Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-08-03
BRITISH HALL MARK
OF THE GENTLEMAN
An Authority Holds That Man.
ner Is Not a Matter of Birth.
An requirement.
From the London Times.

From the London Times.
We often talk about born gentleman;
but gentlemen. like poets. have to make
themselves. even when they have the best
Of material to deal with. There is no man
worse-mannered than he who thinks that
be knows how to be a gentleman by ma
ture, that he has inherited good manners
as II they were a title. He is different
from the man who tries to be a gentle
man the wrong way and his failure Is not
so patent because he Is making no eff
fort We do not laugh at him as we
laugh at the other; but we dislike him
even more. and a man who is generally
disliked may be sure that he has not sue
ceeded in being gentleman. For the
esthetic virtues; they are the virtues that
give pleasure to others. and If he has
vices they are not the vices that we hate
instinctively. A gentleman is not the
same as a saint. although a perfect saint
would be perfect gentleman, as the
greater includes the less But, as we are
all imperfect. there is. in practice, a
great difference between the saint and
the gentleman. and a man may be very
much of gentleman without being at all
saint, Just as there are men far ad-
praise as gentlemen. John the Baptist
was a saint. but he would not have been
praised as gentleman either at the court
of Herod or by those to whom he preach
ed In the wilderness, and Julius Caesar
was among the greater men of history,
conspicuously gentleman, but no one,
except Froude, would call him q saint.
Yet the virtues of a gentleman are not
merely conventional signs of certain
class: they are real virtues, not social
rr,I,i oh In,
our ordinary relations with one another.
A man may /be gentleman without
being Christian at all. as We confess
when we speak of Christian and a
gentleman. The two go, very well to
gether. but they can only do that be-
cause they are different. The Christian
has a religious belief in the equality of
men because they all have immortal
souls The gentleman may not believe
that they have immortal souls at all.
in their equality. Compared with the
Christian he Is prosaic in his relations
with mankind; his effort Is not to love
them because he believes that they are
all part of the glory of the universe but
to get on well with them without stupid
contentious or an ugly assertion of his
own dignity. What Horace said of Aris-
lupus fits the gentleman very well. He
lis at his ease everywhere and with
every one and they are at ease with him.
For he knows enough about life to test
his success not by his own ease, but by
theirs. Indeed, 1t is his virtue that he
can only enjoy his own ease by making
others easy with him. He may be selfish
in many things. but he is not an egotist.
for egotism is an ugly vice and one that
makes life difficult for the egotist. To
the gentleman, unlike the Christian.
nothing may be very important; but
among all the other unimportant things
he includes himself and his own affairs
For him, whatever the ultimate nature
Of the universe may be, there Is duty,
which is also a pleasure, to make the
best of it: and this best consists in a
pleasant relation with other men. wheth-
err they be wise or foolish, great or low
ly. He does not 5pdge men by their sta
ton nor by report: he likes to find out
about them for himself. and he knows
easy intimacy, by manners free from all
the conventions and pendantries Of the
socially insecure. He is never upon his
dignity for dignity to him is a by-prod-
uct, something that you attain to, If you
know how to behave yourself, but not
sisting upon it. 1t is, in fact given to
YOU by other men. not by yourself. and
they will only give it to YOU if you do
not seem to claim it.
AS a finished product, the gentleman
seems to do everything very easily: but
that east like the case of the habit. can
only come by effort. He is socially Sc
cure; but whatever his station. he was
not born so. for no man ever is socially
secure by birth. even il he was born to
be a king The test Of a gentleman is
the pleasure others take in his society
learning. but in their ordinary social re-
lations with him. And this pleasure he
cannot give merely by being on good
terms with himself.