IRISH—BUT WHO?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 11, 13 January 1940, Page 6

IRISH—BUT WHO?

A HOKUM MERCHANT. ' WITH SEVEN REPUTATIONS. When a niaii talks about liinisolf lie generally speaks with dolibtflll authority. Below is a self-description by a wellknown liiitHor who admits lie does not know much about himself, so it ought to be fun to guess who he is. "I am a genuine typical Irishman of the Danish, Normal!, Ooinwcllian and (of course) Scottish invasion ... As a schoolboy I was incorrigibly idle and worthless. * Aiul I am proud of the fact. ... I never struggled. I rose by sheer gravitation . . . I am a philosopher, novelist, sociologist, critic, statesman, dramatist And theologian, i have therefore seven reputations. "X am not an ordinary playwright. I am a specialist in immoral and heretical plays .... For years I have been dinning into the public head that I am an extraordinarily witty, brilliant and clever man. That is now part of the public opinion; and no power on earth will over change it. "I am not veallv a conceited liian: if you had been through all that I have been through, and done - all the things I have done, you would be ten times as conceited. "No human being could possibly be so disagreeable as they expect life to be. I have only to be commonly civil to seem quite charming ... I love to leave fire and desolation iii my path; to create the impression that I am a terrible fellow. "My complexion is the admiration of Europe ... I cannot guarantee myself as the greatest living hokum merchant, but I am certainly one of the best ten ... I am the true Shakespearean type . ... What I say to-day, everybody will say to-morrow. "I am very untcacliable and could not pass the fourth standard examination in an elementary school ... I have not yet ascertained the truth about myself. For instance, am I mad or sane? * If I am sane, the rest of the world ought not to bo at large. j. ° prefer to die in a reasonably dry ditch under the stars . . . Let it 'b"c remembered that I am a. superior person ... I shall be a panjandrum of literature for the next. three hundred years." In case you haven't guessed, George Bernard Shaw is speaking. °