New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-08-27
TIE CULTURE MARKET.
Fron "a 81. Lames's Ga:etle.

Prom The ST. JaucS's Gazette
Ii is generally felt, however. even by the verest
PhIlistIne that culture IS somehow more iHtan-
ci bile ana subtle kind OF thing than any ordinary
article of merchandise. You can buy your picture
Ohhand, and have done with II for ever; II exists
thenceiorth as a permanent monument of your
taste. You can hang 1t up IN your dlnlng-roOm and
say 70 your admlrlng friends This IS art TINS Is
bv Blank T.. A. bought il at So-and->O sale very
cheap: little more than two thousand guineas' No
body can deny that there YOu really nave got high
art-sOmethng TO be acquired. not, Ikea picture, Dy
paving down its money price az "a single ansacton,
butke Green or farisan accent nv taking lessons to
which YOU Yourself contribute a certain amount in
personal eXertion. Accordingly. large numbers OF
excellent people most OF them III rue hldule ranks OF
lie have set 10 work during the last ten years AZ
mature 3ge 10 acquire culture not because they feel
tine need of it, bat because IL II now being talked
about So much in the papers They have no doubt
at all as the ultimate practlcablilty OF their
chosen method You can buy books: yOu can buy
Japanese fans old china, Chlppcndlle chairs, Fan
MuranO glasSwork; You can buy grand pianos
Chopin. schubert. the music of the future: AMI are
not these things the cOmDonent elements OF cul-
tureI Therefore you can buy culture Itself. Dr II
il comes TO learning, Won can read books on the
Reualssance-the Renaissance is 80 very fashion
able aud you can get little primers Oh lace, and
pottery and textile fabrics. and 'Ory carving: ali
stamped with the official appreciation OF tine De
partmeut of science and Art, south keuslngton. II
sou shake your head obviously II YOU hint IN
passing that Bedford Park furniture ana oriental
blue and subdued cOOrs, and ali tue resi- OF H. are
IL best but the outward and visible signs of an IN
ward and spiritual grace. without which all these
good works avail nothing. the bewIldered Phllstlue
hear. YOU with unfeigued distress scarce knowing
what thing he has left undone that he ought TO have
done. He wants, without any previous care or prep
arati0n. to take the kingdom Of culture by storm
He wishes like Simon Maeus, TO purchase all inner
grace by a simple and unaffected otter IL money.
WHAT the individual mlddle-ciass Ihilsilbe Is
now doing IN hI, own home aud his own person, the
collective middle-c class PhisJliiIsm Of the great
manufacturing towns has long been dong IN Its
corporate capacity And now that they nave done
all they turn and say What else would you nave
Us do? We get pictures by R0ssetti and Holman
Hunt We put mp stained glass by Burne Jones IN
our church windows. We ask Professor Huxley 20
Pater and SymOnds, and Matthew Arnold. ana
seult OF Lyonesse' We cover our chairs with vel
vet from William Morris aud paper our walls after
degirus bv DR. Dresser We lay The Portfolio, he
COntenyordrg aid The Nineteenth teatery IN con
spicuoGs places our drawIng-roo tables. We 20
to hear the Wagner cycle. We even know all
about the Utilities, ard Matteo's poems, and FLIP
Pine Lippi and the marks on Rouen falence. And II
all this isn't culture. tell that more We ought TO
do To which the Director can only answer: All
these things are very well IN their way, but they
are only the externals Of culture; they are not
culture itself. II you send your children to the col
ieges you have built; If you bring them up IN the
tent uphOlsterers and filled with pictures and
sculpture by true artists; II you teach them be-
times to -ead and digest the books that lie so Cb-
truslvely upon your drawing room tables-you NAV
in the end make some few among them, VINO nave
natures originally adapted for IT. into people OF real
culture. You are doing the best you can; tut you
Yourselves can never get more than the veneer
" hereas what IL needed Is culture IN the grain.
Profit and enjoyment no doubt you may INA IN
what yOu do; but IL is TO more culture than cap
and gown is erudtlon or than going to chapel
twice on sunday Is religion