Something achieved through force of will: "It's my intent to be a gentleman. It's my game." Rigaud (Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens, 1857)
A matter of ease, if you have the money for it: ..."to be drunk, swear, wench, follow the fashion, and to do just nothing." Henry Peacham (curate, 1622)
"Now that a man may make money, and rise in the world, and associate himself, unreproached, with people once far above him... it becomes a veritable shame to him to remain in the state he was born in and everybody thinks it his DUTY to try to be a 'gentleman'." John Ruskin (Pre-Raphaelitism, 1851)
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I'm always pleased to see John Ruskin quoted because he's rapidly becoming a hero of mine. Have you been to Brantwood at Coniston Water, Ruskin's house? Not at all a beautiful building but he rightly worked out that if he lived there he wouldn't see the house, he'd see the fantastic view. And all his writings and paintings in the house are wonderful.
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