“What I really said was that I was surprised that I, who had made it my chief life-task to depict human character and human doctrines, should, without conscious or direct intention, have arrived in several matters at the same conclusions as the social-democratic philosophers had arrived at by scientific processes.
“What led me to express this surprise (and, I may here add, satisfaction), was a statement made by the correspondent to the effect that one or more lectures had lately been given in London, dealing, according to him, chiefly with A Doll's House.”
The latter statement appears to be in error; although the correspondent may possibly have had in mind some lectures, delivered by Eleanor Marx, I believe, on A Doll's House.
[125] This seems to me a very superficial judgment, and one which Shaw himself would doubtless repudiate to-day. How thoroughly inappropriate and erroneous is the use of the word “happiness” in this connection!
[126] The Author's Apology—preface to the first English edition of Dramatic Opinions and Essays, by Bernard Shaw.
[127] Le Temps, August 28th, 1905.
[128] Meredith on Comedy, in the Saturday Review, March 27th, 1897.
[129] Playhouse Impressions, article The Dramatic Critic as Pariah, pp. 5-6.
[130] Compare, for example, his ablest and most exhaustive essays on the subject: The Author's Apology to the Stage Society edition of Mrs. Warren's Profession; Censorship of the Stage in England, in the North American Review, Vol. CLXIX., pages 251 et seq.; The Solution of the Censorship Problem, in the Academy, June 29th, 1907; The Censorship of Plays, in the Nation (London), November 16th, 1907.
[131] Owing partially to mistakes in re-translation into English, partially to certain statements made therein, Shaw's article in the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna (Feuilleton: Sir Henry Irving, von Bernhard Shaw, October 20th, 1905, written shortly after Irving's death) aroused a heated discussion and controversy, which raged even in America until the Boston Transcript let the disputants down heavily by reprinting the article, which was found to be quite reasonable and absolutely void of the innuendo of which Shaw was accused, namely, that Irving had played the sycophant to obtain a knighthood. It is noteworthy that certain matters as to which Shaw was erroneously supposed to have misrepresented Irving, were solemnly and publicly denied in letters to the Times, yet when the time came for biographies of Irving to appear, they contained ample proof that Shaw might have made all the denied allegations had he chosen to do so. For the facts in the case, compare the essay in the Neue Freie Presse with the true text of the essay, in the original English, with Shaw's own notes, in the Morning Post, London, December 5th, 1905.