[138] Appendix I., Widowers' Houses; Independent Theatre edition. Henry and Co., London, 1893.
[139] M. Bernard Shaw et son Théâtre, by Augustin Filon. Revue des Deux Mondes, November 15th, 1905; p. 424.
[140] Mr. Shaw's Method and Secret, letter to the editor of the Daily Chronicle, April 30th, 1898, signed G. Bernard Shaw. In the first draft, the play was entitled Mrs. Jarman's Profession.
[141] It should be clearly pointed out that Shaw is in no sense indebted to Ibsen for dissatisfaction with the existent social order. The facts of Shaw's life disprove the statement of Dr. Georg Brandes (Bernard Shaw's Teater, in Politikken, Copenhagen, December 29th, 1902): “What Shaw chiefly owes to Ibsen, whose harbinger he was, seems to be a tendency towards rebellion against commonly recognized prejudices, dramatic as well as social.” Shaw's attacks upon modern capitalistic society, both in Widowers' Houses and in Mrs. Warren's Profession, are the immediate fruits of his Socialism and his economic studies.
[142] Study and Stage, by William Archer, in the Daily News, June 21st, 1902.
[143] Compare The Author's Apology, the preface to the Stage Society edition of Mrs. Warren's Profession (Grant Richards, London, 1902), pp. xxvii. and xxviii. in especial; and also Mainly About Myself, the preface to Vol. I. of Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant, pp. xxix-xxxi. in the American edition (H. S. Stone and Co., Chicago, 1902).
[144] Compare La Psychologie du Militaire Professionel, by Auguste Hamon, which appeared in November, 1893. I have no reason to believe that Shaw was under any indebtedness to this book in writing Arms and the Man.
[145] Compare the reminiscences on the Avenue Theatre production, by Mr. Yorke Stephens, who played the part of Bluntschli; Music and the Drama, in the Daily Chronicle, November 6th, 1906. It was at the première at the Avenue Theatre that Shaw, called before the audience, found himself disarmed by lack of opposition. A solitary malcontent in the gallery began to boo: Bernard was himself again. Looking up at the belligerent oppositionist, he said with an engaging smile: “My friend, I quite agree with you—but what are we two against so many?”
[146] Compare Shaw's brilliant article, A Dramatic Realist to His Critics, in the New Review, September, 1894, appearing two months after the close of the run of Arms and the Man at the Avenue Theatre. In A Word about Stepniak, in To-Morrow, February, 1896, Mr. Shaw says: “He (Stepniak) studiously encouraged me to think well of my own work, and went into the questions of Bulgarian manners and customs for me when I was preparing my play Arms and the Man for the stage as if the emancipation of Russia was a matter of comparatively little importance.... To him I owe the assistance I received from that Bulgarian admiral in whose existence the public, regarding Bulgaria as an inland State, positively declined to believe.”
[147] Der Dramatiker Bernard Shaw: in Gestalten und Gedanken, by Georg Brandes, München-Langen, 1903. “Human nature is very much the same, always and everywhere,” Shaw explained. “And when I go over my play to put the details right I find there is surprisingly little to alter. Arms and the Man, for example, was finished before I had decided where to set the scene, and then it only wanted a word here and there to put matters straight. You see, I know human nature”!