第34章

- No, it isn't exactly bribery.One man has oysters, and another epithets.It is an exchange of hospitalities; one gives a "spread"on linen, and the other on paper, - that is all.Don't you think you and I should be apt to do just so, if we were in the critical line? I am sure I couldn't resist the softening influences of hospitality.I don't like to dine out, you know, - I dine so well at our own table, [our landlady looked radiant,] and the company is so pleasant [a rustling movement of satisfaction among the boarders]; but if I did partake of a man's salt, with such additions as that article of food requires to make it palatable, Icould never abuse him, and if I had to speak of him, I suppose Ishould hang my set of jingling epithets round him like a string of sleigh-bells.Good feeling helps society to make liars of most of us, - not absolute liars, but such careless handlers of truth that its sharp corners get terribly rounded.I love truth as chiefest among the virtues; I trust it runs in my blood; but I would never be a critic, because I know I could not always tell it.I might write a criticism of a book that happened to please me; that is another matter.

- Listen, Benjamin Franklin! This is for you, and such others of tender age as you may tell it to.

When we are as yet small children, long before the time when those two grown ladies offer us the choice of Hercules, there comes up to us a youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in his left spheres like marbles.The cubes are of stainless ivory, and on each is written in letters of gold - TRUTH.The spheres are veined and streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark crimson flush above, where the light falls on them, and in a certain aspect you can make out upon every one of them the three letters L, I, E.The child to whom they are offered very probably clutches at both.The spheres are the most convenient things in the world; they roll with the least possible impulse just where the child would have them.The cubes will not roll at all; they have a great talent for standing still, and always keep right side up.

But very soon the young philosopher finds that things which roll so easily are very apt to roll into the wrong corner, and to get out of his way when he most wants them, while he always knows where to find the others, which stay where they are left.Thus he learns -thus we learn - to drop the streaked and speckled globes of falsehood and to hold fast the white angular blocks of truth.But then comes Timidity, and after her Good-nature, and last of all Polite-behavior, all insisting that truth must ROLL, or nobody can do anything with it; and so the first with her coarse rasp, and the second with her broad file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do so round off and smooth and polish the snow-white cubes of truth, that, when they have got a little dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them from the rolling spheres of falsehood.

The schoolmistress was polite enough to say that she was pleased with this, and that she would read it to her little flock the next day.But she should tell the children, she said, that there were better reasons for truth than could be found in mere experience of its convenience and the inconvenience of lying.

Yes, - I said, - but education always begins through the senses, and works up to the idea of absolute right and wrong.The first thing the child has to learn about this matter is, that lying is unprofitable, - afterwards, that it is against the peace and dignity of the universe.

- Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in newspapers, under the title, "From our Foreign Correspondent," does any harm? - Why, no, - I don't know that it does.I suppose it doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or "Gulliver's Travels" do.Sometimes the writers compile TOOcarelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geographies, and stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead those who are desirous of information.I cut a piece out of one of the papers, the other day, which contains a number of improbabilities, and, Isuspect, misstatements.I will send up and get it for you, if you would like to hear it.- Ah, this is it; it is headed "OUR SUMATRA CORRESPONDENCE.

"This island is now the property of the Stamford family, - having been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir - Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme.The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.' This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which here contains a large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable for their symmetry, and frequently displays on its surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated South-Sea bubbles.The summers are oppressively hot, and the winters very probably cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, and thus the thermometer is rendered useless in winter.

The principal vegetable productions of the island are the pepper tree and the bread-fruit tree.Pepper being very abundantly produced, a benevolent society was organized in London during the last century for supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as an addition to that delightful condiment.[Note received from Dr.

D.P.] It is said, however, that, as the oysters were of the kind called NATIVES in England, the natives of Sumatra, in obedience to a natural instinct, refused to touch them, and confined themselves entirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were brought over.

This information was received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and exceedingly fond of missionaries.He is said also to be very skilful in the CUISINE peculiar to the island.