EXAGGERATION | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 23, 1881

EXAGGERATION.

EXAGGERATION is not only a vicious but a silly habit. The end aimed at is to deepen the impression the speaker or writer wishes to produce, but instead of that, it weakens the impression. A simple sentence goes to the mark like a bullet; and if there is an idea in it, it tells for all it is worth. The simplest statement of a matter of fact, as brief and crisp as it can be made, is the most impressive. Nothing is better than the simple truth about a thing. The man who overstates may gain a temporary advantage, but the cool second thought will produce a revulsion of feelings which will injure his cause and himself. In the long run, not only will nothing be gained, but much will be lost. The plain truth, on the other hand, makes a forcible impression at the first, and the impression deepens afterwards. Hence it is that plain, strong style leaves its marks on one who reads it, while a florid and exaggerated style may amuse and charm for a time, but soon palls on the taste, and is rejected by the judgment. Hence it is that an orator who, like Lord Beaconsfield, is always ready to sacrifice everything for the mere impression of the moment, is never able to gain any hold on the moral sense of a nation, and remains to the last only a clever party leader. Hence it is that a man whose imagination always gets so far the better of his judgment, that he cannot tell a plain fact precisely as it happened, or repeat a conversation just as it occurred, so that he can never be fully believed by those who know him, until they have some corroborative evidence of the truth of his statements, can never make the mark on the world that his abilities would lead one to expect.

Of all the faults usually classed among “the small vices” there are few, if any, that are more reprehensible than habitual exaggeration. “It is as easy as lying,” said Hamlet to the courtiers who protested that they could not play on the recorders. How hard it is to tell the exact truth we all know, but it is a virtue worth striving for with unwearied perseverance.—New York Examiner.