The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1899-02-21

THE habit Of exsggeration, like
like every other evil habit, grows
UPON its victim with the years. Cords
b a once were soft as silk and as
easily broken become hard as q cable
and az difficult to break. He who at
first resorted to e-xaggeration as q spice
for conversation, slowly bui surely
finds himself so completely under its
thraIdom that he passes his life in a
kind of mental telescope, through
whose magnifying medium he looks
UPON himself and everything around
him. The exaRgerator can never st tte
an ordinary fact in ordinary terms.
His narratives are a thin rivulet of
reality ~meandering through broad
meadows of romance. ALI his geese
are swans-until you force him to pro-
duce them. Such a man is guilty OF
a species of moral petty larceny as
disreputable to the delinquent as it is
detrimental TO society. The stamp of
disapprobation should be set so prompt
" and 80 forcibly on the evil Of ex-
a~geration that it will be forced to hide
itself in the darkness to which it be
longs.
Americans are supposed by the ma
iority of Europeans to be adopts IN the
art of exaggeration. The most start
ling instances are given Of their power
20 draw the long bow. One farmer Is
placed on record as saying that the
whey which flowed from the making
OF a large cheese in his State was suh
cient to run three saw mills; and
another is pictured as 6ffirmIng that
the soil of his farm was so prolific
that the tendrIls of the vine which he
had just Gown caught him up and CO.
TWined around his legs legs before he
could get over the fence. Sensible
people have learned to distrusg the
tales told by Max ORen and other a
~iCaturIsJs. John Bull is not very quick
at seeing, out when he d es see hr
sees steadily and surely, and his eyes
are now vide open to the tacs that
Brother Jonathan is neither a fool nor
2 liar.
Exaggeration is a common, and, we
lear, a growing evil in somewhat
hysterlcal generation. Some ladies
scream at the sight Of a spider or a
mouse as loudly as il the house were
on fire; some creatures of the m 'le
sex who call themselves gentlemen
seldom speak Of a gentle sho Rer with
out declaring that lit rained cats and
dogs" The conss quence is that the
scream alarms as seldom as the de
scrip!ion OF the other surprises. PEG
pie are TO take the statements of exag
CREATORS with a large grain Of salt, and
part of their sunishment is that they
are not believed when they have some,
thing really wonderful to tell.
1t is said that when Cinnamon buy
boots they purchase the largest ones
procurable because they are under the
Impression that in this way they car
best obtain their moneys worth. The
mistake of confounding bigness with
greatness and bulk with value is by
no means confined to men with the
pigtail 1t is shared Oy the orators in
the pulpit and on the platform, who
make extravaganza OF phrase and g
liberal useof highly colored aojectives
do duty for helpful thoughts. 1t lays
hold OF young people who affect the
fashionable language OF the hour and
iuterlard their sentences with such re
markably refned aud moderate expires
sioUs as lawful, 5" killing" and "aw
fully oily" 1t colors the vision and
words of mothers, who wax eloquent
about the excellent qualities Of THEN
children, of travellers who are tempted
TO supplement what they actually saw
with what an active imagination leads
them to think they should have seen.
and Of newspaper correspondents who
embellish the events they record with