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From The Stolen White Elephant, Etc. (Boston:
James R. Osgood and Company, 1882).
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.(1)
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
theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach
nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become
me to criticise 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 foes,
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 presence 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 pretence 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 did n'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
did n'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
was n'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
this 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 cannot 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.
1. Did not take the prize.
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