Untruthfulness v. Imagination.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue IX, 1 September 1900, Page 423

Untruthfulness v. Imagination.

A sunny tempered little girl, whose invalid mother constantly received flowers from interested friends, sat on the broad verandah dreaming her dreams, in which her lonely life of an only child found most of its enjoyment. Her mother was particularly fond of flowers, and she loved to see the bright smile break over her dear, pale face. She thought if she wa, a rich lady with a lovely greenhouse she would bring Howers every day, bill then she would like to take them up herself and see how pleased her mother was. Mrs never could imagine how pretty mamma's eyes looked when she only left the Howers nt thw door with her card. The dream

materialised. She would plav she was Mrs .

The thoughts moved quickly through the active young brain. Into the study she ran with Hying feet. On her father's desk stood a vase with a few lovely blossoms. Poor imprisoned mamma always shared her treasures with him who missed her so sadly. They were an embodied expression of her desire to be near him. They stood for her presence, always in sight.

Seizing the roses with an eager hand she pressed the dripping water from the stems upon her dainty little white pinafore and rushed upstairs with a happy haste. "A few flowers for you from my garden.” she said, copying Mrs 's formula. “From your garden. Edith? what do you mean? You have no garden.” "Yes." Hurriedly the words flew from her trembling lips. "They are the very prettiest 1 have.” "Why. Edith, you are telling me a. story. These are the buds I sent down to your father's desk. What possessed you to do such a thing? I could not have believed that my little girl would tell me a falsehotxl. Ask nurse to put them back in the study and then stay in the nursery. I do not want to see you again to-day. You have made me feel very sad. I would rather you did anything else that was naughty than tell an untruth."

With a passion of weeping the distressed child found her stumbling way to the nurse ami told her what to do with the unfortunate roses. "What mischief have you been at. Miss Edith? And vour pinafore all wet. too. You are a very bad child.” Prone on the floor the miserable little dreamer lay sobbing and thinking. When she put on nurse’s apron and cap and came in and said: “How' are you feeling to-day. Mrs Dale, ma'am?" mamma laughed so sweetly and did not think she had done wrong. When she rang a bell and won- her brother's old jacket and asked if there were scissors to grind mamma gave her a pair to make believe sharpen. What was the difference when she brought flowers and made believe she was Mrs Subtle question of morals this, small Edith. What a burden such need to diseryninate lays on many a careful mother's heart. What lasting harm

comes to manv a child's character from lack of insight and explanation in such cases. ’There had been no lack of truth on the child's part, no intent to ileeeive, no moral error beyond the meddling with what was not hers, 'the fair little soul was as clean in this case as when she simulated nurse or knife-grinder, and the gentle but short-sighted mother had left a sense of stain upon her conscience which could not easily be taken away. Where liveliness of imagination creates in a chi hl's mind the wish to impersonate some one else, to lie this, that, or the other, which he or she is not. it is a mental process wholly apart from falsehood, and gives main innocent hours of great joy in childlife. It is an offshoot of the poetic vision, a gift which not seldom thus gives prophetic glimpses of a future of creative activity.

The intent to deceive in order to cover up a wrong act is a radical evil, too far reaching to be ever again lost sight of. The letting- someone else suffer for an error through a silence which conceals, is an omen of coming ill which must never be lost siirht of. To forgive even gross offences dial are honestly confessed is often, the only way to encourage a. timid or cowardly nature slowly to gain vigour enough to be true. “Tell me the whole truth and I can pardon you” is sometimes the saving medicine to a selfish, naturally deceptive nature. Where it is an effort to lie honest and true, no patience or forbearance is too great to expend in strengthening the heart to speak openly and stand ready to take the consequences of its errors. Rather let any ingenuity draw out by gentle patience the truth, rather call an embryo attempt at deceit a mistake, than for any slight, or |>ossibly evaded, form of insincerity, to accuse a child of falsehood. Unquestionably it helps uns|M*akably to establish in a child's heart a lofty idea of the value of truth and the glory of an unspotted honour, to realise that his father and mother could not without proof believe him capable of lying. It should be held up as a thing so at variance with goodness, so fatal to the love of his dear ones, so impossible to a. gentleman, that no punishment could weigh in the scale for a moment, when a falsehotxl and a wrong were in the balance.