Post #99: The Gentleman (A Draft Obituary)

25 Feb. 2024

     It will not come as news to anyone that the gentleman has seen better days. Opinions are divided as to whether there is any life left in him at all: some insist that he is quite dead; others that he went extinct a long time ago; still others think they can detect faint vital signs yet in a corpse given up for dead. What all can agree on is that he is in a bad way.

     Whether the patient can be brought back from the land of the shades, or whether he is altogether beyond revival, the time has come for drafting the gentleman’s obituary. Is there anything to be mourned in his passing, foregone conclusion or not? Have we lost anything, or is there nothing to be remembered with fondness?

     Nihil nisi bonum will not save the gentleman from posthumous defamation. He never applied the principle very consistently to others, thinking that the dark as well as the light deserved to be given its due, where factual; his detractors will now be even less inclined to pay such tender respects to his memory. Thus will he be arraigned, I expect, before the bar of posterity’s judgment as a terrible snob.

     But let us not rush to judgment. That the gentleman was no very ready democrat, let alone an egalitarian or a leveler, goes without saying: he read his Aristotle and despised the rule of the mob by any name. Some kind of mixed constitution was probably best, it seemed to him; but he was not a stickler for political forms. Unlike the born aristocrat, the gentleman was not preoccupied with family names or lineages; that blood ran red in all of us, not blue in some, he never doubted, though he was not quick to slight long-established habits of veneration or other social niceties for looking a little dusty and dated.

     It is true that the gentleman could seem as exclusionary as his titled rivals, for he defined himself as rigorously as they against the great mass—though not so much on account of their low birth as their vulgar ways. In practice it often came to the same thing, but as a matter of principle, the world of the well-bred must be kept open, in gentlemanly opinion, to natural talent and sustained aspiration wherever it might be found, not reserved by birth to narrow tinsel aristocracies, sprung from the loins of knaves and fools passing from the debauches of the banquet hall to those of the bedchamber, as Jefferson put it so memorably in a letter to George Washington (#72).

     Certainly the gentleman had his haughty moments, disdainful even, but he found as much to be lacking when he looked up the social pyramid as when he looked down, and though he might be found condescending at times, callous or contemptuous towards his inferiors he was not, and could not be, so long as he remained true to his own exacting standards. Noblesse oblige, as he knew only too well, and sans noblesse did so no less, though with different accents and nuances. In his mortal dread of faux pas the gentleman was, and needed to be, even more fastidious and sincere than those whose status rested more securely on distinguished birth alone. His position was altogether more precariously balanced on the high-wire of conduct becoming, and when the most damning of charges—the abyss of vulgarity—lost its terror, the gentleman lost much of his raison d’être. The two were, perhaps, always the different sides of the same coin.

     Next it will be held against the gentleman’s memory that he was, or at least seemed, always far too confident of his advantages over what he was fond of denominating the fair, or even the superior, sex (a complex point on which he was never perhaps entirely serious, though never merely joking either). Much has been said these past few decades, from a feminist angle, about the supposedly patronizing ways of the gentleman. What this angle overlooks, or deliberately disregards, is that respect for the feminine was, to the gentleman, a natural concomitant to the differences between the sexes, not their presumed equality. The gentleman discountenanced such egalitarian fantasies as not only factually untenable, but, what is much worse, inimical to the spirit of chivalry and amity between the sexes and the delicate tapestry of mutual interests and forbearances for which equality is not and cannot be adequate shorthand.

     That gentlemen had a taste for ladies, that is to say, their conceptual female counterparts, calls for no explanation; but true specimen of the type did not tend to take too strict a view of the matter. The existence of tramps they reluctantly recognized, but with no eagerness to reach for the label, and a propensity to take the side of the accused, usually against her more censorious sisters. The late gentleman was more likely to put his gallant side in evidence with fallen (or tottering) women of good heart and sound if blemished character than before courtly dames and queens, as in the days of the troubadour.

