dern English-speaking society the "gentleman"
is the name for the man-as-he-should-be. The type is not fixed and the
definition is not established. It is a collective and social ideal.
Gentlemen are a group in society who have selected a code and standard
of conduct as most conducive to prosperous and pleasant social
relations. Therefore manners are an essential element in the type. A
gentleman is one who has been educated to conform to the type, and that
he has the _cachet_ is indicated by his admission to the group. Novels
develop and transmit the ideal; clubs are the tribunal of it. It is a
floating notion which varies with the mores. The modern reader finds
very few cases in Greek literature of what he can recognize as
gentlemen. Orestes in the _Electra_ of Euripides opens the discussion of
what makes the worth of a man, but after saying that it is not wealth or
poverty, and not valor in war, he flinches the question and says that it
is better to leave it untouched. The peasant, married to Electra,
certainly acts the gentleman. He also says of Orestes and Pylades, that
if they really are as noble as they seem, they will be as well satisfied
with humble fare as with grand fare. A gentleman of a century ago would
not be approved now. A gentleman of to-day in the society of a century
ago would be thought to have rowdy manners. Artificial manners are not
in the taste of our time; athletics are. The "gentleman" always tends to
an arbitrary definition. It appears now that he must have some skill at
sports and games. The selective force of the social type of the
gentleman is obvious in our own society. The sentiment _noblesse oblige_
was once the name for the coercive force exerted on a noble by the code
of his class. Now that fixed classes are gone and the gentleman is only
defined by the usage and taste of an informal class, it is a term for
the duties which go with social superiority of any kind, so far as those
duties are prescribed and sanctioned by public opinion.

+210. Social standard set by taboos.+ It may be still more important to
notice that the standard social type is defined by taboos with only
social sanctions. The negative side of _noblesse oblige_ is more
important than the positive. A gentleman is under more restraints than a
non-gentleman. In the eighteenth century he patronized cockfights and
prize fights, and he could get drunk, gamble, tell falsehoods, and
deceive women without losing caste. He now fin