The Art of Being a True Gentleman — Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson opens the Manners essay mid-thought, already inside civilization's work: man shapes metals, writes laws, and above all establishes a self-constituted aristocracy, a fraternity of the best that colonizes every new island and adopts whatever personal beauty appears anywhere. What fact in modern history is more conspicuous than the creation of the gentleman? Chivalry, loyalty, half of English drama, and the novel from Sidney to Scott all paint this figure. The word gentleman, like Christian, names an age's homage to incommunicable properties, not a costume you can rent.

Emerson separates fashion from the heroic character the gentleman imports. The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, expressing that lordship in behavior without servility to persons, opinions, or possessions. Beyond truth and real force, the word means good-nature and benevolence: manhood first, then gentleness. Personal force never goes out of fashion. In politics and trade, as once in war, men of valor and reality rise to their natural place. Power first, or no leading class. Bruisers and pirates promise more than clerks until talk becomes deed. My gentleman gives the law where he is: he outprays saints, outgenerals veterans, and cannot be walled out because he has the private entrance to all minds. Saladin, Caesar, Scipio, and the lordliest sit carelessly in their chairs because they are too excellent to overvalue any condition.

Fortune helps but is not essential. Diogenes, Socrates, and Epaminondas chose poverty when wealth was open; Emerson says the men he names are his contemporaries. Manners are observed and caught by taste: fine forms drop what is superfluous and renew what is graceful. Manners aim to facilitate life like a railway removes obstructions, leaving only pure space to cross. Soon forms fix, propriety becomes badge, and Fashion grows, the most puissant and frivolous tyranny morals assault in vain. Fashion rests on reality and hates pretenders, yet it is virtue gone to seed, a hall of the Past honoring the children of the great while the working heroes are absent in the field. Napoleon courts the Faubourg St. Germain because fashion pays homage to men of his stamp, even as cream rises whether you approve or not.

Good sense and character make their own forms every moment. Strong will is always in fashion. A circle of perfectly well-bred men would be sensible persons in whom native manners appear. Any deference to an eminent person forfeits nobility; you speak with his master. As the first thing man requires of man is reality, Emerson introduces Andrew and Gregory by name so each looks the other in the eye and grasps hand. A gentleman never dodges. We visit houses for draperies, yet insatiably ask: was a man in the house? Screens, gardens, and crowds hide us from full encounter; Napoleon discharged his face of expression when observed. No rent roll dignifies skulking: the first point of courtesy must always be truth.

Chamberlains of approbation glance coldly, yet Emerson warns not to measure that class by pretension. Emerson demands deference without suffocation: every chair a throne, lovers guarding strangeness, hurry left to slaves. Defect in manners is defect of fine perceptions. Society loves measure; the person who screams or uses superlatives empties drawing-rooms. Fashion is not good sense absolute but relative, good sense entertaining company. Good-nature completes the patrician class, from willingness to oblige up to magnanimity. Aristocracy and fashion are inevitable selections; destroy every class and two men remain, and one will lead. A natural gentleman finds his way in and keeps the oldest patrician out who has lost intrinsic rank. Emerson praises Montaigne's self-respecting travel customs and Fox's good-nature, who paid Sheridan before a tradesman because honor's order mattered. Fox, whom Napoleon said would always hold first place at the Tuileries, mixed great abilities with real love of men, paying Sheridan's debt of honor before a tradesman's note because older standing mattered.

Real service keeps its nobleness. God's gentleman differs from Fashion's. Beautiful behavior is better than beautiful form; it gives higher pleasure than statues and is the finest of the fine arts. Woman, with her instinct of behavior, detects coldness or want of magnanimous deportment at the door; Emerson esteems America's excellence in women. Move two miles and fashion's plants wither; in farm, forest, and friendship their advantages go for nothing. Everything called fashion and courtesy humbles itself before the heart of love. Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. What is rich? Can you help the unfashionable and make the outcast feel your house an exception from general bleakness? The essay closes toward Gifts as Emerson admits he plays courtier ill, then hears Jove and Minerva dispute whether mankind is fundamentally bad or merely blurred, ridiculous little creatures whose aspect changes with the name you give them.