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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: of Mr. Swiveller, caused neither disappointment nor disgust
to their creators. And so with Pepys and his adored
protagonist: adored not blindly, but with trenchant insight
and enduring, human toleration. I have gone over and over
the greater part of the Diary; and the points where, to the
most suspicious scrutiny, he has seemed not perfectly
sincere, are so few, so doubtful, and so petty, that I am
ashamed to name them. It may be said that we all of us write
such a diary in airy characters upon our brain; but I fear
there is a distinction to be made; I fear that as we render
to our consciousness an account of our daily fortunes and
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