 (Morocco; Raisuli, Perdicaris, _et al._) "The Admirable Bashville or Constancy Unrewarded", 1902 (His novel: "Cashel Byron's Profession" put into blank verse "because it is easier to write than prose"). "Man and Superman", 1903 (romance topsy-turvey; marriage by conquest on the part of the woman; containing "The Revolutionist's Handbook" and interlude on heaven and hell). "John Bull's Other Island", 1904 (Irish and English temperament contrasted, Home Rule question). "Passion, Poison and Petrification", 1905 (burlesque extravaganza). "Major Barbara", 1905 (Salvation Army and munition manufacture; problem of poverty). "How He Lied to her Husband", 1905 (parody on "Candida"). "The Doctor's Dilemma", 1906 (satire on medical professor and attack on vivisection). "Getting Married", 1908 (absurdities of marriage laws). "The Showing-up of Blanco Bosnet", 1909 (Wild West; psychology of conversion; prohibited by censor). "Press Cuttings", 1909 (anti-militarism). "Misalliance", 1909 ("a debate in one sitting"; preface on parents and children). "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets", 1910 (showing how Shakespeare got his phrases). "Fanny's First Play", 1911 (satire of dramatic critics and middle-class morality). "Androcles and the Lion", 1911 (early Christians; lion from Oz; disquisition on the canon of the New Testament and the possibility of living Christianity). "Overruled", 1912 (philandering again). "Pygmalion", 1913 (phonetics and class prejudice, with a postscript proving that you never can tell how a Shaw play will come out). "Great Catherine", 1913 (boisterous farce of Catherine II; contrast of Russian and British temperament). "The Music Cure", 1914 (Marconi scandal; used as curtain raiser for Chesterton's "Magic", unpublished). "Three Plays by Brieux", (Brentano's, 1911; contain "Damaged Goods" and other plays in which the French playwright attacks social evils as vigorously and outspokenly though not so wittily as Shaw. They are translated by Mrs. Bernard Shaw, and Mr. Shaw provides a preface). Two farcical plays of the war, "The Inca of Perusalem" and "Augustus does his Bit", produced by the London Stage Society and the former also in New York, are ascribed to Shaw though unacknowledged by him.

Of Shaw's critical work we have in book form "The Perfect Wagnerite", 1895, and "The Quintessence of Ibsen", 1890, which championed two unpopular causes; "The Sanity of Art", 1908, attacking Nordau's theory of the degeneracy of artists; and two volumes of "Dramatic Opinions and Essays", which, although reviews of current plays of the nineties, retain a permanent value. Shaw's four early novels "Cashel Byron's Profession", "An Unsocial Socialist", "Love Among the Artists", and "The Irrational Knot" are of less interest than his plays.

His socialism has found expression in "The Common Sense of Municipal Trading" and "Fabian Essays in Socialism", and numerous other tracts and articles as well as most of his plays and prefaces.

Shaw's fugitive contributions to journalism are too numerous and scattered to be cited here, but I will mention a few of them that are of special interest: "The Case Against Chesterton" (_Metropolitan_, 1916); "The Case for Equality" (_Metropolitan_, 1913); "The German Case Against Germany" (_New York Times_, April 16, 1916).

More has been written about Shaw's personality than about all the rest of my "Twelve Major Prophets" put together. The chief and authorized biography is "George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Work" by Professor Archibald Henderson of the University of North Carolina. (Cincinnati: Stewart and Kidd, 1911.) It contains a full bibliography up to its date and some twenty portraits as well as much inaccessible and unpublished material. Besides this we have:

"George Bernard Shaw: A Critical Study" by Joseph McCabe (London: Paul, French, Trubner, 1914); "Bernard Shaw: A Critical Study" by Percival P. Howe (Dodd, Mead, 1915); "George Bernard Shaw" by G. K. Chesterton (John Lane, 1909); "Bernard Shaw as Artist-Philosopher", an exposition of Shavianism, by Renée M. Deacon (John Lane, 1910); "George Bernard Shaw: His Plays" by H. L. Mencken (Luce, 1909); "Bernard Shaw" by Holbrook Jackson (Jacobs, 1907); and "The Innocence of Bernard Shaw" by D. Scott (Doran, 1914).

Latest of all is "Bernard Shaw: The Man and the Mask" by Richard Burton, a study of his plays in chronological order by the ex-president of the Drama League of America (Henry Holt, November, 1916).

