ABSTRACT
In the narrow sense, and so long as they publicly tread the boards of their profession, it would be difficult to find more finished gentlemen; and it would often be a matter of grave thought with the author. There could be no question which were the better gentlemen. The trial of gentility lies in some such problem as that of waiter's, in foreign travel, or in some sudden and sharp change of class. The life of fathers was highly ceremonial; a man's steps were counted; his acts, his gestures were prescribed; marriage, sale, adoption, and not only legal contracts, but the simplest necessary movements, must be all conventionally ordered and performed to rule. Lastly, the club footman, so long as he is in his livery jacket, appears the perfect gentleman and visibly outshines the members; and the same man, in the public house, among his equals, becomes perhaps plain and dull, perhaps even brutal.
