satisfaction, this sick and helpless one was in the present instance.
It was now her turn to become silent, and changing her position,
I obtained a full view of her animated countenance, from which I
inferred that the words of her husband had penetrated into her soul
to be secretly treasured there. My position had already become too
embarrassing to allow me to remain silent any longer; so, rising
from my seat, I advanced towards him, and was about offering an
apology, but he overwhelmed me with joyful greetings. Upon his
pressing invitation, I was prevailed upon to remain with him and his
family until the succeeding day, and thus I was favored with ample
opportunities to witness the disposition of the sick mother, and enjoy
her conversations. For this, though I never much liked a sick room, I
afterwards became thankful; for I felt that I had, in rehearsing the
many exploits I had had with her husband, opened new sources for her
enjoyment, whilst I likewise learnt a lesson of the human heart which I
can never fail to hold in remembrance. Upon one occasion, in entering
her apartment, I found her affectionately playing with her boy, and
remarked upon the pleasure she must experience in the possession of so
fine a plaything.
“Indeed, sir,” said she, “I have my amusement with him. Day after day
I thus while away many an hour, which might otherwise be rendered dull
and tedious, so pleasantly that I scarcely note its passage.”
“Without him,” remarked I, desirous of ascertaining how so long a
period of confinement could be endured, “time would, no doubt, hang
heavily upon you, and your sources of comfort and pleasure be much
diminished?”
“Since I have become accustomed to the many gratifications he has
brought me, I can scarcely endure his absence for a single day. Though
he is not my only source of comfort and amusement, to lose him would be
a most terrible affliction.”
“How,” continued I, putting the question direct, “could you tolerate
this long confinement, and yet retain your youthful glee? I should long
since have perished from utter despondency.”
“It was not so easily done,” was her answer, whilst a pleasant smile
lighted up her countenance, “yet I made every effort to maintain my
spirits, and with the kind assistance of all around me, I happily
succeeded.” After speaking of the many kindnesses of her friends, and
the constant devotion of her husband, in so animating a manner that
I could not help fully sharing in her feelings, she continued: “If I
cannot move with the busy world, I constantly hear of it, and often
think of it. To appreciate and feel its pleasures, it is not always
necessary that we should actively participate in them. The heart and
mind are the seats of true enjoyment, and the occurrences and events
of busy life can only be pleasing as they harmonize with the one or
the other, whatever may be your condition. There is no joy, unless you
reach them by the right direction, and no pain, unless you approach
them wrongly. The measure of happiness depends more upon the manner
in which they are made to move, than upon external causes. They are
likewise mighty sources of comfort and amusement within themselves.
I had lived happily for a number of years, partaking of all the
enjoyments my tastes suggested, or opportunity presented; and since
confined in this room, I have again and again lived over my former
life. Every incident has been reviewed, even from my infancy to the
present hour. This retrospective life, if I may so denominate it,
is very singular, and withal, very pleasing. The pure pleasure of a
good action is often little experienced whilst you are performing it,
but felt most keenly after it has been done. At times an occurrence
makes you tremble with affright whilst beholding it, and when your
momentary terror has subsided, its ridiculous nature convulses you with
laughter. I have known men to fret, and scold, and swear, for entire
days at the inconveniences that beset them, and when safely over their
difficulties, sit down and detail them again and again with the most
heartfelt merriment. I remember having once encountered a traveller,
who was so provoked at the miserable condition of the road, and the
cold winter weather, as very audibly to wish the company in a much
warmer locality more than fifty times during the slow journey; yet, a
few days after, I met him comfortably seated before a cheerful fire
with a friend, whilst tears of unrestrained laughter rolled down his
cheeks, as he rehearsed this part of his rough experience. Such are the
effects of a combination of the past and the present upon the mind,
and so is it with this retrospective life. That which caused pleasure
once, or made you joyful and merry, will always renew the like emotions
whenever you think of it; that which truly enlisted the feelings of
the heart at one time, will never fail to do so again whenever you
ponder upon it; that which in any way seriously affected you once, will
continue to do so as often as it may be brought to your remembrance;
and the recollection even of many of those things which you would fain
have averted or avoided, may prove objects of gratification. Think of
this, if you please, and by directing your attention more studiously
and carefully upon the past, experiment for yourself, and you will
find that the soul’s impressions are not perishable. Examine the hours
gone by, and you will discover for your future old age beauties which
your present youth cannot fully comprehend or justly appreciate, and
sources of enjoyment scarcely known to you now. Nature has so ordained,
and most charitably and wisely, that each day passed in active,
vigorous youth, should provide for the quiet amusements of age--that
the pleasures of one period of life should happily be productive of
delights for the other, instead of being felt but for the moment and
then forgotten forever.”
