Set Down in Malice: A Book of Reminiscences

								

and Granville Barker, of Mrs Annie Besant and Janet Achurch, of
Mr Sidney Webb and the Fabian Society, of Morocco and Ancoats, of
Shorthand and Wagner, of The Manchester Guardian and H. G. Wells ...
in a word, of Shakespeare and the musical glasses.
I rather gathered that he had “got over” Karl Marx years ago, and I
inferred that he considered the work of this writer indispensable for
young cubs to sharpen their teeth upon, but that he was by no means
the last word in socialism. I think he thought that Bernard Shaw was
the last word. For Granville Barker he had even then a great regard,
and, speaking of him, he offered me some cider, a bottle of which
Barker had drunk some days previously; as he offered the cider he said
that Barker had “ridden over”—whence, I know not—on his bicycle and
that the cider had made him half tipsy.... The thought of Mrs Annie
Besant appeared to afford him vast amusement, but he spoke in terms of
high regard of Janet Achurch.
“But she uses her voice wrongly. It is quite the finest voice on the
stage and, perhaps because she knows it is so fine, she is always
trying experiments with it. For a Shakespeare passage, for example,
she will plan out what I may call a scheme of sound; sound that will
rise and fall with the passion and decline of the words, that will
intensify and grow dim as the mood waxes and wanes. But the scheme,
the design—for it is a kind of design—is nearly always too
elaborate, too involved. It is full of detail, and the detail is apt
to become more prominent than the general outline. She will start off
most magnificently, lose herself a little, recover herself, lose
herself again, and then abruptly strike a woefully wrong note.
Perhaps her ear is wrong; perhaps excitement betrays her. But, with
all her faults—and even her faults are more interesting than other
people’s excellencies—she remains a superb actress.”
Of Mr Sidney Webb I remember nothing that he said, nor have any of the
loving words he spoke of the Fabian Society remained in my memory. He
spoke of it a great deal, both at lunch and during our subsequent
walk, but somehow or other the Fabian Society has always seemed to me
a bloodless and dull sort of institution, and while he talked about it
my thoughts wandered, and I mused rather sadly over the psychology of
this man whose moral earnestness was so much greater than my own.
But I pricked up my ears when the word “Morocco” fell from his lips,
though in the event he said very little about it. I found he had no
great belief in the value of travel as a means of education, an
expander of the mind. He himself had never travelled; places and
countries so precisely fulfilled all your expectations that, really,
what was the use of going to see them? Facts, people and ideas:
nothing else aroused his curiosity.
Of shorthand he said ... well, you don’t particularly want to know