Hardfur Huttle
Terence de Vere White
The Playwright and the Pirate Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris: A Correspondence Edited with an introduction by Stanley Weintraub (Colin Smythe £11.50) We have recently had the Shaw and Douglas correspondence; now comes Shaw and Frank Harris — appetisers while we wait for the main course, the final volumes of Shaw's collected letters. Shaw was wonderfully tolerant of ruffians, but he never hesitated to tell Harris he was one, Or that Mrs Shaw was tearing the pages out of Harris's My Life and Loves and burning each one separately. She had forbidden him the house.
The correspondence stretches from a fragmentary start in 1895 when Harris had employed Shaw to write dramatic criticism for the Saturday Review to 1931, shortly before Harris died in Nice. He had been try- ing, with the help of a ghost, to write a life of Shaw, incorporating as much from Shaw's letters as the great man would per- mit. Shaw was being rather inconsistent, making difficulties about the inclusion of his letters although he had answered Harris's questions at considerable length' and he was quite happy to think Harris sold the autographed manuscripts — it was his way of giving Harris financial assistance. When Harris asked for £500 in cash, Shaw was at pains to inform him that what with income tax, the upkeep of two motor cars etc., he made a point of not answering beg- ging letters. Harris took exception to that expression, but did not show his cloven hoof until Shaw advised him to put his play about St Joan in the wastepaper basket' Harris, pathetically, had hoped to cash in on Shaw's success with the same subject. Shaw remained imperturbable. If Shaw made difficulties when Harris was alive, he took over the writing of the book about himself when Harris died, to help the widow. He had sent her money' Kindness? Certainly, but Shaw had an un- controllable itch to write about himself, as other biographers discovered. Harris in- vited old-fashioned epitaphs: 'cad', `adven- turer', were automatic. On further acquat tance, descriptions become more specific: `pro-German' (when Britain was at war), `pornographer', 'blackmailer'. Max Beer- bohm, when asked if Harris ever told the t,rath, replied, 'Sometimes, don't you Know, when his invention flagged.' Why did Shaw bother to write to him, and sometimes at immense length? He was grateful, for one thing. After Years of impoverished struggling, Shaw had been given by Harris a platform of which he made brilliant use. He was alive to the pathos of the reversal of their respective fortunes: the influential editor had become a discredited scrounger, while the aspiring Journalist was the world's most celebrated Playwright. All to Shaw's credit. Harris had the knack of drawing more out of Shaw than any other inquisitor, in particular the almost precise details of Shaw as an amorist. As an Irish gentleman of his generation, he was anxious not to outrage his wife's feelings. After confession came doubts: he asked Harris to change 'perma- nent whore' to 'mistress' in his text. Harris wrote in his turn begging for shifts in the other direction. 'Gallantries' was an absurd rendering of `copulations'. What Shaw was at pains to establish was that his passion had gone into music and art. He saw himself speaking for the giants, for Mozart and Michelangelo, when he pro- tested against the modern annexation of the word 'passion' for the sexual impulse ex- clusively. Florence Farr complained that Shaw as a lover never stopped talking. He told Harris as much and explained it as a courtesy to the lady. He doubted if, except cal one occasion, he had ever given as much Pleasure as he received in amorous ex- changes.
Harris was disillusioned by America, complaining that it was not like Europe. Shaw said this was to be expected; Harris was unreasonable. Then he launched into an attack on his own account. He would be afraid to go to the United States himself without the President's safe-conduct. '‘ )1(,I;aerica has the morals and outlook of a
century village with a development of capitalism which only a very highly- organised Socialism and an ultra-modern freedomof thought could control.' (Was the awarding and witholding of capital let- ters deliberate?)
Weintraub has been kind to Shaw. Stanley ,'enitraub and all the devoted editors of his ;Fle. rs, so far, have been Americans. Mr i,Neintraub once made an autobiography rel. Shaw out of his writings; some of that is veneated here. Apart from a sense of dela u,.thls is Shaw at his best. A living por- ira!t, half-length, emerges from the whole, whlle Harris withers under close inspection. Be wearies of his endless spitting into the d. There is a toothless ferocity in the lniniscences of ancient pirates and, ta,°wever colourful on first acquaintance, ie liar always becomes a bore at last. This ofaf,Y explain why books about Harris start Th at a sPanking trot and then run down. away Welshman born in Galway who ran trwaY and became cowboy, scholar, linavel,ler, mystic, explosive editor, chartered
an e, with his loud voice, short legs, ud monstrous moustache, sounds like
marvellous biographical material, but in the hands of the modeller the wax melts. So much was bluff hiding uncertainty. There was something shoddy under his recklessness. Brendan Bracken, in the next generation, put up a more solid perfor- mance in a not dissimilar role.
Here Harris provides a sounding-board for Shaw; otherwise he would sink without trace. He is immortal in another place. As Mr Hardfur Huttle, Mr Pooter met him at dinner. 'A marvellously intellectual man and says things which from other people might seem quite alarming', Pooter decid- ed. Carrie wanted to speak and he was relieved when she was interrupted. 'She is not clever at argument, and one has to be extra clever to discuss a subject with a man like Mr Huttle.'
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