Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1857-01-28
stimulation and Discrimination.

stimulation. that there are people "who will so
beset a man with questions, and draw him on,
and pick his secret out of him, that, without an
absurd silence, he must slow an inclination one
way; or, if he do not, they will gather as much
by his silence as by his speech" A common IN
stance of this species of nqusitiveness is to tax
persons with the authorship of anonymous wrl-
tings. Archbishop Whately quotes the reply OF
Dean Swift in o coniuncture of the kind he
had published some insulting lines upon Mr.
Bettesworth, q barrister, who called upon the
satirist
"Sir," said he, on Swift inquiring his business,
II am Sergeant Bettesworth." "Of what regi-
ment?" replied Swift. 20, Mr.. Dean, we know
your powers, of raillery; you know me well
enough, that am one of His Majesty's Sergeantts-
at-Law." "What then, sir2' why then, sir,
| am come to demand of you whether you are
the author of this poem, and these vllalnous
| lines ON me-" Sir" answered Swift, vt was
piece of advice given me in my early days oy
| Lord Somers, never to own or dlsown any Wir-
ting laid to my charge, because if did this IN
some cases, whatever did not disown would
intallibly be imputed to me. Now take this
to lave been very wise maxim, and have fol-
lowed it ever since, and believe it will hardly
be in the power of all your rhetoric, as great
master as you are of it, to make me swerve from
| that rule"
This reply in the mouth of one who, like
Swift, had acted consistently upon the sagacious
counsel of Lord Somers, would battle the inter-
rogator; but as most people negative the suspl-
cion when it is mistaken, the refusal to answer,
when it is well founded, amounts to confession
! DR. Johnson decided that to escape the dilemma
direct denial was allowable, and Walter Scott
| Al. -. l.. So, II
edy assured inquisitive friends that he was not
the author of the Waverly Novels. Yet he usu-
ally, he says took care to qualify the contradc-
ton by the remark, that, had he been the wrl-
ter, he should have felt entitled to protect his
secret by false disclaimer This was to betray
conscientiousness that the assertion unaccom-
panied by a warning that it was worthless
would have been inconsistent with rectltude.-
The proposition reduced to its simple state IS,
whether impertinence in one person will justify
falsehood in another.
| To PROFOUND the question is, to our thinking,
to answer it. Lord Somers must have consld-
cred the latitude improper, or his advice to
| Swift would have been useless; and Swift, no
stringent moralist would not have needed to
adopt it if he had supposed, to Use the expression
of his own Houyhnhnhms, that he might speak
the thing which was not" When it is at once
admitted that we may say what is convenient
instead of what is true every man Will have
different standard of veracity, and no one can
tell any longer what to believe. In the same
breath in which DR.. johnson maintained the
right of an author to disavow his productions,
he Indignantly denounced, what numbers would
consider the more venial doctrine that it was
lawful to withhold from patient knowledge
of his danger.
"Of all lying have the greatest adherence
of this, because believe it has frequently been
practsed upon myself. You have no business
with consequences; you are to tell the truth. =
Thus the lying that johnson abhorred the most,
was deception which multitudeS imagine to be
duty; and he was not more at variance with
them than inconsistent with himself. Truth, an
instant before, was to yield to consequences; the
scene shifts, the consequences become disagreed
ble, and truth is to be paramount to every con-
sderation. So surely does the moralst revert
to the rigid rule, and exact it OF Others the mo-
ment the exceptions are to his own disadvantage.
The evil of departing from it is shown on large
scale in the disgracetul maXms of the Jesuits
which Pascal held up to odium and reproach.-
Casuistry has often been employed in vitating
moraty-il devising specious reasons tor null
tpying exceptions to irksome principles. Then
arise labyrinth of fine distinctions, of complica-
ted conditions, OF subtle evasionS, which oluht
the conscience, perpleX the notions OF right and
wrong and convert the simple laws which are
understood and acknowledged by him who
speaks, and him who hears, into a maze of met
aphyscal deceit and confusion, in which no one
can be sure what is permitted to himself or ar
rogated by his neighbor. Nor if men may break
precepts to avoid presumed Inconvenience, can
they be forbidden the liberty where the design
is to accomplish fancied good. The whole
monstrous machinery of pous frauds becomes
morally defensible; the motive, where it was
honest. justified the means. The wood of the
true cross, which Fuller says at the time of the
Reformation would have loaded ship was
rightly multiplied by those who believed that 1t
would encourage devotion, and the priests who
furnished the false teeth of St. Appollonia which
were reputed charm for the toothache, and
filled barrel when they were collected in the
reign of Edward VI, were engaged in com
mendable work ''for the glory of God and the
relief Of mans estate"
| K;e, or