The forenoon of the first of April, 1911. General Mitchener is at his writing table in the War Office, opening letters. On his left is the fireplace, with a fire burning. On his right, against the opposite wall is a standing desk with an office stool. The door is in the wall behind him, half […]

THE MAN OF DESTINY BERNARD SHAW 1898 The twelfth of May, 1796, in north Italy, at Tavazzano, on the road from Lodi to Milan. The afternoon sun is blazing serenely over the plains of Lombardy, treating the Alps with respect and the anthills with indulgence, not incommoded by the basking of the swine and oxen […]

It may surprise some people to learn that in 1915 this little play was a recruiting poster in disguise. The British officer seldom likes Irish soldiers; but he always tries to have a certain proportion of them in his battalion, because, partly from a want of common sense which leads them to value their lives […]

Maxims for Revolutionists by George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) THE GOLDEN RULE Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. Never resist temptation: prove all things: hold fast that which is good. Do not love your neighbor as yourself. If you are on […]

Notes on the editing: Punctuation and spelling are retained as in the printed text. Shaw used a non-standard system of spelling and punctuation. For example, contractions usually have no apostrophe: “don’t” is given as “dont”, “you’ve” as “youve”, and so on. Abbreviated honorifics have no trailing period: “Dr.” is given as “Dr”, “Mrs.” as “Mrs”, […]

I must remind the reader that this playlet was written when its principal character, far from being a fallen foe and virtually a prisoner in our victorious hands, was still the Caesar whose legions we were resisting with our hearts in our mouths. Many were so horribly afraid of him that they could not forgive […]

PREFACE Like many other works of mine, this playlet is a piece d’occasion. In 1905 it happened that Mr Arnold Daly, who was then playing the part of Napoleon in The Man of Destiny in New York, found that whilst the play was too long to take a secondary place in the evening’s performance, it […]

I arrived in Dublin on the evening of the fifth of August, and drove to the residence of my uncle, the Cardinal Archbishop. He is like most of my family, deficient in feeling, and consequently averse to me personally. He lives in a dingy house, with a side-long view of the portico of his cathedral […]

Writing as: JOHN TANNER, M.I.R.C. (Member of the Idle Rich Class). PREFACE TO THE REVOLUTIONIST’S HANDBOOK “No one can contemplate the present condition of the masses of the people without desiring something like a revolution for the better.” Sir Robert Giffen. Essays in Finance, vol. ii. p. 393. FOREWORD A revolutionist is one who desires […]