"I court not the votes of the fickle mob." Horace.
Public favor is fickle fancy. It is as capricious, uncertain and unreliable as the weather; and, while we may at times predict where it will bestow its alleged blessings, we can never with certainty tell how long it will remain there. Those who crave popularity should remember that it begins by making a man its tool, and usually ends in making him an object of contempt. A very trifling circumstance often creates popularity, and a single circumstance just as trifling usually destroys it. Was there ever a more popular man than Dewey after the Manila victory? Yet the trifling circumstance of transferring his gift-house to his new wife almost destroyed it. Hobson was equally popular after the Merrimac episode, but he forfeited it by numerous kissing exhibitions. Bird S. Coler was extremely popular while comptroller of New York and lost the governorship by an inch, but his popularity was as quicklyforfeited as it was acquired. Louis XVI was extremely popular, but he died at the guillotine a despised and hated monarch. Marie Antoinette was equally popular, until she told the mob, who were crying for bread, to eat cake. Napoleon was universally popular until he divorced Josephine, and again popular at the cradle of the King of Rome. The memory of Cromwell was infamous for more than a century, but now he is a world hero. Robespierre was popular until he attempted to check the effusion of bloodshed.
Popularity knows no law and no precedent. It sometimes attaches to tyrants, for were not Caligula and Nero more popular than Germanicus? It sometimes attaches to ignorance, for who is today more popular than our champion batter or prize fighter? It sometimes attaches to immorality, for did it not adopt the infamous Pompadour and du Barry? It sometimes attaches to trifles, for was there ever such a fuss made over anything as the Teddybear? It sometimes delights in the downfall of royal favorites, and then exults in their reinstatements. It attaches to the great, at times, and then hails with shouts of exultation those who overthrow the great.
He who delights in popularity must beprepared to submit to the veriest subjugation, for he mustobeythe very ones whom he desires tocommand.
True merit heeds not the fulsome acclamations of capricious popularity, but goes on its way regardless. It asks itself "What is right?" not "What will the public applaud?" Merit as well as folly, loves appreciation, but the one hopes for it as a just reward, while the other seeks it as a theft.
There are two kinds of popularity: the popularity of men and the popularity of their productions, the latter being the more reliable and constant. The popularity of Roosevelt was mainly of the former kind, for it was his pleasing and picturesque personality that made him one of the most popular men of the last hundred years. As he recedes into history, we can tell better whether his name will remain a household word like Napoleon, Jackson, Lincoln, Webster, Grant, Bismarck and Gladstone's. It may be that certain popularity is ephemeral, for public opinion resembles a mind obeying by turns two directly opposite impulses, lauding a man to the skies one day, and, on the next, as it discovers him deficient in the merit it gratuitously ascribed to him, avenging itself by deprecating that which it had capriciously over-rated.
Popularity is the keystone of modern politics. Alas, too few men have we, who think, say, or act, without weighing the probabilities of its popularity. Our statesmen care more for what is popular than for what is right, and popularity is generally the sole consideration. To attain the honors of posterity and of history, a more solid merit is required than the ephemeral smile of popularity.
Popularity is a delusion.
It is an easy matter to become popular if one wants to, for all it requires is passive tolerance, and active commendation. Taking the individual, listen to his stories attentively, applaud his hobbies, rave over his phonograph, his pianola, or his pictures, or books, or his dog. A good listener is always popular. Taking the individual collectively, the public, the same rule holds good. Place your ear to the ground, study the whims of the people, learn how they worship, how they play and how they work, then preach their doctrines, pat them on the back, applaud their errors, and you can be popular. Rub the fur the right way and the cat won't scratch. Pioneers of thought seldom attain popularity. The man with a new idea, or who dares to preach something different, is usually put in jailwhile he is alive, and put in marble after he is dead. As Goethe says, "The public must be treated like women: they must be told absolutely nothing but what they like to hear."
The first step to greatness is to be honest.—Johnson.All great men are partially inspired.—Cicero.All great men come out of the middle classes.—Emerson.No really great man ever thought himself so.—Hazlitt.The world knows nothing of its greatest men.—H. Taylor.What millions died that Caesar might be great!—Campbell.The great are only great because we carry them on our shoulders: when we throw them off they sprawl on the ground.—Montandre.It is not in the nature of great men to be exclusive and arrogant.—Beecher.None think the great unhappy but the great.—Young.There is but one method, and that is hard labor.—Sydney Smith.No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that God gives him for mankind.—Phillips Brooks.
The first step to greatness is to be honest.—Johnson.
All great men are partially inspired.—Cicero.
All great men come out of the middle classes.—Emerson.
No really great man ever thought himself so.—Hazlitt.
The world knows nothing of its greatest men.—H. Taylor.
What millions died that Caesar might be great!—Campbell.
The great are only great because we carry them on our shoulders: when we throw them off they sprawl on the ground.—Montandre.
It is not in the nature of great men to be exclusive and arrogant.—Beecher.
None think the great unhappy but the great.—Young.
There is but one method, and that is hard labor.—Sydney Smith.
No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that God gives him for mankind.—Phillips Brooks.
