XXIII. TWO ENDS OF A STICK.

Every stick has two ends. So has every fact and every truth. So has every trait and every action, and it is one of the most amusing of any diversions to find out what the other end looks like—better than conundrums or prize puzzles any time, equal to a first-rate detective story, even one of Sherlock Holmes’ miraculous performances as portrayed by Conan Doyle, for you can find it right inside of yourself, and probably everybody has found out by the time they can keenly enjoy a detective story—a first-class one, I mean—that nothing in the world is so interesting to a man as his own self. I know a very handsome man who has an album filled with pictures of himself at different ages, and in different costumes, and who declares with a somewhat brutal frankness that it is to him by far the most interesting collection of pictures the world could produce.

Another man, far from handsome, but very bright, cynically proclaims that he lives to the glory and for the advancement of Mephistopheles or Iago, or by whatever name you choose to supply his real cognomen.

Well, then, granted that the most captivating study of mankind is himself, I will suggest to my friends pining for amusement the little game of hunting up “the other end” of their own pet virtues, and if they have any faults or can get some friend to point out one or two, they may solace themselves by discovering that every fault has its alternative virtue.

For instance, our friend M. I., who lives for his own glory and advantage, is only the other end of the man who lives to spread abroad some great discovery and advantage to the world, which becomes incidentally glory and advantage to him himself. Jenner, Fulton, Ericsson, Christopher Columbus and several other worldwide benefactors were men who, if their natures had taken another turn, would have spent life in admiring their own talents and despising other people who couldn’t see so much.

The “lovely woman who stoops to folly” for love’s sake is one who is holding the scepter of womanhood by the wrong end, and misusing the noble virtue of love and self-sacrifice. The lawyer who sells his gifts of eloquence and defends the criminal who pays him, is only holding by the wrong end that weapon which is mightier than sword or pen—the tongue of the ready speaker. Now bring it right home and see what fun it is.

When you ran and helped grandmamma up the steps and seated her so prettily in the best chair and brought her some tea and waited upon her, as she said, “like an angel,” it was very filial and sweet and affectionate and dear, wasn’t it? At any rate, you felt yourself very good while you did it, and were not surprised at her praise and petting; but didn’t you know in the depths of your deceitful little heart that Robert Brownlow was looking on, and that he declares sweetness, docility, and domesticity a woman’s chiefest of charms?

Now comes the little game. That action had two ends—one of them all abloom with the fair lilies of womanly virtue, and the other carved into the similitude of a grinning imp of falsehood and pretense. Which end really was uppermost? See?

But for your comfort let me suggest that I myself often cannot be sure which end was uppermost, for like most other people I generally carry the pole so evenly balanced that just a little tilt will incline it one way or the other.

Another queer thing about this balancing is that very often we see one end of the staff while the world cries out at the other. Did you never find yourself blushing and ashamed at praise and laudation and popularity bestowed most lavishly upon some action which the world considers very self-denying and generous, when your own conscience told you the motive was to gain this very laudation, or perhaps money or position or some other price?

And were you never astonished and grieved at finding yourself accused of just these same base motives when really you had for once lost sight of tiresome self, and been working purely and simply for other people?

Well, it was in both cases because the world had got hold of the wrong end of the stick, while you knew more accurately which end you really held.

Perhaps the virtue most often used by its wrong handle and so converted into a vice is the quality of sincerity. Most of us declare with a warm glow of conscious virtue about the heart that whatever faults we may possess that of falsehood is far from us. It is very odd, but I have never known an exception to this rule. Everybody claims to be truthful, and in point of fact hardly anybody is absolutely truthful.

Why is this?

Probably because truth is a thing so lovely in itself that we all wish to think it one of our own characteristics, and so perjure ourselves by claiming it.

But truth, like love, reaches at its one extremity to the very zenith and at the other sinks to the darkest depths. Love is the chief attribute of the Deity, and debased possession is the delight of devils. So truth divine and godlike in its highest examples is made a very instrument of demons in its distorted form.

But yet those who use it in this form invariably boast, “I am so sincere I feel that I really must speak the truth at all risks.”

You know and I know that sort of truth-teller, the malicious gleam of the eye, the fiendish glee of the smile, the false ring of the voice, the stereotyped phrases and the inevitable result. Perhaps it is only a petty little sting after all, such as:

“Yes, dear, I thought you ought to know, and of course it is my duty to tell the truth, but she did say that your conduct on that occasion was very remarkable—yes, very remarkable indeed—and everybody was commenting on it.”

Or perhaps:

“They were admiring that gown of yours, and I felt obliged to tell them that it was made over from two others, and not a Worth at all. I had to tell the truth, you know.”

Or:

“Too bad your sister has married into an insane family. Oh, didn’t you know it? Yes, indeed. His aunt on the father’s side is in an asylum at this minute. I don’t believe in suppressing the truth. Do you?”

And perhaps it is something far more deadly than these—a stab instead of a pin-prick—as:

“Yes, a very pleasant man, as you say; but did you never hear that he is a convicted criminal?”

Then when you demand the full details of this unpleasant “truth” you find that long years ago, when this middle-aged man was a lad, he had been tempted and in a moment of weakness appropriated moneys not his own; had been convicted of the offense and suffered the penalty. Shame, penitence and a life of undeviating probity have followed, and the sometime culprit has lived down his error and become a worthy citizen, but the truth-teller will not let him escape, and perhaps succeeds in ruining his social prospects and the peace of all who have learned to love him by this diabolical form of frankness.

