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2-3 Actors/Characters 8 Sample Scenes

4 Synopsis 9 Shaw Biography

5 Themes 11 England in the 1890s

6 Discussion Questions 12 Shaw's Contemporaries

7 Sample Scenes 13 Shaw Quotes

Study Guide content by: Kate Farrington & Carol Schultz

Layout by: Jessi Blue Gormezano ~ September/October 2013

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You Never Can TellYou Never Can TellYou Never Can TellYou Never Can Tell by George Bernard Shawby George Bernard Shawby George Bernard Shawby George Bernard Shaw

The play takes place on one day in August, 1896, at an English seaside resort – in a dentist’s office,

at a restaurant in The Marine Hotel and in the Clandons’ apartment at The Marine Hotel.

Mrs. Lanfrey ClandonMrs. Lanfrey ClandonMrs. Lanfrey ClandonMrs. Lanfrey Clandon The mother of Dolly, Philip and Gloria. The author of a number of modern feminist writings; the estranged wife of Mr. Crampton Mrs. Clandon is played by Robin Leslie Brown.

Philip Clandon Philip Clandon Philip Clandon Philip Clandon Son of Mrs. Clandon, twin brother to Dolly Philip Clandon is played by Ben Charles.

Mr. Fergus Crampton Mr. Fergus Crampton Mr. Fergus Crampton Mr. Fergus Crampton Valentine’s landlord, Mrs. Crandon’s estranged husband, and, as is quickly revealed, father to Dolly, Philip and Gloria Fergus Crampton is played by Bradford Cover.

Finch McComas Finch McComas Finch McComas Finch McComas Former suitor of Mrs. Clandon, now acting as her lawyer, helping her in business and legal matters Finch McComas is played by Dominic Cuskern.

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Walter Boon Walter Boon Walter Boon Walter Boon The head waiter at the hotel restaurant, father to Walter ‘Bohun’, called William by Dolly and Philip Walter Boon is played by Dan Daily.

Mr. ValentineMr. ValentineMr. ValentineMr. Valentine A dentist. Mr. Valentine is played by Sean McNall.

Gloria ClandonGloria ClandonGloria ClandonGloria Clandon Daughter of Mrs. Clandon, older sister to Dolly and Philip Gloria Clandon is played by Amelia Pedlow.

Walter BohunWalter BohunWalter BohunWalter Bohun Son of Walter Boon, now an important attorney to the Queen of England, has changed the spelling of his last name to distance himself from his father Walter Bohun is played byZachary Spicer.

Dorothea (Dolly) ClandonDorothea (Dolly) ClandonDorothea (Dolly) ClandonDorothea (Dolly) Clandon Daughter of Mrs. Clandon, twin sister to Philip Dolly Clandon is played by Emma Wisniewski.

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SynopsisSynopsisSynopsisSynopsis At a seaside resort, the young dentist, Valentine, extracts a tooth from his first patient, the voluble Dolly, who has just arrived with her family from Madeira. Her equally voluble twin brother, Philip, appears, and at once they invite the dentist to lunch. They are joined at the dentist’s office by their mother, the famous Mrs. Clandon, authoress of social-reform treatises; and by their elder sister, Gloria, who is her mother’s haughty disciple. Valentine promptly falls in love with Gloria, though she initially seems to have no interest in him. Believing she has no need of a husband and her children have no need of a father, Mrs. Clandon, though pressed by Valentine and the children, refuses to tell her children who their father is (she separated from him when the children were very young, and they haven’t seen him since); and she leaves. At that time, Valentine’s landlord, the ill-tempered Fergus Crampton appears, wanting an aching tool pulled. Valentine bets the six weeks rent that he owes Crampton that he can extract the tooth without Crampton feeling it. Crampton agrees, and Valentine pulls off the feat, surreptitiously using a bit of anesthetic. The twins immediately invite Crampton to also join them for lunch. Later in the day, on the terrace of the resort hotel, Mrs. Clandon and her three children meet with her solicitor, Finch McComas, before lunch. McComas is an old friend of Mrs. Clandon and at one time a suitor, but is now simply her efficient solicitor. Mrs. Clandon has invited him to lunch to tell her children about their long-lost father. However, they quickly learn of the coincidence that Valentine’s landlord, Crampton, is none other than the father they can’t remember. Their dismay at such a discovery is somewhat allayed when they learn he is wealthy. At that time Valentine and Crampton arrive, and Crampton is greatly upset by the unexpected meeting with his family. The luncheon party threatens repeatedly to blow up, and is saved only by Walter Boon, the “perfect waiter,” who diplomatically smoothes everyone’s feelings and tells them of his son, a distinguished attorney for the queen. After lunch, Gloria infuriates Crampton with her cold rationality, but is herself completely thrown off balance by Valentine’s “sensible and scientific” courting methods. Later that same day, the wild-spirited twins explain to their mother that Gloria’s recent emotional and out-of-character behavior is due to her having fallen in love. Valentine adds that he has won Gloria by using “thoroughly modern” scientific methods in the “duel of sex.” However, when Gloria hears that Valentine has loved other women, she furiously rejects him. McComas, in the meantime, reports that Crampton is demanding custody of the twins and observes that, though Crampton is uncouth, he is a kind man who has been unfairly dealt with in the separation deal. He further convinces Mrs. Clandon to agree to arbitration by the waiter’s attorney-son, who is soon to visit. That evening, during a masked ball, the visiting attorney expertly brings about a friendly reconciliation between the members of the family – and between Valentine and Gloria. It appears that Gloria, too, has had a number of romantic relationships, a fact that shocks and enrages Valentine but also opens the way for their peacemaking and engagement. As all dance the evening away, Valentine, “the defeated Duellist of Sex,” ruefully observes that he feels like “a married man already.” The waiter, Walter, comforts him about marriage: though his wife, like Gloria, “was of a commanding and masterful disposition,” his marriage turned out very well. “I’d do it again, I assure you,” he tells Valentine. “You never can tell, sir.” (Synopsis provided by the Utah Shakespeare Festival)

