THE YSER
“We are on our way to Calais.”
Von Bethmann-Hollweg and Truth
“Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas.”
Horace.
“Good Faith unstained, and Truth all-unadorned.”
Nuda Veritas: it was Horace who in a famous Ode first presented the figure of Truth thus. And whom did he make her companions and sisters? They were three, and their names were “Modesty,” “Fair Dealing,” and “Good Faith.” The four sisters do indeed go together in a quadruple alliance and entente, and when one is flouted or estranged, the others are alienated and become enemies too.
The Germans were believed to be—some few still believe them to be—a “truth-loving nation.” They had a passion, we were told, for truth, for accuracy, for scientific exactness. Theirs might be a blunt and brutal frankness, but they were at least downright and truthful.
Well, they first flouted Modesty—they bragged and blustered, bluffed and “bounded.” They could not keep it up. They had to act. Fair Dealing went by the board. Then Good Faith became impossible, for, as this very von Bethmann-Hollweg declared, “Necessity knew no law.” Now they have forsaken Truth. They must deceive their own people. The “lie” has entered into their soul. Never was so systematic a use made of falsehoods small and great.
But Truth expelled is not powerless. Naked, she is still not weaponless. She has her little “periscope,” her magic mirror, which shows the liar himself, as well as the world, what he is like. And she has another weapon, as those who know their “Paradise Lost” will remember: