The Book of John Stuart Mill 4 · Written by himself, from On Liberty and his Autobiography
This man wrote his own books. He is the only one in this scripture who never had a religion — not that he threw it off, but that he never had it. Chapters 2 and 3 supply what the scripture was missing: the reason The Rule 7 lets the Stoa contradict the canon.
4.1In my sixtieth year men came and asked whether I would stand for Parliament.
4.2I set out my conditions. Having set them out, I supposed that was the end of it.
4.3I said: I will not canvass.
4.4I said: I will not pay a penny. The expenses of the election I will not meet.
4.5I said: if elected, I will not attend to local business. I go in for the affairs of the country.
4.6And I said: I do not want to be in that place.
4.7They put me up all the same.
4.8At one meeting a man stood, holding a passage I had written, and read it out to the room.
4.9The passage said that the English working classes, though unlike those of some other countries in being ashamed of lying, are yet generally liars.
4.10Having read it, he asked me: did you write this?
4.11The whole room waited for me to get round it.
4.12I said two words: I did.
4.13There was a silence, and then they applauded.
4.14Afterward a working man said a thing I have remembered all my life: the working classes want friends, not flatterers.
4.15I was elected.
4.16In my years there I did one thing I value above the rest:
4.17When the Reform Bill was before us, I moved that the word "man" in the clause be replaced by the word "person".
4.18It did not carry. It was the first time this country ever voted on the question.
4.19I set these two down together because they are one thing:
4.20You need not put things prettily for people. You need only decline to treat them as children.