Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/58

32 32 THE INNOCENCE OF BERNARD SHAW gence, and licence observes limits, and " the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." And when this too wavered dubiously (for what of our rakes in their muck? — and aren't there indulgences that go on without deepening — blisses that keep step with life cunningly, feeding on it craftily, careful to keep their prey in condition ? — and aren't there satisfactions that dim the mind to soothe the body?) — when this, in turn, tottered, a last convulsive inspiration, the impulse of self-preservation hard at work, made it shoot out a further branch that caught and clung round a formula that made G.K. Sancho think Shaw an ascetic, that by a lucky loop led right back to the parent stem — the formula, namely, that men don't like happiness, that bliss only bores them ^ — thus perfectly completing the sinister circle by backing up the first defence of offensiveness, filially feeding into and fortifying the falsity by which it was primarily fed. Oh yes, it was neat ; and none the less because it turned its very neatness to account by declaring clear thinking the supreme effort of the Life-force. But those who know that the clearness of a system is a proof of incompleteness, that definition is only gained by blurring truth, mustn't allow their possession of that knowledge to prevent them from perceiving the passion and glow that lie beneath these cold, clipped, charmless, lucid leaves. For to do that is to miss the real cause of the coldness, and to make the miser- able, fashionable, unforgivable mistake of seeing Shaw as a mere marvellous mental machine. The thing to remember is the central tap-root of this rigid tree of thought — that accursed grafted crab of studied sourness. It is that which diverts the good a very brief taste of it, if it were attainable." " The pursuit of happiness is the most miserable of human occupations."
 * ' ' Nobody wants bliss particularly or could stand more than