I should be ashamed to insist on truths so little likely to be disputed, did they not point directly at the great source of bad Literature, which, as was said in our first chapter, springs from a want of proper moral guidance rather than from deficiency of talent.  The Principle of Sincerity comprises all those qualities of courage, patience, honesty, and simplicity which give momentum to talent, and determine successful Literature.  It is not enough to have the eye to see; there must also be the courage to express what the eye has seen, and the steadfastness of a trust in truth.  Insight, imagination, grace of style are potent; but their power is delusive unless sincerely guided.  If any one should object that this is a truism, the answer is ready:  Writers disregard its truth, as traders disregard the truism of honesty being the best policy.  Nay, as even the most upright men are occasionally liable to swerve from the truth, so the most upright authors will in some passages desert a perfect sincerity; yet the ideal of both is rigorous truth.  Men who are never flagrantly dishonest are at times unveracious in small matters, colouring or suppressing facts with a conscious purpose; and writers who never stole an idea nor pretended to honours for which they had not striven, may be found lapsing into small insincerities, speaking a language which is not theirs, uttering opinions which they expect to gain applause rather than the opinions really believed by them.  But if few men are perfectly and persistently sincere, Sincerity is nevertheless the only enduring strength.

The principle is universal, stretching from the highest purposes of Literature down to its smallest details.  It underlies the labour of the philosopher, the investigator, the moralist, the poet, the novelist, the critic, the historian, and the compiler.  It is visible in the publication of opinions, in the structure of sentences, and in the fidelity of citations.  Men utter insincere thoughts, they express themselves in echoes and affectations, and they are careless or dishonest in their use of the labours of others, all the time believing in the virtue of sincerity, all the time trying to make others believe honesty to be the best policy.

Let us glance for a moment at the most important applications of the principle.  A man must be himself convinced if he is to convince others.  The prophet must be his own disciple, or he will make none.  Enthusiasm is contagious:  belief creates belief.  There is no influence issuing from unbelief or from languid acquiescence.  This is peculiarly noticeable in Art, because Art depends on sympathy for its influence, and unless the artist has felt the emotions he depicts we remain unmoved:  in proportion to the depth of his feeling is our sympathetic response; in proportion to the shallowness or falsehood of his presentation is our coldness or indifference.  Many writers who have been fond of quoting the Si Vis