r; and, as
soon as blood has atoned for blood, the wilds of America hear the
hostile parties join in their mutual lamentations over the dead, whom,
as an oblivion of malice, they bury together. But the measure of
revenge, never to be full, was left for the demi-savages of Europe. The
vassals of the feudal lord entered into his quarrels with the most
inexorable rage. Just or unjust was no consideration of theirs. It was a
family feud; no farther inquiry was made; and from age to age, the
parties, who never injured each other, breathed nothing but mutual
rancour and revenge. And actions, suitable to this horrid spirit,
everywhere confessed its virulent influence. Such were the late days of
Europe, admired by the ignorant for the innocence of manners. Resentment
of injury, indeed, is natural; and there is a degree which is honest,
and though warm, far from inhuman. But if it is the hard task of
humanized virtue to preserve the feeling of an injury unmixed with the
slightest criminal wish of revenge, how impossible is it for the savage
to attain the dignity of forgiveness, the greatest ornament of human
nature. As in individuals, a virtue will rise into a vice, generosity
into blind profusion, and even mercy into criminal lenity, so civilized
manners will lead the opulent into effeminacy. But let it be considered,
this consequence is by no means the certain result of civilization.
Civilization, on the contrary, provides the most effectual preventive of
this evil. Where classical literature prevails the manly spirit which it
breathes must be diffused; whenever frivolousness predominates, when
refinement degenerates into whatever enervates the mind, literary
ignorance is sure to complete the effeminate character. A mediocrity of
virtues and of talents is the lot of the great majority of mankind; and
even this mediocrity, if cultivated by a liberal education, will
infallibly secure its possessor against those excesses of effeminacy
which are really culpable. To be of plain manners it is not necessary to
be a clown, or to wear coarse clothes; nor is it necessary to lie on the
ground and feed like the savage to be truly manly. The beggar who,
behind the hedge, divides his offals with his dog has often more of the
real sensualist than he who dines at an elegant table. Nor need we
hesitate to assert, that he who, unable to preserve a manly elegance of
manners, degenerates into the _petit maitre_, would have been, in any
age or cond