The Perfect Gentleman | Page 2

he would remember pertinently that 'a
well-bred man is known by his manner of sitting.' 'Easy in every
position,' say the Principles of Politeness, 'instead of lolling or lounging
as he sits, he leans with elegance, and by varying his attitudes, shows
that he has been used to good company.' Good company, one judges,
must have inclined to be rather acrobatic.
Now, in the seventeen-nineties there were doubtless purchasers for the
Gentleman's Pocket Library: the desire to become a Perfect Gentleman
(like this one) by home study evidently existed. But, although I am
probably the only person who has read that instructive book for a very
long time, it remains to-day the latest complete work which any young
man wishing to become a Perfect Gentleman can find to study. Is it
possible, I ask myself, that none but burglars any longer entertain this
ambition? I can hardly believe it. Yet the fact stands out that, in an age
truly remarkable for its opportunities for self-improvement, there is
nothing later than 1794 to which I can commend a crude but

determined inquirer. To my profound astonishment I find that the
Correspondence-School system offers no course; to my despair I search
the magazines for graphic illustration of an Obvious Society Leader
confiding to an Obvious Scrubwoman: 'Six months ago my husband
was no more a Perfect Gentleman than yours, but one day I persuaded
him to mark that coupon, and all our social prominence and éclat we
owe to that school.'
One may say, indeed, that here is something which cannot conceivably
be described as a job; but all the more does it seem, logically, that the
correspondence schools must be daily creating candidates for what
naturally would be a post-graduate course. One would imagine that a
mere announcement would be sufficient, and that from all the financial
and industrial centres of the country students would come flocking
back to college in the next mail.
BE A PERFECT GENTLEMAN
In the Bank--at the Board of Directors--putting through that New
Railroad in Alaska--wherever you are and whatever you are doing to
drag down the Big Money--wouldn't you feel more at ease if you knew
you were behaving like a Perfect Gentleman?
We will teach YOU how.
Some fifty odd years ago Mr. George H. Calvert (whom I am pained to
find recorded in the Dictionary of American Authors as one who
'published a great number of volumes of verse that was never mistaken
for poetry by any reader') wrote a small book about gentlemen,
fortunately in prose and not meant for beginners, in which he cited
Bayard, Sir Philip Sidney, Charles Lamb, Brutus, St. Paul, and Socrates
as notable examples. Perfect Gentlemen all, as Emerson would agree, I
question if any of them ever gave a moment's thought to his manner of
sitting; yet any two, sitting together, would have recognized each other
as Perfect Gentlemen at once and thought no more about it.
These are the standard, true to Emerson's definition; and yet such
shining examples need not discourage the rest of us. The qualities that

made them gentlemen are not necessarily the qualities that made them
famous. One need not be as polished as Sidney, but one must not
scratch. One need not have a mind like Socrates: a gentleman may be
reasonably perfect,--and surely this is not asking too much,--with mind
enough to follow this essay. Brutus gained nothing as a gentleman by
assisting at the assassination of Cæsar (who was no more a gentleman,
by the way, in Mr. Calvert's opinion, than was Mr. Calvert a poet in
that of the Dictionary of Authors).
As for Fame, it is quite sufficient--and this only out of gentlemanly
consideration for the convenience of others--for a Perfect Gentleman to
have his name printed in the Telephone Directory. And in this higher
definition I go so far as to think that the man is rare who is not
sometimes a Perfect Gentleman, and equally uncommon who never is
anything else. Adam I hail a Perfect Gentleman when, seeing what his
wife had done, he bit back the bitter words he might have said, and
then--he too--took a bite of the apple: but oh! how far he fell
immediately afterward, when he stammered his pitiable explanation
that the woman tempted him and he did eat! Bayard, Sir Philip Sidney,
Charles Lamb, St. Paul, or Socrates would have insisted, and stuck to it,
that he bit it first.
I have so far left out of consideration--as for that matter did the author
and editor of the Pocket Library (not wishing to discourage students)--a
qualification essential to the Perfect Gentleman in the eighteenth
century. He must have had--what no book could give him--an ancestor
who knew how to sit. Men there were whose social status was visibly
signified