Dud

“ We must have lost a lot of men, since the whole place was clotted up with casualties that kept coming in quicker than the stretcher-bearers could move them. The rifle-fire was hot, the bombing was still hotter, and the shelling was perhaps the hottest and most horrible of all. Of the last the signaler hardly required an account; the growling thumps of heavy shells exploding, kept sending little shivers down the cellar walls, the shiver being, oddly enough, more emphatic when the wail of the falling shell ended in a muffled thump that proclaimed the missile "blind" or "a dud." ”

“ My God, sir, can you be a gentleman, and subject a half dying woman to more of that fatigue which hath brought her to this pass—and on a night of such weather? If my voice has strength, 'tis the strength of desperation, which impels me to beg pity at your hands in mine hour of bitter illness! ”

“ Why should he have all the graces and ear-marks of breeding? Why should he have all the appearances of a gentleman? It seemed a needlessly cruel and additional blow that fate had dealt her, when already she was living through days and nights of fear, of horror, of trepidation, so great that at times it seemed she would literally lose her reason. ”

“ I had only to pick up an old woman, and face a bully, when, as if in utter surprise that one of my ilk should be so grandly heroic, I heard the words, 'You are a gentleman.' You see it was my wretched egotism that got me into the scrape. ”

“ Here was a discredited, dissolute fellow whose life was worth a pin to nobody. Tired of the husks and the swine, and all his follies grown stale by over-use, he takes the advice of a good gentleman, and joins the standard of work and sacrifice. ”

“ A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, high-nosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about the mouth, and with the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed. ”

“ The single thing that was clear in complications was that, whatever happened, one was to behave as a gentleman—to which was added indeed the perhaps slightly less shining truth that complications might sometimes have their tedium beguiled by a study of the question of how a gentleman would behave. ”

“ He holds you by the glittering eye. You listen, you make jocular observations in reply; the cards and the insolvency vanish from your thoughts; you at length shake hands, and part in a transport of good-humoured old acquaintanceship, and not till you have got a hundred yards away, do you cool down sufficiently to remember that you have made a fool of yourself by patronising an imperfect respectability. ”

“ For a person who passes his evenings in the society of books and friends, or in the country, the stage-struck gentleman has the most profound contempt. How one can live without nightly inhaling the odor of gas and orange peel, is to him a mystery inexplicable. ”

“ You will learn for yourself the lessons which no one else can teach you; but I think your attitude will always be that of a gentleman. There are ways and ways of doing things — even of sowing wild oats — and among these are the way of the gentleman and the way of the fool. ”

“ A certain reckless dash about him, not common to a refined gentleman, forces us to set him down as one of those individuals who hold an uncertain position in society; and though they may now and then mingle with men of refinement, have their more legitimate sphere in a fashionable world of doubtful character. ”

“ I would wish to know if the misfortunes which have happened to you—misfortunes entirely beyond your control, and which in no degree diminish my regard for you,—I would wish to know if they have not in some measure contributed to render you a stranger to the world in which your fortune and your name entitle you to make a conspicuous figure? ”

“ You could be dangerous and not half try; but so long as you persist in being a gentleman, why should I fear? Here am I using all my girlish arts to make you flirt—and all you can think of is how quickly you can read me the lecture I need and escape. ”

“ How strange is it that this gentleman should dedicate so much time and argument to the defence of worthless or indifferent characters, while he gives but seven solitary lines to the only subject, which can deserve his attention, or do credit to his abilities! ”

“ If the heat of his temper, sir, would suffer him to attend to those whose age and long acquaintance with business give them an indisputable right to deference and superiority, he would learn, in time, to reason rather than declaim, and to prefer justness of argument, and an accurate knowledge of facts, to sounding epithets and splendid superlatives, which may disturb the imagination for a moment, but leave no lasting impression on the mind. ”

