… authors of advice manuals thus had to walk a fine line between recommending honesty towards oneself and politeness towards others, while novelists grappled with their characters’ attempts to attain or reject a sociable … that proved to be elusive. Practices > Reading & Writing Practices > Communication Keywords Conversation Falsehood Lies Politeness A white lie, the OED explains, is ‘a harmless or trivial lie, esp. one told in order to avoid hurting another … moralists poured scorn on liars. Lord Chesterfield’s Advice to His Son , purporting to spread the principles of politeness, averred that even the most innocuous-seeming lie reflected negatively on the mental abilities of the speaker …