“No doubt, madam,” remarked I, “you are very correct in what you have
said; but to be compelled by necessity, at an age like yours, just
properly adapted for active participation in the affairs and pleasures
of life, to resort to such means of enjoyment, can scarcely be supposed
to place you in so happy a condition as that which you have assigned to
old age.”
“You may, perhaps,” continued she, “be partly right, but you are
much more wrong. Short, comparatively, as has been my life, it has
furnished material enough for an age of thought, and by using it I
have again and again felt the pleasures of the soul. Then, too, this
was not a dream life, the idle vapors of which could be dispelled by
a sudden transition to reality, for there was nothing in it that had
not, at one time, been really seen and felt. It was rather a life of
quiet and happy reflection. It is not a dream nor delusion to wander
back, by the marvellous power of thought, and take your accustomed
place once more at the social board of a loved and peaceful home, and
have again renewed within you the feelings of youth. It so resembles
the substantial truth that we can scarcely discern a difference, and
revives sympathies so pleasing that we involuntarily desire their
constant presence. The spirit ever retains its hold upon the past,
and the delightful hours of childhood, when we drank in the many joys
of our young and unruffled life, come back again to awaken the same
emotions that animated us then. The affections once more leap into
young and untainted existence, and we feel as guilelessly happy and
buoyant as in youth. No occurrence fails to re-enlist our attention,
but each trifling incident contributes its just portion to our
pleasure. How much we doat upon these things, and how fondly we cherish
them! There,” directing my attention to a neat little article, “lies a
trifling relic of one with whom I had spent many of my days in girlish
companionship. She no more walks the earth, for she sank quietly and
peacefully into the grave, just as she was budding into beautiful
womanhood. She had done the work appointed unto her, and Death gathered
her to himself; but, though she is buried, I never gaze upon that
small trinket without calling up again her sweet image from its solemn
resting place to experience once more, perhaps more vigorously than
ever, the many pleasures we had enjoyed together. Here,” lifting up her
hand, “is a token of friendship which I need but gaze upon to revive a
variety of remembrances so pleasing that I would not exchange them for
the most valuable treasure. How well do I remember the day, the very
hour, though sad it may have been, when this tiny ring first encircled
my finger! It was an hour of parting between loving friends, yet not
an hour in which they forgot each other. Though far away, she still
remembers me as ardently as I retain my recollections of her, and the
many happy moments we spent together. Happily, however, it needs not
these material trifles to wrest from oblivion the incidents of our
lives. One after another we can breathe them into existence as often
as we will, through the powers upon which they have made an enduring
impression, and as they re-appear before us, the hallowed shadows of
substances once enjoyed, we become enchanted with their loveliness.
There is a beauty in this review of life, in thus living over again the
years gone by, that affords the richest comfort to the soul.”
“Is it then,” queried I, “by thus asking pleasures of an active and
happy past, that you have maintained your freshness of mind and
brilliancy of spirits? In another, the same things would have caused
melancholy and desponding regrets, by exhibiting in contrast a hopeless
and pleasureless future.”
