The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-11

a direct lie would have been. And there you are! With truth off in the distance her calm eyes looking beyond you, and through you; with the state of affairs as mudded in the end as 1t was in the be- ginning. Don't you see, you can't do anything for anybody so long as the per son who needs and wants help won [ tell you the truth about things?' The Man agreed that this was so, and why bother about the situation when truth is kept from you.
 I'm not botherng," Betty replied, but I'm an intelligent human being, and can't live in world with people and see them make horrible mistakes without wanting to help them, and when it Is sud- denly borne upon me that nothing is so bad that it couldn't be made better If the whole truth came out-oh, well, it's pity, to put it mildly, for truth to be ignored, and despised and betrayed by us as she is."
 "What is all this you are talking about anyway" asked the Man.
 Nothing" she said, nothing except one hears so much about the eternal trag- edy of things, and I've just thought it all out how simple all things might be If everybody told the truth and nothing but the truth"
 If everybody told the truth the world would be a very unpleasant place in which to live. Suppose, for instance, we'd all get up some morning and start to telling each other the truth
 Betty put up a warning finger
 Don't" she said, that is the attitude that has brought'most people to avoid tell ing the truth. I'm serious in how l feel about it. you are testing, just as other people do, until it is borne upon them the awfulness of not telling the truth. know, for I've tried to help people. I've found 1t is easy to help those who will tell you the truth, and depict the situation hon. estly Suppose, for instance, you know some poor old woman and you begin to help her, and keep this up, when sud- denly you hear from a reliable source that she has an income of her own. She's had a hundred opportunities to tell you that her relatives sent her money each month. and that the society to which she belongs helps her bit, and yet she hasn't done so. It's q little thing. of course, but you would have respected her more if she'd told you long ago, and you'd feel a thou sand times more like helping her gener- ously than you ever did before."
 That's only one instance" Betty con- tinued, as the Man said nothing. "A wom- an will come and tell you how she has been treated by her husband-neglected mis1udged-not only by him. but all his family. You believe her and are prepared to stand up for her to the bitter end, when one day you hear that she has done the most fragrant things-things that the right minded sort of man would resent, and would all his family, and she has pulled the wool over your eyes and pre- scented her case so plausibly that you have been invegled into sympathizing with her. Sooner or later, of course, she will be crying for mercy at your hands be- cause she hasn't told the TRUTH. Don't you see what I'm trying to say? That truth. no matter how sad or how bad it may be- is the simplest solution for every difficulty? It Is the only course for a woman to pursue, or a man either, for that matter"
 " Atrnuer aphorism," the Man agreed, never was uttered, than mat 1t takes 20 falsehoods to cover up one and then that one isn't hidden from anybody after all"
 And you think we ought to start and tell the truth about EVERYTHING? 2" the Man asked.
 "I don't know how YOU feel about it. Betty replied, but as for myself, give me TRUTH. Give me the courage, the character to be what I am. ] may be as poor as Jobs proverblal Turkey, but it is mine to keep my self respect by holding on to Truths hand and living without pretense."
 'Tt reminds me-" the Man said, "ot a story I read not long ago. The phloso- phy of it was rather tinged with pes- simism, all the way through, but one thought struck me. It was this: Very few things are worth loving, nothing is worth lying about Don't you like that?'
 That's the BIGGEST truth in life '' Betty averred. There's nothing, really, that is even worth FIBBING about