Set Down in Malice: A Book of Reminiscences

								

mild malice and he was very silent.
“Yes,” I continued. “To put it bluntly, they think that a book solely
about you would not be a success. So that they propose the first half
of the book should be concerned with you and the second half with
George Moore.”
“And the title?” he asked gently.
“Why? What do you mean?”
“Well, don’t you think The Two Mad Irishmen would go rather well?”
I floundered. If he was going to be witty or sarcastic, or anything
horrid of that kind, I should be nowhere at all. To cover my
confusion—and, as it chanced, to make that confusion worse—I began to
talk very rapidly.
“I know their suggestion is awfully stupid, but then publishers do
make stupid suggestions. That, I suppose, is why they are so
successful. Of course, George Moore and yourself——”
“Oh, George has worked awfully hard,” said Shaw reasonably. “I don’t
suppose there is a more conscientious artist living. He has dug out of
himself everything there was to be got. No one could have tried more.
As a worker, George is magnificent. But, really, when you suggest a
book——”
“No! No! I don’t suggest it for one moment,” I interrupted.
“Then what are we discussing?”
“Well, in the first instance, my publishers suggested——”
“Ha! ‘In the first instance!’ No; it really cannot be done. If you
wish to write the book nobody, of course, can stop you, but if you do
you must not expect me to countenance it. I shall wash my hands of the
whole business.”
And, in spite of some further conversation, that remained his
unshakable attitude.
An hour later he walked with me down to the station, I resolving all
the way that I would persuade my publisher to accept two books. Shaw
droned on about Sidney Webb and the Fabian Society.... So many people
have talked to me of Sidney Webb. I wonder why. I have heard Sidney
Webb speak; he knows all about figures and dates and money and wages,
and so on.... But of human nature he knows nothing; he knows less than
a child, for a child has at least intuition. Figures don’t go very
far, do they? Of course, by manipulation, you can make them go all the
way....
But, as I was saying, Shaw talked about Fabianism and Webbism all the
way to the station.
He was good enough to wait till the train started, and the last I saw
of him as I leant through the window was a long, lean figure standing
under a lamp. The figure wore no overcoat, but I noticed, even when a
hundred yards separated us, a pair of thick, home-knitted woollen
gloves....



       *       *       *       *       *
P.S.—The book was never written, for my publishers could not be
persuaded to take G.B.S. at his own or my estimate.
Mr George Moore, on being approached, wrote me from Dublin, saying,
inconsequently enough, that he had never asked anybody to write about
him nor had he ever asked anybody to refrain from doing so. On the