Returns lr opened by Brit censor, Ag 4, 32:7
8/4/40 Morris
Gest, proprietor of the Midget Town at the New York
World's Fair, said yesterday that he had received concrete evidence
of George Bernard Shaw's decision to refuse any mail addressed to him
that had been opened by the English censor. The evidence Mr Gest
displayed was a letter addressed to Mr Shaw in London that had been
opened by the censor, refused by the Irish playwright, and
returned to Mr Gest, the sender, with an official notation that it
had been refused. Mr Gest wrote to George Bernard Shaw and numerous
other friends of his on June 22 to tell them that he had embossed
their names on seats in his Midget Town theater, and that the seats
were at their disposal if they visit at the Fair. Mr Gest received
the rejected letter in his mail on Friday.
On US aid to Brit, Jl 17, 19:4
7/17/40 George
Bernard Shaw said today that "America will have to come in with
us or we will fall." The 84-year-old playwright made his
prediction in an interview published by The Star in commenting on
"Union now" advertisements placed in United States
newspapers by Clarence K Streit.
"All that America can do is stay out, come in or go to Hitler and adopt fascism," Mr Shaw said. "The matter of Federal union will not be settled in a moment by newspaper advertisements. Federation is a very old type of outlook. Of course, in the end, we will have to get together."
In saying that Britain and the United States would some day have to "get together," Mr Shaw indicated that he was not thinking in terms of the present war. He said Britain was "in a pretty strong position" to win and that Germany was "in a rather desperate position."
Denounces Ch of Eng's Common Prayer Book, in St Martin's Rev article, Mr 31, 33:2
3/31/40 A
denunciation of the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer
is published by GBS in the current issue of St. Martins Review, which
is virtually the parish magazine of the Church of St. Martins
in
the Fields on Trafalgar Square. After telling of his own
experiences, Mr Shaw admits he has found himself unable - as yet - to
write a new prayer book and doubts whether "it would be accepted
from a profane fellow such as I."
The 400-year-old book is retained, Mr Shaw declares, because "no votes in Parliament can be gained by supporting revision and a good many may be lost."
After attending his mother's funeral, which he decided to arrange under church auspices as "an experiment, partly owing to sympathy with the poor clergyman" and partly out of curiosity as to how the ceremony would affect him, Mr Shaw concluded the burial service "should be scrapped as altogether to macabre."
His sister left express instructions that there be no funeral, so Mr Shaw "cut the chaplain out," but found it impossible to dismiss her friends without words or a gesture when they came to the mortuary "and had to improvise a funeral oration on the spot, thus establishing the rule that if there is to be no service, there must be no congregation."
Of the marriage service he writes: "It was not the hackneyed, entirely vulgar objection to a plain declaration of marriage that revolted us. It was not even the falsehood and folly of dictating absolute vows on points that must obviously be conditional. But when it came to assuming that, as marriage is consummation of original sin, it must be undertook on this occasion as symbolical of the union of Christ with the church, the intrusion of sophisticated humbug on a deeply serious occasion became intolerable.
I had better luck with baptism. I have no children.
Mr Shaw says the Order of Common Prayer is "saturated with the ancient and to me quite infernal superstition of atonement by blood sacrifice, which I believe Christianity must get rid of if it is to survive among thoughtful people. Neither the Carthaginians nor the Mexicans ever, so far as I know, gave as a reason (to propitiate their deity) that "God so loved the world" that he had to be propitiated in this horrible way."
The Thirty-nine Articles, Mr Shaw says, "should be drummed out of the Prayer Book with all possible ignominy."
U S S R Izvestia hails signature with other Brit Socialists in lr warning Brit against war U S S R, Mr 25, 6:3;
3/26/4 Where
They Stand
Current
debate about unemployment figures makes it a field day for the
economists and the analysts. It also serves to remind the general
public of just what frequently constitutes an economist or an analyst
today. For instance, a C I O spokesman is amused by Dorothy
Thompson's estimates on unemployment because, he says, the figures
emanate from "an economist for the du Ponts." The other
day an analyst gave the Republicans next November more electoral
votes than the Democrats, omitting New York, which would decide the
election. He was a Republican analyst.
