210. I said that the function of historical painting, in representing animals, is to discern and record what is best and most beautiful in their ways of life, and their forms; so also, in representing man, it is to record of man what has been best in his acts and way of life, and fairest in his form.
But this way of the life of man has been a long one. It is difficult to know it—more difficult to judge; to do either with complete equity is impossible; but it is always possible to do it with the charity which does not rejoice in iniquity.
211. Among the many mistakes we have lately fallen into, touching that same charity, one of the worst is our careless habit of always thinking of her as pitiful, and to be concerned only with miserable and wretched persons; whereas her chief joy is in being reverent, and concerned mainly with noble and venerable persons. Her poorest function is the giving of pity; her highest is the giving of praise. For there are many men, who, however fallen, do not like to be pitied; but all men, however far risen, like to be praised.
212. I had occasion in my last lecture to express my regret that the method of education in this country has become so distinctly competitive. It is necessary, however, to distinguish carefully between the competition which is for the means of existence, and that which is for the praise of learning. For my own part, so far as they affect our studies here, I equally regret both: but competition for money I regret absolutely; competition for praise, only when it sets the reward for too short and narrow a race. I want you to compete, not for the praise of what you know, but for the praise of what you become; and to compete only in that great school, where death is the examiner, and God the judge. For you will find, if you look into your own hearts, that the two great delights, in loving and praising, and the two great thirsts, to be loved and praised, are the roots of all that is strong in the deeds of men, and happy in their repose. We yet, thank Heaven, are not ashamed to acknowledge the power of love; but we confusedly and doubtfully allege that of honour; and though we cannot but instinctively triumph still, over a won boat-race, I suppose the best of us would shrink somewhat from declaring that the love of praise was to be one of the chief motives of their future lives.
213. But I believe you will find it, if you think, not only one of the chief, but absolutely the chief, motive of human action; nay, that love itself is, in its highest state, the rendering of an exquisite praise to body and soul; and our English tongue is very sacred in this; for its Saxon word, love, is connected, through the old French verb, loer, (whence louange), with the Latin, ‘laus,’ not ‘amor.’
And you may sum the duty of your life in the giving of praise worthily, and being yourselves worthy of it.
214. Therefore in the reading of all history, your first purpose must be to seek what is to be praised; and disdain the rest: and in doing so, remember always that the most important part of the history of man is that of his imagination. What he actually does, is always in great part accidental; it is at best a partial fulfilment of his purpose; and what we call history is often, as I said, merely a record of the external accidents which befall men getting together in large crowds. The real history of mankind is that of the slow advance of resolved deed following laboriously just thought: and all the greatest men live in their purpose and effort more than it is possible for them to live in reality. If you would praise them more worthily, it is for what they conceived and felt; not merely for what they have done.
215. It is therefore a true historian’s work diligently to separate the deed from the imagination; and when these become inconsistent, to remember that the imagination, if precious at all, is indeed the most precious. It is no matter how much, or how little of the two first books of Livy may be literally true. The history of the Romans is the history of the nation which could conceive the battle of the Lake Regillus. I have rowed in rough weather on the Lake of the four cantons often enough to know that the legend of Tell is, in literal detail, absurd: but the history of Switzerland is that of the people who expressed their imagination of resistance to injustice by that legend, so as to animate their character vitally to this day.
216. But in no part of history does the ideal separate itself so far from the reality; and in no part of it is the ideal so necessary and noble, as in your own inherited history—that of Christian Chivalry.
For all English gentlemen this is the part of the tale of the race of man which it is most essential for them to know. They may be proud that it is also the greatest part. All that hitherto has been achieved of best,—all that has been in noble preparation instituted,—is begun in the period, and rooted in the conception, of Chivalry.