[195] Commissioner Nicol, of the Salvation Army, has pointed out that a “real” Barbara, before sending in her resignation, would have consulted General Booth as to the Army's policy in the matter of accepting “tainted money.” He relates (the Star, November 29th, 1905), that General Booth accepted one hundred pounds from the Marquess of Queensberry for his “Darkest England” project. A Christian friend was astonished that he took the “dirty money.” Said the General: “We'll wash it clean in the tears of the widow and orphan, and consecrate it on the altar of humanity for Humanity's good.” It is quite clear that Shaw's “Barbara” prefers to do her own thinking; if she had let General Booth do it for her, there would have been no play.
[196] Ibsen, by G. Bernard Shaw; in the Clarion, June, 1906.
[197] About the Theatre, by William Archer; in the Tribune (London), July 14th, 1906.
[198] About the Theatre: 'The Doctor's Dilemma' by William Archer; in the Tribune (London), December 29th, 1906.
[199] This very able and profound discussion, in which Mr. Archer gave the very fairest exposition of his real opinion of Shaw as personality and dramatist, revealed the fundamental issues of the vexed question at issue without in the least settling them.
[200] About the Theatre: The Dissolution of Dubedat, by William Archer; in the Tribune (London), January 19th, 1907.
[201] The New York Times, December 30th, 1906.
[202] 'The Doctor's Dilemma,' in the Standard (London), November 22d, 1906. Shaw's comment is characteristic: “It is a curious instance of the enormous Philistinism of English criticism that this passage should not only be unknown among us, but that a repetition of its thought and imagery sixty-five years later should still find us with a conception of creative force so narrow that the association of Art with Religion conveys nothing to us but a sense of far-fetched impropriety.” It is needless to remark that Dubedat omits God's name for the obvious reason that he does not believe in God.
[203] Shaw recently said: “I do not see how any observant student of genius from the life can deny that the Arts have their criminals and lunatics as well as their sane and honest men ... and that the notion that the great poet and artist can do no wrong is as mischievously erroneous as the notion that the King can do no wrong, or that the Pope is infallible, or that the power which created all three did not do its own best for them. In my last play, The Doctor's Dilemma, I recognized this by dramatizing a rascally genius, with the disquieting result that several highly intelligent and sensitive persons passionately defended him, on the ground, apparently, that high artistic faculty and an ardent artistic imagination entitled a man to be recklessly dishonest about money, and recklessly selfish about women, just as kingship in an African tribe entitles a man to kill whom he pleases on the most trifling provocation. I know no harder practical question than how much selfishness one ought to stand from a gifted person for the sake of his gifts or the chance of his being right in the long run.”—The Sanity of Art: An Exposure of the Current Nonsense about Artists being Degenerate, by Bernard Shaw, pp. 11-12; The New Age Press (London), 1908. This brochure is also published by Benjamin R. Tucker, New York.
[204] I have had the privilege of reading Mr. Shaw's copy of The Doctor's Dilemma. Consideration of Getting Married, Misalliance and The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, all unpublished in English at this time (November, 1910), is postponed for a subsequent edition of the present work.