ESSAY, FOR DISCUSSION, READ AT A MEETING OF THE HISTORICAL AND
ANTIQUARIAN CLUB OF HARTFORD, AND OFFERED FOR THE THIRTY-DOLLAR PRIZE.
NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.--[Did not take the prize]
Observe, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered
any decay or interruption--no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, a Principle, is
eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need,
the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is
immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this Club remains. My
complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded
man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and
slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so
prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this scheme
with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters
to the mothers in Israel. It would not become me to criticize you,
gentlemen, who are nearly all my elders--and my superiors, in this
thing--and so, if I should here and there seem to do it, I trust it will
in most cases be more in a spirit of admiration than of fault-finding;
indeed, if this finest of the fine arts had everywhere received the
attention, encouragement, and conscientious practice and development
which this Club has devoted to it I should not need to utter this lament
or shed a single tear. I do not say this to flatter: I say it in a
spirit of just and appreciative recognition.
[It had been my intention, at this point, to mention names and give
illustrative specimens, but indications observable about me admonished
me to beware of particulars and confine myself to generalities.]
No fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of
our circumstances--the deduction that it is then a Virtue goes without
saying. No virtue can reach its highest usefulness without careful and
diligent cultivation--therefore, it goes without saying that this one
ought to be taught in the public schools--at the fireside--even in the
newspapers. What chance has the ignorant, uncultivated liar against the
educated expert? What chance have I against Mr. Per-- against a lawyer?
Judicious lying is what the world needs. I sometimes think it were
even better and safer not to lie at all than to lie injudiciously. An
awkward, unscientific lie is often as ineffectual as the truth.
Now let us see what the philosophers say. Note that venerable
proverb: Children and fools always speak the truth. The deduction is
plain--adults and wise persons never speak it. Parkman, the historian,
says, “The principle of truth may itself be carried into an absurdity.”
In another place in the same chapter he says, “The saying is old
that truth should not be spoken at all times; and those whom a sick
conscience worries into habitual violation of the maxim are imbeciles
and nuisances.” It is strong language, but true. None of us could live
with an habitual truth-teller; but, thank goodness, none of us has to.
An habitual truth-teller is simply an impossible creature; he does not
exist; he never has existed. Of course there are people who think they
never lie, but it is not so--and this ignorance is one of the very
things that shame our so-called civilization. Everybody lies--every day;
every hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning;
if he keeps his tongue still, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his
attitude, will convey deception--and purposely. Even in sermons--but
that is a platitude.
In a far country where I once lived the ladies used to go around paying
calls, under the humane and kindly pretense of wanting to see each
other; and when they returned home, they would cry out with a glad
voice, saying, “We made sixteen calls and found fourteen of them
out”--not meaning that they found out anything against the fourteen--no,
that was only a colloquial phrase to signify that they were not at
home--and their manner of saying it--expressed their lively satisfaction
in that fact. Now, their pretense of wanting to see the fourteen--and
the other two whom they had been less lucky with--was that commonest and
mildest form of lying which is sufficiently described as a deflection
from the truth. Is it justifiable? Most certainly. It is beautiful,
it is noble; for its object is, not to reap profit, but to convey a
pleasure to the sixteen. The iron-souled truth-monger would plainly
manifest, or even utter the fact, that he didn't want to see those
people--and he would be an ass, and inflict a totally unnecessary pain.
And next, those ladies in that far country--but never mind, they had a
thousand pleasant ways of lying, that grew out of gentle impulses, and
were a credit to their intelligence and an honor to their hearts. Let
the particulars go.
The men in that far country were liars; every one. Their mere howdy-do
was a lie, because they didn't care how you did, except they were
undertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made
no conscientious diagnosis of your case, but answered at random, and
usually missed it considerably. You lied to the undertaker, and said
your health was failing--a wholly commendable lie, since it cost you
nothing and pleased the other man. If a stranger called and interrupted
you, you said with your hearty tongue, “I'm glad to see you,” and said
with your heartier soul, “I wish you were with the cannibals and it was
dinner-time.” When he went, you said regretfully, “Must you go?” and
followed it with a “Call again”; but you did no harm, for you did not
deceive anybody nor inflict any hurt, whereas the truth would have made
you both unhappy.
I think that all this courteous lying is a sweet and loving art, and
should be cultivated. The highest perfection of politeness is only a
beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and
gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.
What I bemoan is the growing prevalence of the brutal truth. Let us do
what we can to eradicate it. An injurious truth has no merit over an
injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an
injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should
reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving. The man
who tells a lie to help a poor devil out of trouble is one of whom the
angels doubtless say, “Lo, here is an heroic soul who casts his own
welfare into jeopardy to succor his neighbor's; let us exalt this
magnanimous liar.”
