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June 23, I860.] The Leader and Saturday ...
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THE AVENGER NEWSPAPER. T>R0BABLY there i...
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* Under certain circumstances the Times ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Gentism. , - ::-In These Days Of Appeara...
of them in supreme honour . But wealth , as we have hmted is almost a sine < m & non with our devotees of the genteel . That eminent professor of propriety , my Lord Chesterfiexd , who condemned a proverb , and who sneered at any tlun ^ like Christian virtue as something not appertaining : to high . life , equally condemned anything like poverty , which , indeed , as ve . have said , is certainly ungenteel , and found accompanying all sorts ^ of common and vulgar people . Passion or emotion of any kind , crying or lauehter pity or extreme kindliness , do not come within the level plane of this quality : and bravery or force , or terror—yes , even the terrors of deatli itself ruffle the feelings of those who have lived in its fashionable precincts . " One would not , sure , look frightful when one ' s dead ; So , Betty , give this cheek a little red , "
lisps the dying coquette ; and the genteel French marshal , as we all know , who was surprised by the enemy in his tent , thought it a disgrace to fly without his full-bottomed wig , and so was killed in his attempt to rescue it . To the excessive attachment to this quality we owe a thousand anomalies . For its sake fathers and mothers are content to toil on and pinch themselves , so that their children achieve a position . For this sake a man will rather pay a large rent for an uncomfortable house in a fashionable neighbourhood , than a small one for a ffood house in a second-rate _ quarter of the
town for this we call our Britannia metal " plate , ' our gigs carriages , our boy in buttons a footman , and our unpretending cottage a hall , a lodge , or a villa . For it , too , onr suburbs break out in curious h ighly-sounding names ; our schools are called colleges , and pur teachers' houses academies . Occasionally it apes humility , wears hodden grey instead of broad cloth , and eats and digests dishes which nobody likes , because they are eminently" genteel . Through it also , the painter who has perpetrated the portrait ot a duchess , can , although a mere dauber , reckon upon-any number ot the wives of rich citizens as his sitters ; the author , who may be a mere dunce , will be the vogue- in the libraries , and the preacher whose sermons are an injudicious mixture of nonsense andiustian ot
bathos and livperbole , will find himself surrounded by ^ fash ionable congregation ' A reputation for fashion and gentility has , indeed , made the fortune of more than one tailor , and the want ot it has broken many a good manjs heart with that sickness winch is born of hope deferred . So that , if we _ taka these things into consideration , we shall fiaid that g £ ntility , although , inculcated aS i the first ot all virtues in some quarters ; is not without its evil : the miseries , too , of the would-be genteel > which are fair marks . for all the satirists ofHhe Thackerayian : school , are not to- be despised because of their sniallness : a mosquito" is a much less formidable animal amount of
than a boa constrictor , yetwe doubt if the gross misery occasioned bv the one does not far exceed that by the other . -. But the misery of those parvenu people , of those who when merely m town society aspire to that of the county families ; or who , when knowing respectable tradespeople will determine to visit the dwellers in the squares , has never been written , and assiiredly , if written , would never be pitied . When the stupid old frog in the fable burst himself , endeavouring to be as large as an ox . no one pitied him as he lay gasping his life away ; and when , as is often the case , an attempt to be highly genteel ends in the bankruptcy court , the commissioner , instead of sympathy , merely expresses the
strongest indignation . .. ,.., j T We have got thus flu- without any definition of the word . In fact , the quality is quintessential , and evaporates when you try to define it , There are those who utterly deny it . When the Dutchesse , in Websteb's play , asks Antonio his opinion of marriage , he says , — * " I take it , as those that deny purgatory ; i . 'Tis either heaven or hell , there ' s no third place in it . So we may define gentility by utterly ignoring it . There is vulgarity and nobility , or the spirit of the gentleman ; but gentility is an assumption after all which entirely declares the spirit of the snob and nothing less . We can have no half-nnd-hult schemes here . It does not follow , let Sir Bebnabd Burke say what he may , that the spirit of a gentleman is lost because . engages m trade . He may not be able , heraldically speaking , to bear arms;—out isiu j ¦
they may be Jost to him ; neramry , ms * «« , w ««« . » » » j invention , —one of the dark ages , when men were unenlightened and untaught . The ideal gentleman we shall never meet again , if indeed ho over existed ; he does , not exist now ; ho was to be the prevx chevalier of the time , the Admirable Cbiciiton ; but the time has long since past when we believed in Admirable Cbiciitons . The mnn who can do everything may do for romance , but we are content to do one thing , and do it well . Let us see what the ideal gentleman was and must be . He must be of gentle blocd , that is , gentleman on father ' s and mother ' s side for seven generations . His ancestors must be sans tac / to . He himself , well grown , bravo , skilled in arms . He muBt run , tilt , fence , be terms and of the
a perfect horseman , know well the practices gentle craft ; be a huntsman , a falconer , a perfect woods man , a cbuftiiivarid n ; veryEupHues in the choice of his phrnscsrHia clothes must be of the latest fashion , his horse and hound the best of their kind , his armour point device . His heart must bo ever open , his purso at the cpmmand of all who ask . Ho must succour the unfortunate , engage in battle for those who are wronged , and be a devoted slave to every fair ladyo . Learned he must be , or ho would be a clown : he must / danco well , and benr himself gracefully in ' all things , bo able to " break" a deer , and to curve a kid , to arrange the minstrels in the hall , to act as an ambasBndor , and to lead an army , and , should occasion require it , to speak in many
