The True Gentleman
by John Walter Wayland
The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will
and an acute sense of propriety; whose self-control is equal to all emergencies;
who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man
of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself
humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter
wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements;
who speaks with frankness, but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose
deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others,
rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom
honor is sacred and virtue safe.