continuel) la vie a l'art, moi de mon coin, je vous regarde
comme des forces de la nature meme qui auraient droit de vivre pour
eux-memes et pas pour la foule. Je n'ose pas vous deranger, Madame, et
d'ailleurs j'ai tant a faire aussi, qu'il m'est impossible de vous
dire de vive voix tout le grand plaisir que vous m'avez donnee, mais
parce que j'ai senti votre coeur. Veuillez, chere madame, croire au
mien qui ne demande pas mieux dans cet instant que vous admirer et
vous le dire tant bien que mal d'une maniere quelconque.

Bien a vous,

E. Duse.

THE LIE DIRECT

BY

CAROLINE DUER

Two men went up into the sanctum sanctorum of the Quill Drivers' Club
to lunch. The younger was a writer of fiction and the elder a
clergyman, his friend and guest, by chance encountered on a rare visit
to town.

They were evidently absorbed in discussion when they sat down, for the
host hardly interrupted himself long enough to give the briefest of
orders to the attendant waiter before he leaned forward across the
table and resumed eagerly: "Let the critics rage furiously together if
they will"--referring to a controversy excited by one of his late
stories. "The thing is going to stand! I believe, and I'll go bail
there's no reasonable person who doesn't believe, that falsehood is
justifiable, and more than justifiable, on many occasions."

"Only everybody will differ as to the occasions," put in the
clergyman, the humor in the corners of his eyes counterbalanced by the
graveness of the lines about his mouth.

"I'll go further than that," continued the writer, striking his hand
on the table impressively. "In the circumstances as I described them I
won't call it falsehood! I agree with whoever it was who said that one
lied only when one intentionally deceived a person who had a right to
know the truth."

"And suppose," said the clergyman, with sudden earnestness, "the
knowledge of the truth would be cruel, painful, harmful even, to the
person who had the right to it. What then? Would you still owe it to
him, or not?"

"Why, then, of course, I wouldn't tell it," answered the other. "You
might call it what you liked. I suppose it would be a passive lie, if
you're particular about its front name; but there have been lots of
fine ones, actively and passively told, since the world began."

"Fine?" echoed the clergyman thoughtfully. "I wonder!"

"Fitting, proper, expedient," amended the writer impatiently.

"Fitting, prope