The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories

by Mark Twain

  MY FIRST LIE, AND HOW I GOT OUT OF IT

  As I understand it, what you desire is information about 'my first lie,and how I got out of it.' I was born in 1835; I am well along, and mymemory is not as good as it was. If you had asked about my first truthit would have been easier for me and kinder of you, for I remember thatfairly well. I remember it as if it were last week. The family think itwas week before, but that is flattery and probably has a selfish projectback of it. When a person has become seasoned by experience and hasreached the age of sixty-four, which is the age of discretion, he likesa family compliment as well as ever, but he does not lose his head overit as in the old innocent days.

  I do not remember my first lie, it is too far back; but I remember mysecond one very well. I was nine days old at the time, and had noticedthat if a pin was sticking in me and I advertised it in the usualfashion, I was lovingly petted and coddled and pitied in a mostagreeable way and got a ration between meals besides.

  It was human nature to want to get these riches, and I fell. I liedabout the pin--advertising one when there wasn't any. You would havedone it; George Washington did it, anybody would have done it. Duringthe first half of my life I never knew a child that was able to riseabout that temptation and keep from telling that lie. Up to 1867 allthe civilised children that were ever born into the world wereliars--including George. Then the safety-pin came in and blocked thegame. But is that reform worth anything? No; for it is reform by forceand has no virtue in it; it merely stops that form of lying, it doesn'timpair the disposition to lie, by a shade. It is the cradle applicationof conversion by fire and sword, or of the temperance principle throughprohibition.

  To return to that early lie. They found no pin and they realised thatanother liar had been added to the world's supply. For by grace of arare inspiration a quite commonplace but seldom noticed fact was bornein upon their understandings--that almost all lies are acts, and speechhas no part in them. Then, if they examined a little further theyrecognised that all people are liars from the cradle onwards, withoutexception, and that they begin to lie as soon as they wake in themorning, and keep it up without rest or refreshment until they goto sleep at night. If they arrived at that truth it probably grievedthem--did, if they had been heedlessly and ignorantly educated by theirbooks and teachers; for why should a person grieve over a thing which bythe eternal law of his make he cannot help? He didn't invent the law;it is merely his business to obey it and keep still; join theuniversal conspiracy and keep so still that he shall deceive hisfellow-conspirators into imagining that he doesn't know that the lawexists. It is what we all do--we that know. I am speaking of the lie ofsilent assertion; we can tell it without saying a word, and we all doit--we that know. In the magnitude of its territorial spread it is oneof the most majestic lies that the civilisations make it their sacredand anxious care to guard and watch and propagate.

  For instance. It would not be possible for a humane and intelligentperson to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will rememberthat in the early days of the emancipation agitation in the North theagitators got but small help or countenance from any one. Argue andplead and pray as they might, they could not break the universalstillness that reigned, from pulpit and press all the way down to thebottom of society--the clammy stillness created and maintained by thelie of silent assertion--the silent assertion that there wasn't anythinggoing on in which humane and intelligent people were interested.

  From the beginning of the Dreyfus case to the end of it all France,except a couple of dozen moral paladins, lay under the smother of thesilent-assertion lie that no wrong was being done to a persecuted andunoffending man. The like smother was over England lately, a good halfof the population silently letting on that they were not aware thatMr. Chamberlain was trying to manufacture a war in South Africa and waswilling to pay fancy prices for the materials.

  Now there we have instances of three prominent ostensible civilisationsworking the silent-assertion lie. Could one find other instances inthe three countries? I think so. Not so very many perhaps, but say abillion--just so as to keep within bounds. Are those countries workingthat kind of lie, day in and day out, in thousands and thousands ofvarieties, without ever resting? Yes, we know that to be true. Theuniversal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work alwaysand everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham,never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. Is it the mosttimid and shabby of all lies? It seems to have the look of it. Forages and ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotismsand aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military slaveries, andreligious slaveries, and has kept them alive; keeps them alive yet, hereand there and yonder, all about the globe; and will go on keeping themalive until the silent-assertion lie retires from business--the silentassertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men areaware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.

  What I am arriving at is this: When whole races and peoples conspire topropagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, whyshould we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals? Whyshould we try to make it appear that abstention from lying is a virtue?Why should we want to beguile ourselves in that way? Why should wewithout shame help the nation lie, and then be ashamed to do a littlelying on our own account? Why shouldn't we be honest and honourable,and lie every time we get a chance? That is to say, why shouldn't webe consistent, and either lie all the time or not at all? Why should wehelp the nation lie the whole day long and then object to telling onelittle individual private lie in our own interest to go to bed on? Justfor the refreshment of it, I mean, and to take the rancid taste out ofour mouth.

