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.
As they stepped back out onto the street, the London fog swirling around them, Charlotte took his arm. 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. They entered the small, drab room where the Registrar waited
Shaw regained his posture, his eyes sparking with their usual mischievous fire. "I feel," he declared, "that I have just committed a very popular mistake. However, as mistakes go, I find the company to be of a much higher caliber than I deserve. Now, shall we go home? I have a preface to write, and I suspect marriage will provide me with at least five thousand words on why it is a disaster for everyone else." As they stepped back out onto the street,
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.
Charlotte laughed, pulling him toward the carriage. "Only five thousand, George? You’re getting soft in your old age."