The following particular qualities, then, are not noble: first, all vanity; this is a quite certain mark of a soul still small; therefore, second, all boasting, all self-praise in general, and all pretensions of even (so to speak) the most permissible nature. These last are not unmoral, perhaps, but they are at any rate common and small. Then we must add, further, all immoderate pleasure in any kind of enjoyment, even when not purely physical; in eating and drinking, in music and the drama, or what not. The noble man must always stand above his pleasure and never yield himself into its power. Only one step farther in the very common though often innocent gratification of pleasure is the finding of delight in luxury; a stain of injustice is already associated with luxury, which infallibly means depriving another man of his own, and creates and maintains a dividing-line among men such as ought not to exist. A noble simplicity of living which does not degenerate into the cynicism of the Stoic is a certain mark of a soul by right of heredity already nobly born; but the love of luxury is the characteristic trait of the upstart. Luxury, with debts besides and one’s consequent dependence upon men, is the acme of commonness and leads very often on into wrong-doing.
It is quite the contrary of noble to speak much of oneself, and particularly to boast of one’s deeds or philanthropy—the latter, because one is scarcely justified in making much of a stir about it; for very few people give away what they themselves can make good use of, but only a part of their superfluity, which, because it is a superfluity, they do not even quite rightfully own. Those who are charitable in a really large-hearted fashion are, for the most part, only the poor, who regard it as a matter of course that they should help one another with everything they possess. With them, giving is not associated with glory, nor is receiving associated with shame; while the higher classes often seek to balance accounts with their Christianity on the cheapest terms, by bringing their philanthropy well forward into men’s notice.
To be sure, there is a way of concealing one’s deeds in such a fashion that they are meant to be discovered and thus win double praise. And it is not wholly right, and particularly not wholly Christian to free oneself altogether from personal contact with poverty by means of contributions to benevolent institutions. The Gospel knows nothing of such societies as yet (perhaps it even excludes them), but simply says, “Give to him that asketh thee”; one might at most add, “unless it will manifestly do him harm,”—as really happens in some cases. The anxious avoidance of any contact with a callous or not quite cleanly hand is anything but truly noble.
It is not noble to feel disdain toward inferiors, toward poor people who are often the truly noble of this world, toward children, toward the oppressed of every sort, and even toward animals. The chase especially, much as it may belong to the pleasures of noble or would-be noble people, can not be regarded as anything truly noble, and particularly if it is connected with no danger, but is simply a pleasure in the killing of defenceless creatures. Frederick the Great has a sharp passage about this in his writings, while the last French Bourbons were zealous huntsmen.
To be ever sincerely friendly with servants, never domineering or condescending, never familiar, but always generous and careful, is a great art which is rarely learned in a single generation, but is always a sure mark of nobility.
The moods of a noble soul are not based on pessimistic lines. The pessimists are those who have somehow fallen short and are incapable of struggling with courage for the highest things of life and of gaining them by the power and endurance necessary. Therefore they give out that they disclaim them, or represent the renunciation of them as the highest attainable goal. When their pessimism is not merely a passing phase in development, pessimists are always egotistical men of a narrow range of ideas, to whom one must not pay the honor of admiration. Thorough faultfinders, constant critics of everything, tormentors of women, overexacting, capable of falling into painful agitation over a misplaced article or over a train they have missed,—such are the least noble among them.
The noblest thing of all is the love of one’s enemies. To be kind to one’s friends, or to be friendly and fair toward everybody, is socially excellent, but a long way still from being noble. But they who take injuries quietly, and can always be just even to enemies, are the genuine aristocrats of the spirit.
The perfect pattern of nobility is Christ; many of his biographers give quite a false impression in depicting him too much from the humble and outwardly meek point of view, and thus carry many conceptions of our own bit of sky over into the oriental world, with its different ways of thought. It is just that unattainably perfect combination of the tenderest affection for the little ones, the poor, the oppressed, and the guilty, with that large and calm self-consciousness before all the high, the rich, and the mighty of that day (which nevertheless is never defiance or pride),—it is just that combination that lends to this personality a stamp it would be hard to declare purely human. To follow this type has since been the task of all who strive after perfection, and whoever turns away from it will always run the risk of chasing after a false ideal and not attaining the goal. As one of these false ideals has himself truly said, “In the breast of every man two souls inhabit: the one, in the strong joy of love, holds to the world with clinging organs; the other lifts itself forcefully away from the mist to the fields of high surmise.” A force exerted to subdue oneself, and a faith in these fields, will always in truth belong to the truly noble; and if the great poet, who never completely subdued the lesser of these souls in himself, says, in the second part of his most famous work, “Fool, whoever lifts yonder his blinking eyes, and fancies himself above the masses of his equals, let him stand fast and look about him here, for to him that can hear, this world is not mute,”—if he says this, then it is to be answered that to nobility there also belongs something of a foolishness that is yet wiser than all the wisdom of men.
The chief obstacles in the way of genuine nobility are the nobility that is not genuine and the fear of men.
The presence of some sort of “aristocracy” in every human society of long continuance is a proof of the need of something such, and at the same time the chief cause of its decay. One might say, somewhat paradoxically, that an aristocracy is at its purest and best where it has no right to exist; and at its worst where it possesses the greatest “rights.” Those who belong to these higher classes live now, for the most part, in the vain delusion (to which they are systematically brought up, and by which they are debarred from any better conception) that they owe to humanity nothing further than their mere existence, or that there is in general no other society for them but the “upper ten thousand,” as they are called in England. They deem it quite sufficient if they in a certain measure stand as representatives of “the beautiful” in the life of humanity, somewhat in the sense of the tasteless expression, “The rose that doth itself adorn, adorneth, too, the garden,” or in accordance with the better expression, not always rightly applied, that common natures count for what they do, noble natures for what they are. Taken in the right sense, this last is true; for from nobly living, nobly doing necessarily follows of itself, while it is but hypocrisy without it. One of the surest marks of men with noble natures is that the unfortunate are dearer to them than the fortunate. Where this is not so there is no genuine aristocratic nature of God’s grace, but only an ordinary man, however showy his station in life.