The Portable Edmund Burke (Portable Library) Read Online Free Page B

offers his “idea of a woman,” which is assumed to be a sketch of Mrs. Burke. Finally, there are some interesting early observations on religion.

THE CHARACTER OF A FINE GENTLEMAN
    SOME OF THE LEARNED have quarrelled with the vulgar notions of a fine Gentleman; and because they thought this a Character highly esteemable, were displeased to see it so often applied to a sort of men they could by no means approve. They therefore wholly excluded from this denomination all whose morals were dissolute, though their manners were none so agreeable; and they concluded that the man of compleat vertue was alone the fine Gentleman.
    We must trust the world to give names to Characters; to change and transpose the distinctions Custom has settled, would not be an improvement of knowledge, but an abuse of words. Let us see then, what sort of men they are, who are generally termed fine Gentlemen, and endeavour to settle with ourselves a notion of this Character. But a Character is too complete a thing to be drawn into a Definition. We may acquire a much better Idea of it from viewing it in as great a variety of Lights as the Subject will bear.
    This Character is not denominated from excellence in any sort of Business or employment; it belongs solely to conversation, and the habitudes of pleasant Society; its Basis is politeness, whose essence is Ease: and hence it is that there is no Character more rarely found; for easy behaviour, easy conversation, and easy writing are the hardest things in the world. At your first Entrance into any company, the fine Gentleman is not the person who strikes you most, and you may possibly converse with him several times before you discover what his excellence is, and where it lies.
    He is no Scholar; every accomplishment he has seems to be derived immediately from his nature; there must be no appearance of any thing borrowed; to think justly, costs him no more trouble than to breathe freely.Yet he is not ignorant; he seems rather to slight books, than not to know them.
    There is very little of Wit in his conversation; this is a quality that draws the admiration of company, but often at the expense of their esteem. It very soon tires; and there is such an immense distance between the heights of that, and the plainness of common discourse, that it breaks the even tenor of conversation that can alone take in the whole company and make it agreeable in all its parts.
    Neither is his discourse of the humorous kind; it never raises a laugh; but yet it is not wholly averse from that Strain. There is a sort of concealed Irony that tinges his whole conversation. He entertains no extremes of opinion; he scarcely ever disputes; he is sceptical in his notions; and not fond of deep disquisitions; there is some one point in all Topics that seems to determine his judgement about them without much enquiries into other particulars. He seldom contradicts your opinions, and you will gain very little by contradicting his.
    To make a man perfectly agreeable to his company he ought not to exert such Talents as may raise the envy, and consequently the uneasiness, of anybody in it. ‘Tis on this principle, that the Character of a fine gentleman is not a brilliant one. There is no part of his discourse you prefer to another; and he is never the man whose bons mots are retailed in every company. His expressions are well chosen and easy, but they are not strong. There is no Glare; but there is a universal Effect produced by an infinity of fine Touches, which are imperceptible and inimitable.You may observe in lower Life, that a speaker of wise Sentences, a strenuous disputant, or one ostentatious of knowledge, never want[s] abundance of admirers; but in an higher Sphere such persons are in no great request. People of rank can brook a superiority, especially an avowed superiority, much less than others; there is a principle of politeness that forms an apparent level of their understanding. And hence I believe it is that politeness is