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As he reached the peaks, so he touched the depths; and there were days when he neither saw nor spoke to anyone round him, sometimes leaving the studio suddenly and without warning, to spend the day walking all over Hollywood, wrapped in unfathomable darkness. Sam Goldwyn, famous as much for his astonishingly original use of the English language as for his pioneer work in film, was one of Chaplin's few intimates, and he seems to have understood his complexity with amazing insight. He said of Chaplin: "His reaction to life is, you see, intensely personal, intensely emotional. Chaplin loves to talk about government and economics and religion. When Rupert Hughes came out to Hollywood he and Charlie were much given to what somebody calls 'topics' — just topics. Nothing could have been more illuminating. While Hughes conducted his side of the discussion in a spirit of dispassionate inquiry, the less scientifically trained mind of the comedian struck out with a poet's frenzy at everything which he did not like. One could see it was not really abstract truth which he desired. It was the theory which most successfully represented his own prejudice."
By this time Edna Purviance was so firmly established in Chaplin's life and work that she was accepted without comment or scandal, and soon acquired a number of friends in the film colony, as well as a considerable reputation in films. With the series he made for the Mutual Company, Chaplin not only reached a great peak in his own work and put himself at the head of the film world; but in them he set down some of the fundamental laws of cinema, and comedy in film.
He worked himself to a standstill over every film. When, for example, the shooting of the Immigrant was finished, Chaplin spent four days and four nights, without sleep or rest or more than a mouthful of food, cutting and assembling the film, until he was satisfied with it. By which time, more than nine-tenths of the original length had been discarded. When he had finished, he looked like a drunken tramp, dirty, dishevelled, with a four-days' beard, his hair on end, his collar hanging by a thread, his eyes sunken through lack of sleep. He could hardly keep on his feet; but the film was finished.
When his contract with the Mutual company expired, he was inundated with offers from all the major American companies, and Mutual offered him still more favourable terms.
By now, Chaplin was fully aware of his commercial value, and together with his artistry had developed his business acumen. In June, 1917 therefore he accepted the unprecedented conditions offered by the First National Company — the famous million dollar contract for eight films of any length, to be made within eighteen months. So