The Washington times., 1933-04-13


a@11111111 take of being seventy-six years old
GILBERT "ElDEs while his followers of a generation
ago still in their forties and ffties.
They cannot forgive him for having grown old before
they did and for changing his ideas without changing
his methods. They want him to be the Shaw who was
their private property with whom they could rap their
enemies the skull, the last word in witty wisdom
their side. AS usual Shaw sidesteps the demands of
his public and creates public which takes what he
has to give.
What Made Him Famous
If he chooses to look back he may smile at the elements
in his which made him famous. Almost frogotten
in this country is his work dramatic critic in the
1905 he of several brilliant men writing in
brilliant weekly The Saturday Review edited by the
erratc Frank Harris Like all dramatic critics, every
where he was figure in the public prints; people
quarreed about him and he gave them plenty to talk
about.
Knowing music (and loving Mozart), he wrote book
to prove the Wagner's cycle of the Nebelungen
Socialist tract; he wrote another to make Ibsen shock
ing to the British public And having announced that
the contemporary drama really had something to say and
finding proof among his contemporaries, he manu-
factured the evidence he himself says by writing his
first plays.
Of the three unpleasant plays" two are forgotten
and the third "Nrs Warrens Profession" is longer
produced Of the pleasant plays only Arms and the
Man. is thoroughly good readng-so good, in fact that
the Theater Guild produced it few years ago in such
way to conceal all the sharpness and bite of Shaws
ideas ct is not mlitarism but the romantic ideal
that Shaw trying to deflate in that play Even Man
and superman" with the terrifying prewar idea that
pursue men, bounding them in those quaint
times into marriage) is only pleasant memory
"A MoraIist
The Shaw is important is that he is a pro-
foundly moral mana professional moralst. All the
paradoxes which shocked the moral people thirty years
ago from the source: his feeling that
true moral life being denied to people by conven-
tonal and hypocritical morals When, long time ago,
Shaw declared for equality of income equality with
out any reservations every man to receive as much
money every one else UNIVERSAL generous dole or
wage) he based it the highly moral idea that as
all possessed of immortal souls are equal
before God and should be equal in the sight of
less.
riage convention and all the other pretty nsttu-
tons of our time is hurt to better living The man of
Shaws future (as in "Back to Methuselah") will have
the most moral e of pretty morals virtually before he
is Matched and will live several thousand years in pure
thought. High morals hardly go further than that
Sense of Greatness
With that morality goes the quality which I prize
most highly in Shaw: his feelings for greatness. That
s his finest paradox that he has made people think of
him an idolsmasher, when, fundamentally he is
heroworshipper His Caeser is actually greater figure
than Shakespeares puffy stuffedtoga, and his Caeser
Shakespeare's) what greatness When Cleopatra
says that she wishes to rule not to be happy but to do
what she must do regardless of happiness Shaws sense
of human destiny is profoundly moving The same sense
Of greatness in lightning flashes through other
plays. major Barbara" and "The Doctors Dilemma"
It is Shaw's answer to his question: What is man
for?
This is the pre-talkie Shaw. The decline of Shaw in
the minds of the ntelectuals comedies pretty closely
with the appearance of Shaw of the early takes
He is, in them amusing Christmassy talkative old
man. comedian. 1t is if his early reputation had
caught up with him at the end For in the days when
they called Shaw clown he was in deadly earnest; and
now when every word is taken to the world, he makes
faces at camera Perhaps not trusting posterity he
is trying to destroy his reputation