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TTTThemeshemeshemeshemes

The Dynamics of Family RelationshipsThe Dynamics of Family RelationshipsThe Dynamics of Family RelationshipsThe Dynamics of Family Relationships

“There are two sorts of family life, Phil; and your experience of human nature only extends, so far, to one of them. The sort you know is based on mutual respect, on recognition of the right of every member of the household to independence and privacy in their personal concerns. And because you have always enjoyed that, it seems such a matter of course to you that you don’t value it. Bu there is another sort of family life: a life in which husbands open their wives’ letters, and call on them to account for every farthing of their expenditure and every moment of their time; in which women do the same to their children; in which no room is private and no hour sacred; in which duty, obedience, affection, home, morality and religion are detestable tyrannies, and life is a vulgar round of punishments and lies, coercion and rebellion, jealousy, suspicion, recrimination – Oh! I cannot describe it to you: fortunately for you, you know nothing about it.” – Mrs. Clandon Breaking away from parents' values and beliefs Breaking away from parents' values and beliefs Breaking away from parents' values and beliefs Breaking away from parents' values and beliefs ---- Growing UpGrowing UpGrowing UpGrowing Up

Gloria: Mother!

Mrs. Clandon (hurrying to her in alarm): What is it, dear?

Gloria (with heartfelt, appealing reproach): Why didn’t you educate me properly?

Mrs. Clandon (amazed): My child: I did my best.

Gloria: Oh, you taught me nothing – nothing.

Mrs. Clandon: What is the matter with you?

Gloria (with the most intense expression): Only shame – shame – shame.

RomaRomaRomaRomance, Love and Marriagence, Love and Marriagence, Love and Marriagence, Love and Marriage

“Cheer up, sir, cheer up: every man is frightened of marriage when it comes to the point; but it often turns out very comfortable, very enjoyable and happy indeed, sir – from time to time. I never was master in my own house, sir: my wife was like your young lady: she was of a commanding and masterful disposition, which my son has inherited. But if I had my life to live twice over, I’d do it again, I’d do it again, I assure you. You never can tell, sir: you never can tell.” – Waiter

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Discussion QuestionsDiscussion QuestionsDiscussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions Does this play, written around 1900, seem modern to you in any way? Does the single-motherhood of Mrs. Clandon relate to single-motherhood today? What about the absentee (although not by choice) fatherhood of Mr. Crampton? Shaw believed that children should be pushed out of the nest as soon as possible, even when they were Dolly and Philip’s age (the late teens)? Do you agree with this? Do you think you could survive on your own at your age? When do you think children should begin looking after themselves? How much parenting do you think children need? What do you think about Mrs. Clandon’s parenting style? Has she been a good parent to her children? In becoming a world-famous authoress?