“ Some rude fellows try to make sport; but the respectable old gentleman with the big turban and white robe bids them be silent, or go about their business. The cooly, with a load on his head and the drops of perspiration standing on his brow, and the scholar with his books under his arm, the shop-keeper, the mechanic, and even a Brahmin or two, stop to listen to your discourse. ”

“ Here lives our gentleman the greater portion of the year; lives aspiringly according to his Wordsworthian creed. He eschews or uses with admirable moderation the coarser pleasures and vanities of life. Unselfishness, gentleness, and nicety of thought and speech are the custom of his household. He himself finds congenial occupation in literary or scientific research, in the hope of adding some book or monograph to the world's store of art or knowledge. ”

“ Yet, as I looked at this face, worn and cadaverous though it was, in the glance of the hollow eyes, in the line of the clean-cut mouth I saw that mysterious something which marks a man, what we call for want of a better word, a gentleman. ”

“ About two years ago he was subject to maniacal fits of outrageous passion, when his manner was proud and stalking, his voice loud and blustering, and his language contemptuous and imperative; calling the house his own; commanding every one of us as his servants, in grand style. The mention of a single fact, out of an immense number, will be sufficient to characterise his spirit and manners. ”

“ For example, if the groom be drunk or absent, and the butler be ordered to shut the stable-door, the answer is ready, 'An' please, your honour, I don't understand horses.'
"If you find yourself to grow into favour with your master or lady, take some opportunity to give them warning, and when they ask the reason, and seem loath to part with you, answer that a poor servant is not to be blamed if he strives to better himself. ”

“ We have, indeed, but to visualize clearly the spectacle of a gentleman shaving himself and put beside it the spectacle of a gentleman starching and curling his whiskers, to see the finer personal dignity that has come with the general adoption of the razor. ”

“ Strong men, of rude dress and speech, whose lives were as rough as the hills in which they were reared, and whose thoughts were often as crude as their half-savage and sometimes lawless customs, came to sit at the feet of this gentle one, who received them all with such kindly interest and instinctive understanding. ”

“ And had he not learned the past winter, had he not been slowly learning ever since the death and loss, that the manhood of a gentleman was his thoughtfulness for others, his courteous delicacy, his consideration, often his denial of self, rather than the exquisite polish of cultivation, and the veneer of society's affectations? ”

“ Let me tell you that you wouldn’t stop to ask what he was—he would be only the man you love. And have you chosen a gentleman? Does a gentleman listen at the turn of the stairs to a conversation not intended for him? ”

“ Assuming the gentleman to be what you described, and to have made to you or any other person any statements that may have happened to suggest themselves to him, for the sake of his own security, or for the sake of money, or for his own amusement, or for any other consideration,—I have nothing to say of him, except that his extremely degrading situation appears to me to be shared with his employers. ”

“ He had made me behave like a perfect little fool, giving him good advice and tips—actually tips!—telling him (or very nearly) that he was "quite like a gentleman," and hundreds of other outrageous things which all rushed into my mind, as they say your whole past life does when you are drowning. ”

“ You will find him in most societies, habited like a gentleman; [192] his clothes are of the newest fashion, and his manners of the highest polish, with every appearance of candour and honour; while he subsists by unfair play at dice, cards, and billiards, deceiving and defrauding all those with whom he may engage; disregarding the professions of friendship and intimacy, which are continually falling from his lips. ”

“ One gentleman—a true man—came to me, and expressed his deep sympathy for me, and his sorrow that I had been so wrongfully treated and shamefully outraged, and entreated me to regard with pity, and not with anger, the murderous wretches outside. ”

“ A natural aloofness from the herd, a well-disciplined tolerance when forced to mingle with it, the suggestion he conveyed in speech and bearing that whatever wrong he may have done had never been done wrongly, led one to the conclusion that he had had time and opportunity beyond the average to cultivate the art of being a gentleman. ”

