“54. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called Conscience.”
[A] Good name--reputation--is probably what is meant here. Calumny may injure one’s _good name_, but it cannot injure one’s _character_.
Education begins the gentleman; but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.--LOCKE.
A man of polished and agreeable manners, as distinguished from the vulgar and clownish.--WORCESTER.
It would be hard to find two persons that fully agree with regard to what constitutes a gentleman. It is far easier to tell what a gentleman is not than what a gentleman is.
For example, we all agree that the man is not a gentleman that is ignorant of those usages that, by common consent, regulate refined social intercourse; that does not, in his dress, conform, within certain limits at least, to the prevailing modes; that is desirous to attract attention by affecting eccentricities; that bears himself as though he thought himself an object of special attention, _i.e._, is self-conscious; that has no thought for the comfort, the feelings, or the rights of others. In short, we all agree that no man deserves to be called a gentleman that is not a man of education; _i.e._, that is not sufficiently acquainted with books and with the usages of refined social intercourse to acquit himself creditably in the society of cultivated people. Not moral worth, nor learning, nor wealth, nor all three combined, can, unaided, make a gentleman, for with all three a man might be coarse, unbred, unschooled in those things that no man can be ignorant of and be welcome in the society of the refined.
A modern English writer says that to formulate the definition of a gentleman in negatives would be easy. “As, for instance,” he says, “we may say that a true gentleman does not soil his conscience with falsehoods, does not waste his time on sensual indulgence, does not endeavor to make the worse appear the better reason, does not ridicule sacred things, does not wilfully give cause of offence to any, does not seek to overreach his neighbor, does not forget the respect due to womanhood, or old age, the feeble or the poor. But, to speak affirmatively,” he continues, “a gentleman is one whose aims are generous, whose trust is constant, whose word is never broken, whose honor is never stained, who is as gentle as brave, and as honest as wise, who wrongs no one by word or deed, and dignifies and embellishes life by nobility of thought, depth of feeling, and grace of manner.”