The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer.

  • Palmer, Abram Smythe.
Date:
[1908]
Catalogue details

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.

    521/542 (page 505)
    A ‘man of honour’ resents the charge of meanness. He will not refuse to pay a gambling debt, but he will live extrava- gantly when he cannot pay his debts. He is indignant at an imputation on his courage ; but he will injure in the lower ranks of life where redress is too expensive to be possible, and no father’s or brother’s bullet can avenge the injury. These are the laws of honour! These be your men of gentle blood ! This is the personal dignity at whose shrine lives of others are to be sacrificed, and the blood of God’s creatures to be held cheap—personal dignity separated from personal worth— of which the Gospel of Christ knows nothing. Now with this modern honour contrast the spirit of Gospel honour, the honour which feels itself degraded by an acknowledgment of error with the honour which teaches through the cross that wrongs received cannot shame, that nothing can disgrace but wrongs done. Contrast the courage which risks life, with the courage which for Christ’s sake dares to be called a coward and bear shame. 1884, F. W. Robertson, The Human Race, etc., p. 283. Some persons may anticipate that an academical system, formed upon my model, will result in nothing better or higher than in the production of that antiquated’ variety of human ' nature and remnant of feudalism, as they consider it, called ‘ a gentleman ’ [!]. 1881, Cardinal Newman, Idea of a University, p. x. In the great Tichborne case, the false Sir Roger said of one of the witnesses [a captain in the army], ‘ He is not a gentleman ; he has risen from the ranks ’, and Chief-Justice Cockburn afterwards, in commenting upon this wretched saying, re- marked that among the sailors upon his own yacht he was able to grasp their hands, and feel that they were his equals. And if you are useful, unselfish, and think of others before yourself ; if you are real, if you are manly, and at the same time gentle and modest, then whether you rise from the ranks, or whether you remain in the ranks, he is himself an impostor to the title who denies your claim to be called a gentleman. 1891, F. Wills, ‘ What is a gentleman ? ’ Lay Sermons, p. 46. In the use of the name ‘ gentleman ’ to any coal-heaver or dustman by the lower classes of London we have a current