The Decay of Lying: An Observation

“I hope I am not too late,” said Cyril. “I have been detained by a good many of the people I met in the Park. They were all admiring the trees in Kew Gardens as if they were real.”

“You surprise me,” said Vivian. “I fancied people admired things in Kew Gardens because they are beautiful.”

“So did I,” said Cyril, “until I discovered that they admire them because they are styled. The English look at everything through the medium of style. They admire a thing that is called ‘Giotto’ when it is not Giotto at all; they admire one that is called ‘Rembrandt’ when it is not Rembrandt.”

“That is very true,” said Vivian, “and it explains the whole confusion of their life. They have no artistic sense. They are only fond of the style of beauty, not of beauty itself. They admire something because of the name attached to it.”

“But the strangest part of it is,” said Cyril, “that they have come to admire style even when it is the expression of a lie. They admire what is fashionable, though it is not beautiful; they admire what is popular, though it is false.”

“You mean,” said Vivian, “that they have come to prefer representations to reality, and that life imitates art, rather than art life.”

“Exactly,” said Cyril. “They admire the language of the newspaper more than the language of the poet; the talk of the drawing-room more than the talk of life.”

“And they admire what is cleverly constructed rather than what is natural,” said Vivian. “They prefer a well-written novel to a well-lived life: they prefer to live in a fiction.”

“Then art should be shamelessly untrue,” cried Cyril. “It should be imaginative and untruthful; it should revive the old Pagan lies, and make them live again.”

“You mean,” said Vivian, smiling, “that the function of Art is to lie in order to make life more interesting: that the artist is a kind of necessary impostor?”

“Yes,” replied Cyril. “He should not try to reproduce common everyday facts, but should idealize them, should ornament them, should present them as they might have been.”

“But if everyone began to lie in that way,” observed Vivian, “would it not make the world less simple, and would not truth be lost?”

“No,” said Cyril, “for truth is always relative to the point of view. What we call truth to-day may be regarded as falsehood to-morrow. Art, by lying, reveals a higher truth.”

“Then,” said Vivian, “I suppose you would maintain that life must be altered to agree with the ideas of the artist, and that society should be remodelled to suit his imagination.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Cyril. “We must live as we think we ought to have lived; life must imitate art; and the more art we have, the more life will be improved.”