Part 19

"Why, Annie," answered her mother, "I thought your walk was pleasant, and not tiring at all."

"It was such a long one," said Annie; "I thought we should never have got home again. I would not walk it again for all the world."

"But did you not enjoy the walk in the fields, Annie?"

"Oh, no; there were so many cows that I was frightened to death."

"What a little angel our baby is," said Nancy, one day to her sister, "I feel as though I could eat it up."

"O what a monstrous brute our governess is!" said Marian to a school-fellow one afternoon, because she had corrected her rather sharply for some misdemeanour.

"I say, Fred, we have strawberries in our garden as big as my fist," said David one day to him.

Fred opened his eyes in wonder, and said, "I should like to see them."

Fred went to see them, and David's garden strawberries were found to be no larger than one of his ordinary-sized marbles.

"Come," says James to Harry, "let us go and get some blackberries; there are oceans of them on yonder hedge."

"Oceans!" said James in wonder.

"Yes, oceans; only you must mind in getting them that you don't fall into the ditch, or you will be over your head in mud."

James went with Harry, and found that the blackberries were as sparse on the hedge as plums in his school pudding, and as for mud to cover him, he saw scarcely enough to come over his boots.

Another boy says, "I am so thirsty, I could drink the sea dry." Another, "I learned my lessons to-day in no time." Another, standing in the cold, says, "I am frozen to death." Another, in the heat, says, "I am as hot as fire." "My father's horse is the best in the kingdom," says John. "My father's is the best in the world," says Alexander in reply. "Oh, how it did hail in our parts yesterday," said a boy to his schoolmate; "the hail-stones were as big as hens' eggs." "That's nothing," said his rival in return; "in our parts it rained hens and chickens." "Well," said the other, despairing of going beyond that, "that was wonderful; I never heard of it raining like that before."

The above kind of talk may by some be regarded as only "inoffensive ebullitions" of childhood and youth. It is not said that moral guilt may be its immediate consequence; but is it a kind of talk altogether innocent? Does it sound truthful? Is it a habit to be encouraged or connived at? Should not all who have the education and training of young persons correct the evil when it appears, and in the place of it cultivate that speech which is made up of words of "truth and soberness"?

The Hyperbolist not only shows himself in talk which magnifies beyond the natural, the simple, and the true; but which also diminishes. "He said nothing of any account--nothing worth your hearing," observed one friend to another, respecting a certain lecturer; when perhaps he uttered thoughts of weight and force worthy the attention of highest wisdom. He expressed this hyperbolism to allay some disappointment which his friend felt in not hearing him. "The affair is really of such little consequence that it is not worth your while to think about it;" at the same time it involved questions of vital importance to him. This he said to divert his mind from brooding over it to his injury. "I never saw such a small watch in all my life; it was hardly bigger than a sixpence;" and yet it was of the ordinary size of a lady's watch. "It is no distance to go, and the hill is nothing to climb; you will get there in the time you are standing hesitating;" and this a father said to induce his son to go into the country on an errand for which he showed strong disinclination. "The duties are of such a trifling nature, you may perform them with perfect ease;" so said a minister to persuade a member of his church to undertake a responsible office against which he had conscientious objections.

Thus the Hyperbolist stands on either side of truth, and takes from or adds to, according to the temper of his mind and the object he wishes to accomplish. On whichever side he stand his talk is alike blamable.

Let me, in conclusion, caution my readers, and especially my young readers, against the formation and practice of this intemperate habit in talking. It is of no service to truth. It does no good to you or others, but harm. It will grow upon you, and may end in the habit of absolute false speaking. You do not mean now to be recognized as telling lies: you would perhaps shudder at the thought; but what you now shudder at, you may fall into, by the inadvertent formation of habitual exaggerated talk. Therefore guard against these excessive and thoughtless hyperbolisms of speech. Speak of things, persons, and places as you see them, not as you fancy; speak to convey correct views, not to excite wonder or to rival others in "large talk," and in "strange things." Simple truth is always more welcome in society than swollen fiction. The frog in the fable killed itself by trying to be as big as the ox; so you are in danger of killing truth when you inflate it beyond its own natural proportions. Truth needs no extraneous aids to commend it; or, as Cowper says,--

"No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clog the pile, From ostentation as from weakness free, Majestic in its own simplicity."

"The apocrypha," says the Rev. J. B. Owen, "into which you may elaborate your observations will ultimately be sifted from the canonical, and you will appear before society as interpolaters, inserting your own spurious statements among the genuine records of facts already received as simple, authentic truths. Have the modesty to suppose that others know a thing or two as well as yourselves. The scraps of facts which may lie scattered among the profusion of your hyperbolisms may be old acquaintances of your hearers. Let them speak for themselves in their own artless, ingenuous way, and take their own chance of success to whatever branch of the lovely family of truth they may belong.

"Hyperbole is a fault of no trivial importance in conversation. Carried, as it generally is, to such an extent, it is nothing more nor less than equivalent to lying. It frequently places the Hyperbolist in a position of distrustful scrutiny and strong doubt, on the part of those with whom he converses. His authentication of a rumour reacts as its contradiction. He himself robs it of a large amount of evidence, by welcoming the proof of anybody else as better than his own. He anticipates the discount which will be made off his commodity, and so adds exorbitancy to his statements, which will leave a balance in hand after all. But people will not be deceived again and again. His credit becomes damaged. His moral bill returns dishonoured. His extravagance of diction, like extravagance in expenditure, involves him in difficulties, and thus the immediate fate of mendacity symbolizes that awful retribution which will finally exclude all liars from the society of the good and true."

"Old Humphrey," in speaking of a painter who over-coloured his pictures, was wont to express the defect by saying, "Too much red in the brush." It would be well for the Hyperbolist to have some friend at his elbow, when he over-colours things, to say, "Too much red in the brush."

XV.

THE INQUISITIVE.

"The Inquisitive will blab: from such refrain; Their leaky ears no secret can retain."--HORACE.

The Inquisitive is a talker whose capacity is for taking rather than giving. To ask questions is his province, and not to give answers. He is more anxious to know than he is to make known. Though in some instances he may have the ability to speak good sense, yet he cannot or will not exercise himself in so doing. He must pry into other people's stock of knowledge, and find out all that he can for his satisfaction. If he come to anything which is labelled "Private," he is sure to be the more curious to ascertain what is within. He is restless and dissatisfied until he knows. He pauses--he resumes his interrogations--he circumlocutes--he apologizes, it may be, but make the discovery he will if possible. His inquisitiveness is mostly in regard to matters of comparatively minor importance in themselves, but which, at the same time, you do not care for him to know. Your pedigree--your relations--your antecedents--your reasons for leaving your former occupation--your prospects in life--your income--your wife's maiden name and origin--with a hundred similar things.

His inquisitiveness often turns into impertinence and impudence, which one does well to resent with indignancy; or, if not, to answer him according to his folly.

The two or three following instances will illustrate this talker:--