ica rude enough
to make such a speech to a gentleman."

After Stephen A. Douglas had been abused in the Senate he rose and
said: "What no gentleman should say no gentleman need answer."

Aristotle thus described a real gentleman more than two thousand years
ago: "The magnanimous man will behave with moderation under both good
fortune and bad. He will not allow himself to be exalted; he will not
allow himself to be abased. He will neither be delighted with success,
nor grieved with failure. He will never choose danger, nor seek it.
He is not given to talk about himself or others. He does not care that
he himself should be praised, nor that other people should be blamed."

A gentleman is just a gentle man: no more, no less; a diamond polished
that was first a diamond in the rough. A gentleman is gentle, modest,
courteous, slow to take offense, and never giving it. He is slow to
surmise evil, as he never thinks it. He subjects his appetites,
refines his tastes, subdues his feelings, controls his speech, and
deems every other person as good as himself. A gentleman, like
porcelain-ware, must be painted before he is glazed. There can be no
change after it is burned in, and all that is put on afterwards will
wash off. He who has lost all but retains his courage, cheerfulness,
hope, virtue, and self-respect, is a true gentleman, and is rich still.

"You replace Dr. Franklin, I hear," said the French Minister, Count de
Vergennes, to Mr. Jefferson, who had been sent to Paris to relieve our
most popular representative. "I succeed him; no man can replace him,"
was the felicitous reply of the man who became highly esteemed by the
most polite court in Europe.

"You should not have returned their salute," said the master of
ceremonies, when Clement XIV bowed to the ambassadors who had bowed in
congratulating him upon his election. "Oh, I beg your pardon," replied
Clement. "I have not been pope long enough to forget good manners."

Cowper says:--

A modest, sensible, and well-bred man
Would not insult me, and no other can.

"I never listen to calumnies," said Montesquieu, "because if they are
untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they are true, of
hating people not worth thinking about."

"I think," says Emerson, "Hans Andersen's story of the cobweb cloth
woven so fine that it was invisible--woven for the king's garment--must
mean manners, which do really clothe a princely nature."

No one can f