OUR COUNTRY'S NOBLEMEN. BY SELIM H. PEABODY, Ph. D., LL, D. T is said by men who study Thus early the dignity and the vital power of knowledge was recognized, and thus its recognition left its stamp upon language in its fresh and receptive state. This does not agree with that other notion that the early leaders were so by the masterful power of muscle and brawn, unless we farther remember that the force of muscle and the weight of brawn was guided and restrained by the intelligence of brain. These words, noble and know, are not the only ones in which this idea has come to us as part of their inmost meaning. The old king, or könig, was the can-ing man; he who was canny; he who could do or had power to do; which power of doing rested mostly in his knowing, or kenning, or cunning. So now the man who can do, is he who kens or knows how to do. I can, not merely because I am strong, gross, huge, having stalwart bones and thews, but because I know how to guide these grosser forces which nature has trusted unto me. The nobleman is the knowing man. But this knowing must be taken in its highest, not in its lowest sense. The knowing man is not simply the man who remembers, even though the memory is a grand aid in knowing. The memory is the iron chest which safely holds, and readily delivers that which has been given to its keeping. Simple remembering is not knowing. To produce proper knowing there must be added the large vital power of using, of applying, of adapting, that which has been gained, whether of material things or of immaterial thoughts, to the working out of some purpose, the development of some design, the accomplishment of some end. The notable thing is not the knowing, as of late we have limited the word, it is the knowing how. It is not passive, slumberous, mephitic, but active, directive, an inspiration. There is more meaning than is usually found in the old motto, credited to ruder days: "Let him take who has the power, and let him keep who can." Taking is the easy victory of brute force; keeping is the far more difficult task won by the larger grip of intelligence. The symbol of the one is the effigy of Goliath, his spear-shaft a weaver's beam. The symbol of the other is the image of David, with smooth stones cunningly chosen from the brook's bed, and skillfully sent to pierce the forehead of his foe. By his knowing the nobleman came to be lifted above the abundant herd of the ignorant, that is the unknowing. For, as we have seen, the larger knowing became intelligence, and this became reactive, working reflexively, upon the knower, as well as outwardly in all manner of useful effects. The man of larger intelligence found himself on a loftier summit; he scanned a wider horizon; he saw with greater clearness the nearer and the remoter relations of things, and actions, and influences. His aspirations were lifted. His judgments were clarified. His wisdom became loftier and more ethereal, as well as broader and more practical. He became distinguished from others for wisdom and for probity; for foresight and for farsight; for banishment of petty conceits, foolish animosities, childish piques and quarrels. As he rose to loftier eminences of character, as he came into the possession of the sublimer elements of manliest and even of divine attributes, these transcendent glories so marked his elevation that they came to be recog nized as the distinctive qualities which made him notable, and as the signs and symbols of the largest and most comprehensive intelligence, and of that which we now deem the true essence of nobility. Thus hath the knowing man, in and through his knowing, come to stand as a type of that grand character which we call noble, and which we are ready to respect and obey, even to venerate and adore, when found untarnished by weak, or foolish, or false qualities of mind, heart, or life. This is an account of an ideal. Yet by its ideals humanity shapes its courses and tests all its realities. Nor would we assert that the elder nobleman was a nobler man than the noblemen of to-day. True nobility does not exist by royal patent; can suffer no attainder; can not be entailed; yet is sometimes inherited. But heritage brings no assurance. The father may be noble, the son ignoble. Under the influence of subtle and inscrutable causes, words often shift from the thing to the sign, and conversely, and at last the meaning takes a quality far remote from the original. Thus the word-masters say that the word character meant first a stone-cutter's sharp tool; then the symbol cut by the tool in a block of stone; then any symbol, graven or written, by which the quality of a thing might be known; then the quality signified by the symbol; then the quality itself, whether symbolized or not. In like manner a nobleman was first a knowing man; then one whose character had been exalted by the breadth and depth of his intelligence; then one whose conditions of living were such as might have been expected to secure for him the intelligence, the wisdom and the lofty character which the world recognizes as true nobleness. Hence the force of the old motto, "Noblesse oblige." The conditions and the opportunities of nobility carried with them obligations which pressed as rigorously upon the wearer of the emblems of nobility as upon him who should come within the illumination of their radiance. The man clothed in the insignia of rank must not so far forget himself as to stoop to acts unworthy of his rank, his honor, or his dignity. That these maxims have always controlled those called noble, no reader of history can truthfully assert. Yet history is full of examples, like that of Philip Sydney on the stricken field of Zutphen, which yet keep freshly in our thoughts the lofty significance we find in the word noble. There is, indeed, another way in which a kinship is found between the words know and noble. To the man of rank was given the right to blazon upon his shield certain emblems, devices and colors by which he might be known, even when he was so encased in complete mail that his visage could not be seen. He was known by these emblems as an army or a ship of war is to-day known by the colors that are displayed upon its silken banners. The common man, devoid of rank, might wear no emblem, save that of his lord, whose vassal he was and whom alone he could serve. But this does not suit our purpose. root. In our new, western world a titled nobility has taken no Under that ancient provision of law which forbade that a freeman should be taken, or imprisoned, or otherwise damaged, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, punishment for felony or treason might not be inflicted upon a person of high rank, a nobleman, except upon the verdict of that order of the realm to which he belonged. A nobleman was to be judged by noblemen; a common man by common men. Hence originated that familiar phrase, "a jury of one's peers," whose full significance few now understand. In our land there is no class called peers, since before our law all are peers. For us, then, nobility wears no insignia of rank; it can not be the appanage of an estate; it may not be won by service, or thrift, or fawning, from the monarch of the hour. Our nobility rests on the solid foundation where Burns found his: "A king can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, The man's the gowd for a' that." No patent engrossed upon parchment, bearing a royal signature and attested by a great seal of state to give any man's blood a bluer tinge, his has any validity name a grander The American resonance, or his person a greater sanctity. nobleman is known, not by his coat of arms, emblazoned with sable, argent, or, or gules, but by his character, transparent and luminous, known and read of all men. by his intelligence and his integrity. noble, all the grand issues of life. His nobility is attested From these flow all the |