Society

"The atmosphere Breathes rest and comfort and the many chambers Seem full of welcomes."

"Where you have friends you should not go to inns."

"Where'er his fancy bids him roam, In ev'ry Inn he finds a home— * * * * * Will not an Inn his cares beguile, Where on each face he sees a smile?"

"Alone the varying road of life, In calm content, in toil or strife, At morn or noon, by night or day, As time conducts him on his way, How oft doth man, by care oppressed, Find in an Inn a place of rest."

"Now musing o'er the changing scene Farmers behind the tavern screen Collect; with elbows idly press'd On hob, reclines the corner's guest, Reading the news to mark again The bankrupt lists or price of grain. Puffing the while his red-tipt pipe He dreams o'er troubles nearly ripe, Yet, winter's leisure to regale, Hopes better times, and sips his ale."

"He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a paradise it is. O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern!—holy, because no carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain; and miraculous, because of the spits, which themselves turn round and round!"

"You may go to Carlisle's and to Almanac's too; And I'll give you my Head if you find such a Host, For Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, Butter, or Toast; How he welcomes at once all the World and his Wife, And how civil to Folks he ne'er saw in his Life."

"The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day: Now spurs the lated traveler apace To gain the timely inn."

"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?"

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung."

"A region of repose it seems, A place of slumber and of dreams."

"Souls of poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?"

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

"Oh! St. Patrick was a gentleman, Who came of decent people."

"Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth come Habraham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys; also the Kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne."

"It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain."

"Bob Forestier had pretended for so many years to be a gentleman that in the end, forgetting that it was all a fake, he had found himself driven to act as in that stupid, conventional brain of his he thought a gentleman must act. No longer knowing the difference between sham and real, he had sacrificed his life to a spurious heroism."

"A man may learn from his Bible to be a more thorough gentleman than if he had been brought up in all the drawing-rooms in London."

"A gentleman I could never make him, though I could make him a lord."

"By the by if the English race had done nothing else, yet if they left the world the notion of a gentleman, they would have done a great service to mankind."

"Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman: elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings!"

"A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman: a gentleman, in the vulgar, superficial way of understanding the word, is the Devil's Christian."

"In whatever society he might find himself, the humblest citizen should therefore so order his behaviour that when he left the table men would say "A gentleman was here.""

"Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman,—repose in energy."

"His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen."

"... defined an English gentleman to be a person who did no work, had clean hands, and was never in a passion."

"To be a gentleman does not depend upon the tailor, or the toilet.… Good clothes are not good habits.… A gentleman is just a gentle-man; no more, no less: a diamond polished, that was first a diamond in the rough."

"The best of men That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer; A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, The first true gentleman that ever breathed."

"I was ne'er so thrummed since I was a gentleman."

"You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, if unmixed with cant; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the army, which is thought to be the grand embellisher oh manners."

"No one can consider himself a gentleman who engages in the vice of lying."

"Tho' modest, on his unembarrass'd brow Nature had written—"Gentleman.""

"Nothing is more certain, than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners and with civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles; and were indeed the result of both combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion."

"Rousseauist and Baconian, though often superficially at odds with one another, have co-operated in undermining, not merely religious tradition, but another tradition which in the Occident goes back finally, not to Judea, but to ancient Greece. This older tradition may be defined as humanistic. The goal of the humanist is poised and proportionate living. This he hopes to accomplish by observing the law of measure. ... Decorum is supreme for the humanist even as humility takes precedence over all other virtues in the eyes of the Christian. Traditionally the idea of decorum has been associated, often with a considerable admixture of mere formalism, with the idea of the gentleman."

"He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal."

"The taste of beauty, and the relish of what is decent, just and amiable, perfects the character of the gentleman and the philosopher. And the study of such a taste or relish will, as we suppose, be ever the great employment and concern of him who covets as well to be wise and good, as agreeable and polite."

"The gentleman knows that whatever is imperfect and unrefined does not deserve praise. ... He makes his eyes not want to see what is not right, makes his ears not want to hear that is not right, makes his mouth not want to speak what is not right, and makes his heart not want to deliberate over what is not right. ... For this reason, power and profit cannot sway him, the masses cannot shift him, and nothing in the world can shake him."

"A gentleman is merely a rascal, better-dressed."

"What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to be decent—his bills to be paid—his tastes to be high and elegant—his aims in life lofty and noble?"

"And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan And soiled with all ignoble use."

"The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne; For a man by nothing is so well bewrayed As by his manners."

"As for gentlemen, they be made good cheap in this kingdom; for whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the Universities, who professeth the liberal sciences, and (to be short) who can live idly, and without manual labour, and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master, and shall be taken for a gentleman."

"When you leave the little world of Hampden-Sydney, you will still have much to learn of the diversity of the greater world, of the customs and manners of the many cultures you will encounter and interact with as you make your life and living in a global economy. I hope that your recognition of the value of the traditional social customs as they are practiced in our small community will make you keenly aware of the importance of the traditional social customs of other communities- whether ethnic neighborhoods or nations. I end this epilogue as I have ended others before. You are a Hampden-Sydney Gentleman, and as Cardinal Newman wrote, "It is almost the definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain.""

"The Hampden-Sydney ideal of a gentleman reaches back to the 18th century and to the men of the early Republic who defined their lives by honor, service, public virtue, and personal self-restraint. This is what the College's Founders meant by "good men and good citizens." To form good men and good citizens is still today the mission of Hampden-Sydney College. However, you will not live in the insular world of Hampden-Sydney's Founders. Your world could not be more different from theirs. It is, however, Hampden-Sydney's belief that the characteristics of the 18th-century gentleman are as important today as two hundred years ago. It is your task to prove it."

"You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you?"

"He is complete in feature, and in mind, With all good grace to grace a gentleman."

""I am a gentleman." I'll be sworn thou art; Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon."

"An affable and courteous gentleman."

"Since every Jack became a gentleman, There's many a gentle person made a Jack."

"We are gentlemen, That neither in our hearts, nor outward eyes Envy the great, nor do the low despise."