ter Pater
has given, as I think, a true picture of one who in the Roman era
aspired to be a man. He is cold, and in consequence barren; but such
is an accurate reading of Roman attempts at manhood; for ordinary
Epicureanism was fervid to sensuality, and the Stoic was frigid. To
heathen conception there was no middle ground. The warm color on
cheek, the morning in the eyes, the geniality in the hand, the fervor
at the heart, the alert thought, the winged imagination, the sturdy
will, the virile moral sense, the responsive conscience, the courage
which laughed to die for duty,--these could not be amalgamated. Heroic
qualities have always been native to the soul as warmth to the south
wind. All history is rich with tapestries of tragic and colossal
heroisms, so as to make us proud that we are men. Heroisms are harsh,
but manliness is tender. And in this seeming irreconcilability lies
the difficulty of constructing a gentleman.

But attempts thicken. In our century they group together like violets
on a stream's bank fronting the sun in spring. Literary artists,
knowing how difficulties hedge this attempt, hesitate. There are many
hints of the gentleman. Let us be glad for that, seeing we are
enriched thereby. "Rab and His Friends" gives so strong a picture of
stolid strength in love's fidelity, which knows to serve and suffer and
die without a moan or being well aware of aught save love. And Dr.
MacLure is a dear addition to our company of manhood, shouldering his
way through Scotland's winter's storm and cold because need calls him;
serving as his Master had taught him so long ago; forgetting himself in
absorbing thought for others; lonely as a fireless hearth; longing for
friendship which would not fail; reaching for Drumsheugh's hand, and
holding it when death was claiming the good physician's hand. We could
easily conceive we had been seated at the deathbed of a gentleman.
Deacon Phoebe stands as a character in Annie Trumbull Slosson's "Seven
Dreamers," a book which, outside Cable's "Old Creole Days," is to me
the most perfect series of brief character-sketches drawn by an
American author, and entirely worthy to stand by "A Window in Thrums,"
and "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," and "In Ole Virginia." Deacon
Phoebe has forgotten himself. Unselfishness does not often rise to
such heights. This "dreamer" of "Francony Way" is full brother to
Sidney Carton, born across the seas. Self-forgetfulness, so beaut