CHAPTER FOUR 



CANDOR 



i 



Recently a lady remarked to me, "Let me tell 

 you candidly that I never thought of such a 

 thing. " I was forced to admit that I was mis- 

 taken and both of us were lying. There was no 

 other way of settling a rather trivial matter, as 

 -society is now constituted, and we each pri- 

 vately congratulated ourselves at being freed 

 from an embarrassing circumstance. The 

 adopted method of the world was followed to a 

 nicety and now, thinking it over, I wonder why 

 the word " candor " is not dropped from our 

 language. Why, indeed, tax our memory with 

 a word that, while having a meaning, is never 

 put to any practical use? 



We daily hear, when strangers are intro- 

 duced, "I am very happy to have met you," 

 when such a desirable phase of mind is impos- 

 sible. A stranger is an unknown quantity in 

 our lives. We can give him or her no rational 



192 



