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 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 am I but a new and feeble student in this gracious art; I cannot