never lie, but it is not so--and this ignorance is one of the very
things that shame our so-called civilization. Everybody lies--every day;
every hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning;
if he keeps his tongue still, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his
attitude, will convey deception--and purposely. Even in sermons--but
that is a platitude.

In a far country where I once lived the ladies used to go around paying
calls, under the humane and kindly pretence of wanting to see each
other; and when they returned home, they would cry out with a glad
voice, saying, "We made sixteen calls and found fourteen of them out"
--not meaning that they found out anything important against the
fourteen--no, that was only a colloquial phrase to signify that they
were not at home--and their manner of saying it expressed their lively
satisfaction in that fact. Now their pretence of wanting to see the
fourteen--and the other two whom they had been less lucky with--was that
commonest and mildest form of lying which is sufficiently described as a
deflection from the truth. Is it justifiable? Most certainly. It is
beautiful, it is noble; for its object is, _not_ to reap profit, but to
convey a pleasure to the sixteen. The iron-souled truth-monger would
plainly manifest, or even utter the fact that he didn't want to see
those people--and he would be an ass, and inflict totally unnecessary
pain. And next, those ladies in that far country--but never mind, they
had a thousand pleasant ways of lying, that grew out of gentle impulses,
and were a credit to their intelligence and an honor to their hearts.
Let the particulars go.

The men in that far country were liars, every one. Their mere howdy-do
was a lie, because _they_ didn't care how you did, except they were
undertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made