is a
comfort to remember that many lies are not downright, but sympathetic;
and an understanding of their nature, if it does not palliate them, may
put us on our guard. _Sympathetic_ we think a better name than the
unfortunate title of _white_, which was given them by Mrs. Opie, because
that designation carries a meaning of innocence, if not even of virtue;
and instead of protecting our virtue, may even expose us to practise
them without remorse. Of laughing over them and making light of them,
and calling them by various ludicrous synonymes, as _fibs_, and _telling
the thing that is not_, there has been enough. We have a purpose in our
essay, than which no preaching could be more sober. Our aim is to give
for them no opiate, but to quicken the sense of their guilt, and their
exceeding mischief, too; for, if Francis Bacon be right in declaring the
lie we swallow down more dangerous than that which only passes through
our mind, how seriously the wine-bibbing of this sweet poison of kindly
misrepresentation must have weakened the constitution of mankind! Lying
for selfish gain or glory, for sensual pleasure, or for exculpation from
a criminal charge, is more gross, but it involves at once such
condemnation in society, and such inward reproach, as to be far less
insidious than lying out of amiable consideration for others, to shield
or further kinsfolk or friends, which may pass unrebuked, or stand for
an actual merit. Yet, be the motive what it may, there is a certain
invariable quantity of essential baseness in all violation of the truth;
and it may be feared our affectionate falsehoods often work more evil
than our malignant ones, by having free course and meeting with little
objection. "Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for
Him?" severely asks the old prophet of those who thought to cheat for
their own set, as though it were in the cause of religion; and no godly
soul can accept as a grateful tribute the least prevarication, however
disinterested or devoted in its behalf. Indeed, no smart antithesis has
been so hurtful as the overstated distinction between _black_ lies and
_white_. They are of different species, but have no generic difference.
Charles Reade's novel, of "White Lies," in which the deceptions of love
are so glorified, charming story as it is, will sap the character of
whoever does not, with a mental protest, countermine its main idea. The
very theory of our integrity is gone, if we do not