The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
and there and yonder, all about the globe; and will go on keeping them
alive until the silent-assertion lie retires from business--the silent
assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men are
aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.
What I am arriving at is this: When whole races and peoples conspire to
propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why
should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals? Why
should we try to make it appear that abstention from lying is a virtue?
Why should we want to beguile ourselves in that way? Why should we
without shame help the nation lie, and then be ashamed to do a little
lying on our own account? Why shouldn't we be honest and honourable,
and lie every time we get a chance? That is to say, why shouldn't we
be consistent, and either lie all the time or not at all? Why should we
help the nation lie the whole day long and then object to telling one
little individual private lie in our own interest to go to bed on? Just
for the refreshment of it, I mean, and to take the rancid taste out of
our mouth.
Here in England they have the oddest ways. They won't tell a spoken
lie--nothing can persuade them. Except in a large moral interest, like
politics or religion, I mean. To tell a spoken lie to get even the
poorest little personal advantage out of it is a thing which is
impossible to them. They make me ashamed of myself sometimes, they are
so bigoted. They will not even tell a lie for the fun of it; they will
not tell it when it hasn't even a suggestion of damage or advantage in
it for any one. This has a restraining influence upon me in spite of
reason, and I am always getting out of practice.
Of course, they tell all sorts of little unspoken lies, just like
anybody; but they don't notice it until their attention is called to it.
They have got me so that sometimes I never tell a verbal lie now except
in a modified form; and even in the modified form they don't approve
of it. Still, that is as far as I can go in the interest of the growing
friendly relations between the two countries; I must keep some of my
self-respect--and my health. I can live on a pretty low diet, but I
can't get along on no sustenance at all.
Of course, there are times when these people have to come out with a
spoken lie, for that is a thing which happens to everybody once in
a while, and would happen to the angels if they came down here much.
Particularly to the angels, in fact, for the lies I speak of are
self-sacrificing ones told for a generous object, not a mean one; but
even when these people tell a lie of that sort it seems to scare them
and unsettle their minds. It is a wonderful thing to see, and shows that
they are all insane. In fact, it is a country which is full of the most
interesting superstitions.
I have an English friend of twenty-five years' standing, and yesterday
when we were coming down-town on top of the 'bus I happened to tell him
a lie--a modified one, of course; a half-breed, a mulatto; I can't seem
to tell any other kind now, the market is so flat. I was explaining to
him how I got out of an embarrassment in Austria last year. I do not
know what might have become of me if I hadn't happened to remember to
tell the police that I belonged to the same family as the Prince of
Wales. That made everything pleasant and they let me go; and apologised,
too, and were ever so kind and obliging and polite, and couldn't do too
much for me, and explained how the mistake came to be made, and promised
to hang the officer that did it, and hoped I would let bygones be
bygones and not say anything about it; and I said they could depend on
me. My friend said, austerely:
'You call it a modified lie? Where is the modification?'
I explained that it lay in the form of my statement to the police. 'I
didn't say I belonged to the Royal Family; I only said I belonged to the
same family as the Prince--meaning the human family, of course; and if
those people had had any penetration they would have known it. I can't
go around furnishing brains to the police; it is not to be expected.'
'How did you feel after that performance?'
'Well, of course I was distressed to find that the police had
misunderstood me, but as long as I had not told any lie I knew there was
no occasion to sit up nights and worry about it.'
My friend struggled with the case several minutes, turning it over and
examining it in his mind, then he said that so far as he could see the
modification was itself a lie, it being a misleading reservation of an
explanatory fact, and so I had told two lies instead of only one.
'I wouldn't have done it,' said he; 'I have never told a lie, and I
should be very sorry to do such a thing.'
Just then he lifted his hat and smiled a basketful of surprised and
delighted smiles down at a gentleman who was passing in a hansom.
'Who was that, G---?'
'I don't know.'
'Then why did you do that?'
'Because I saw he thought he knew me and was expecting it of me. If I
hadn't done it he would have been hurt. I didn't want to embarrass him
before the whole street.'
'Well, your heart was right, G---, and your act was right. What you did
was kindly and courteous and beautiful; I would have done it myself; but
it was a lie.'
'A lie? I didn't say a word. How do you make it out?'
'I know you didn't speak, still you said to him very plainly and
enthusiastically in dumb show, “Hello! you in town? Awful glad to see
you, old fellow; when did you get back?” Concealed in your actions
was what you have called “a misleading reservation of an explanatory
fact”--the act that you had never seen him before. You expressed joy in
encountering him--a lie; and you made that reservation--another lie. It
was my pair over again. But don't be troubled--we all do it.'
