Become a Gentleman thread

[Baron Kurtz]

On a related note, you folks might like this:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=7046&issue=2005-12-10

{begin quote from article}
"Why do men behave so badly nowadays?...The explanation came to me a few months ago in a blinding flash of illumination: the hat. To the hat, or rather to the lack of one, is to be traced the source of all our ill-deportment. Bare heads, or heads accoutred in the wrong kind of headgear, cause our want of self-respect, and therefore our want of respect for others. What we need, therefore, is more hats"

Theodore Dalrymple, the voice of sanity.

Funnily enough in a magazine edited by a man who's never worn a hat in his life:

Gotta love Boris.

bk

 

[jamespowers]

Drat, you come down on me for Machievelli when I was sure it would be my Dracula comment that would give people a rise.

I really don't have any reply, except more generally to note that - according to my way of looking at things - Gomez Addams is also a gentleman.

Gomez Addams was a gentleman who enjoyed good cigars, knew how to treat his wife, dressed neatly, loved his brother dearly, spent his money freely and treated his butler with great respect. He even tried to help him become more sociable. The problem was he was crazy! Maybe a hat would have helped.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Mycroft]

Gomez Addams was a gentleman who enjoyed good cigars, knew how to treat his wife, dressed neatly, loved his brother dearly, spent his money freely and treated his butler with great respect. He even tried to help him become more sociable. The problem was he was crazy! Maybe a hat would have helped.

Regards to all,



J

Gomez Addams is awsome and I agree with all of your points and he was a Wit, yet he wasn't that crazy, I mean just a bit different. He is an awsome idol.

 

[jamespowers]

Gomez Addams is awsome and I agree with all of your points and he was a Wit, yet he wasn't that crazy, I mean just a bit different. He is an awsome idol.

Maybe you are right. The whole raise the dead thing where they dig up their dead relatives isn't too bad. We'll just call him eccentric.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Mycroft]

Maybe you are right. The whole raise the dead thing where they dig up their dead relatives isn't too bad. We'll just call him eccentric.

Regards to all,

J

Well, at least he raises them with charm.

 

[Senator Jack]

Weren't there a few episodes where Gomez wore a Homburg? I seem to recall.

I have one particluar DB suit, blue pinstripe and snug, and whenever some wiseacre say, 'you look like a gangster,' I always say, 'Really? And this is my Gomez Addams suit.'

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Mycroft]

Weren't there a few episodes where Gomez wore a Homburg? I seem to recall.

I have one particluar DB suit, blue pinstripe and snug, and whenever some wiseacre say, 'you look like a gangster,' I always say, 'Really? And this is my Gomez Addams suit.'

Regards,

Senator Jack

I thought it was Black, the suit I mean. Yea, there was a time when I wanted one. It is very old time Wall Streetish, a very cool style.

 

[Mycroft]

http://www.brooksbrothers.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=471&Parent_Id=228&Product_Id=844339

I beleve that those are just BB's edtions of the books others and I have menchined before.

 

[Mr. Jason]

I hate to swing this thread back to the books and away from Gomez but...

I have purchased and read "How to be a Gentleman" and I just have to say, "It sucks."

I picked it up after I got started on an etiquette kick when I found an old Emily Post book among some of my Grandmothers things after my Grandfather died. After making my way through Emily's book I picked up a handfull of books published by Esquire and the formentioned book. Emily Post's "Etiquette", I think the copyright date on this version is 59, was very informative. Not only about where the fork should go but also about how to treat people right, like a gentleman. Esquire's "Things a Man Should Know" series brought many of the things from "Etiquette" up to date with a bit of comedy thrown in. I thought "How to be a Gentleman" was full of some very strange rules including: "Don't drink from the can" and "Don't eat in the car". I'll admit that both of these things are not the height of manners but frankly when I'm hauling ass from Raleigh to Atlanta you can bet I'm gonna eat in the car. When I go over to a friends house I'm gonna drink beer from the can, why dirty a glass plus in some circles requesting a glass is considered frufy. A gentleman is never frufy.

Being a gentleman is not about how much to tip or how to shave it's about how you treat others.
Most of the posters on this thread have balked at calling themselves gentlemen well I'm not gonna do that. I'm a gentleman take that with as much of a grain of salt as you think you need to but the fact is I've worked my ass off to become what I consider a gentleman and I'm proud to take the title, not that I'm perfect or anything.