Once upon a time an economist was a man who agree with Ricardo or with John Stuart Mill or with Karl Marx. Today he is often a man who agrees with the C I O or the A F L or the State Chamber of Commerce or the du Ponts or the Republican party or the Democratic National Committee. The economist or analyst or chief of bureau of research is now part of the regular office equipment of every large business concern
Layman
Bests Expert
Not
that the most objective and nonpartisan of statistical analysts is
immune to error. The best-laid charts and extrapolations of
economists, like those of mice and men, oft gang agley. There is a
well-circulated story about the exceptionally gifted statistician in
the employ of the Democratic National Committee with a record of some
remarkable election forecasts. In 1936 he is said to have predicted
Mr Roosevelt's election by, let us say, 300 electoral votes, against
231 for Landon. or something like that.
But at the same time a gentleman named James A Farley, who probably could not tell you the exact difference between Adam Smith and Bohm-Bawerk, predicted 523 electoral votes for Roosevelt and 8 for Landon. The story, if true, does credit to both the expert analyst of the Democratic National Committee and to the Postmaster General.
Never
Touched Him
The
difference between fire and pitch on the one hand and
communism
on the other is, of course, obvious. It is impossible to play with
fire and not be burned, or to touch pitch and not be defiled, but it
is simply extraordinary how a person can play around with
communism and sound like a Communist and yet not be a Communist.
The latest example is Bernard Shaw. He is one of several British Independent Socialists who have issued a letter warning against embroilment with the Soviet Government. Izvestia is all the more impressed by the letter because the signers are not Communists but only "businesslike people who appeal to reason."
One of Bernard Shaw's later utterances is an interview in The London Daily Mail of Dec 2 on the Russo-Finnish war. Mr Shaw pointed out that Leningrad could be shelled from the Finnish frontier. Finland "was being made to act by a foolish government in the interests of other Powers menacing Russia's security. No power can tolerate a frontier like that." But always it is necessary to remember that Mr Shaw is not a Communist.
Urges higher Eng theater standards during Eur war, F 18, IX,2:6
(Dailey Telegraph, 6 February 1940)
2/18/40 London audiences have made little effort to be smart during these last five months. The difficulties of hunting in the blackout for a means of getting home made evening dress impracticable; also, there has been the idea that economy makes unpatriotic sport of fine feathers. But last week this idea came into a violent collision with another idea of greater antiquity - that it is necessary to be smart at a C B Cochran first night. The older idea won, and the Savoy Theater at the opening of 'Lights Up' had a genuine pre-war glitter.
Mr Cochran's claim of being our Entertainer Number One always has been proved by his ability to disorganize traffic. His not lost skill at this perhaps was helped by pitch darkness and the position of the little courtyard housing the Savoy Hotel and the theater. It is the shape of a hot water bottle, although nothing like so easy to empty, and makes a chaos of the Strand traffic. The first half of the show itself was thought by general consent to be a little tame, but the second half brought compensations and there seems to be no doubt the show will run. While not quite up to the Cochran average, it is well above London's present standards. The principals are Evelyn Laye, reliable as ever, and Clifford Mollison, while Martyn Green from the D'Oyly Carte operas, is a versatile comedian. As always, Mr Cochran has been lavish in an appeal to the eye, and the only complaint is that he has rationed laughter a little over-severely.
The cause of the legitimate theater has been carried a step forward by the production at the Torch Theater - a tiny tributary playhouse - of 'Jeannie,' a neat little comedy on the Cinderella theme by Aimee Stuart. Mrs Stuart is a practiced playwright, and it is possible the play would have been brought to the West End on its own merits, but its promotion has been made practically certain by the success of a new actress, Barbara Mullen, an Irish girl brought up in America, trained at an English dramatic school and playing a Scots part. She scored one of those overnight successes which mean that thousands will flock to see her as soon as they are given a chance. Whether she is a real actress or a lucky choice for an effective part has yet to be proven.
Miss Mullen's emergence was not the only piece of help Ireland gave our theater this week, George Bernard Shaw, in a long letter to The Daily Telegraph, pointed out to theater managers that their cautious policy of putting on plays such as suited the crude taste of the army in the last war is a mistake. The present army, he says, has had the advantage of a more liberal education in the arts. The radio has brought good music to every home, the films have enabled every hick to consider Shaw himself no longer a highbrow. This, of course, is just a specimen of Shaw's habit of spoiling a good argument in order to make a humorous point. All the same, the managers would do well to pay attention.
