It is possible to avoid falsehood
and yet not tell the truth. It is not enough to answer
formal questions. To. reach the truth by yea and nay
communications implies a questioner with a share of
inspiration, such as is often found in mutual love. YEA
and NAY mean nothing; the meaning must have been related in
the question. Many Words are often necessary to convey a
very simple statement; for in this sort of exercise we
never hit the gold; the most that we can hope is by many
arrows, more or less far off on different sides, to
indicate, in the course of time, for what target we are
aiming, and after an hour's talk, back and forward, to
convey the purport of a single principle or a single
thought.
*
The cruellist lies are often told in silence. A man may
have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and
yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile
calumniator. And how many loves have perished because,
from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame
which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a
lover, at the critical point of the relation, has but hung
his head and held his tongue? And, again, a lie may be
told by a truth, or a truth conveyed through a lie. Truth
to facts is not always truth to sentiment; and part of the
truth, as often happens in answer to a question, may be the
foulest calumny.
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