In hiding their father’s identity from them? She is a woman with extreme expectations for herself and her children. Has she been at all neglectful? What do you think about the Walter Boon/Walter Bohun relationship? Why did the son distance himself from the father? Was he right to do that? Could you identify circumstances where you might do that? Is there a bond or affection between them?

Left: Menswear Ad, Evening Wear. WALTER BOON inspired image. Right: "A Woman in Red and a Waiter with a Forked Beard" by Georges Goursat. WAITER aka WALTER BOHUN inspired image.

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Sample SceneSample SceneSample SceneSample Scenessss Valentine and Gloria, end of Act IIIValentine and Gloria, end of Act IIIValentine and Gloria, end of Act IIIValentine and Gloria, end of Act III

Valentine: I understand. I’ve stayed too long. I’m going.

Gloria (with disdainful punctiliousness): I owe you some apology, Mr. Valentine. I am conscious of having spoken somewhat sharply – perhaps rudely – to you.

Valentine: Not at all.

Gloria: My only excuse is that it is very difficult to give consideration and respect when there is no dignity of character on the other side to command it.

Valentine (prosaically): How is a man to look dignified when he’s infatuated?

Gloria (effectually unstilted): Don’t say those things to me. I forbid you. They are insults.

Valentine: No: they’re only follies. I can’t help them.

Gloria: If you were really in love, it would not make you foolish: it would give you dignity –

earnestness – even beauty.

Valentine: Do you really think it would make me beautiful? (She turns her back on him with the coldest contempt) Ah, you see you’re not in earnest. Love can’t give any man new gifts. It can only heighten the gifts he was born with. Gloria (sweeping round at him again): What gifts were you born with, pray?

Valentine: Lightness of heart.

Gloria: And lightness of head, and lightness of faith, and lightness of everything that makes a man.

Valentine: Yes, the whole world is like a feather dancing in the light now; and Gloria is the sun. (She rears her head angrily.) I beg your pardon: I’m off. Back at nine. Goodbye. (He runs off gaily, leaving her standing in the middle of the room staring after him.)

Crampton and McComas, Act IVCrampton and McComas, Act IVCrampton and McComas, Act IVCrampton and McComas, Act IV

McComas: Crampton: I can depend on you, can’t I? Crampton: Yes, yes. I’ll be quiet. I’ll be patient. I’ll do my best. McComas: Remember: I’ve not given you away. I’ve told them it was all their fault.

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Crampton: You told me that it was all my fault. McComas: I told you the truth. Crampton (plaintively): If they will only be fair to me! McComas: My dear Crampton, they won’t be fair to you: it’s not to be expected from them at their age. If you’re going to make impossible conditions of this kind, we may as well go back home at once. Crampton: But surely I have a right – McComas (intolerantly): You won’t get your rights. Now, once for all, Crampton, did your promises of good behavior only mean that you won’t complain if there’s nothing to complain of? Because, if so – (He moves as if to go.) Crampton (miserably): No, no: let me alone, can’t you? I’ve been bullied enough: I’ve been tormented enough, I tell you I’ll do my best. But if that girl begins to talk to me like that and to look at me like – (He breaks off and buries his head in his hands.) McComas (relenting): There, there: it’ll be all right, if you will only bear and forbear. Come, pull yourself together: there’s someone coming. (to Gloria who is just entering the room) There he is, Miss Clandon. Be kind to him. I’ll leave you with him for a moment. Valentine and Gloria, Act IIValentine and Gloria, Act IIValentine and Gloria, Act IIValentine and Gloria, Act II Valentine: Oh, Miss Clandon, Miss Clandon: how could you? Gloria: What have I done? Valentine: Thrown this enchantment on me. I’m honestly trying to be sensible – scientific – everything that you wish me to be. But – but – oh, don’t you see what you have set to work in my imagination? Gloria (with indignant, scornful sternness): I hope you are not going to be so foolish – so vulgar – as to say love. Valentine (with ironic haste to disclaim such a weakness): No, no, no. Not love: we know better than that. Let’s call it chemistry. You can’t deny that there is such a thing as chemical action, chemical affinity, chemical combination – the most irresistible of all natural forces. Well, you’re attracting me irresistibly – chemically. Gloria (contemptuously): Nonsense! Valentine: Of course it’s nonsense, you stupid girl. (Gloria recoils in outraged surprise.) Yes, stupid girl: that’s a scientific fact, anyhow. You’re a prig – a feminine prig: that’s what you are. (Rising.) Now I suppose you’ve done with me for ever. (He goes to the iron table and takes up his hat.) Gloria (with elaborate calm, sitting up like a High-school-mistress posing to be photographed): That shows how very little you understand my real character.

