Widowers' Houses & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play. Bernard Shaw
eggs &c in Aerated Bread Shop in Kings Rd 10d Train Sloane Sq to Baker St 6d
46/ To a postal worker, Fabian fellow and socialist lecturer Amy Lawrence
27th January 1893
[Dear Amy Lawrence]
Widowers’ Houses is in the printer’s hands; but when it will be out of them is more than I can say.
What on earth do people mean by ‘types’? I suppose you and I are types of the people who are just like us; but that seems hardly worth saying. There was no intention to make anybody in the play more of a type than that. When you read it you will find Blanche natural enough. Owing to difficulties which the public knew nothing about & which were the fault of circumstances alone, the representation was not quite successful in bringing out the provocation under which the young lady acted.
GBS
47/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 30th January 1893
Go up to Philip Webb in the evening and bring him back [Alexander] Emonds’ essays.
Felt good for nothing. Set to work pasting up the scrap book containing notices etc. of Widowers’ Houses. Wrote to Johnson of Manchester and to Lady Colin Campbell. Did not go out to dinner, but played and sang a bit and dawdled irresolutely. Went out at about 17 and took a meal at the Wheatsheaf, after which I called on [William] Archer. Went on after that to [Philip] Webb, with whom I spent the rest of the evening very pleasantly. Talking about art, as usual, and about the proposed Socialist Alliance. Was much disturbed at night by noises in the Square. Could not get to sleep for a long time.
Soup & eggs at Wheatsheaf 1/2
48/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 13th February 1893
Monday Pop. Joachim. Fabian Central Group Meeting. 32 Great Ormond St. J. F. [Joseph Francis] Oakeshott on “Why Do We Want Socialism?” 20. Changed to 15 Museum Mansion, Russell Square, through [Graham] Wallas’s illness. St. Pancras Vestry Hall. Meeting on behalf of the Unemployed. 20.
Spent all the working part of the day drafting agreement for the publication of Widowers’ Houses, and sent it off to Henry and Co. Wrote to [John] Burns and [Sidney] Webb about the Trade Union clause in it. Took a nap before tea. Then discovered that I had not posted the World proof on Saturday night. Rushed off with it to New Street Square—too late to be of any use. Walked back and wrote several letters, especially one to Miss [Isobel E.] Priestley about her friend who wants to go on the stage.
Dinner 10d Star d Justice 1d Train to Farringdon 2d
49/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 21st February 1893
George Moore’s Strike at Arlingford at the Opera Comique. 20. Independent Theatre Society.
Corrected and sent off [Charles] Charrington’s review to the Charringtons—or rather to Janet [Achurch, his wife], for their approval. In the afternoon went out to Morris’s to submit to him the proof of the page of Widowers’ Houses just sent by the printer. He could not suggest anything better. Janie [Mrs William Morris née Burden] was there; and [Sydney Carlyle] Cockerell; and Mrs Norman [née Ménie Muriel Dowie] called whilst I was there. After the play got a cab for Bertha Newcombe and Miss [Maud] McCarthy. Home in the rain and sent off the page to Henry and Co.
Express messenger with the interview to Janet Achurch 3d Papers 1d Train to Hammersmith 4d
Back 4d Program at IT [Independent Theatre] 6d
50/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 22nd February 1893
Annual meeting of the Hammersmith District Labour Council at The Ship, Hammersmith Bridge Rd., at 20. (C. F. Brown, 21 Alexandra Rd., West Kensington Park W.). Fabian Publishing Committee. 276 Strand. 17. [Charles] Hallé’s Concert. St. James’s Hall. 20. The Manchester Band.
Miserably wet day. Got a letter from JP [Mrs Jane (Jenny) Patterson], which I burnt at the first glance. Wrote to tell her so, feeling the uselessness of doing anything else. Wrote a scrap of further preface for Widowers’ Houses; but soon gave it up, feeling out of sorts. My impression is that I am getting out of health for want of exercise. I dined here on my macaroni and then put on my mackintosh and walked up to Hampstead to Sidney Webb to consult him about Sophie Bryant’s complaints of the Technical Education Committee. But he was not there, nor his wife, both having gone out to dine. I forgot about the Publishing Committee. When I went down to the Hallé Concert, half an hour late in consequence of having been delayed by an inopportune call from [J. T.] Blanchard, I could not get in—at least there was only standing room; so I came away, rather out of temper at their not having sent me a seat. When I got home I wrote up this diary and wrote a few cards. Was rather interested in the papers because of the criticisms of [George Augustus] Moore’s play.
Papers 5d Train Finchley Rd to Portland Rd 4d
51/ To an Irish poet, playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde
28th February 1893
My dear Wilde
Salomé [Salomé is a one-act tragedy by Oscar Wilde.] is still wandering in her purple raiment in search of me; and I expect her to arrive a perfect outcast, branded with inky stamps, bruised by flinging from hard hands into red prison vans, stifled and contaminated by herding with review books in the World cells, perhaps outraged by some hasty literary pathologist whose haste to lift the purple robe blinded him to the private name on the hem. In short, I suspect that they have muddled it up with the other books in York St.; and I have written to them to claim my own.
I have always said that the one way of abolishing the Censor is to abolish the Monarchy of which he is an appendage. But the brute could be lamed if only the critics and authors would make real war on him. The reason they wont is that they are all Puritans at heart. And the coming powers—the proletarian voters—will back their Puritanism unless I can lure the Censor into attacking the political freedom of speech on the stage. I enclose you a red bill to shew you what I mean. That bill was designed by the active spirits of the dock district at the east end. Observe the H stuck into the middle of my plain Bernard (I wonder they did not make it Bernhardt), and the title ‘Democratic IDEALS,’ all their own ‘taste.’ There is political life and hope in the bill; but as far as Art is concerned, there is all Maida Vale, with the great Academic desert beyond, for them to pass through before they enter into the Promised Land—an ocean of sentimentality, dried up on the farther coast into a Sahara of pedantry. That is what we have to half fight down, half educate up, if we are to get rid of Censorships, official and unofficial. And when I say we, I mean [William] Morris the Welshman and Wilde and Shaw the Irishmen; for to learn from Frenchmen is a condescension impossible for an Englishman.
I hope soon to send you my play ‘Widowers’ Houses,’ which you will find tolerably amusing, considering that it is a farcical comedy. Unfortunately I have no power of producing beauty: my genius is the genius of intellect, and my farce its derisive brutality. Salomé’s purple garment would make Widowers’ Houses ridiculous; but you are precisely the man to appreciate it on that account
I saw [your] Lady Windermere’s Fan, in its early days, & have often wished to condole with you—since nobody else did—on the atrocious acting of it. I except Marion Terry, and I let off poor Lilian Hanbury, whose fault was want of skill rather than want of enlightenment; but all the rest were damnable, utterly damnable. I hope you will follow up hard on that tail; for the drama wants building up very badly, and it is clear that your work lies there. Besides, you have time and opportunity for work, which none of the rest of us have. And that reminds me of the clock; so farewell for the moment.
GBS
52/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 8th March 1893
Israel in Egypt [by George Frideric Handel] at the Albert Hall. Royal Choral Society.
Corrected proofs