Major Barbara & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play

Von Bernard Shaw

The selected correspondence of Bernard Shaw relating to the play Major Barbara contains 178 letters and entries, written between 1891 and 1950. This publication from "John Bull's Other Island and Major Barbara: also How He Lied to Her Husband, Constable and Company Ltd, London, 1920" is a handmade reproduc-tion from the original edition, and remains as true to the original work as possible. The original edition was processed manually by means of a classic editing which ensures the quality of publications and the unrestricted enjoyment of reading.
Here are some inspirational book quotes from Bernard Shaw: 'When all the world goes mad, one must accept madness as sanity, since sanity is, in the last analysis, nothing but the madness on which the whole world hap-pens to agree.' 'Marx's "Capital" is as amateurish in its abstract economics as Ruskin's Munera Pulveris, or, for the matter of that, as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations; but for all that it is one of the books that has changed the mind of the world.' 'I do not say that my books and plays cannot do harm to weak or dishonest people. They can, and probably do. But if the American character cannot stand that fire even at the earliest age at which it is readable or intelligible, there is no future for America.' 'Now I want to make a suggestion to the press. I dont ask them to give up abusing me, or declaring that my plays are not plays and my characters not human beings. Not for worlds would I deprive them of the inexhaustible pleasure these paradoxes seem to give them. But I do ask them, for the sake of the actors and of Vedrenne and Barker's enterprise, to reverse the order of their attacks and their caresses. In the future, instead of abusing the new play and praising the one before, let them abuse the one before and praise the new one.' 'I regard a writer who is convinced that his views are right and sound as a very dangerous kind of lunatic. He is to be found in every asylum; and his delusion is that he is the Pope, or even a higher authority than the Pope.' 'All the faithful I have known have been rough and unsympathetic at times, all the charming persons I have known have been faithless in some of the relations of life.' 'An educated man, according to the old formula, is one who knows everything of something or something of everything.' 'But would anyone but a buffle headed idiot of a university professor, half crazy with correcting examination papers (another infamous activity pursued under economic pressure) immediately shriek that all my plays were written as economic essays, and that I did not know that they were plays of life, character, and human destiny as much as Shakespear's or Euripides's?' 'My plays are miracles of dramatic organization because I have never constructed them: there is not an ounce of dead wood in them: every bit of them is alive for somebody. To me constructed plays are all dead wood, bearable only for the sake of such scraps of sentiment or fun or observation as the artificer has been able to stick on them.' 'The cost of getting old is that one does and says things without realising what effect they may have on other people or oneself.' 'There is a point at which continuous successes will make a man believe that he can achieve anything.' 'I have honor and humanity on my side, wit in my head, skill in my hand, and a higher life for my aim.' 'It is not the story that matters but the way it is told.'

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Erscheinungsdatum: 11. Nov. 2021
• ISBN: 9783742769718

Buchvorschau

Bernard Shaw

Major Barbara & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play

Edited by Vitaly Baziyan

Copyright © 2021 Vitaly Baziyan

All rights reserved

A discussion in three acts Major Barbara, which Bernard Shaw had begun on the 22nd March 1905 and completed on the 15th October1905, was first published on the 19th June 1907 by Constable and Company Ltd. in London (John Bull’s Other Island and Major Barbara: also How He Lied to Her Husband). This publication from "John Bull’s Other Island and Major Barbara: also How He Lied to Her Husband, Constable and Company Ltd., London, 1920" is a handmade reproduction from the original edition, and remains as true to the original work as possible. The original edition was processed manually by means of a classic editing which ensures the quality of publications and the unrestricted enjoyment of reading.

