(8.Nov.’25) Today is Wednesday and it’s a bit chilly out there and hence perhaps a good day for penning a few of my usual ultra short reviews of some recent finds in the ongoing dutch book sales at Vangsgaards here in downtown Cph. (Each book was either dkr 10 or 15 (1,50 or 2 USD approx.).
1. ‘G.B.S. – A POSTSCRIPT’. By Hesketh Pearson. London 1951, Collins. 190 p. Bound in original reddish cloth (like two other books I own abt. Shaw, by the way! Could this be according to a wish from Shaw himself? (I think it could!)). There is a nice index in the back of the book.
In the preface the author says:
‘The first part of this book deals with the difficulties I experienced while writing my LIFE OF BERNARD WHAW. It describes my talks with him, my successful attempts to extort intimate confessions from him, our constant disagreements, his outbursts over some of my inferences, and his repudiations of many stories that have grown up around his personality.
‘This early portion, therefore, concerns the years 1939-40, when, with his active assistance, I was busy painting his portrait; and though every conversation was written down soon after it took place, these ten chapters were composed early in 1941 at the conclusion of my labours on his biography, a few passages being added to ‘A Shawian Production’ following the death of Granville-Barker.
‘The second part describes Shaw’s life from the date reached in my biography to the end of his career. They are thus a Postscript to that biography, which told his story up to the end of 1939 and was published in 1942. During those last years I was in frequent touch with him, and always knew what he was doing.
‘Our arguments on all sorts of subjects, from Shakespeare to Stalin, were noted down by me immediately after their occurrence, and this part of the book contains verbatim records of our more notable encounters. He also remembered things about his past which had escaped his memory while I was writing his Life, and so I have been able to provide many fresh side-lights on himself and his contemporaries.’
This so far seems to augur for an interesting read for anyone having the inclination, the book and the leisure.
Here is a titbit chosen at random (from p.39):
‘The general impression conveyed by the writers of political reminiscences is that Shaw was constantly mounting the cart in Hyde Park, but he assured me that this was not so: ‘I was not a Hyde Park orator, the West End not being my hunting ground (I preferred the dock gates). Of course I spoke there at the May Day celebrations and other big demonstrations, as every other speaker did; but I can remember only one ordinary propaganda meeting at which I spoke. It rained like mad all the time and my audience consisted of four policemen. I spoke very well in my effort to convert them’.
Facing p.100 there’s a photograph of Shaw’s wife, Charlotte. It’s made by Shaw himself and really quite good. I knew Shaw dabbled in photography – not as commonplace in 1901 as today – and he was obviously not without a certain degree of proficiency.
Another titbit (from page 129). The chapter THREE SCORE YEARS AND THIRTY begins like this:
‘The year 1946 saw shaw’s ninetieth birthday, but the Labour Government made no gesture of recognition. As the Webbs and he had done more than anyone to found the parliamentary Labour Party, its quiescence on this occasion may seem curious.
‘But against the fact that a British Government is perhaps the only government in the world that would have passed such an event unnoticed, we must remember that no other government in the world would have had the chance to celebrate it. Long before his seventieth year his fate in other countries would have been decided.
‘In France he would almost certainly have been assassinated; in the United States, if the treatment of Eugene Debs is anything to go by, he would have been gaoled for life, in Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Japan he would have been ‘liquidated’.
That he was tolerated and unmolested in England proves, what in his better moments he used to admit, that we are the only civilised, or rather semi-civilised, great power in the world’.
Certainly, mr. Shaw – but how things change?
Incidentally, while writing this, a nice lady – while her friend turned his back – just smiled to me from a facing table in this café. Thank you nice lady – I know I’m looking somewhat intense when writing braille on my Mac while fixing the text in one of the books surrounding me, something perhaps somewhat unlike anyone surfing their smartphone?
2. ‘Die Franzoesische Litteratur Am Hofe Der Herzoege Von Burgund’. Dissertation von Oskar Richter, Eisleben. Halle a.S. 1882, 45 p. Bound in contemporary half calf.
From page 6 (that’s really page 1 of the text) I quote:
‘Das Aufsteigen der Herzoege von Burgund, das tragische Ende des letzten derselben bei Nancy, ist wie ein Phaenomen, das sich am Himmel erst schwach zeigt, dann mit Riesenschnelle bis tu seiner schoensten Pracht zunimmt, und dann jaeh verschwindet.
‘Die letzten Herzoege genossen das Ansehen und uebten die Macht von Koenigen, zu der ihnen nur der Titel fehlte; ihr Name verbreitete sich ueber Frankreich und Deutschland, ja ueber alle Theile der civilisierten Welt, mit denen die niederlandischen Staedte in Handelsbeziehungen standen.
‘Man darf dreist behaupten, dass die Herzoege einen guten Theil ihres Ruhmes den niederlandischen Besitzungen verdankten, wie sie auch dort fuer die Befriedigung ihrer Prunkliebe die geeignesten Werkzeuge fanden. Dort war die eigentliche Quelle ihres Reichthums, welche unerschoepflich erschien.’
From p. 15: ‘Das Hauptverdienst der Litteratur am herzoglichen Hofe ist die Ausbildung der Prosa.’ Mr Richter then relates about the most prominent authors from the period 1363 to 1477, among whom I confine myself to mention only one, and very briefly:
George Chastelain. Er wurde geboren in der Grafschaft Alost in Flandern um 1404, und lebte bis 1474. Er fuerte ein abenteuerliches Leben, das er dann aufgab, und wendete sich der wissenschaftlichen und dichterischen Thaetigkeit zu. Sein Hauptwerk ist die ‘Chronique des Ducs de Bourgogne’, die uns nur zerstreut und in Bruchstuecken erhalten ist; wenn sie vollstandig erhaltlen waere, wuerde sie 15-20 Octavbaende fuellen.
This Chronique ends with the year 1474. A volume in octave would normally be the size of an ordinary lexicon!
3. NEUE GEDICHTE. Von Ludwig Weiss (Louis Carolath). Als Manuscript gedruckt bei den Gebr. Unger, Berlin 1855. 48 p.
Obviously this slim book in octave has now only any interest at all due to it’s provenience and other bibliophile qualities, if only because it short poems are printed in german blackletter, which should make it just about as arcane for modern Copenhageners as any french book?
The binding is in high quality black, or perhaps very dark-green leather, with gilt patterns on front and back and gilt edges. The title-page has a stamp saying: ‘Privat Bibliothek des Fürsten Heinrich de Carolath-Beuthen’. Below another stamp with a ducal(?) crown and initials that I cannot read; they might possibly be L-C, but very abstruse.
This small book is now only of interest to a bibliophile collector, which I’m definitely not. But for 2 dollars it’s nevertheless a curious buy. Incidentally I would venture the guess, that perhaps only abt. 200 were printed, and not for sale to the public?
Beuthen is the small city an der Oder, i.e. in Schlesien in what is now Poland.
4. LECTURES ON RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES. BY HUGH BLAIR – professor of rhetoric and belles lettres in the university of Edinburgh, etc. In three Volumes. Vol. 1, 6. ed. London 1796. Bound in plain and well-worn half leather. 420 p. Very nicely printed on high quality paper.
If you endeavour to write small essays in english, one should think you might well benefit from the study of this volume. Luckily it’s very easy to read with no need for a dictionary at hand.
A sample from page p. 69:
‘It is, generally speaking, among the most ancient authors, that we are to look for the most striking instances of the sublime. I am inclined to think, that the early ages of the world, and the rude unimproved state of society, are peculiarly favourable to the strong emotions of sublimity.
‘The genius of men is then much turned to admiration and astonishment. Meeting with many objects, to them new and strange, their imagination is kept glowing, and their passions are often raised to the utmost. They think, and express themselves boldly, and without restraint. In the progress of society, the genius and manners of men undergo a change more favourable to accuracy, than to strength or sublimity.’
This short specimen seems to me quite obscure. But the author uses the expression “emotions of sublimity” which might perhaps most naturally be interpreted as what we now call “emotional intelligence”? And if so it’s perhaps a slightly hazy attempt by the author to delininate the progress of the left brain – calculus, language and accuracy – vis-a-vis the waning of the strengths of the right brain – intuition, empathy and situation awareness – throughout literary history?
At the end of the 18. century, the wholesale extermination of intuitively intelligent men and women – and even small children! – in the witch-hunts during several centuries on the European continent and in the U.S. must have depleted the nations – principally in Western Europe (and the U.S.) – of the intuitively intelligent to a marked degree; so as in fact to render a substantial part of the populace much like robots. Whence perhaps the exponential growth of Luciferianism, Satanism and ‘Robotism’, whose proselytes basically seem glad to accept almost any abuse of power, however blatant or even downright crazy.
One of the most striking, perhaps even defining traits of the ASD’s is their lack of ability to discern friend from foe. You see this most pronounced precisely in these areas, and whose states are now reportedly in most cases in a state of disruption or even disintegration.
At any rate this growing imbalance of the brain is, I think, a fact (explosive growth of ASD!) (note 1, below), and could perhaps help to explain the facility with which tyrants have been – and still are – able to manipulate their people and for them to accept the new robots coming from factories and laboratories, that are basically not that different from the cyborgs of human blood and flesh. They may both have no souls, but nevertheless they may feel great affinity for each other.
(Note 1. Certain rumors on the net relate that smoking 5-10 cigarettes a day may prevent (or even cure?) ASD. As I’m a non-smoker I cannot vouch for anything about smoking nicotine except perhaps, that inhaling smoke from burning something used to be deemed extremely harmful to your health).
(8./10./11.13.Oct./5.Nov.2025. To be crossposted on blocnotesimma.wordpress.com Tweets on @gamleboeger )