The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-05-29
ISSWl


TO be a gentleman" Thackeray
IlJWSNI replies as follows: 1T is to be
- honest, to be gentle, to be gen.
erous, to be brave. to be wise and, possess
ing all these qualities, to exercise them in
the most graceful outward manner. He
should be a loyal and a true husband;
his life should be decent, his bills should be
paid, his tastes should be elegant. his aims
in life lofty and noble. He should have the
esteem of his fellow-citizens and the love
of his freside; he should bear good fortune,
suffer evil with constancy, and through
good or evil always maintain truth"
Dickens, in "Barnaby Rudge," has con-
trasted a gentleman in sorrow and perse-
cution and a cad in sensuality and sloth;
HaredaIe, who lived up to his rule that no
man should deviate from the path of honor,
and Chester, who never did an "ungentle-
manly action, according to his own defini-
tons, and never did manly one. In the
same social position, two men could be
more unlike. Haredale. severe in his self
restraint, was tender in his compassion for
others and always ready to help them;
Chester, never denying himself indul-
gence, was pitiless and vindictive.
The true gentleman is tested, not in a
yacht. but,in lifeboat; not on parade, but
on active service. When Lord Roberts was
speaking of the conduct even of the private
soldiers under his command in South At
RIGA he said that they behaved like gentle
men. They had learned sef-restraint, they
had learned TO suffer and be strong. And
If the officers were not as well educated in
a technical sense as their critics think
they should have been, at least they
showed that they knew how to die like gen.
tIemen and make no fuss about it.
SIGNIFICANCE OF DRESS.
At one of the oldest social clubs of Ok
ford the qualification for membership was
to be bene natus, bene vestitus, moderate
doctus, which means. of course, that the
newcomer must be well born we'll dressed
and moderately. not oppressively, learned.
1.-The apparel oft proclaims the man. and
still more the gentleman. One of the right
sort scorns to wear false fronts or cuffs
or mock jewelry. or indeed any lie. The
ideal gentleman never overdresses. His
dress is like himself, unassuming and in
harmony with his doings and surroundings
People call him well-dressed man, but no
one remembers what on any particular &C.
casion he wears
Refinement in dress is generally asso-
ciated with refinement in manners. The in
nate sensitive feeling which rejects the
unbecoming in the one will be quick to
avoid ii in the other; 1t will regulate dress
and carriage. spirit and speech. Gentle
men do not now use Language" such as
they did in days in which a primate said
to a premier: 1T may save time, my lord.
II we assume before we commence our
discussion that everybody and everything
is damned"
There was a time. we are told when be-
fore an election TO a fellowship in All
Souls College at oxford was made, the
selected persons were invited to dine with
the electors; a cherry pie formed part of
the meal. and he who ate it most like a
gentleman got the fellowship. 1t is said
that the reason why those who were to
be called to the Irish bar used TO have to
eat dinners in inns of court in London was
because IL was desired 10 see If they under
stood the management of their knives and
forks. A true gentleman is not greedy
AT breakfast in a country house an elderly
lady was asked what she thought of the
man who had taken her in TO dinner on the
night preceding. She replied that he was
not gentleman: "Oh, grandma, why do
you think 500" asked a youth from OK
ford. Because was the reply ''he
of the sauce and appropriated half OF the
forced strawberries at the dessert" Upon
this some one at the table remarked that