His breed is dying
now, it has nearly gone. But as I remember him with that great quiet forehead,
with his tenderness, and his glance which travelled to the heart of what it
rested on, I despair of seeing his like again. For, with him there seems to me
to have passed away a principle, a golden rule of life, nay, more, a spirit —
the soul of Balance. It has stolen away, as in the early morning the stars
steal out of the sky. He knew its tranquil secret, and where he is, there must
it still be hovering.
John Galsworthy – A Portrait (1910)
Galsworthy’s portrait is fictional, but probably not
entirely so. I wonder how many of us remember someone in a similar way? Someone
who seemed to represent the best of a dying breed. A type of person our society no longer values as it we think it should because times change and new generations cannot value what they never knew.
The impression is easy enough to explain because times do change and different
people do suit different times. Yet it isn’t easy to pick out people today who suit modern times to such a degree that their loss will be felt just as keenly. Probably it was always so and the sense of loss stems from an illusion . A remarkably powerful illusion though.
4 comments:
Nice post as ever. How about Thomas Sowell? Ayan Hirsi Ali? Mark Steyn? They all have contrarian balls and seem to have some courage and integrity. Politically, Thatcher and Reagan (sadly seems in some ways as though they never existed). Dare one say it, President Trump? (I never ever, really ever, thought I would say that about this rug-haired publicity hound; it’s just that he looks so great relative to his insane detractors).
Albeit you got to be careful with canonising modern living or recently dead heroes. Just the other week (relatively and historically speaking) Sir Jimmy Savile would have been the popular shoo-in. Next thing I know people are petitioning to have him exhumed and dumped in the North Sea! (At rare times like this you know it’s probably not you and everybody else is actually truly completely mental). As I recall, we were all supposed to love his awkwardly weird clunky charm. He and his grotty ilk would never have got my vote, though; couldn’t care less about dodgy kiddie fiddler claims. Just thought he was an awful talentless blowhard from day one back in 1970 or whenever, like most of the other latter-day tossers that would like to fill his overly-paid shoes. The BBC has such a lot to answer for (but never will, of course) in canonising such convenient vapid pricks and making everyone a little bit thicker than they might otherwise have been.
But my essential point is that the idiotic audience/electorate bears the most responsibility. Feel sorry for you guys and, much more importantly, am wondering how the next several generations will get on. It’s a shame that so much is lost, but what can you do?
Jeremiah at the wailing wall was never the most appealing figure for those who, like me and no doubt his contemporaries, simply wanted to get ahead and win. Got to admit the silly old sod might be sort of right, though. We appear to be daft enough to vindicate the miserabilist.
All the best!
Seems to be along the same lines as:- We praise the man who is angry on the right grounds, against the right persons, in the right manner, at the right moment, and for the right length of time.
Few if any of us live up to either Galsworthy's or Aristotle's ideal.
It reads like a description of Michael Foot ;)
Clacket - "I never ever, really ever, thought I would say that about this rug-haired publicity hound; it’s just that he looks so great relative to his insane detractors."
That's the way I'm trending even though I think it is too early. But as you say, relative to his detractors...
Roger - I think Galsworthy had in mind people he had actually come across rather than ideals. However, criticism was possibly more muted then, with less to go on. Particularly in the case of someone not in the public eye because the public focus was narrower.
Graeme - better than Foot I would say.
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