Far be it from me to depreciate the value of this
gentlemanly feeling: I respect it under all its forms and varieties,
from the House of Commons to the gentleman in the shilling gallery.
It is always the ornament of virtue, and oftentimes a support; but it
is a wretched substitute for it. Its worth, as a moral good, is by
no means in proportion to its value, as a social advantage. These
observations are not irrelevant; for to the want of reflection, that
this diffusion of gentlemanly feeling among us is not the growth of
our moral excellence, but the effect of various accidental advantages
peculiar to England; to our not considering that it is unreasonable
and uncharitable to expect the same consequences, where the same
causes have not existed to produce them; and, lastly, to our
proneness to regard the absence of this character (which, as I have
before said, does, for the greater part, and, in the common
apprehension, consist in a certain frankness and generosity in the
detail of action) as decisive against the sum total of personal or
national worth; we must, I am convinced, attribute a large portion of
that conduct, which in many instances has left the inhabitants of
countries conquered or appropriated by Great Britain, doubtful
whether the various solid advantages which they derived from our
protection and just government, were not bought dearly by the wounds
inflicted on their feelings and prejudices by the contemptuous and
insolent demeanour of the English as individuals.
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