In his famous address on “The Progress of Culture,” delivered before a celebrated college society in Cambridge in 1867, Emerson summed up the whole matter in one sentence:  “The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment.”  Here is the whole secret in a single sentence.  The restraining grace is “at last the moral sentiment.”  It is a fine genuine unselfishness that, observing how all these things may pain and wound, refrains from doing any of them.  The man or woman or family who can avoid transgressing in these particulars can do so habitually only as the result of a fine moral sentiment underlying the whole nature.  And those who possess or have cultivated in themselves this fine moral sentiment of unselfishness, justice, and considerateness, will be surrounded by an atmosphere of culture though their dwelling-place be an uncarpeted cabin, while those who lack this restraining grace will be “uncultivated” though their surroundings afford every comfort, beauty, and luxury.  It should be a thought of encouragement to us, and an inspiration of hope that we may possess the true and imperishable riches of a cultivated spirit, however poor and struggling our lives may be, or however barren of external beauty our surroundings.  Culture depends not on material possessions.  In fact, the very abundance of conveniences and comforts and elegances often seems to have an injurious and deteriorating effect on individuals and families by producing in them a selfish love of personal ease and exclusiveness.  On the other hand, the painful and patient economizing of humble toilers often produces an unselfishness and patience and gentleness of demeanor which is in effect the very finest culture.

In these days of specialists and artists and architects and upholsterers, anyone who has money can possess himself of the material surroundings of taste and culture.  His house may be “a poem in stone” exteriorly, and a “symphony in color” in its interior adornments.  This much of the products of genuine culture he may buy with money.  But no money can buy the pearl of great price, the cultured spirit in the individual or family, without which the most palatial mansion is but a dead and lifeless shell.  Lacking this moral sentiment and culture, how many a handsomely appointed home is the abode of rudeness, unkindness, selfishness, and misery!  The rude speech or cutting retort or selfish act are doubly and trebly incongruous when pictured walls and frescoed ceilings and luxurious surroundings of artistic beauty are the silent witnesses of the vulgarity.  On the other hand, there is opportunity for the display of the best and kindest and most cultivated manners in the humble home where lack of suitable furnishings and dearth of conveniences puts everyone’s unselfishness to the test.