ABSTRACT
A literary example from the end of the era The canon of the English gentleman is taken from warrior traditions of earlier times, as passed through the sieve of Christian and patriarchal influences. In 1915 Ford Madox Ford characterized the English gentleman in a complex novel of love, jealousy, deception and even ‘“the black merciless things” which lie behind that façade’ (Graham Greene), as follows:
The gentleman in question is a good soldier from an old family; about him is that indefinable something, a quasi-mystical aura. Courage, trustworthiness, honour and steadfastness are as much a part of him as perfect control of his facial features – that vaunted English ‘reserve’; in addition, he has a flair for living well – hunting, adventure, thoroughbred horses, good boots, the best soap, excellent cognac and so on. He is beloved of women, is in every way one of the good people. Moreover, to his poor tenants he is a benevolent and paternal landlord (or at least he seems to be, for later the narrator chips away at the impression initially conveyed: in reality Ashburnham is a romantic bankrupt, the true state of his affairs having been kept from him by his wife).
