231
Eleanor Gwynne (1650-1687), English actress and mistress of King Charles II.
(<< back)
232
Slang for a member of the upper class whose clothes indicate his status.
(<< back)
233
Condition of marriage whereby a widow can draw income from her husband’s estate.
(<< back)
234
New Testament book that recounts the proselytizing travels of Saints Peter and Paul.
(<< back)
235
Richard Porson (1759-1808) and Richard Bentley (1662-1742) were noted English classical scholars; Bentley, as Milton’s first editor, foolishly rewrote lines in Paradise Lost.
(<< back)
236
Lucius Cornelius Balbus (first century B.C.), Julius Caesar’s chief of engineers.
(<< back)
237
Air of superiority; pretentiousness.
(<< back)
238
John Scott Haldane (1860-1936), Scottish writer and physiologist.
(<< back)
239
One who believes evolution has direction and purpose; a follower of French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941) or Shaw.
(<< back)
240
Collection of essays published in 1902.
(<< back)
241
Reference to Back to Methuselah (1921), a cycle of five plays by Shaw that revisit the themes of evolution and human destiny.
(<< back)
242
Composers of symphonic poems, such as Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).
(<< back)
243
Like the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 — 1822), Shaw was a vegetarian.
(<< back)
244
Gum disease.
(<< back)
245
Opening from the stomach into the intestine.
(<< back)
246
Eponymous hero of Henrik Ibsen’s Faustian verse drama of 1867.
(<< back)
247
Abnormal physical or emotional sensitivity.
(<< back)
248
As a warning to others; literally, “to encourage others” (French).
(<< back)
249
Socialist leader Jean Jaures, who defended Alfred Dreyfus (accused of treason), was assassinated by a fanatical patriot on July 13, 1914.
(<< back)
250
Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) served twice as premier of France.
(<< back)
251
James Keir Hardie (1856-1915), first leader of the Labour Party in Parliament.
(<< back)
252
That’s war (French).
(<< back)
253
Russian-style (French).
(<< back)
254
Ideally.
(<< back)
255
Shaw uses the third-century B.C. Greek geometrician and engineer to symbolize reason.
(<< back)
256
Carmagnoles are songs and dances popular during the French Revolution; cor roberries (usually “corroborees”) are Australian Aborigine festivities with songs and dances.
(<< back)
257
Near quotation of Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (act 3, scene 1).
(<< back)
258
Allusion to the Bible, Ezekiel 18:2.
(<< back)
259
Military drill in which soldiers arrange themselves into files four deep.
(<< back)
260
Promising young intellectual and Fabian socialist who was killed in 1916.
(<< back)
261
Brutal criminal in Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist (1837-1838).
(<< back)
262
The manager is American theatrical producer Charles Frohman (1860-1915); the author is Charles Klein, who co-wrote the 1910 farce Potash and Perlmutter.
(<< back)
263
Irish art dealer (1875-1915); director of the National Gallery of Ireland.
(<< back)
264
Paraphrase of a line in President Woodrow Wilson’s April 2, 1917, address to Congress upon the United States entering World War I.
(<< back)
265
Isabella makes this comparison in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (act 2, scene 2).
(<< back)
266
Quotation of more of Isabella’s speech.
(<< back)
267
Reference to the French traitor Paul Bolo, who was accused of spying on his country and executed in 1918.
(<< back)
268
Explosives used to breach a gate or wall.
(<< back)
269
All of these are allegorical places or persons in John Bunyan’s Pilgram’s Progress (1678), which Shaw admired for its hopefulness.
(<< back)
270
This commander in chief of the British forces (1914 — 1921) provided Shaw with a demonstration of experimental weapons.
(<< back)
271
Marietta Alboni (1823 — 1894), Italian contralto opera singer.
(<< back)
272
George Barnwell is a sinner in George Lillo’s middle-class sentimental tragedy The London Merchant (1731); Maria Martin is the heroine of Maria Martin, or the Red Barn Mystery, about her murder by her lover in 1827; Sweeney Todd is the legendary “Demon Barber” of London, who slit his customers’ throats.
(<< back)
273
Actor-manager of the period (1837-1919).
(<< back)
274
French farce adapted into English by James Alberry (1838-1899).
