To yield reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at
his disposal, is not slavery; often it is the noblest state in which a
man can live in this world. There is, indeed, a reverence which is
servile, that is to say irrational or selfish: but there is also noble
reverence, that is to say, reasonable and loving; and a man is never so
noble as when he is reverent in this kind; nay, even if the feeling
pass the bounds of mere reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised
by it. Which had, in reality, most of the serf nature in him,--the
Irish peasant who was lying in wait yesterday for his landlord, with
his musket muzzle thrust through the ragged hedge; or that old mountain
servant, who 200 years ago, at Inverkeithing, gave up his own life and
the lives of his seven sons for his chief?--as each fell, calling forth
his brother to the death, "Another for Hector!"[160] And therefore, in
all ages and all countries, reverence has been paid and sacrifice made
by men to each other, not only without complaint, but rejoicingly; and
famine, and peril, and sword, and all evil, and all shame, have been
borne willingly in the causes of masters and kings; for all these gifts
of the heart ennobled the men who gave not less than the men who
received them, and nature prompted, and God rewarded the sacrifice.
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