TOM SAWYER ABROAD TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE
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ON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF
LYING
ESSAY, FOR DISCUSSION, READ AT A MEETING OF THE HIS. TORICAL AND ANTIQUARIAN CLUB OF HARTFORD, AND OF­FERED FOR THE THIRTY DOLLAR PRIZE. NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.*
O BSERVE, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruption — no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, a Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this Club remains. My complaint simply con­cerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day with­out grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this scheme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become me to criticise you, gentlemen, who are nearly all my elders — and my superiors, in this thing—and so, if I should here and there seem to do it, I trust it will in most cases be more in a spirit of admiration than
* Did not take the prize.
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