The selected correspondence of Bernard Shaw relating to the play Major Barbara contains 178 letters and entries written between 1891 and 1950. Sources of this collection are prior publications Collected Letters of Bernard Shaw published by Max Reinhardt; Bernard Shaw’s Letters to Siegfried Trebitsch published by Stanford University Press; Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: a correspondence published by Constable and Co Ltd, London; Shaw on Theatre published by Hill and Wang, New York; Bernard Shaw’s Letters to Granville Barker published by Theatre Arts Books, New York; Shaw published by Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh; Advice to a Young Critic published by Peter Owen Limited, London; The Diary of Beatrice Webb published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; The Letters of Sidney and Beatrice Webb published by Cambridge University Press; edition of letters published by University of Toronto Press; Bernard Shaw: The Drama Observed published by Pennsylvania State University Press; The Letters of Bernard Shaw to the Times published by Irish Academic Press; Theatrical Companion to Shaw: a pictorial record of the first performances of the plays of George Bernard Shaw published by Pitman Publishing Corporation; Bernard Shaw on Cinema published by Southern Illinois University Press; Money and Politics in Ibsen, Shaw, and Brecht published by University of Missouri Press and Bernard Shaw: A Bibliography, in Two Volumes, Band 1 published by Oxford University Press.

George Bernard Shaw won The Nobel Prize in Literature for 1925 for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty.

George Bernard Shaw won the Oscar in 1939 for Best Screenplay and Dialogue for his role in adapting his play Pygmalion for the screen.

The book represents a significant addition to modern-day understanding of Shaw’s play Major Barbara and reveals his thoughts on a wide variety of issues, love affairs und relationships with contemporaries.

‘It is clear that Widowers’ Houses and Major Barbara, being dramas of the cash nexus (in plot), could not have been written by a non-economist,’ wrote Bernard Shaw. One can learn different kinds of investments by reading Major Barbara & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play. One can invest money in educating people, ‘encouraging research and economic study’ by founding The London School of Economics and Political Science, or one can ‘spend years of work and thought and thousands of pounds of solid cash on a new gun or an aerial battleship’.

Bernard Shaw’s punctuation and spelling were mostly kept by the editor. Italics were used for plays titles, books, newspapers and unfamiliar foreign words or phrases. Christian names, surnames, positions and ranks were added in square brackets when they were omitted but are necessary for a better understanding. Cuts of a few words are indicated by three dots and longer omissions by four dots.

The ebook cover was created by the editor using the picture of Sir John Everett Millais.

Major Barbara was first presented by John Eugene Vedrenne and Harley Granville Barker at the Royal Court Theatre in London on the 28th November 1905.

Characters

Lady Britomart Undershaft – Rosina Filippi

Stephen Undershaft – Hubert Harben

Morrison – C. L. Delph

Major Barbara Undershaft – Annie Russell

Sarah Undershaft – Hazel Thompson

Charles Lomax – Dawson Milward

Adolphus Cusins – Harley Granville Barker

Andrew Undershaft – Louis Calvert

Rummy Mitchens – Clare Greet

Snobby Price – Arthur Laceby

Jenny Hill – Dorothy Minto

Peter Shirley – Fred Cremlin

Bill Walker – Oswald Yorke

Mrs Baines – Edith Wynne Matthison

Bilton – Edmund Gwenn

Producer – Harley Granville Barker

Major Barbara was the fourth Shaw’s play to be filmed, namely at Denham Studios in England, 1940-1941. The film was first shown on the 7 April 1941 at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square cinema in London.

Characters

Lady Britomart Undershaft – Marie Lohr 

Stephen Undershaft – Walter Hudd 

Morrison – Miles Malleson

Major Barbara Undershaft – Wendy Hiller

Sarah Undershaft – Penelope Dudley-Ward

Charles Lomax – David Tree

Adolphus Cusins – Rex Harrison

Andrew Undershaft – Robert Morley

Rummy Mitchens – Marie Ault

Snobby Price – Emlyn Williams

Jenny Hill – Deborah Kerr

Peter Shirley – Donald Calthrop

Bill Walker – Robert Newton

Mrs. Baines – Sybil Thorndike

Bilton – Charles Victor

Extra Characters

Policeman – Stanley Holloway

Mog Habbijam – Cathleen Cordell

Todger Fairmile – Torin Thatcher

Snobby Price’s mother – Kathleen Harrison

Ling, a china man – S.I. Hsiung

A girl with Bill Walker – Mary Morris

Bystander – Wally Patch

Another bystander – Ronald Shiner

James, the valet – Felix Aylmer

Producer and director – Gabriel Pascal

Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play Major Barbara

1/ To a British socialist activist and fellow Fabian William Sydney De Mattos

30th July 1891

Dear de Mattos

I rather overlooked one passage in [Clerk to the Justices of Derby Henry Hunt] Hutchinson’s letter to me which seems to indicate his willingness to finance another autumn campaign. He writes:—