“My future,” she pleasantly replied, “is not hopeless, but were it even
so, the consequences could not be so sad; neither will it ever be more
void of amusement than the present, which is full of enjoyment. It is
an old Spanish maxim, well suited to the temper of the Spaniard, that
‘he who loseth wealth, loseth much; he who loseth a friend, loseth
more; but he who loseth his spirits, loseth all.’ With so fatal a
loss, the mind sinks deep into despair, and the heart finds nothing to
cheer it. Our natural organization, however, is happily provided with
guards and barriers against it, and to those who are not permitted to
mingle in society, this retrospective life is the best and noblest of
them all. There is no reliable middle course in affliction, and if you
guard against the pressure of unfavorable circumstances, you not merely
avoid the dangers of despondency, but also increase your capacities
for enjoyment. Your heart will mellow and expand by sickness, and
whatever coldness or indifference characterized it, will yield before
the power of sympathy. The ill in your nature will be imperceptibly
destroyed, and the good remain standing alone. Where before you were
quick to censure, you will manifest generous forbearance, and even
positive injuries will be forgotten and forgiven. How well is this
state and condition adapted for a review of the past! Whilst it causes
you to extend friendship to those whom you hated, it attaches you so
closely to those whom you loved that your very being seems to become
blended with theirs. In your adoration of them, their lives are made
part of your own, and though they may not always claim an interest so
intense, they afford equal enjoyment. You ponder upon their adventures,
contrasting them with your own, and each separate incident affords new
matter for the employment of your thoughts. If, then, I have my own
life spread out before me, and the lives of those who are nearest and
dearest to me, have I not sources of enjoyment sufficient to do much
more than maintain my present spirits and buoyancy.”
Thus she continued ever finding something to interest her mind,
and bring pleasure to her lively affections; whilst I felt pleased
with this happy manifestation of her well-trained disposition, and
found in it much to instruct. Here was one whom I had regarded as a
fit object for compassion, enjoying herself more than the vast mass
of humanity much better situated for enjoyment. All this, too, by
properly guarding and guiding her thoughts. Here was a commentary on
human happiness, showing how well we are adapted for pleasure, and what
sources of comfort we may be of ourselves. The deep and unseen springs
of sensibility and joy within us, thus made to gush forth at our will,
augur a higher and sublimer destiny. The crude philosopher, or the
still cruder sceptic, may doubt and deny, but still they will continue
to direct him to the imperishable testimonies of immortality. It is not
within us to believe, that the power which dictates and controls our
thoughts and our impulses, so tender that every impression made upon
it even in infancy retains its hold until the grave closes over us, is
destined to be forever obliterated. Even in life, it gives us evidences
of eternity. Should we live for countless ages, though the particles
composing our bodies might continually yield to decay and be replaced
by others, its own identity would be maintained, nor could we erase
from it the impressions of our childhood. No change in life can destroy
it, or move it from its directing and controlling sphere. Is it, then,
merely the unsatisfying mystery of an invisible element, endowed with
the capacity of preserving and summoning before us the shadows of
past beauties, though doomed itself to perish? Is it only a fleeting,
flickering ray, simply given to illumine our physical existence, whose
last flash shall be forever extinguished when the nature to which it
was joined sinks before the rough contacts of earth, or slowly dies
out of its own infirmities? Happily, it awakens sweeter thoughts, and
inspires higher hopes. Its brightness is not like the passing lustre of
the moonbeam, receding behind the first murky cloud that floats across
its path, but may be made to shine only the more brilliantly through
the surrounding darkness. With her, whose afflictions and pleasures I
have faintly described, it was not a mere visionary creature, conjured
up by powerful imagery, and clothed with the devices of a fine fancy,
yet compelled to fall before the first truthful reality it encountered.
Following out its mission in truth, it is our faithful companion and
guide through life; and who shall deny it another sphere of nobler
existence, where it may never cease to feast upon the untold loveliness
of creation, and forever dwell upon the past, reviewing its own good
deeds with unabating gratitude to its author, and unending happiness to
itself.
AN ANONYMOUS WRITING,
WHICH HAD SERVED AS AN ENVELOPE TO THE FOLLOWING PAPER.
The manuscript enclosed was found upon the desk of the Secretary and
read by permission. The author, perhaps to his own credit, cautiously
withheld his name. Though many inquiries were made without success,
I could not avoid ascribing its paternity to a young rogue near me,
who appeared greatly pleased with it; and after the reading, desired
the Junto to take the labor of reducing the practice of lying to a
science under its immediate supervision and protection. This imprudent
expression of his wish at once involved him in numerous difficulties.
