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. In the Old Testament there is an instance of irony, where the priests of Baal called on his name but there was no reply, and Elijah suggested that "either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked." But the priests had all the prosaic singleness of an ignorant mind, and went on scarifying themselves with knives and lancets, as if Elijah had not already let their blood. The New Testament furnishes a more delicate specimen in the parable of the unjust steward, which has difficulties of interpretation, arising from an unwillingness, perhaps, to recognize the irony. The steward is expecting to be dismissed for malfeasance in office. In the days of parable, whitewashing committees were unknown. He then expects to ingratiate himself with his lord's debtors by reducing the amount of their bills, hoping that some of them would take him up when discarded. It is not clear what commendation to a debtor who might also be a creditor lay in this fraudulent reduction of his bill; but a parable serves only the main point, which in this case is to show how much more tact a thoroughly worldly man has than a technically spiritual man. So the lord admires the shiftiness of his steward, because it had an ulterior purpose; whereas your conventional child of light has no genuine foresight. This is done to introduce the irony of the verse: "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." The master's hint of the superior sagacity of the people of mammon is delightfully qualified by the irony that lurks in his use of the word "everlasting." Then the serious intent of the parable is clearly stated in the three succeeding verses.