Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1883 — Gentlemen Now and in the Past. [ARTICLE]

Gentlemen Now and in the Past.

What is a gentleman? It is a very old question and has been answered in very different ways, but it is clear that the word at least has a relative and not an absolute meaning, as some insist, and that it varies with the times. Here is what Lord Chesterfield says, Mhich the members of the Four-in-Hand Club will read with interest: “A gentleman always attends even to the choice of his amusements. If at cards he will never play cribbage, all fcurs or putt; or in sports of exercise be seen at skittles, leap-frog, foot-ball, cricket, driving of coaches, etc., for he knows that such an imitation of the manners of the mob will indelibly stamp him with vulgarity. ” In another of his letters to his son he says: “There are liberal and ill-liberal arts. Scottish drunkenness, indiscriminate gluttony, driving coaches, rustic sports, such as fox-chases, horse-races, etc., are infinitely below the, honest and industrious professions of a tailor and a shoemaker.” And yet people who call themselves gentlemen do most of these things nowadays, and even those who are not gentlemen consider themselves as such in consequence of doing some of them. Between Lord Chesterfield’s ideas and Mr. Tennyson’s on the subject, who is to decide?— Pall Mall Gazette. . •