2. In The Matter Of Aristocracy - Page 2

was the son of the old civilised and educated
autochthonous people.

It is just the same elsewhere, wherever we turn. Take Greece, for
example. Its most aristocratic state was undoubtedly Sparta, where a
handful of essentially barbaric Dorians held in check a much larger and
Helotised population of higher original civilisation. Take the East: the
Persian was a wild mountain adventurer who imposed himself as an
aristocrat upon the far more cultivated Babylonian, Assyrian, and
Egyptian. The same sort of thing had happened earlier in time in
Babylonia and Assyria themselves, where barbaric conquerors had
similarly imposed themselves upon the first known historical
civilisations. Take India under the Moguls, once more; the aristocracy
of the time consisted of the rude Mahommedan Tartar, who lorded it over
the ancient enchorial culture of Rajpoot and Brahmin. Take China: the
same thing over again--a Tartar horde imposing its savage rule over the
most ancient civilised people of Asia. Take England: its aristocracy at
different times has consisted of the various barbaric invaders, first
the Anglo-Saxon (if I must use that hateful and misleading word)--a
pirate from Sleswick; then the Dane, another pirate from Denmark direct;
then the Norman, a yet younger Danish pirate, with a thin veneer of
early French culture, who came over from Normandy to better himself
after just two generations of Christian apprenticeship. Go where you
will, it matters not where you look; from the Aztec in Mexico to the
Turk at Constantinople or the Arab in North Africa, the aristocrat
belongs invariably to a lower race than the civilised people whom he has
conquered and subjugated.

"That may be true, perhaps," you object, "as to the remote historical
origin of aristocracies; but surely the aristocrat of later generations
has acquired all the science, all the art, all the polish of the people
he lives amongst. He is the flower of their civilisation." Don't you
believe it! There isn't a word of truth in it. From first to last the
aristocrat remains, what Matthew Arnold so justly called him, a
barbarian. I often wonder, indeed, whether Arnold himself really
recognised the literal and actual truth of his own brilliant
generalisation. For the aristocratic ideas and the aristocratic pursuits
remain to the very end essentially barbaric. The "gentleman" never soils
his high-born hands with dirty work; in other words, he holds himself
severely aloof from the trades and handicrafts which constitute
civilisation. The arts that train and educate hand, eye, and brain he
ignorantly despises. In the early middle ages he did not even condescend
to read and write, those inferior accomplishments being badges of