Tuesday, April 19, 2022
A Lie
The Works of Francis J. Grimké. Edited by Carter G. Woodson, Vol. II: Special Sermons (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1942), p. 72:
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"A lie should be trampled on and extinguished wherever found. I am for fumigating the atmosphere when I suspect that falsehood, like pestilence, breathes around me."—Carlyle.Other books repeat the claim that Carlyle said this. But I can't find it in any of his works, and I suspect that the attribution to Carlyle is itself a falsehood. The source seems to be Mrs. Jameson [Anna Brownell Jameson], A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies, Original and Selected (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1854), p. 112:
I think, with Carlyle, that a lie should be trampled on and extinguished wherever found. I am for fumigating the atmosphere when I suspect that falsehood, like pestilence, breathes around me.