I am clearly of opinion that my last year’s contribution was, and is, no mistake. It has done its work well; and I am more than satisfied, and ready to do it again. The field is ready to the harvest; and I hope, the laborer will be there, after the dogdays, strong and ready to go in.

What do you make of this? If you write to him, remember that he is wildly enthusiastic about Nunquam [Robert Blatchford]. His address is 90 Green Hill, Derby (H. Hutchinson).

yrs

GBS

2/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 5th April 1893

Did not feel inclined to work hard; so did some pasting into scrap book; to begin; and then drafted a circular letter to be sent by Henry and Co., about Widowers’ Houses to several press correspondents, of whom I made a list of 50. Then walked to the Strand to buy a Fortnightly Review. Then off to FE [Mrs Emery née Florence Beatrice Farr]. We took a walk and discovered Perivale Church [Perivale St Andrews would be the name of Andrew Undershaft’s factory town in Major Barbara.] and heard an extra-ordinary performance by a nightingale close to Ealing on our way back. Wrote to Henry and Co. a second time when I got back in reply to their objection to mention other publishers in their advertisements of my other works in Widowers’ Houses.

Fortnightly Review 2/— Dinner at Orange Grove 1/3 Train Charing + to Ravenscourt Pk 6d Ravenscourt Pk to Ealing Common (2) 1/4 Westminster Gazette 1d Almonds3d , Ealing to Ealing Common (2) 4d Shepherds Bush to Portland Rd 6d

3/ A British socialist, economist, reformer, a co-founder of the London School of Economics and fellow Fabian Sidney Webb to an English writer and a founding member of the Fabian Society Edward Reynolds Pease

3rd August 1894

Private

Dear Pease

[Henry Hunt] Hutchinson is dead [shot himself on the 26th July] leaving, I am told, some £43,000 [£5,946,850.57 in 2021 according to Bank of England’s inflation calculator] or so, about half in family legacies, and the other half in trust for Socialist propaganda—Miss Constance [Hutchinson] and I sole executors—the trustees of the half to be [his daughter] Miss C. and I, together with you, De Mattos and [William] Clarke!!

Don’t tell anyone all this—we ought to keep it as quiet as we can, lest there be huge claims from everyone. It does not seem to me clear that the Will might not be disputed. Anyhow it is a great trouble.

Yours

Sidney Webb

4/ Sidney Webb to Edward Pease

25th August 1894

Dear Pease

I can’t possibly go to Glasgow. But it is an interesting move, and if you can get someone, send him. MacDonald [James Ramsay MacDonald later served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for nine months in 1924 and again from 1929 to 1931.] would be very useful there, I should think. As regards leaflets, I do not think you should count on any subsidy from the source I wrote about. It seems very possible that the whole matter will be contested, and it would be quite unsafe to rely on our getting anything. Moreover, the view that I take very strongly is that (even if it comes off) the Trustees ought to make it a strict rule not to help the ordinary, current purposes of the [Fabian] Society (or else we shall merely dry up all other contributions, and thus gain nothing at all) but that any funds should be kept exclusively for special work of a larger kind. I look for important additions to our supply of books from it: we need this more than anything. Another, I should like to attract the clever young economists to the working out of Collectivism, and thus get some ‘research’ done.

After all, the lecturing and tract distributing comes to naught unless there is some solid work of costly but not showy character going on behind it. Unless we can ‘keep up the sacred fire’ there will be no sparks to carry about presently, and the whole thing will peter out.

However, we will talk this over when the time comes. But meanwhile don’t commit us to any, even the least, liability.

Yours

Sidney Webb

5/ Sidney Webb to Edward Pease

11th September 1894

Dear Pease

I shall not be able to attend Exec. on Friday.

