LITERARY MORALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15551, 7 March 1914, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERARY MORALS.

MR. SHAW'S CONFESSION.

Some Berlin critics, finding a certain similarity between Mr. G..Bernard Shaw's new play. "Pygmalion," and "PeregTino Pickle," have been accusing him, whom recently they were so highly praising, ol plagiarism, and'saying that he must have had it produced in Germany in order to escape detection in England !

The amusing accusation has given Mr. Shaw ail opportunity, in a statement to a pressman, of defining quite frankly his literary morals, and, incidentally, of contrasting the culture of Berlin with that of London.

" The suggestion of t.he German papers that 1 had ' Pygmalion' produced in Germany lest I should be detected in plagiarism from Smollett shows an amusing ignorance of English culture,'' Mr. Shaw said. " The one place where 1 should have been absolutely safe from detection is London. The place where detection was most certain is Berlin, where an acquaintance with the masterpieces of English literature is quite common. "I have never read 'Peregrine Pickle," and, therefore, did not know until a Berlin correspondent pointed it out, that Smollett had got hold of my plot. He is quite welcome to it. "I may add that if I had read it the result would have been just the same. If V I find in a book anything I can make use of, I take it gratefully. My plays are full of pillage of this kind. Shakespere, Dickens, Conan Doyle, Oscar Wide, Granville Barker : all is fish that comes to my net. In short, my' literary morals are those of Moliere and Handel."