What is genius? Is it merely the ability to master details, as somebody has said, or is it the result of some natural endowments, faculties, or aptitudes for a particular thing? That it is some uncommon power of intellect, all admit; but whether it is a general or a specific power, is much disputed. Doctor Johnson's notion was that genius is nothing more or less than great general powers of mind, capable of being turned any way, or in any direction, and that "a man who has vigor maywalk to the East just as well as to the West." Emerson held quite the contrary view, for he says that a man is born to some one thing, and that he is "like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea." And again, inRepresentative Men, "Each man is, by secret liking, connected with some district of nature, whose agent and interpreter he is, as Linnaeus, of plants; Huber, of bees; Fries, of lichens; Van Mons, of pears; Dalton, of atomic forms; Euclid, of lines; Newton, of fluxions." On the other hand, versatility of genius is not uncommon, for was not Leonardo da Vinci master of all the arts? did not Lord Brougham excel in everything, until they said of him "Science is his forte, omniscience his foible"? and was not our own Franklin equally famous for his several accomplishments? Nevertheless, it is quite certain that most of the great men of history, in art, arms or letters, displayed genius in only one line; yet this does not signify that they could not have displayed equal genius in one or more other lines. Perhaps the case could be stated thus: (1) A genius is a man of uncommon power of intellect; (2) Every man has a natural bent for some one line of effort; (3) A genius is apt to follow hisnatural bent, and thus excel in only one line; (4) A genius may also excel in one or more other lines, circumstances and environment leading him away from his natural inclinations.
What is greatness? Who were the greatest men of history? Who are the great and the greatest men of the time? These are questions on every tongue, yet who may say the answer? Seneca, Bacon, Carlyle, Goethe, Emerson, Colton and other philosophers have written volumes without answering any of these questions, and nobody yet has been able to give answers satisfactory to all. There are four kinds of greatness: village greatness, provincial greatness, world greatness and era greatness, for we know that a man may be great in his village, mediocre in his province, county, state or country, a nonentity in the world, and a nobody in the era following that in which he lived. A few men are accepted as great during their lifetimes, a few of these are accepted as great outside their own colonies, and only a very few of these survive their own eras. While it is true that a man is seldom a hero in his own home, and that greatness is seen to better advantage from a distance, yet some greatness is so weak that it dies before it is fullgrown. Greatness is often divided into two kinds,—greatness of men of action, andgreatness of men of thought; yet this is an improper division, since all great men are men of action, and are always endowed with a force which may be called pneumatic energy.
Bismarck once said that a really great man is known by three signs—generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success; but Brougham insists that "the true test of a great man is his having been in advance of his age." Schopenhauer, in estimating the greatness of great men, applies the inverted law of the physical, which stands for the intellectual and spiritual nature, the former being lessened by distance, the latter increased. But these views do not help us much in our effort to find what is greatness. When Sir William Jones was asked who was the greatest man, he answered, "The best: and if I am required to say who is the best, I reply he that deserved most of his fellow-creatures." Is this a correct test?—what fellow-creatures?—creatures of his own time, or of all time?—who is to judge what is best for them,—they or I?—and who is to say whether he is deserving or not, and deserving of what? Dempsey is a great fighter; Raphael was a great painter; Socrates a great philosopher; Hannibal a great general; Beecher a great preacher; Columbus a great discoverer; Browning a great poet;Gibbon a great historian; Lincoln a great agitator; Dana a great editor; Steinitz a great chess-player; and so on,—perhaps the greatest of their time, but would they be numbered among the greatest men? Is a great shoemaker a great man? Yet he is very deserving of his fellow-creatures, and he may be the greatest of his kind. Is a great hangman as great as a great divine, and is the greatest clown to be numbered among the greatest men of history?
