Exaggeration
is the basis of our trade, the fallow-field of our art and literature,
the groundwork of our social life, the foundation of our political
existence. As schoolboys, we exaggerate our fights and our marks and
our fathers' debts. As men, we exaggerate our wares, we exaggerate
our feelings, we exaggerate our incomes--except to the tax-collector,
and to him we exaggerate our "outgoings"; we exaggerate our virtues;
we even exaggerate our vices, and, being in reality the mildest of
men, pretend we are dare-devil scamps.
We have sunk so low now that we try to _act_ our exaggerations, and to
live up to our lies. We call it "keeping up appearances;" and no more
bitter phrase could, perhaps, have been invented to describe our
childish folly.
If we possess a hundred pounds a year, do we not call it two? Our
larder may be low and our grates be chill, but we are happy if the
"world" (six acquaintances and a prying neighbor) gives us credit for
one hundred and fifty. And, when we have five hundred, we talk of a
thousand, and the all-important and beloved "world" (sixteen friends
now, and two of them carriage-folks!) agree that we really must be
spending seven hundred, or at all events, running into debt up to that
figure; but the butcher and baker, who have gone into the matter with
the housemaid, know better.
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