A GLOBAL PERSONALITY
Between the age of 48 and 57, Bernard
Shaw became famous all over the world. He was able to keep his mother
in
comfort for the last ten years of her life but she took no interest in his activities as
he thought. She never read a world of her son’s music criticism. Once he said she
must have read ‘Misalliance’. In 1912 he refused an invitation saying that his
own mother (82) has just had a stroke. The following year his mother died. He was never on
bad terms with her.
They lived together until he was 42 years old without any kind of the smallest friction, yet her death set him thinking curiously about their relation and he realized that he knew very little about his mother.
He had a great interest of knowing how things were done. Technicalities delighted him and he liked visiting laboratories and peeping at bacteria through the microscope.
He took interest in all kinds of machine tools like pianos, gramophones, wireless and calculators. He experimented for hours with his cameras and was never tired of talking about photography to people.
He bought a motor-bicycle when he was 60 and rode it to factory for 77 miles. Until he was past 80, his favorite exercises were motoring and swimming. He said "As an Irishman I dislike washing myself but I cannot do without the stimulus of a plunge into cold water."
He also said that he never played games as no one liked to play with him because he didn’t care whether he won or lost and flatly declined to bother about counting scores when he was amusing himself.
When he was exhausted by overwork, he
would go into a dark room and lie for hours flat on his back on the floor
while all his muscles relaxed.
His clothes were different from everyone else and perhaps symbolic of his inner self. The collars were always soft and he didn’t wear a shirt, because he believed that it was wrong to swaddle one’s middle with a double thickness of material. He made a suit of clothes which acquired an individual characteristic of him.
He was not fond of children though children were fond of him because he never patronized them and treated them as adult equals.
Like all sensible men he hated war knowing it as it was criminal, but recognizing its inevitability while the world was governed by imbeciles and criminals.
Russian food suited Shaw. He was fond of Kasha, ‘The best porridge in the world’. Black bread and cabbage soup were for him an ideal diet. The dozens of cucumbers which were served at every Russian meal did not disappoint him and he soon got used to the soup appearing at the end of the dinner instead of the beginning as a starter. Shaw’s greatness is not in his beliefs but in his humor, not in his preaching but in his personality. Shaw defined Capitalism as the system by which the wealth of the country is not in the hands of the nation but of private persons like landlords, financiers or industrialists. This system produces inequality of income. It cheapens labor causes misery, crime and disease. |
He believed in Socialism because he believed that it would create a more honorable way of life by removing the inducements of selfishness, antisocial behavior and irresponsible individualism.
Bernard Shaw knew little Latin and less Greek having been at a school where they were taught little. He spoke neither Latin nor Greek fluently except his own, but could understand French and a smattering of German. He could collect the news in Italian and Spanish.
His Irish brogue, his hearty and frequent laugh, habit of gleefully rubbing his hands vigorously while talking, his lively gray blue eyes and the way he used to fling his hands at these things gave liveliness and charm to his monologues.
