You would expect spurious culture to stand aloof from common life, as it does, to extend its charities at the end of a pole, to make of religion a mere ‘cultus,’ to construct for its heaven a sort of Paris, where all the inhabitants dress becomingly, and where there are no Communists.  Culture, like fine manners, is not always the result of wealth or position.  When monseigneur the archbishop makes his rare tour through the Swiss mountains, the simple peasants do not crowd upon him with boorish impudence, but strew his stony path with flowers, and receive him with joyous but modest sincerity.  When the Russian prince made his landing in America the determined staring of a bevy of accomplished American women nearly swept the young man off the deck of the vessel.  One cannot but respect that tremulous sensitiveness which caused the maiden lady to shrink from staring at the moon when she heard there was a man in it.

The materialistic drift of this age—­that is, its devotion to material development—­is frequently deplored.  I suppose it is like all other ages in that respect, but there appears to be a more determined demand for change of condition than ever before, and a deeper movement for equalization.  Here in America this is, in great part, a movement for merely physical or material equalization.  The idea seems to be well-nigh universal that the millennium is to come by a great deal less work and a great deal more pay.  It seems to me that the millennium is to come by an infusion into all society of a truer culture, which is neither of poverty nor of wealth, but is the beautiful fruit of the development of the higher part of man’s nature.

And the thought I wish to leave with you, as scholars and men who can command the best culture, is that it is all needed to shape and control the strong growth of material development here, to guide the blind instincts of the mass of men who are struggling for a freer place and a breath of fresh air; that you cannot stand aloof in a class isolation; that your power is in a personal sympathy with the humanity which is ignorant but discontented; and that the question which the man with the spade asks about the use of your culture to him is a menace.

MODERN FICTION

By Charles Dudley Warner

One of the worst characteristics of modern fiction is its so-called truth to nature.  For fiction is an art, as painting is, as sculpture is, as acting is.  A photograph of a natural object is not art; nor is the plaster cast of a man’s face, nor is the bare setting on the stage of an actual occurrence.  Art requires an idealization of nature.  The amateur, though she may be a lady, who attempts to represent upon the stage the lady of the drawing-room, usually fails to convey to the spectators the impression of a lady.  She lacks the art by which the trained actress, who may not be a lady, succeeds.  The actual transfer to the stage of the drawing-room and its occupants, with the behavior common in well-bred society, would no doubt fail of the intended dramatic effect, and the spectators would declare the representation unnatural.