Now, you see, this lady’s fault was not in lying, but only in lying injudiciously.  She should have told the truth there, and made it up to the nurse with a fraudulent compliment further along in the paper.  She could have said, “In one respect the sick-nurse is perfection—­when she is on watch, she never snores.”  Almost any little pleasant lie would have taken the sting out of that troublesome but necessary expression of the truth.

Lying is universal we all do it; we all must do it.  Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others’ advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling.  Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather.  Then—­but I am but a new and feeble student in this gracious art; I can not instruct this Club.

Joking aside, I think there is much need of wise examination into what sorts of lies are best and wholesomest to be indulged, seeing we must all lie and do all lie, and what sorts it may be best to avoid—­and this is a thing which I feel I can confidently put into the hands of this experienced Club—­a ripe body, who may be termed, in this regard, and without undue flattery, Old Masters.

ABOUT MAGNANIMOUS-INCIDENT LITERATURE

All my life, from boyhood up, I have had the habit of reading a certain set of anecdotes, written in the quaint vein of The World’s ingenious Fabulist, for the lesson they taught me and the pleasure they gave me.  They lay always convenient to my hand, and whenever I thought meanly of my kind I turned to them, and they banished that sentiment; whenever I felt myself to be selfish, sordid, and ignoble I turned to them, and they told me what to do to win back my self-respect.  Many times I wished that the charming anecdotes had not stopped with their happy climaxes, but had continued the pleasing history of the several benefactors and beneficiaries.  This wish rose in my breast so persistently that at last I determined to satisfy it by seeking out the sequels of those anecdotes myself.  So I set about it, and after great labor and tedious research accomplished my task.  I will lay the result before you, giving you each anecdote in its turn, and following it with its sequel as I gathered it through my investigations.

THE GRATEFUL POODLE