Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1883 — The Gentleman. [ARTICLE]

The Gentleman.

To find a satisfactory definition of gefitleman is as difficult as th discover the philosopher’s stone, and yet, if ‘we may not say just what a gentleman is, we can certainly say what he is not. We may affirm indisputably that a man, however rich, and of however fine a title in countries where rank is acknowledged, if he behaves selfishly, coarsely and indecently, is not a gentleman. “From which, young gentlemen, it follows,” as the good Professor used to say at college, as he emerged from a hopeless labyrinth of postulates and preliminaries an hour long, that the guests who abused the courtesy of their hosts, upon the late transcontinental trip to drive the golden spike, may have been persons of social eminence, but were in no honorable sense gentlemen. It is undoubtedly a difficult word to manage. But gentlemanly conduct and ungentlemanly conduct are expressions which are perfectly intelligible, and that fact shows that there is p distinct standard in every intelligent mind by which behavior is measured. To say that a man was born a gentleman means not at all that he is courteous, refined and intelligent, but only that he was born of a family whose circumstances at some time had been easy andragreeable, and which belonged to a traditionally “good society.” But stich a man may be false and mean, and ignorant and coarse. Is he a gentleman because he was born such ? On the other hand, the child of long generations of ignorant and laborious boors may be humane, honorable and modest, but with total ignorance of the usages of good society. He may be as upright as Washington, as unselfish as Sidney, as brave as Bayard, as modest as Falkland. But he may alSo outrage all the little social proprieties. Is he a gentleman because he is honest and modest and humane? In describing Lovelace, should we not say that he* was a gentleman? Should we naturally say so of Burns? But, again, is it not a joke to describe George the Fourth as gentleman, while it would be impossible to deny the name to Maj. Dobbin? —"Editor's Easy Chair, ” in Harper's Magazine. ~