George Bernard Shaw, his life and works

Bernard Shaw looks down upon contemporary life from many windows. The world is caught in the dragnet of his infinite variety: few escape. To each man, Shaw comes in a different capacity. The world at large knows little, astoundingly little, of Shaw the man. That is why, after detailing the various features of his literary and public career, I have put last the study of his personality. From the preceding chapters the reader may have constructed a more or less imaginary portrait. In this chapter is portrayed Shaw, if not as in himself he really is, certainly as one who knows him really sees him.

It may not be devoid of interest to think of Shaw at several stages of his career. During the epidemic of 1881, he caught small-pox which, as he expressed it, “left him unmarked, but an anti-vaccinationist for ever.” The next few years Shaw passed “in desperate want and despair,” as an acquaintance has expressed it. While this statement is somewhat exaggerated, certainly the clothes he wore at this period gave it colour: tawny trousers, extraordinarily, unbelievably baggy; a long, soi-disant black cut-away coat, and a tall silk hat, which had been battered down so often that it had a thousand creases in it from top to crown. “My clothes turned green,” Shaw has confessed, “and I trimmed my cuffs to the quick with a scissors, and wore my tall hat with the back part in front, so that the brim should not bend double when I took it off to an acquaintance.”

Despite the loyal protest of the Secretary of the Fabian Society, who once wrote me vehemently asserting that Shaw always wore perfectly normal and conventional clothes, it must be admitted that Shaw has been associated throughout his life with queer sartorial tastes. The notorious velvet jacket which he wore during the days of his activity as a critic of the drama, furnished the casus belli in Shaw's war with the theatre managers. Shaw refused point-blank to obey the iron-clad regulation that occupants of stalls must wear evening clothes. The irrepressible conflict was precipitated one night, according to a story which Shaw vehemently denies, when Shaw was stopped at the door of the theatre by an attendant.

“What do you object to?” asked Shaw; “the velvet jacket?”

The attendant nodded assent.

“Very well,” exclaimed Shaw, no whit abashed, “I will remove it.” And the next instant he was striding up the aisle in his shirt sleeves.

“Here, that won't do!” shouted the attendant in great alarm, hurrying after Shaw and stopping him with great difficulty.

“Won't do?” cried Shaw, with fine assumption of indignation. “Do you think I am going to take off any more?”

And with that he promptly redonned his velvet jacket and turning on his heel, left the house. Shaw finally won the battle and enjoyed his triumph in face of the objection of managers and the indignation of the fashionable and wealthy theatre-goers.

Shaw's snuff-coloured suit and flannel shirt made him a marked figure in London during the 'nineties. He wore it so long that it finally came to look, as one of his acquaintances said, as if it were made of brown wrapping paper. So much a part of his individuality had it become that, when he finally discarded it, some friends of Shaw's, seeing it depending from a nail, exclaimed—so well had it retained its shape—“Good heavens! he's done it at last!”

Of peculiar, almost unique, interest is the record of Shaw's physical proportions and qualities, taken in the Anthropometric Laboratory arranged by Francis Galton, F.R.S., at the International Health Exhibition on August 16th, 1884. This was just twenty days before Shaw joined the Fabian Society. According to this chart, numbered 3,655, Shaw's anthropometric properties were as follows:

The social, physical, mental and moral measurements of the man, at different periods of his life, have been taken by a thousand hands. Not the least interesting of these is the record of a chirological expert in the Palmist and Chirological Review, July, 1895.[245] Shaw is inclined to believe in palmistry to the extent of regarding the hand to be as good an index of character as the face. He once laughingly remarked to me that the following chirological study possessed a curious interest, because it was such a remarkable mélange of acute character-analysis and hopeless, utter nonsense.

Omitting technical details—the specific indicia of specific traits—the hands of Shaw yielded the following “results.” The author, dramatist, musician and critic is betrayed by the long conical hands—the smallness of which for so tall a man indicates that the subject will be given to jumping to conclusions on insufficient grounds in matters of opinion. The subject is very unconventional and independent, especially in thought, and adaptable to people and circumstances. His will is very strong, and he is obstinate in opinion, very argumentative, dogmatic, and unconvincible. He is not only fond of books and reading, but also has a great love of rule and power over others. His temperament is a curious compound of caution and liberality, very dependent upon moods for their expression. The dramatic power he possesses is that of the dramatist, not of the actor; he is gifted with great power in carrying out ideas and turning circumstances to his advantage, due in no small measure to his remarkable power of words, whether for speaking or writing. While not entirely tactful, he is constantly scheming and planning; but he is usually more successful in handling plots than persons. Great energy, both physical and mental, and cultivated self-control are distinguishing marks of the man; to these traits are superadded much aggressiveness and high moral courage. He is endowed with a great sense of fun, remarkable wit, immense wealth of imagination and extreme eccentricity of ideas. The subject makes his own career in the world, and tries to carry out to some extent his eccentric ideas; but as a rule, his actions are directed by his accurate knowledge of the world. In many respects, the subject is very genuine and sincere; but along with this goes an incurable tendency to pose for effect. His fame will steadily grow with the years; and it is predicted that he will accomplish fine artistic work, if he will leave the practical side of things to others, and stick to art as he should. He can make or mar his own career as he chooses; he possesses the power to turn circumstances to his own advantage. In a large sense, he is the master of his fate.

