reless 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?

[I have never thoroughly understood the painful anxiety of people to be
shi