However, he actually was writing to plead that the trained male dancers of the Sadler's Wells ballet should not be taken for the army as they cannot be replaced, and an absence would mean the collapse of a civilized popular art. This ballet has been going very strong since the war and has reached a high pitch of technical perfection. Mr Shaw's plea is reasonable, but I find it difficult to believe that it will be listened to. The chances are that the fate of these young men will be decided by people who think a male dancer is a frightful fellow who should have all the nonsense knocked out of him by a spell in the army.
Library of works given to N C Univ, F 11, VI 25:3
Life at 83 discussed; por, F 11, VII, p 3
2/11/40 G
Bernard Shaw has been writing letters to the papers again. This time
the sage has played the role of peacemaker, fighting single-handed
against overwhelming odds in his demand for an immediate conference
to end the war. Whether he is writing to the papers on affairs of
state or old school ties or the Oxford accent or what not, he always
fights single-handed against overwhelming odds. It is a little joke,
one of the most disarming of all his little jokes. At 83 he is the
gayest of all the venerable of our time, a benign and bearded being,
pink and white of complexion, long and loose-limbed of build, and so
terribly in earnest that he cannot possibly be serious.
By this time the sandbags and the nightly blackout of London's streets supply their own terse comment of the patriarch as peacemaker. And yet a few weeks ago, when he was seen striding through Pall Mall on one of his now infrequent walks in the West End, he seemed wholly at peace with himself and the world. Swinging his stick in time with his long, rapid stride, he swept through the afternoon crowds of Pall Mall and presently pulled up to gaze into the window of a famous sword shop where a bullet-proof waistcoat was displayed in a setting of guns. There a London newspaper man spotted him and, pulling up alongside him, asked him whether he was thinking of buying a bullet-proof waistcoat. No, said Mr Shaw, he was just looking - "Peacemakers can never resist a row of guns." And so he strode off up St Jame's Street.
The war has not been the first occasion on which Mr Shaw's opinion has face overwhelming odds. He supported Mussolini against Abyssinia. He denounced the League over sanctions. Last August he was astonished by the gasp of dismay which greeted Ribbentrop's Russian pact in Britain, for the pact meant that "Herr Hitler is under the powerful thumb of Stalin, whose interest in peace is overwhelming." A month later, when the Russians invaded Poland, he was amazed that "instead of giving three cheers for Stalin we are shrieking that all is lost." As an old Fabian, the sage himself has been giving three cheers for Soviet Russia for many years past. But he has not yet given three cheers for Stalin's invasion of Finland.
And politics has not been the only arena in which he has faced the current Goliaths. The kindest and gentlest of men, he has raised unkindness to one of the minor arts. He has devoted half a century to insulting people for the good of their souls. Writing to The Times of London, on the subject of a new symphony by Sir Edward Elgar, he once observed in the most casual of asides: "I have occasionally remarked that the only entirely creditable incident in English history is the sending of £100 to Beethoven on his deathbed by the London Philharmonic Society, and it is the only one that historians never mention."
The much-discussed project of a national theater in London has repeatedly brought him charging into the correspondence columns. "A national theater," he once wrote in reply to a London dramatic critic, "will not be able to create a Shakespear or a - well, leave it at that. But it can keep him alive just as a national gallery can keep Van Eyck alive. I am that disreputable thing, a playwright, just as Henry Irving was that disreputable thing, an actor, until he forced the government to make his art respectable by adding his name to the roll of knights bachelor. As nothing very dreadful happened in consequence, the playwrights were elevated to the new standing of the actors: Pinero was knighted and Barrie became a baronet. Later on even I might have had a title for the asking; but that was not what I wanted."
As chairman of the BBC's committee on English pronunciation, he once engage in a protracted and sparkling correspondence, in the course of which he dealt sternly with the Oxford accent and incidentally met and routed the alphabet. "I am asked to define the Oxford accent," he began. "I cannot do so with scientific precision because, as all writers of dialogue know to their sorrow, English speech has no exact notation: we have to make shift with an alphabet which is about a dozen letters short of our crudest requirements, and a ridiculous pseudo-etymological spelling which is the most serious obstacle to the conquest of the whole world by the English language.
