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.
148/542 page 132
![heart and such a one, be he in peer’s robes or a ploughman s smock—backing before his sovereign or delving for his bread— we deem a very Bayard for chivalry, a very Chesterfield for good breeding and good sense. G. J. Whyte-Melville, General Bounce, eh. i, p. 13. ‘ How is it,’ asks a French author, ' that the word gentleman, which in our language denotes a mere superiority of blood, with you [English] is now used to express a certain social position and amount of education independent of birth ; so that in two countries the same word, though the sound remains the same, has entirely changed its meaning. When did this revolution take place ? How and through what transitions ? ” De Tocqueville. “ Mirror each thought in honour’s stainless glass.” Caroline Norton, Child of the Islands, You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, if unmixed with cant ; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the army, which is thought to be the great embellisher of manners. Coleridge, Table Talk, p. 75 (ed. Routledge). He is neither vulgar nor genteel, nor any compound of these two kinds of vulgarity. He has the manners of no class, but something of quite a different order. His manners are a part of his soul, like the style of a writer of genius. His manners belong to the individual. He makes you think neither of clown nor gentleman, but of Man. John Foster. All high natures are congruous to one another, whether in the garb of peasant or of prince. What is incongrous to them is affectation, vulgarity, egoism. 1881, F. W. H. Myers, Wordsworth, p. in. If truth is the foundation and kindness is the superstructure of the gentleman, honour is his atmosphere. It is that which makes a Gentleman’s word as good as his bond. It may be defined as an exquisite and imperative self-respect. 1883, T. T, Munger, On the Threshold, p. 63.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0150.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
