How does Hermann Hesse use imagery in The Glass Bead Game?

Imagery:

"Some thought that the Waldzellers were priggish aesthetes and pampered princes, useless for anything but the Glass Bead Game."

It is bad enough when he says, for example, that we Castalians lead the life of artificially reared songbirds, do not earn our bread ourselves, never face necessity and the struggle for existence, neither know nor wish to know anything about the portion of humanity whose labor and poverty provide the base for our lives of luxury."