With regard to the legacy, things have progressed merely to point that I have now formally authorised the Derby solicitor to prove the will, and he is going to do so. I think it is necessary that a communication should be made to the Executive. Will you kindly inform them (you had better read this letter) that under [Henry Hunt] Hutchinson’s will, his daughter and I are left Executors: that after specific legacies to the family, the residue is left in trust to be administered by 5 trustees in any way they may think fit for the ‘purposes of the Fabian Society and its Socialism’ within 10 years: the trustees being myself as first Chairman, yourself, Miss Constance Hutchinson, [William] Clarke and [William Sydney] De Mattos—that there is every prospect that the sum coming to the trustees may be several thousand pounds, but that there is quite a possibility of the will being upset by the family, as there are several awkward points—and that accordingly it is of the utmost importance that it should be kept a dead secret. Nothing dries up the subscriptions so much as a rumour of a legacy, and if any word of it gets out—especially in the papers—we shall get no more money. Any sums receivable will not come in for a long time, if at all, and will not come to the Society as such. They ought moreover in any case to be applied for special objects, quite outside the Society’s usual expenditure.

Yours

Sidney Webb

6/ Sidney Webb to Edward Pease

14th September 1894

Dear Pease

The Vestry tract is as you say, urgent. Do what you can to hurry it up. Country lectures. These are important, and I would keep them up if we can possibly afford it—I cannot judge as to this. But please make it quite clear that nothing is to be expected from the Hutchinson fund for such expenses. Even if all goes well, I do not think the trustees would be wise to do anything which the Society itself is doing. If the trustees begin to meet deficits, subscriptions will fall off, and there will be no end to it. This would not in my view exclude the possibility of the trustees occasionally making a grant for some specific purpose. However, a more immediate reason is that I do not see how the trustees (even if all goes well) could be in a position to begin operations for some months to come—perhaps more—as their trust, being a residue, does not come into existence until all the other business is done. But at the present juncture I believe very much in country lecturing, and doing all we can to keep the local societies alive. Hence my vote is distinctly for going on, if the cash will at all run to it.

Yours

Sidney Webb

7/ A diary entry of a British politician, sociologist, economist, one of the founders of the London School of Economics, socialist, labour historian, social reformer, fellow Fabian and Bernard Shaw’s long-standing friend Beatrice Webb née Potter for 21th September 1894

An odd adventure! A few weeks ago Sidney received a letter from a Derby solicitor informing him that he was left executor to a certain Mr Hutchinson. All he knew of this man (whom he had never seen) was the fact that he was an eccentric old gentleman, member of the Fabian Society, who alternately sent considerable cheques and wrote querulous letters about Shaw’s rudeness, or some other fancied grievance he had suffered at the hands of some member of the Fabian Society. ‘Old Hutch’ had, however, been a financial stay of the Society and the Executive was always deploring his advancing age and infirmity. When Sidney heard he was made executor he, therefore, expected that the old man had left something to the Fabian Society. Now it turns out that he has left nearly £10,000 [£1,382,988.51 in 2021 according to Bank of England’s inflation calculator] to five trustees and appointed Sidney chairman and administrator—all the money to be spent in ten years. The poor old man blew his brains out, finding his infirmities grow upon him. He had always lived a penurious life and stinted his wife and by no means spoilt his children, and left his wife only £100 a year (which Sidney proposes should be doubled by the trustees). The children are all provided for and do not seem to resent the will.

