Blessed John Henry Newman - VII
Not Adequate
Many lads in Catholic high schools in years past, including this
writer in his youth, were required to study and even memorize
Cardinal John Henry Newman’s famous “definition of a gentleman”,
which is found in his book “The Idea of a University”. Not so much a
definition, however, it is rather a description, being, as he called
it, “the lineaments of the ethical character which the cultivated
intellect will form apart from religious principle.” Newman remarks,
that these lineaments “are seen within the pale of the Church and
without it, in holy men and in profligate. They form the “beau
ideal” of the world. They partly assist and partly distort the
development of the Catholic. They may subserve the education of a
Saint Francis de Sales or a Cardinal Pole. They may be the limits of
the contemplation of a Shaftesbury or a Gibbon. Basil and Julian
were fellow students at the schools of Athens, and one became a
saint and Doctor of the Church, the other her scoffing and
relentless foe.” In other words, Newman says that there are some
aspects of his description of a gentleman of the Victorian era that
can be useful and even important in an educational enterprise, but a
true Catholic education and formation must involve much more and far
greater spiritual things. as well as discarding those aspects of
secular esteem which might be adverse to the Catholic Faith.
Definition
Newman writes, “Hence it is that it is almost a definition of a
gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain. This
description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is
mainly occupied with removing the obstacles which hinder the free
and unembarrassed action of those about him, and he concurs with
their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His
benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts
or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature, like an easy
chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and
fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat
without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids
whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom
he is cast, all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all
restraint or suspicion or gloom or resentment, his great concern
being to make one at ease and at home. He has eyes on all his
company. He is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the
distant, and merciful towards the absurd.”
“He can recollect to whom he is speaking. He guards against
unseasonable allusions or topics which may irritate. He is seldom
prominent in conversation and never wearisome. He makes light of
favors while he does them and seems to be receiving when he is
conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never
defends himself by a mere retort. He has no ears for slander or
gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere
with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean
or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never
mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates
evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he
observes the maxim of the ancient sage that we should ever conduct
ourselves towards our enemy as if he one day were to be our friend.”
Disputes & Tolerance
Newman continues, A true gentleman “has too much good sense to be
affronted by insults. He is too well employed to remember injuries
and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and
resigned on philosophical principles. He submits to pain because it
is inevitable, to bereavement because it is irreparable, and to
death because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any
kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering,
discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds, who, like
blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake
the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive
their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find
it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too
clear-headed to be unjust. He is as simple as he is forcible and as
brief as he is decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candor,
consideration, indulgence. He throws himself into the minds of his
opponents. He accounts for their mistakes. He knows the weakness of
human reason as well as its strengths, its province, and its
limits.”
Newman then writes with irony, “If he be an unbeliever, he will be
too profound and large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against
it. He is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity.
He respects piety and devotion. He even supports institutions as
venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not assent. He
honors the ministers of religion, and it contents him to decline its
mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of
religious tolerance, and that, not only because his philosophy has
taught him to look upon all forms of faith with an impartial eye,
but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling which is the
attendant on civilization. Not that he may not hold a religion too,
in his own way, even when he is not a Christian. In that case, his
religion is one of imagination and sentiment. It is the embodiment
of those ideas of the sublime, majestic, and beautiful without which
there can be no large philosophy. Sometimes he acknowledges the
Being of God; sometimes he invests an unknown principle or quality
with the attributes of perfection. And this deduction of his reason,
or creation of his fancy, he makes the occasion of such excellent
thoughts, and the starting point of so varied and systematic a
teaching that he even seems like a disciple of Christianity itself.
From the very accuracy and steadiness of his logical powers, he is
able to see what sentiments are consistent in those who hold any
religious doctrine at all, and he appears to others to feel and to
hold a whole circle of theological truths, which exist in his mind
not otherwise than as a number of deductions.”
Additional
Newman adds several other elements that characterize a Victorian
English gentleman: “neatness, decency, uprightness, manliness, and
generosity.” Other elements consist in “being an enemy of
extravagances of any kind and shrinking from what are called scenes,
having no mercy on the mock-heroic, on pretence or egotism, on
verbosity in language, or on what is called prosiness in
conversation.” A true gentleman “detests gross adulation...sees the
absurdity of indulging it, and understands the annoyance thereby
given to others.” Good manners “teach men to suppress their
feelings, to control their tempers, and to mitigate the severity and
the tone of their judgments.”
In another place Newman said, “I want a laity, not arrogant, not
rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion,
who enter into it, who know just where they stand, and who know
their creed so well that they can give an account of it and who know
so much of history that they can defend it.”