When Bernard Shaw was Rejected by an Editor

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 18

When Bernard Shaw was Rejected by an Editor

Among the sensations which one would expect Mr. Bernard Shaw to have left far behind him at this stage of- his career is that of having a contribution returned by an editor. Yet he recaptured that feeling within the last three years, when two great I newspapers declined to print a letter from him which was pungent, characteristic, and topical. This letter is made public only today, in tho pages of Mr. G. W; Bishop's book, "Barry Jackson and the London Theatre." The letter in question is one written in reply to an outburst by three grandsons of Edward Monlton-Barrett who had heaped abuse on Mr. Rudolf Besier for his picture of their redoubtable ancestor in "The Barratts of Wimpole Street." It is a most interesting piece of literary polomics, written with the greatest good humour, and containing a strong vindication of Mr. Besier 's good faith and good taste, says a writer in the London "Daily Telegraph." The accusation of the Moulton-Barrett family that Mr. Besier had indulged his own "filthy imaginings," is here swept aside by Mr. Shaw, who insists that Mrs; Browning's father was: "A detestablo domestic tyrant who, having by good luck a famous poetess daughter who was beloved and married by a great English poet of the finest personal character, made himself infamous by doing his utmost to separate and make them miserable in a transport of snobbery and jealousy. No dramatic poet could ignore the fact that modetrn psychology has made very short work of the pretension of such jealousy to be pure paternal piety; all that can be, said to extenuate it now is that its victims were formerly able to disguise its real nature from themslves by" a maniacal self-righteousness nourished by ecstasies of presumptuous and blasphemous prayer." The 'story of how this letter came to be refused publication is not the only interesting sidelight on Shaw in Mr. Bisjhop's book, for ho crops up everywhere in it—only less seldom, in fact," than Sir Barry Jackson himself. There iis an extraordinary fascinating instance' of Shaw's thoroughness, in the written instructions given to Mr. Scott Sunderland (in - musical terms, since author and actor shared a passion for juusic) for the playing of Cain in "Back to Methuselah." It was over "Methuselah" that Shaw and Sir Barry first caluie together. "Mr. Jackson, are your wife and children; provided for?" wrote Shaw, when asked for permission to produce this enormous work. But it; is just because ho lms no wife or childien to provide for—because ho is a wealthy bachelor who can indulge Ms enthusiasms at will—that Barry Jackson1 has been able to do so much for the : theatre in England. Nobody else could havo afforded to give us "Methuselah" or "The Immortal

Hour," to have conducted the valuable experiments with Shakespeare in modern dress, or to have established the Malvern Festival on so lavish a scale. Nobody else, for that matter, could have afforded to nurse "The Fanner's Wife" through many weeks of debility to her ultimate long and healthy life. This play, of course, made money in the end. So did "Yellow Sands," "The Apple Cart,""The Barretts of Wimpole Street," and "Evensong." All the other productions cost Barry Jackson sums ranging from £10,000 downwards. Every penny of his money

has come out of his own pocket, an<l-j has given the measure, in a form which i is comprehensible to the most material minded, of Ms devotion to the idea of a fine theatre and an enlightened public. Not the least interesting point in connection with the book by the way, is the fact that in his foreword Mr. Cocliran for the first time makes a definite statement concerning his profits in the theatre. These for the last five years have amounted to £143,000.