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Truth Of Intercourse
Truth Of Intercourse
Introductory Note
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850-94), novelist, essayist, and poet,
was descended from a famous family of lighthouse builders. He was born at
Edinburgh, Scotland, and was intended for the ancestral profession of
engineer. Abandoning this, he tried law with no better success, and finally
devoted himself to his destined vocation of letters.
Stevenson began his career with the writing of essays, then issued two
charming volumes of humorous and contemplative travel, "An Inland Voyage" and
"Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes"; then collected in his "New Arabian
Nights" a number of fanciful short stories he had been publishing in a
magazine. In 1883 he first caught the attention of the larger public with
"Treasure Island," one of the best, and probably the best written, boys` story
in the language. His most sensational success was "the Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"; but a much higher literary quality appears in such
novels as "The Master of Ballantrae," "Kidnapped," and "Catriona," in which he
to some extent follows the tradition of Scott, with far greater finish of
style, but without Scott`s fine spontaneity and unconsciousness. He published
also three small volumes of verse, some of it of great charm and delicacy.
Stevenson was essentially an artist in words. The modern desire for
subtlety of cadence and for the rendering of fine shades of expression is seen
in a high degree in all he wrote, and his work has the merits and defects that
accompany this extreme preoccupation with style. But he had also great virtues
of matter. He was a superb story-teller, an acute and sensitive critic, a
genial and whole-hearted lover of life. In the essay on "Truth of
Intercourse" will be found an example of his gracious and tactful moralizing;
in "Samuel Pepys," a penetrating interpretation of one of the most amazing
pieces of self-revelation in the annals of literature.
Truth Of Intercourse
Among sayings that have a currency in spite of being wholly false upon
the face of them for the sake of a half-truth upon another subject which is
accidentally combined with error, one of the grossest and broadest conveys the
monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell the truth and hard to tell a
lie. I wish heartily it were. But the truth is one; it has first to be
discovered, then justly and exactly uttered. Even with instruments specially
contrived for such a purpose - with a foot rule, a level, or a theodolite - it
is not easy to be exact; it is easier, alas! to be inexact. From those who
mark the divisions on a scale to those who measure the boundaries of empires
or the distance of the heavenly stars, it is by careful method and minute,
unwearying attention that men rise even to material exactness or to sure
knowledge even of external and constant things. But it is easier to draw the
outline of a mountain than the changing appearance of a face; and truth in
human relations is of this more intangible and dubious order: hard to seize,
harder to communicate. Veracity to facts in a loose, colloquial sense - not to
say that I have been in Malabar when as a matter of fact I was never out of
England, not to say that I have read Cervantes in the original when as a
matter of fact I know not one syllable of Spanish - this, indeed, is easy and
to the same degree unimportant in itself. Lies of this sort, according to
circumstances, may or may not be important; in a certain sense even the may or
may not be false. The habitual liar may be a very honest fellow, and live
truly with his wife and friends; while another man who never told a formal
falsehood in his life may yet be himself one lie-heart and face, from top to
bottom. This is the kind of lie which poisons intimacy. And, vice versa,
veracity to sentiment, truth in a relation, truth to your own heart and your
friends, never to feign or falsify emotion - that is the truth which makes
love possible and mankind happy.
