to encounter the foes without, but must punish those who among you are
the creatures of Philip, like those who caused the ruin of Olynthus by
betraying the cavalry and by securing the banishment of Apollonides.
Similar treachery brought about the downfall of other cities. The same
fate may befall us. What, then, must be done?
When we have done all that is needful for our own defence, let us next
send our emissaries to all the other states with the intelligence
that we are ready. If you imagine that others will save Greece while
you avoid the conflict, you cherish a fatal delusion. This enterprise
devolves on you; you inherit it from your ancestors.
_IV.--Exterminate the Traitors!_
Men of Athens, your chief misfortune is that, though for the passing
moment you heed important news, you speedily scatter and forget what
you have just heard. You have become fully acquainted with the doings
of Philip, and you well know how great is his ambition; and yet, so
profound has been our indifference that we have earned the contempt
of several other states, which now prefer to undertake their defence
separately rather than in alliance with us.
You must become more deeply convinced than you have been hitherto that
our destruction is the supreme anxiety of Philip. The special object of
his hatred is your democratic constitution. Our mode of procedure is a
mockery, for we are always behind in the execution of our schemes. You
must form a permanent army with a regular organisation, and with funds
sufficient for its maintenance.
Most of all, money is needed to meet coming requirements. There was a
time when money was forthcoming and everything necessary was performed.
Why do we now decline to do our duty? In a time of peril to the
commonwealth the affluent should freely contribute of their possessions
for the welfare of the country; but each class has its obligations to
the state and should observe them.
Many and inveterate are the causes of our present difficulties. You, O
Athenians, have surrendered the august position which your predecessors
bequeathed you, and have indolently permitted a stranger to usurp it.
The present crisis involves peril for all the states, but to Athens
most of all; and that not so much on account of Philip's schemes of
conquest, as of your neglect.
How is it, Athenians, that none affirm concerning Philip that he is
guilty of aggression, even while he is seizing cities, while those
who advise resistance are indicated as inciting to war? The reason is
that those who have been corrupted believe that if you do resist him
you will overcome him, and they can no longer secure the reward of
treachery.
Remember what you have at stake. Should you fall under the dominion
of Philip, he will show you no pity, for his desire is not merely to
subdue Athens, but to destroy it. The struggle will be to the death;
therefore, those who would sell the country to him you must exterminate
without scruple. This is the only city where such treacherous citizens
can dare to speak in his favour. Only here may a man safely accept a
bribe and openly address the people.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
English Traits
In 1847 Emerson (see Vol. XIII, p. 339) made his second visit to
England, this time on a lecturing tour. An outcome of the visit
was "English Traits," which was first published in 1856. "I leave
England," he wrote on his return home, "with an increased respect
for the Englishman. His stuff or substance seems to be the best
in the world." "English Traits" deals with a series of definite
subjects which do not admit of much philosophic digression, and
there is, therefore, an absence of the flashes of spiritual and
poetic insight which gave Emerson his charm.
_I.--The Anchorage of Britain_
I did not go very willingly to England. I am not a good traveller, nor
have I found that long journeys yield a fair share of reasonable hours.
I find a sea-life an acquired taste, like that for tomatoes and olives.
The sea is masculine, the type of active strength. Look what egg-shells
are drifting all over it, each one filled with men in ecstasies of
terror alternating with cockney conceit, as it is rough or smooth. But
to the geologist the sea is the only firmament; it is the land that is
in perpetual flux and change. It has been said that the King of England
would consult his dignity by giving audience to foreign ambassadors in
the cabin of a man-of-war; and I think the white path of an Atlantic
ship is the right avenue to the palace-front of this seafaring people.
England is a garden. Under an ash-coloured sky, the fields have been
combed and rolled till they appear to have been finished with a pencil
instead of a plough. Rivers, hills, valleys, the sea itself, feel the
hand of a master. The problem of the traveller landing in Liverpool
is, Why England is England? What are the elements of that power which
the English hold over other nations? If there be one test of national
genius universally accepted, it is success; and if there be one
successful country in the universe that country is England.
The culture of the day, the thoughts and aims of men, are English
thoughts and aims. A nation considerable for a thousand years has in
the last centuries obtained the ascendant, and stamped the knowledge,
activity, and power of mankind with its impress.
The territory has a singular perfection. Neither hot nor cold, there is
no hour in the whole year when one cannot work. The only drawback to
industrial conveniency is the darkness of the sky. The night and day
are too nearly of a colour.
England resembles a ship in shape, and, if it were one, its best
admiral could not have anchored it in a more judicious or effective
position. The shop-keeping nation, to use a shop word, has a good
stand. It is anchored at the side of Europe, and right in the heart of
the modern world.
