THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

68 The Harmony of Virtuewithout fear of ridicule. This is the theory of race as I conceiveit. Temperament is the basis or substratum of character and thecharacter built on anything other than temperament is an edificerooted in the sea-waves which in a moment will foam away intonothing or tumble grovelling under the feet of fresh conquerors.Indeed it will be more apt to call temperament the root of character,and the character itself the growing or perfect tree with itshundred branches and myriads of leaves. And temperament islargely due to race, or, in another phrasing, varies with the blood,and if the blood is quick and fiery the temperament is subtleand sensitive and responds as promptly to social influences andpersonal culture as a flower to sunlight and rain, and shoots upinto multitudinous leaves and branches, but if the blood is slowand lukewarm, the temperament is dull and phlegmatic and willnot answer to the most earnest wooing, but grows up stuntedand withered in aspect and bald of foliage and miserly of branchesand altogether unbeautiful. On the blood depends the sensitivenessof the nerves to impressions and the quick action of thebrains and the heat of the passions, and all that goes to the compositionof a character, which if they are absent, leave only theheavy sediment and dregs of human individuality. Hence the widegulf between the Celt and the Saxon.”“You are the dupe of your own metaphors, Keshav,” saidBroome, “the quick nature is the mushroom, but the slow is thegradual and majestic oak.”“If the Athenians were mushrooms and the lowland Scotchare oaks, the mushroom is preferable. To be slow and solid isthe pride of the Saxon and the ox, but to be quick and songfuland gracile is the pride of the Celt and the bird. There is novirtue in inertia, but only absence of virtue, for without growththere is no development and the essence of growth and the imperativeneed of the spirit is movement, which, if you lose, youlose all that separates the human from the brute.”Broome avowed that in our theory of virtue the remark wasconvincing. “And do we all recognize,” said he, “blood as the seedof temperament and temperament as the root of character?”We all signified assent.“Then, Prince Paradox, does it not follow that if our ances-