There is nothing further of importance to be noted for the year 1854, except that I began to perceive a certain coolness, or what the French call _èloignement_, in our friends, which I attributed to my religious opinions. I never obtruded my opinions on any one, but did not conceal them beneath the usual conventional observances, so that our neighbors became aware that I did not think in a strictly orthodox manner, though they were in fact completely ignorant of the true nature of my beliefs. I remember one interesting test of my changed position in society. There was a certain great country house where I had been on the most intimate terms from childhood, where the boys called me by my Christian name, as I called them by theirs, and where my guardian and I were from time to time invited to dine, and sometimes to spend a day or two. When our militia regiment was in training, the owner of this house invited the officers to a grand dinner, and I, an old intimate friend, was omitted. It was impossible that this omission could have been accidental, and it was impossible not to perceive it. I afterwards learned that my religious views were regarded with disapproval in that house, and there, of course, the matter rested. At the same time, or soon afterwards, I noticed that invitations from certain other houses also came to an end, a matter of little consequence to me personally; but I thought that it might indirectly be injurious to my guardian and her sister, and began to feel that I had become a sort of social disgrace and impediment for them.
It was probably about this time that my guardian bought for me some religious books, in which heterodox opinions were represented as being invariably the result of wickedness. I said it was a pity that religious writers could not learn to be more just, as heterodoxy might be due to simple intellectual differences. My guardian answered that she could perceive no injustice whatever in the statement that I complained of. This was infinitely painful to me, as coming from the person I most loved and esteemed in all the world. Another incident embittered my existence for some time. I had an intimate friend in Burnley, and my guardian said that she regretted this intimacy, not for any harm that my friend was likely to do me, but because with my "lamentable opinions" I might corrupt his mind. My answer to attacks of this kind has always been simple silence; when they came from other people I treated them with unfeigned indifference; but when they came from that one dear person, whose affection I valued more than all honors and all fame, they cut me to the quick, and then I knew by cruel experience what a dreadful evil religious bigotry is. For what had I ever said or done to deserve censure? I had as good a right to my opinions as other people had to theirs, yet I kept them within my own breast, and avoided even the shadow of offence. My only crime was the negative one of nonconformity. Even in my latter years, the same old spirit of intolerance pursues me. The nearest relation I have left in England said to my wife that she hoped my books had not an extensive sale, so that their evil influence might be as narrowly restricted as possible. As for her, she would not even look into them. [Footnote: In writing this autobiography I often suddenly remember some forgotten incident of past times. Here is one that has just occurred to me. When walking out in 1853, I met a boy who shouted after me, "You're the fellow that thinks we are all like rats!" He had probably heard my opinions discussed in his family circle--how justly and how intelligently his exclamation shows.]