Three Great Liars 2: Mark Twain

Portrait photo of Mark Twain 

by José Maria Mora (1882)

Before Wilde, there was Twain ...

Or, at any rate, before Wilde's essay 'The Decay of Lying' (1891), there was Twain's short paper 'On the Decay of the Art of Lying' (1882), in which he makes a humorous appeal for the men and women of America's Gilded Age to lie in a more considered (and considerate) manner, insisting that the ability to construct and deploy falsehoods is one of mankind's greatest gifts and highest virtues. 

For Twain, nothing is more distressing for a man of right feeling than to witness the noble (and necessary) art of lying so impoverished (and prostituted) as it is within the modern world and he suggests that it should be taught in schools; for no art or virtue can bloom without careful and diligent cultivation.

Wise and intelligent lying is what the world needs in the face of ignorant and uneducated falsehood (and what we today term fake news). It might even be preferable, suggests Twain, not to lie at all, than to lie injudiciously or without imagination.   

Not that he advocates subscribing slavishly to the accepted truth (doxa) like a naive child, an unsophisticated fool, or a religious fanatic. Those who insist on truth at all times and in all circumstances are at best asocial and at worst inhuman. It is impossible to live with (or alongside) such habitual truth-tellers; but, fortunately, such people are extremely rare.

Indeed, according to Twain, such individuals do not, in fact, exist and have never existed:

"Of course there are people who think they never lie, but it is not so [...] Everybody lies - every day; every hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning; if he keeps his tongue still, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude, will convey deception - and purposely."

I don't know if that's true; but it's amusing to consider the possibility that it might be true - and the philosophical implications of its being true. That society - and, indeed, our very humanity - might be founded not upon Truth, but falsehood makes Satanists of us all (for Satan is not only the Prince of Darkness, but the Father of Lies).

And that's no bad thing; for whilst God may have truth on his side, he remains a jealous, vindictive, and bloodthirsty deity who demands sacrifice and enjoys punishing mankind; the Devil, on the other hand, is a gentleman with impeccable manners who recognises that lying more often than not is a form of courtesy.   

Of course, Twain wasn't a Satanist. In fact, he remained an irreverent Christian throughout his life; often highly critical, but, ultimately, still a believer in Almighty God.

Little surprise, therefore, that he concludes his essay striking a conventional moral tone and condemning black lies. We should always lie, he says, with a good object; "healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously", i.e., lie gracefully in order to benefit others, not merely to gain a personal advantage.  

To which a Nietzschean (or Sadist) might ask: Where's the fun in that?


See: Mark Twain, 'On the Decay of the Art of Lying', in Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, 1852-1890, ed. Louis J. Budd (Library of America, 1992). 

Note: The above essay was originally written for presentation in 1880 and first published in The Stolen White Elephant Etc. (1882). It can be read as an ebook on Project Gutenberg: click here. 

To read the first in this series on great liars - on Nietzsche - click here. 

To read the third entry, on Oscar Wilde, click here.

When Jayne Met Anton

Mansfield and LaVey performing a Satanic ritual
Photo by Walter Fischer (1966/67)

The bizarre relationship between blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield and bald-headed Satanist Anton LaVey was not, as some journalists liked to insist, a match made in Hell; it was, rather, a match made in Hollywood. For only in California during the sixties could such a queer romance blossom between a fame-obsessed actress whose star, sadly, was on the wane and a publicity-seeking occultist eager to attract new followers.    

Mansfield and LaVey met for the first time while she was on a drug-and-drink fuelled visit to the San Francisco Film Festival in 1966. According to some accounts, Mansfield formerly requested a meeting with LaVey; but other witnesses insist she simply showed up on his doorstep, uninvited, having been evicted from the festival by the organisers for lowering the tone of the event by wearing a revealing pink dress sans underwear.

Whatever the facts, after this initial encounter she and LaVey continued to correspond and to meet right up until Mansfield's untimely but spectacular death in the summer of the following year. This oddest of odd couples had found in each other a kindred spirit and they developed an intense and intimate relationship that set tongues wagging with excitement and heads shaking in disapproval.

And, on hand to document their relationship, was a German photographer, Walter Fischer, who had emigrated to the States ten years ealier with nothing but a 60-year-old pet parrot on his shoulder and a desire to make a name for himself as a paparazzo.

How Fischer managed to end up as the go-to guy whenever Mansfield and LaVey wanted their picture snapped, I don't know. But he was the one responsible for a fascinating series of images taken at Anton's creepy sanctuary in San Francisco known as the Black House and Jayne's lavish home in Los Angeles - complete with a heart-shaped pool - known as the Pink Palace.

Fischer was also first on the scene whenever the couple dined out in public, as seen here, for example, outside La Scala (Beverley Hills), accompanied by Sam Brody, Mansfield's divorce lawyer and official boyfriend at the time (despite the fact he was married):       

Brody was overly-protective of Mansfield and acutely jealous of LaVey, whom he mocked as a charlatan at every opportunity; something that would have fatal consequences - both for himself and Mansfield - after LaVey placed an irrevocable curse upon his head, telling him he would die a violent death within the year.

Was Jayne Mansfield, then, a practicing occultist and a devotee of the Prince of Darkness? The answer is ... probably not.

For whilst LaVey liked to tell everyone that Mansfield was a priestess in his Church of Satan, she herself confessed to being a good Catholic girl at heart. Despite this, after her death on June 29th, 1967 - killed in a car crash alongside the accursed Sam Brody - LaVey rather sweetly (or cynically, if you think he played a diabolical role in the tragic events of that day) conducted a dark memorial service.

Swedish writer, Carl Abrahamsson, provides a fitting comment with which to close: 

"As the truth [...] about their complex and ever-fascinating relationship will never be fully known, perhaps we should just be content with joyfully taking part in these larger-than-life space-time intersections and the individual legacies of these two true American icons."

See: California Infernal: Anton LaVey and Jayne Mansfield as Portrayed by Walter Fischer, with an introduction by Kenneth Anger and forewords by Carl Abrahamsson and Alf Wahlgren, (Trapart Books, 2017). 

And see also the entertaining documentary Mansfield 66/67, dir. P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes (2017): click here to watch the trailer on Youtube. 

To read a sister post to this one - When Jayne Met Sophia Loren - please click here.