The Noble Nature

At Gifthub a meditation on "The Noble Nature" by Ben Jonson recalls Jonson's "Penshurst," and with it Peter's meditation on aristrocacy and democracy at Kykuit, the Rockefeller Mansion on the Hudson.  Peter wrote a blurb for Jay Hughes new book, Family: A Compact Among the Generations, praising Jay for his citizenship, among other things.  In that blurb, as in the poem about the Rockefellers, Peter's  words go both ways at once, graciously praising what passes in America for Nobility, and yet tacitly asking it to go further, towards what one might call the real thing.  The Colonel does chicken right. We have a long way to go, if we hope to do Aristocracy right. We will be lucky if we get somewhere close to Plutocracy with bogus patina. (You can quote me on that, a Fool at your service, Sire.)

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[new balance]

In our efforts to adjust differences of opinion we should be free from intolerance of passion, and our judgements should be unmoved by alluring phrases and unvexed by selfidh interests.