But the question is how to spend the money. It might be placed to the credit of the Fabian Society and spent in the ordinary work of propaganda. Or a big political splash might be made with it—all the Fabian Executive might stand for Parliament! and I.L.P. [Independent Labour Party] candidates might be subsidized in their constituencies. But neither of these ways seem to us ‘equal to the occasion’. If it is mainly used for the ordinary work of the Fabian Society, then it will really save the pockets of ordinary subscribers or inflate the common work of the organization for a few years beyond its normal growth. Moreover, mere propaganda of the shibboleths of collectivism is going on at a rapid rate through the I.L.P.; the ball has been set running and it is rolling down the hill at a fair pace. It looks as if the great bulk of the working-men will be collectivists before the end of the century. But reform will not be brought about by shouting. What is needed is hard thinking. And the same objection applies to sending nondescript socialists into Parliament. The Radical members are quite sufficiently compliant in their views: what is lacking in them is the leaven of knowledge. So Sidney has been planning to persuade the other trustees to devote the greater part of the money to encouraging research and economic study. His vision is to found, slowly and quietly, a ‘London School of Economics and Political Science’—a centre not only of lectures on special subjects, but an association of students who would be directed and supported in doing original work. Last evening we sat by the fire and jotted down a whole list of subjects which want elucidating—issues of fact which need clearing up. Above all, we want the ordinary citizen to feel that reforming society is no light matter, and must be undertaken by experts specially trained for the purpose.

[Beatrice Webb]

8/ Sidney Webb to Edward Pease

24th September 1894

Dear Pease

I saw the Hutchinson brothers today. What they want is £200 [£27,659.77 in 2021 according to Bank of England’s inflation calculator] a year for their mother, instead of £100; and some ready money for her, as she is left practically penniless, and cannot draw the annuity for six months. I answered sympathetically on both points, and said I would consult the trustees. They much want a definite answer this week if possible, so I have written to Clarke and De Mattos, summoning them to a meeting of the trustees on Wednesday next, 26th inst. at noon, at Fabian office. Please attend yourself as a trustee.

Of course I think we should grant both demands. I have asked that the deceased’s books be sent direct to you, carriage unpaid—debit the trust. I have told Clarke and De Mattos, if they can’t attend, to call and see you. Please explain, and get their consent if they come.

The brothers Hutchinson propose to call on you—merely friendly, tomorrow. Be sympathetic and say you cannot pledge the others, etc.

Yours

Sidney Webb

9/ Sidney Webb to Edward Pease

27th September 1894

Dear Pease

Will you please bring before the Fabian Executive tomorrow the following position of the Trustees under Hutchinson’s will.

It appears that the estate is larger than was supposed—about £20,000—and that the residue coming to the trustees, if no opposition is made, and all goes smoothly, may amount to some £9,000.

But it has been very forcibly pressed on the Executors and Trustees by Mrs Hutchinson, by her two sons and her daughter, and by the solicitor, that it is practically impossible to leave Mrs Hutchinson with the miserable sum of £100 a year, (her bequest under the will) which is her sole resource. After considerable enquiry and discussion, it was yesterday agreed at a meeting of the trustees, to purchase for her an annuity of £200 a year, instead of the £100 and to pay her, in addition, one year’s annuity in advance (£200), as she would otherwise be without means of support. The trustees also agreed to forego any claim to the furniture and personal effects which the testator—clearly by inadvertence—left to them. The value of these is said to be trivial (not more than £20 or so).

I think it will be easily understood that these concessions, (which seem to me to be called for by common humanity) can be justified by considerations of prudent administration, as any opposition to the will on the part of the widow, even if entirely unsuccessful, would involve considerable costs.

The decision is a matter for the trustees alone, as the bequest is to them, and not to the Fabian Society. But, by strict law, the trustees have no power to make any such compromise with the family, without a friendly action at law, and an order of the Committee. As there is no person who would have any right to object, it seems unnecessary to go to this expense. But in view of the fact that the trustees’ decision might hereafter be criticised by any stray member of this or any other Socialist organisation, as diverting to private purposes funds intended to advance Socialism, the trustees would like to be fortified in their decision by an expression of approval from the Fabian Executive.

Yours truly

Sidney Webb

10/ Sidney Webb to Hutchinson Trustees

8th February 1895

After a great deal of discussion with all sorts of authorities, it seems to me clear that we should make it our main object to promote education—not mere propaganda in the parties or controversies of the hour, but solid work in economic and political principles.

The greatest needs of the Collectivist movement in England appear to me

(a) An increase in the number of educated and able lecturers and writers, as apart from propagandist speakers;

(b) The further investigation of problems of municipal and national administration from a Collectivist standpoint. This implies original research, and the training of additional persons competent to do such work;

(c) The diffusion of economic and political knowledge of a real kind—as apart from Collectivist shibboleths, and the cant and claptrap of political campaigning.