L`art de bien dire is but a drawing-room accomplishment unless it be
pressed into the service of the truth. The difficulty of literature is not to
write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect
him precisely as you wish. This is commonly understood in the case of books or
set orations; even in making your will, or writing an explicit letter, some
difficulty is admitted by the world. But one thing you can never make
Philistine natures understand; one thing, which yet lies on the surface,
remains as unseizable to their wits as a high flight of metaphysics - namely,
that the business of life is mainly carried on by means of this difficult art
of literature, and according to a man`s proficiency in that art shall be the
freedom and the fulness of his intercourse with other men. Anybody, it is
supposed, can say what he means; and, in spite of their notorious experience
to the contrary, people so continue to suppose. Now, I simply open the last
book I have been reading - Mr. Leland`s captivating English Gipsies. "It is
said," I find on page 7, "that those who can converse with Irish peasants in
their own native tongue form far higher opinions of their appreciation of the
beautiful, and of the elements of humour and pathos in their hearts, than do
those who know their thoughts only through the medium of English. I know from
my own observations that this is quite the case with the Indians of North
America, and it is unquestionably so with the gipsy." In short, where a man
has not a full possession of the language, the most important, because the
most amiable, qualities of his nature have to lie buried and fallow; for the
pleasure of comradeship, and the intellectual part of love, rest upon these
very "elements of humour and pathos." Here is a man opulent in both, and for
lack of a medium he can put none of it out to interest in the market of
affection! But what is thus made plain to our apprehensions in the case of a
foreign language is partially true even with the tongue we learned in
childhood. Indeed, we all speak different dialects; one shall be copious and
exact, another loose and meagre; but the speech of the ideal talker shall
correspond and fit upon the truth of fact - not clumsily, obscuring
lineaments, like a mantle, but cleanly adhering, like an athlete`s skin. And
what is the result? That the one can open himself more clearly to his friends,
and can enjoy more of what makes life truly valuable - intimacy with those he
loves. An orator makes a false step; he employs some trivial, some absurd,
some vulgar phrase; in the turn of a sentence, he insults by a side wind,
those whom he is labouring to charm; in speaking to one sentiment he
unconsciously ruffles another in parenthesis; and you are not surprised, for
you know his task to be delicate and filled with perils. "O frivolous mind of
man, light ignorance!" As if yourself, when you seek to explain some
misunderstanding or excuse some apparent fault, speaking swiftly and
addressing a mind still recently incensed, were not harnessing for a more
perilous adventure; as if yourself required less tact and eloquence; as if an
angry friend or a suspicious lover were not more easy to offend than a meeting
of indifferent politicians! Nay, and the orator treads in a beaten round; the
matters he discusses have been discussed a thousand times before; language is
ready-shaped to his purpose; he speaks out of a cut and dry vocabulary. But
you - may it not be that your defence reposes on some subtlety of feeling, not
so much as touched upon in Shakespeare, to express which, like a pioneer, you
must venture forth into zones of thought still unsurveyed, and become yourself
a literary innovator? For even in love there are unlovely humours; ambiguous
acts, unpardonable words, may yet have sprung from a kind sentiment. If the
injured one could read your heart, you may be sure that he would understand
and pardon; but, alas! the heart cannot be shown - it has to be demonstrated
in words. Do you think it is a hard thing to write poetry? Why, that is to
write poetry, and of a high, if not the highest, order.
I should even more admire "the lifelong and heroic literary labours" of
my fellow-men, patiently clearing up in words their loves and their
contentions, and speaking their autobiography daily to their wives, were it
not for a circumstance which lessens their difficulty and my admiration by
equal parts. For life, though largely, is not entirely carried on by
literature. We are subject to physical passions and contortions; the voice
breaks and changes, and speaks by unconscious and winning inflections; we have
legible countenances, like an open book; things that cannot be said look
eloquently through the eyes; and the soul, not locked into the body as a
dungeon, dwells ever on the threshold with appealing signals. Groans and
tears, looks and gestures, a flush or a paleness, are often the most clear
reporters of the heart, and speak more directly to the hearts of others. The
message flies by these interpreters in the least space of time, and the
misunderstanding is averted in the moment of its birth. To explain in words
takes time and a just and patient hearing; and in the critical epochs of a
close relation, patience and justice are not qualities on which we can rely.
But the look or the gesture explains things in a breath; they tell their
message without ambiguity; unlike speech, they cannot stumble, by the way, on
a reproach or an allusion that should steel your friend against the truth; and
then they have a higher authority, for they are the direct expression of the
heart, not yet transmitted through the unfaithful and sophisticating brain.
