AMONG sayings that have a currency in spite of being wholly false upon
the face of them for the sake of a half-truth upon another subject which
is accidentally combined with the error, one of the grossest and broadest
conveys the monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell the truth and
hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were. But the truth is one; it
has first to be discovered, then justly and exactly uttered. Even with
instruments specially contrived for such a purpose—with a foot rule, a
level, or a theodolite—it is not easy to be exact; it is easier, alas! to
be inexact. From those who mark the divisions on a scale to those who
measure the boundaries of empires or the distance of the heavenly stars,
it is by careful method and minute, unwearying attention that men rise
even to material exactness or to sure knowledge even of external and
constant things. But it is easier to draw the outline of a mountain than
the changing appearance of a face; and truth in human relations is of
this more intangible and dubious order: hard to seize, harder to
communicate. Veracity to facts in a loose, colloquial sense—not to say
that I have been in Malabar when as a matter of fact I was never out of
England, not to say that I have read Cervantes in the original when as a
matter of fact I know not one syllable of Spanish—this, indeed, is easy
and to the same degree unimportant in itself. Lies of this sort,
according to circumstances, may or may not be important; in a certain
sense even they may or may not be false. The habitual liar may be a very
honest fellow, and live truly with his wife and friends; while another
man who never told a formal falsehood in his life may yet be himself one
lie—heart and face, from top to bottom. This is the kind of lie which
poisons intimacy. And, _vice versâ_, veracity to sentiment, truth in a
relation, truth to your own heart and your friends, never to feign or
falsify emotion—that is the truth which makes love possible and mankind
happy.
_L’art de bien dire_ is but a drawing-room accomplishment unless it be
pressed into the service of the truth. The difficulty of literature is
not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but
to affect him precisely as you wish. This is commonly understood in the
case of books or set orations; even in making your will, or writing an
explicit letter, some difficulty is admitted by the world. But one thing
you can never make Philistine natures understand; one thing, which yet
lies on the surface, remains as unseizable to their wits as a high flight
of metaphysics—namely, that the business of life is mainly carried on by
means of this difficult art of literature, and according to a man’s
proficiency in that art shall be the freedom and the fulness of his
intercourse with other men. Anybody, it is supposed, can say what he
means; and, in spite of their notorious experience to the contrary,
people so continue to suppose. Now, I simply open the last book I have
been reading—Mr. Leland’s captivating _English Gipsies_. “It is said,” I
find on p. 7, “that those who can converse with Irish peasants in their
own native tongue form far higher opinions of their appreciation of the
beautiful, and of _the elements of humour and pathos in their hearts_,
than do those who know their thoughts only through the medium of English.
I know from my own observations that this is quite the case with the
Indians of North America, and it is unquestionably so with the gipsy.”
In short, where a man has not a full possession of the language, the most
important, because the most amiable, qualities of his nature have to lie
buried and fallow; for the pleasure of comradeship, and the intellectual
part of love, rest upon these very “elements of humour and pathos.” Here
is a man opulent in both, and for lack of a medium he can put none of it
out to interest in the market of affection! But what is thus made plain
to our apprehensions in the case of a foreign language is partially true
even with the tongue we learned in childhood. Indeed, we all speak
different dialects; one shall be copious and exact, another loose and
meagre; but the speech of the ideal talker shall correspond and fit upon
the truth of fact—not clumsily, obscuring lineaments, like a mantle, but
cleanly adhering, like an athlete’s skin. And what is the result? That
the one can open himself more clearly to his friends, and can enjoy more
of what makes life truly valuable—intimacy with those he loves. An
orator makes a false step; he employs some trivial, some absurd, some
vulgar phrase; in the turn of a sentence he insults, by a side wind,
those whom he is labouring to charm; in speaking to one sentiment he
unconsciously ruffles another in parenthesis; and you are not surprised,
for you know his task to be delicate and filled with perils. “O
frivolous mind of man, light ignorance!” As if yourself, when you seek
to explain some misunderstanding or excuse some apparent fault, speaking
swiftly and addressing a mind still recently incensed, were not
harnessing for a more perilous adventure; as if yourself required less
tact and eloquence; as if an angry friend or a suspicious lover were not
more easy to offend than a meeting of indifferent politicians! Nay, and
the orator treads in a beaten round; the matters he discusses have been
discussed a thousand times before; language is ready-shaped to his
purpose; he speaks out of a cut and dry vocabulary. But you—may it not
be that your defence reposes on some subtlety of feeling, not so much as
touched upon in Shakespeare, to express which, like a pioneer, you must
venture forth into zones of thought still unsurveyed, and become yourself
a literary innovator? For even in love there are unlovely humours;
ambiguous acts, unpardonable words, may yet have sprung from a kind
sentiment. If the injured one could read your heart, you may be sure
that he would understand and pardon; but, alas! the heart cannot be
shown—it has to be demonstrated in words. Do you think it is a hard
thing to write poetry? Why, that is to write poetry, and of a high, if
not the highest, order.