All this means attracting and training clever recruits, setting them to do work on social problems, and then using them to educate the people. Ten years of this work might change the whole political thinking of England.

We might, of course, throw ourselves unreservedly into organising a kind of ‘University Extension’ lecturing on social and economic subjects all over England. But the difficulty would be to find the staff of lecturers, able and trained in our questions, sympathetic to our views, and really competent to do what we want. I do not know more than one or two such persons who would be at all likely to be available for the work. A mere increase in the number of Socialist orations, however good, is not what we want.

Moreover, even from the propaganda side the material needs ‘freshening’. We have all rather worked ourselves out. New investigations and original research—historical, statistical, economic and political, is indispensable. We want, too, new blood.

Putting together all these views and requirements it seems to me that we should do well to establish two distinct sides to our work, and develop each of them as circumstances demand. We need a School of Investigation and Research; and we need educational lecturing to spread the results of such a school. At first, the investigation and research should take the greatest place. Gradually the educational lecturing might expand as we obtained lecturers.

The following outlines may serve as a basis for discussion.

The London School of Economics and Political Science

To arrange for original lectures on all topics within its scope: to pay well for such lectures, and to order them in advance, so as to secure new work; to be scientific, not partisan; to be under a Director, who should receive a salary, part of his time, perhaps taking always one course of lectures. The object of the School to be primarily research, and the training of researchers—the public lecturing being only a part of the purpose (a means rather than the end). The subjects I thought about as such as we could take up at once and get good work done are the following. (Chosen rather because I know of suitable men available.)

The History of the Regulation of Wages by Law, and its results.

Growth and development of English Working Class movement (Chartism, etc.).

The Working of Democratic Machinery (home and foreign).

Arbitration and Conciliation, Sliding Scales, etc. Railway Economics.

Factory Act experiments.

Of course many other topics could be suggested, when the men can be found. I can see my way to starting such a School in London next October, if it can be agreed upon at once. The experiment would not cost more than £500 [£69,953.49 in 2021 according to Bank of England’s inflation calculator] for the first year. It would make a great public sensation, and would, I am convinced, ‘catch on’. If not, it need not be continued.

I should propose that £500 be appropriated to the purpose, and the experiment be tried. I can give details at the meeting.

I believe such a School could get support from the Technical Education Board, to enable it to have other lectures—e.g. on Currency, Commercial Geography, etc. — which would supplement ours.

In connection with the School, we should I think, start a series of publications (say half-a-crown books). Not more propaganda but serious and original studies, or else translations and reprints. These would pay their way, if well done, but we should have to find the capital. It would be all-important to start with volumes of solid and real merit. I have thought of the following:

Translation of [Nicolas] Condorcet’s Vie de Turgot, with introduction and notes (The Economist as Administrator).

Documents illustrative of the Legal Regulation of Wages.

Documents illustrative of the Industrial Revolution.

These two proposals, viz.

£500 to start, experimentally, a London School of Economics and Political Science;

£150 for the Fabian Society to organise, during 1895-6, country lecturing on the ‘University Extension’ plan are all that I make at present. These two plans (with their developments) would, if successful, soon take all our funds, and I suggest trying the experiments first.

[Sidney Webb]

11/ Sidney Webb to Edward Pease

9th June 1895

Dear Pease

You will have seen that the ‘London School’ is launched into publicity. [William Albert Samuel] Hewins is taking 9 John St but meanwhile enquirers should be referred to him at 26 Leckford Road, Oxford. I think that the Fabian Society had better be kept quite out of it for the moment; hence please be absolutely discreet. The right answer is to say that it is done by trustees, of whom Webb is Chairman. It is better not even to give the names of the trustees, and certainly not to mention [Henry Hunt] Hutchinson. Above all, show no one the copy of the will. It is vital to get started without any compromising suspicions. I shall leave here Friday, and be back in London next Monday, 17th June.

