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Show JUST WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN? Many Definitions Glyen, But None That Can Be Said to Be Satisfactory. From more or less successful offorts to doflno the snob and tho boro there, Is only a step to tho moro or less unsuccessful un-successful efforts to deflno tho gentleman, gentle-man, says a writer In Scrlbner's. Tho bore and tho snob aro accusablo crea-' tures, plain to tho vlow of all men and! roduclblo to formula. But tho gentle-! man Is Intangible and ultimately lnde-j 11 n ablo. Tho boro and tho snob aro re-; vealed by their words and their deeds, whereas tho gentleman can provo himself him-self only by his spirit. It Is no wonder won-der that the multitudinous definitions shot at this shining mark have failed to pierce tho center, even If one or another an-other may now and again havo hit the margin of tho target. Ono of tho more obvious reasons for this diversity of doflnltlon Is that the word has changed Its meaning and Is likely to keep.on changing it as wo advance ad-vance In civilization. Once upon a, time it had a clear and sharply limited ' logal content recorded by Blackstono in his commentaries; the great lawyer defined a gentleman as one "who bears coat armor, tho grant of which adds gentility to one's family." This Is still a fit doflnltlon of tho gentllhomme In Franco; it Is probably not now a fully satisfactory definition of tho gentle man In Great Britain, and It never has been an accoptablo definition of the gentleman In tho United States. To an American there Is a pitiful snobbishness snobbish-ness in Ruskln's remark that the principles prin-ciples of education propounded by Plato apply only to "the persons wo call gentlemen that Is to say, landholders land-holders living on slave labor.' Yet Iluskln Is only putting forth a little moro offensively than others an opinion opin-ion often held in England. This opinion opin-ion Is most concretely expressed In the fabled dlaloguo between tho English Eng-lish lord and tho American girl, which begins with his tactful assertion that there aro so few gentlemen In Amor-, lea, to which sho responded with tho question: "But who do you call gentlemen?" gentle-men?" And when ho explains that gentlemen aro "men who do not work," she retorts swiftly: "But wo hare lots of those In America only wo call them tramps!" , . |