I should even more admire “the lifelong and heroic literary labours” of
my fellow-men, patiently clearing up in words their loves and their
contentions, and speaking their autobiography daily to their wives, were
it not for a circumstance which lessens their difficulty and my
admiration by equal parts. For life, though largely, is not entirely
carried on by literature. We are subject to physical passions and
contortions; the voice breaks and changes, and speaks by unconscious and
winning inflections; we have legible countenances, like an open book;
things that cannot be said look eloquently through the eyes; and the
soul, not locked into the body as a dungeon, dwells ever on the threshold
with appealing signals. Groans and tears, looks and gestures, a flush or
a paleness, are often the most clear reporters of the heart, and speak
more directly to the hearts of others. The message flies by these
interpreters in the least space of time, and the misunderstanding is
averted in the moment of its birth. To explain in words takes time and a
just and patient hearing; and in the critical epochs of a close relation,
patience and justice are not qualities on which we can rely. But the
look or the gesture explains things in a breath; they tell their message
without ambiguity; unlike speech, they cannot stumble, by the way, on a
reproach or an allusion that should steel your friend against the truth;
and then they have a higher authority, for they are the direct expression
of the heart, not yet transmitted through the unfaithful and
sophisticating brain. Not long ago I wrote a letter to a friend which
came near involving us in quarrel; but we met, and in personal talk I
repeated the worst of what I had written, and added worse to that; and
with the commentary of the body it seemed not unfriendly either to hear
or say. Indeed, letters are in vain for the purposes of intimacy; an
absence is a dead break in the relation; yet two who know each other
fully and are bent on perpetuity in love, may so preserve the attitude of
their affections that they may meet on the same terms as they had parted.
Pitiful is the case of the blind, who cannot read the face; pitiful that
of the deaf, who cannot follow the changes of the voice. And there are
others also to be pitied; for there are some of an inert, uneloquent
nature, who have been denied all the symbols of communication, who have
neither a lively play of facial expression, nor speaking gestures, nor a
responsive voice, nor yet the gift of frank, explanatory speech: people
truly made of clay, people tied for life into a bag which no one can
undo. They are poorer than the gipsy, for their heart can speak no
language under heaven. Such people we must learn slowly by the tenor of
their acts, or through yea and nay communications; or we take them on
trust on the strength of a general air, and now and again, when we see
the spirit breaking through in a flash, correct or change our estimate.
But these will be uphill intimacies, without charm or freedom, to the
end; and freedom is the chief ingredient in confidence. Some minds,
romantically dull, despise physical endowments. That is a doctrine for a
misanthrope; to those who like their fellow-creatures it must always be
meaningless; and, for my part, I can see few things more desirable, after
the possession of such radical qualities as honour and humour and pathos,
than to have a lively and not a stolid countenance; to have looks to
correspond with every feeling; to be elegant and delightful in person, so
that we shall please even in the intervals of active pleasing, and may
never discredit speech with uncouth manners or become unconsciously our
own burlesques. But of all unfortunates there is one creature (for I
will not call him man) conspicuous in misfortune. This is he who has
forfeited his birthright of expression, who has cultivated artful
intonations, who has taught his face tricks, like a pet monkey, and on
every side perverted or cut off his means of communication with his
fellow-men. The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit,
showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. But
this fellow has filled his windows with opaque glass, elegantly coloured.
His house may be admired for its design, the crowd may pause before the
stained windows, but meanwhile the poor proprietor must lie languishing
within, uncomforted, unchangeably alone.
Truth of intercourse is something more difficult than to refrain from
open lies. It is possible to avoid falsehood and yet not tell the truth.
It is not enough to answer formal questions. To reach the truth by yea
and nay communications implies a questioner with a share of inspiration,
such as is often found in mutual love. _Yea_ and _nay_ mean nothing; the
meaning must have been related in the question. Many words are often
necessary to convey a very simple statement; for in this sort of exercise
we never hit the gold; the most that we can hope is by many arrows, more
or less far off on different sides, to indicate, in the course of time,
for what target we are aiming, and after an hour’s talk, back and
forward, to convey the purport of a single principle or a single thought.
And yet while the curt, pithy speaker misses the point entirely, a wordy,
prolegomenous babbler will often add three new offences in the process of
excusing one. It is really a most delicate affair. The world was made
before the English language, and seemingly upon a different design.