In variety of surface Britain is a miniature of Europe, as if Nature
had given it an artificial completeness. It is as if Nature had held
counsel with herself and said: "My Romans are gone. To build my new
empire I will choose a rude race, all masculine, with brutish strength.
Sharp and temperate northern breezes shall blow to keep them alive
and alert. The sea shall disjoin the people from others and knit them
by a fierce nationality. Long time will I keep them on their feet, by
poverty, border-wars, seafaring, sea-risks, and stimulus of gain." A
singular coincidence to this geographic centrality is the spiritual
centrality which Emanuel Swedenborg ascribes to the people: "The
English nation are in the centre of all Christians, because they have
an interior intellectual light. This light they derive from the liberty
of speaking and writing, and thereby of thinking."
_II.--Racial Characteristics_
The British Empire is reckoned to contain a fifth of the population
of the globe; but what makes the British census proper important is
the quality of the units that compose it. They are free, forcible men
in a country where life has reached the greatest value. They have
sound bodies and supreme endurance in war and in labour. They have
assimilating force, since they are imitated by their foreign subjects;
and they are still aggressive and propagandist, enlarging the dominion
of their arts and liberty.
The English composite character betrays a mixed origin. Everything
English is a fusion of distant and antagonistic elements. The language
is mixed; the currents of thought are counter; contemplation and
practical skill; active intellect and dead conservatism; world-wide
enterprise and devoted use and wont; a country of extremes--nothing in
it can be praised without damning exceptions, and nothing denounced
without salvos of cordial praise.
The sources from which tradition derives its stock are mainly three:
First, the Celtic--a people of hidden and precarious genius; second,
the Germans, a people about whom, in the old empire, the rumour ran
there was never any that meddled with them that repented it not; and,
third, the Norsemen and the children out of France. Twenty thousand
thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the House of Lords were
greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates.
Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth that decent and
dignified men now existing actually boast their descent from these
filthy thieves.
As soon as this land, thus geographically posted, got a hardy people
into it, they could not help becoming the sailors and factors of the
world. The English, at the present day, have great vigour of body.
They are round, ruddy, and handsome, with a tendency to stout and
powerful frames. It is the fault of their forms that they grow stocky,
but in all ages they are a handsome race, and please by an expression
blending good nature, valour, refinement, and an uncorrupt youth in the
face of manhood.
The English are rather manly than warlike. They delight in the
antagonism which combines in one person the extremes of courage and
tenderness. Nelson, dying at Trafalgar, says, "Kiss me, Hardy," and
turns to sleep. Even for their highwaymen this virtue is claimed, and
Robin Hood is the gentlest thief. But they know where their war-dogs
lie, and Cromwell, Blake, Marlborough, Nelson, and Wellington are not
to be trifled with.
They have vigorous health and last well into middle and old age. They
have more constitutional energy than any other people. They box,
run, shoot, ride, row, and sail from Pole to Pole. They are the most
voracious people of prey that have ever existed, and they have written
the game-books of all countries.
These Saxons are the hands of mankind--the world's wealth-makers. They
have that temperament which resists every means employed to make its
possessor subservient to others. The English game is main force to main
force, the planting of foot to foot, fair play and an open field--a
rough tug without trick or dodging till one or both comes to pieces.
They hate craft and subtlety; and when they have pounded each other to
a poultice they will shake hands and be friends for the remainder of
their lives.
Their realistic logic of coupling means to ends has given them the
leadership of the modern world. Montesquieu said: "No people have true
commonsense but those who are born in England." This commonsense is
a perception of laws that cannot be stated, or that are learned only
by practice, with allowance for friction. The bias of the nation is
a passion for utility. They are heavy at the fine arts, but adroit at
the coarse. The Frenchman invented the ruffle, the Englishman added the
shirt. They think him the best-dressed man whose dress is so fit for
his use that you cannot notice or remember to describe it.
In war the Englishman looks to his means; but, conscious that no
better race of men exists, they rely most on the simplest means. They
fundamentally believe that the best stratagem in naval war is to bring
your ship alongside of the enemy's ship, and bring all your guns to
bear on him until you or he go to the bottom. This is the old fashion
which never goes out of fashion.
Tacitus said of the Germans: "Powerful only in sudden efforts, they are
impatient of toil and labour." This highly destined race, if it had
not somewhere added the chamber of patience to its brain, would not
have built London. I know not from which of the tribes and temperaments
that went to the composition of the people this tenacity was supplied,
but they clinch every nail they drive. "To show capacity," a Frenchman
described as the end of speech in a debate. "No," said an Englishman,
"but to advance the business."
The nation sits in the immense city they have builded--a London
extended into every man's mind. The modern world is theirs. They have
made and make it day by day. In every path of practical ability they
have gone even with the best. There is no department of literature, of
science, or of useful art in which they have not produced a first-rate
book. It is England whose opinion is waited for. English trade exists
to make well everything which is ill-made elsewhere. Steam is almost an
Englishman.