It was looked upon as a very slanderous reflection, and the poor fellow
was so roughly handled that he not only gladly withdrew it, but himself
also, perhaps a little wiser than he had been before. His difficulties
no doubt impressed him with a proper idea of the value of discretion,
and certainly taught him that no matter how much men may be given to
evil habits, they are averse to having their faults paraded before
their own eyes as well as to seeing them exposed to the gaze of others.
They may be addicted to a disgraceful practice, yet ask them to avow
and openly protect it, and they will raise such a terrible clatter
about your ears that you are fain to withdraw as speedily as possible.
THE EXCELLENCIES OF LYING.
“The art of silence and of well-term’d speech.” OLD POET.
Of the many practices to which our people are addicted, and which
exhibit their progress towards the higher walks of civilization, there
is none more prominent than the habit of lying. Celius wrote of Pompey,
“he is wont to think one thing and speak another;” and we may say, that
amongst us, it has almost become difficult to decide, whether we act
upon the principle that language was invented to express our thoughts,
or simply for the purpose of enabling us to conceal them.
I have an old friend who, adding to a mind accustomed to accurate
observation, more than fifty years of experience, frequently remarks
that he has never yet had half a dozen conversations with any person,
without detecting a falsehood.[1] It is well known that in our day it
is scarcely possible to bargain even with a saint, without discovering
him a liar; and I verily believe that had all who ever indulged this
habit been treated like Ananias and his spouse, the world would long
since have been depopulated. Fortunately, none are now so summarily
punished, or there would be a terrible “falling down and giving up
of the ghost.” For this generous forbearance, we may, perhaps, be
indebted to the superiority which we have acquired over these two
rude victims. We have certainly improved somewhat upon their example,
yet it must be owned that our progress in this habit has not been
commensurate with that made in the other improvements of the age. Some
of the fabrications of the Carthaginians and old Assyrians, noted
for their proficiency in this particular, were greatly superior to
any encountered in the present day. We have lost the ancient spirit,
which, it is feared, can only be revived by re-enacting some of the
ancient laws. For instance, in Sparta, it is said, thieves were
punished, not for stealing, but for permitting themselves to be caught;
the law-makers, no doubt, arguing that the fool deserves severer
chastisement than the rogue. Were the same rule adopted now as to
lying, it would soon close the mouths of those arrant bunglers who so
frequently provoke our ridicule and contempt.
Man was originally endowed with the power of clear and distinct
articulation, which, after some improvement, enabled him to convey what
ideas he pleased to his fellows. It is agreeable to all experience that
in using this excellent gift, he should consult his own convenience,
and he has accordingly introduced this habit of lying. From the highest
to the humblest, and from the gray-haired old man to his youthful
grand-child, all find it of use. The priest, the lawyer, the physician,
have rendered it a necessary part of their professions. Tradesmen and
mechanics have by no means neglected it, and some have made such signal
use of it, that we now look upon the sons of Crispin as comparable only
to a horde of Cretians, who, we are assured by excellent authority,
_were always liars_. The conveniences resulting from this practice have
ever been so very apparent, that its origin was almost coeval with the
existence of man; for one of our primitive ancestors, after exhibiting
his moral depravity by murdering his brother, was stupid enough,
when asked the whereabouts of the slain, to answer the all-knowing
questioner, “I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” Since his day it
has been introduced into every walk of life, and is now used without
reference to the occasion--some being even so addicted to it as to
tell a lie when the simple truth would answer better. In childhood we
seek to avoid the rod by resorting to it, and when we attain to years
of discretion we find it convenient upon much more trifling occasions.
Does some intolerable bore intrude upon you, you dismiss him to the
digestion of a lie, and find pleasure in the reflection of having done
so. When an impatient creditor duns you, what more convenient than
a plausible falsehood? When an appeal is made to your purse by some
importunate borrower or beggar, you know well how to answer him by an
untruth. Should you get into difficulty, you study what virtue there is
in language, and use it to effect your end. When an inquisitive wife
pests you with her troublesome inquiries, you have the example of an
honorable Roman senator for telling her a lie; and when you have broken
a promise, why, you know well how to excuse yourself by resorting to
the same means that caused its violation.