“ We know a gentleman not by the costly richness or peculiar cut of his dress, or by the value of his jewelry,—not by his keeping his face and hands clean and his hair brushed; these tracts are common to all;—but rather, he is distinguished by his attention to much more minute things. ”

“ I acted in that way chiefly because of the man. You don’t know what our underlings are like—it is impossible to pass over the smallest breach of discipline. But I assure you I know a gentleman when I see him. ”

“ I rather hoped that the one with the nice strong face, and who looked as if he could play polo, might take me in to dinner; but I fell to the lot of someone much more important, and consequently ever so much more dull. Why is it that the more important you get the duller you become? ”

“ Why break their spirits and crush their good and generous feelings, by compelling them all to herd together—the high and the low—the polite and the vulgar—the temperate and the drunkard—the cleanly and the filthy—the religious and the profane—the sedate and the ribald? ”

“ Wherever this power and facility appear, we recognise the look and deportment of the gentleman,—that is, of a person who by his habits and situation in life, and in his ordinary intercourse with society, has had little else to do than to study those movements, and that carriage of the body, which were accompanied with most satisfaction to himself, and were calculated to excite the approbation of the beholder. ”

“ The feeling which makes the modern gentleman tell the labourer standing bareheaded before him to put on his hat—the feeling which gives us a dislike to those who cringe and fawn—the feeling which makes us alike assert our own dignity and respect that of others—the feeling which thus leads us more and more to discountenance all forms and names which confess inferiority and submission ”

“ They are candid, pliant and delighted to serve you when pleased, but are subject to petulant and stubborn fits, and will brood in sullen resentment for days, meditating revenge, for some trivial imaginary slight. ”

“ FACE. Ay, sir, And gallants yet. Here's a young gentleman Is born to nothing,— [POINTS TO DAPPER.] forty marks a year, Which I count nothing:—he is to be initiated, And have a fly of the doctor. He will win you, By unresistible luck, within this fortnight, Enough to buy a barony. ”

“ As for instance if a La fool is to be brought in, he makes a Foot-boy till True wit, that one Monsieur La-fool is coming to pay him a Visit; and before he makes his appearance, True-wit lets his Friends know, and consequently, by them, the Audience, what sort of a Gentleman La-fool is, and what are his best Qualities. ”

“ Act the gentleman or lady, and you will be one. Nothing so indicates ill-breeding as a nervous, fidgetty, restless manner. The real lady or gentleman will be composed and undisturbed under every trying circumstance. They have taught themselves self-control, and this is readily learned by those with inclination and determination to learn.
2. Go into Society.—To learn to swim you must go into the water. To overcome the feeling of [Pg 27] bashfulness, and to be at ease in company, you must go into company. On no account should you neglect this duty which you owe to yourself. ”

“ He walks, stops short, runs, leaps, approaches, retires, shows or conceals himself, or flies off, as if actuated by mere caprice, and without any other cause than what arises from an eccentricity of temper. ”

“ You must go to him, and kneel before him, and ask him to help you. Don't mind how rude he is, don't mind what he tells you to do; above all things, don't lose your temper." With these words, he went out of the gate, and was soon out of sight. ”

“ They do not have the distant, thoughtful, perfunctory, business-like expression of the eyes in his head, but a different one,—an expression that seems to be a mixture of duty, pity, kindness, patience, forbearance, and—it will make me feel better to write it—contempt. ”

“ Let us hasten to say that, in private, the turned-up and laughing lip descended to the level of the drawn-down and ill-tempered one; so that, generally, the indulgent man disappeared to give place to the brutal husband and domineering father. ”

“ But each man must have his black hour or where would be the merit of laughing? Take a fool’s advice, and sit it out with my man. I’ll make a jest to excuse you to the King if he remember to ask for you. ”

“ His very gestures intoxicated the people, who, however, more than by anything, were attracted by his wit, which, coarse, brutal, and often unjust, was never obscure, and always to the point. Men who went to hear his wit, remained to be converted to his ways of thinking. ”