BERNARD SHAW

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 28, 2 August 1934, Page 5

BERNARD SHAW

A CHAEACTEE STUDY

ONE OF WORLD'S GREATEST MEN

An interesting study of the character and personality of G. B. Shaw was supplied by Professor G. W. yon Zcdlitz in his final W.E.A. lecture on the great dramatist at the Trades Halt on Tuesday evening. T,hc speaker referred at tho outset to tho four essential gifts which go to tlio making of the world's greatest men, and included a masterly knowledge of the world's affairs and tho whole range of science, art, and literaturo in their own epoch as well as of tho past; an actual practical contact with human beings in all walks of life, and not mere theoretical knowledge of men; a conception of the best that is possible in humanity, and which transcends the narrow outlook engendered by every-day life, and its limitations; and the creative power in human endeavour. Professor yon Zedlitz stated that very few people combined all these' characteristics in one person, and not even Aristotle or Shakespeare would rank among them. Dante possessed all four of these gifts' in himself, and Ibsen, Nietsche, Wagner, and. Anatole France some of them. Each of theso men would bo superior to Shaw, although his gifts were sufficiently multifarious to allow. him to bo compared with Wagner and Ibsen, and he also bore sonio resemblance to Anatolo France. Siiaw was unquestionably tKo most important and distinguished citizen in the British Empire today, and that gave him a fairly high place in the realm of the world's greatest human beings. MOST BRILLIANT JOURNALIST. Shaw was also the most brilliant journalist who lias yet lived, and he had always been quite genuinely moved by a passion of service to humanity. Shaw's influence in encouraging and stimulating men and women to think had been tremendous, and he had achieved this far more through tho reading of the prefaces and epilogues to his plays than by the actual witnessing of his plays performed. They made excellent reading, and contained possibly even better work than the plays themselves. It was in his prefaces that Shaw stated his views on .-scientific and economic subjects, and they were so cleverly written that there was raiely a page one would care to pass over without careful study. Professor yon Zcdlitz stated that Shaw had always been exceedingly well acquainted with tho trend of events in Europe during his lifetime and knew what was happening in the world of human thought, but ho knew things rather as a journalist knows them than as a man engaged in scientific research. Ho had a wide knowledge of a great varisty of subjects acquired during his long experienco as a journalist, and had the car of tho public to listen to his views. SHAW'S SELF PORTRAIT. In writing of his career Shaw says:— "My training has enabled me to produce an impression of being an extraordinarily clover, original, and brilliant writer, deficient only in feeling, wheroas tho truth is that, though I am in a way a man of genius, yet I am not in the least naturally brilliant, and not at all ready or clever. If literary men generally were put through the mill I went through, aud kept out of their stuffy little coteries, where works of art breed in and in until tho intellectual and spiritual product becomes hopelessly degenerate,. 1.. should have a thousand rivals more brilliant than myself. There is nothing moro mischievous than tho notion'that'my works are tho mere play of a delightfully clever and whimsical hero of tho salons; they are the result of perfectly straightforward drudgery, persevered in every day." THE IRISH TEMPERAMENT. Bhaw held his notions with fervour, and presently rejected them with equal fervour, and his Irish temperament had made him a slave to his sense of tho ridiculous. Ho had alwaj s preferred to amuse rather than be impressive, and this had handicapped him somewhat in getting tho public to takp him seriously. Shaw, said tho lecturer, had been mainly concerned all his life with getting things done, and ho had made a distinction between any reorganisation of society which could bo reached with little alteration and inconvenience, and a reformation that could only bo accomplished by a chaotic upheaval. Ho appealed to the practical side cf man's nature by pointing out that certain social reforms would bo worth whilo as a business proposition, and he made a great contribution to society through his work on municipal bodies. Shaw had used his great natural gifts in public-spirited caus.es, as he believed that his lifo belonged to tho whole community, and it was his privilcgo to do for it whatever he could. Ho rejoiced in life for its own sake, and declared that "the harder he works the moro he lives."

At the close of the lecture Professor yon Zedlitz was accorded a hoarty vote of thanks, on the motion of Dr. Sutherland.' ■ •. • • •