Note 106 — Chapter VIII

In speaking of his first appearance as a journalistic writer—in a “London Letter,” written, at the age of fifteen, for a well-known journal in Scarborough—Max Beerbohm once wrote (the Saturday Review, January 26th, 1901): “I well remember that the first paragraph I wrote was in reference to the first number of the Star, which had just been published. Mr. T. P. O'Connor, in his editorial pronunciamento, had been hotly philanthropic. 'If,' he had written, 'we enable the charwoman to put two lumps of sugar in her tea instead of one, then we shall not have worked in vain.' My comment on this was that if Mr. O'Connor were to find that charwomen did not take sugar in their tea, his paper would, presumably, cease to be issued.... I quote it merely to show that I, who am still regarded as a young writer, am exactly connate with Mr. Shaw. For it was in this very number of the Star that Mr. Shaw, as 'Corno di Bassetto,' made his first bow to the public.” This latter statement, although inaccurate, is essentially correct.