_Integer vitae scelerisque purus_, the gentleman of assured station turns a placid countenance to all those petty vexations of breadwinning that touch him not. Serenely and with an impassive fortitude he faces those common vicissitudes of life that are impotent to make or mar his material fortunes and that can neither impair his creature comforts nor put a slur on his good repute. So that without afterthought he deals fairly in all everyday conjunctures of give and take; for they are at the most inconsequential episodes to him, although the like might spell irremediable disaster to his impecunious counterfoil among the common men who have the community's work to do. In short, he is a gentleman, in the best acceptation of the word,--unavoidably, by force of circumstance. As such his example is of invaluable consequence to the underlying community of common folk, in that it keeps before their eyes an object lesson in habitual fortitude and visible integrity such as could scarcely have been created except under such shelter from those disturbances that would go to mar habitual fortitude and integrity. There can be little doubt but the high example of the Victorian gentlefolk has had much to do with stabilising the animus of the British common man on lines of integrity and fair play. What else and more in the way of habitual preconceptions he may, by competitive imitation, owe to the same high source is not immediately in question here. * * * * * Recalling once more that the canon of life whereby folk are gentlefolk sums itself up in the requirements of pecuniary waste and personal futility, and that these requirements are indefinitely extensible, at the same time that the management of the community's industry by investment for a profit enables the owners of invested wealth to divert to their own use the community's net product, wherewith to meet these requirements, it follows that the community at large which provides this output of product will be allowed so much as is required by their necessary standard of living,--with an unstable margin of error in the adjustment. This margin of error should tend continually to grow narrower as the businesslike management of industry grows more efficient with experience; but it will also continually be disturbed in the contrary sense by innovations of a technological nature that require continual readjustment. This margin is probably not to be got rid of, though it may be expected to become less considerable under more settled conditions.