"It will then be asked, `Why does Innocent Smith continue far into
his middle age a farcical existence, that exposes him to so many
false charges?' To this I merely answer that he does it because he really
is happy, because he really is hilarious, because he really is a man
and alive. He is so young that climbing garden trees and playing
silly practical jokes are still to him what they once were to us all.
And if you ask me yet again why he alone among men should be fed
with such inexhaustible follies, I have a very simple answer to that,
though it is one that will not be approved.
"There is but one answer, and I am sorry if you don't like it.
If Innocent is happy, it is because he IS innocent. If he can defy
the conventions, it is just because he can keep the commandments.
It is just because he does not want to kill but to excite to life
that a pistol is still as exciting to him as it is to a schoolboy.
It is just because he does not want to steal, because he does not covet
his neighbour's goods, that he has captured the trick (oh, how we all
long for it!), the trick of coveting his own goods. It is just because
he does not want to commit adultery that he achieves the romance of sex;
it is just because he loves one wife that he has a hundred honeymoons.
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