Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/54

 from the mind's instinctive feeling that irony is a trait of a superior person who can afford to have a stock of original ideas with which it tests opinion, and who holds them so securely that he can never play with them a losing game. The Bastard in King John indicates this superiority when he says,—

"Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail, And say,—there is no sin but to be rich; And being rich, my virtue then shall be, To say,—there is no vice but beggary."

A man who pretends to hold the opposite of his own belief is morally a hypocrite, until we detect that slight touch of banter which is the proof of genuine irony. Then we see that he is honest though he equivocates, for he belies himself with sincerity. A man who can afford this is to that extent superior to the man who, whether right or wrong, is hopelessly didactic, and incapable of commending his own opinions by the bold ease with which he may deplore them.

It is irony when Lowell, speaking of Dante's intimacy with the Scriptures, adds, "They do even a scholar no harm." Jaques, in "As You Like It," is ironical when he indicates men by the actions of the wounded deer which augmented with tears the stream that did not need water, as men leave their money to those who have too much already. The herd abandons him: that is right,—misery parts company. Anon, they come sweeping by, and never stay to inquire into his hurt. That is just the proper fashion, too. "Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens!" This pretence of praising the deer is a parable which arraigns mankind.