Extract (Chance: A Tale in Two Parts) Withold Truth in Mercy: Author's Opinion of Why Women Use 'Tact' Instead of Being Too Plainly Outspoken
in The Pointer (Riverdale, IL, USA)
- First serialized as Chance, An Episodic Tale, With Comments in The New York Herald (New York, NY, USA) (Jan 21, 1912 — Jun 30, 1912)
- Subsequently serialized as Chance in The Morning Leader (Regina, Canada) (Apr 13, 1912 — Sep 21, 1912)
- Subsequently serialized as Chance in Eugene Daily Guard (Eugene, OR, USA) (Apr 20, 1912 — Sep 30, 1912)
- Subsequently serialized as Chance in The Daily Phoenix (Saskatoon, Canada) (May 18, 1912 — Sep 7, 1912)
- Subsequently serialized as Chance in The Denver Times (Denver, CO, USA) (Jun 1, 1912)
- Collected as Chance: A Tale in Two Parts in Chance (1913)
- Subsequently serialized as Chance in The Montreal Daily Mail (Montreal, Canada) (Dec 30, 1913 — Jan 6, 1914)
Extract reads:
"WITHHOLD TRUTH IN MERCY
Author's Opinion of Why Women Use "Tact" Instead of Being Too
Plainly Out Sppoken.
"I call a woman sincere," Marlow began
after giving me a cigar and lighting one himself. "1 call a woman sincere
when she volunteers a statement
resembling remotely in form what she
really would like to say, what she
really thinks ought to be said If it
were not for the necessity to spare the
stupid sensitiveness of men. The
woman's rougher, simpler, more upright
judgment embraces the whole
truth, which their tact, their mistrust
of masculine idealism, ever prevents
them from speaking In Its entirety
And their tact is unerring. We could_
not stand women speaking the truth.
We could not bear it. It would cause
infinite misery and bring about most
awful disturbances in this rather mediocre
but still idealistic fool's paradise
in which each of us lives his own little
life—the unit in the great sum of existence.
And they know It. They are
merciful."
-- From "Chance" by Joseph Conrad.
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