The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-04-15
THE FAMILY LIAR.
rNAPPRECIATED PHILANTHRO-
PIsT WHO DOES GOOD.


factress'
"Carisabel'' in Baltimore Sun.
81. ,s doubtful" says Mrs. Anna Robe
provn. in a clever story in the April
-, News. eff many families could hold
u.,ber we're il not for the safety valve
'aor5ed by one conspic6ously unreliable
member.
IN this hymn of gratitude to the fates
,.,t there is such a member the sub
thor would join her voice, making what
,-ingslev would call lone grand. sweet
aorg" did not Mrs. Robson Brown COM
.ioin of the fact that her family liar at
,i,,es told the truth and thus rendered her
almost unreliable. People have very little
a., when they are well off During life
time of nearly forty years Gas we can
make out from the texO Mrs. Browns
e,miIv liar consistently told nothing but
t,lseboods. On one single occasion, ana
tor practical personal purposes, did this
rsmarkable woman tell the truth, and then
her relations complain of her. If they hao
lived in the house with George Washing
ton all their days we should hear a very
diferent story. Think of the life of self
denial and self-abnegation that poor crea-
ure has led for forty years Think how
many times day she has said, ''How well
Won are looking" when she longed to tell
The unvarnished truth and declare "You
are a fright and had best be in bed How
MANY times has she welcomed with sweet
est of smiles the neighbor over the way
| who has run in just TO get you to cut
4 eut my shirt waist?' How many times
looked enchanted when her husband
brought in a man friend Unexpectedly to
dinner! How many times looked happy and
proud in her last years bonnet declaring
it came from Verots, and that her cousin.
who lives in Wisconsin, had brought il
over when she was on fire to speak the
truth and tell it up and down the street
that her husband had sent her bonnet
money to his mother?
In a truthful family the liar is the only
unselish member. Who but she (no man IS
ever a trustworthy liar-it is too trouble
some) has spark of manners? Who but
she teaches the servants to say Not at
home" instead of hurting out, ''The ladies
beg to be excused?" Some Jeanne Deans of
woman has made the latter phrase ad-
missible, but it has cold, inhospitable
SCUM, anu Is just WHAT you WOulu Expect
Of a narrow minded little creature who
thought more of her own soul than of her
sisters. Who, TO return to praises of the
unuuthful, but this maligned person prais-
IS the new babies, discovers likenesses be-
tween homely daughters and beautiful
mothers, invents compliments for the de-
butante, admires the clergyman's dull SER
mon? How stupid would this world be
without her vivid imagination, freely exer-
cised? One mentions a commonplace piece
Of news, and, thinking of it, wonders why
in the world one Is so uninteresting, and
lot it has come back a bird of glitterng
plumage; il measures ten feet from tip TO
tail; it sings like Jean de ReZske. l would
not have known my own nesting from an
other but for a tiny mole on its left foot.
We praise the novelist, the poet-Scott and
Shakespeare-who openly stole their plots,
and we have not one kind word for the
liar I'VE do not know our angels till
they're flown"
Well, this would be a mighty dull world
without them; they have saved many
doomed dinner party; they have been the
means of many another womans, who had
lain down to die, getting up and dressing
herself in her best clothes and greeting
her husband at the door with a smile. They
have driven her to the kitchen and spurr-
ed her to cooking such a dinner that he
decided she was a good wife, after all, and
he would have in the doctor to keep her
well. This angel of a liar who worked these
miracles simply visited two of her ac-
Quantances. To one she mentioned that
her husband was in the habit of calling on
young lady three nights in the week AMI
listening TO her music, of which he was
very fond To the other she let fall the in
formation that her husband had said since
Hattie was sick he got nothing TO eat at
home, so he pretended to swallow mouth
lul or two, andsthen when she was tucked
IN he went off and ate in peace at the
cub Both these statements were the
FABRICATION of the liars pure and facile
imagination, but they saved two useful hu-
man lives What truthful person can say
mat and continue truthful? WY, she
would be strung all over with medals if
sae had done as much.
But If an untruthful person is an I'M
mlueated blessing to any household, what
are we to say of those who never tell
lie! Providence in His mercy, and know
Hs mat there are more women than men
IN the world, has decreed, that the pre-
conference of this evil lies with the men.
I1ey have sort of clumsy rectitude in
s.aLng fact that divests it of all inter-
est' 1Sve seen a lunch party of twenty
women Iheir eyes riveted on the speaker
auu peiieving every word of a most thrill
uls tale suddenly collapse to a woman,
nu+h some marplot was heard to cut in
~lth' but my husband says il isn't true"
Hooody cared for her husband, who was
po'eiplally an old fuss, but after that
you could no more have revived interest
III mat tale than you could have inflated
Prcked balloon. Suppose she had said,
Hly sister says it isn't true" Her sister
""sHt nave been the matron of an orphan
as}IuHl or the president of a women jour
e'".s society; nobody would have paid
east attention to her. 1t was the
,'Seullne passion for truth that killed
", .5s story, and even the most accomplish
earb.
~ DC sure, when the marplot left the
Ann the company was cold to her and
T'[ Eostess said, "Old NJ doesn't believe
b. "saVen because he has never seen it.
a. our unreliable guest went home quite
- Used and for several days resembled
~ IoNnesian prince who had rejected
errors of Polythesm to join an eX-
i' sect of primitive geceders. But also
me prince, she soon tired of her tall
ru' vanished boots (metarphorically
-, 'Aihg)' and after a short bout of pro-
,Y' returned to her old ways-to he
l9r' and well-being of her famlly-for
'H7 her spiritual absence the servants