many because of death, but from the high moral plane from which I
regard it, it is chiefly objectionable on account of the lying it gives
rise to. Directly a man gets well on the way down hill, the good natured
world gets this lie photographed, and each man presents him a
copy--"Why, I never saw you looking better in my life!" For the first
few copies that are presented him the poor devil is grateful; of the
next few he is suspicious, and thereafter he is worried, vexed and
profane. If you remonstrate against the truth of the assurance and
call attention to the prominent skeleton which you are presenting to
the public eye, the good natured liar looks you unflinchingly in the
eye while he presents you with another lithograph bearing this
inscription: "Oh, I didn't mean that you were fatter, I meant that
your skin is clearer and your eyes are brighter." Not having a sample
of your former skin, nor another pair of eyes handy to confute him
with, this well-meaning liar walks off triumphantly. I, myself, however,
am no better than the rest of them, though my presenting the lithograph
cost me dearly one day. In one of the towns where I stopped, a young
girl came to the hotel the shadow of what she had been. I suppose one
evening I must have felt unusually chipper and kindly myself, for,
coming up on the porch where she was sitting, I dashed off the old
lithograph, "Why you are looking so much better." Her eyes--I never
saw eyes that had so much of the other world and so little of this in
them--turned on me with a half kind, half reproachful look, and at
once filled with tears. She merely said gently, "Thank you," and got
up and walked away. God forgive me, that I should have interrupted a
soul so near to setting sail, to pay a lithographed and lying
compliment. Three weeks later, in another town, I was told that she
had gone on the last long voyage. I have burned my lithographs.