“It doesn’t matter. Take a professor of science, walking the earth. Remark his clothing, making a decent citizen out of him, concealing the fact that physically he is a flabby, pot-bellied degenerate. That is the first Lie of his being. No fringes round his trousers, my boy. Notice his hair, groomed and clipped, the tacit lie that its average length is half an inch, whereas in nature he would wave a few score yard-long hairs of ginger grey to the winds of heaven. Notice the smug suppressions of his face. In his mouth are Lies in the shape of false teeth. Then on the earth somewhere poor devils are toiling to get him meat and corn and wine. He is clothed in the lives of bent and thwarted weavers, his Way is lit by phossy jaw, he eats from lead-glazed crockery—all his ways are paved with the lives of men.... Think of the chubby, comfortable creature! And, as Swift has it—to think that such a thing should deal in pride!... He pretends that his blessed little researches are in some way a fair return to these remote beings for their toil, their suffering; pretends that he and his parasitic career are payment for their thwarted desires. Imagine him bullying his gardener over some transplanted geraniums, the thick mist of lies they stand in, so that the man does not immediately with the edge of a spade smite down his impertinence to the dust from which it rose.... And his case is the case of all comfortable lives. What a lie and sham all civility is, all good breeding, all culture and refinement, while one poor ragged wretch drags hungry on the earth!”
“But this is Socialism!” said Lewisham. “I—”
“No Ism,” said Chaffery, raising his rich voice. “Only the ghastly truth of things—the truth that the warp and the woof of the world of men is Lying. Socialism is no remedy, no ism is a remedy; things are so.”
“I don’t agree—” began Lewisham.
“Not with the hopelessness, because you are young, but with the description you do.”
“Well—within limits.”
“You agree that most respectable positions in the world are tainted with the fraud of our social conditions. If they were not tainted with fraud they would not be respectable. Even your own position—Who gave you the right to marry and prosecute interesting scientific studies while other young men rot in mines?”
“I admit—”
“You can’t help admitting. And here is my position. Since all ways of life are tainted with fraud, since to live and speak the truth is beyond human strength and courage—as one finds it—is it not better for a man that he engage in some straightforward comparatively harmless cheating, than if he risk his mental integrity in some ambiguous position and fall at last into self-deception and self-righteousness? That is the essential danger. That is the thing I always guard against. Heed that! It is the master sin. Self-righteousness.”
Mr. Lewisham pulled at his moustache.