So here are Mr. Jason's rules, learn and live:
Keep others in mind.
Know when and how to blend in.
Know when and how to stand out.
Be ready for any situation.
Give more than you take.

I'm sure there's more but this post is too damn long already. I'm going to make a list and maybe I'll publish a book some day.

 

[Bebop]

Being a gentleman is so subjective and regional. For example, I can argue Mr. Jason's rules for being a gentleman and we probably both are gentlemen. Reading books on how to be one is like reading books on how to do the right thing at the right time. All of this comes mostly from how you were raised. If you are getting it from a book, you are missing the important human factor that is absolutely necessary. I commend anyone that wants to be more gentlemanly but getting it from a book sounds crazy. I recommend hanging out with a gentlemanly crowd and doing things that necessitate being a gentleman. They are interesting books. As interesting as a book I picked up at an antique shop titled, "How to be a good wife". Subjective.

 

[Gray Ghost]

This is a great thread.:cheers1:

GG

 

[jamespowers]

As interesting as a book I picked up at an antique shop titled, "How to be a good wife".

Make copies. Its a gift every good husband needs to give to his wife as a Christmas Present.

Regards to all,

J

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I collect Victorian era etiquette books and have a few for gentlemen. All good advice today. What I like most about what I read is that being a gentleman, or lady, is the emphasis on character and courtesy. We all know that the most well mannered and dressed man/woman can still be a brute.

 

[Bebop]

Make copies. Its a gift every good husband needs to give to his wife as a Christmas Present.

Regards to all,

J

Funny you should say that since I did give it as a Christmas gift to my wife a few years ago. I think we laughed at a few chapters but nothing ever changed in my household! It is now the book everyone that visits us wants to thumb through.

 

[scotrace]

I collect Victorian era etiquette books and have a few for gentlemen. All good advice today.

Aren't they fun? I like to pick up any old etiquette books I spot. Edith Wharton works are great for this as well.

One Emily Post I have from the forties describes the difficult process of handling a hat, gloves, stick, packages and cigarette when meeting a lady on the street. Mostly it's "practice, friend."
Heaven help you if she pulls out a cigarette of her own and you also have to juggle it all for a light.

 

[jamespowers]

Funny you should say that since I did give it as a Christmas gift to my wife a few years ago. I think we laughed at a few chapters but nothing ever changed in my household! It is now the book everyone that visits us wants to thumb through.

Ah the trainer has become the trained.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Colonel]

If you want to know what the definition of a Gentleman is from the man who really defines the term, the Southern Gentleman himself, study what General Robert E. Lee said about it:

Definition of a Gentleman - "The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly -- the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light. The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others."
General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A

"Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less."​

How one dresses, knowing which fork to use with what course, etc., is what comes from being a Gentleman. They are the effect, and not the cause. They are the outworkings of one who has respect for himself and for those around him. Putting on the trappings of a Gentleman, while not following the words of General Lee results in what we see in modern-day Hollywood actors - crude boors, so filled with their own sense of ego that no real person could stand to be around them. Money can't make a Gentleman any more than the lack of it can take that title away.

This thread (and others like it) is the reason I came here. If you want to know what a Gentleman really is, then hold up a real Southern Gentleman as your model - General Robert E. Lee.

Good day, Ladies and Gentlemen.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Agreed. Someone looking at you on the street should have no idea that you are a gentleman until they have some interaction with you. A gentleman should be invisible. Bombast and obvious showing of wealth (not that wealth has a thing to do with being a gentleman) do more than anything else to expose the wannabe, the man with the facade without the underlying architecture. Unfortuately it is very hard not to stand out when wearing decent clothing and a hat in the standard British/American/European city today.

bk

 

[Braxton36]

Book buying

The book in question here sounds as if it is one that should be purchased for one's self rather than given as a gift. The implication might be misconstrued, otherwise.

It reminds me of the story of a friend of mine who was getting married right out of college. Her future mother-in-law made her a gift either Emily's or Amy's book. My friend was incensed that her future mother-in-law either thought she needed the book or that she didn't come from a family that might not already have an etiquette book. It sounded like a tempest in a teapot to me but it got them both off to a rocky start.

 

[Twitch]

On the irreverent side of the coin who knows the Three Stooges episode where the scientists try to make them gentlemen. The "environment" and "heredity" arguement played out....