that of heroic self-sacrifice
A third theme to be handled with the greatest caution, if at all, is
that of heroic self-sacrifice. Not that self-sacrifice, like revenge, is
an outworn passion. It still rages in daily life; but no audience of
average intelligence will to-day accept it with the uncritical
admiration which it used to excite in the sentimental dramas of last
century. Even then--even in 1869--Meilhac and Halevy, in their
ever-memorable _Froufrou_, showed what disasters often result from it;
but it retained its prestige with the average playwright--and with some
who were above the average--for many a day after that. I can recall a
play, by a living English author, in which a Colonel in the Indian Army
pleaded guilty to a damning charge of cowardice rather than allow a lady
whom he chivalrously adored to learn that it was her husband who was the
real coward and traitor. He knew that the lady detested her husband; he
knew that they had no children to suffer by the husband"s disgrace; he
knew that there was a quite probable way by which he might have cleared
his own character without casting any imputation on the other man. But
in a sheer frenzy of self-sacrifice he blasted his own career, and
thereby inflicted far greater pain upon the woman he loved than if he
had told the truth or suffered it to be told. And twenty years
afterwards, when the villain was dead, the hero still resolutely refused
to clear his own character, lest the villain"s widow should learn the
truth about her wholly unlamented husband. This was an extravagant and
childish case; but the superstition of heroic self-sacrifice still
lingers in certain quarters, and cannot be too soon eradicated. I do not
mean, of course, that self-sacrifice is never admirable, but only that
it can no longer be accepted as a thing inherently noble, apart from its
circumstances and its consequences. An excellent play might be written
with the express design of placing the ethics of self-sacrifice in their
true light. Perhaps the upshot might be the recognition of the simple
principle that it is immoral to make a sacrifice which the person
supposed to benefit by it has no right to accept.
