"Now, if I had not interposed, and said that you _were_ suffering, whether you knew it or not, you would have played the martyr all the evening to a sort of a--a--what shall I call it?--it must out--a sort of fashionable fib. You may answer, perhaps, that you did not like to make a fuss, or seem squeamish, or discompose the company; and so, from timidity, you said 'the thing that was not.' Very true; but this is the very thing I want you to guard against; I want you to have such presence of mind that the thought of absolute truth shall so preoccupy you as to defy surprise and anticipate even the most hurried utterances.
"The incident is very trifling in itself; I have noticed it because I think I have observed on other occasions that, from a certain timidity of character, and an amiable desire not to give trouble, or make a fuss, as you call it (there, now, Mary, I am sure the medicine is nicely mixed--that spoonful of syrup ought to make it go down), you have evinced a disposition to say, from pure want of thinking, what is not precise truth. Weigh well, my dear girl, and ever act on, that precept of the Great Master, which, like all His precepts, is of deepest import, and, in spirit, of the utmost generality of application, 'Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay.'
"Let truth--absolute truth--take precedence of everything; let it be more precious to you than anything else. Sacrifice not a particle of it at the bidding of indolence, vanity, interest, cowardice, or shame; least of all, to those tawdry idols of stuffed straw and feathers--the idols of fashion and false honour.
"It is often said that the great lesson for a young man or a young woman to learn is how to say 'no.' It would be better to say that they should learn aright how to use both 'yes' and 'no,'--for both are equally liable to abuse.
"The modes in which they are employed often give an infallible criterion of character.
"Some say both doubtfully and hesitatingly, drawling out each letter--'y-e-s,' 'n-o,'--that one might swear to their indecision of character at once. Others repeat them with such facility of assent or dissent, taking their tone from the previous question, that one is equally assured of the same conclusion, or, what is as bad, that they never reflect at all. They are a sort of parrots.