What Is a Gentleman…?

Our consideration of friendship and confidence and trust leads us to consider what a gentleman is⎯or isn’t. For a word so freely used, it seems that few have defined it. Shakespeare suggested some of the required qualities when he referred to “An honest gentleman, and a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I warrant, a “virtuous”⎯is a good beginning. And Robert Louis Stevenson made a fine distinction when he said, “To be a gentleman is to be one all the world over, and in every relation and grade of society.” In other words, a gentleman isn’t a gentleman just in particular places, not just where he is known or not just where he isn’t known⎯but everywhere he is, alone, or in any kind of company.
And now from some widely selected and significant sources come these further qualities that must be included: “A gentleman considers what is right; the vulgar consider what will pay.” A gentleman is one whom “no crisis can corrupt.” A gentleman is “bent… on shaping his mind to give happiness to others.” “The gentleman is a man of truth”… “warm in manner, dignified in bearing, faithful of speech” and one who has “fineness of nature.”
This much more must be added: that there is more to being a gentleman than pleasant speech, or the polished manner, or easy affability; more than the cut of the clothes; more than merely a “good line,” or a flattering tongue, or a smooth exterior⎯but including a true heart and sincere intent⎯cleanliness within and without, of thought, of person, and of apparel.
A gentleman is one in whom innocent children could safely confide, and one in whose care or keeping another man’s mother or sister or wife or daughter would be as safely and respectfully considered as would be his own most loved ones; one who would safeguard all the virtues and the most precious and irreplaceable things; who respects the divine destiny of every person; who can walk with quiet conscience, aware of his relationship to the God and Father of us all, who made us in His image, and of the Master, whose name or presence he would approach with a true and humble heart.
“In a certain sense,” said Cicero, “we may be said to feel affection even for men we have never seen, owing to their honesty and virtue.” In choosing a companion for life, or in selecting an associate, well would we look for such a man, a gentleman, a man of gentleness and of manliness, of virtue, of honor and integrity; and well would we, as Emerson suggested, “distinguish God’s gentleman from Fashion’s” gentleman.