s of hollow belief and sham
enthusiasm, snatching at commonplaces with a fervour as of faith,
emphasising insincerities as if to make up by emphasis what is wanting
in feeling, all the while saying not only what they do not believe, but
what the listeners KNOW they do not believe, and what the listeners,
though they roar assent, do not themselves believe--a turbulence of
sham, the very noise of which stuns the conscience? Is such an orator
really enviable, although thunders of applause may have greeted his
efforts? Is that success, although the newspapers all over the kingdom
may be reporting the speech? What influence remains when the noise of
the shouts has died away? Whereas, if on the same occasion one man gave
utterance to a sincere thought, even if it were not a very wise
thought, although the silence of the public--perhaps its hisses--may
have produced an impression of failure, yet there is success, for the
thought will re-appear and mingle with the thoughts of men to be
adopted or combated by them, and may perhaps in a few years mark out
the speaker as a man better worth listening to than the noisy orator
whose insincerity was so much cheered.

The same observation applies to books. An author who waits upon the
times, and utters only what he thinks the world will like to hear, who
sails with the stream, admiring everything which it is "correct taste"
to admire, despising everything which has not yet received that
Hall-mark, sneering at the thoughts of a great thinker not yet accepted
as such, and slavishly repeating the small phrases of a thinker who has
gained renown, flippant and contemptuous towards opinions which he has
not taken the trouble to understand, and never venturing to oppose even
the errors of men in authority, such an author may indeed by dint of a
certain dexterity in assorting the mere husks of opinion gain the
applause of reviewers, who will call him a thinker, and of indolent men
and women who will pronounce him "so clever ;" but triumphs of this
kind are like oratorical triumphs after dinner. Every autumn the earth
is strewed with the dead leaves of such vernal successes.

I would not have the reader conclude that because I advocate
plain-speaking even of unpopular views, I mean to imply that
originality and sincerity are always in opposition to public opinion.
There are many points both of doctrine and feeling in which the world
is not likely to be wrong. But in all cases it is desirable t