Not  that  every  European  country  does  not  possess  men  of
truth,  courage,  honour,  generosity,  refinement  and  elegance
of  conventional  manners — The  Castilian  felt  that  the  Arab
had  all  this,  when  he  said  that  his  Moslem  enemy  was  an
hidalgo,  a  gentleman,  though  a  Moor ;  .  .  .  but  it_wa^_in
'  England  that  the  ideal  of  social  grace  and  moral  excellence
Jin  man,  as  attributes  of  hunaanity  superior  in  worth  to  the
/artificial  claims  of  rank  and  conventional  manner,  was  first
conceived,  named,  and  realized.  ...  Its  claims  have  been  so
generally   recognized   as   to   secure   its   adoption,   as   a  word


Definition  ol  a  Gentleman  47

essentially  untranslatable,  into  almost  every  European  tongue.
1862,  G.  P.  Marsh,  Lectures  on  the  English  Language,  p.  437.
I  endeavour  rightly  to  comprehend  the  epithet  so  essential
'  a  gentleman  '  ;  it  constantly  recurs,  and  comprises  a  mass  of
ideas  wholly  English.  The  vital  question  in  the  case  of  a
man  is  always  put  thus :  '  Is  he  a  gentleman  ?  '  Similarly  in
the  case  of  a  woman  :  '  Is  she  a  lady  ?  '  In  these  two  cases,  one
means  to  say  that  the  person  in  question  is  of  the  superior
class  ;  this  class  is  recognised  in  fact  ;  a  workman,  a  peasant,
a  shopkeeper  does  not  try  to  step  over  the  line  of  demarcation.
