Young people, sincere people, impulsive people, and imaginative people have all a common danger—that of being led astray by false lights. Of these false lights there are many kinds—some bewildering the intellect, others entangling the affections in hopeless morasses, others again misleading the sympathies, the imagination, the belief. But they all end in the same thing—mischief, mistake, and a loss of way. To the young and sincere—and the young are generally sincere, up to a certain point—organized craft and falsehood are arts of which they do not know the formula, foreign languages whereof they do not understand the very alphabet. Appearances stand for realities, and words are not so much symbols in themselves. They are able to tell their own little white lies and act their own little falsities, of a small and insignificant and, for the most part, transparent kind; but they do not apply their own rules to the grammar of their elders; and when those elders say so and so the younger believe them, and when they show such and such lights they follow them—in many instances to the same result as those doomed ships which were deceived on the Cornish coast, at such time as that, let us hope legendary, parson sent out his hobbled horse on the cliffs in a fog, with a lantern fastened to his fore-feet, to simulate the plunging of a ship in the sea. Then said the sailing masters of those doomed and predestined ships: “Where one vessel can go another may,” and so plowed their way straight onto the rocks and into the hands of death and the wreckers. So it is with certain false lights held out to the unwary and ignorant.—London Queen.
(1052)
FALSEHOOD
A form of words that is strictly true may be used to state what is wholly false:
Daniel O’Connell was engaged in a will case, the allegation being that the will was a forgery. The subscribing witnesses swore that the will had been signed by the deceased “while life was in him”—a mode of expression derived from the Irish language, and which peasants who have ceased to speak Irish still retain. The evidence was strong in favor of the will, when O’Connell was struck by the persistency of the man, who always repeated the same words, “The life was in him.” O’Connell asked: “On the virtue of your oath, was he alive?” “By the virtue of my oath, the life was in him.” “Now I call upon you in the presence of your Maker, who will one day pass sentence on you for this evidence, I solemnly ask—and answer me at your peril—was there not a live fly in the dead man’s mouth when his hand was placed on the will?” The witness was taken aback at this question; he trembled, turned pale, and faltered out an abject confession that the counselor was right; a fly had been introduced into the mouth of the dead man, to allow the witnesses to swear that “life was in him.” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
(1053)
Falsehood from Kindness—See [Kindness Violating Truth].
False Safety—See [Death, Christian Attitude Toward].
FALSITY, INNER
It takes the greatest cunning and a life of practical study to know how long, how thick, and exactly where the soundbar should be in each instrument. The health and morale of many an old violin has been impaired by its nervous system being ignorantly tampered with. Every old violin, with the exception of the “Pucelle,” has had its soundbar replaced, or it would never have endured the increased tightness of strings brought in with our modern pitch. Many good forgeries have thus been exposed, for in taking the reputed Stradivarius to pieces, the rough, clumsy work inside, contrasting with the exquisite finish of the old masters, betrays at once the coarseness of a body that never really held the soul of a Cremona. (Text.)—H. R. Haweis, “My Musical Memories.”