Post-Prandial Philosophy

entleman" is above all things a fighter, a hunter, a fisher--he preserves the three simplest and commonest barbaric functions. He is not a practiser of any civilised or civilising art--a craftsman, a maker, a worker in metal, in stone, in textile fabrics, in pottery. These are the things that constitute civilisation; but the aristocrat does none of them; in the famous words of one who now loves to mix with English gentlemen, "he toils not, neither does he spin." The things he may do are, to fight by sea and land, like his ancestor the Goth and his ancestor the Viking; to slay pheasant and partridge, like his predatory forefathers; to fish for salmon in the Highlands; to hunt the fox, to sail the yacht, to scour the earth in search of great game--lions, elephants, buffalo. His one task is to kill--either his kind or his quarry.

Observe, too, the essentially barbaric nature of the gentleman's home--his trappings, his distinctive marks, his surroundings, his titles. He lives by choice in