Again, in selecting the great men, should there not be some limit in number and some method of declaring different degrees of greatness, because otherwise the man who wrote "Home, Sweet Home" might find a place alongside Shakespeare. Again, should a conqueror be classed among the great? Still again, are philosophers like Schopenhauer, Ibsen, Bernard Shaw and Nietzsche to be numbered among the great, when most people say that their philosophy is wrong, destructive and immoral? No wonder, then, that nobody has yet been able to give a satisfactory definition of Greatness. Alexander accomplished wonders: he conquered the then known world and wept for other worlds to conquer; but perhaps he was not so deserving of his fellows as some poor shoemaker. And take Napoleon: he made all Europe run blood; yet he certainly didmuch good; are we to balance his account and determine if the good outweighed the bad? Dante and Milton are always numbered among the greatest men, yet some do say that these great poets did more harm than good by perpetuating the false doctrines of Hell and Paradise. Was Robespierre a great man?—no one questions that great good came from the French Revolution, yet who will urge a monument to Robespierre, the personification of that Revolution? His intentions were good, however bad may have been the method, but so were Cromwell's regardless of his fanaticism; yet public opinion curses the one and crowns the other. Some men seem to accomplish world-wonders without effort, while others struggle against tremendous odds: of the two, the latter, of course, are the greater, because, as Bryant says, "Difficulty is a nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who rocks her foster children roughly, but rocks them into strength. The mind, grappling with great aims and wrestling with mighty impediments, grows by a certain necessity to the stature of greatness." Some say that greatness is founded in human sympathy, and that the man who shows the biggest heart plus the greatest ability to do, is the greatest man. Others say that greatness consists in reforming the world along religious lines, andstill others maintain that greatness is merely righteousness—"He is not great, who is no greatly good" (Shakespeare). Was Caesar great? Remember Campbell's line,—"What millions died that Caesar might be great." Beecher was doubtless right when he said, "Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength," but men may differ as to what is the right use, for, suppose he uses it to defend his people against some other people, and for a cause which he believes in, as did Robert E. Lee? He thought he was right, many others thought he was right, and he displayed qualities truly great, yet Beecher would say that Lee was not a great man. No great man ever yet lived who was conceded so to be by everybody. We see many who are great, in a sense, and many that are good; but we seldom see a man who is both great and good; and, according to Franklin, a great man must be both. Leonardo da Vinci was great at many things,—"master of all the arts," and as virtuous as most men, yet many people place Caesar and Alexander in the list of great men and leave da Vinci out. Perhaps Colton was right when he said, "Subtract from the great men all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he has gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of hisenemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pigmy." Shall we class Joan of Arc among the great? She was the victim of an illusion and she accomplished that which was bound to come. Shall we nominate Diogenes? He was what would now be called a tramp and lived in a tub. Shall we give Socrates a niche? He was also something of a tramp, and we may never know how much he really said of the many wise things which Plato attributed to him. Shall we declare Washington and Jefferson great, and not Tom Paine, when the latter knew more than the other two together, and gave them most of their ideas? No, we don't do that, because they say that Paine's religious views were bad. Shall Theodore Roosevelt go on the list? Shall we put Martin Luther on, and not Voltaire? And how about poor John Brown?—he did not accomplish much but he tried mighty hard and died in the attempt. Shall Booker T. Washington's name not go on the immortal list just because he is black? If not, how about Confucius who was yellow? Shall Jesus' name be written on the scroll and not Buddha's or Mohammed's? The fact is that it is next to impossible to name a complete list of thegreatmen of history,—to say nothing of thegreatestmen. One of the toughest problems I ever attempted to solve was oncegiven me by a young student, who asked me to write down the names of the twenty-five greatest men. I spent many evenings on it, and the answer was published in many newspapers. The chief difficulty came in the attempt to limit the list to just twenty-five—it is easy to make a list ofabouttwenty-five, or about fifty, or about ten.
As I remember it, the list was as follows:
This list is not yet satisfactory. It should contain John Fiske, who knew everything, Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Kant, Descartes, Emerson, Washington,—but hold! there is no end. Ten years from now I shall make another list and itwill probably contain a new name, perhaps Roosevelt, Wilson, Bryan, Foch.
As Rochefoucauld says, "However brilliant an action may be, it ought not to pass for great when it is not the result of great design." Some men became famous—apparently great—by accident, or because of circumstances, but that is not greatness. I once became the manager of a dinner in honor of Mr. Bryan, and, like Byron, woke up one morning to find myself famous—think of it!—famous for getting up a dinner. But such fame is meteoric and has but a mushroom existence. Fielding says somewhere that Greatness is like a laced coat from Monmouth Street, which fortune lends us for a day to wear and tomorrow puts it on another's back; but he did not mean Greatness, but Fame, or Popularity, Greatness is not greatness if it is not lasting. If we cannot tell what greatness is, we can tell what it is not. The greatness of a man must be judged from the viewpoint of his own time, and we must make due allowance for his weaknesses and blunders; for was not Napoleon a believer in astrology, and could not any school-child today correct Aristotle in natural history and physiology? With this thought in mind we shall not have so much difficulty in singling out the great menof history. "Nature never sends a great man into the planet, without confiding the secret to another soul" (Emerson), and we soon discover them, but not often in their own time—it requires the perspective of history to get them in focus. Great men are the models of nations. As Longfellow says, "they stand like solitary towers in the City of God, and secret passages running deep beneath external nature give their thoughts intercourse with higher intelligence, which strengthens and consoles them, and of which the laborers on the surface do not even dream."
"Corporations are great engines for the promotion of the public convenience, and for the development of public wealth, and, so long as they are conducted for the purposes for which organized, they are a public benefit; but if allowed to engage, without supervision, in subjects of enterprise foreign to their charters, or if permitted unrestrainedly to control and monopolize the avenues to that industry in which they are engaged, they become a public menace; against which public policy and statutes design protection."
Leslie V. Lorillard, et al.—110 N. Y. 533.
