The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer.
- Abram Smythe Palmer
- Date:
- [1908]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
145/542 page 129
![inspection and derision. He is not ashamed to honour his father and mother, even though his own education and position may be superior to theirs, and he is able to allow that there actually do exist people whose opinion is as good as his own, and authorities to whom he must bow. And so we never hear our gentleman pass those stupid sweeping criticisms, which are so common in the mouths of the young or the half- educated. 1878, Quite a Gentleman, p. 24. A gentleman is a man who is gentle and considerate on purpose, because he thinks it right to consider other people before himself. ... In order to be a perfect gentleman one must be thoroughly unselfish or considerate for others. . . . I have no faith in any kind of gentility which is to be applied externally, like gold leaf or varnish ; it may be better than none, but it is not the real thing, and without something more ingrain than that, depend upon it a man will never be more than a half-and-half sort of gentleman after all. A little scrubbing in a rough world, a little rubbing the wrong way, and the polish soon comes off, so that sometimes we have the sorrow and disgust of seeing our elegant acquaintance turn out to be a very shabby fellow indeed. 1878 [Anon.] Quite a Gentleman, p. 16. It is such a sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow, so much worse than to inherit a hump-back or a couple of club-feet, that I sometimes feel as if we ought to love the crippled souls, if I may use this expression, with a certain tenderness which we need not waste on noble natures. One who is born with such congenital incapacity that nothing can make a gentleman of him is entitled, not to our wrath, but to our profoundest sympathy. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat of Breakfast Table, ch. ix. You have but showed me what I shall remember all my life—that a Christian only can be a true gentleman. Mrs. Craik, John Halifax, Gentleman, p. 167. There is no other earthly thing more mean and despicable in my mind than an English gentleman destitute of all sense of his responsibilities and opportunities, and only revelling I.G. K](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0147.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
