Sunday, February 15, 2009

Found in Strunk & White: E.M. Forster's 'aristocrat'

What I found in Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style
(Rule 18. Avoid a succession of loose sentences)

taken from “What I Believe” in E.M. Forster’s Two Cheers for Democracy (1939):

“I believe in aristocracy, though- if that is the right word, and if a democrat might use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity; a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.”

Boy oh boy, do we need more of these ‘aristocrats’ in our country, right now, right here…