Dear Katharine Cornell: I don't think I was ever so astonished by a picture as I was by your photograph. Your success as Candida and something blonde and expansive about your name had created an ideal British Candida in my imagination. Fancy my feelings on seeing the photograph of a gorgeous dark lady from the cradle of the human race ... wherever that was ... Ceylon ... Sumatra ... Hilo ... or the southernmost corner of the Garden of Eden. If you look like that it doesn't matter a rap if you can act or not. Can you? Yours, breath bereaved, Bernard Shaw.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Dear Katharine Cornell: I don't think I was ever so astonished by a picture as I was by your photograph. Your success as Candida and something blonde and expansive about your name had created an ideal British Candida in my imagination. Fancy my feelings on seeing the photograph of a gorgeous dark lady from the cradle of the human race ... wherever that was ... Ceylon ... Sumatra ... Hilo ... or the southernmost corner of the Garden of Eden. If you look like that it doesn't matter a rap if you can act or not. Can you? Yours, breath bereaved, Bernard Shaw." in the context of "Letter to Katharine Cornell, c. 1936; as quoted in Tad Mosel, Leading Lady: The World and Theatre of Katharine Cornell (1978), p. 187" to mean that wisdom is timeless.