"However, it is possible to suggest the Oxford accent sufficiently. The late Henry Sweet, the greatest English phonetician of his time, clung to Oxford University all his life with undying hatred, raging against it because it would not place the study of the sounds of our living tongue before the prosodic pedantries of two dead foreign languages, but still, as a much disparaged official reader of phonetics, teaching the Oxford accent as standard English. Here is his notation of Longfellow's 'Psalm of life':
"'tel
mii not, in mawnful nambez
laif is bat an emti driim
faw dhe soul is ded dhat slambez
end things aa not whot dhei sijm.'"
It
might be supposed that at the age of 83 the patriarch would be
entering upon a well-earned retirement. But not so. "I
leave the delicacies of retirement," he once wrote, "to
those who are gentlemen first and literary workmen afterward. The
cart and trumpet for me." And he is faithful to the cart and
trumpet. He still gets through an enormous amount of work every day.
But there is no disorderly lurching about the cart. It runs
smoothly on rubber tires and well-oiled bearings, and the trumpet
sounds with an orderly and clocklike regularity. No suburban
worshiper of routine could be more faithful to his daily habit.
It might be supposed, too, that at 83 he would avoid London, especially the London in which Winter and wartime have together blacked out the street from 4 pm to 8 am. Hundred of business firms have moved out into the country as a precaution against air raids, taking with them many thousands of employes. The government has moved some of its departments away from London and is moving more as rapidly as it can find accommodation for them in the provinces. And yet neither war nor Winter has varied Mr Shaw's habitual routine. He continues to divide his mornings between the country and London.
Mr Shaw has lived in the country for many years past. His home and his workshop are tucked away in the green depths of Hertfordshire, where he is free from the distractions of the world. Also for many years past, he has had a flat in London. Instead of employing a literary agent to attend to his world-wide merchandising, he attends to it himself. His London flat is his office whence he exports his merchandise to all parts of the world and where in return the world pours in upon him. That flat today is the same as always - flat 130 at No 4 Whitehall Court, not far from Whitehall itself - and there he still spends his regular three mornings a week.
If there is any change to be recorded in Mr Shaw, it is not in himself or in his mode of life, but in his now rapid elevation to the Shakespearean plane. Dublin has not yet begun to exploit the Birthplace as Stratford has long exploited another Birthplace, but that will come. Things have now reached a point at which any one of the numerous clan of the Shaws is apt to dash to his typewriter and rush off a book on the subject of the clan's noblest adornment. Nowadays hardly a month passes without a new book on GBS, many of them with GBS's own footnotes, and it is worth noting that the clan has now traced the sage's aristocratic lineage as far back as some obscure battle of 1396 in the Highlands of Scotland. This makes the other Shakespear look like a mere Stratford glover's son.
Occasionally, if you are in great good luck, you may see our modern Shakespear walking in the West End on fine days when old gentlemen take the air, and it is interesting to note how many of the passers-by turn to gaze after one of the most famous men in the world. On sunshiny Winter days he wears a greenish hat, a dark green tie on a pale green collar, an overcoat and brown woolen gloves. He doesn't walk as rapidly he used to and he sometimes finds an unusual shop window a good excuse for a momentary pause. But his stride is just as long as ever and his posture just as upright.
Such occasions are rare and they are getting rarer. The people who see him nowadays are mainly those who have business with him and they find him amid his merchandise in Whitehall Court. There are crowds of Shaws round the walls of that famous flat, Shaws by Rodin, Rothenstein and Max Beerbohm, Shaws in bronze and plaster and wood, Shaws in line and oils and water-colors. Seated at his desk amid this varied company, is the one and only Shaw in the flesh, a glorious being with a now-white beard, a complexion which has never known soap, and a bony six-foot frame which has never known the beef and beer of the oafish, dull-witted English.
And what merchandise he deals in! He is the greatest living master of stagecraft and the greatest satirist since Swift. He flung Widowers Houses at the Englishman's head as far back as 1892, and new plays, full of wit, insolence and unsurpassable dialogue, have followed at regular intervals right down to In Good King Charles' Gold Days which opened at the Malvern festival last August. And yet, with all his world-wide fame, he is still a superb journalist, not above turning out a snippet of 1,000 words on any subject in the news that interests him. He is a born pulpiteer. Even now you can hardly start a discussion in the correspondence columns of the papers on any one of his pet phobias without drawing a reply with the familiar signature "G. Bernard Shaw" at the foot of it.
