2. What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of … — Essays
SAPIR 861
2. What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of the gentleman? Chivalry[373] is that, and loyalty is that, and, in English literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir Philip Sidney[374] to Sir Walter Scott,[375] paint this figure. The word _gentleman_, which, like the word Christian, must hereafter characterize the present and the few preceding centuries, by the importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable properties. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated with the name, but the steady interest of mankind in it must be attributed to the valuable properties which it designates. An element which unites all the most forcible persons of every country; makes them intelligible and agreeable to each other, and is somewhat so precise, that it is at once felt if an individual lack the masonic sign,[376] cannot be any casua
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