Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
we say, are historically somewhat better in this country, and at this
hour, than perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It
will not now run against an ax at the first step out of the beaten
track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try
his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the
trial of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day that the
brave Lovejoy[365] gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the
rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to
live.
18. I see not any road to perfect peace which a man can walk, but to
take counsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let
him go home much, and establish himself in those courses he approves.
The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure
duties is hardening the character to that temper which will work with
honor, if need be, in the tumult, or on the scaffold. Whatever
outrages have happened to men may befall a man again; and very easily
in a republic, if there appear any signs of a decay of religion.
Coarse slander, fire, tar and feathers, and the gibbet, the youth may
freely bring home to his mind, and with what sweetness of temper he
can, and inquire how fast he can fix his sense of duty, braving such
penalties, whenever it may please the next newspaper and a sufficient
number of his neighbors to pronounce his opinions incendiary.
19. It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible
heart to see how quick a bound nature has set to the utmost infliction
of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow
us.
"Let them rave:[366]
Thou art quiet in thy grave."
In the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour when we
are deaf to the higher voices, who does not envy them who have seen
safely to an end their manful endeavor? Who that sees the meanness of
our politics, but inly congratulates Washington that he is long
already wrapped in his shroud, and forever safe; that he was laid
sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him?
Who does not sometimes envy the good and brave, who are no more to
suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious
complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite
nature? And yet the love that will be annihilated sooner than
treacherous has already made death impossible, and affirms itself no
mortal, but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguishable
being.
MANNERS[367]
1. Half the world, it is said, knows not how the other half live. Our
Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee Islanders[368] getting their
dinner off human bones; and they are said to eat their own wives and
children. The husbandry of the modern inhabitants of Gournou[369]
(west of old Thebes) is philosophical to a fault. To set up their
housekeeping, nothing is requisite but two or three earthen pots, a
stone to grind meal, and a mat which is the bed. The house, namely, a
tomb, is ready without rent or taxes. No rain can pass through the
roof, and there is no door, for there is no want of one, as there is
nothing to lose. If the house do not please them, they walk out and
enter another, as there are several hundreds at their command. "It is
somewhat singular," adds Berzoni, to whom we owe this account, "to
talk of Happiness among people who live in sepulchers, among corpses
and rags of an ancient nation which they knew nothing of." In the
deserts of Borgoo[370] the rock-Tibboos still dwell in caves, like
cliff-swallows, and the language of these negroes is compared by their
neighbors to the shrieking of bats, and to the whistling of birds.
Again, the Bornoos[371] have no proper names; individuals are called
after their height, thickness, or other accidental quality, and have
nick-names merely. But the salt, the dates, the ivory, and the gold,
for which these horrible regions are visited, find their way into
countries, where the purchaser and consumer can hardly be ranked in
one race with these cannibals and man-stealers; countries where man
serves himself with metals, wood, stone, glass, gum, cotton, silk and
wool; honors himself with architecture;[372] writes laws, and
contrives to execute his will through the hands of many nations; and,
especially, establishes a select society, running through all the
countries of intelligent men, a self-constituted aristocracy, or
fraternity of the best, which, without written law, or exact usage of
any kind, perpetuates itself, colonizes every new-planted island, and
adopts and makes its own whatever personal beauty or extraordinary
native endowment anywhere appears.
2. What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of
the gentleman? Chivalry[373] is that, and loyalty is that, and, in
English literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir
Philip Sidney[374] to Sir Walter Scott,[375] paint this figure. The
word _gentleman_, which, like the word Christian, must hereafter
characterize the present and the few preceding centuries, by the
importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable
properties. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated with
the name, but the steady interest of mankind in it must be attributed
to the valuable properties which it designates. An element which
unites all the most forcible persons of every country; makes them
intelligible and agreeable to each other, and is somewhat so precise,
that it is at once felt if an individual lack the masonic sign,[376]
cannot be any casual product, but must be an average result of the
character and faculties universally found in men. It seems a certain
permanent average; as the atmosphere is a permanent composition,
whilst so many gases are combined only to be decompounded. _Comme il
faut_, is the Frenchman's description of good society, _as we must
be_. It is a spontaneous fruit of talents and feelings of precisely
that class who have most vigor, who take the lead in the world of this
hour, and, though far from pure, far from constituting the gladdest
and highest tone of human feeling, is as good as the whole society
permits it to be. It is made of the spirit, more than of the talent of
men, and is a compound result, into which every great force enters as
an ingredient, namely, virtue, wit, beauty, wealth, and power.
3. There is something equivocal in all the words in use to express the
excellence of manners and social cultivation, because the qualities
are fluxional, and the last effect is assumed by the senses as the
cause. The word _gentleman_ has not any correlative abstract[377] to
express the quality. _Gentility_ is mean, and _gentilesse_[378] is
obsolete. But we must keep alive in the vernacular the distinction
between _fashion_, a word of narrow and often sinister meaning, and
the heroic character which the gentleman imports. The usual words,
however, must be respected: they will be found to contain the root of
the matter. The point of distinction in all this class of names, as
courtesy, chivalry, fashion, and the like, is, that the flower and
fruit, not the grain of the tree, are contemplated. It is beauty which
is the aim this time, and not worth. The result is now in question,
although our words intimate well enough the popular feeling, that the
appearance supposes a substance. The gentleman is a man of truth, lord
of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not
in any manner dependent and servile either on persons, or opinions, or
possessions. Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word
denotes good-nature and benevolence: manhood first, and then
gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of ease and
fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love, that
they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. In times of
violence, every eminent person must fall in with many opportunities to
approve his stoutness and worth; therefore every man's name that
emerged at all from the mass in the feudal ages,[379] rattles in our
ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force never goes out of
fashion. That is still paramount to-day, and, in the moving crowd of
good society, the men of valor and reality are known, and rise to
their natural place. The competition is transferred from war to
politics and trade, but the personal force appears readily enough in
these new arenas.
4. Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in trade,
bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks.
God knows[380] that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but
whenever used in strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be
found to point at original energy. It describes a man standing in his
own right, and working after untaught methods. In a good lord, there
must first be a good animal, at least to the extent of yielding the
incomparable advantage of animal spirits.[381] The ruling class must
have more, but they must have these, giving in every company the sense
of power,[382] which makes things easy to be done which daunt the
wise. The society of the energetic class, in their friendly and
festive meetings, is full of courage, and of attempts, which
intimidate the pale scholar. The courage which girls exhibit is like a
battle of Lundy's Lane,[383] or a sea-fight. The intellect relies on
memory to make some supplies to face these extemporaneous squadrons.
But memory is a base mendicant with basket and badge, in the presence
of these sudden masters. The rulers of society must be up to the work
of the world, and equal to their versatile office: men of the right
Cæsarian pattern,[384] who have great range of affinity. I am far from
believing the timid maxim[385] of Lord Falkland,[386] ("That for
ceremony there must go two to it; since a bold fellow will go through
the cunningest forms,") and am of opinion that the gentleman is the
bold fellow whose forms are not to be broken through; and only that
plenteous nature is rightful master, which is the complement of
whatever person it converses with. My gentleman gives the law where he
is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the
field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for
pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify
yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I
could as easily exclude myself as him. The famous gentlemen of Asia
and Europe have been of this strong type: Saladin,[387] Sapor,[388]
the Cid,[389] Julius Cæsar,[390] Scipio,[391] Alexander,[392]
Pericles,[393] and the lordliest personages. They sat very carelessly
in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to value any
condition at a high rate.
5. A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment,
to the completion of this man of the world: and it is a material deputy
which walks through the dance which the first has led. Money is not
essential, but this wide affinity is, which transcends the habits of
clique and caste, and makes itself felt by men of all classes. If the
aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles, and not with truckmen,
he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the man of the people
cannot speak on equal terms with the gentleman, so that the gentleman
shall perceive that he is already really of his own order, he is not to
be feared. Diogenes,[394] Socrates,[395] and Epaminondas[396] are
gentlemen of the best blood, who have chosen the condition of poverty,
when that of wealth was equally open to them. I use these old names, but
the men I speak of are my contemporaries.[397] Fortune will not supply
to every generation one of these well-appointed knights, but every