Married By George Bernard Shaw: Getting

The ceremony was brisk. Shaw, true to form, attempted to interrupt the proceedings twice—once to question the phrasing of "lawful impediment" and again to suggest that the room’s ventilation was a crime against public health.

They entered the small, drab room where the Registrar waited. The official looked up, unimpressed by the tall, gangly Irishman. To the Registrar, Shaw was not the greatest playwright of the age; he was simply a man who hadn't brushed his coat. Getting Married by George Bernard Shaw

The morning of his wedding, George Bernard Shaw did not look like a man about to enter the "monstrous engine" of matrimony. Instead, he looked like a man who had misplaced a very important pamphlet on Fabianism. The ceremony was brisk

He stood in the hallway of the West Strand Registry Office, tugging at his rough, woollen jacket. Beside him stood Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a woman of formidable intellect and even more formidable patience. She was dressed sensibly; George was dressed, as usual, like a hedge that had decided to take up socialist lecturing. The official looked up, unimpressed by the tall,

Charlotte laughed, pulling him toward the carriage. "Only five thousand, George? You’re getting soft in your old age."