The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-12-27

since MS marriage SHAW has chang
ed materially in his modes of life,
though his habits and modes of
thought-or, more properly, of express
sion-are the same as of old. Now he
wears clothing that is quite respect
able; he escheWs the tabloid and the
cod liver oil, though still vegetarian,
and he appears now and then in So
ciety. Some time after his marriage
his acquaintance were amazed to find
him at a reception wearing a boiled
shirt and a stiff collar and looking
quite comfortable. But Mr.. Shaw still
clings to the flannel shirt for ordinary
wear and no doubt retains all his carly
disgust for starched linen
MY great idea Of Clothes" he says,
''is that they should be clean and COM
Portable. This Of course excludes
starch. 1 couldn't wear thing which,
after being made clean and sweet, is
filled with nasty white mud, ironed in
to a hard plate and made altogether
disgusting"
Then Mr.. Shaw has his fling at femi-
nine apparel: "It is astonishing that
women put up with their present
clothes. Any animal with legs if fet-
tered with Il petticoat, let alone sever
al, would eventually so mad, I should
have supposed. A human figure with
curtain hung around it from the
shoulders to the ankles looks like a
badly made postal pillar. Tie a belt
around your middle and you look like
q will ifcs in f1on
place."
And here is something else he has
said since his marriage: "There are
only two things really worth having
They are property and family life.
Paradoxical to the last, I have won
that which I despise and like it inn
mensely."
Yet he wrote to his American agent
who sent him a large sum earned by
"Arms and the Man." his first play to
make hit in this country: 'You have
made me go to the miserable bother Of
opening bank account" That was
prior to the rare day in June when he
went to the registrars Office with the
lady who seems to be responsible for
the partial tanning Of the Shaw.
Kind TO Those In Distress.
Somebody has discovered that Mr.
Shaw made a good deal of money in
his twenty years of London labor be-
fore he "arrived" and that he gave
nearly all of it away. He could not
bear to see poor deviP' in distress
without handing him out some cash.
This is one of the things that he never
shouted from his pedestal, which goes
to prove him the opposite of an often
sive egotist. 1t goes to prove also that
George Bernard Shaw for all his sar.
casm and slapdab knocking at things
In general wears under his flannel
shirt a heart softer than the flannel,
which thumps with sympathy for the
under dog as violently as his pen
pounds against what he deems the fol-
lies of respectable humanity. One
might venture the observation that a
man who gives a pounding to dead
poet with one hand while he gives a
pound to a live impecune with the
other is not such a bad sort after all
even though, as he proclaims, he be an
atheist, a fanatic and a fluent liar.
1t must not be forgotten that Mr.
Shaw also described himself as hu-
mortst. That he undoubtedly is. Eng
land is short on humoriSts and never
could have produced one like this
Irishman. 1t is as a humorist that Mr.
Shaw really excels, whether we find
him In the play, on the platform or
just talking. Satire surely belongs to
humor, and Shaw is the most satirical
Of present day playwrights or plat
form entertainers. He also delights in
a joke. Once he gave Richard Mans
field several days of discomfort, which
Shaw enjoyed keenly. He had handed
a new play to Mansfield for the actor
to read. Mansfield lost it on his way
to his lodgings, but shrank from tell
Ing Shaw of the loss. The latter pelted
him with questions as to how he liked
the play, what he thought of the muir
der scene in the first act and the duel
In the second act, to which inquiries
Mansfield made guarded replies. Then
he discovered that the manuscript,
on the outside, had been found and re-
turned to the author the same day it
was lost and that the murder and the
duel were not in the play at ALL
A Characteristic Utterance.
Mr.. Shaw processes to think quite
disparagingly Of the United States.
Most Englishmen do that, but Shaw is
Irish. However, he is Shaw, and we
Americans are not going to take Of
Tense at clearly inoffensive egotist
It was the exclusion of his play, "NIrs.
Warrens Profession" from production
in New York that called forth his
characteristic utterance: Nobody out
side Of America is likely to be in the
least surprised. Comstockery is the
worlds standing joke at the expense
Of the United States. Europe likes to
hear of such things. 1t confirms the
deep seated conviction that America is
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