ecorded in the _Dictionary of American Authors_ as one who 'published a
great number of volumes of verse that was never mistaken for poetry by
any reader') wrote a small book about gentlemen, fortunately in prose
and not meant for beginners, in which he cited Bayard, Sir Philip
Sidney, Charles Lamb, Brutus, St. Paul, and Socrates as notable
examples. Perfect Gentlemen all, as Emerson would agree, I question if
any of them ever gave a moment's thought to his manner of sitting; yet
any two, sitting together, would have recognized each other as Perfect
Gentlemen at once and thought no more about it.

These are the standard, true to Emerson's definition; and yet such
shining examples need not discourage the rest of us. The qualities that
made them gentlemen are not necessarily the qualities that made them
famous. One need not be as polished as Sidney, but one must not scratch.
One need not have a mind like Socrates: a gentleman may be reasonably
perfect,--and surely this is not asking too much,--with mind enough to
follow this essay. Brutus gained nothing as a gentleman by assisting at
the assassination of Caesar (who was no more a gentleman, by the way, in
Mr. Calvert's opinion, than was Mr. Calvert a poet in that of the
_Dictionary of Authors_).

As for Fame, it is quite sufficient--and this only out of gentlemanly
consideration for the convenience of others--for a Perfect Gentleman to
have his name printed in the Telephone Directory. And in this higher
definition I go so far as to think that the man is rare who is not
sometimes a Perfect Gentleman, and equally uncommon who never is
anything else. Adam I hail a Perfect Gentleman when, seeing what his
wife had done, he bit back the bitter words he might have said, and
then--he too--took a bite of the apple: but oh! how far he fell
immediately afterward, when he stammered his pitiable explanation that
the woman tempted him and he did eat! Bayard, Sir Philip Sidney, Charles
Lamb, St. Paul, or Socrates would have insisted, and stuck to it, that
_he bit it first_.

I have so far left out of consideration--as for that matter did the
author and editor of the _Pocket Library_ (not wishing to discourage
students)--a qualification essential to the Perfect Gentleman in the
eighteenth century. He must have had--what no book could give him--an
ancestor who knew how to sit. Men there were whose social status was
visibly signified by the abbreviation 'Gent.' appended to their
surname