It seems that those who have done the most good in this world have usually been the most unfortunate. The history-makers are our martyr heroes, abhored for their virtues, tortured for their courage, and persecuted for their good deeds. Verily, all the world's a stage, and the great actors appear upon it, say their lines, perform their parts, and then disappear behind the curtain amid a storm of hisses. Genius is seldom appreciated at short range. We praise dead saints, and persecute living ones: weroastour great men in one age, and boast of them in the next. Let us see if history does not bear out these assertions.—Alexander the Great died in his youth; Socrates was made to drink the fatal hemlock; Leonidas, the immortal Greek patriot, was hanged; Xerxes was assassinated in his sleep; Scipio was strangled in his bed; Seneca, the Roman moralist, was banished to Corsica; Hannibal took poison to prevent falling into the enemy's hands; Caesar was assassinatedby his friends; Philip of Macedon was assassinated by his body guard; Archimedes was stabbed for not going to Marcellus till he had finished his problem; Belisarius was sentenced to death and blinded; Mohammed was despised and persecuted; Bruno was burned alive and his ashes thrown to the four winds of heaven; Dante was banished from Florence; Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded; Admiral Coligny was murdered at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; Joan of Arc was burned at the stake; Savonarola was burned on a heap of faggots for his religious preaching; Madam Roland was beheaded; Cardinal Wolsey died on his way to the scaffold; Milton was stricken blind; Martin Luther was excommunicated and persecuted; Anne Boleyn, the good and true wife of Henry VIII, was beheaded; Palissy the Potter had to burn his house to feed his furnace, and was imprisoned in the Bastile for his religious faith; Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded after a long imprisonment; Cervantes, creator of Don Quixote, was imprisoned for debt and suffered want; Edmund Spenser, author of "Faerie Queen," also died of want; Henry of Navarre was assassinated; Galileo was made to recant under penalty of death; Napoleon was sent to St. Helena; Oliver Cromwell was an exile, aprice upon his head; Charles I. was beheaded, Marshal Ney, "Bravest of the Brave," was cruelly shot to death for alleged treason; Madame Racamier, the most beautiful and charming woman in history, died poor, blind and an exile; Voltaire was arrested, imprisoned and exiled; Beethoven, "The Shakespeare of Music," was stricken deaf; Mozart was buried in Potter's Field; the gallant Decatur and the illustrious Hamilton were cruelly shot by duelists; John Brown was shot for trying to free the slaves; Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley were assassinated; Madame De Stael was banished from Paris because Napoleon did not like her; Florence Nightingale became a chronic invalid; Marie Antoinette was beheaded; Garibaldi was condemned to death and compelled to flee his native land; Gen. Custer fought the Indians till none of his soldiers lived and then died upon the battle-field; Victor Hugo was made to flee Brussels; Lafayette in France was imprisoned and nearly starved to death; David Livingstone, explorer, died in the wilds of Africa; Tasso was exiled and imprisoned and died in poverty; Lovejoy was murdered; Wm. Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were mobbed on the streets of Boston; Sir Henry Vane was beheaded because he asserted liberty; William Penn waspersecuted and imprisoned; Aristides was exiled; Aristotle had to flee for his life and swallowed poison; Pythagoras was persecuted and probably burned to death; Paul was beheaded; Spinoza was tracked, hunted, cursed and forbidden aid or food; Huss, Wyclif, Latimer and Lyndale were burned at the stake; Schiller was buried in a three-thaler coffin at midnight without funeral rites; Pompey was assassinated in Egypt by one of his own officers; Shelley, the poet, was drowned; William, Prince of Orange, was assassinated; Anaxagoras was dragged to prison for asserting his idea of God; Gerbert, Roger Bacon and Cornelius Agrippa, the great chemists and geometricians, were abhored as magicians; Petrarch lived in deadly fear of the wrath of the priests; Descartes was horribly persecuted in Holland when he first published his opinions; Racine and Corneille nearly died of starvation; Lee Sage, in his old age was saved from starvation by his son who was an actor; Boethius, Selden, Grotius and Sir John Pettus wrote many of their best works in jail; John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress while in prison; De Foe, author of the immortal Cruso, was imprisoned for writing a pamphlet, and so was Leigh Hunt for a similar offense; Homer was a beggar; Plautus turned a mill; Terencewas a slave; Paul Borghese had fourteen trades, yet starved with them all; Bentivoglio was refused admission into the hospital he had himself erected; Camoens, author of the Lusiad, died in an alms house; Dryden lived in poverty and distress; Otway died prematurely through hunger; Steele was constantly pursued by bailiffs; Fielding was buried in a factory graveyard without a stone; Savage died in jail at Lisbon; Butler lived in penury and died in distress; Chatterton, pursued by misfortune, killed himself in his youth; Samuel Abbott, inventor of the process of turning potatoes into starch, was burned to death in his own factory; Chaucer exchanged a palace for a prison; Bacon died in disgrace; Ben Johnson lived and died in poverty; Bishop Taylor was imprisoned; Clarendon died in exile; Swift and Addison lived and died unhappy and unfortunate; Dr. Johnson died of scrofula, in poverty and pain; Goldsmith was always poor and died in squalor and misery; Smollett, several times fined and imprisoned, died at 33; Cowper was poor and tinged with madness. Of the American discoverers, Columbus was put in chains and died of poverty and neglect; Roldin and Bobadilla were drowned; Ovando was harshly superceded; Las Casas sought refuge in a cowl; Ojeda died in extremepoverty; Encisco was deposed by his own men; Nicuessa perished miserably by the cruelty of his party; Basco Nunez de Balboa was disgracefully beheaded; Narvaez was imprisoned in a tropical dungeon and afterwards died of hardship; Cortez was dishonored; Alvarado was destroyed in ambush; Almagro was garroted; Pizarro was murdered and his four brothers were cut off.