  Here in England they have the oddest ways. They won't tell a spokenlie--nothing can persuade them. Except in a large moral interest, likepolitics or religion, I mean. To tell a spoken lie to get even thepoorest little personal advantage out of it is a thing which isimpossible to them. They make me ashamed of myself sometimes, they areso bigoted. They will not even tell a lie for the fun of it; they willnot tell it when it hasn't even a suggestion of damage or advantage init for any one. This has a restraining influence upon me in spite ofreason, and I am always getting out of practice.

  Of course, they tell all sorts of little unspoken lies, just likeanybody; but they don't notice it until their attention is called to it.They have got me so that sometimes I never tell a verbal lie now exceptin a modified form; and even in the modified form they don't approveof it. Still, that is as far as I can go in the interest of the growingfriendly relations between the two countries; I must keep some of myself-respect--and my health. I can live on a pretty low diet, but Ican't get along on no sustenance at all.

  Of course, there are times when these people have to come out with aspoken lie, for that is a thing which happens to everybody once ina while, and would happen to the angels if they came down here much.Particularly to the angels, in fact, for the lies I speak of areself-sacrificing ones told for a generous object, not a mean one; buteven when these people tell a lie of that sort it seems to scare themand unsettle their minds. It is a wonderful thing to see, and shows thatthey are all insane. In fact, it is a country which is full of the mostinteresting superstitions.

  I have an English friend of twenty-five years' standing, and yesterdaywhen we were coming down-town on top of the 'bus I happened to tell hima lie--a modified one, of course; a half-breed, a mulatto; I can't seemto tell any other kind now, the market is so flat. I was explaining tohim how I got out of an embarrassment in Austria last year. I do notknow what might have become of me if I hadn't happened to remember totell the police that I belonged to the same family as the Prince ofWales. That made everything pleasant and they let me go; and apologised,too, and were ever so kind and obliging and polite, and couldn't do toomuch for me, and explained how the mistake came to be made, and promisedto hang the officer that did it, and hoped I would let bygones bebygones and not say anything about it; and I said they could depend onme. My friend said,
austerely:

  'You call it a modified lie? Where is the modification?'

  I explained that it lay in the form of my statement to the police. 'Ididn't say I belonged to the Royal Family; I only said I belonged to thesame family as the Prince--meaning the human family, of course; and ifthose people had had any penetration they would have known it. I can'tgo around furnishing brains to the police; it is not to be expected.'

  'How did you feel after that performance?'

  'Well, of course I was distressed to find that the police hadmisunderstood me, but as long as I had not told any lie I knew there wasno occasion to sit up nights and worry about it.'

  My friend struggled with the case several minutes, turning it over andexamining it in his mind, then he said that so far as he could see themodification was itself a lie, it being a misleading reservation of anexplanatory fact, and so I had told two lies instead of only one.

  'I wouldn't have done it,' said he; 'I have never told a lie, and Ishould be very sorry to do such a thing.'

  Just then he lifted his hat and smiled a basketful of surprised anddelighted smiles down at a gentleman who was passing in a hansom.

  'Who was that, G---?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Then why did you do that?'

  'Because I saw he thought he knew me and was expecting it of me. If Ihadn't done it he would have been hurt. I didn't want to embarrass himbefore the whole street.'

  'Well, your heart was right, G---, and your act was right. What you didwas kindly and courteous and beautiful; I would have done it myself; butit was a lie.'

  'A lie? I didn't say a word. How do you make it out?'

  'I know you didn't speak, still you said to him very plainly andenthusiastically in dumb show, "Hello! you in town? Awful glad to seeyou, old fellow; when did you get back?" Concealed in your actionswas what you have called "a misleading reservation of an explanatoryfact"--the act that you had never seen him before. You expressed joy inencountering him--a lie; and you made that reservation--another lie. Itwas my pair over again. But don't be troubled--we all do it.'

  Two hours later, at dinner, when quite other matters were beingdiscussed, he told how he happened along once just in the nick of timeto do a great service for a family who were old friends of his. The headof it had suddenly died in circumstances and surroundings of a ruinouslydisgraceful character. If know the facts would break the hearts of theinnocent family and put upon them a load of unendurable shame. There wasno help but in a giant lie, and he girded up his loins and told it.