Did the analysis stop here, Mr. Shaw might almost be justified in believing it impossible to derive such accurate information solely from a superficial knowledge of his public career. Unfortunately, the palmist indulged in certain other characterizations which are doubtless included in Mr. Shaw's category of “utter nonsense.” According to the palmist, Mr. Shaw has a very good opinion of himself, due to vanity, not to self-confidence, in which he is conspicuously lacking. He is very susceptible to criticism, but harsh in his criticism of others; very apprehensive of consequences, changeable and uncertain in his moods. Quiet in temper, he is, nevertheless, very revengeful and vindictive, imbued not only with a great power of hatred, but also with utter mercilessness in carrying it out. His temperament is very hard, and, in a refined manner, cruel. He has an extreme disregard for truth, all notions and opinions being coloured by fancy until facts are completely lost sight of, thus showing the subject to be utterly wanting in practical common sense in his opinions and ideas. He is neither passionate nor benevolent; but he has a laudable tendency to idealize his friends. It is a very unlucky temperament in affairs of the heart; his nature has little if any faculty for attachment. He imagines himself in love, and the more obstacles and impossibilities in the way of his suit, the more he will delight in it; he imagines the object of his attachment perfect, and will endeavour, contrary to all rules and observances, to live in his castles in the air, and when they dissolve he will throw it all away, perfectly heedless of consequences to himself or others, and start on a new ambition, or an entirely different line. “That this has already happened once in his life,” adds the chirologist, “is shown by the bar line, now fading, from the upper Mars across to Head and Heart.” Il ne manquait que ça!

Let us now skip another eleven, or rather twelve, years, and take a look at Bernard Shaw as he is to-day. Many people seem to regard Shaw as too funny to be true—as fanciful as Pierrot, as imaginary as Harlequin, as remote as the Man in the Moon. In reality, he is the most unmistakable sort of person. The nervous, almost boyish swing of his gait, the length and lankiness of his figure, the scraggly reddish-brown beard, heavily tinged, or rather edged, with grey, the high and noble brow, the quizzical geniality of his expression, the sensitive mouth and the challenging directness of his grey-blue eyes—all proclaim the original of a Coburn print, or a Max Beerbohm cartoon. The balance between conventionality and bizarrerie, between the serious thinker and the sardonic wit, is symbolized in eyebrows and moustaches, one of each cocking humorously upward, the other gravely preserving the level of dignity. This gives him, when he is in a gay mood, the air of a genial Celtic Mephistopheles; and even when his face is in repose this hirsute peculiarity imparts a sort of quaint diablerie to his expression. The delicate texture and excessive pallor of his skin gives the note of distinction to his face; and his eyes, whether turned full upon you with level gaze or dancing with the light of irrepressible humour, are his most distinctive feature. The frame for an artist's sketch of his profile would be a vertically elongated rectangle—a curious cephalic conformation ready made to the hand of the cartoonist.

Mr. Gilbert Chesterton's description, in his book, The Ball and the Cross, of the sane professor of psychology whose ideas are wilder than those of the lunatics under his charge, gives a rather startling picture in semi-caricature—with slight variations—of the man Shaw: “The advancing figure walked with a stoop, and yet, somehow, flung his forked and narrow beard forward. That carefully cut and pointed yellow beard was, indeed, the most emphatic thing about him. When he clasped his hands behind him, under the tails of his coat, he would wag his beard at a man like a big forefinger. It performed almost all the gestures; it was more important than the glittering eye-glasses through which he looked, or the beautiful, bleating voice in which he spoke. His face and neck were of a lusty red, but lean and stringy; he always wore his expensive gold-rim eye-glasses slightly askew upon his aquiline nose, and he always showed two gleaming foreteeth under his moustache, in a smile so perpetual as to earn the reputation of a sneer.”

Reproduced from Three Living Lions.

Joseph Simpson.
Courtesy of the Artist.