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 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 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 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 the 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 can not
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.
ABOUT MAGNANIMOUS-INCIDENT LITERATURE
All my life, from boyhood up, I have had the habit of reading a certain
set of anecdotes, written in the quaint vein of The World’s ingenious
Fabulist, for the lesson they taught me and the pleasure they gave me.
They lay always convenient to my hand, and whenever I thought meanly of
my kind I turned to them, and they banished that sentiment; whenever I
felt myself to be selfish, sordid, and ignoble I turned to them, and they