Doubtless, many other martyrs could be mentioned, but perhaps the foregoing will suffice to prove our case. As Napoleon once said, it is the cause and not the death that makes the martyr, and many of the foregoing martyrs perhaps deserved to die as they did. But, who may say? An additional list will be found in "Fox's Martyrs," but they are mostly religious martyrs, whereas the foregoing is general and fairly representative of every age and of every calling.
When the interlocutor says these words, all the men sit down. They all assume that they are gentlemen; anyway, they know that they have been called such, and they accept the appellation. Any man will be offended if you say he is no gentleman. Every man wants to be known as a gentleman. The sign that reads "Gentlemen will not expectorate upon the floor—othersmustnot," is very effective, because every man who reads it will obey, fearing that if he does not he will not be rated as a gentleman. You cannot appeal to him on any stronger ground; the dangers of tuberculosis, cleanliness, the ladies' skirts, and such, do not weigh so heavy as the argument that real gentlemen do not expectorate. Take the lowliest laborer, and you cannot pay him a higher compliment than to make him understand that you rate him as a gentleman. Even pickpockets, burglars and thugs pride themselves on being gentlemen, when off duty, andit is their highest ambition to get dressed up and to frequent the same hotels, restaurants and resorts that gentlemen frequent. And yet, if you ask any of these what a gentleman is, he cannot tell you. For that matter, who can? What is a gentleman? What are the qualifications and requirements? Can a person be a gentleman part of the time and not all the time, or is he born one way or the other? Can a person who was not born a gentleman acquire the title? Is it a matter of birth, a matter of character, a matter of conscience, a matter of dress, a matter of conduct, or a matter of education? Can a man who has been brought up in ignorance, crime, filth, squalor, and degradation be educated to be a gentleman, or will his real self pop out sometime and show that he is not? The dictionary definition of a gentleman is: "A man of good birth; every man above the rank of yeoman, comprehending noblemen; a man who, without a title, bears a coat of arms, or whose ancestors were freemen; a man of good breeding and politeness, as distinguished from the vulgar and clownish; a man in a position of life above a tradesman or mechanic; a term of complaisance." But none of these definitions covers the modern "gentleman"; not one is adequate. Chaucer's idea was that "He is gentlewho doth gentle deeds." Calvert's was that a gentleman is a Christian product. Goldsmith's, that the barber made the gentleman. Locke's, that education begins the gentleman and that good company and reflection finishes him. Hugo's, that he is the best gentleman who is the son of his own deserts. Emerson's, that cheerfulness and repose are the badge of a gentleman. Steele's, that to be a fine gentleman is to be generous and brave. Spenser's, that it is a matter of deeds and manners. Shaftesbury's, that it is the taste of beauty and the relish of what is decent, just and amiable that perfects the gentleman. Byron's, that the grace of being, without alloy of fop or beau, a finished gentleman, is something that Nature writes on the brow of certain men. Beaconsfield's, that propriety of manners and consideration for others are the two main characteristics of a gentleman. Hazlitt's, that a gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in turn from them, and thatproprietyis as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentlemen—plus elegance, for fine gentlemen, dignity for noblemen and majesty for kings.
Chesterfield's opinion ought to be worth considering—"A gentleman has ease withoutfamiliarity, is respectful without meanness, genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art." Likewise Ruskin's—"A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies; one may say simply 'fineness of structure.'" The Psalmist describes a gentleman as one "that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart," and Samuel Smiles adds that a gentleman's qualities depend, not on fashion or manners, but or moral worth; not on personal possessions, but on personal qualities. Thackeray intimates that a gentleman must be honest, gentle, generous, brave, wise; and, possessing all these qualities, he must exercise them in the most graceful outward manner. That he must be a loyal son, a true husband, and an honest father. That his life ought to be decent, his bills paid, his taste high and elegant, and his aim in life lofty and noble. A more modern view is that of the great English philosopher, Herbert Spencer, who says that "Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty and self-respect are the qualities that make the real gentleman or lady, as distinguished from theveneered article that commonly goes by that name." And here's another view:
Gentleman—A man that's clean outside and in; who neither looks up to the rich nor down on the poor; who can lose without squealing and who can win without bragging; who is considerate of women, and children and old people; who is too brave to lie, too generous to cheat, and who takes his share of the world and lets other people have theirs.
Originallygentlemanwas merely a designation, not a description, and it was meant to apply to men occupying a certain conventional social position. It had no reference to the qualities of heart, mind and soul. Later the wordgentlemanwas given an exclusively ethical application. Both ideas are extremes, and both are wrong, because the former might apply to thieves, liars, cads, fops and ruffians, and the latter might apply to servants and slaves, many of whom are men of the best and truest type. There is an old saw that runs—
"What is a gentleman?He is always polite,He always does right,And that is a gentleman."
"What is a gentleman?He is always polite,He always does right,And that is a gentleman."
"What is a gentleman?He is always polite,He always does right,And that is a gentleman."
"What is a gentleman?
He is always polite,
He always does right,
And that is a gentleman."
