Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/135

 MR. JAMES WELSH.

had informed Arminell that she had a brother who was a gentleman. The term "gentleman" is derived from the Latin gens, and signifies a member of a patrician family. But this is not the signification now given it in the vernacular. On the tongue of the people, a gentleman and a lady are those who do no manual labour. A man informs you that he will be a gentleman on a bank-holiday, because he will lounge about with his hands in his pockets, and an old woman who has weeded turnips at ninepence a day, becomes a lady when rheumatism invades her limbs, and sends her to the union.

Mr. James Welsh, the brother of Mrs. Saltren, was a gentleman in this, that he belonged to a gens, a class not ancient or aristocratic, but modern, and one that has obtained considerable influence, wields much power and is likely to become dominant—we mean that of the professional journalist and politician. He was a gentleman also in this, that he did no hard manual labour, but few men worked harder than he, but then he dirtied his hands with ink only.

Along the coasts of Scotland and Sweden are terraces raised high above the sea-level, which are pronounced by geologists to be ancient beaches. At one time the waves washed where now sheep graze, and deposited sea-weed and shells where now grow heather and harebells. There are these raised sea-beaches in man, to which conscience at one