LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18722, 3 June 1935, Page 11

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

BERNARD SHAW'S OPINION MYSTERIOUS MISSIONS CAPETOWN, May 22. Mr. Bernard Shaw, who is on holidays in Durban, said that there never was any mystery about the late Mr. T. E. Shaw (Lawrence of Arabia). Everybody knew that he changed his name twice. His mysterious missions in Asia were really visits to an Oxford street bookshop. "Colonel Lawrence was a notable military figure," said Mr. Shaw, ''but he had limitations. As a soldier he will be remembered as a guerilla general and one of the greatest descriptive historians. He had to do the most diabolical things with his own hand. He had to lay a mine and watch an approaching train and press a button to see truckfuls of Turks blown into fragments about his ears. He had personally to execute capital sentences because no Arab could do it without starting a blood feud. His steadfast refusal to make money out of his experiences shows how he felt about them. Ho was a strange fellow. He had the artless speech of a schoolboy. Powerful and capable as his mind was, I am not sure whether it ever reached maturity."