One secret of the power of this people is their mutual good
understanding. Not only good minds are born among them, but all the
people have good minds. An electric touch by any of their national
ideas melts them into one family. The chancellor carries England on
his mace, the midshipman at the point of his dirk, the smith on his
hammer, the cook in the bowl of his spoon, and the sailor times his
oars to "God save the King!"
I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in
his shoes. The one thing the English value is pluck. The word is
not beautiful, but on the quality they signify by it the nation is
unanimous. The cabmen have it, the merchants have it, the bishops have
it, the women have it, the journals have it. They require you to dare
to be of your own opinion, and they hate the practical cowards who
cannot answer directly Yes or No.
Their vigour appears in the incuriosity and stony neglect each of the
other. Each man walks, eats, drinks, shaves, dresses, gesticulates,
and in every manner acts and suffers, without reference to the
bystanders--he is really occupied with his own affairs, and does not
think of them. In short, every one of these islanders is an island
himself, safe, tranquil, incommunicable.
Born in a harsh and wet climate, which keeps him indoors whenever he is
at rest, and, being of an affectionate and loyal temper, the Englishman
dearly loves his home. If he is rich he builds a hall, and brings to
it trophies of the adventures and exploits of the family, till it
becomes a museum of heirlooms. England produces, under favourable
conditions of ease and culture, the finest women in the world. Nothing
can be more delicate without being fantastical, than the courtship and
mutual carriage of the sexes. Domesticity is the taproot which enables
the nation to branch wide and high. In an aristocratical country
like England, not the trial by jury, but the dinner is the capital
institution. It is the mode of doing honour to a stranger to ask him to
eat.
The practical power of the English rests on their sincerity. Alfred,
whom the affection of the nation makes the type of their race, is
called by a writer at the Norman Conquest, the "truth-speaker." The
phrase of the lowest of the people is "honour-bright," and their
praise, "his word is as good as his bond." They confide in each
other--English believes in English. Madame de Staël says that the
English irritated Napoleon mainly because they have found out how to
unite success with honesty. The ruling passion of an Englishman is a
terror of humbug.
The English race are reputed morose. They have enjoyed a reputation for
taciturnity for six or seven hundred years. Cold, repressive manners
prevail, and there is a wooden deadness in certain Englishmen which
surpasses all other countrymen. In the power of saying rude truth
no men rival them. They are proud and private, and even if disposed
to recreation will avoid an open garden. They are full of coarse
strength, butcher's meat, and sound sleep. They are good lovers, good
haters, slow but obstinate admirers, and very much steeped in their
temperament, like men hardly awaked from deep sleep which they enjoy.
The English have a mild aspect, and ringing, cheerful voice. Of
absolute stoutness of spirit, no nation has more or better examples.
They are good at storming redoubts, at boarding frigates, at dying in
the last ditch, or any desperate service which has daylight and honour
in it. They stoutly carry into every nook and corner of the earth
their turbulent sense of inquiry, leaving no lie uncontradicted, no
pretension unexamined.
They are very conscious of their advantageous position in history. I
suppose that all men of English blood in America, Europe, or Asia, have
a secret feeling of joy that they are not Frenchmen. They only are not
foreigners. In short, I am afraid that the English nature is so rank
and aggressive as to be a little incompatible with any other. The world
is not wide enough for two. More intellectual than other races, when
they live with other races they do not take their language, but bestow
their own. They subsidise other nations, and are not subsidised. They
proselytise and are not proselytised. They assimilate other nations to
themselves and are not assimilated.
_III.--Wealth, Aristocracy, and Religion_
There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth.
There is a mixture of religion in it. The Englishman esteems wealth a
final certificate. He believes that every man has himself to thank if
he does not mend his condition. To pay their debts is their national
point of honour. The British armies are solvent, and pay for what they
take. The British empire is solvent. It is their maxim that the weight
of taxes must be calculated not by what is taken but by what is left.
They say without shame: "I cannot afford it." Such is their enterprise,
that there is enough wealth in England to support the entire population
in idleness one year. The proudest result of this creation of wealth is
that great and refined forces are put at the disposal of the private
citizen, and in the social world the Englishman to-day has the best
lot. I much prefer the condition of an English gentleman of the better
class to that of any potentate in Europe.
The feudal character of the English state, now that it is getting
obsolete, glares a little in contrast with democratic tendencies. But
the frame of society is aristocratic. Every man who becomes rich buys
land, and does what he can to fortify the nobility, into which he hopes
to rise. The taste of the people is conservative. They are proud of
the castles, language, and symbols of chivalry. English history is
aristocracy with the doors open. Who has courage and faculty, let him
come in.
