PORTRAIT IN ENVY.

Southland Times, Issue 21662, 26 March 1932, Page 11

PORTRAIT IN ENVY.

Frank Harris on Shaw. A Biographical Debate. That friends, should not speak ill of the dead is recognized as a dictum of gentility, but in the case of “Bernard Shaw” by Frank Harris, we have the case of the dead speaking ill of his friend. Harris, whose life of Oscar Wilde was a sensational piece of biographical writing, and whose “Contemporary Portraits” had the virtue of being stingingly brilliant, set out with the idea of writing a frank biography of Shaw, and to acquire information to clear up some obscurities, bombarded Shaw with interrogatory letters. Shaw replied with patient generosity, though he insisted all along that Harris should write his own book. Harris qtioted many of the letters, and then added to the debt he owed his victim by leaving him to correct the proofs. In the circumstances the work of “seeing” one’s own biography through the press was rather a tall order, but Shaw was eqtial to it, and at least it gave him the chance to add an explanatory chapter, showing that he had not interfered with Harris's work, and had, therefore, assumed no responsibilities. He also put his finger on one or two of Harris’s personal pecularities and assisted to clear up some matters which needed attention.

A biographer’s first need is an understanding of his subject, and it is clear in this remarkable book that the letters Shaw

wrote to elucidate some obscurities merely left Harris deeper in the fog, because undoubtedly Harris could not understand Shaw. The biography, then, contains much that for biographical purposes is without value, unless the reader is alive to tho fact that Harris, who so persistently and so vociferously took the wrong side, wrote always with a pen weighed by the pre-

judices of his fleshy hand. This biography except in the letters, reveals Harris instead of Shaw, disclosing him as a man pursued by envy and by the consequences of his own weaknesses.’ He befriended Shaw, when the Adelphi sage was young by using him as a dramatic critic. Harris would have admitted that this was courageous, he would have shouted that it was a shrewd selection; but it is more probable that Harris’s main purpose was to shock. Harris was an antagonist. He seemed to assume that he must be right if he took the course opposed to the opinion and advice of others. As Shaw has said, breaking the household crockery is no part of an iconoclast’s duty, but Harris would rate Shaw as a poor idol-smasher because his home life was happy, and would point to a heap,of smashed cups and saucers as evidence of his own fidelity to the true gods. Shaw wrote vigorously and with kick—and probably Harris selected him for dramatic critic of the Saturday Review. This antagonism and desire to shock was carried by Harris to excess, and it gave point to Oscar Wilde’s sneer that Harris was “received-at the best houses.. .. once.” It was impossible for such a man to understand Shaw, and failing to under.’ stand, Harris became envious. For instance, he could never understand, not to the day of his death, why Shaw could succeed, and Harris, who was more brilliant, more vigor, ous, more honest, more worthy, had to be content to “skip blithely one or two days ahead of bankruptcy.” The context reveals the falsity of that word “blithely.” Certain-

ly he offers explanations which depend on the point that Shaw by failing as a dramatist, as a critic, as a philosopher, made a success of things financially, while Harris was too honest to himself to follow this

track. As the book proceeds Harris’s disappointment becomes firmer and finally he arrives at the conclusion that Shaw has failed and that, except for one or two of his early plays, will not live. He is an astute debater, and certainly he puts his finger on the point that Shaw’s plays were written with some player in mind to sustain the principal character. Referring to Shaw’s remark to Ellen Terry “I am a good ladies’ tailor,” Harris writes: It was perhaps more by good tailoring than by flattery, persuasion, sarcasm, humour, or straight convincing arguments that he managed to get Alma Murray, Kate Rorke, Lillian McCarthy, Ellen Terry, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Sybil

Thorndyke, Fanny Brough, Grace George, Gertrude Elliott, Gertrude Kingston, Winifred Lenihan, Phyllis Neilson-Terry, Forbes Robertson, Ilichard Mansfield, Arnold Daly, Louis Calvert, Herbert-Beer-bohm Tree, Robert Lorraine, Cedric Hardwicke, everybody, in fact, but Henry Irving, - into his cast. You can see how well he digested the old saw about hitching your wagon to a star.

But here Harris was anticipated by Shawjs own admission, and was too late as he was with studies of Joan of Arc and Christ — Shaw seems to have been a move ahead with distressing frequency.

In many ways Harris repeats the wellworn charge that Shaw’s prominence is due chiefly to a persistent and skilled use of publicity; but while these things may bo supported by powerful evidence Harris lets himself down when he wipes away all suggestion that Shaw has influenced the literature or the thought of his time.

He has a good argument in declaring that the test of a philosopher's success is a body of doctrine and disciples, but when he deprives Shaw of disciples he is wrong. Yet despite the fact that he is not a philosopher, he was the first readable philosopher’s digest for many young men thirty years ago. He gave life a meaning that the dried-out sermons of their pastors had destroyed. But aftgr you had read all Shaw has written and said, you realized that his mentality was comically befuddled. His thinking was a broth stewed by an Irishman of the most varied schools of thought—chiefly from Schopenhauer, Strindberg Butler, Bergson, Morris, Nietzsche, Marx, Tolstoy, Ibsen and Wagner. But he still has his disciples and the English stage shows his influence (apart from Ibsenism) in a handful of ways.

Cumberland once wrote a series of sketches under the title “Set Down in Malice,” although there was really very little of a malicious nature in them. Frank

Harris’s study of Shaw might have been called “Set Down in Envy—an Unexpected Autobiography by Frank Harris written because Shaw was not a financial failure.” Shaw’s efforts to avoid writing this book for Harris were justified, but still the best parts of the book are those which come from Shaw’s pen in the form of letters— Shaw is a delightful correspondent. It cannot be called a reliable work; but it is brimming with entertainment and admirers and foes of G.B.S. will enjoy it hugely. Harris writes pungently at times, though roughly and he has the knack of making his readers believe he is being terribly indiscreet. He succeeds, whether he intended it or not, in revealing GB.S. as a gentler, a more desirable friend than the Shavian works have suggested and in that way he has added his to the various blows at the citadel of ferocity raised by Shaw’s pen. The Shaw-Terry letters did the same thing, of course. Shaw is a professional devil,' who is a perfect angel when off duty. Shaw made a fortune by telling the world unpleasant truths uiider the guise of one who sympathized with the foolishness of

fools; Harris’s method was to be unpleasant . . . and be kicked out unheard.

Hanis, being as far apart from Shaw as porterhouse steak is from threepennyworth of macaroni, as far as brandy is from water, could not possibly write his subject; but he nroduced a portrait which is vivid because the artist is Harris, a man of great, if wasted talents. Harris writes with animus and at times he finds the bull’s eye —his admiration for “Candida” for instance, and his estimate of “Mrs Warren’s Profession,” but his misses are more frequent than his hits. And his best strokes are not new. It is entertaining and amusing where Harris struggles in vain to understand Shaw’s attitude to sex. Harris, the fleshly critic, secs Shaw as a Puritan (a fair proposition) but that discovery only tangles the puzzle a little more for Harris, who cannot see his fellow Irishman because a fellow’ called Frank Harris stands in the way. An entertainin'’ book, but a debate rather than a biography with the verdict going to Shaw with his £lO,OOO a year and away from the unfortunate Harris. “Bernard Shaw” by Frank Harris, is published by Messrs Gollancz Ltd., London.