The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1904-11-19
FOUNDERS or ARlsTocRAcY
Vulgarians Whose Rudeness Has Been
Resented by Generations Of
Descendants.

The founders of every aristoeraeg
have been rude, un1ettered; ignorant,
| ariIaming over with energy in brutal
| forms. distinguished among savage con-
| temporaries by being more iercely saw
age. assertive, domineering, selhshly
ambitious and regardless of rights that
opposed their own ruthless energy OF
nature, says a London paper.
What were such men as these if they
| we're not Of the type which subsequent
| ly, after centuries OF repression by civ
slization Of exuberant egotism, became
known as that of the virile bulgarian,
| unpleasant in manner, but likely on the
modern stage to repeat with modern
| variations the exploits of the founders
of the aristocracy of whom he is sur
vival? In the course Of time the arts
| socratic class Is the one which resents
most the Intrusion of the manners Of
Its own ancestors, and we become in
| debted to it for model which we all
admire, but find too expensive to imi-
tate.
Most of US must stiIf cultivate our
selves according to the earlier standard
of energy-that to which he who has to
rise in life must render practical al
iegiance, however much he may admire
the other in the abstract.
When families have attained settled
station in society the occupations OF
their members are always chosen as re-
| mote as possible from those that re-
quire rough energy for their successful
pursuit. Family pride is in proportion
to the degree in which separation can
be maintained from those energetic vul-
garians who have had recent success of
a kind which excites the envy, but not
less the contempt, Of the family of the
clustered virtues. They envy the prac-
teal abilities which have won money
that is eagerly desired but cannot be
earned by people who have become too
refined for anything but spending it.
In England the vulgarians do not trI-
umph socially and politically now, for
England is an old country. and wealth
and power have collected into families
the quiet, 1anguid and deep reservoirs
filled from the turbulent, dashing and
foaming springs which rose in the wild,
shaggy moors Of barbarism in ages ago.
IN America the men Of energy, the
| millionaires, the money-makers, the
wire pullers Of the markets and OF
politics, are of the vu1garian type. The
| more cultivated classes, those who have
less of the natural energy of character
which exists among the masses, have the
least actual power.
Americans at one time had a tradition
more like our own, and they admired in
theory, as we do, the man Of culture and
| refinement rather than the rough and
energetic character, raw and uncouth,
| undisciplined, unrestrained, self-coH-
fdent because not instructed into mod
esty and difidence by contemplation of
high thoughts of the universe and of the
heights and depths of the mysteries of
God and man.
But in time the Americans, as we have
done, will make classes marked OF from
| each other, not by m66sy merely, but
by a different standard of conduct The
energetic will be the people deficient in
manners; the people with manners will
be those deficient in energy, who esteem
| themselves in proportion to the length
of time that nature, originality and
| vigor have been repressed by separation
from the common mass who are subject
to the common need of work.