Not long ago I wrote a letter to a friend which came near involving us in
quarrel; but we met, and in personal talk I repeated the worst of what I had
written, and added worse to that; and with the commentary of the body it
seemed not unfriendly either to hear or say. Indeed, letters are in vain for
the purposes of intimacy; an absence is a dead break in the relation; yet two
who know each other fully and are bent on perpetuity in love, may so preserve
the attitude of their affections that they may meet on the same terms as they
had parted.
Pitiful is the case of the blind, who cannot read the face; pitiful that
of the deaf, who cannot follow the changes of the voice. And there are others
also to be pitied; for there are some of an inert, uneloquent nature, who have
been denied all the symbols of communication, who have neither a lively play
of facial expression, nor speaking gestures, nor a responsive voice, nor yet
the gift of frank, explanatory speech: people truly made of clay, people tied
for life into a bag which no one can undo. They are poorer than the gipsy, for
their heart can speak no language under heaven. Such people we must learn
slowly by the tenor of their acts, or through yea and nay communications; or
we take them on trust on the strength of a general air, and now and again,
when we see the spirit breaking through in a flash, correct or change our
estimate. But these will be uphill intimacies, without charm or freedom, to
the end; and freedom is the chief ingredient in confidence. Some minds,
romantically dull, despise physical endowments. That is a doctrine for a
misanthrope; to those who like their fellow-creatures it must always be
meaningless; and, for my part, I can see few things more desirable, after the
possession of such radical qualities as honour and humour and pathos, than to
have a lively and not a stolid countenance; to have looks to correspond with
every feeling; to be elegant and delightful in person, so that we shall please
even in the intervals of active pleasing, and may never discredit speech with
uncouth manners or become unconsciously our own burlesques. But of all
unfortunates there is one creature (for I will not call him man) conspicuous
in misfortune. This is he who has forfeited his birthright of expression, who
has cultivated artful intonations, who has taught his face tricks, like a pet
monkey, and on every side perverted or cut off his means of communication with
his fellowmen. The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing
ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. But this fellow
has filled his windows with opaque glass, elegantly coloured. His house may be
admired for its design, the crowd may pause before the stained windows, but
meanwhile the poor proprietor must lie languishing within, uncomforted,
unchangeably alone.
Truth of intercourse is something more difficult than to refrain from
open lies. It is possible to avoid falsehood and yet not tell the truth. It is
not enough to answer formal questions. To reach the truth by yea and nay
communications implies a questioner with a share of inspiration such as is
often found in mutual love. Yea and nay mean nothing; the meaning must have
been related in the question. Many words are often necessary to convey a very
simple statement; for in this sort of exercise we never hit the gold; the most
that we can hope is by many arrows, more or less far off on different sides,
to indicate, in the course of time, for what target we are aiming, and after
an hour`s talk, back and forward, to convey the purport of a single principle
or a single thought. And yet while the curt, pithy speaker misses the point
entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babbler will often add three new offences in
the process of excusing one. It is really a most delicate affair. The world
was made before the English language, and seemingly upon a different design.
Suppose we held our converse, not in words, but in music; those who have a bad
ear would find themselves cut off from all near commerce, and no better than
foreigners in this big world. But we do not consider how many have "a bad ear"
for words, nor how often the most eloquent find nothing to reply. I hate
questioners and questions; there are so few that can be spoken to without a
lie. "Do you forgive me?" Madam and sweetheart, so far as I have gone in life
I have never yet been able to discover what forgiveness means. "Is it still
the same between us?" Why, how can it be? It is eternally different; and yet
you are still the friend of my heart. "Do you understand me?" God knows; I
should think it highly improbable.
