But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht, who
discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. I discovered England.
I do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical; and I do not
quite see (to tell the truth) how it can avoid being dull. Dullness
will, however, free me from the charge which I most lament; the charge
of being flippant. Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to
despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this
is the thing of which I am generally accused. I know nothing so
contemptible as a mere paradox; a mere ingenious defence of the
indefensible. If it were true (as has been said) that Mr. Bernard Shaw
lived upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; for a
man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes.
It is as easy as lying; because it is lying. The truth is, of course,
that Mr. Shaw is cruelly hampered by the fact that he cannot tell any
lie unless he thinks it is the truth. I find myself under the same
intolerable bondage. I never in my life said anything merely because I
thought it funny; though, of course, I have had ordinary human
vain-glory, and may have thought it funny because I had said it. It is
one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin, a
creature who does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the
rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks
as if he didn't. One searches for truth, but it may be that one pursues
instinctively the more extraordinary truths. And I offer this book with
the heartiest sentiments to all the jolly people who hate what I write,
and regard it (very justly, for all I know), as a piece of poor clowning
or a single tiresome joke.

For if this book is a joke it is a joke against me. I am the man who
with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before. If