     In his more intimate relations with the feminine, the gentleman was perhaps not as uniform a character as his usually placid and always civil demeanor suggested on the surface. That in his ranks there were plenty of adventurers, explorers, and daredevils even, a gentleman might note with quiet satisfaction, and a mischievous twinkle in his eye hinted, to anyone who looked closely enough, at unexpected possibilities behind closed doors. The gentleman was never a rake or a rogue, no apologist for dishonest or dishonorable means, heaven forbid; those would poison the very fruit he was hoping to reap, with a hand as gentle as it was expert, and firm when needed. At the same time, he was no mere naïf, knew a trick or two, and could put on a convincing act where the situation called for it. What most distinguished him from others in this domain of life was perhaps his singular determination to keep his mouth and the doors to the bedroom firmly shut. He would never slight a woman’s charms, least of all one whose favors he had enjoyed, a matter of which he would not speak, only smile inwardly. To boast of such delicate delights, to think in terms of conquests, let alone to carve notches on one’s bedpost, could only be a sign, to the gentleman, that someone did not deserve the graces he had received. A view of things that won much applause and plenty of admirers on the female side, though it owed nothing to such flattering attentions.

     Education, as distinct from training for a job or even a profession, was a gentlemanly ideal. The aristocrat hardly needed it; the masses sought its practical advantages above all; but the gentleman was always the most natural champion of liberal education and the distinctions of learning for learning’s sake. It served his interests, of course, allowing him to vie in stature, or so he imagined, with the aristocracies of blood and name, and to mark his distance from the common lot in their grubby preoccupation with tangible benefits and pecuniary rewards. It seemed vital, to the gentleman scholar, that his love of learning not be mistaken for the toils of a mere grind, a plodder, or an opportunist. He was proud to stand before the world a professed amateur and dilettante in the truest, most literal sense—an enthusiast animated by a higher passion, no mere dabbler or duffer, as the promoters of professional culture falsely insinuated when they shifted the connotations of these charming terms in an unfavorable direction.

     In politics and religion, the gentleman tended to be a discreet sort: such matters were not to be discussed over dinner, lest they destroy the delicate harmony that conviviality was meant to foster between individuals of different beliefs. Punctilious politeness and impeccable manners, meant to smoothen social relations, not merely to mark status, were his very lifeblood. At his best, bringing a considerate touch to all things was second nature to the gentleman, and he understood like no other how to conciliate and gently guide the inept, always by example, not by snubbing. Cruelties of rank, it is true, were sometimes committed in his name, and other horrors of haughtiness; but in his heart the gentleman knew quite well how wrong these were, and sought to correct any such tendencies in himself and others, though not always with complete success.

     In money matters, the gentleman was generous and scrupulously correct towards others. It was said that he lent freely, and that a gentleman’s loans never carried interest; also that he repaid without fail or unwarranted delay whatever he borrowed himself. That gambling debts should be honored above what was owed to honest tradesmen was an aristocrat’s and an officer’s affectation, not that of a gentleman, whom it repelled by its blatant disregard for basic morality and common sense, even if he could see that such repugnant debts required their own abstruse mythology precisely because they were so dishonorable. Tightfistedness and miserliness appeared especially contemptible to the gentleman in the well-off who could afford to be more lenient and magnanimous.

     That the vulgar rich rarely become so by giving anything away, as wits have quipped, did not impress the gentleman much. Then they do not deserve their wealth, he would sigh with great regret—though also without the common itch to expropriate anyone, deserving or not, be it via the highwayman or the taxman. That any levy could, by labeling it progressive, be made any less disproportionate or confiscatory, as the case may be, no gentleman would credit. Nor would he concede that this stance implied any lack of regard on his part for the demands of charity and philanthropy. The high esteem in which one holds that which is freely given and shared, he would say, is precisely what stands in the way of indulging such redistributionist fancies backed by the guns and prisons of the state. Accused, thereupon, of special pleading, dismissed as a stooge for the propertied and their useful idiot, the gentleman of modest means could only point to his diminutive bank accounts and note how many much richer men he had known to show the greatest enthusiasm for taking and spending other people’s money, though with their own they were not often nearly so free.