tongues ; to affix his theses to the gates of the town , and to dispute with the learned ; nor . must he be ignorant of art . If he possesses all these , he may then say with Heywood , — " I am a gentleman : and / by my birth , Companion with a king : a king's no more . I am possessed of many fair revenues , Sufficient to maintain a gentleman . Touching my mind , I'm studied in all arts ; The riches of my thoughts , and of my time Have been a good proficient . "
Add to this what Shaftesbuey says , that " reading , good company , and reflection , the taste of beauty , and the relish of what is decent , just , and amiable , perfects the character of a gentleman , " and we shall find that now-a-days we do not meet with many such . We cannot all be so . We must be content to be what we can bebrave , gentle , generous , and wise . We must not stand too much upon our gentility . We must honour all men . There cannot be a surer proof of low origin , or of an innate meanness of disposition , than to be always talking and thinking of being genteel . And herein lies the true secret of that repose and finish in the manners of a man truly great either by birth or by mental acquirements . A great man never strains and endeavours to make himself greater than he is , any more than a giant tries to stand upon tiptoe ; both
are conscious of their own true height ; and this consciousness is so true , that it is found and recognised , not only in the leaders of ton in Paris or London , but in the Hindu and Chinese gentleman , and in the Red Indian of the far west . But , after all , the true secret of all gentlemanhood is a quiet and humble bearing , and a disposition to look upon others to be as good as oneself . A course of reading in the Epistles of St . John or St . Paul will do more to form a gentleman than the quintessence of St . Eveemond and Chestebfiexd , with all the books of etiquette that were ever published to boot . Let us then cry with the author of " Vanity Fair , "
" Away , then , with this diabolical invention , of gentility , which kills natural kindliness and honest friendship . Proper pride , indeed Rank and precedence ,, forsooth ! The table of -ranks and degrees is a lie , and should be flung into the fire , Organise rank and pre- ? cedeiice ! That was welt for the masters of ceremonies of the former ages . Come forward , some great marshal I and organise equality in society , and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold sticks . If this is not gospel truth—if the world does not tend to this--if hereditary great-man worship is not a humbug and ^ an idolatry ^—let us have the Stuabts back again * and crop the Free Press ' s ears in the pillory ! " -
June 23, I860.] The Leader And Saturday ...
June 23 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . ¦ . . „ 591
The Avenger Newspaper. T>R0bably There I...
THE AVENGER NEWSPAPER . T > R 0 BABLY there is scarcely an editor who has not at sometime J- or other been plagued to make his journal the vehicle of some private controversy , to spread a scandal or to smother one . He is forced to be very obstinate in his refusals , or very arbitrary in his selections . It ' is only to the private controversies of any public men that the columns of the Times * or any of our more important newspapers , are thrown open ; the magnitude of the personage carries it , not the enormity of the wrong . The circle may be a very wide one , indeed , through which a most damaging slander is h 7
spreading ; EuFiTit is not quite wiaeT ^ oT- ^ ait 0- * foftj' - ( nToug-apublie vindication is sought in vain , unless the 'matter is carried into the law courts . There are three reasons for the chariness of editors on such points , all of them ample : first , that such controversies are generally interminable ; second , that they are generally uninteresting ; third , that they are generally unpaid for . Only one paper , and that recently established , has had the generosity to offer a portion of its space to those who have , or fancy they have , wrongs to vindicate . It is called The Dial—notabcne , not the Seven Dials ; but the space allowed for combat is . limited , and an affair " must be settled in a few shots . " It would require seven to get through tho work thoroughly . Wo applaud the motive , but commiserate the editor , if he is compelled to do justice to hn » idea , and to his unpaying clients . No conceivable bribe could induce the Times to print a controversy , even as an advertisement , unless the subject were one that tickled its own , or would be likely to
tickle its readers'fancy . . , i It is a strange thing in England when there is a great general public demand , if no one is ready to supply his private wants by catering to public ones ; yet here we have one , quite enough to encourage our spirits of adventure , and to confer a public benefit in more than one particular . There are two sine quibus nans tor our future Dijudicator , Moderator , Vindicator , Astbjea , Avenger , or whatever its proprietors may please to denominate it : that it should stick- faithfully to private controversy , and that the controversialists should pay handsomely . We would have no bitter iambics from disappointed poets , and unsaleable essay lstn ; to them , the public is deaf , or by them sufficiently afflicted already ; no laments from uny suffering members of tho Gbey family , com-
* Under Certain Circumstances The Times ...
* Under certain circumstances the Times will enter not only a controversy , hut into the details of the life of an . individual not of Buffldent public Importance to justify any such dissection . Many o ^™ 0 ° ™ may remember a gratuitous sketch , of the private history of or , of our popular preacher *; following him through h . s emburraB me i , t a , and eearchinginto his whereabouts at different periods , with a the gu JoMjf a police detective . 'We knw ' littjo and care less about the f "'/; ™ £ question , but the paragraph was a disgraceful one , worthy of " PjgfJ of the old tint Mat , and could only Imvo been intruded upon tno puouc from some motive of private malignity .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 23, 1860, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23061860/page/11/
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