Internals, Externals and Evidences

[storeynicholas]

We have innate, internal impulses. We are, from birth, also subjected to external influences and the overall result is the apparent evidences of ourselves. Some of the finest people that I have ever known have (or have had), little appreciation of dress; apart from a desire to achieve at least the minimum of appropriateness; so dress is (for me), in no way determinative of ultimate worth or ‘style’.

The internal impulses, such as those of kindness or generosity, as opposed to misanthropy and meanness, can never really be analysed. Just as (say): why does one horse take its fences in its stride and another needlessly shy at them – or one man always hit his target and another always miss?

I don’t hold that environment and circumstance can turn an essentially kind person into a cruel one; although environment and circumstance might redeem a naturally cruel man from commission of further cruelty; seldom, if ever, will they persuade a naturally cruel man to natural kindness.

Love and hate are, plainly, at large in our world and, many times, I have heard arguments over which has the upper hand.

The man who goes through a normal lifespan, largely loved, would claim that love is the greater force. The man whose life is cruelly cut short, by a hateful assassin’s hand might, with his last breath, forgive his assassin and he might, also, claim the same. But, if the slain man have no time in which to forgive, and if his family should curse the slayer, then how would the balance lie?

Our civilized understanding wants to tell us (and we are brought up to demand to believe), that love has a greater potential than hate; for, in the words of Pope: ‘To err is human; to forgive, divine.’ There is, overall, the example of Christ’s sacrifice.

So, we generally believe that love and goodness (as we understand them), according to the standards of most successful civilizations [there’s a notion], can overcome any evil.

Elegant expression, in dress or speech, which might be the outward evidence of style is, in itself, potentially hollow or, even, wicked. I might produce an agenda for a new Holocaust and present it beautifully; maybe with copperplate engraving on finest vellum. After all, even the devil, himself, might be fine-looking.

Another might produce a repudiation to this, in a broken hand, on recycled paper. My publication might appear, at first blush, most attractive to the senses; but, on close examination, it were rotten to the core. The repost might appear, at first (and at least), unappealing to the senses, but it is, in its essence, its substance, very good.

Surely, then, style and elegance are evidenced just by the taking of every opportunity to do the right thing and according to the best means available?

However, the well-springs of style; of goodness itself, are hidden and mysterious. They have no clearly describable form or structure at all and, indeed, are (maybe necessarily), more essentially unfathomable than anything else that we can perceive in action.
NJS.