An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the
same degree, is an injurious truth--a fact which is recognized by the
law of libel.
Among other common lies, we have the silent lie--the deception which one
conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate
truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak
no lie, they lie not at all. In that far country where I once lived,
there was a lovely spirit, a lady whose impulses were always high and
pure, and whose character answered to them. One day I was there at
dinner, and remarked, in a general way, that we are all liars. She was
amazed, and said, “Not all!” It was before “Pinafore's” time so I did
not make the response which would naturally follow in our day, but
frankly said, “Yes, all--we are all liars; there are no exceptions.” She
looked almost offended, and said, “Why, do you include me?” “Certainly,”
I said, “I think you even rank as an expert.” She said, “'Sh!--'sh! the
children!”
So the subject was changed in deference to the children's presence, and
we went on talking about other things. But as soon as the young people
were out of the way, the lady came warmly back to the matter and said,
“I have made it the rule of my life to never tell a lie; and I have
never departed from it in a single instance.” I said, “I don't mean the
least harm or disrespect, but really you have been lying like smoke
ever since I've been sitting here. It has caused me a good deal of pain,
because I am not used to it.” She required of me an instance--just a
single instance. So I said:--
“Well, here is the unfilled duplicate of the blank which the Oakland
hospital people sent to you by the hand of the sick-nurse when she came
here to nurse your little nephew through his dangerous illness. This
blank asks all manner of questions as to the conduct of that sick-nurse:
'Did she ever sleep on her watch? Did she ever forget to give the
medicine?' and so forth and so on. You are warned to be very careful and
explicit in your answers, for the welfare of the service requires that
the nurses be promptly fined or otherwise punished for derelictions.
You told me you were perfectly delighted with that nurse--that she had
a thousand perfections and only one fault: you found you never could
depend on her wrapping Johnny up half sufficiently while he waited in
a chilly chair for her to rearrange the warm bed. You filled up the
duplicate of this paper, and sent it back to the hospital by the hand of
the nurse. How did you answer this question--'Was the nurse at any
time guilty of a negligence which was likely to result in the patient's
taking cold?' Come--everything is decided by a bet here in California:
ten dollars to ten cents you lied when you answered that question.” She
said, “I didn't; I left it blank!” “Just so--you have told a silent lie;
you have left it to be inferred that you had no fault to find in that
matter.” She said, “Oh, was that a lie? And how could I mention her one
single fault, and she so good?--it would have been cruel.” I said, “One
ought always to lie when one can do good by it; your impulse was right,
but, your judgment was crude; this comes of unintelligent practice. Now
observe the result of this inexpert deflection of yours. You know
Mr. Jones's Willie is lying very low with scarlet fever; well, your
recommendation was so enthusiastic that that girl is there nursing him,
and the worn-out family have all been trustingly sound asleep for the
last fourteen hours, leaving their darling with full confidence in
those fatal hands, because you, like young George Washington, have a
reputa--However, if you are not going to have anything to do, I will
come around to-morrow and we'll attend the funeral together, for, of
course, you'll naturally feel a peculiar interest in Willie's case--as
personal a one, in fact, as the undertaker.”
But that was all lost. Before I was half-way through she was in a
carriage and making thirty miles an hour toward the Jones mansion to
save what was left of Willie and tell all she knew about the deadly
nurse. All of which was unnecessary, as Willie wasn't sick; I had been
lying myself. But that same day, all the same, she sent a line to the
hospital which filled up the neglected blank, and stated the facts, too,
in the squarest possible manner.
Now, you see, this lady's fault was not in lying, but only in lying
injudiciously. She should have told the truth there, and made it up to
the nurse with a fraudulent compliment further along in the paper. She
could have said, “In one respect the sick-nurse is perfection--when she
is on watch, she never snores.” Almost any little pleasant lie would
have taken the sting out of that troublesome but necessary expression of
the truth.
Lying is universal--we all do it; we all must do it. Therefore, the
wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully,
judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie
for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably,
humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully
and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly,
squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous
mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of
the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be
great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where
even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable
weather. Then--but I am but a new and feeble student in this gracious
art; I can not instruct this Club.
Joking aside, I think there is much need of wise examination into what
sorts of lies are best and wholesomest to be indulged, seeing we must
all lie and do all lie, and what sorts it may be best to avoid--and this
is a thing which I feel I can confidently put into the hands of this
experienced Club--a ripe body, who may be termed, in this regard, and
without undue flattery, Old Masters.