Of more unthinking natures, easy minds
And pillowy;....
Where does such energy come from? It is perhaps possible that their love of knowledge makes them burn the midnight oil (a possibility ruled out by Wordsworth). But one does not observe them poring over history books late into the night "" a history teacher's pay is pathetic. Most of our schools refuse to teach history unless there are enough candidates to make it worth the school's while! Then if it isn't philosophia "" love of knowledge "" what is it that drives our best and brightest? If it isn't a force from within, is it a force from without? Then is it the force that drove Captain Bligh?
The glorification of the Self was not confined to a Scottish thinker; it soon spread to the Romantics. Here, it assumed a clearly destructive role. Everyone was to be seen through the prism of the self. The Self as will and power "" these became the ideal. The ideal, I fear, has come to stay. The idea has come to stay because it has received an economic sanction. The idea, literally, pays.
The reduction of others as mere instruments for my personal self-advancement "" cawrr, blimey, guv'nor, it ain't a decent fink to do! And the reduction of a whole nation to the level of instrument for self-aggrandisement "" now, no gen'leman gets up to such jiggery-pokery, guv! And there's the rub!
After boarding, and before the cheese-episode, Fletcher and Bligh have a conversation, if it can be called that. The debate turns on whether a gentleman can also be an officer. Clearly the two protagonists differ on this delicate point of principle. For Bligh, so long as one is an officer first "" successful in one's errands, in this case to secure breadfruit trees "" one need not aspire to the ambitions of being a gentleman. For Fletcher, who was no errand-boy, being a gentleman came first. In fact, the word 'gentleman' itself was undergoing a profound change. Hitherto, it had meant a man who did not work to earn a living. Now, it was beginning to mean a man who was well mannered. A parallel transformation was taking place in the meaning of the word 'noble'. For the new age was throwing up people who were ill mannered and vulgar and ungentle "" their antipodes were the gentlemen.
I have observed that it is the tragedy of the subcontinent that we have no aristocracy. Above the din and scuffle of daily life, they could have set standards of decorum, probity and loyalty "" above all, of decency. The good fortune of England was that she was not totally blighted by the Blighs "" she had more to look up to, a class that set a standard that was necessary during the cruelest phase of her history. We are a cruel nation, as all the newspapers and reports agree. Perhaps that is not our tragedy. Our real tragedy lies in the heartbreaking absence of the Christian Fletchers. We are bent on the economic extermination of any Fletcher who dares to look down on rewards and distinctions, and has the courage to look up to people as people, not instruments.
If one of the mutinous Bounty sailors could come back and make landfall at Chittagong port to meet a local 'gentleman', we know exactly what he would say.
"Well, knock me down with a feather! If it ain't Cap'n Blimey!"
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