On the Decay of the Art of Lying | Page 5

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, "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 a 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'm 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 manners 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 this
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 is 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 results 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 not 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 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 the 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. Therefore, the wise thing is for us
diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a
good