The St. Johns herald., 1889-10-31
CONVENTIONAL SEAMS.
OisslmuIstion Which Keeps tho Socia
 World in Q State of Peace.

OisslmuIation Which Keeps tho Socia
 World in Q State of Peace.
 Nobody likes to be charged with in sincerity; yet who is entirely sincere 1t is one of the conventionalisms of so- ciety that its members shall seem tc believe statements and profession. which they know or suspect to b false. It is another that they shal pretend not to see and hear thou. sand things of which only the biins and deaf could be really unconscious This general dissimulation comes from a tacit understanding. whereby tn world consents, for the sake of peace and quietness, to recognize false pre- lenses as part and parcel of the amenities of social life. A man abso- lutely and internationally sincere Is : very rare specimen of civilized hu manity, and, had we moral museums would deserve the same promInent position in one of them that Is ac- corded to calf with two heads. or sheep with an extra leg, in cO!ec tion of natural curiosities. Such man. going at large, is looked upo, by his more polite fellow-beings vii disgust and horror, as a boor ano brute; and really, in the existing stat of things, he is a nuisance.
 IL is not necessa " at all times to T. vociferously candid; though it E wr0as to be at any time positively uniru ful. Silence is natural privilege, aa. if teller of incredible stories choos. to consider it Q token of assent, t1a is not the fault of the courteous listcl CT who keeps his opinion to him Although it might be wrong to tell t1. Munchausen you believe hun, it is nc the part of a Christian gentleman give him the lie direct. To seem nc, to hear remarks which are intended |. annoy you. is a species of negative l., sincerity which is in many eases con mendable. It disappolnts and bafle the insulter, and prevents profucs war of words. Such disslmulatIo. may be the means of preventing {; breach of tho peace; and the "easier way is tho best when the other way is not imperative.
 Were we all to express freely and without reservation our views Of each other, the world would soon be onc wide battlefield. and mankind In the anarchical condition winch We are to c. is immediately to precede the end c all aubiuGary things. Ii is, therefore essential to the preservation ot peace and order-nay, to the very existence of the human species that we be noi over candid Sometimes, howeve outrage draws the cork of one 5 indIg patton, and Q fierce torrent of sharr truths comes hissing forth. This. too is according to the "eternal fitness or things" In the social as in the physic al atmosphere. thunder and lightnlnc are indispensable now and then. Tht best feelings of human nature woui, utterly stagnate in perpetual caln of conventionalities. An occaslona row is therefore wholesome.
 But such explosions, whether in6i vidual or general, are after all excep tional. The normal condition" society is condition of peace, or pc! haps it would be more proper to save suppressed war-the suppressive ager being that kind of prudence which i duces us to play blind and deaf an dumb. when to see and hear and spea would set us by the ears with ou. nelghbors. Not one of us, from th, minister to the hardest Christian C the crowd, says all he thinks. In fact it is only occasionally that one finds man who thinks all he says.-N. ' Ledger.