Those changes in acceptable emotionality are very interesting too... Although when I was looking up the line I quoted below, I noticed that the sentence continues, a groan broke from his own lips—the anguish of the sex which our race forbids to weep, which suggests those 'stiff upper lip' conventions did exist to an extent. There's also the bit where Gilbert came and laid his arm across his shoulder—the nearest that an American can come to embracing his friend, although that suggests differences between countries rather than gender rules!