Note 178 — Chapter XI

Hermann Bahr has acutely observed: “In the Germanic world, the woman wields power over the man only so long as he feels her to be a higher being, almost a saint: so Candida is the transcendent, the immaculate, the pure—the heaven, the stars, the eternal light. And this Candida? There is no doubt that she is an angel. The only question is in which heaven she dwells. There is a first heaven, and a second heaven, and so on up to the seventh heaven. In the seventh heaven, as you well know, Shaw, dwell only the poets; and of the seventh heaven must the woman be, before the worshipful Marchbanks will once kneel to her, if, indeed, it can be said that a poet ever kneels. But your beloved Candida is of a lower heaven—a lesser alp, a thousand metres below, in the region of the respectable bourgeoisie. There is she the saint the Germanic mannikin needs. There she shines—shines for the Morells, the good people who inculcate virtue and solve social questions every Sunday. And it is there that she belongs.”