  'The family never found out, G---?'

  'Never. In all these years they have never suspected. They were proud ofhim and had always reason to be; they are proud of him yet, and to themhis memory is sacred and stainless and beautiful.'

  'They had a narrow escape, G---.'

  'Indeed they had.'

  'For the very next man that came along might have been one of theseheartless and shameless truth-mongers. You have told the truth a milliontimes in your life, G---, but that one golden lie atones for it all.Persevere.'

  Some may think me not strict enough in my morals, but that position ishardly tenable. There are many kinds of lying which I do not approve. Ido not like an injurious lie, except when it injures somebody else; andI do not like the lie of bravado, nor the lie of virtuous ecstasy; thelatter was affected by Bryant, the former by Carlyle.

  Mr. Bryant said, 'Truth crushed to earth will rise again.' I havetaken medals at thirteen world's fairs, and may claim to be not withoutcapacity, but I never told as big a one as that. Mr. Bryant was playingto the gallery; we all do it. Carlyle said, in substance, this--I do notremember the exact words: 'This gospel is eternal--that a lie shall notlive.' I have a reverent affection for Carlyle's books, and have readhis 'Revelation' eight times; and so I prefer to think he was notentirely at himself when he told that one. To me it is plain that hesaid it in a moment of excitement, when chasing Americans out of hisback-yard with brickbats. They used to go there and worship. At bottomhe was probably fond of it, but he was always able to conceal it. Hekept bricks for them, but he was not a good shot, and it is matter ofhistory that when he fired they dodged, and carried off the brick; foras a nation we like relics, and so long as we get them we do not muchcare what the reliquary thinks about it. I am quite sure that whenhe told that large one about a lie not being able to live he had justmissed an American and was over excited. He told it above thirty yearsago, but it is alive yet; alive, and very healthy and hearty, and likelyto outlive any fact in history. Carlyle was truthful when calm, but givehim Americans enough and bricks enough and he could have taken medalshimself.

  As regards that time that George Washington told the truth, a word mustbe said, of course. It is the principal jewel in the crown of America,and it is but natural that we should work it for all it is worth, asMilton says in his 'Lay of the Last Minstrel.' It was a timely andjudicious truth, and I should have told it myself in the circumstances.But I should have stopped there. It was a stately truth, a loftytruth--a Tower; and I think it was a mistake to go on and distractattention from its sublimity by building another Tower alongside of itfourteen times as high. I refer to his remark that he 'could not lie.'I should have fed that to the marines; or left it to Carlyle; it isjust in his style. It would have taken a medal at any European fair,and would have got an honourable mention even at Chicago if it had beensaved up. But let it pass; the Father of his Country was excited. I havebeen in those circumstances, and I recollect.

  With the truth he told I have no objection to offer, as alreadyindicated. I think it was not premeditated but an inspiration. With hisfine military mind, he had probably arranged to let his brother Edwardin for the cherry tree results, but by an inspiration he saw hisopportunity in time and took advantage of it. By telling the truth hecould astonish his father; his father would tell the neighbours; theneighbours would spread it; it would travel to all firesides; in the endit would make him President, and not only that, but First President.He was a far-seeing boy and would be likely to think of these things.Therefore, to my mind, he stands justified for what he did. But not forthe other Tower; it was a mistake. Still, I don't know about that; uponreflection I think perhaps it wasn't. For indeed it is that Tower thatmakes the other one live. If he hadn't said 'I cannot tell a lie' therewould have been no convulsion. That was the earthquake that rocked theplanet. That is the kind of statement that lives for ever, and a factbarnacled to it has a good chance to share its immortality.

  To sum up, on the whole I am satisfied with things the way they are.There is a prejudice against the spoken lie, but none against anyother, and by examination and mathematical computation I find that theproportion of the spoken lie to the other varieties is as 1 to 22,894.Therefore the spoken lie is of no consequence, and it is not worth whileto go around fussing about it and trying to make believe that it is animportant matter. The silent colossal National Lie that is the supportand confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities andunfairnesses that afflict the peoples--that is the one to throw bricksand sermons at. But let us be judicious and let somebody else begin.

  And then--But I have wandered from my text. How did I get out of mysecond lie? I think I got out with honour, but I cannot be sure, for itwas a long time ago and some of the details have faded out of my memory.I recollect that I was reversed and stretched across some one's knee,and that something happened, but I cannot now remember what it was. Ithink there was music; but it is all dim now and blurred by the lapse oftime, and this may be only a senile fancy.