Objection to Mr. Bagehot’s Theory.
This passage contains, I think, a condemnation of the very use of nobility that the author intended to eulogise. If the common peasantry will listen more submissively to the nonsense of an old squire than they will to a new man’s sense, it is hard to see how aristocracy, in this instance, can be really on the side of mind. Again, if the old lord gets infinite reverence, whether he is wise or foolish, it is a mere chance whether the reverence is favourable to the influence of mind or against it. If the old lord is a fool, and there is a wise man in the neighbourhood who is not listened to because the lord has the ear of the peasantry, the strength of title is not the candlestick of mind, but its extinguisher.
Value of Political Fame in England.
Frenchmen who write about England usually remark that mind is overshadowed by aristocracy; that mediocrities with titles get more consideration, and are listened to more respectfully, than better men without them. The exact truth is more as follows. Political celebrity in England is quite as strong as title. Any one who has the ear of the House of Commons, however humble his birth, is listened to in the country quite as attentively, quite as respectfully, as a lord. But title certainly overshadows literary and artistic celebrity. Not that this is of any real importance, for literary and artistic celebrity is not in its nature powerful, except over the intelligent, who are a minority in every population.
Aristocracy a School of Refinement.
If the aristocracies have not done much for the intellectual life, or for art, they have been serviceable in setting up a model of generally refined life, not for people of culture specially, but for all who had means enough to copy it. This is not to be despised. A real aristocracy is a school of national refinement, and nations that are destitute of an aristocracy have to look to some fluctuating upper class, less perfectly regulated than aristocracy is by hereditary custom.
Also a School of Contentment.
Aristocracy favourable to Simplicity of Life.
Again, an aristocracy is a school of contentment. In conjunction with its natural ally, the Church, it encourages in every one a spirit of contentment with his lot in life, an acceptance of the lot as a settled thing, which, though it is not favourable to progress, is unquestionably favourable to happiness. A genuine aristocracy is also favourable to simplicity of life in every noblesse that has poor, yet honoured members.
Faults of the French Noblesse.