Machine summary:
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD The following letter was addressed to me by a man of good position : To the author of the "Nadharat" : I had always heard of the virtue of truth and how God would infallibly reward the truthful while liars would be condemned to painful torment.
I read, too, what the philosophers of the nations had written from ancient times until today, and found that they were all agreed that truth was the greatest of virtues and the source of all 'good quali• ties.
Whenever a prospective client stopped at my shop, I told him in response to his enquiries, the exact truth as to the cost of my goods and the gain which I considered that I ought to make on the sale if the trans• action was to be profitable.
You are not the first man on this earth to speak the truth, nor the first to meet with obstacles and suffer unjustly in that cause.
Alas, the majority of those who control the sources of wealth are ignorant, uneducated people who hate the man who tells the truth because they see that he puts an obstacle in · the way of their inclinations and desires, and criticizes their ignorance and stupidity : at the same time they are well-disposed to the prevaricator who justifies their prac• tices to them and makes them fine fellows in their own eyes.
As God lives, I consider you far more worthy of respect than many whom the world thinks happy and calls great.