The venerable magazine GQ, or Gentlemen’s Quarterly, has issued some 125 diktats about what it takes to be a gentleman in this world of Zoom calls and equality. GQ is, however, no longer quarterly, and some might say it hasn’t been read by gentlemen for some time. Ought we, then, to listen to it?
Many of its ‘expert’ pronouncements are baffling: what is ‘popping a Zyn’? Most of the suggestions are about bringing fancy olive oil or luxury candles to parties. (Note to readers, though you won’t need it: don’t.) It also suggests that gentlemen should beclothe themselves in ‘loungewear’, a word which ought to make anyone shudder. Well, I’m sorry, but unless it’s a silk dressing gown from Jermyn Street, I think not.
The audience, though, is primarily American and internet-based, and once you understand that the intention of the guide is to prevent men from taking their shoes off on long-haul flights, then one looks a little more kindly upon it.
But what, then, is a gentleman? It’s more complex than simply opening doors for others, or, as GQ would have it, picking up the tab for dinner. What isn’t gentlemanly is obvious: public transport brings them out, as rainstorms do slugs. The oik on the Tube who didn’t stand up for my pregnant friend is a case in point.
It isn’t, necessarily, to do with birth. ‘Gentleness’ can be learned and imitated, and always has been. Traditionally, the ‘gentry’ consisted of an untitled, landed class immediately below the nobility, and hovering just above the trades, distinguished by bearing arms. These boundaries, though, are more porous than you’d think. Think of the Guinnesses – brewer to baronet to earl in a handful of generations. William Shakespeare, the son of an alderman, with some tenuous connections to the ‘gentle’ Arden family via his mother, successfully achieved a grant of arms for his father. Heraldic doctrine prescribes that the grant did not confer gentility, but confirmed what was already there. Many a tradesman has become ‘gentle’; and it works the other way, too, as many a gentleman’s son has ‘fallen’ into trade. Gentility can be swiftly unlearned: oiks exist among the landed classes, too.
Gentility can be swiftly unlearned: oiks exist among the landed classes, too
In the popular imagination, it is not easy to distinguish a gentleman from a snob. Yet there are marked differences. It’s true that there are correct modes of speech and behaviour. Some shibboleths can’t be helped, as they are deeply ingrained into the psyche: how to pronounce Featherstonehaugh, for example, or not wearing a wing collar for a black-tie dinner. That a gentleman should know these things is clear; that one should not think less of others for their ignorance is more so. Other ‘rules’ are idiosyncratic. I insist that anything which requires new ‘kit’ (apart, obviously, from riding) is infra dig, particularly if it involves bicycles.
While GQ is to be commended for trying to stem the loutish tide, being a gentleman is, like Confucianism, a way of life. It boils down, not to listicles and club ties, but to considering others before yourself. This is deeply moral, and, dare I say it, even Christian. That’s why, as has been the case since ‘gentleness’ began, its true forms are found everywhere. A real gentleperson understands instinctively, and will leap up to offer that pregnant woman a seat. And – even if the chap in question is covered head to toe in Lycra – he’s still, in my view, a perfect gent. Although not if he’s in ‘loungewear’. We must maintain some standards.
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