The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds
from good will and an acute sense of propriety,
and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies;
who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty,
the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity;
who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another;
who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power,
or boast of his own possessions or achievements;
who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy;
whose deed follows his word;
who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own;
and who appears well in any company,
a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.

- John Walter Wayland (Virginia, 1899)