The true northerner., 1886-11-04
What Is Culture?

l. his IL very largo question:, Dut we
must help along our bashful young
friend:
"Will you kindly inform a young
man what the essentials of culture
are? also what are proper works to
read? desire to be good conversa-
tionalist, but always feel i'll at ease and
am bashful. Can you suggest way to
successfully overcome the latter?"
Ralph Waldo Emerson prefixes to
an essay on culture these lines, from
which, young man, you may try to get
a general notion of what culture is:
Can rules or tutors educate
The demigod whom we await?
He must be musical,
Tremulous. impressonal,
Alive to gentle influence
OF landscape and of sky,
And tender to the, e,spirittouch
OF mans or maiden's eye;
But to his native center fast,
Shall into Future fuse tho Past
And the worlds flowing fates in his own
mold recast'
Do these lines only serve to mystify
the subject still further for you? Well,
that is becauH Emerson himself could
not exactly define culture, and if you
read his essay through you would
probably be even more in the dark.
Inuteu, ~ dOto uOJ Sttul W Us Jlo
wonderful work the disciples and fol-
lowers of the Concord philosopher
thought it to be at the time it first APP
peared.
Culture, dear boy, has come to be
cant term, and no end of nonsense and
platitude has been written and talked
about it since the day when Emerson
made it the theme of Boston discussion.
You want to know what is necessary to
make you cultivated man.
Everything within the range of knowl-
edge, of thought, and of taste is neces-
sary. All good books will help you to
the end, and some which are not good
may assist you in the way of compari-
son. Association with cultivated peo-
pie and conversation with them are
indispensable aids The taste to dis
criminate the good from the bad in all
art is essential. Social refinement is
requisite.
But nobody can know it all. You
can learn only very little, but what
you learn learn thoroughly. Be care
full to read the books of the masters of
the terary art, so that you will be in
sensibly affected by their style until
you come at last to distinguish and
prefer and require the superior sort.
If you go to hear music, see to it that
it is the music of the great artists, and
take pains to look at good pictures, for
gradually you will find yourself learn
ing to enjoy them alone. And so in all
things seek the best and reject the
poor and commonplace.
AS to conversation, you will get along
we'll enough in that when you become
interested in what interests cultivated
people. You will forget yourself in
your absorption in what you are
talking about. That is the way to
overcome bashfulness, which comes
from lf-consciousness. Remember
that you are not so important IN
other peoples eyes as In your own, and
they are not singing you out for OBJ
servation. You are only one among
many-a drop in tho bucket of human
ity. So don't worry yourself about
what people are thinking of you, for
they are likely to think of you not at
all, or in the NEST careless way, unless
you attract their attention by your
awkward bashfulness. Even then what
they think is of little consequence.
What you are is the essential matter.
Brave it out and regard Indifference
with philosophy.
Cultivation? That is something upon
which man must expend his whole
life's effort, and when all is done he
will only have started on his quest
NeW York SUM-