If it is difficult to ascertain what a gentleman is, it is not difficult to ascertain what a gentleman is not. For example, a gentleman is not—
1. One who jumps into the one vacant seat when there are women standing.
2. One who smokes or swears in a public elevator in the presence of a lady.
3. One who dashes through swinging doors and lets them bang into the face of those behind.
4. One who jumps on the platform of a moving car when others are patiently waiting to get on.
5. One who eats with his knife, picks his teeth in public, spits on the floor, wipes his mouth on the tablecloth, coughs or sneezes in public without covering his mouth, or cleans his nails in a public place.
6. One who carries his umbrella extended horizontally under his arm, with the sharp ferrule sticking out behind to the inconvenience if not peril of others.
7. One who rushes into a car before those in it have time to get off.
8. One who occupies two seats for himself and his newspaper or parcels in a crowded car.
9. One who fails to apologize when he has unintentionally insulted another.
10. One who refuses to apologize or make amend when he has intentionally insulted another.
11. One who always wants to bet or to fight when he is getting the worst of an argument.
12. One who neglects to respect old age.
13. One who is mean, selfish and inconsiderate of the rights and convenience of others.
14. One who deliberately uses uncouth or vulgar language.
15. One who is intentionally neglectful of his appearance to the extent of wearing soiled linen in public and of neglecting his person so that he is obnoxious to the olfactory organs of those around him.
16. One who lacks tolerance and who wrangles with everybody who does not do as he would like them to do.
17. One who has a hot temper and does not know enough to put his foot on the soft pedal.
18. One who laughs at a drunken man or woman or who induces them to become so.
19. One who thinks that the world owes him a living and who proceeds to collect it from everybody he comes across, by foul means or fair.
20. One who does not know that women, children and elderly people are entitled to a preference and to unusual consideration on all occasions.
Gentlemen, be seated, and we will inquirestill further as to what a gentleman is and is not. Of course, at this command you are all seated. The commander knew that there would be no exceptions in your judgment. But, even if you do not agree with the opinions of those quoted above, you have your own notions as to what is a gentleman, and it is a safe bet that not one of you live up to those qualifications. The most perfect of gentlemen sometimes fail to live up to their best. We all fall down once in a while.
Some people define gentlemen as follows:
Gentleman—One who does not wear detachable cuffs; one who changes his shirt every day; one whose clothes are of the latest pattern; one who wears a cane, a silk hat and patent leather shoes; one who has money and spends it freely; one who tips the waiter generously, and who would not soil his hands by shaking hands with a laborer; one who is above work and who would not associate with a common tradesman; one who respects to the point of worship anybody who has money and who detests to the point of hatred everybody who has not; one who has his nails manicured twice a week, and who always wears gloves in public; one who thinks that the greatest thing in the world is to belong to the smart set and to be fashionable.
Such people forget that thegentlemanis solidmahogany, while the fashionable man is only veneer. They forget that the gentleman is not so much what he is without as what he is within. You cannot make a gentleman out of fine clothes, even if you add elegant manners. Nor will education complete him. When you educate the thief you do not necessarily cure his thievery, and you often make him a more accomplished thief. And some of the greatest thieves and cut-throats have the most elegant manners and wear the finest clothes. The real gentleman must be a gentleman clean through, from the center of his heart to the top of his brain. Culture and refinement in the true sense proceed from within. While they can be purchased at any good boarding-school, this is another brand, and partake of the qualities of varnish. They are a sort of polish.
Gentlemen, be seated. Ah, you do not seat yourselves so quickly! You begin to see the light. Perhaps you realize that you are not so much of a gentleman as you at first thought you were. You may have the instincts of a gentleman, you may have good breeding, good manners, education, refinement, good intentions, even culture, yet you know down in your secret souls that you have some qualities that are not those of the real, true gentleman. You may have gentleness,generosity, honesty, polish, and yet you lack some of the other ingredients that are used in the manufacture of a gentleman. But never you mind. None of us are perfect—not even the writer! And you frown when you are told thatyouare not gentlemen. But you are not. There is no such thing as a gentleman. How can there be when a gentleman is aperfect man? The thing to do is to try to be a gentleman. Let's try hard.
Gentlemen, be seated. You all sit, because youtryto be gentlemen, and, for aught I know, you are as much gentlemen as anybody. Anyway, if you try, you are, to all intents and purposes; for, if a man does the best he can he is entitled to the highest honors, and what higher honors are there than to be known as a real gentleman?
Gentlemen, be seated, and we shall hear from a wonderful philosopher, Herr Friedrich Nietzsche. A million sages and diagnosticians, in all ages of the world, have sought to define the gentleman, and their definitions have been as varied as their minds, as we have already seen. Nietzsche's definition, according to Mencken's translation, is based on the fact that the gentleman is ever a man of more than average influence and power, and on the further fact that thissuperiority is admitted by all. The vulgarian may boast of his bluff honesty, but at heart he looks up to the gentleman, who goes through life serene and imperturbable. There is in the gentleman an unmistakable air of fitness and efficiency, and it is this that makes it possible for him to be gentle and to regard those below him with tolerance. The demeanor of highborn persons shows plainly that in their minds the consciousness of power is ever present. Above all things, they strive to avoid a show of weakness, whether it takes the form of inefficiency or of a too-easy yielding to passion or emotion. They never sink exhausted into a chair. On the train, when the vulgar try to make themselves comfortable, these higher folk avoid reclining. They do not seem to get tired after hours of standing at court. They do not furnish their homes in a comfortable, but in a spacious and dignified manner, as if they were the abodes of a greater and taller race of beings. To a provoking speech, they reply with politeness and self-possession—and not as if horrified, crushed, abashed, enraged or out of breath, after the manner of plebians. The gentleman knows how to preserve the appearance of ever-present physical strength, and he knows, too, how to convey the impression that his soul andintellect are a match for all dangers and surprises, by keeping up an unchanging serenity and civility, even under the most trying circumstances.