All nobility in its beginnings was somebody's natural superiority. The
things these English have done were not done without peril of life, nor
without wisdom of conduct, and the first hands, it may be presumed,
were often challenged to show their right to their honours, or yield
them to better men.
Comity, social talent, and fine manners no doubt have had their part
also. The lawyer, the farmer, the silk mercer lies _perdu_ under the
coronet, and winks to the antiquary to say nothing. They were nobody's
sons who did some piece of work at a nice moment.
The English names are excellent--they spread an atmosphere of legendary
melody over the land. Older than epics and histories, which clothe
a nation, this undershirt sits close to the body. What stores of
primitive and savage observation it infolds! Cambridge is the bridge
of the Cam; Sheffield the field of the river Sheaf; Leicester the camp
of Lear; Waltham is Strong Town; Radcliffe is Red Cliff, and so on--a
sincerity and use in naming very striking to an American, whose country
is whitewashed all over with unmeaning names, the cast-off clothes of
the country from which the emigrants came, or named at a pinch from a
psalm tune.
In seeing old castles and cathedrals I sometimes say: "This was built
by another and a better race than any that now look on it." Their
architecture still glows with faith in immortality. Good churches are
not built by bad men; at least, there must be probity and enthusiasm
somewhere in society.
England felt the full heat of the Christianity which fermented Europe,
and, like the chemistry of fire, drew a firm line between barbarism
and culture. When the Saxon instinct had secured a service in the
vernacular tongue the Church was the tutor and university of the people.
Now the Anglican Church is marked by the grace and good sense of its
forms; by the manly grace of its clergy. The gospel it preaches is "By
taste are ye saved." The religion of England is part of good breeding.
When you see on the Continent the well-dressed Englishman come into
his ambassador's chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his
well-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays
with him, and the religion of a gentleman.
At this moment the Church is much to be pitied. If a bishop meets an
intelligent gentleman and reads fatal interrogation in his eyes, he has
no resource but to take wine with him.
But the religion of England--is it the Established Church? No. Is it
the sects? No. Where dwells the religion? Tell me first where dwells
electricity, or motion, or thought? They do not dwell or stay at all.
Electricity is passing, glancing, gesticular; it is a traveller, a
newness, a secret. Yet, if religion be the doing of all good, and for
its sake the suffering of all evil, that divine secret has existed in
England from the days of Alfred to the days of Florence Nightingale,
and in thousands who have no fame.
Representative Men
Some of the lectures delivered by Emerson during his lecturing
tour in England were published in 1850 under the title of
"Representative Men," and the main trend of their thought
and opinion is here followed in Emerson's own words. It will
be noted that the use of the term "sceptic," as applied to
Montaigne, is not the ordinary use of the word, but signifies
a person spontaneously given to free inquiry rather than
aggressive disbelief. The estimate of Napoleon is original. In
"Representative Men" Emerson is much more consecutive in his
thought than is customary with him. His pearls are as plentiful
here as elsewhere, but they are not scattered disconnectedly.
_Plato_
Among secular books, Plato only is entitled to Omar's fanatical
compliment to the Koran: "Burn all books, for their value is in this
book." Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated
among men of thought. Plato is philosophy, and philosophy Plato. No
wife, no children had he, but the thinkers of all civilised nations are
his posterity, and are tinged with his mind.
Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. They lived in their
writings, and so their house and street life is commonplace. Their
cousins can tell you nothing about them. Plato, especially, has no
external biography.
Plato stands between the truth and every man's mind, and has almost
impressed language and the primary forms of thought with his name and
seal.
The first period of a nation, as of an individual, is the period of
unconscious strength. Children cry, scream, and stamp with fury, unable
to express their desires. As soon as they can speak and tell their
wants they become gentle. With nations he is as a god to them who can
rightly divide and define. This defining is philosophy. Philosophy is
the account which the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of
the world.
Two cardinal facts lie ever at the base of thought: Unity and
Variety--oneness and otherness.
To this partiality the history of nations corresponds. The country of
unity, faithful to the idea of a deaf, unimplorable, immense fate, is
Asia; on the other side, the genius of Europe is active and creative.
If the East loves infinity, the West delights in boundaries. Plato
came to join and enhance the energy of each. The excellence of Europe
and Asia is in his brain. No man ever more fully acknowledged the
Ineffable; but having paid his homage, as for the human race, to the
illimitable, he then stood erect, and for the human race affirmed:
"And yet things are knowable!" Full of the genius of Europe, he said
"Culture," he said "Nature," but he failed not to add, "There is also
the divine."
This leads us to the central figure which he has established in his
academy. Socrates and Plato are the double-star which the most powerful
instrument will not entirely separate. Socrates, in his traits and
genius, is the best example of that synthesis which constitutes
Plato's extraordinary power.