00000008_2.htm

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

combined to offer an opportunity not to be neglected. My
interest in the subject deepened witji my knowledge. It became
my aim to write—not a Rougon-Macquart history of modern
thought in twenty volumes—but an account of the movements
of a most interesting period, the last quarter of the nineteenth
;and the opening decade of the twentieth centuries, & propos of
Bernard Shaw. As the work progressed, Shaw warned me—
and the reporters—that in attempting his biography I had un-
dertaken a " terrific task," an opinion endorsed by others. I
remember one day being introduced to Mr. Bram Stoker as
Bernard Shaw's biographer; whereupon he remarked with
genuine feeling in his tone: " I can only say that you have my
profoundest sympathy!" Soon after I had fairly embarked
upon the undertaking, in fact, Shaw pointed out to me its
magnitude. " I want you to do something that will be useful
to yourself and to the world," he wrote in February, 1905; " and
that is, to make me a mere peg on which to hang a study of the
last quarter of the nineteenth century, especially as to the col-
lectivist movement in politics, ethics and sociology; the Ibsen-
Nietzschean movement in morals; the reaction against the ma-
terialism of Marx and Darwin; the Wagnerian movement in
music; and the anti-romantic movement (including what people
call realism, materialism and impressionism) in literature and
«rf "

<jM. !»••...

Jf IQuring the progress of the work I beheld Shaw conquer Amer-
"^*f ica, then Germany, then England, and, lastly, the Scandinavian
countries and Continental Europe. I realized that my subject,
beginning as a somewhat obscure Irish author, had thrown off
the garb of submerged renown, taken the public by storm, and
become the most universally popular living dramatist, and the
most frequently paragraphed man in the world. No British
dramatist—not even Shakespeare!—had conquered the world
during his lifetime; yet Shaw, just past fifty, had succeeded in
turning this cosmic trick. Clippings, pictures, journals and
books poured in upon me from every quarter of the globe. I
discovered that Shaw was a man with a past as well as a genius
with a future, and I realized the truth of his cryptic boast that
he had lived for three centuries.



	AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION combined to offer an opportunity not to be neglected. My interest in the subject deepened witji my knowledge. It became my aim to write—not a Rougon-Macquart history of modern thought in twenty volumes—but an account of the movements of a most interesting period, the last quarter of the nineteenth ;and the opening decade of the twentieth centuries, & propos of Bernard Shaw. As the work progressed, Shaw warned me— and the reporters—that in attempting his biography I had un- dertaken a " terrific task," an opinion endorsed by others. I remember one day being introduced to Mr. Bram Stoker as Bernard Shaw's biographer; whereupon he remarked with genuine feeling in his tone: " I can only say that you have my profoundest sympathy!" Soon after I had fairly embarked upon the undertaking, in fact, Shaw pointed out to me its magnitude. " I want you to do something that will be useful to yourself and to the world," he wrote in February, 1905; " and that is, to make me a mere peg on which to hang a study of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, especially as to the col- lectivist movement in politics, ethics and sociology; the Ibsen- Nietzschean movement in morals; the reaction against the ma- terialism of Marx and Darwin; the Wagnerian movement in music; and the anti-romantic movement (including what people call realism, materialism and impressionism) in literature and «rf " <jM. !»••... Jf IQuring the progress of the work I beheld Shaw conquer Amer- "^*f ica, then Germany, then England, and, lastly, the Scandinavian countries and Continental Europe. I realized that my subject, beginning as a somewhat obscure Irish author, had thrown off the garb of submerged renown, taken the public by storm, and become the most universally popular living dramatist, and the most frequently paragraphed man in the world. No British dramatist—not even Shakespeare!—had conquered the world during his lifetime; yet Shaw, just past fifty, had succeeded in turning this cosmic trick. Clippings, pictures, journals and books poured in upon me from every quarter of the globe. I discovered that Shaw was a man with a past as well as a genius with a future, and I realized the truth of his cryptic boast that he had lived for three centuries.