But these daily attractions are far removed from the rural peace of Ayot St Lawrence, where the sage lives and writes his plays. It is a hamlet, some twenty miles north of London, with a population of less than 100. Newspapers reach it only by mail and the nearest railway station is miles away. It lacks even a country-bus line. It lies at a point where two country lanes cross at a dip in the rolling farmlands, and in this solitude Mr Shaw's contacts with the world are limited to the mail, the telephone, the wireless and an occasional week-end guest of his own choice.
"Shaw's Corner," once the rectory, consists of a couple of acres of well-shaded lawns and gardens, with its own artesian well, its own dynamo for producing electricity, its own bees and fantail pigeons. At this time of year the weather drives Mr Shaw to his study indoors to work, but when the weather permits he writes his plays in the sun-hut far back among the trees on his grounds. It is a large hut which revolves on an axis so that it can be turned with the sun. It is furnished with a desk, book shelves, a couch for his afternoon nap, and a telephone which enables him to be summoned to the house for meals. Three mornings a week Mr Shaw spends working at home. When he rises from his afternoon nap, he goes out for an hour's fresh air. The days when he did an hour's wood-chopping for exercise came to an end some eight or ten years ago. He used to do a great deal of amateur photography, but that also seems to have ended. Years ago he used to dash about the country roads on a motor cycle, and until motors crowded him off the roads he used a bicycle. But now he walks, taking care not to walk so far as to become overtired. When he returns, he spends the time until dinner with his letters and he is usually in bed by 10. Nowadays he never goes out in the evenings. (Clair Price)
Urged to aid J Wegrzyn, actor, imprisoned in Warsaw, F 10, 5:6
2/10/40 George
Bernard Shaw has received a letter from Poland appealing to him to
intercede for the release from a Warsaw prison of a Polish actor and
director who before the war staged Mr Shaw's comedy, Geneva, in which
the playwright endowed the character Adolf Hitler with gifts "which
no mortal fuehrer ever possessed." The actor, Joseph Wegrzyn,
played the Hitler role in the production, which was directed by
Arnold Szyfman. Mr Shaw's correspondent wrote: "As
Wegrzyn may be condemned to death, I beg you to do all to deliver
this innocent and eminent Polish artist from that danger and to raise
the world's opinion against the new proof of German 'culture and
humanity' in Poland."
Mr Shaw passed on the letter to the British Press Association with the following note written on the back: "If Herr Hitler is responsible for this I am shocked at his ingratitude. I have handed him down to history in the play with gifts of eloquence, debating power and readiness in repartee which no mortal fuehrer ever possessed or ever will possess, and this is how he requites me. If he had an atom of common sense he would decorate the great Polish actor and order a thousand performances.
Says prices are too high at Red Cross benefit art sales, Ja 20, 7:1
1/20/40 Bernard
Shaw has suggested that artists who are selling pictures to help the
Red Cross cease charging high prices. In a letter to The Times he
wrote: "If the most is to be made the Royal Academy must
abandon the tradition that artists are ladies and gentlemen
who
must price the work in tens, hundreds, and thousands of guineas." He
told them to take a tip from the Woolworth stores that make money
on a small profit margin. "I suggest," he wrote, "that
in every room in the Academy a notice should be displayed
announcing
that any colored picture can be purchased for £5 and any
plain
picture for £2. Unsold pictures, if any, could be sold in
lots
by auction."
So far Mr Shaw's idea has not been accepted.
Sends message to United Artists Corp on signing of G Pascal contract, Ja 17, 24:4
1/17/40 Gabriel
Pascal, who filmed George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, has signed an
exclusive three-year distribution contract with the United Artists
Corporation. In making the announcement yesterday, Murray
Silverstone, chief of the distributing corporation, made public the
text of a cablegram which Mr Shaw sent to Charles Chaplin, one of the
five owner-producers of United Artists. The cablegram reads:
"Congratulations to United Artists on having captured Gabriel
Pascal, the only man living except yourself who knows as much about
filming as I do."