"Bernard Shaw: An Epitaph" by John Palmer (London: Richards, 1915), "Harlequin or Patriot" (Century). Mr. Palmer comes to bury Shaw, not to praise him, yet gives him more credit than many of his admirers.

Biographical data and criticism are also to be found in Archibald Henderson's "European Dramatists" (Stewart and Kidd) and his "Interpreters of Life and the Modern Spirit" (Kennerley); Ford Madox Hueffer's "Memories and Impressions"; R. A. Scott-James's "Personality in Literature" which also contains sketches of Wells and Chesterton (London: Seeker, 1913); E. E. Hale's "Dramatists of To-day" (Holt, 1911); J. G. Huneker's "Iconoclasts" (Scribner, 1905); Cyril Maude's "The Haymarket Theater"; Edward Pease's "History of the Fabian Society" (London, 1916); Herman Bernstein's "With Master Minds" (Universal Series Co., New York, 1913); and "Bernard Shaw et son oeuvre" by Professor Cestre of the University of Bordeaux (Mercure de France, 1912).

Augustine F. Hamon, who has translated many of Shaw's plays into French, has published the lectures he gave on them at the Sorbonne in the volume "Le Molière du XXe siècle" (Paris: Figuière, 1913) which has been translated "The Twentieth Century Molière" (Stokes, 1915), and a separate chapter of it as "The Technique of Bernard Shaw's Plays" (London: Daniel, 1912).

The following articles on Shaw are noteworthy for one reason or another:

"Shaw Contra Mundum" by C. B. Chilton in _The Independent_, March 8, 1906, with a sharp retort by Shaw; Personal reminiscences by Frank Harris in _Pearson's_, 1916; Controversies of Shaw with Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in _The New Witness_, 1916; "Bernard Shaw, Musician" by Florence Boylston Pelo in _The Bookman_, March, 1916; "Shaw in Portrait and Caricature" by H. Jackson in _The Idler_, 1908; "Shavian Religion" by the Rev. P. Gavan Duffy in _The Century_, vol. 87, p. 908; "Mr. Bernard Shaw's Philosophy" by A. K. Rogers in _Hibbert Journal_, 1910; "George Bernard Shaw" by D. A. Lord in _Catholic World_, March and April, 1916; "Bernard Shaw et la guerre" by Christabel Pankhurst in _La Revue_, 1915; "The Philosophy of Shaw" by Archibald Henderson in _Atlantic_, vol. 103, p. 227; "Die Quintessenz des Shawismus" by Helene Richter (Leipzig, 1913); "Bernard Shaw" by Julius Bab (Berlin: Fischer).

The ingenious Allen Upward has written a futuristic satire on Shaw in the form of a play: "Paradise Found or the Superman Found Out" (Houghton Mifflin, 1915). In Act I The Sleeper Wakes, à la Wells, two hundred years hence, finding himself in the Shaw Memorial Hall in the custody of the Most Noble Order of Hereditary Fabians, chief of whom are the Lady Wells and the Lord Keir-Hardie. The second act is set in the Headquarters of the Anti-Shavian League, which the awakened and disillusionized Shaw joins. The third act is in the Cabinet of H. V. M. Maharajah Sri Singh Bahadar, for of course India outvoted England as soon as universal suffrage was introduced into the British Empire.

[1] Published by Brentano's, 1904.

[2] Published by Brentano's, 1909.

[3] Mr. McCabe, in his life of Shaw, gives an interesting account of one of these addresses, that on "Christian Economics" at the City Temple in 1913. But Shaw is too much of a Christian still to suit McCabe.

[4] See for instance Shaw's book on "The Common Sense of Municipal Trading", based upon his experience as Vestryman and Borough Councillor.

[5] Pease, in his "History of the Fabian Society", gives an interesting account of these diverse movements which in their inception were closely allied. See also Knight's "Memorials of Thomas Davidson: the Wandering Scholar" and James' delightful sketch, "The Knight-Errant of the Intellectual Life", in his posthumous volume of "Memories and Studies."

[6] Printed in The Independent, July 28, 1910.

[7] For Shaw's opinions on phonetics see "Pygmalion", "Captain Brassbound's Conversion", and Henderson's biography, p. 326.

[8] Von unmusikalischen England und seiner musikalischen Heilsarmee. Deutscher Wille, February, 1916.