I

THE BOUNDARIES OF TRUTH

T is pretty much taken for granted by decent folk that the truth should be told in all circumstances. "It is never permissible to lie" has been, ever since the Christian era came in, the common opinion, if not the common practice. And yet, which one of us has never lied, I will not say against his conscience, but for the very sake of his conscience? Conventional religion has been assumed to be our sole guide, while our actual conduct is usually based on the different, and more explicit, code of honor. Honor is not religion, though with real religion it has always been at peace; civilized manners are not religion, though, again, they have always been at peace with it. In the matter of lying, both honor and civilized manners have a great deal to say; and the fact that we realize this subconsciously is responsible for a great many minor perplexities.

Strictly speaking, in Candide's "best of possible worlds" lies should not pass human lips. There are many people who stick to the literal interpretation of the precept: ladies, for example, who retire to the back porch before they permit their maids to tell the unwelcome caller that they are "out." There, presumably,

they gaze at the blue sky, and congratulate themselves on their unimpeachable veracity. Yet even scrupulous people allow their servants to say they are out when they are in, because "out" is conventionally understood to mean many things. On the other hand, Mr. Chesterton tells us that, under certain conditions, mere silence is the most damnable lie of all. The matter is not so simple as it seems: its intricacies may become a morass for the unwary, and an enchanted garden for the casuist.

Very few people, I fancy, would say, after deliberation, that no lie was ever justified. To be sure, I once heard a serious young man protest that Shakespeare had damned Desdemona by allowing her, at her last gasp, to exculpate Othello. I have also known people who objected vehemently to the late Mark Twain because he said so many things that were not so. But there are occasions when lies are taken for granted, even by the law. A man on trial for his life is supposed to tell the truth, but not if it will incriminate him. A wife is not dragged to the witness-stand against her will to testify against her husband-no no one would legitimately expect anything but perjury from her. I do not see much difference between legally permitting a man to say "Not guilty" when he is guilty, and legally permitting him to lie. Is there any solitary maiden lady who would not willingly give the midnight marauder to under

stand that her husband was just coming down the stairs, armed to the teeth? A man is not supposed, except by an extinct type of Puritan, to "give away" the lady who has made sacrifices for him; and even the extinct type of Puritan would hardly expect you to tell your hostess that her dinner-party had been dull. From this heterogeneous group of examples, one may infer that there are lies and lies; and while it is never permissible to lie, it is sometimes quite unpermissible to do anything else.

Most lies of the decenter sort are social. "The admixture of a lie doth ever give pleasure," said the moralist Bacon. There is certainly very little defence for the lie that does not give pleasure. It is to save other people's feelings, not our own, that we tell lies. Let me put a case quite bluntly. How, without lying, is a man to thank his small niece properly for the necktie which she has selected for his Christmas present? No one wants merely to be thanked for one's trouble; every one wants to be told that his taste has been perfect. Now that the late Phillips Brooks's handsome evasion of fact has become historic, who ever dares not to praise a baby explicitly? I confess that it goes against the grain with me to say that I have enjoyed something which I have detested; and I have frequently accepted invitations (especially over the telephone) because my tongue would not twist itself round the phrase "another engagement" when the other

engagement was non-existent. But I have never had the slightest compunction about saying that I was sorry I had another engagement, when I did have another engagement and was

not sorry.

I know only one person whom I could count on not to indulge herself in these conventional falsehoods, and she has never been able, so far as I know, to keep a friend. The habit of literal truth-telling, frankly, is self-indulgence of the worst. Nothing could be more delightful, in an evil sense, than telling certain people that their Christmas presents, their babies, and their hospitalities are all horrors which defy description; especially if one could count it a virtue to one's self to say those things starkly. But one cannot keep that weapon only for one's foes: the only excuse for saying inexcusable things is that one always says them. Roughly speaking, one's friends are the people of whom one thinks, habitually, pleasant things. But even friends can be annoying, or unbeautiful, or dull. And it is of the essence of those manners which are morals not to tell them so if one can help it. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend". and must sometimes be dealt. But no stabbing over non-essentials! And above all, no stabbing when it is a pleasure to stab. Sometimes these truth-tellers congratulate themselves that their praise is immensely enhanced by its rarity. There, I fancy, they are mistaken: for in the first place, praise that is too long on the way

loses its savor; and in the second, they acquire, I have noticed, a censorious habit of mind that prevents them from praising at all.

No: in the course of mere conventional living, a certain amount of lying must be done. "How do you do?" "I am very well, thank you." You may have indigestion, and in that case you have lied. Yet is it your business to make your acquaintance uncomfortable by telling him the facts in the case? Certain things are true of any man personally which have nothing to do with his social existence: personally, if he has a toothache, he has it; socially, he has not a toothache unless he mentions it. Then, there are lies which are not verbal at all lies of implication. The early Puritans who objected to paint and powder, objected to them, I fancy, on perfectly Catholic grounds— it was immoral to make yourself attractive, and paint and powder were literally meretricious. On the same principle, to this day, a nun cuts off her hair. The modern feeling against paint and powder-for it does in some quarters survive is rather, I imagine, on the score of dishonesty. You are not supposed to disguise a beautiful complexion if you really have it. But if you have not a good complexion, you are deceiving people -you are acting a lie - by making yourself look as if you had. The ground of the objection has shifted.

Some author is it Mr. Kipling?—says of