Yours

Sidney Webb

[PS] I have suggested to Hewins to consult you as to clerical assistance (could not Miss [Isobel E.] Priestley give him some hours a day for a small sum?) and furniture.

12/ Beatrice Webb’s diary entry for 28th March 1896

Our time, for the last five weeks, a good deal taken up with writing ‘begging letters’ for the Political Science Library. This winter the rapid growth of the School of Economics made new premises inevitable. But how to raise the money? The Technical Education Board which, under Sidney’s chairmanship, subsidizes most of the lectures, could not be asked to find premises, and the funds of the Hutchinson Trustees are not inexhaustible. A brilliant idea flashed across Sidney’s mind. We needed, for the use of the students, books and reports—why not appeal to the public to subscribe to a Library of Political Science? At first we thought we could get a millionaire to subscribe the whole amount on condition that he called it by his own name. In vain I flattered [John] Passmore Edwards, in vain Sidney pressed Sir Hickman Bacon, in vain we wrote ‘on spec’ to various magnates. The idea did not impress them. So we decided to scrape money together by small subscriptions. Sidney drafted a circular, [William] Hewins secured the adhesion of the economists and then began a long process of begging letter-writing. Sidney wrote to all the politicians, I raked up all my old ball partners, and between us we have gathered together a most respectable set of contributors, a list which is eloquent testimony to our respectability! Next week the appeal goes out for publication to the press. Even if we collect a comparatively small sum, the issue of the appeal has been a splendid advertisement to the School; and whatever we do get is so much spoil of the Egyptians. Not that we want to deceive the contributors. We are perfectly bona fide in our desire to advance economic knowledge, caring more for that than for our own pet ideas. And anyone who knows us knows our opinions, and all the money has been practically sent to us personally, so that the contributors are fully aware in whom they are placing their confidence. All this has interfered with our book. I am fagged out—have no value left in me. And during these last months I have been weak and foolish and allowed myself to brood over old relationships. I am absolutely happy with Sidney—our life is one long and close companionship, a companionship so close that it is almost a joint existence. But I shall never quite free myself from the shadow of past events, or, rather, I shall always be subject to relapses. These broodings are the special curse of a vivid and vigorous imagination, unoccupied in my present dry work of analysis and abstractions. Perhaps a holiday on the Westmorland moors will clear these vain imaginings away. I must some day write that novel and work in all these brilliant scenes I am constantly constructing.

[Beatrice Webb]

13/ Beatrice Webb’s diary entry for 18th April 1896

Whilst we were at the Lakes, had furious letters from J.R. [James Ramsay] MacDonald [the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for nine months in 1924 and again between 1929-1931] on the ‘abuse of the Hutchinson Trust’ in the proposal to contribute to the Library of Political Science. J. R. M. is a brilliant young Scot, lately I.L.P. [Independent Labour Party] candidate for Southampton, whom we have been employing as Hutchinson Trust lecturer in the provinces. These lectures are avowedly socialistic, but from the first Sidney has insisted that both MacDonald and Enid Stacy should make them educational, should issue an elaborate syllabus of a connected course with bibliographies, etc. And apparently they have been extremely successful. But MacDonald is personally discontented because we refused to have him as a lecturer for the London School. He is not good enough for that work; he has never had the time to do any sound original work, or even learn the old stuff well. Moreover he objects altogether to diverting ‘socialist funds’ to education. Even his own lectures, he declares, are too educational ‘to make socialists’—he wants an organizer sent about the country: ‘Organize what?’ asked Sidney. MacDonald dared not reply ‘I.L.P. branches’, which he meant, neither could he suggest organizing Fabian societies, as it has always been against the policy of the Fabians to ‘organize’ people, its function being to permeate existing organizations. The truth is that we and MacDonald are opposed on a radical issue of policy. To bring about the maximum amount of public control and public administration, do we want to organize the unthinking persons into socialist societies, or to make the thinking persons socialistic? We believe in the latter policy.

