White Lies

            What would the world be like if we all said our exact thoughts?  “Please, ma’am, missis is at home, but she says as how you are so unpleasant to her she can’t abear to see you, and you do so run on about yourself, and you have such a bonnet as give her the Jaundice to look at” (pg. 329).  I should think there would be no peace, no love, and no happiness left among us if we ought not, in some circumstance, tell a white lie (pg. 329). 

As an example, I present the common expression, “not at home”.  This was one phrase about which we used to have terrific skirmishes.  “Not at home” can mean “I am not in the house; I am absent and abroad” or “I am not visible to friends to-day, and it is no business of yours whether I am in the house or not” (pg. 329).  Sometimes, voicing the truth is a bit coarse and of “uncharitable selfishness” (pg. 330).

            In another example, Jane finds herself engaged in a pleasant group discussion about Lily, a person she utterly dislikes.  If Jane submits to silence during the conversation rather than interjecting her thoughts about Lily as a “priggish, solemn, unendurable owl”, the result is that Jane “buries [her] owl deep in the ivy bush of formal civilities” (pg. 331).  Further, Jane, keeping her tongue, finds that Lily is something better and brighter than an owl.  “Can any person in his clear moral senses hesitate as to which is the greater evil”—white lying or bitter uncharitable hate (pg. 331)?  I should think the purely innocent, or conventional, white lies are “allowable by the canons of Christian morality” (pg. 329).

                                    - Mckenzie Frey

Source: All the Year Round, Volume XIII, pg. 329-331

Excerpt 3: Gambling