Thus spake Nietzsche, but he was really defining an aristocrat, or one of the so-called nobility, for which he had a profound respect. Here is still another definition:
Gentility—Perfect veracity, frank urbanity, total unwillingness to give offense; the gentleness of right-hearted, level-headed good nature; kindliness tactfully exercised through clear sense that duly appreciates current circumstances involving the personal rights, privileges and susceptibilities of others; and, while justly regarding these, acting on what they generally suggest so considerately and so gracefully that a pleasurable, heartfelt recognition of finest decency is inspired in others.
An old wag once said, "I never refuse to drink with a gentleman, and a gentleman is a man who invites me to take a drink." That is the Kentucky idea. But this is not:
Gentleman—One who has courage without bravado, pride without vanity, and who is innately—not studiously, but innately—considerate of the feelings of others.
And so the definitions vary inversely as thesquare of the desirability of the kind of gentleman we try to be. In brief, agentlemanis indefinable as it is unmistakable. You can always tell him when you meet him, but you cannot tell how or why.
Gentlemen, be seated. This is final. Just think over what you have heard, and see if there is not now a clear idea of what a gentleman is and is not. If you have read between the lines, you have seen the true lights on the subject. Wit and mirth and humorous allusions—such as they are—should not obscure the real issue. Do we not all know now what a gentleman is? Quite true that we cannot define it, without a very large vocabulary and thousands of words, yet we feel that we know. And, knowing what a gentleman is, surely we shall all try to be one. And then what more can the gods require?
And so the beard is coming in fashion again. Consoling thought to you of the fertile facial soil and with ugly contour or ungainly blemishes to conceal, but distressing to those chubby-faced, masculine beauties whose tender skins will not yield a plentiful crop. But, you have had your day, oh, ye of the germ-proof, Napoleonic countenance; so, discard your Gillettes, and make way for his majesty—The Beard. The halcyon days of the razor are no more, if we are to believe fickle Dame Fashion, and we are now to welcome the day of the shears. If nature has been stingy, and that glorious excrescence, the beard, is impossible to you, mon cher, pray accept our sympathy; but, please be generous enough to take the inevitable with good grace, and not worry us with foolish arguments about bearded barbarians and unsanitary savages. We know that you can make a strong case against the beard, but we imagine we can make one equally strong in its favor. Allof your progenitors had them, including Adam—if we are to believe the ancient monuments, all of which show those gentlemen with a bushy beard of no mean dimensions. You say the ancient Egyptians wore no beards? Yes, but please observe that on occasions of high festivity, they wore false beards as assertions of their dignity and virility, and always represented their male deities with splendid hirsute adornments tip-tilted at the ends. It is true that they called the Greeks and Romans "barbarians" (bearded, unshaven, savages), and that about 300 B. C., the latter began to shave and in turn to call other peoples "barbarians"; but these incidents were only passing fancies, freaks and fashions soon to make way for the approaching, persistent reign of the beard. You say that Julian argued arduously against the beard? Yes, but would you take for a model a man whose whole body was bearded, and who prided himself on his long finger-nails and on the inky blackness of his hands? And don't forget that the reason Alexander abolished beards in his army was one that hardly fits your case, for was it not because the enemy had a habit of using the beard as a handle, much to the inconvenience—to say nothing of the discomfort—of the victim?
The beard has had an eventful career, and hasalways been the bone of contention between nations, churches, politicians, kings, gods, and barbers. As to the last, suffice it to say that beards existed before barbers, and that barbers are now as favorable to beards as they are unfavorable to safety razors. As for the churches, they have been alternately pro and con: Israel brought the beard safely out of Egyptian bondage; the Orientals cherished it as a sacred thing; the Scriptures abound with examples of how it was used to interpret pride, joy, sorrow, despondency, etc., the Greek church was for beards, and the Roman church against; the Popes of Naples wore beards at various periods; and now, most of our popes, priests and preachers keep their "chins new reaped." In Asia, wars have been declared on alleged grievances concerning shaving, and Nero offered some of the hairs of his beard to Jupiter Capitolinus who could well have bearded a dozen emperors from his own. Herodotus has more to say of beards than of belles, bibles and Belzebub, and the other poets and historians have found inspiration in like theme. In some times, beards denoted noble birth and in others they were tokens of depravity or of ostracism. The Roskolniki, a sect of schismatics, maintained that the divine image resided in the beard, and for ages the beard was theoutward sign of a true man. In brief, the beard has had a Titanic struggle for existence, first up, then down, first on and then off. Just as it would attain the zenith of its glory, some beardless king would come along and dethrone it, as was the case in Spain, for example, when Philip V's tender chin refused to bear fruit, which calamity soon changed the fashion among the Spanish nobility. And, no sooner would the bald chin be established in favor, than some ugly-faced prince would come forward with an edict that the elect must again display the manly beard, as in France, when the young king's face was so disfigured with scars that he found a beard necessary to give him an appearance of respectability, whereupon all his faithful subjects found that they also had scars to conceal, much to the dismay of the barbers.
