Generosity: A Certain Large Trustfulness

by Anne White

Many years ago, I read Susan Cooper’s fantasy novel The Grey King. In a key scene, young Will Stanton is commanded to answer a riddle: “Who were the three generous men of the Island of Britain?” Will, having been granted an exceptional knowledge of such things (it’s a long story), digs through his memory, and then says boldly, “The three generous men of the Island of Britain. Nudd the Generous, son of Senllyt. Mordaf the Generous, son of Serwan. Rhydderch the Generous, son of Tydwal Tudglyd. And Arthur himself was more generous than the three.”

Now, first of all, I didn’t know that Cooper did not make up that triad of names—they’re part of a very old British tradition. Second, that didn’t sound like any kind of riddle I had ever heard; it wasn’t meant to be funny, it was more like the “Riddles in the Dark” in The Hobbit. And, third, I wondered about that word “generous.” “Generous” as in "maybe they gave great birthday presents" didn’t seem quite intense enough for this scene.

It turns out I was right. Yes, “generosity” means a willingness to give of oneself and one’s possessions; and it means an ability to go beyond one’s own desires, for instance “generously” forgiving someone for a wrong.  But its early meaning is closer to other words that English also borrowed from Latin and Old French, such as "gentility" and "gentlemen." The word has its roots in the Latin genus, referring to one’s stock or race—so, well-born, noble, and possessing the characteristics that were believed to belong to a person of such birth, such as courage, honour, kindness, gentleness. In short, magnanimity (with one caveat which we'll get to in a minute).

So, when Charlotte Mason states, not once but twice in her principles of education, that children should have a generous curriculum, is she perhaps saying not just that they should have teetering stacks of schoolbooks, but that, even more so, they need a curriculum based on generosity?  Consider this, from Philosophy of Education page 111:

All roads lead to Rome, and all I have said is meant to enforce the fact that much and varied humane reading, as well as human thought expressed in the forms of art, is, not a luxury, a tit-bit, to be given to children now and then, but their very bread of life, which they must have in abundant portions and at regular periods. This and more is implied in the phrase, "The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum."

“This and more.” Yes, we want to keep these children well fed, we want to be as generous to them as we can; but we also want them to have minds and hearts that give to others out of that abundance. And why? On page 249 of the same book, Mason refers back to John Milton, who said that “a complete and generous education” is “that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public of peace and war.”

And, to go even further, Charlotte wrote a whole chapter on "Generosity", in Ourselves Book I, in which she straight off acknowledges the noble roots of the word, but makes it clear as well that Generosity is for everyone.

At first sight it seems as if Generosity were not a Lord in every bosom, but ruled only the noblest hearts; but this is not the fact…The nature of Generosity is to bring forth, to give, always at the cost of personal suffering or deprivation, little or great. There is no generosity in giving what we shall never miss and do not want; this is mere good-nature, and is not even kindness, unless it springs out of a real thought about another person's needs.

She not only notices the connection to Magnanimity, but adds a distinction between them:

...what Magnanimity is to the things of the mind, Generosity is to the things of the heart…It is a certain large trustfulness in his dealings, rather than the largeness of his gifts, or the freedom of his outlay, that marks the generous man… There are so many great things to care about that [the generous person] has no mind and no time for the small frettings of life; his concerns are indeed great, for what concerns man concerns him.    

We do often use the word “magnanimous” to describe generous acts, so perhaps the lines between them don’t have to be so strictly defined. However, what is more important here is something that brings us back to my puzzlement over the Three Generous Men. Generosity is not “the largeness of [a person’s] gifts, or the freedom of  his outlay,” Charlotte says; it is instead “a certain large trustfulness in his dealings.”

The generous man escapes a thousand small perplexities, worries, and annoys [sic]; he walks serene in a large room.

In To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, John O’Donohue wrote this:

Try, as best you can, not to let

The wire brush of doubt

Scrape from your heart

All sense of yourself

And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,

Time will come good;

And you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise,

Where the air will be kind

And blushed with beginning.

As magnanimity keeps our minds occupied and helps us to back-burner our own problems, generosity keeps our hearts so busy that we don't have time to feel offended, resentful, or, just possibly, anxious. Generosity gives at a personal cost, but out of a firm belief that God will make up the difference one way or another. 

So let's "remain generous"; and, someday, maybe, our names will be added to the riddle.

Photograph by Bryan White.