Yet is it not ridiculous that where all Nature is working in shadow, each thing hiding from the other its processes or thoughts of power and its intentions, that we ask of poor, spindling, cowardly, scurrying man, dodging perpetually here and there between the giant legs of chance and, in so far as he is concerned, all but malign forces, that he stand up and speak _the truth_ in all things (would that he could discover it!) or that he say boldly and on all occasions what is in his heart, what are his intentions? Of old we know that men do not, anywhere, save in consonance with their interests, and yet the silly, self-interested request persists; a demonstration of how thought or observation and deduction and principally self-interest lag behind fact. The only thing which opposes secrecy and brings it to light is the skill for secrecy in others; another illustration of the law of balance or equation in Nature, the necessity of give and take in life, the desire of the other person to be protected from too much secrecy on the part of others. But the folly of the appeal in its ideal form, the charm that would disappear with the arrival of absolute frankness, the mystery that would go! Ninety-nine and ninety-nine one-hundredths of all the interest or charm of all the creatures of the earth and of the circumstances and spaces and conditions in which they find themselves, is the secrecy--or, what is the same, the mystery or subtlety--which attaches to them. We do not know them; we do not understand them; we wonder at their states, their thoughts, their moods, what they will do, which way turn, when attacked, whom attack, whom deceive, whom praise, whom reward. Secrecy--secrecy--mystery. If it were gone the illusion of life itself, which is all that it is, would be gone also. And we are cautioned to love truth and to say truly and to our own hurt if necessary! And some advocate this so earnestly as part of the service due the other person, or of life to us. Yet, in the main, it comes to this: every other is to speak the truth to _us_, to conceal no important fact that might be helpful to us from _us_, to do justice to _us_, to think kindly of _us_. A fine program, and absolutely consonant with our desire to live, prosper, succeed, regardless of the well-being of every other.