St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1904-12-03
FOUNDERS oF.ARISTocRAcY
Vu!garians Whose Rudeness Has Been
Resented by Generations Of
Descendants.

The founders of every aristocracy
have been rude, unlettered, ignorant,
orimming over with energy in brutal
forms, distinguished among savage con-
temporaries by being more fiercely saw
age. assertive, domineering, selfishly
ambitious and regardless of rights that
opposed their own ruthless energy of
nature. says a London paper.
What were such men as these il they
we're not of the type which subsequent
ly, after centuries of repression by CIV
Ilization of exuberant egotism, became
known as that Of the virile vulgarian.
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 aris-
:ocratic 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 still cultivate our
selves according to the earlier standard
Of energy-that to which he who has to
rise in life must render practical al
legiance, 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 az 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-
tical 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 trl-
umph socially and politically now, for
England is an old country, and wealth
and power have collected into families
the quiet, languid 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 vulgarian type. Tho
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 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-con-
fident because not instructed into mod
esty and diffidence 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 m6key merely, but
by 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.