The sculptor met Ruskin briefly and was so impressed with his features that he made a statuette of him. The figure is seated with a rug over the knees and was one of Borglum’s most successful pieces. A copy of it is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He also met George Bernard Shaw, although little of art figured in their association. In a letter years later he mentioned Shaw’s attendance at meetings of what he called the “Kingsley Society.” “This,” wrote Gutzon, “was a lively debating society and we visited once a week at one another’s homes. I debated with Shaw on ‘The Ignorance of Educating Me.’ I forget which side. Shaw likes to play smart, but at heart he is a serious, lovable, great man.” Gutzon may have been right about most of these points, but he made an error in naming the club. It was probably the Fabian Club. Shaw denied that he had ever heard of the “Kingsley Society,” and mentioned that for that matter he had hardly heard about Kingsley. Gutzon remained in England until the turn of the century which, considering the intensely modern impact of his life, seems like a long time ago. The days of quick success had become fewer in 1897, and they lessened rapidly thereafter. There was trouble on the horizon and the people of England were uneasy and crotchety. In the controversy preceding the Boer War, which broke out in 1899, he was loudly critical of the British for their oppression of “the intrepid band in the Transvaal,” and freely forecast that they would pay for it dearly. And they did. General Baden-Powell, another of Borglum’s friends, was besieged with his troops in Mafeking, a little town north of Kimberley. There, holding what appeared to be a hopeless position, they came closer to starvation daily while England prayed. Years afterward, in an article about the Boy Scouts, which Baden-Powell founded, Borglum recalled the turning point of that war: I was in London. I was sitting in the New Globe theater. Duse, the magnificent, was giving one of her superb performances. And during one of the curtains the director came onto the stage with an announcement. At first he said, “I hope that everyone will remain in his seat. I hope that you will be quiet and let the play go on.” The audience was dead still, trying to understand. And then the man said: “Mafeking has been relieved.” The play ended right there. I never saw a sedate audience so completely surrender to joy. Believe it or not, every man everywhere in the theater kissed the others, kissed the women, shouted and cried. They poured into the streets and jumped up and down. They crawled onto the tops of buses and danced. And then and there Mafeking became historic.