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George Bernard Shaw: Taking Center StageGeorge Bernard Shaw: Taking Center StageGeorge Bernard Shaw: Taking Center StageGeorge Bernard Shaw: Taking Center Stage

In his late 30s, Shaw offered wise words to an aspiring young artist: “You must not think that because you only heard of me for the first time the other day or thereabouts that I got such reputation as I have cheaply. I came to London in 1876 and have been fighting for existence ever since. . . .In London all beginners are forty, with twenty years of obscure hard work behind them; and, believe me, those obscure twenty years are not the worst part of one’s life.”

George Bernard Shaw was thirty-eight when he launched his long and remarkable career as a playwright and dramatic critic. His life soon became a subject for public scrutiny and enjoyment: people sought his opinion on everything from politics to religion to dietary habits. But no one becomes an icon overnight. Shaw’s success, his future development as an artist, and his relationship to his public developed out of his childhood experiences and the skills he cultivated as a young man, both as a writer and as a speaker.

He was born on July 26, 1856 in Dublin, Ireland into a household defined by what he called “shabby-genteel poverty.” His father, George Carr Shaw, was a failed businessman but wildly successful alcoholic whose only lasting inheritance to his son was a loathing of hard liquor. A genial, unambitious man, George Shaw never succeeded at anything. His son had little tolerance for him, and spent years trying to distance himself even from his father’s name, signing his letters “G.B.S” or “G. Bernard Shaw.” When George Shaw died in 1885, his son did not attend the funeral.

Shaw grew up surrounded by musicians and their music. His mother, Bessie, had long since ceased to find any joy in her marriage (Shaw doubted she derived much happiness from her children either) and sought sanctuary in music. She studied piano with the composer George John Vandaleur Lee, who brought to the Shaw household an endless stream of fellow musicians and hopeful students. Young George, a neglected boy moving between an unreliable father and a distant mother, clung fast to the emotion and passion he heard in music, and this early exposure would shape his critical writing for years to come. Shakespeare, for example, was not to be admired as a thinker, or idealist, but as a composer of words. The beauty, Shaw insisted, lay in the sound and not the substance of Shakespeare’s words. Music remained for Shaw the most sublime art form.

In the absence of a satisfactory home life, the boy Shaw spent endless hours in the Dublin museums, attended concerts, and read voraciously. (He particularly adored The Arabian Knights and had a remarkable knowledge of Dickens.) Eager to prove what books had taught him, he began to write, turning out a small literary journal with a friend when he was fourteen. But Shaw always maintained that the studies of his childhood nurtured his mind, never his emotions. He once described his early days to the actress Ellen Terry in grim tones: “a devil of a childhood, Ellen, rich only in dreams, frightful and loveless in realities.”

When Shaw was seventeen, Bessie left her husband. The family’s financial troubles had come to a head, and she emigrated to London with Shaw’s older sisters. Shaw remained in Dublin for another three years working as a clerk until he too was ready for a change. In 1876 he left his father and joined his mother in the bustling life of London. He would call the city home for decades to come.

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Shaw’s first years in London were grueling. He had no money, no job, and no useful connections. He felt himself “handicapped by poverty, shyness, awkwardness and all the miseries of weak immaturity.” But difficult as these years may have been, they were productive and filled with promise. Between 1876 and 1890, Shaw embarked on a self-constructed educational mission. He began to speak at various public meetings, on any and all subjects, developing his skills as an orator until he became a sought-after lecturer. He explored political philosophies, eventually embracing socialism and joining the newly founded Fabian Society, which agitated for social reform. He dabbled in music and art, and studied economics, politics, and literature. He also became a lifelong vegetarian. (“Animals,” he declared, “are my friends . . . I don’t eat my friends.”)

And he wrote--no less than five pages a day, a routine he sustained almost to the end of his long life. It was not until the 1890s, with Shaw already well into his thirties, that he turned an appraising eye to the theatre.

Shaw sprang into action. “I turned my hand to playwriting when a great deal of talk about ‘the New Drama’ followed by the actual establishment of a ‘New’ theatre threatened to end in the humiliating discovery that the New Drama, in England at least, was a figment of the revolutionary imagination. I had rashly taken up the case, and rather than let it collapse, I manufactured the evidence.” The result was Widowers’ Houses, Shaw’s first play. He followed it with The Philanderer and Mrs. Warren’s Profession. The critics shrugged, dismissing the works as didactic and preachy—all head and no heart. Very well, said Shaw--and penned a comedy.

