My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It

by Mark Twain

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 likes afamily compliment as well as ever, but he does not lose his head over itas 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 most agreeableway 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 all thecivilised children that were ever born into the world were liars--including George. Then the safety-pin came in and blocked the game. Butis that reform worth anything? No; for it is reform by force and has novirtue in it; it merely stops that form of lying, it doesn't impair thedisposition to lie, by a shade. It is the cradle application ofconversion 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 borne inupon their understandings--that almost all lies are acts, and speech hasno part in them. Then, if they examined a little further they recognisedthat all people are liars from the cradle onwards, without exception, andthat they begin to lie as soon as they wake in the morning, and keep itup without rest or refreshment until they go to sleep at night. If theyarrived at that truth it probably grieved them--did, if they had beenheedlessly and ignorantly educated by their books and teachers; for whyshould a person grieve over a thing which by the eternal law of his makehe cannot help? He didn't invent the law; it is merely his business toobey it and keep still; join the universal conspiracy and keep so stillthat he shall deceive his fellow-conspirators into imagining that hedoesn't know that the law exists. It is what we all do--we that know. Iam speaking of the lie of silent assertion; we can tell it without sayinga word, and we all do it--we that know. In the magnitude of itsterritorial spread it is one of the most majestic lies that thecivilisations make it their sacred and anxious care to guard and watchand 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 the lieof 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 that Mr.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 in thethree 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. For agesand ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotisms andaristocracies 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, andlie every time we get a chance? That is to say, why shouldn't we beconsistent, 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 spoken lie--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 approve ofit. 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 in awhile, 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 showsthat they are all insane. In fact, it is a country which is full ofthe most interesting 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 him alie--a modified one, of course; a half-breed, a mulatto; I can't seem totell any other kind now, the market is so flat. I was explaining to himhow I got out of an embarrassment in Austria last year. I do not knowwhat might have become of me if I hadn't happened to remember to tell thepolice that I belonged to the same family as the Prince of Wales. Thatmade everything pleasant and they let me go; and apologised, too, andwere ever so kind and obliging and polite, and couldn't do too much forme, and explained how the mistake came to be made, and promised to hangthe officer that did it, and hoped I would let bygones be bygones and notsay anything about it; and I said they could depend on me. My friendsaid, 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.'I didn't say I belonged to the Royal Family; I only said I belonged tothe same family as the Prince--meaning the human family, of course; andif those people had had any penetration they would have known it. Ican't go around furnishing brains to the police; it is not to beexpected.''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 actions waswhat you have called "a misleading reservation of an explanatory fact"--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 time todo a great service for a family who were old friends of his. The head ofit 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 proudof him and had always reason to be; they are proud of him yet, and tothem his 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; and Ido 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 have takenmedals 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; for asa nation we like relics, and so long as we get them we do not much carewhat the reliquary thinks about it. I am quite sure that when he toldthat large one about a lie not being able to live he had just missed anAmerican and was over excited. He told it above thirty years ago, but itis alive yet; alive, and very healthy and hearty, and likely to outliveany fact in history. Carlyle was truthful when calm, but give himAmericans 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 lofty truth--a Tower; and I think it was a mistake to go on and distract attentionfrom its sublimity by building another Tower alongside of it fourteentimes as high. I refer to his remark that he 'could not lie.' I shouldhave fed that to the marines; or left it to Carlyle; it is just in hisstyle. It would have taken a medal at any European fair, and would havegot an honourable mention even at Chicago if it had been saved up. Butlet it pass; the Father of his Country was excited. I have been in thosecircumstances, 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 Edward infor the cherry tree results, but by an inspiration he saw his opportunityin time and took advantage of it. By telling the truth he could astonishhis father; his father would tell the neighbours; the neighbours wouldspread it; it would travel to all firesides; in the end it would make himPresident, and not only that, but First President. He was a far-seeingboy and would be likely to think of these things. Therefore, to my mind,he stands justified for what he did. But not for the other Tower; it wasa mistake. Still, I don't know about that; upon reflection I thinkperhaps it wasn't. For indeed it is that Tower that makes the other onelive. If he hadn't said 'I cannot tell a lie' there would have been noconvulsion. That was the earthquake that rocked the planet. That is thekind of statement that lives for ever, and a fact barnacled to it has agood 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 any other,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, andthat something happened, but I cannot now remember what it was. I thinkthere was music; but it is all dim now and blurred by the lapse of time,and this may be only a senile fancy.

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