There appeared upon the scene a certain man. I never saw him, but I have heard my father mention that he was a showy man... but that he was not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and the more varnish you put on the more the grain will express itself.

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter XXII, 1861