Mr Pascal, who became a producer of international importance through his successful production of Pygmalion, announced that his first United Artists release would be an adaptation of Shaw's Major Barbara. The film will be produced in England. Wendy Hiller, who starred with Leslie Howard in the earlier work, also will take part in the new film, as will Robert Morley, who was seen on the Broadway stage last year in "Oscar Wilde."
Pascal's second production will be selected from a list of properties, prominent among which are three Shaw plays, The Doctor's Dilemma, The Devil's Disciple, and Caesar and Cleopatra. It is probable the second picture will be made in Hollywood.
Univ of North Carolina to get autographic collection, Ja 14, II, 4:7
1/14/40 Dr
Archibald Henderson announced today that he was presenting to the
University of North Carolina soon his personal collection of
materials dealing with the life and career of George Bernard Shaw. Dr
Henderson has timed the gift to coincide with the university's
sesquicentennial celebration which began this year and will continue
through 1945. Dr Henderson has informed President Frank P Graham of
his intended gift, and the trustees are expected to accept it
promptly. Recognized as Shaw's chief biographer and the greatest
authority on his life and works, Dr Henderson has spent thirty-five
years in accumulating the collection he is to present to the
university.
Unlike the Shaw collection he presented to Yale University three years ago as a memorial to his grandfather, class of 1830, the collection to be placed in the university library here will be unique in that it will be autographic. All of the works to be included in it will contain some inscription appropriate to the work itself, written and signed by the author. So far as is known, there will be no collection in existence such as this. It will be some time before Dr Henderson secures autographic commentary for all the works in the collection, but the task is already under way.
Collection
Highly Valuable
The
value and significance of this collection, containing the dramatist's
observations and commentaries upon his own writings, can hardly be
exaggerated. In view of Shaw's disposition and temperament, it
is natural to presume these commentaries will display the
characteristic wit and humor which have made him famous. But whether
witty, humorous, serious, or a combination of these qualities, the
biographical and critical notes will be of high value to all future
biographers and critics of Shaw, and of interest to all students of
the political, social and cultural life of the contemporary era.
No estimate can be placed on the financial value of such a collection.
The extensive Henderson collection of Shaviana presented to Yale contained virtually all first editions of Shaw's writings; every known biographical or critical book, brochure or pamphlet dealing with Shaw, and many works dealing in part with Shaw as critic or art, music and drama. The collection also contained translations of many of Shaw's writings, in particular his plays, into foreign languages. Many albums of newspaper and magazine clippings were included in the collection, as well as theater programs, playbills, portraits of interpreters of roles in Shaw's plays, and photographs of scenes from his plays, and photographs of scenes from his plays as produced ins various countries.
The collection at Yale is not an autographic collection, although one of the most interesting pieces is a copy of the beautiful edition deluxe of Shaw's play St Joan, which Dr Henderson has called the greatest play in English since Hamlet, bearing on the title page the following inscription:
"To my Biographer-in-Chief, to whom I owe so much of my vogue in the United States, Archibald Henderson.
G. Bernard Shaw."
Will
Complement Each Other
The
Shaw Autographic Collection at Chapel Hill, when competed, Dr
Henderson says, will contain many items not found in the collection
at Yale. Among these will be many cartoon and caricatures, as well
as authentic likenesses of Shaw: excessively rare bill posters
and theater programs; a great number of newspaper cuttings and
advertising the production of Shaw's plays in foreign countries;
numerous albums containing Shaviana of all kinds, and special
editions of Shaw's writing containing autographic inscriptions to
Archibald Henderson. The two collections, at Chapel Hill and at New
Haven, will supplement each other.
When the announcement was made on Feb 15, 1937, of his gift to Yale, a Professor of English Literature and one of Dr Henderson's colleagues is said to have remarked: "My goodness, Henderson, don't you prize these precious things? Think of their financial as well as their literary value! You give away everything you have! You will end by impoverishing yourself."
To which Dr Henderson is said to have replied: "Yes, I have already almost impoverished myself - that's quite true. But just think how much richer Yale is! The collection is safe there. And how much better off the world of scholarship is in the safety and assured preservation of these precious treasures. My loss is the world's gain."