I know,
dear friend, I know that you don't agree; and, God bless you! I also know
why.----When I knew _that_, after the whole thing was over, and I was
out again and free, do you suppose I wasn't tempted to go out and cry the
truth (as some were expecting and wishing for it to be cried) in the ears
of the whole world?--let all know that I _had_ failed, and so--that
way at least--separate myself from the Evil Thing which there sat smiling
at itself in its Hall of Mirrors--seeing no frustrate ghosts, no death's
heads at that feast, as I saw them?... I came out a haunted man--all the
more because those I was amongst didn't believe in ghosts--not then.
People who have been overwhelmingly victorious in a great war find that
difficult. But they will--some day.
TUMULTY. Well, Governor, and supposing you had yielded to this
"Temptation," as you call it, what's the proposition?
EX-PRES. This ... I had one power--one weapon, still left to me
unimpaired: to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help me God! And the proposition is just this: whether to be
stark honest, even against the apparent interests of the very cause you
are out to plead, is not in the long run the surest way--if it be of God--
to help it make good: whether defeat, with the whole truth told, isn't
better than defeat hidden away and disowned, in the hope that something
may yet come of it. You may get a truer judgment that way in the end;
though at the time it may seem otherwise.
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