Fankness is an often an expensive commodity in public and in private life, except

when it is judiciously employed and tempered by kindness; for frankness can do

greater harm to others than to oneself.

To speak frankly is to reveal what one really thinks, to tell the truth exactly as one
sees it, and to do so whatever the consequences. When people are not frank they
are being careful, or dishonest, or tactful – and often enough all three. Many find
that dishonesty and tact are far more useful for getting on in life than frankness. This
is regrettably as many of us would regard dishonesty as a vice and honest as a virtue.

. Tact is an intelligent virtue; everyone can be frank, even (perhaps: best of

all) the simple and careless; but not everyone can finely adjust how and what he
says to ameliorate human intercourse, through which more good is likely to come
than otherwise.

Frankness is often a weapon deployed to wound or take revenge. We might

sometimes tell people home truths because we are concerned for their welfare, but
more often because we are inspired by hurt, jealousy or anger. ‘All cruel people
describe themselves as paragons of frankness,’ Tennessee Williams observed. And
the point about ‘home truths’ is that they – and with them, frankness in general –
do not invariably reflect the truth properly so called. Often it is only what one
thinks or claims is the truth – or, even worse, one’s own unvarnished opinion –
which is offered by one’s bluntness. Thus it has much more to do with belief than
fact.

There is one arena where frankness is almost invariably a good thing: in the
evolution of friendship. The point at which friends can drop their reserve and
reveal themselves to each other is the point at which their relationship advances to
a higher level. ‘One frankness invites a reciprocal frankness, and draws forth
discoveries, like wine and love,’ wrote Montaigne. Such are franknesses of the
heart, which give another access to one’s self, and oneself access to another’s self:
and without such mutualities life would be worth little.