Bracebridge Hall, or The HumoristsIrving, Washington
General
Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists
Irving, Washington
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; National characteristics, English -- Fiction
style.' And Sir Philip Sidney, who has left us such monuments of
elegant thought, and generous sentiment, and who illustrated his
chivalrous spirit so gloriously in the field. And Sir Walter Raleigh,
the elegant courtier, the intrepid soldier, the enterprising
discoverer, the enlightened philosopher, the magnanimous martyr. These
are the men for English gentlemen to study. Chesterfield, with his cold
and courtly maxims, would have chilled and impoverished such spirits.
He would have blighted all the budding romance of their temperaments.
Sidney would never have written his Arcadia, nor Surrey have challenged
the world in vindication of the beauties of his Geraldine. "These are
the men, my sons," the Squire will continue, "that show to what our
national character may be exalted, when its strong and powerful
qualities are duly wrought up and refined. The solidest bodies are
capable of the highest polish; and there is no character that may be
wrought to a more exquisite and unsullied brightness, than that of the
true English gentleman."
When Guy was about to depart for the army, the Squire again took him
aside, and gave him a long exhortation. He warned him against that
affectation of cool-blooded indifference, which he was told was
cultivated by the young British officers, among whom it was a study to
"sink the soldier" in the mere man of fashion. "A soldier," said he,
"without pride and enthusiasm in his profession, is a mere sanguinary
hireling. Nothing distinguishes him from the mercenary bravo, but a
spirit of patriotism, or a thirst for glory. It is the fashion
now-a-days, my son," said he, "to laugh at the spirit of chivalry;
when that spirit is really extinct, the profession of the soldier
becomes a mere trade of blood." He then set before him the conduct of
Edward the Black Prince, who is his mirror of chivalry; valiant,
generous, affable, humane; gallant in the field. But when he came to
dwell on his courtesy toward his prisoner, the king of France; how he
received him in his tent, rather as a conqueror than as a captive;
attended on him at table like one of his retinue; rode uncovered
beside him on his entry into London, mounted on a common palfrey,
while his prisoner was mounted in state on a white steed of stately
beauty; the tears of enthusiasm stood in the old gentleman's eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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