Undoubtedly the address of a person by the name with which he was
christened can convey no shadow of disrespect. The Society of Friends
understood this from the beginning, and they felt that they were wanting
in no essential civility when they refused name-honor as well as
hat-honor to all and every. They remained covered in the highest
presences, and addressed each by his Christian name, without conveying
slight; so that a King and Queen of England, who had once questioned
whether they could suffer themselves to be called Thy Majesty instead
of Your Majesty by certain Quakers, found it no derogation of their
dignity to be saluted as Friend George and Friend Charlotte. The signory
of the proudest republic in the world held that their family names were
of sufficiency to which titles could add nothing, and the Venetian who
called himself Loredano, or Gradenigo, or Morosini, or Renier, or
Rezzonico did not ask to be called differently. In our own day a lady of
the ancient and splendid family of the Peruzzi in Florence denied that
the title of count existed in it or need exist: "Ognuno puo essere
conte: Peruzzi, no." ("Any one may be a count; but not a Peruzzi.") In
like manner such names as Lincoln and Franklin, and Washington and
Grant, and Longfellow and Bryant could have gained nothing by Mr. before
them or Esq. after them. Doctor Socrates or Doctor Seneca would not have
descended to us in higher regard with the help of these titles; and
Rear-Admiral Themistocles or Major-General Epaminondas could not have
had greater glory from the survival of parchments so directed to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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