I had read such a lot about Shaw's athletic appearance and his interest in boxing, and his photographs made him look so strikingly vigorous that I was surprised by his actual physique. Shaw looked healthy, but not like the ordinary healthy rugged man. Under his fine white hair, his complexion was as soft and rosy as a little child's. And there was something about him that reminded me of an evergreen plant grown indoors.
As an animal he suggested an antelope to my mind. And his physique gave an impression of something brittle and frail that one would want to handle with care, like chinaware. I thought that it was perhaps his vegetarian diet that gave him that remarkably deceptive appearance.
Some time after my visit with Shaw I went to hear him lecture at Kingsway Hall, where he unreservedly declared himself a believer in Lenin. I was present with William Gallacher, now Communist member of Parliament. At question time Gallacher said that it was all right for Shaw to come out in theoretical praise of Lenin, but that the workers needed practical action. Shaw replied that action was all right, but that he was getting old and so he would have to leave action to younger men like Gallacher. Yes, indeed, I had a vast admiration for the purely animal cunning and cleverness that lay underneath that great Shavian intellect.
Shaw was helpful in recommending me so that I could obtain a reader's ticket for the British Museum. That may seem easy enough for an ordinary person to acquire, but try, as a stranger in London, to find the responsible householder to sponsor you according to the regulations!
Some months later, when I was getting out my little book of poetry, Spring in New Hampshire, my publisher tried to get Shaw to write a foreword for it. But he refused, saying that my poetry should stand on its own. I did not mind, even though a short foreword by Shaw might have helped the selling of the book. But I could never visualize Shaw as a poet or a subtle appreciator of the nuances of profound poetry. As a poet, I preferred the prefatory note which was contributed by Professor I.R. Richards of Cambridge University.
However, that Bernard Shaw discourse on cathedrals was an exceptional thing. I haven't discovered anything like it in any of his writings. The only writing of his with which I could compare it is the play, Candida. It is pregnant with poetry. As different from his other writings as the innumerable caricatures of Shaw are from his real self. I like to look at a great piling cathedral from the outside. And also I love the vast spaciousness of the inside when it is empty. During the many years I spent on the continent of Europe, I never stopped in a cathedral town without visiting the cathedral. I have spent hours upon hours meditating about modern movements of life in the sublime grandeur of cathedral silence. And as I stood in the nave of those concrete miracles of the medieval movement of belief and faith, transported by the triumphant arches of Gothic glory, often I felt again the musical vibrations of Shaw's cathedral sermon.
Pugilist vs. Poet