Hitch on Burke

Just came across a new essay posted on The Atlantic by Christopher Hitchens on Edmund Burke. It's a pretty sweet juxtaposition, especially as Hitch has often said that Thomas Paine is one of his most important intellectual models.

I'll leave the Doc to comment fully, as he knows Burke way better than me. But I thought that I could help ol' Hitch out in one place. He quotes the passage where Burke wonders why no one came to the defense of Marie Antoinette, which as he says is a hypnotic piece of writing. Here's an extract:

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!

Hitch says then that he can't quite understand what Burke is banging on about. "'The unbought grace of life' is a most arresting phrase, however opaque, just as 'the cheap defence of nations' remains unintelligible", he opines.

Well, not to me, old chap. Burke is referring (or as I would say if I were back in Oxford, "rather obviously referring, don't you think?") to chivalric honor. For honor cannot be bought, it graces life, it defends nations yet does so free of charge, and it directs the sentiments of those who hold it in right and proper directions.

OK? Hope that helps! Do try to focus better in your next tutorial paper, young Hitchers, and there will be a glass of sherry for you. Or, as you would probably prefer, the whole bottle.