THE WORSHIP OF POMP.
LTO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—" A Constant Reader" seems to be in fear for the village thildren, lest engrossing reverence for their squire (like that decreed to Darius) should leave no room in them for reverence for "any other, God or man." High as my estimate is of the ideal squire and his position, I do not share in that fear. More- over, man's faculty for reverence, like his other faculties, the more it is exercised, the stronger, and readier, and more respon- sive will it become. The danger is rather that when, young and tender, it needs nursing and training, it should remain unde- veloped and practically perish for want of employment. Objects, manifestly, must be found for it among those near at hand; as to which, I could wish your correspondent had condescended somewhat upon particulars. Thereafter with divine reverence it will be as with Plato's divine beauty and St. John's divine love.
Through the lower forms will the passage be up to the higher. The Jacob's ladder which reaches to heaven will rest upon earth.
But the radical difference, I doubt not, between your corre- spondent and myself is in our differing thoughts and estimates about the "My Lords and gentlemen" class. He probably, as the lover of the human race, would improve them of the face of the earth. I, as his rival in the same love, would improve them upon it, believing them to be, as a class, earth's very best, and longing for the improvement of all other classes by and through their improvement. And we shall help them to be truly great by making them feel that we expect them to be so, not by grudging them the accompaniments of greatness, and treating their " so-called " higher position as an expiring anachronism, which they may do well, therefore, while it lasts, to make some mean and miserable most of. That a plutocrat should look up to a nobleman, seems to me natural and proper.
Human equality is a dream, but if one must be a dreamer, I would dream not that the tall men had their heads cut off, but that they grew much taller, and by some magic of brotherhood and sympathy drew up all other men to be tall, too, after their towering example.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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