The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1907-02-07

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have supposed. A human figure with
a curtain hung around it from the
shoulders to the ankles looks like
badly made postal pillar. Tie belt
around your middle and you look like
q sack with its neck In the wrong
place."
And here is something else he has
said since his marriage: There are
only two things really worth Saving.
They are property and family life.
Paradoxical. to the last, have won
that which I despise and like 1t i'm
mensely."
Yet he wrote to his American agent
who sent him large sum earned by
"Arms and the Man." his first play to
make a 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 Ia Distress.
Somebody has discovered that Mr..
Shaw made 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 devil" 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 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
man who gives pounding to dead
poet with one hand while he gives a
pound to live impecune with the
other is not such bad sort after all,
even though, as he proclaims, he be an
atheist, fanatic and fluent liar.
1t must not be forgotten that Mr..
Shaw also described himself as hu-
morist. That he undoubtedly is. Eng
land is short on humorists and never
could have produced one like this
Irishman. 1t is as humorist that Mr..
Shaw really eScels, 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
joke. Once he gave Richard Mans
field several days of discomfort, which
Shaw enjoyed keenly. He had handed
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,
which had Shaw's name and address
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 We're 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.
1t was the exclusion of his play, Mrs.
Warren's 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
provincial place, second rate coun-
try town civilization, after all''
1t is for these things that we love
G. B. S. He sees things in grotesque.
A cowslip by the rivers brim may be
yellow cowslip to me, but 1t Is a
pumpkin blossom, full moon or a
purple COW to George Bernard Shaw
because he sees 1t from the angle of
the Shaw squint. You may see what
you regard as n beautiful Venus but
. Shaw will find 1t leering gargoyle.
while the figure on cornice which
you feel to be horned Satan is to
Shaw a winged charnh