Of course, I know I am not a gentleman. I have given up hopes of ever being one. Years ago, when life presented possibilities, I thought that with pains and intelligence I might become one. I never succeeded. It all depends on being able to tie a bow. Round the bed-post, or the neck of the water-jug, I could tie the wretched thing to perfection. If only the bed-post or the water-jug could have taken my place and gone to the party instead of me, life would have been simpler. The bed-post and the water-jug, in its neat white bow, looked like a gentleman—the fashionable novelist’s idea of a gentleman. Upon myself the result was otherwise, suggesting always a feeble attempt at suicide by strangulation. I could never understand how it was done. There were moments when it flashed across me that the secret lay in being able to turn one’s self inside out, coming up with one’s arms and legs the other way round. Standing on one’s head might have surmounted the difficulty; but the higher gymnastics Nature has denied to me. “The Boneless Wonder” or the “Man Serpent” could, I felt, be a gentleman so easily. To one to whom has been given only the common ordinary joints gentlemanliness is apparently an impossible ideal.
It is not only the tie. I never read the fashionable novel without misgiving. Some hopeless bounder is being described:
“If you want to know what he is like,” says the Peer of the Realm, throwing himself back in his deep easy-chair, and puffing lazily at his cigar of delicate aroma, “he is the sort of man that wears three studs in his shirt.”
The difficulty of being a Gentleman.
Merciful heavens! I myself wear three studs in my shirt. I also am a hopeless bounder, and I never knew it. It comes upon me like a thunderbolt. I thought three studs were fashionable. The idiot at the shop told me three studs were all the rage, and I ordered two dozen. I can’t afford to throw them away. Till these two dozen shirts are worn out, I shall have to remain a hopeless bounder.
Why have we not a Minister of the Fine Arts? Why does not a paternal Government fix notices at the street corners, telling the would-be gentleman how many studs he ought to wear, what style of necktie now distinguishes the noble-minded man from the base-hearted? They are prompt enough with their police regulations, their vaccination orders—the higher things of life they neglect.
I select at random another masterpiece of English literature.
“My dear,” says Lady Montresor, with her light aristocratic laugh, “you surely cannot seriously think of marrying a man who wears socks with yellow spots?”
Lady Emmelina sighs.
“He is very nice,” she murmurs, “but I suppose you are right. I suppose that sort of man does get on your nerves after a time.”