Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/82

guesses at the sweetness which lies hidden in the nooks of sentiment below their rugged exterior.

No trait of character is more necessary or prominent than truthfulness. Without it we build ourselves only to fall to pieces; carelessness and ignorance may cause an untruth, wrong-doing a lie, that is, the direct intention to deceive. The first lie in the child, and the quickly uttered lie in after life, come generally from the natural or unregenerate impulse of self-defence. We lie to screen ourselves, and then one by one the chain of lies is forged that ends in weakness, sin, and ruin. The utter foolishness of a lie introduces its comic aspect we all object to being "found out," for it argues a want of skill. Like an anodyne its effect is palliative and temporary, not remedial. Cumulative or single falsehood always ends in destruction of itself. Then it is a universal wrong, and, when thus regarded, there seems something grand in not adopting,