Canter Bridge

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This splendid little Rutledge Hill Press publication is best read as the first in the Press’ ‘Gentlemanners Books’ series.

Based on the conviction that being a gentleman is not a matter of following a strict code of behavior but rather of making life easier and more pleasant for others, the book presents nuggets of advice to real and would-be gentlemen under ten headings. Each begins with ‘A Gentleman …’ The remainder of the chapter titles follows:

Experiences Real Life

Gets Dressed

Goes to Dinner

Says the Right Thing

Gives a Party

Goes to a Party

and His Friends

Goes to the Office

Gets Equipped

The tenth chapter is entitled ‘Extreme Etiquette: a Gentleman Faces the Really Big Challenges.

I only recently stumbled upon this series and have already moved on to John Bridges’ collaborative work with Bryan Curtis called A Gentleman Gets Dressed Up. What to wear, when to wear it, how to wear it.

Matters of etiquette are frequently debatable and always subject to societal change. Moreover, there will always be an old-school aroma clinging to any work that uses the words ‘etiquette’ and ‘gentleman’ without disparagement. For this reason, critics of the book who hotly dismiss this or that declaration by Bridges have misunderstood the genre. Bridges accomplishment is not to have given the last word on gentlemanly behavior, but rather to have given one solid line of approach within which any single pronouncement is open to adjustment or even rebuttal.

I am exploring ways to place copies of this little volume into the hands of my male colleagues in a way—as a gentleman would strive to do—that does not suggest that they are unwashed cannibals in their present condition.

How to Be a Gentleman is that good. I look forward to reading through this book’s sequels.

However a gentleman doesn’t gush, so I’ll stop here.