I do not know that I can more appropriately close this last chapter of my
essay than by citing a passage from Lord Lindsay's introduction to his
'Lives of the Lindsays,' a passage which entitles its author to as high a
place among "virtue's own noblemen" as he deservedly occupies among the
great ones of man's creation.
"Be grateful, then, for your descent from religious as well as noble
ancestors: it is your duty to be so, and this is the only worthy tribute
you can now pay to their ashes. Yet, at the same time be most jealously on
your guard lest this lawful satisfaction degenerate into arrogance, or a
fancied superiority over those nobles of God's creation, who, endowed in
other respects with every exalted quality, cannot point to a long line of
ancestry. Pride is of all sins the most hateful in the sight of God; and
of the proud, who is so mean, who so despicable as he who values himself
on the merits of others? And were they all so meritorious, these boasted
ancestors? were they all Christians? Remember, remember, if some of them
have deserved praise, others have equally merited censure; if there have
been "stainless knights," never yet was there a stainless family since
Adam's fall. Where, then, is boasting? for we would not I hope glory in
iniquity.
'=Only the actions of the Just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.='
"One word more. Times are changed, and in many respects we are blessed
with knowledge beyond our fathers, yet we must not on that account deem
our hearts purer, or our lives holier, than theirs were. Nor, on the other
hand, should we for a moment assent to the proposition, so often hazarded,
that the virtues of chivalry are necessarily extinct with the system they
adorned. Chivalry, in her purity, was a holy and lovely maiden, and many
were the hearts refined and ennobled by her influence; yet she proclaims
to us not one virtue that is not derived from and summed up in
Christianity. The age of chivalry may be past--the knight may no more be
seen issuing from the embattled portal-arch on his barbed charger, his
lance glittering in the sun, his banner streaming to the breeze,--but the
spirit of chivalry can never die; through every change of external
circumstances, through faction and tumult, through trial and suffering,
through good report and evil report, still that spirit burns like love,
the brighter and purer;--still, even in the nineteenth century, lights up
its holiest shrine, the heart of that champion of the widow, that father
of the fatherless, that liegeman of his God, his king, and his country,
the noble-hearted but lowly-minded Christian gentleman of England."
[Illustration]
APPENDIX.
Differences, Abatements, Grant of Arms, etc. etc.
Appendix A.
DIFFERENCES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account