Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-07-25
THE LOVE OF LYING.
Male and Female RraggRrta
Women who Buzz with Irritating
PeTsIsteney.
v. WHITMORE,
Publisher and Proprietor

hAhO eNLhhlN hEhKKAENA
Women who Bnzz with Irritating
PeTsistOncy.
London Mayfair supplies this;
The love Of lying is inherent in
the human heart. Setting the con-
sideration Of special means of
grace aside, it may be broadly as
serted that it requires a vast
amount Of care, cutting, culture
and a keen sense Of the ridicu-
lous utterly to eradicate it from
that deftly mixed soil which is so
admirably adapted to the growth of
all i'll weeds. But with the lie
tragic we have no intention of deal
ing here. The solemn falsehoOd,
told with a purpOse-and a pang
very Often-is, if the purpose be
the aggrandizement OF another
than ones self, surely one of the
mistakes that the recording angel
is perpetually engaged in obliterat-
ing. At any rate, these do not
come under the denomination of
barren brag, and are, therefore,
foreign to our profesSed purpose,
which is, to paint few of the
flowers of fancy which those who
love truth SO dearly that they lie
like her, wreath into garlands
wherewith to decorate themselves.
Those who brag take the citadelS of
other peoples belief or credulity by
storm if they take them at all.
They are ignorant of finesse. 1t is
not given to them to undermine by
implication even, for any length
ened period. The genuine brag.
gart, male or female, is q bump
tious, overbearing creature, endowed
with the bonhOmme of buffalo,
and the obtusity--as to the mental
and moral vision of its audience
Of the ostrich. When their pecu-
liar talent is compelled to limit
itself to the family circle they be-
come all-pervading household pests,
not so much on account of what
they do as of what they say they
do. They take the heart out Of the
work the others perform by assert.
ing that the excellence of the per-
formanceiS due TO their supervision.
They are generally exuberant in
manner to a degree that takes the
breath out of the bodies of less
gifted ones, who rarely discover,
until blessed by the absence of their
oppressors, that they themselves
have been the wheel eausing the
dust about which the buzzing fly
glorilied itself.
But the family braggart of either
sex is a miserably poor specimen of
the genus compared with the gall
liant pretenders who infeSt the at
mosphere of professional life in
every branch Of science, art and
literature, and it must be conceded
that in this latter sphere women
are those who buzz with the most
irritating noise and persistency.
There are examples to be found
among the ranks of those who swell
the best array Of lady litterateurs
who hold so steadfastly the faith
that they must always be before the
public, that Ia the face of our
knowing facts to the contrary they
will always try to make us believe
that it is they who are raising the
journalistic dust sbogt any popular
| topic. They accept thanks for arti-
cles they never saw until the arti-
cles were published for influences
that they never possessed, and for
the coed effects of an interest in
some cause that they have never
displayed. And this they do with
such unblushing c1rontery that
some Of their hearers ore taken in
by it, aud are gratefully glad to
bask in rays that spread about in
all directions with such apparently
reckless munifcence. These are
the women who, if they write, are
assured in every town into which
they 60 that their novels are more
sought for at the libraries than any
others. Or if they sing, we hear
that their master tells them, with
| fnnrs in his owes. TINT they Aro