Shaw in this period was able to make reliable generalizations about America, which he had never visited, and when the Fabians split over the South Africa question he put himself above the battle by providing an analysis of the situation prophetic in its clarity — in fact, South African history is now working itself out along lines which Shaw deduced from documents seventy years ago without setting foot outside London. Prophecy is not the test of analysis, but as supplementary evidence it’s hard to ignore, and the reader of this volume will find himself encountering it every few score pages...

Orwell somewhere calls Shaw an empty windbag and somewhere else confesses that he has read practically every word Shaw has written. Such ambivalence is inevitable. The superhuman is inhuman in the end, and only a dolt could admire it without misgivings. But that doesn’t mean we should go on trying to cut Shaw down to size. It’s widely supposed that Shaw wasn’t capable of sex, but a less comfortable and more likely supposition is that he was above it, like Leonardo. He could certainly be an interfering busybody, but only because as a totally truthful man he couldn’t readily conceive of someone intelligent not wanting to hear the truth.