But casuistry in this sense is not a cold and analytical thing, but a very warm and sympathetic thing.

To know what combination of excuse might justify a man in manslaughter or bigamy, is not to have a callous indifference to virtue; it is rather to have so ardent an admiration for virtue as to seek it in the remotest desert and the darkest incognito.
This is emphatically the case with the question of truth and falsehood raised in "Sludge the Medium." To say that it is sometimes difficult to tell at what point the romancer turns into the liar is not to state a cynicism, but a perfectly honest piece of human observation.

To think that such a view involves the negation of honesty is like thinking that red is green, because the two fade into each other in the colours of the rainbow.

It is really difficult to decide when we come to the extreme edge of veracity, when and when not it is permissible to create an illusion.

A standing example, for instance, is the case of the fairy-tales.