Χ.

VARIOUS KINDS OF GENTLEMEN - FRAGMENTS LADYHOOD - CONCLUSION.

W

THAT is

so deep and so alive with principle and power as gentlemanhood will, in the multiplicity of its combinations with action, exhibit itself in a vast variety of personal and social phenomena, modified endlessly by individualities. A brief characterization of some of the embodiments thus thrown up on the social surface will help to illustrate the principle - illustrations which are partial and limited, and must by no means be taken for an attempt at a full classification of gentlemen, an attempt, the success whereof were very problematical, and which is altogether too ambitious for our present purpose.

First then we will name the conservative gentleman, but the crowd of gentlemen "who" dress "with ease" are conservative, jealous of encroachment, suspicious of change. The gentleman has not necessarily a big brain, and we once read an apt description of an individual, as having a smallish, well-shaped, gentlemanly head. Were there not now and then a big brain amongst them, the whole company would shrivel; while, on the other hand, some who are not of the largest intellectual calibre are lifted into the advocacy of great causes and great changes by generosity and courage of nature, like Mathieu de Montmorenci and Lafayette, two shining examples of gentlemanhood, - select compatriots of Coligny and Bayard.

The conventional gentleman, a stickler for forms and conformity, somewhat stiff and set, is apt to be timorous, and thence overrates the past and distrusts the future. He magnifies the quiet deeds of the drawing-room, together with the whole social apparatus of visiting, small talk and various dressing; thinks punctilios terrestrial pivots; prefers the superficial to the profound, not being adventurous enough to learn, that it is as easy to swim in deep water as shallow, - nay, easier. The excitable gentleman is a variety uncomfortable at times to himself and to others, his irrepressible, nervous vivacity running over, like the steam that noisily escapes from the lid of a teapot. An essential, almost a condition, of gentlemanliness being self-possession, he finds himself frequently on the edge of a momentary forfeiture of his rank.

A variety more to be pitied is the dyspeptic gentleman, he being subject to constant selfreproaches and contritions from minor breaches of the convenances, through petulance and crossness caused by bodily malaise.

The idle gentleman, not having within himself wherewith to feed his mind, comes upon the town (your gentleman about town) and has to be mentally supported by the community.

The retrospective gentleman is a subvariety of the conservative; or, we might say, a supervariety, seeing that, in the tenacity of his conservatism, he becomes a scoffer and denier of the present. Each new day steals upon him like a thief, who comes to purloin something of the precious past. As the waves of time roll in from the menacing future, he ever dreads an inundation; and standing with his back scornfully turned towards the encroachment, and his eyes half-closed, the better to hold the mental images of the irrecoverable past, and his ears untuned, except to the songs of bygone joys, he is liable to get individually swamped by the surges that bring refreshment and vigor to all around him. Striving to draw fragrance and nourishment out of memories and preterperfect imaginations, he walks through the present as a fine lady through a malodorous alley.

The eccentric gentleman, when not a man of wit or genius, must at least be of more than common cleverness. An eccentric fool or mediocrity will not be tolerated. The eccentricity of a gentleman is the humorous enjoyment of the freedom which is the privilege of spiritual superiority. Were all men as free as he, there would be no eccentricity, each pursuing his individual path without disturbance of other orbits, all being concentric about a remote predominant power.

The courteous gentleman sounds like a pleo

nasm.

But all gentlemen are not courteous, nor is courtesy a profound quality of gentlemanhood. Courtesy, originating at courts, implies a dignified, respectful, high-bred manner, acquired in an atmosphere of ceremony; and is thus rather self-regardful and self-protective than kindly, - stately and proud, rather than gentle and winning. The high-bred man is not necessarily the best-bred man, and a genial gentleman is a finer type than a courteous. Indeed courtesy is comparatively conventional and superficial.

The type of the superfine gentleman is given by Hotspur in his description of "a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed, fresh as a bridegroom," who questioned him, smarting from wounds, with "holiday and lady terms." He looks as though he had just been rubbed all over with pumice. You would say that for his toilet the milliner had been called in to help the tailor. His laugh is only an audible smile; his breath is too precious for speech much louder than a whisper; and a strong