(<< back)
275
Reference to Sir Carl Meyer, who donated £70,000 to the National Theatre in 1908.
(<< back)
276
In the person of King Edward VII, who attended Shaw’s play John Bull’s Other Island (1904).
(<< back)
277
J. M. Barrie (see footnote to page 320) and Shaw, who were neighbors and friends.
(<< back)
278
Cathedral.
(<< back)
279
Music-hall turn by the animal imitators the Brothers Griffiths that parodied the French tightrope walker Charles Blondin (1824 — 1897).
(<< back)
280
The decor of the Adelphi Theatre was by Scottish architect Robert Adam (1728-1792).
(<< back)
281
Play by French dramatist Eugene Brieux, adapted into English in 1914 as Damaged Goods, by John Pollock.
(<< back)
282
Reference to English theater manager A. E. F. Horniman (1860-1937), who presented Shaw’s first publicly produced play, Arms and the Man, in 1894.
(<< back)
283
Allusion to the Bible, 2 Peter 2:22.
(<< back)
284
Quotation from the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January I, 1863.
(<< back)
285
Ironic allusion to the Bible, Isaiah 57:15.
(<< back)
286
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth (act 4, scene 1), when shown the descendants of the murdered Banquo in a vision, Macbeth asks if their line will “stretch out to the crack of doom?”
(<< back)
287
The explosive TNT.
(<< back)
288
Balcony-like platform projecting from the stern of a ship.
(<< back)
2
89
Usually spelled “centerbit”; tool for making cylindrical holes.
(<< back)
290
T squares, straightedges, and set squares are types of rulers.
(<< back)
291
Movable table legs that support table leaves.
(<< back)
292
Scrubbed with a piece of sandstone, as a ship’s deck.
(<< back)
293
New Temple Shakespeare was a popular series of Shakespeare’s plays.
(<< back)
294
Naval officer’s double-breasted blue jacket.
(<< back)
295
Idiosyncratic form of address (perhaps related to “dote”).
(<< back)
296
Dealer in supplies for ships.
(<< back)
297
Stale.
(<< back)
298
Hired transportation to and from the train station.
(<< back)
299
Simile taken from the Bible, Song of Solomon 7:4.
(<< back)
300
Velvety fabric.
(<< back)
301
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), an Italian revolutionary who sought to unify Italy under a republican government and who participated in Italy’s struggle for independence from Austrian domination.
(<< back)
302
That is, from bankruptcy, so he could once again engage in business.
(<< back)
303
Louis de Rougemont is the assumed name of nineteenth-century Swiss adventurer Louis Grin (1847- 1921), who wrote sensational, often bogus, accounts of his adventures; Hesione implies that “Marcus Darnley” (her husband’s pseudonym) is a liar.
(<< back)
304
Awards, named for Prince Albert (1819-1861, husband of Queen Victoria), for altruistic rescues from injury or death.
(<< back)
305
Saindy sage.
(<< back)
306
Expensively dressed gentleman.
(<< back)
307
Long locks of hair variously arranged, worn especially by men in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
(<< back)
308
Meaning she is looking for a mate.
(<< back)
309
Shares issued to the owners of a company, on which a dividend is paid at a later date.
(<< back)
310
Silly, or inconsequential.
(<< back)
311
That is, the reality is the opposite of the dream.
(<< back)
312
Shaw had rehearsed this sudden intrusion by a criminal into a country house in his earlier play Misalliance (1910).
(<< back)
313
Meaning he was caught fair and square.
(<< back)
314
Active court, when cases are being heard.
(<< back)
315
Torch.
(<< back)
316
Phrase from Bishop Reginald Herber’s early-nineteenth-century “Missionary Hymn.”
(<< back)
317
That is, Billy Dunn.
(<< back)
318
Peevish, or fretful.
(<< back)
319
Meaning he is deliberately downplaying his assets.
(<< back)
320
Near quotation from “Rosalind and Helen: A Modern Eclogue,” by English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (179 2- 1822); Shaw has changed “our” to “their.”
(<< back)
321
Allusion to Walt Whitman’s poem “O Captain! My Captain!” written in response to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
(<< back)
322
Allusion to English composer Ivor Novello’s popular World War I song “Keep the Home Fires Burning” (1915).
(<< back)
Pygmalion and Three Other Plays Page 67