certain period a certain piece of work, than the fly-leaf of a
last year's almanac. There are men whom every one knows who will
lie without blushing about their work, and who will stand at their
counter and lie all day, and then sleep with a peaceful conscience
at night, having failed to fulfil a single pledge during their
waking hours. Then there are people who will promise to pay bills,
and promise a hundred times over, and never pay, and never expect
to pay. When a bill is presented, they promise to pay, as a matter
of course; and that is considered as good as the gold, until it is
presented again; and then comes another promise, and another and
another. The creditor knows the debtor lies, but many a debtor of
this kind would feel insulted and injured by any spoken doubts of
his truthfulness.

But the field is large, and I am already beyond the limits which I
set for myself in these essays. It will be seen that I regard
truthfulness as, on the whole, a rare article in this world. It
is in some respects necessarily so. Many men are incapable of
stating a fact or telling a truth. They have not the power to
comprehend or express either. The majority of men receive truth
through such media of prejudice, selfishness, bigotry, sensuality,
and the like, that they never get it pure, and are therefore
incapable of uttering it correctly, even when their power of
expression equals their power of perception, which is not commonly
the case. So there is a world of unconscious lying; but I am sorry
to believe that there is just as large a world of conscious lying.
In politics, society, and business, the conscious and intentional
lie abounds. "Lord! how this world is given to lying!"

Well, all this can be improved. Men can cultivate the power to