Two hours later, at dinner, when quite other matters were being
discussed, he told how he happened along once just in the nick of time
to do a great service for a family who were old friends of his. The head
of it had suddenly died in circumstances and surroundings of a ruinously
disgraceful character. If known the facts would break the hearts of the
innocent family and put upon them a load of unendurable shame. There was
no help but in a giant lie, and he girded up his loins and told it.
'The family never found out, G---?'
'Never. In all these years they have never suspected. They were proud of
him and had always reason to be; they are proud of him yet, and to them
his memory is sacred and stainless and beautiful.'
'They had a narrow escape, G---.'
'Indeed they had.'
'For the very next man that came along might have been one of these
heartless and shameless truth-mongers. You have told the truth a million
times in your life, G---, but that one golden lie atones for it all.
Persevere.'
Some may think me not strict enough in my morals, but that position is
hardly tenable. There are many kinds of lying which I do not approve. I
do not like an injurious lie, except when it injures somebody else; and
I do not like the lie of bravado, nor the lie of virtuous ecstasy; the
latter was affected by Bryant, the former by Carlyle.
Mr. Bryant said, 'Truth crushed to earth will rise again.' I have
taken medals at thirteen world's fairs, and may claim to be not without
capacity, but I never told as big a one as that. Mr. Bryant was playing
to the gallery; we all do it. Carlyle said, in substance, this--I do not
remember the exact words: 'This gospel is eternal--that a lie shall not
live.' I have a reverent affection for Carlyle's books, and have read
his 'Revelation' eight times; and so I prefer to think he was not
entirely at himself when he told that one. To me it is plain that he
said it in a moment of excitement, when chasing Americans out of his
back-yard with brickbats. They used to go there and worship. At bottom
he was probably fond of it, but he was always able to conceal it. He
kept bricks for them, but he was not a good shot, and it is matter of
history that when he fired they dodged, and carried off the brick; for
as a nation we like relics, and so long as we get them we do not much
care what the reliquary thinks about it. I am quite sure that when
he told that large one about a lie not being able to live he had just
missed an American and was over excited. He told it above thirty years
ago, but it is alive yet; alive, and very healthy and hearty, and likely
to outlive any fact in history. Carlyle was truthful when calm, but give
him Americans enough and bricks enough and he could have taken medals
himself.
As regards that time that George Washington told the truth, a word must
be said, of course. It is the principal jewel in the crown of America,
and it is but natural that we should work it for all it is worth, as
Milton says in his 'Lay of the Last Minstrel.' It was a timely and
judicious truth, and I should have told it myself in the circumstances.
But I should have stopped there. It was a stately truth, a lofty
truth--a Tower; and I think it was a mistake to go on and distract
attention from its sublimity by building another Tower alongside of it
fourteen times as high. I refer to his remark that he 'could not lie.'
I should have fed that to the marines; or left it to Carlyle; it is
just in his style. It would have taken a medal at any European fair,
and would have got an honourable mention even at Chicago if it had been
saved up. But let it pass; the Father of his Country was excited. I have
been in those circumstances, and I recollect.
With the truth he told I have no objection to offer, as already
indicated. I think it was not premeditated but an inspiration. With his
fine military mind, he had probably arranged to let his brother Edward
in for the cherry tree results, but by an inspiration he saw his
opportunity in time and took advantage of it. By telling the truth he
could astonish his father; his father would tell the neighbours; the
neighbours would spread it; it would travel to all firesides; in the end
it would make him President, and not only that, but First President.
He was a far-seeing boy and would be likely to think of these things.
Therefore, to my mind, he stands justified for what he did. But not for
the other Tower; it was a mistake. Still, I don't know about that; upon
reflection I think perhaps it wasn't. For indeed it is that Tower that
makes the other one live. If he hadn't said 'I cannot tell a lie' there
would have been no convulsion. That was the earthquake that rocked the
planet. That is the kind of statement that lives for ever, and a fact
barnacled to it has a good chance to share its immortality.
To sum up, on the whole I am satisfied with things the way they are.
There is a prejudice against the spoken lie, but none against any
other, and by examination and mathematical computation I find that the
proportion of the spoken lie to the other varieties is as 1 to 22,894.
Therefore the spoken lie is of no consequence, and it is not worth while
to go around fussing about it and trying to make believe that it is an
important matter. The silent colossal National Lie that is the support
and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and
unfairnesses that afflict the peoples--that is the one to throw bricks
and sermons at. But let us be judicious and let somebody else begin.
And then--But I have wandered from my text. How did I get out of my
second lie? I think I got out with honour, but I cannot be sure, for it
was a long time ago and some of the details have faded out of my memory.
I recollect that I was reversed and stretched across some one's knee,
and that something happened, but I cannot now remember what it was. I
think there was music; but it is all dim now and blurred by the lapse of