An orator whose purpose is to persuade men must speak the things they wish to hear; an orator, whose purpose is to move men, must also avoid disturbing the emotional effect by any obtrusion of intellectual antagonism; but an author whose purpose is to instruct men, who appeals to the intellect, must be careless of their opinions, and think only of truth.  It will often be a question when a man is or is not wise in advancing unpalateable opinions, or in preaching heresies; but it can never be a question that a man should be silent if unprepared to speak the truth as he conceives it.  Deference to popular opinion is one great source of bad writing, and is all the more disastrous because the deference is paid to some purely hypothetical requirement.  When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.  He may be excused if he shrink from the lurid glory of martyrdom; he may be justified in not placing himself in a position of singularity.  He may even be commended for not helping to perplex mankind with doubts which he feels to be founded on limited and possibly erroneous investigation.  But if allegiance to truth lays no stern command upon him to speak out his immature dissent, it does lay a stern command not to speak out hypocritical assent.  There are many justifications of silence; there can be none of insincerity.

Nor is this less true of minor questions; it applies equally to opinions on matters of taste and personal feeling.  Why should I echo what seem to me the extravagant praises of Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” when, in truth, I do not greatly admire that famous work ?  There is no necessity for me to speak on the subject at all; but if I do speak, surely it is to utter my impressions, and not to repeat what others have uttered.  Here, then, is a dilemma; if I say what I really feel about this work, after vainly endeavouring day after day to discover the transcendent merits discovered by thousands (or at least proclaimed by them), there is every likelihood of my incurring the contempt of connoisseurs, and of being reproached with want of taste in art.  This is the bugbear which scares thousands.  For myself, I would rather incur the contempt of connoisseurs than my own; the repreach of defective taste is more endurable than the reproach of insincerity.  Suppose I am deficient in the requisite knowledge and sensibility, shall I be less so by pretending to admire what really gives me no exquisite enjoyment?  Will the pleasure I feel in pictures be enhanced because other men consider me right in my admlration, or diminished because they consider me wrong?