After the disappointing response to his first three plays, Shaw was utterly flummoxed by the very different reception that his third play received. “I had the curious experience of witnessing an apparently insane success…and of going before the curtain to tremendous applause, the only person in the theatre who knew that the whole affair was a ghastly failure.” He had hoped that his exposure of romantic and heroic posturing in love and war would challenge, even anger the audience. Instead they reveled in the wit and humor of the piece, ignoring (or at least downplaying) the serious message behind the laughs. But the public’s response, incomprehensible as it was, took his breath away. He liked being a hit—and wanted to do it again.

Between his first success in 1894 and his death, Shaw produced another forty-plus plays. Among the most famous are Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, John Bull’s Other Island, Major Barbara, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, and Back to Methuselah. He remained deeply involved in his political work—he served on the executive board of the Fabian Society for many years, watching as the small group grew and helped found a new political party (the British Labor Party). In the early part of the twentieth century, Shaw supported the women’s suffrage movement and insisted on equal wages and political rights for women. Though he grew reclusive in his later years, he continued to write every day. He joked that “Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”

At his death in 1950, Shaw was one of the most recognizable men of his age. As a man whose first glimmer of success didn’t appear until he was nearly forty, one wonders what the shift from obscurity to icon must have been like for him. Knowing Shaw, he was undoubtedly certain that everything had turned out exactly as it should. Nothing less than the center of the world stage would have been large enough for him. Not that he was immodest about his stature. “I dare not claim to be the best playwright in the English language” he once demurred; “I believe myself to be one of the best ten.”

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Shaw’s Terrain: England at the Fin de SiècleShaw’s Terrain: England at the Fin de SiècleShaw’s Terrain: England at the Fin de SiècleShaw’s Terrain: England at the Fin de Siècle (1890's) (1890's) (1890's) (1890's)

The term “Shaw’s England” poses some difficulties. Which of Shaw’s many Englands do we mean? Shaw arrived in London in 1876 and lived there on and off for fifty years. In his ninety-four years he lived through the reigns of five British monarchs, witnessed the devastation of two World Wars, and saw a radical transformation of world politics. Telephones, telegrams, electricity, movies, automobiles, and airplanes: when we speak of Shaw’s England, we mean both the world before and the world after these many marvels. Shaw stands amid them like a fixed point, watching the years spin around him.

Fin de siècle London was the largest city in the world. By day it moved at a dizzying speed, its trams and Underground (the first subway system in the world) filled to bursting. By night, it was a marvel of lights—by then more often electric than gas—that astonished tourists. The city was a kaleidoscope of amusements and distractions. Popular music halls staged lavish ballets, tumbling acts, and provocative “Living Pictures” (tableaus based on works of art and usually incorporating scantily clad young women). One could stroll through the city’s many parks and tea gardens, catch an impassioned political diatribe in Hyde Park’s “Speaker’s Corner” (Shaw was known to declaim there in his younger years), or settle down to view one of the many football, golf, or cricket games going on all over the city.

Signs of the ongoing Industrial Revolution—factories, rail yards and gasworks—littered the urban landscape, and the city was swollen with the ranks of the working poor. Politicians and social reformers debated endlessly over health and humanitarian issues. Could capitalism be browbeaten into protecting its workers? Many of London’s best and brightest began to study other political philosophies, seeking a new direction for England’s economic future. If Marx and communism were never embraced wholeheartedly by the Victorians, his influence nonetheless led to the Socialist Fabians. They envisioned a classless England, and a new way of life.

“New” was the watchword for the Nineties. Everything must be New: New Politics, New Fiction, New Journalism, New Drama, New Art, New Art Criticism—and, of course, the New Woman. One journalist joked that all of fin de siècle London had “a morbid fear of being out of date.” Drama and literature strove to reach new levels of relevance (with varying levels of success). William Morris’s book News From Nowhere (1890) explored the possibilities of a Utopian society. In 1893 Oscar Wilde mocked Victorian morals with Lady Windermere’s Fan. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Second Mrs. Tanqueray debated the justice of condemning a woman “with a past.” “Life had few problems,” one artist recalled. “We were young, and, though we were hard up, existence around us seemed assured, with British imperialism moving towards its zenith.”

