A LITERARY SKIT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1910, Page 10

A LITERARY SKIT.

♦ THE -. GREAT SHAVIAN DISCOVERY. The latest literary skit is one on George Bernard Shaw by a contributor to the World, and is evidently suggested (observes the Australasian^ by the Shafee-speaaw-Mountjoy records just dkmnd. It. is called "The Great Shavian Discovery," and professes to be on extract "from Harper's Magazine of the year 3010. This commentator of the far future writes :—": — " It is true that we know but little of Shaw, and that all documentary evidence regarding the great dramatist was lost in the fiscal wars and revolutionary fightings which distinguished the Edwardian era. Thisabsence of information regarding Shaw has even led certain Welsh antiquaries 1 to aflege that the name Shaw was merely a pseudonym under which George, the great Welsh Chancellor of the Exchequer, published his dramatic works. Literary critics, however, treat the suggestion with contempt. In the fragments of George's most famous composition, 'The Budget,' there is not a trace of the reflective_ philosophy of 'Candida,' not a single scintillation of wit such as may be found in every line of 'Getting Married.' One mnst admit that the silence of the writers of his day regarding Shaw is most tantalising. Although the press of the time was so unenterprising that papers were published but once a day, and half-hourly editions were uiiknown; although there were no gramophone-shouters, and crude printed placards > were placed outside shops to guide the public concerning the contents, still even in- papers conducted on such old-fashioned lines, it might be thought that there would be some reference to Shaw. Yet there is not one. The world's greatest dramatic philosopher passed unnoticed. In this we see the calculated reticence, the deliberate withdrawal of a great mind. He ignored and evaded the babblers of his day. He knew well that he was not for an age, but for all time." Another extract from this satirical essay has reference to a fragment of information supposedly 'unearthed by a professor two thousand yeai-s hence :—: — "It is a little scrap of print, perhaps from a book or a newspaper. It runs : • — ' Mr. Bernard Shaw blew his own trumpet,' and then it tantalisingly stops. Probably this refers to ono of the great patriotic demonstrations which we know took place at the beginning of the tweniaeth century, possibly when Mafeking was relieved by tho heroes Baden .and Powell. This shows us the philosopher as a man of means — a trumpet of any size cost several pounds in Edwardian moneys — but above all as a patriot. He kept a trumpet of his own — note that well — specially to celebrate the triumphs of that England of which he was the most modest, most retiring, yet most distinguished citizen."