“A nice woman—pity she drinks,” is perfectly true, and when the explanation comes: “Yes, she drinks tea. Don’t you?” the false impression is not quite removed, and at the best one feels that such jests are like playing with fire.

Just a step or two further in this form of diabolical sincerity is the mysterious assertion, “Yes, very pretty and very lively, as you say—almost too lively, if all accounts are true.”

“What do you mean by too lively?” is indignantly demanded, and the truth-teller bridles and virtuously replies:

“Oh, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, I’m sure, but everybody knows that she was a very gay sort of girl, and her mother found it hard enough to keep her within bounds.”

And a careless listener carries away the impression that the lively and irrepressible girl has become a woman of questionable character.

The lecturer wearily says to his truthful friend: “I’m afraid that subject did not exactly suit the audience to-night. How was it? Did they act bored?” And the friend replies: “Well, yes, I thought they were. I noticed a good deal of yawning and fidgeting, and several went away before it was over.”

So the lecturer, mortified and discouraged, feels himself a failure, and the next time goes upon the platform with the shadow of defeat already wrapping him like a mantle, and feeling that he can’t succeed, does not succeed, and perhaps gives the whole thing up and takes to—well, to be a book peddler and a misanthrope.

“Do I look well to-night, dear?” asks the somewhat faded beauty of her jealous cousin, who never was a beauty, and the latter replies:

“Well, yes, dear, just a little tired and dragged perhaps. And let me wipe that powder off your chin! There, now, you look quite nice, I’m sure.”

So poor Beauty goes into the assembly feeling worn and tired, and nervously conscious of every little accessory she has fondly hoped unseen, and her looks are injured, and her pleasure is spoiled.

“What a pity your John did not remember his part better!” says one mother to another, as they come from the school exhibition, and John’s mother replies, with red cheeks:

“I’m afraid he was too much taken up with watching your Mary. You must have sat up nights for a month getting that costume ready; but it’s such a pity it was so tight in the sleeves. The child’s hands were red as beets.”

Both ladies have told the truth, and both would loudly proclaim sincerity to be the underlying impulse of their speeches; but they part with a bitterness of heart each against the other that does not disappear for months—perhaps for years.

It is quite true that John is slow and stupid, and that Mary is coquettish and overdressed; also that the boy forgot his part, and the girl’s hands were red as she spread them over the piano keys, but if those two mothers had not told the truth to each other how much better friends they would have been and how much happier!

I don’t mean they should have told lies. No, indeed! I, too, am a great stickler for truth, and I, too, have a Washingtonian objection to telling a lie, but there is all the difference in the world between telling a lie and not telling the truth, or, if you will allow me to return to my first metaphor, it makes all the difference in the world which end of the staff we present.

Your friend asks you how she is looking. You may fix your eyes upon the defects or upon the good points of her appearance, and answer accordingly. Instead of the reply quoted above, the cousin of the society woman might have said: “A little languid perhaps, but that will go off as soon as your friends gather about you. How charming your hair is to-night!”

The orator’s fidus Achates could have said perfectly truthfully: “Oh, in a mixed audience there are always some who can’t appreciate anything but ‘bones and the end men.’ Your lecture isn’t meant for that class of persons, and you needn’t care whether they are pleased or not, or, if you do care, it would be easy enough to leave out so and so and put in a few of those capital stories you tell so well.”

Perhaps we are apt to lose sight of the three divisions of truth, as set forth in the legal exhortation to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” After all, however, the only part of this that applies to secular life is the last clause of the three. If you tell “nothing but the truth,” you must use your own judgment as to “the whole truth.” In no relation of life is this poor truth of ours so mangled and shattered and twisted about and disguised and travestied as in love-making. Perhaps lovers become color blind and can’t see the cold pure blue of truth because of the rosy mists that surround them. Cupid is blind, we know, but that was that lovers might not see faults in each other; but is the little god also blind to truth in all her varying forms? If not, why are lovers’ lies condoned and laughed at by so many persons? Why are all stratagems fair in love as well as in war?

For myself, I do not think they are, and I should be as angry at being lied to by a man who was in love with me as by one who was not—perhaps more, for he would have disturbed the idea beneath which every woman hides the man she loves, and that is a real misfortune.

As soon as you recognize a man for a liar, you discount every virtue he appears to possess, and almost doubt your own eyesight with regard to him.

The lover must tell “nothing but the truth” if he would preserve the good opinion of his beloved, but even he need not tell all the truth.

Women, with that instinct for self-torture so thoroughly developed in the sex, always hasten in the beginning of a courtship to inquire:

“Did you ever love any one before you saw me?” and then, “Did you ever kiss a girl before you kissed me?”

If the poor fellow says “Yes,” he finds himself the subject of more reproaches, more distrust, more innuendoes and suspicions than he can live down in the course of a long life. His offense is neither forgiven nor forgotten until that dreary time arrives when the wife cares no longer whom he has kissed or when.

But what is the poor fellow to do? Of course, he has kissed a dozen or so of girls before he ever saw her, and if he denies it point blank he entails upon himself the revenges of conscience and honor, which are as bad in their way as the reproaches of his sweetheart; also there is a certain unwillingness to falsely accuse himself of being a “Miss Nancy” who has never dared to kiss a pretty girl. So what is he to do?

I don’t know, I am sure. Far be it from me to suggest that a lie is ever justifiable. So let us settle it by advising the girls to remember the old adage:

“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.”