The Pattern of the Gentleman

The aspirations of the English people are social and ethnical rather than intellectual and aesthetic. They are best expressed in the type of the gentleman, an ideal aimed at by all classes of society, - with widely different results.

Pretenders to gentility “imagine the standards of the gentleman to be entirely ‘social’ – a matter of mannerism rather than manners. “They acquire the mannerism and leave out the moral qualities, unaware, in their mistaken zeal, that they merely cultivate snobbery at its worst: foolish reverence for upper class conventions. Fortunately all British snobs are not as bad as that. Most of them reconcile the cult of good form, futile as it may be, with a clear notion of what is “done” and “not done” in matters of greater moment. They help in their own way to improve the social ethics of the masses.

The complete gentleman stands higher in English esteem than any other human being. He is a model of courtesy, fairness, courage and self-control. He always behaves as he ought to do. It is only an ideal. But this ideal has worked unbrokenly since Elizabethan times as an inspiration to the fines men of England. Character, not success, is their test. Why among great explorers does the name of Captain R.F.Scott live in English memories? Not because he reached the Pole, not even because he died a heroic death, but because he was a noble soul, sensitive and shy, considerate and gentle, an unselfish leader devoted to duty, in short, all that an English gentleman should be.

QUESTIONS:

1. What are the various influences which have built up the English character?

2. What does ‘English humour” mean to you? Give an example of English humour.

3. What do most Englishmen prefer to theory and intellectual constructions?

4. Give an example of a typical English lack of logic in their attitude towards animals.

5. What is the difference between a gentleman and a snob?

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British Humour	\|	THE MODERN BRITISH ECONOMY AND INDUSTRY

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