[Beatrice Webb]

14/ Beatrice Webb’s diary entry for 20th February 1900

. . . Meanwhile, our schemes for London University prosper. The School is recognized as the Faculty of Economics. We have secured a site and money for a building and an income of £2,500 [£326,956.52 in 2021 according to Bank of England’s inflation calculator] from the T.E.B. [Technical Education Board] to be spent on economics and commercial subjects. Sidney will be a member of the Faculty and represent the Faculty on the Senate. Best of all, he has persuaded the Commission to recognize economics as a science and not merely as a subject in the Arts Faculty. The preliminary studies for the economics degree will therefore be mathematics and biology. This divorce of economics from metaphysics and shoddy history is a great gain. We have always claimed that the study of the structure and function of society was as much a science as the study of any other form of life and ought to be pursued by the scientific methods used in other organic sciences. Hypothesis ought to be used, not as the unquestioned premise from which to deduce an unquestioned conclusion, but as an ‘order of thought’ to be verified by observation and experiment. Such history as will be taught at the School will be the history of social institutions discovered from documents, statistics and the observation of the actual structure and working of living organizations. This attainment of our aim—the starting of the School as a department of science—is the result of a chapter of fortunate accidents. There was the windfall of the Hutchinson Trust, then the selection of [William] Hewins as Director, the grant from the T. E. B. towards commercial education, the coming of [Dr Mandell] Creighton to London and the packing of the University Commission. Again it is fortunate that in the heated controversy over denominational education Sidney inclines by conviction to the right. He has no prejudices against variety of religious belief even if the variety includes the orthodoxy of the Church of England. And we have had two very good friends helping us—[Richard Burdon] Haldane and the Bishop of London [Mandell Creighton], both of them trusting us completely in our own range of subjects. Of course the School is at present extremely imperfect: its reputation is better than its performance. But we have no illusions and we see clearly what we intend the School to become and we are convinced that we shall succeed.

[Beatrice Webb]

15/ Beatrice Webb’s diary entry for 28th February 1902

. . . J.R. [James Ramsay] MacDonald, Sidney’s old enemy in the Fabian Society, slipped into the Council at an uncontested by-election and apparently spends his time in working up the feeling against the Technical Education Board and Sidney’s administration of it. He is anxious to get on to it, and Sidney is doing his best to get him in, believing that an enemy is always safer inside than outside a democratic body. But it means friction and a good deal of bickering. MacDonald does not hesitate to accuse Sidney of taking advantage of his position to favour the School of Economics, an accusation which is perfectly true, though we think absolutely harmless. In administration you must advance the cause which you think right and are therefore ‘interested’ in. The unpleasant sound of the accusation is conveyed by the double meaning of the word ‘interested’ which in most men’s mouths means pecuniarily interested. We believe in a school of administrative, political and economic science as a way of increasing national efficiency, but we have kept the London School honestly non-partisan in its theories. Otherwise ‘interested’ we are not, unless the expenditure of our own energy and money on an institution be termed ‘interested’. And Sidney’s energies have by no means been exclusively devoted to the subjects he is intellectually interested in. He has, I think, been quite exceptionally catholic in his organization of secondary, technical and university education in London, alike in the class of students to be provided for and the range of subjects taught. Heaven knows there are arrears to be made up in politics, economics and the science of administration. . . .

[Beatrice Webb]

16/ Bernard Shaw’s article Notes on the Clarendon Press Rules for Compositors and Readers contributed to the Society of Authors’ quarterly journal The Author

1st April 1902

Spelling generally

I always use the American termination or for our. Theater, somber, center, etc., I reject only because they are wantonly anti-phonetic: theatre, sombre, etc., being nearer the sound. Such abominable Frenchifications as programme, cigarette, etc., are quite revolting to me. Telegram, quartet, etc., deprive them of all excuse. I should like also to spell epilogue epilog, because people generally mispronounce it, just as they would mispronounce catalogue if the right sound were not so familiar [also Shakespear and shew instead of Shakespeare and show]. That is the worst of unphonetic spelling: in the long run people pronounce words as they are spelt; and so the language gets senselessly altered. 

Contractions

The apostrophies in ain’t, don’t, haven’t, etc., look so ugly that the most careful printing cannot make a page of colloquial dialogue