（十二月六日）
韦莲司女士以英人毛莱（John Morley）之《姑息论》（ 1874）相假，读之不忍释手，至晨二时半始毕。手抄数节（参看本卷第二六则）：
It is essential to the of every one with the least love of truth, that he should be free to express his opinions on every occasion where silence would be taken for an assent which he does not really give. Still more unquestionably, he should be free from any obligation to foreswear himself either directly, as by false professions, or by implication, as when he attends services, public or private, which are to him the symbol of superstition and were spiritual phantasmagoria. The vindication of this simple right of living one's life honestly can hardly demand any heroic virtue. A little of the which men are accustomed to call manly is the only quality that is needed.
—Morley: . p. 141.
There is no advantage nor honest delight in influence if it is only to be exerted in the sphere of secondary objects, and at the cost of the objects which ought to be foremost in the eyes of serious people. In truth the men who have done most for the world have taken very little heed of influence. They have sought light, and left their influence to fare as it may list.
—ibid. pp. 150—151.
And what is this smile of the world, to win which we are bidden to sacrifice our moral manhood; this frown of the world, whose terrors are more awful than the withering up of truth and the slow going out of light within the souls of us? Consider the triviality of life and conversation and purpose in the bulk of those whose approval is held out for our prize and the mark of our calling. Let us measure the empire over them of prejudice unadulterated by a single element of rationality, and let us weigh the huge burden of custom, unrelieved by a single leavening particle of fresh thought. Then how pitiful a thing seems the approval or disapproval of these creatures of the conventions of the hour, as one figures the merciless vastness of the universe of matter sweeping us headlong thru viewless space; as one hears the wail
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