insist on this. God
has not so made the world that any perjury or cover of the facts is
necessary to serve the cause of goodness. Commend it though English or
German critics do, can we not conceive of a speech grander than the
untruth which Shakspeare has put into the dying Desdemona's mouth?

Let us, then, examine some of the forms of sympathetic lying.

One of them is that of over-liberal praise. That a person is always
ready to extol others, and was never heard to speak ill of anybody under
the sun, appears to some the very crown of excellence. But what is the
panegyric worth that has no discrimination, that finds any mortal
faultless, or bestows on the varying and contradictory behaviors of men
an equal meed? To what does universal commendation amount more than
universal indifference? What value do we put on the lavish regard which
is not _individual_, or founded on any intelligent appreciation of its
object, but scattered blindly abroad on all flesh, as once thousands
were vaguely baptized in the open air by a general sprinkling, and which
any one can appropriate only as he may own a certain indeterminate
section of an undivided township or unfenced common? To have a good
word for everybody, and take exception to nothing, is to incapacitate
one's self for the exquisite delight of real fellowship. We all know
persons who seem a sort of social favorites on account of this gracious
manner which they afford with such mechanical plenty. But what a
dilution and deterioration their external quality of half-artificial
courtesy becomes! It is handing round sweetened water, instead of
tasting the juice of the grape. It is pouring from a pail, instead of
opening a vial of sweet odors. This broadcast and easy approval lacks
that very honesty which, in the absence of fineness, is the single grace
by which it could be sanctified.

The same vice affects more public concerns. Of what sheer hypocrisy
eulogistic resolutions upon officers leaving their posts in Church or
State are too frequently composed! The men who are tired and want to get
rid of their Representative or minister are so overjoyed at losing sight
of him, that they can set no bounds to their thankful exaltation of his
name! Truly they speed the parting guest, wish well to the traveller
from their latitude, and launch with shouts the ship of his fortunes
from their _ways_! They recommend him as a paragon of genius and
learning to all communities or societies who wan