Butt-Letter

Literal minded Britons were scandalized, last week, at what they took to be an affront offered by George Bernard Shaw to his good & faithful wife, the onetime Charlotte Frances Payne-Townshend.

Another woman, Dame Clara Butt, 55, onetime famed contralto, had written Pen Man Shaw, asking him to do a preface for her forthcoming biography. Replied he: ''Good gracious! I'd never dare! You're a much bigger person than I. I should look like a ridiculous little busybody making a pretentious bow in your limelight. And, anyhow, what could I say of Clara Butt?

"I witnessed her debut as Orfeo. Loved her. Would have married her if she had asked me. She didn't. Might actually have chosen Bernard Shaw and chose a Mr. Rumford instead. What a woman!

"Don't let anybody touch your book except yourself. If you find any one impertinent enough to venture, burn his foreword and drop him into the dustbin."

Though it thus appeared that Charlotte Frances Payne-Townshend Shaw may not always have been first in her husband's affections, she good humoredly ignored his Butt-letter last week. Friends found her more interested in recounting the details of a holiday which the Shaws have just taken at Llangollen, in Wales, where they sojourned in a suite of rooms once occupied by Poet Robert Browning. At present international interest in G. B. S. centers upon his forthcoming book, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism which will be published on or about June 1.

Eyes privileged to glimpse the advance proofs, last week, reported that the book is a voluminous answer to a possible hypothetical woman who asked Mr. Shaw to "explain Socialism." From this point of departure he launches into a potpourri of Shaviana keynoted by such statements as the following: The first principle of Socialism is equal income for all. . . . Every other system for distribution of wealth is unjust and illogical. . . . The Socialist experiment failed in Russia because the people were not prepared for it. ... England is today more communist than Soviet Russia. ...

Commentators guessed that Socialist Shaw would be the unhappiest of men in the state of society which he envisions. Everyone knows that he haggles and drives the sharpest of bargains whenever he sells a manuscript. He exploits his unique gifts far more avariciously than a Capitalistic Trust exploits any monopoly. At present Pen Man Shaw can and does loll in luxury upon his royalties, enjoying profits of a nature which he delights to describe as "unjust and illogical."