The Question of Dignity: Doubts and Loves and a Whisper from Where the Ruined House Once Stood

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines dignity as ‘a quality of being worthy or honorable; worthiness, worth … of high estate, position, or estimation, rank; nobility or befitting elevation of aspect, manner, or style; becoming or fit stateliness, gravity’. It even sets dignity in a cosmic dimension as astronomy defining it as the ‘situation of a planet in which its influence is heightened by its position in the zodiac or by its aspects with other planets.’ In this definition dignity is a concept associated with a world view which is at odds with what Edward Gibbon called ‘the reigning deities of the age’ since its scope is cosmological rather than individual and it has overtones which could be dismissed as feudal; is certainly unfashionable and could therefore be said to be a whisper from the place where a ruined house once stood.