Knowing the great conveniences of this habit, and being masters of
our tongues, the fault lies with us if we cannot touch whatever chord
in the nature of our fellows that we wish to arouse. To attain this
degree of perfection, however, we should be properly schooled. Ever
since the times of Thauth, Hermes, and Cadmus, many have endeavored
to excel in efforts to reduce the gift of speech to writing, and to
regular rules and systems. Every variety of sciences, whatever their
pretensions, have so used it as best to promote their interests,
inventing new words, or assigning strange meanings to old ones,
whenever occasion required. It has been the great fountain and support
of every excellence of which we know, and the powerful medium of every
humbug that has heretofore cursed society. It may, therefore, appear
strange that no one has yet, for the great benefit of mankind in
general, resorted to it for the elements to establish, as a distinct
profession, the art of well and skillfully framing a falsehood.
The schools of philosophy have settled it that men may lie. Whether
they have done so upon the strength of the bold opinion of the crafty
Lysander, that truth and falsehood are indifferent things; or upon the
comprehensive saying of Sophocles, “I judge no speech amiss that is of
use;” or upon the more designing maxim of the Spaniard, “tell a lie and
you will get out the truth;” or upon the anatomical principle of the
petit Prince of Bantam, which will certainly be admired by our modern
physiologists, “my tongue has no bone in it to make it more stiff than
is necessary for my interest;” it is not material here to determine.
Suffice it; that it has been so settled, and as our practices conform
to so enlightened a decision, policy would seem to require that they
be reduced to regular and systematic rules. It is true, some have
manifested considerable anxiety to secure for this habit a kind of
scientific distinction. They have accordingly had resort to the stars,
or if despairing of flights so lofty, the hand or a pack of cards
answered equally well to tell a fortune by. Though their plans and
schemes were sufficiently ingenious, lying itself could not endure
them. They could hope for no proselytes except amongst the credulous,
and even amongst those they could only gain such as believed there was
as much “pleasure in being cheated as to cheat.” Thus their efforts in
this excellent work, have not only been defeated, notwithstanding the
high encouragement they sometimes received, but if Euripides speaks to
the purpose, they themselves have been made to feel the consequences of
their mistakes:
“What’s an Astrologer? I thus reply,
A man who speaks few truths, but many a lie,
Which, when found out, he takes his heels to fly.”
Perhaps their great failure is principally to be attributed to the
narrow defectiveness of the founder of their tribe. It is true, the
worthy man’s name has not yet been definitely ascertained, but then
this very ignorance has helped us out of our perplexities in searching
for it. The writers and critics upon Junius, when unable to discover
the author of the famous letters, very sagely conclude that he was a
man who had made himself acquainted with the affairs of his time, and
who was, withal, somewhat of a genius. So Voltaire has disposed of this
query in a very summary manner, by assuring us that “the first rogue
who met with the first block-head” was the inventor of soothsaying.
Whilst this conclusion has been generally accepted as a very
satisfactory one, it must be admitted that, though he may have been
an acute rogue, he was none the less an indiscreet one, or he would
not have attempted to confine this important privilege and practice of
lying within so exclusive a circle.
There could be no lack of material in speech upon which to construct
a system of scientific lying. Perhaps, by applying to it a term
which has long since been banished from “ears polite,” on account of
its harshness, I may be accused of a want of interest in so noble
an enterprise. If so, I can only render as an excuse, that if lying
can claim any one merit more than another, it is that of having ever
maintained its own identity, no matter what efforts were made to
increase its respectability by titles supposed to be more delicate. In
this particular, it must be owned, it has always resembled its author,
who, whether known as Satan or Beelzebub, Lucifer or Pluto, is nothing
but the plain, common devil after all; and who, though you should call
him an angel, would be the devil still. Thus sacrificing no merit which
it can justly claim, the difficulties of reducing it to a science could
be easily overcome.