MR SHAW'S "NO!"

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19459, 5 November 1928, Page 10

MR SHAW'S "NO!"

A SCOT OBJECTS.

REPLY IN CHEERFUL DORIC.

(UKITBD PBSSS iSBOCUTIOH-8* BWCTBIC rBMOBAPH—COPYBIOHT.)

(Received November 4th, 5.5 p.m.)

LONDON, November 3.

Mr George Bernard Shaw's custom of sending a printed postcard curtly refusing to open bazaars or speak at public dinners has stirred up a hornet's nest in the Trinity Literary Society, Glasgow, which offered the dramatist a fee of forty guineas and received the usual postcard. Instead of meekly receiving Mr Shaw's "No!" the Rev. H. 8. McCjelland, the president, replied, pointing out that Mr G. K. Chesterton, Dean Inge, Sir Oliver Lodge, Mr Augustine Birrell, Bishop Barnes, Mr John Masefield and other prominent men accepted an invitation, whereas Mr Shaw accompanied his refusal by the gratuitous and tvpically insolent advice to hand over the fee of forty guineas to a voung man. , , ~ Mr McClelland added that the replies of other lecturers of international reputation showed'that it was possible to be both a genius and a gentleman. He could not accept the plea that Mr Shaw was too busy, as he had .ample time to bask almost naked on a raft t.hfi Riviera or spend the evening with a famous Yankee pugilist. ' *..,-■- Mr Shaw replied with a postcard in the broadest Doric: "Hoots, hoots, mqnl Dinna tak' offence whaur nane was meant, and gi'e yer siller to the young 'as a' telt ye. "Postscript: I trust this is worthy of a devoted student of Burns and Scott."

[The reference is evidently to recent photographs published in the English Press of Mr Shaw reclining on a raft at a Continental bathing resort, his customary Norfolk jacket and black plus fours discarded in favour of a pair of white "shorts." Mr Charles Graves, who had the pleasure of bathing with Mr Shaw, described this scant ;«ttire and remarked, in the "Daily Mail," that "his chest, was pinkly sunburnt, his white beard was ruffled by the gentle breeze." Mr Shaw was communicative, discussing Mr Michael Arlen and denying a rumour that he was going to America to say with the Fairbanks. "A moment later he clambered down to the diving rock, 18ft above the level of the sea. For a second he poised in his short white cuts, and then positivelv hurled himself forwards and outwards. There was a loud splash; a moment later he and his beard reappeared swimming strongly on his back towards the setting sun."]