that would be
a lie." He would not act a falsehood any more than he would speak one.
[169]

Another illustration of duty and truthfulness, as exhibited in the
fulfilment of a promise, may be added from the life of Blucher. When he
was hastening with his army over bad roads to the help of Wellington, on
the 18th of June, 1815, he encouraged his troops by words and gestures.
"Forwards, children--forwards!" "It is impossible; it can't be done,"
was the answer. Again and again he urged them. "Children, we must get
on; you may say it can't be done, but it MUST be done! I have promised
my brother Wellington--PROMISED, do you hear? You wouldn't have me BREAK
MY WORD!" And it was done.

Truth is the very bond of society, without which it must cease to exist,
and dissolve into anarchy and chaos. A household cannot be governed by
lying; nor can a nation. Sir Thomas Browne once asked, "Do the devils
lie?" "No," was his answer; "for then even hell could not subsist." No
considerations can justify the sacrifice of truth, which ought to be
sovereign in all the relations of life.

Of all mean vices, perhaps lying is the meanest. It is in some cases
the offspring of perversity and vice, and in many others of sheer moral
cowardice. Yet many persons think so lightly of it that they will order
their servants to lie for them; nor can they feel surprised if, after
such ignoble instruction, they find their servants lying for themselves.

Sir Harry Wotton's description of an ambassador as "an honest man sent
to lie abroad for the benefit of his country," though meant as a satire,
brought him into disfavour with James I. when it became published; for
an adversary quoted it as a principle of the king's religion. That it
was not Wotton's real view of the duty of an honest man, is obvious from
the lines quoted at the head of this chapter, on 'The Character of a
Happy Life,' in which he eulogises the man

"Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill."

But lying assumes many forms--such as diplomacy, expediency, and moral
reservation; and, under one guise or another, it is found more or less
pervading all classes of society. Sometimes it assumes the form of
equivocation or moral dodging--twisting and so stating the things said
as to convey a false impression--a kind of lying which a Frenchman once
described as "walking round about the truth."

There are even men of narrow minds and dishonest n