Original artwork, not a still
Two Little Wooden Shoes ‧ 1874
To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Someone steeped in vice can't imagine genuine goodness, so they read innocence as a cleverer kind of trick. Ouida's point is that corruption projects its own scheming onto everyone else. Chicanery here simply means trickery, and innocence gets accused of it.
Context reviewed