The cruelest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room
for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal
friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished because, from
pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which withholds a man
from daring to betray emstion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation,
has but hung his head and held his tongue? And, again, a lie may be told by a
truth, or a truth conveyed through a lie. Truth to facts is not always truth
to sentiment; and part of the truth, as often happens in answer to a question,
may be the foulest calumny. A fact may be an exception; but the feeling is the
law, and it is that which you must neither garble nor belie. The whole tenor
of a conversation is a part of the meaning of each separate statement; the
beginning and the end define and travesty the intermediate conversation. You
never speak to God; you address a fellow-man, full of his own tempers; and
to tell truth, rightly understood, is not to state the true facts, but to
convey a true impression; truth in spirit, not truth to letter, is the true
veracity. To reconcile averted friends a Jesuitical discretion is often
needful, not so much to gain a kind hearing as to communicate sober truth.
Women have an ill name in this connection; yet they live in as true relations;
the lie of a good woman is the true index of her heart.
"It takes," says Thoreau, in the noblest and most useful passage I
remember to have read in any modern author,^1 "two to speak truth-one to
speak and another to hear." He must be very little experienced, or have no
great zeal for truth, who does not recognise the fact. A grain of anger or a
grain of suspicion produces strange acoustical effects, and makes the ear
greedy to remark offence. Hence we find those who have once quarrelled carry
themselves distantly, and are ever ready to break the truce. To speak truth
there must be moral equality or else no respect; and hence between parent and
child intercourse is apt to degenerate into a verbal fencing bout, and
misapprehensions to become ingrained. And there is another side to this, for
the parent begins with an imperfect notion of the child`s character, formed in
early years or during the equinoctial gales of youth; to this he adheres,
noting only the facts which suit with his preconception; and wherever a person
fancies himself unjustly judged, he at once and finally gives up the effort to
speak truth. With our chosen friends, on the other hand and still more between
lovers (for mutual understanding is love`s essence), the truth is easily
indicated by the one and aptly comprehended by the other. A hint taken, a look
understood, conveys the gist of long and delicate explanations; and where the
life is known even yea and nay become luminous. In the closest of all
relations - that of a love well founded and equally shared-speech is half
discarded, like a roundabout, infantile process or a ceremony or formal
etiquette; and the two communicate directly by their presences, and with few
looks and fewer words contrive to share their good and evil and uphold each
other`s hearts in joy. For love rests upon a physical basis; it is a
familiarity of nature`s making and apart from voluntary choice. Understanding
has in some sort outrun knowledge, for the affection perhaps began with the
acquaintance; and as it was not made like other relations, so it is not, like
them, to be perturbed or clouded. Each knows more than can be uttered; each
lives by faith, and believes by a natural compulsion; and between man and wife
the language of the body is largely developed and grown strangely eloquent.
The thought that prompted and was conveyed in a caress would only lose to be
set down in words-ay, although Shakespeare himself should be the scribe.
[Footnote 1: "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," Wednesday, p.
283.]
Yet it is in these dear intimacies, beyond all others, that we must
strive and do battle for the truth. Let but a doubt arise, and alas! all the
previous intimacy and confidence is but another charge against the person
doubted. "What a monstrous dishonesty is this if I have been deceived so long
and so completely!" Let but that thought gain entrance, and you plead before a
deaf tribunal. Appeal to the past; why, that is your crime! Make all clear,
convince the reason; alas! speciousness is but a proof against you. "If you
can abuse me now, the more likely that you have abused me from the first."
For a strong affection such moments are worth supporting, and they will
end well; for your advocate is in your lover`s heart and speaks her own
language; it is not you but she herself who can defend and clear you of the
charge. But in slighter intimacies, and for a less stringent union? Indeed, is
it worth while? We are all incompris, only more or less concerned for the
mischance; all trying wrongly to do right; all fawning at each other`s feet
like dumb, neglected lap-dogs. Sometimes we catch an eye - this is our
opportunity in the ages - and we wag our tail with a poor smile. "Is that
all?" All? If you only knew! But how can they know? They do not love us; the
more fools we to squander life on the indifferent.
But the morality of the thing, you will be glad to hear, is excellent;
for it is only by trying to understand others that we can get our own hearts
understood; and in matters of human feeling the clement judge is the most
successful pleader.
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