In contrast to the kind of nobleman congenitally incapable of honest labor in any productive direction whatsoever, the gentleman found, after a period of emancipation from feudal mores, much to appreciate in sustained application to high purposes, looking with corresponding skepticism upon the pretentions to effortless superiority that the more high-born liked to affect. Nonetheless, he cherished leisure no less than they, as being indispensable to a life of culture and learning. Ceaseless toil was not for him, nor mammon the measure of all things, though gentlemen were too sensible to take the blessings of wealth for granted, as the old raiding classes so often did, mistaking their predatory past for historical pedigree. A facility with using money well, that is, effectively, liberally, and thoughtfully, one gentleman thought no small recommendation in another; squandering it, a deplorable waste; hoarding it, a great folly; worshipping it, base idolatry of the worst sort.

     In dress he was generally a conservative, never garish, though not averse to dashing accents. Clothes must fit and age well, he would insist. Real taste and quality, for which he cultivated as sure a sense as any fop with a fancy coat of arms, never goes out of style: this was for him no mere commonplace, but an article of unshakable faith.

     Once upon a time, even competitive sports could be gentlemanly (lawn tennis, the first modern Olympics); then they became professionalized and gladiatorial.

     Gentlemen used to make it a point of pride never to complain. They did not speak ill of others behind their backs, and criticized most sparingly, where it was necessary; they praised readily, but never without cause; they apologized only when truly and seriously at fault, and they made their amends with deeds, not words only. They guarded their reputations with judicious care, but not at every price. “Publish and be damned!” was popularized by the Duke of Wellington, but it expressed a gentleman’s sentiment.

     Speaking of dukes, let it be added that the gentleman was not above respecting conventional honors and distinctions; scoff at them he would not, though he understood the wayward nature of worldly boons too well to set his heart unduly on any particular validation of meretricious vanity by erratic men. There were many good things in life, for enjoyment as well as for aspiration, but being a gentleman was the greatest of all, and its own best reward. For the rest, the gentleman could live easily with social gradations running both ways. Envy and jealousy were anathema to him, unworthy of his reputable station in life. In a good-natured spirit of friendly competition, he could take the achievements of others as spurs and inspirations, where attainable; where not, he was quite willing to bow before superior talents and accomplishments, if genuine not spurious, and to defer to established authority where legitimate, not trumped-up. This left room enough for gentlemanly pride and quiet self-assertion, but never without an element of modesty—his vaunted understatement, as effective for throwing virtues into sharper relief before the discerning as it was suited for hiding finer things from rough eyes and hands unable to give them their proper desserts.

     Whether gentlemen were always kind has been questioned, perhaps with reason; but decency was no hollow phrase with them, nor common sense and fair-play. It was Englishmen who once laid the most explicit claim to the title of gentlemen, coming close, at times, to the conceit of treating it as virtually synonymous with their own kind. But the rest of the British Isles had their own stories to tell, as did the rest of the Empire, the other Europeans, and the Americans, to name only the obvious contenders. The terminology differed between times and places, as did the finer details; but the gentleman’s sterling stuff was never just a national, or a racial, ideal, but something of far wider currency, though like any such, it was liable to debasement by the careless and the unscrupulous.

     The gentleman had his faults, no doubt, but he was not a bad chap. He will be missed, and whether our age has really succeeded in putting something better in his place is at least as doubtful as his tarnished reputation. Old silver can be polished back to life and luster; only fool’s gold shines forever with the same false promise. No gentleman would dream of passing off baser metals for real bullion, but as the gold standard has seen its day, so has the age of silver, and we must content ourselves, it seems, with living among resounding brass gongs and clanging iron cymbals.

Perhaps it was ever so and the dream of nobler things never more than a pious hope, or a pleasing fiction. Most would-be gentlemen of the past probably did not, in fact, meet their own ideal very often, to put it charitably. It was an aspiration, at best, at worst perhaps no more than an illusion. Even so, it may still be our loss if we can no longer bring ourselves to believe the hopeful message. The very gods may be thought to live and die by our faith in them. To have killed the old is nothing to be proud of until you have succeeded in replacing it with something truer, better, and more beautiful withal.