It ought to lie with a man’s self that he is a gentleman.
 George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872). copy citation

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Author George Eliot
Source Middlemarch
Topic gentleman lie
Date 1872
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm

Context

“You shall keep your ill-gotten money. If I had any fortune of my own, I would willingly pay it to any one who could disprove what you have told me. What I have to thank you for is that you kept the money till now, when I can refuse it. It ought to lie with a man’s self that he is a gentleman. Good-night, sir.” Bulstrode was going to speak, but Will, with determined quickness, was out of the room in an instant, and in another the hall-door had closed behind him. He was too strongly possessed with passionate rebellion against this inherited blot which had been thrust on his knowledge to reflect at present whether he had not been too hard on Bulstrode—too arrogantly merciless towards a man of sixty, who was making efforts at retrieval when time had rendered them vain.” source