Suppose we held our converse not in words, but in music; those who have a
bad ear would find themselves cut off from all near commerce, and no
better than foreigners in this big world. But we do not consider how
many have “a bad ear” for words, nor how often the most eloquent find
nothing to reply. I hate questioners and questions; there are so few
that can be spoken to without a lie. “_Do you forgive me_?” Madam and
sweetheart, so far as I have gone in life I have never yet been able to
discover what forgiveness means. “_Is it still the same between us_?”
Why, how can it be? It is eternally different; and yet you are still the
friend of my heart. “_Do you understand me_?” God knows; I should think
it highly improbable.
The cruellest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a
room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a
disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished
because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which
withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical
point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue? And,
again, a lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed through a lie.
Truth to facts is not always truth to sentiment; and part of the truth,
as often happens in answer to a question, may be the foulest calumny. A
fact may be an exception; but the feeling is the law, and it is that
which you must neither garble nor belie. The whole tenor of a
conversation is a part of the meaning of each separate statement; the
beginning and the end define and travesty the intermediate conversation.
You never speak to God; you address a fellow-man, full of his own
tempers; and to tell truth, rightly understood, is not to state the true
facts, but to convey a true impression; truth in spirit, not truth to
letter, is the true veracity. To reconcile averted friends a Jesuitical
discretion is often needful, not so much to gain a kind hearing as to
communicate sober truth. Women have an ill name in this connection; yet
they live in as true relations; the lie of a good woman is the true index
of her heart.
“It takes,” says Thoreau, in the noblest and most useful passage I
remember to have read in any modern author, {2} “two to speak truth—one
to speak and another to hear.” He must be very little experienced, or
have no great zeal for truth, who does not recognise the fact. A grain
of anger or a grain of suspicion produces strange acoustical effects, and
makes the ear greedy to remark offence. Hence we find those who have
once quarrelled carry themselves distantly, and are ever ready to break
the truce. To speak truth there must be moral equality or else no
respect; and hence between parent and child intercourse is apt to
degenerate into a verbal fencing bout, and misapprehensions to become
ingrained. And there is another side to this, for the parent begins with
an imperfect notion of the child’s character, formed in early years or
during the equinoctial gales of youth; to this he adheres, noting only
the facts which suit with his preconception; and wherever a person
fancies himself unjustly judged, he at once and finally gives up the
effort to speak truth. With our chosen friends, on the other hand, and
still more between lovers (for mutual understanding is love’s essence),
the truth is easily indicated by the one and aptly comprehended by the
other. A hint taken, a look understood, conveys the gist of long and
delicate explanations; and where the life is known even _yea_ and _nay_
become luminous. In the closest of all relations—that of a love well
founded and equally shared—speech is half discarded, like a roundabout,
infantile process or a ceremony of formal etiquette; and the two
communicate directly by their presences, and with few looks and fewer
words contrive to share their good and evil and uphold each other’s
hearts in joy. For love rests upon a physical basis; it is a familiarity
of nature’s making and apart from voluntary choice. Understanding has in
some sort outrun knowledge, for the affection perhaps began with the
acquaintance; and as it was not made like other relations, so it is not,
like them, to be perturbed or clouded. Each knows more than can be
uttered; each lives by faith, and believes by a natural compulsion; and
between man and wife the language of the body is largely developed and
grown strangely eloquent. The thought that prompted and was conveyed in
a caress would only lose to be set down in words—ay, although Shakespeare
himself should be the scribe.
Yet it is in these dear intimacies, beyond all others, that we must
strive and do battle for the truth. Let but a doubt arise, and alas! all
the previous intimacy and confidence is but another charge against the
person doubted. “_What a monstrous dishonesty is this if I have been
deceived so long and so completely_!” Let but that thought gain
entrance, and you plead before a deaf tribunal. Appeal to the past; why,
that is your crime! Make all clear, convince the reason; alas!
speciousness is but a proof against you. “_If you can abuse me now_,
_the more likely that you have abused me from the first_.”
For a strong affection such moments are worth supporting, and they will
end well; for your advocate is in your lover’s heart and speaks her own
language; it is not you but she herself who can defend and clear you of
the charge. But in slighter intimacies, and for a less stringent union?
Indeed, is it worth while? We are all _incompris_, only more or less
concerned for the mischance; all trying wrongly to do right; all fawning
at each other’s feet like dumb, neglected lap-dogs. Sometimes we catch
an eye—this is our opportunity in the ages—and we wag our tail with a
poor smile. “_Is that all_?” All? If you only knew! But how can they
know? They do not love us; the more fools we to squander life on the
indifferent.
But the morality of the thing, you will be glad to hear, is excellent;
for it is only by trying to understand others that we can get our own
hearts understood; and in matters of human feeling the clement judge is
the most successful pleader.