"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 insist on this. God
has not so made the world that any perjury or cover of the facts is
necessary to serve the cause of goodness. Commend it though English or
German critics do, can we not conceive of a speech grander than the
untruth which Shakspeare has put into the dying Desdemona's mouth?
Let us, then, examine some of the forms of sympathetic lying.
One of them is that of over-liberal praise.
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