An Unlovely Virtue

When I was a child, I was often not a little hampered by the fact that I could not, with any comfort, utter an untruth. Not that I had any inherent aptitude for truthfulness, — on the contrary, I was a lover of devious ways, and my nature was framed for deceit, but early training had imposed upon me an ineradicable habit of truth-telling. It had so wrought that for me the lie was shorn of every pleasurable association, and invested with painful suggestion. My only compensation lay in a dim feeling of superior righteousness, but this was not very sincere, not very constant, and, indeed, not wholly gratifying. Gladly would I have relinquished it for the ability to tell a good, comfortable lie,— not a bad, malicious, devouring-lion of a lie, but a little harmless, playful - kitten of a lie. Now and then, indeed, I did lay hands upon the forbidden weapon, but being unfamiliar with it, I used it clumsily,— lied at the wrong time, or in the wrong way, or when there was no need of lying, and I never got any fun out of the lie, and seldom any advantage.

Now that I am quite grown up, my plight is worse, for even the sense of superior righteousness has left me. I have been forced to recognize that the most charming, the most really admirable of my friends are in general people who can, for the sake of harmony, of good fellowship, of friendship, utter the thing which is not. This, without disturbing my habits of truth-telling, has seriously shaken up my theories.

For one thing, I have come to realize that one must often tell a lie in order to convey a true impression, since the matter of a lie, as of a jest,

For example, a certain youth was escorting to his steamer a venerable Englishman whose name stands high among the dignitaries of the church. Their train was late, and outside the Grand Central, as ill luck would have it, but a single cab was visible. There was need of haste, yet the great man had not been accustomed to hasten, and it looked as though the cab would be preëmpted by some of the ardent but unimportant New Yorkers who were scurrying toward it. The young man singled out an official and said impressively, “This is an English duke. He is late for his steamer. Get him that cab.” The cab was theirs.

Now, according to the precepts in which I had been reared, that young man had by his act seriously jeopardized his spiritual future. Yet, might it not be maintained that he had lied in the interests of truth ? He said “duke,” which was not the fact; the official received the notion “great man,” which was the fact. Whereas if he had said, “Here is an English canon, get him a cab,” it is safe to say that the mind of the worthy official would have been filled with confusion, if not with distinctly bellicose images totally foreign to the occasion.

But there is another sort of lie whose justification cannot be framed after this fashion. There is the lie, not in the cause of truth, but in the cause of friendliness or of comfort. A friend has just given a dinner. “Did you notice that the fish was burned?” she asks. You had noticed, every one had noticed. You answer, “My dear, I cannot deceive you, it was burned.” You save your soul, but you make your friend miserable. Suppose instead that you say cheerfully, “No indeed, it was perfectly delicious;” she will take heart, and think, “Well, it was only my nervousness.” You will have increased the sum of happiness in the world, — but how about your soul ?

Suppose, again, that your best friend is engaged to be married, but there are reasons why she cannot announce the fact. Society suspects, society insinuates, finally, society asks point-blank, “Celia, is Rosalind engaged to Orlando ? ” Three courses are open: you may keep silent, but that is equivalent to saying “yes;” or you may give an evasive answer, like the servant who when asked if her mistress was at home replied, “Was your grandmother a monkey ?” The objections to this policy are obvious. Or you may take your conscience by the throat, look society firmly in the eye, and say, “Rosalind engaged? No indeed! What in the world could have made you think such a thing? She does n’t care for Orlando, and anyway he is really in love with Audrey, you know, and only flirting to make her jealous.” Your conscience may bear for days the marks of fingers on its throat, while at the same time you will keep saying to yourself, in the manner of Henry James’s devious - minded people,— “But I could n’t,could I, not have done it. No, I could n’t not have done it.”

Is there, perhaps, something wrong with a training that leaves one no comfortable escape from so common a predicament? I myself am quite incapable of judging, being hopelessly bigoted in favor of truth-telling. A lie still seems, in spite of all arguments, a bad thing. But I am driven to wonder whether this is not the result of that rigidity of temper and of habit which was at once the strength and the weakness of our Puritan forebears. My grandfather, a man of sternest Puritan traditions, came near losing his life through that same characteristic. He was going toward the garden, when a venomous-minded cow spied him and marked him for her prey. She came on, head down, sharp horns a-prick for his gore. A little grandson, taking in the situation, shouted from the rear, “Cheese it, grandpa! Cheese it!” The old gentleman heard, he apprehended danger, but he hated slang, and this particular phrase had been an object of special abhorrence. He turned grim and contemptuous, and used up his moment of escape in the withering reply, “Cheese what?” The cow arrived, and only the huge basket that the old gentleman carried saved him from being impaled, principles and all. The long horns were buried in the basket, and its bearer was hurled backward through the garden gate. And to the youngster’s puzzled query, “Why did n’t you run, when you heard me tell you?” there seemed no adequate reply.

If Mr. Brooke, of Middlemarch, had witnessed this scene, I believe his comment would have been, “Ah, sir, principles are good things in their place, — but don’t let them carry you too far—not too far, you know.”

And it is just possible that this matter of truth-telling cannot be settled by any rigid rulings whatever. Other virtues may be carried to excess, why not truthfulness ? It is one of my regrets that I was not clever enough long ago to notice that lying, as such, is not forbidden in the Decalogue. We are, it is true, commanded not to “bear false witness,” but only false witness against our neighbor. About false witness in his behalf nothing whatever is said: — that is, malicious lying is forbidden, benevolent lying is left to our discretion. I should be quite willing, if my training would allow me, to stand with Moses in this whole matter.