When I was in England several years after the formation of the Goldwyn Company I made a memorable call upon another playwright whose pen moves in a different tempo from that of Maeterlinck. I had long been an admirer of Mr. Bernard Shaw and, in spite of the fact that the quality of his plays rather repudiates the suggestion of screen adaptation, I was interested in conducting the experiment.
Mr. and Mrs. Shaw entertained me at their London apartment with much brilliant talk and the inevitable tea. The playwright’s wife, a very cordial hostess indeed, is one of those fresh-coloured, vigorous types of womanhood which you meet at every turn of Hyde Park. She was deeply engrossed that day in the Irish question, and her sympathies were brought into relief by a call from Sir Horace Plunkett, then just returned from a visit to the United States.
I recall that during the course of the talk Mrs. Shaw told a story of an Irish lad sentenced to be hanged in the Tower for his revolutionary activities. Before his execution they came to him and promised that if he would give the authorities information regarding certain leaders in the movement his life would be spared. To this the lad, only about eighteen years of age, replied, “Gentlemen, you are wasting your time and mine.”
Mrs. Shaw quoted this speech with great fire. “How,” she concluded, “can you conquer a people with a spirit like that?”
When we drifted away from the Irish situation Mr. Shaw and I had a chance for a talk about motion-pictures. To my surprise I learned then that he was a picture enthusiast. He told me that there were two people whose films he never missed—Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. Regarding the former, he was especially enthusiastic. I found, in fact, that he was as familiar with Chaplin’s work as am I myself.
The affectionate courtesy displayed toward each other by the playwright and his wife is bound to impress any one familiar with some of Shaw’s iconoclastic utterances upon the domestic situation. Certainly the atmosphere surprised me. The pair did not address each other as “Father” and “Mother,” but, aside from this failure, they seemed to be as tolerant and contented and settled as a hardware merchant of Topeka and his wife.
Toward the latter part of the afternoon I saw Mr. Shaw look frequently at his wrist-watch. Ultimately he mentioned that he was due to deliver a lecture that evening.
“And have you decided yet what you are going to speak about?” queried Mrs. Shaw when at last her husband rose to depart for this engagement.
“Not yet,” he retorted; “I dare say I shall decide on the platform.”
I always think of Mr. Shaw as he looked when he made this reply. His eyes, which are, I think, the clearest and most living blue I ever saw, so sparkled with merry perversity, his figure was so erect and spare and vigorous—there was so much spring in both face and physique—that he seemed to me—this man past middle age—the very embodiment of electric youth.