But the heady brilliance of the age flared out quickly. Looking back, even the contemporary term fin de siècle now seems infused with a certain foreboding and uncertainty about the coming age. For the British artistic community, the watershed event of the decade was the 1895 arrest of Oscar Wilde for “gross indecency” (code, in this instance, for homosexual activity, illegal at that time). For years English moralists had muttered about the increasingly provocative representations in art. Now they had their vindication. Wilde was a monster: his work should be shunned, and his influence avoided. To make matters worse, at his arrest Wilde was rumored (falsely, as it turns out) to have been carrying a copy of The Yellow Book. The publication quickly died.

England’s flood of literary innovation did not cease abruptly in 1895; Shaw alone would go on to produce another four plays before 1900. But a reactionary conservatism crept back into the public debate on art, and the unbridled optimism of the early Nineties faded into memory. And with the coming of the First World War, more than just a siècle—a century—came to an end. That war, and all that came from it, would be part of “Shaw’s England” too.

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Shaw’s ContemporariesShaw’s ContemporariesShaw’s ContemporariesShaw’s Contemporaries

In 94 years, Shaw amassed a great many “contemporaries.” The 1890s in particular boast some of the most original writers in the English language.

Oscar Wilde (1854Oscar Wilde (1854Oscar Wilde (1854Oscar Wilde (1854----1900)1900)1900)1900) Works: Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), An Ideal Husband (1895), The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Oscar Wilde loved being notorious. A Dubliner like Shaw, he earned a reputation as a Hedonist, and as an advocate of “art for art’s sake.” He delighted the public with his sharp wit and eccentric behavior (Shaw once rebuked him for attempting to bring knee-breeches back into fashion). But his dazzling career imploded in 1895. His long affair with Lord Alfred Douglas led to his arrest and imprisonment for homosexual activities. Society shunned him; actors even refused to perform in his plays. Defeated, he traveled Europe aimlessly for several years before dying in Paris, alone and penniless.

“Shaw has not an enemy in the world; and none of his friends like him.” ~ Oscar Wilde

H. G. Wells (1866H. G. Wells (1866H. G. Wells (1866H. G. Wells (1866----1946)1946)1946)1946) Works: The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), War of the Worlds (1898)

Known now for his pioneering science fiction Wells was an outspoken socialist. He began his career as a teacher, writing novels in his spare time and eventually eloping with one of his students. He joined the Fabian Society in 1903, but continuously butted heads with its senior members. On one notable occasion he demanded the immediate dismissal of the executive board for dragging their feet over an issue he had raised months before. A tense silence followed his speech. A fellow Fabian recounts how Shaw (a member of the executive board) took the platform:

“Mr. Wells in his speech complained of the long delay by the ‘Old Gang’ in replying to his report. But they took no longer than he. During this committee’s deliberations, he wrote a book on America. And a very good book too. But whilst I was drafting our reply I produced a play.” Here he paused…it really seemed that he had lost his train of thought. When we were all thoroughly uncomfortable, he resumed. “Ladies and gentlemen, I paused there to enable Mr. Wells to say: ‘And a very good play too!’ ”

"We laughed [says the narrator] and went on laughing Wells, also on the platform, smiled self-consciously; . . . [he] withdrew his amendment and we all trooped out in search of refreshment." ~ S. G. Hobson

Henry James (1843Henry James (1843Henry James (1843Henry James (1843----1916)1916)1916)1916) Works: The American (1877), Turn of the Screw (1898), The Ambassadors (1903)

Henry James was an American expatriate. His pensive novels often portray men and women discovering that they have missed opportunities in life or been inadequate to meet the world’s challenges. He wrote twelve plays, most of which critics dismissed as aloof and unemotional. Shaw did not always like James’s plays, but he admired his intent.

“I am not in Mr. James’s camp: all the life that has energy enough to be interesting to me—subjective volition, passion, will—make intellect the merest tool. But there is in the center of that cyclone a certain calm spot where cultivated ladies and gentlemen live on independent incomes or by pleasant artistic occupations. It is there that Mr. James’s art touched life.”

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Shaw Quotes Shaw Quotes Shaw Quotes Shaw Quotes

Shaw most certainly had a way with words. Here are a handful of noteworthy Shaw quotes:Shaw most certainly had a way with words. Here are a handful of noteworthy Shaw quotes:Shaw most certainly had a way with words. Here are a handful of noteworthy Shaw quotes:Shaw most certainly had a way with words. Here are a handful of noteworthy Shaw quotes:

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. Youth is wasted on the young. Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself. People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself. Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. There is no love sincerer than the love of food. People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them. A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world. All great truths begin as blasphemies. Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute. You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.