New-York tribune., 1918-08-03

" 7 HEN you 60 to Europe to see what
w wars like, you find it's like so many
things that you can't pin it down to
a likeness of any one thing. The clements
of war are not all iron and steel and sulphur
and picric acid There also is human ele-
ment, and this human element contains all
kinds of MISUNDERSTANDING George Ber-
nard Shaw
We were coming away from low brown
house in Grosvenor Road, on the Thames
Embankment~-John Frey and myself-after
a three hour chat with Mr. and Mrs. Shaw.
We turned up our collars, dug our hands
deep into our pockets and headed into
chill mist when Frey sailed over close to
me, avoiding puddle, to inquire how much
l remembered of what "the inmitable G.
B. S." had said
But ones mind gets dulled after too much
briliancy. Mr.. and Mrs. Sidney Webb had
been our hosts, the Shaws and we two Amer
leans the guests.
Neither of US will forget that visit. Shaw
was the centre of the running fire Of elec-
trio debate, Of course. It had to be so, If
for no other reason than to sustain what
has come to be tradition among outlanders
such as we, the one an iron moulder and the
other journeyman newspaper writer.
Shaw is just like every one else in many
ways. He shakes hands just as bricklayers
and lawyers do. He says 81 am glad to
know you" just quite ordinary persons
do. He wears simple clothes, neither pre-
tcntiously good nor pretentiously poor or
slouchy. Just plain clothes, this time brown
even to shirt and tie, but with green ker-
chief in the coat breast pocket.
The discussion was as to Americas
method of dealing with pacifists as G. B. s.
came into the dining room. There had been
much rumor, it seemed, that America was
unduly repressive in her treatment of paci-
fists. We from America could not substan-
tiate that view, but were rather inclined to
believe Americas treatment too liberal If
anything. Immediately Shaw remarked upon
having just read Of a case in which pacifist
had been sentenced to serve a prison term
of twenty-five years, declaring amid laughter
that he wanted to know nothing further
about it, because the statement as he got it
quite suited his purpose without any further
information.
Psychologists, analysts of all kinds, de-
scriptive writers without number-all who
have met Shaw or studied him and his work
from afar-have expressed their opinion
about Shaw, as one does about the weather
and the war. And, speaking of descriptive
writer's, as we were, around the table there
In Sidney Webb's dining room, with a GER
tain American writer under the microscope.
1t was my misfortune to remark that the
man in question was q very fine descriptive
writer, who often described perfectly that
which he had not seen at all. Whereupon
Shaw remarked that that was precisely the
reason the man was good descriptive
writer.
Shaw looks as his photographs indicate he
might look-and yet his photographs exag-
gerate, SO to speak. Shaw's nose isn't as
long or as sharp in real life as in the still
OF the sepia print. His eyebrows do point
upward like the Kaiser's mustache. but not
with such severity as one imagines before
seeing the two originals. Nor is his almost
white beard as severe, nor his equally whit
oned hair. Nearly all Shaw's photographs
remind one somewhat Of Mephistopheles.
Shaw does not. He reminds you Of nothing