In Arms and the man “Fight if you will,” says he, “but for goodness’ sake don’t strike picturesque attitude in the limelight about it. View it as one of the desperately irrational things of life that may, however, in certain circumstances be a brutal necessity.”
In Candida he does not attack love. Here is another irrational thing, he says-well, it can’t be evaded, so let us make it as matter of fact, as rational, in short, as possible. Candida, in deliberately electing to remain with her self-confident husband because “he is the weaker of the two” and needs her the more, grounds here “duty” as a wife on no conventional code of morals, but on instinct.
It looks as if Mr. Shaw, with his ascetic instincts, had started his crusade in life is in no wise guided by logic, he had concluded perhaps that task to be an impossible one. Whatever the reason, he is only a half-hearted rationalist.