‘A Tall, Thin Young Man’

From ‘Salt on Shaw’, Appendix i in Stephen Winsten, Salt and His Circle (London: Hutchinson, 1951) pp. 205–6, 209, 212, 214–15. Henry Stephens Shakespear Salt (1851–1939), educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, taught at his old school for several years before resigning to devote himself to causes he believed in. He was a member of the Fabian and Shelley Societies, founder and secretary of the Humanitarian League, champion of vegetarianism and animals’ rights, and a writer on English and American literature. He was introduced to Shaw in about 1880 by James Leigh Joynes (1853–93), a friend from Eton and Cambridge and then his colleague and brother-in-law, a socialist and member of the SDF who blazed the trail Henry followed away from Eton. Shaw’s friendship with the Salts was particularly warm; his Preface to Winsten’s book begins: ‘I was always happy at the Salts.’ Winsten showed him Henry’s memoir before it was printed, and his marginal corrections are reproduced below, with Henry’s ‘incorrect’ statements enclosed in square brackets.