Then, again, the beard was often attacked by the assessors, as well as by the churches and fashions; for did not Peter the Great levy a heavy tax on all Russian beards, and did not Queen Elizabeth, in spite of bearded Raleigh, impose a tax of 3s. 4d. on all beards above a fortnight's growth? These were unfair handicaps to the beard, and greatly hampered its progress, but, beards, like truth, crushed to earth will rise again, and so always did the beard. For, observethat in the reign of Henry VIII the lawyers wore imposing beards, which became so fashionable that the authorities at Lincoln's Inn made them pay double common to sit at the great table; but mark that this was before 1535 when Henry raised his own crisp beard which afterwards became so celebrated. Beginning with the 13th century, when beards first came in fashion in England, up to the present, the poor beard has had a checkered career, but of late it has held its own with commendable persistency, and now all Europe is bearded, as it was in the beginning.
If the beard was sometimes held in respect, as in the Bastile, where an official was kept busy shaving the captives, and as in our own prisons, where the guests of the state are kept beardless, do you say that occasionally it was held in contempt and betokens laziness and rudeness? Yes, but, when your entire list of digressions is exposed, and your whole catalog of objections exhausted, you will find that His Majesty the Beard still waves triumphantly. It may be trod under foot for a time, but, just as the shaven beard will soon grow again, so will the beard that has been legislated against by court, church or fashion. In days of old, to touch the beard rudely was to assail the dignity of its owner; andwhen a man placed his hand upon his beard and swore by it, he felt bounden by the most sacred of oaths. We all have a certain reverence for traditions, and those of the beard are still respected, among the uncivilized as well as among the civilized. Was it not Juan de Castro, the Portuguese admiral, who borrowed a thousand pistoles and pledged one of his whiskers, saying, "All the gold in the world cannot equal this natural ornament of my valor?" Persius associated wisdom with the beard, and called Socrates "Magister Barbatus" in commendation of that gentleman's populous beard. And do not the sculptors and painters usually represent Jupiter, Hercules and Plato with the same tokens of strength, fortitude, sturdiness and virility? Who would favor a "beardless youth" to Numa Pimpolius—he of the magnificent flowing beard? Who would prefer a Shakespeare, a Longfellow, a Whitman, a Ruskin, a Charlemagne, shorn of their hirsute adornments? Or a Lincoln, Grant or Lee? But, of course, there are beards and beards; we are not lost in admiration at sight of such anomalies as those of John Mayo ("John the Bearded"), or of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, nor even with that majestic forest of hair which was attached to Queen Mary's agent to Moscow, George Killingworth,whose beard measured five feet two inches, and which so pleased the grim Ivan the Terrible that he actually laughed and played with it. Coming down to the present, some of us will prefer the silky, golden beard, such as adorns the handsome countenance of Judge Wilkin, of the Children's Court; some the splendid snow-white beard of Hudson Maxim, or the shorter and less white beard of our able and amiable Edwin Markham; or the mixed, philosophic beard of General Vanderbilt; or, perchance, we prefer the sandy, semi-gray beard of that profound jurist, statesman, philosopher,—Judge Gaynor. And then there is the erudite Bernard Shaw, and our virtuous statesman Judge Hughes, and then there was the sage and honorable keeper of the public baths, Dr. Wm. H. Hale, and Oscar Hammerstein, the impressario. Yes, the beard is coming, so away with your safety razors, and supply your barber with shears. Away with your alum, salves and powders, and look up the old recipes for hair-restoring. The Roman youths used household oils to coax the hairs to grow, but the apothecaries of those days were not so cunning as ours, and soon we may expect to see the bill-boards and advertising pages filled with notices of new preparations guaranteed to grow a beard in a night, and directions how to care for,dress, comb, clip and preserve it. No doubt we shall soon become as careful of those sacred emblems of maturity and manhood, our whiskers, as Sir Thomas Moore was of his, who, as he put his head upon the block, carefully laid his beard out of the way, and then cracked a joke. What kind of a beard shall we wear? Consult the artists and barbers, and trim it as you do your hair—as best suits and becomes you. Charles the First adopted the Vandyke beard, after the artist of that name. Ruskin, and other philosophers, wore their beards as nature intended, trimming them about once every decade. Actors, waiters, and doctors will probably wear no beards, for obvious reasons, but they will all wish they could, if they read James Ward's "Defense of the Beard," in which eighteen excellent reasons are given, among which might be mentioned, protection to throat and chest, and Nature. And yet, on the other hand, there are serious objections to the beard, among which is the one made immortal by those classic lines of Homer—or was it Lewis Carroll?—which runneth thus: