CULTURE.

Everyone nowadays has something to say about Culture. Even the politicians have heard of it, and some morning we may read in our newspapers that one of them is of opinion that there is some meaning in the term. Naturally enough we have all of us for some time been groping after the thing itself. The Time-Spirit is like a skilful driver of sheep. He may have considerable trouble with his flock, but, thanks to his unruffled intelligence and the ceaseless exertions of his dog Genius, he brings them all in in time for the market. It is now almost a century since the Idea of Culture took definite shape in the mind of a single man, and ever since then the number of its followers has kept on increasing, until at last everyone, as I remarked, has now something to say about it. If, however, one enquires of people, not what theythinkof Culture, (For everyone from the Vatican Œcumenical Council[11]to the author of “In Memoriam”[12]is agreed as to the advantage of it), but what cultureis, one may go far for a satisfactory answer. Women are growing dissatisfied with the sphere of their work. What is it that they need? “More breadth of culture,” answers the Prince of Tennyson’s Princess readily enough, “more breadth of culture!” And it will be said that it is easy to see that what the Prince means is, that women should have thrown open to them the education that has so far been the monopoly of men. But is this Culture? is this the whole truth about it?—simply the giving to the many—to women, to the Middle-class and to the People—what is the education of the few? would that man in whose mind the Idea of Culture first took definite shape have been satisfied with the sight of ubiquitous Harrows and Etons and Grammar Schools of Melbourne and Geelong? There can be no doubt but that such a sight would have pleased, but it certainly would not have satisfied him. “Schools,” he would have said, “are of high importance, but what is taught in them is of importance still higher.”

And so we come back again to our question as to what Cultureiswith a sense that the ready answers to it are only half answers. Now everyone has heard of Goethe, and everyone has read some of his writings—“Faust,” at any rate—and, as it is to Goethe that we owe the Idea of Culture (as indeed most things that are really good in the sphere of modern thought), it would be best to at once quote his own words on the matter, and see if we cannot find a definition, or at any rate a description, of Culture that shall satisfy us. Poetry, however, does not exactly lend itself to definitions of such things as this, or even to descriptions. In Faust himself the idea may be more or less, as they say, incarnated, but we plain practical people, who like things put as much in black and white as may be, have some difficulty in these matters, and would far rather hear of them in simple English prose which means what it says and says what it means, than in poetry (and particularly German poetry) which seems to us to do exactly the reverse. Well, then, let us turn away from this parabolic Goethe for a little, and see if we cannot find someone who shall be his expounder to us. And who else should this be, at any rate in this case, than he whom the newspapers like to call the Apostle of Culture, Mr. Matthew Arnold? Let us go to Mr. Matthew Arnold, and say: “Sir, you are constantly talking about Culture, and you have said many uncomplimentary things to us all about our want of it. Now would you be so kind as to tell us precisely what youmeanby it? And we warn you that we are plain practical people who like things put as much in black and white as may be, and that we have a decidedly poor opinion of your efforts to make us believe that ‘the Eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness’ is the same thing as our ‘loving and intelligent Governor of the Universe,’ and that it makes no difference to us when we eat our Christmas goose and plum-pudding whether we believe that we do so because those shepherds and those Three Kingsdidcome that day to Christ in the Bethlehem manger, to the accompaniment of an angelic concert, or did not. We want, Sir, a definition of this Culture of yours, or, if you cannot give us that (But, really now, you are so clever at definitions that we shall be quite disappointed if you cannot!), then you must give us a good description of it, so that we may be able to arrive at a proper decision about it.” Then an expression of bland patience would cross Mr. Arnold’s countenance, as he sat inhis study chair, listening with that “native modesty” of which he has told us all, to the words of our curious foreman; and, after a short pause, he would perhaps answer: “Gentlemen, I am much honoured by this deputation and inquiry. Long ago in some remarks of mine on translating Homer.... But I will refer you to a more recent period. A new and revised edition of a little book of mine called ‘Literature and Dogma’ has just been issued in a cheap form by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. You will find that in the Preface to it the following words occur, which I venture to think may, on investigation, be found to answer the question with which I am now honoured. But, as you possibly may not remember it, (for I cannot expect you, any more than myself, to be always studying my works), I will quote it to you. ‘Culture,’ I said (Culture in italics)—‘Culture, knowing the best that has been thought and known in the world.’ I can give no better definition than this. ‘True Culture,’ I say again, ‘true Culture implies not only knowledge, but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment.’ Or, yet again: ‘Culture isreading’ (Reading in italics), ‘but reading with a purpose to guide it, and with system.’”—And with this, and a renewal of compliments on both sides, our jury bows itself out, and presently the sound of the closing hall-door mounts up to the silent chamber.

“But an awful pleasure blandspreading o’er the Poet’s face,when the sound climbs near his seat,the encircled library sees;as he lets his lax right handwhich the lightnings doth embracesink upon his mighty knees.”

“But an awful pleasure bland

spreading o’er the Poet’s face,

when the sound climbs near his seat,

the encircled library sees;

as he lets his lax right hand

which the lightnings doth embrace

sink upon his mighty knees.”

This, then, it seems, is Culture—knowing the best that has been thought and known in the world—not only knowledge, but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment—reading,but reading with a purpose to guide it, and with system. And is not this something like what Goethe meant in that enigmatic sentence of his, which we have heard so often quoted by people who understood it as much as we did: “Vom Halben zu entwöhnen; Im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen resolut zu leben.” “I resolved to wean myself from halves, and to live for the Whole, the Good, the Beautiful.” But even now, even now that we know what it is (And after all, we say, what much more is it than saying that we ought to try for thebest article, and not rest content with anything but the best article?), wherein are we, we plain practical people with our attachment to black and white, helped to the attainment of it? Culture, we are told, is reading, but reading with a purpose to guide it and with system. The purpose, it is presumed, is attainment, but what is the system? We are to have knowledge, and not only knowledge but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment. All very nice, we say, but how are we to get them? You say to a man who hobbles, “Run:” he is quite as capable of saying it as you are. Either show him how to run, or hold your tongue!—unless it be that he thinks heisrunning, and even then it seems useless enough to undeceive him without you can teach him how to do what he now thinks he is. What, then, is this system of which you speak? what is the receipt for it? is it a system possible tous?

Well, I really have not the courage to go and face Mr. Arnold again. Handlers of the lightnings like he is can be so disagreeable when they please. Where is the joy of figuring in some ludicrous or contemptible attitude in their writings for the next few hundred years or so? It is all very well to say that we shall all of us be in our graves presently, and all equally ignorant of what our descendants may think of us, but the truth is no one likes to be held up to the nations as a fool or a knave, and especially if he be both. I see nothing for it but to let the oracle alone. I for one will have nothing to do with stirring up Phoibos again. I have done so more than once already, and am too grateful for a whole hide to tempt the arrows further. We must be our own Oidipous. At most we can reverently finger the Sibylline leaves, and see if anything of “pleasant to the eye and good for food” can be extracted therefrom.

To begin with, however, does it not seem best to say at once that, after all, there is no receipt for not saying and doing foolish things except not to be foolish? No system in the world will give wings to a worm. On the other hand, there is really no reason why the descendants of that worm should not one day navigate the sky; and, as a matter of fact, they do. Similarly with the stupidest and the most degraded of us, I cannot see why a single moment should be lost in attempting to better them. The earth is likely to be inhabitable for the next eight millionsof years or so, it seems, and I am sure that is long enough for us. We need not be in such a hurry as the Socialists would have us, nor yet creep along on all fours in the Conservative manner; but we must not, of course, undervalue either fashion or progress, since both wheels and a drag are important parts of a carriage in uneven country. But here again, as is always the case, we are brought face to face with the question, not only of the wheels and the drag, not only of the carriage itself, and not only of even the driver of it, but of the end of the journey. “The purpose,” we said a moment ago in our ready way, “is, it is presumed, attainment, but what is the system?—Never mind,” we say, “about where we are going to: let us hear about the carriage we are going in! Let us have Etons and Harrows and Melbourne and Geelong Grammar Schools everywhere, and then we shall be alright. Let us resolve to have the best article, and not rest content with anything but the best article, and that’s all!”

Alas, for the impatience of mankind! In order totryfor the best article, not to say tohaveit, must we not first know what the best articleis? should we not know where we are going to, before we construct our carriage and purchase our horses? And yet, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are we not content togo, and leave more or less to chance where we are goingto? do we not waste half our lives in overcoming difficulties with which we ought to have had nothing to do? It is so easy to talk and to act: it is so difficult to think, and mould your words and actions to your thoughts rather than your thoughts to your words and actions. It is the weary old tale of the more haste and the less speed, the weary old tale that is for ever new. And yet we will not listen to it. Sooner than trouble ourselves with thewhysof things, we will throw ourselves with energy into the firsthowsthat present themselves, and leave the rest to chance, or, as Dr. Moorhouse’s good “unintelligent orthodox” people say, to God. But nothing real, nothing lasting, is achieved in this way. Nature does not work in this way: God does not work in this way. The beasts do and the vast majority of men do, and that is why, in Hamlet’s words, life is such “an unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.” No, if we are to understand, not only Culture but anything at all, we must begin at the very beginning: we must learn thewhys. Take care of thewhys, we might say, and thehowswill take care of themselves. And let us not for a moment be deceived by those who tell us that our fathers got along very well without inquiring into thewhys, into the causes of things, and so can we. This is not so. Whatever success has been achieved has been achieved by a recognition, conscious or unconscious it may be, of the causes of the thing worked upon. Instead of our fathers having had any success from their ignorance of causes, or their reliance on good fortune, they have had success in despite in these, and only so far as they banished the one and knew how to turn to account the other.

And Culture? what has this to do with Culture? Everything!—In this, as in so many other cases, we concentrate all our attention on thehowand leave thewhyto take care of itself. “More breadth of Culture, more breadth of Culture,” cry the Princes and the Priests, and everyone else, in emulous chorus. But when they are asked what theymeanby Culture—what Cultureis, then they have no answer ready save one (as Shelley says),

“pinnacled dim in the intense inane;”

and this sort of thing will, in the end, satisfy no man.

Well, we have heard what Cultureis—knowing the best that has been thought and known in the world. But we have been brought up sharply at the very next step:Culture is reading, but reading with a purpose to guide it. What is the purpose? Attainment. Yes, buthow?howandwhy?

But before we try to answer that, let us think a moment whether the expounder of our parabolic Goethe has given us a definition that is quite satisfactory. We have nothing to say against his definition of Culture itself. It expresses Goethe’s “the Whole, the Good and the Beautiful” perfectly. But what about this second definition? what about Culture being reading, but reading with a purpose to guide it? Is this a pure parallel equivalent of the first, or has it something of a limitation in it? Can we, indeed (supposing us the happy possessors of a certain purpose and system), achieve a knowledge of the best that has been thought and known in the world—of the Whole, the Good and the Beautiful—by reading, and by reading only? is this what Goethe has to say to us? is this the lesson of Goethe’s life? If it is, why is it that he lays such stress on the absolute personal experience of things? If Faust could have achieved Truth in his study, why doesGoethe show us his achievement of it by taking him away from his reading, and flinging him in the arms, first of Love and then of Life? Faust does not leave his reading and his thinking behind him: they accompany him everywhere, from Margarete’s bedroom to the witch-revel on the Brocken. And what does this mean but that, to achieve a knowledge of the best that the world has thought and known, two things are necessary—reading and experience; or, in the same words, thought and knowledge. No amount of reading will compensate for want of experience. It is useless for me to think I have attained to Truth, if I have never felt her absolute presence. Is idealization the essence of true love? Is there a more real inspiration to be found in the faëry princesses of Shelley, than in the breathing women of Wordsworth? Idealization is good, but it must have a firm foundation in reality, or it is barren of anything but fantasticality. So it is with thought and knowledge. No man who has not himself lived and loved can tell us the truth of love and life. Gibbon had immense reading, and a purpose and a system in it (I do not here enter upon their precise nature), and his history of the Decline and Fall of Rome is in many respects quite admirable, but he does not attain to truth in it. And why? Because he has not experience, he has not knowledge. All his reading, all his purpose, all his system will not compensate for the want of their corollary. No, Culture, the achieving of the best that has been thought in the world, is not reading, not reading with any purpose or system that has been or will ever be devised. Culture is the combination of reading with experience, of thought with knowledge. The one thing acts as a check on the other; the one is the spirit and the other the body; the one, in Shakspere’s words, the “judgment” and the other the “blood,” and in their “co-mingling” is found the perfect man. The purpose, the system remain unchanged. We have only, as it seems to me, to develop our second definition: to say that Cultureis reading and experience, but reading and experience with a purpose to guide them, and a system.

And so, having disposed somewhat of thewhy, we come back to thehow, the purpose and the system. In reality the two are one. Mr. Arnold speaks once of Goethe’s “profound impartiality,” and elsewhere he lays the greatest stress on that which alone can help criticism “to produce fruit for the future”—disinterestedness. Bydisinterestednesshe means the sincere endeavour, the pure and simple endeavour, to get at the truth of things, to see them as they really are. And what is this but Goethe’s determination to “wean himself from halves,” from partial views of things? Now nothing is easier than to say that you seek for Truth and Truth only, and nothing is more difficult to do. Who is there that does not make this profession? And yet how few, how infinitely few, are those who turn it into practice! And why is this? The answer of course is because, say what they may, the pursuit of most men is merely relative. I no more attain to Truth by saying “Go to, I will attain to it,” than I should fly over the moon by a like formula. It is only the really honest and sincere, the really pure and simple endeavour to find Truth that makes me competent to even set out in search of it, and it is only by the ceaseless use of a system of resolute patience and clear-sightedness that I can hope to proceed with any success upon my way. This is indeed a hard saying; but who, except him who ought to feel it least, feels that Truth is a goal to be won by rose-crowned processions to the sound of cymbals and dances? Some people, indeed, have a conviction that a special exception has been made in their case, and that what has been hidden from the wise and prudent has been revealed to babes and sucklings; and I am sure it is a pleasant sight enough to see the way the babes and sucklings enjoy this idea, and will continue to do so as long as the milk lasts. (And, indeed, at this very hour when the milk is running rather low, what a dismal howl the poor little things are setting up, and how on earth are we ever going to wean them?) No, it is only by utter and unwearying honesty, by the obstinate determination to admit of no delusion or illusion, however attractive, however pleasant to our souls, that we can hope to attain to anything like Truth. How often, when we think we have found the jewel, must we put it down and remove ourselves, now to this side, now to that, to be sure that the cutting is indeed flawless! how much must we give up, and how much must we win, before our mind is trained to, as it were, of itself, effortlessly, spontaneously, look at things with that patient clear-sightedness which reaches to their essence! This, then, is our purpose in Culture, and this our system, and this is the fruit of it—a habit of thought which shall havenot only thought and knowledge, but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment. And so our scheme is complete.

Now, leave this theoretical consideration of it for a moment, and see with what result it has been applied to actual things. It has been applied, it is being applied, everywhere and to almost everything. Take the domain of Science, where it has, so far, been applied in a manner which appeals most to most people—practical success, as we call it. There is no need for me to sing the praises of this practical success. It rises all round me in choruses and peans and hosannas. What I want to say about it is, that all this practical success is due solely and entirely to the fact that its creators have applied that purpose and system of ours on, it is true, a more virgin soil than most, but also with a more thoroughness than any. Look at the patience and clear-sightedness that breathes and shines in every page Darwin wrote! It was well said of him, that you could be sure no one would state the case against anything he had to say more fully than he did himself. What a serenity the man had, what depths of power and peace! It was my privilege to have had for father one who, to his own depths of serenity, and power, and peace, added those drawn from his friendship with this great Darwin, and from an unrivalled appreciation of his work. When I think of that method of the pursuit of the truth of things which I have myself seen in the late Professor Leith Adams, my father, I seem to myself to despair of ever thoroughly mastering the reality of anything at all. I am overwhelmed with the mystery of Butters’ Spelling Book: I dare not lift up my eyes to criticise a barrel-organ, and the young lady so painfully practising scales there is a whole heaven above me. We cannot too much praise the complete singleness of heart and soul with which the Scientists have faced their problems. When I compare Lord Tennyson’s consideration of the Struggle in Nature inIn Memoriam, with Darwin’s in hisDescent of Man, the radical insincerity of the former, I confess, disgusts me, and I fear to do some one or other of its good qualities an injustice. What intellectual exercise all this despair is! The poet’s mind is made up before he starts, and all this paraphernalia of doubt is really simply to show that he can enter into the opposite point of view to his own, and yet retain his original convictions! What is the sum total of it? That here is a man of the past, born into a present from which none but those of the future can evolve that future. Five are five and ten are ten, and he adds them together and makes seven! With how different atemper does Darwin face his problem! He has become “as a little child” in his simple attitude towards things. “Where’er thou leadest, will I follow thee.” And it was just because this was so, that what he had to say to us prevails more and more; for, having attained to the secret of the purpose and system of patience and clear-sightedness, he had not only knowledge but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment; and so he achieved Truth for himself and for others. Nor does the good of such a man, his life and his work, end here. He has communicated to all who have anything to do with his work, his secret or something of his secret, even as Goethe did before him. Why, here we have Professor Huxley warning the coming race of Scientists against taking for granted the very things in the discovery and revelation of which he has himself toiled all his life, and the cry has been taken up with enthusiasm. “All is possible,” said Professor Clifford, “to him who doubts.” What an admirable temper is this. Imagine Cardinal Newman warning the young Catholics against taking the Infallibility of the Church for granted! Or Lord Tennyson assuring us that that fine personal individuality theory of his (“I am I, thou art thou,” and so on) must not be considered by young Churchmen as finally settled! And yet it is in the possession or non-possession of this temper, I say, that lies the essential difference between the men of the past and the men of the future. Mr. Arnold laments that Cardinal Newman, “that exquisite and delicate genius,” was not born a little later, so that the Time-Spirit might have touched and transformed him. The same may be said of Lord Tennyson, and will be said in another fifty years. But let us have an end to such laments. To these men, as to their contemporaries, the light came, and they chose the twilight where others chose the dawn, and, having had their hour of victory in the applause of the mass of their time, the doubters and the believers, let us recognize that, at any rate as influences on thought, they are but ghosts in the bright daytime, speechless and ineffectual.

I have, despite myself, been singing the praises of the Scientists. And why not? Have they not shown us that they have (as Darwin says so gracefully of Mr. Wallace) “an innate genius for solving difficulties?” But they, too, have their assailable side. I have spoken of Professor Clifford. His talent we were all bound to admire, and his sincerity; but howwonderfully inept he was when he came to consider things outside his own immediate sphere! We all remember what he had to say about Christianity. He had the same narrowness towards Christianity that the Christians have towards Science. In them it is excusable, perhaps. Circumstances have been all against them. They have had such little opportunity of attaining to the secret of the purpose and system of Culture. It has taken its rise outside their pale, and has been combated as a foe, and is still combated. But in a man whohadthis secret, how inexcusable the not being able to apply it outside his own immediate sphere! and how doubly inexcusable to apply to his opponents that very method which had made them so! Really he should have known better. And unfortunately there are so many of the young Scientists that are following in his footsteps, and not in the footsteps of Darwin. And this is a great misfortune, and should be struggled against with all our powers. But otherwise (since I cannot end here with the note of blame), how truly admirable is the temper of these men when they are only let alone in their own sphere! Compare the teaching of Science in our colleges and universities with that of Literature! And yet, slow as is the progress of Literature in its application of the purpose and system of Culture to things, itisa progress. The success of that charming series of biographies, the English Men of Letters—nay, of the little shilling Literature Primers—is a sign of it. And the same thing, too, is being done with regard to Philosophy; but, so far, the men of Science have the lead, and they deserve it; for, as I have said, theirs has been the most complete singleness of heart and soul with which Truth has been sought out, they have the most thoroughly applied the secret of the purpose and system of Culture.

Now, let us again leave our consideration of these things, and see wherein this question of Culture concerns us plain practical people with our attachment to black and white; how does it, in a word, come into our daily life. I can only answer as before, everywhere!—The other day the son of a friend of mine, (say) Jones, wished to apprentice himself as a brewer, or, rather, wished to start as a brewer at once. His father sent him to a well-known brewer to be, as the father said, put through his paces. The young man returned crestfallen. What was the matter? The father could not understand it,and I was set to find it out.—“Tom hasn’t enough Culture,” I reported.—“What do you mean?” asked the father.—“He doesn’t know the best that has been thought and known in the world in the matter of brewing,” I replied, “I should advise a course of practical chemistry.”—“But I’m sure X ..., the brewer’s father, didn’t know anything about chemistry, or his father before him.”—“Probably; but, ifX... didn’t, I expect he’d have to give up brewing,” I said. And it is the same in everything. More and more the perception that things move by fixed laws, which must be obeyed if we would direct ourselves with success, spreads and intensifies. The necessity of moulding our words and actions to our thoughts, rather than our thoughts to our words and actions, is becoming apparent to all men who would avoid the workhouse, actual or metaphorical. Thewhysof things press upon us. It is no use contenting ourselves with thehows. If we do, someone else finds out thewhys, and we are left in the lurch. The other day an intelligent sheep-breeder told me an amusing tale. He had with much trouble and cost purchased in Tasmania a small stud of prize sheep, which he took up to his station in the North. The flower of the first generation he sent to a neighbouring show. The wool of the sheep was thick and close, unlike that of the locky sheep which are considered the best there. His sheep was laughed at by all the judges, who wondered such a sensible man should have sent such a senseless sheep! These judges were deficient in Culture: they did not know the best that has been thought and known in the world in the matter of sheep-breeding. The sheep of these men were shearing on an average less by more than two pounds of wool than the sheep of the more scientific sheep-breeders further south! It is a question, then, whether their children will be so jubilant when they are brought face to face with the competition of an enormously increased home wool-production, and a still more enormously increased wool-production from South America. You cannot now with impunity be wanting in Culture. The stream of life flows too fast for the straws that want to go exploring back-waters, or stopping to admire the scenery.

And Australia—this Australia in which we live—what a need for Culture is here! I see nothing here of the best, and much of the worst. Take this very question of sheep-breeding. Australia is in advance of England, for sheep-breeding is thestaple support of the one country, and only an item in the produce of the other. But in what a backward state it is to what, as a staple support, it ought to be! By what rough and ready methods things are still done here. What a dearth of real intelligence there is! of that patience and clear-sightedness which is the secret of the purpose and system of Culture. Who seems to see that in this, as in all matters, thewhyis the important matter on which thehowwill follow, and not the reverse? There is abundance of shrewdness to hand, and finger and thumb wisdom, but who sees that the great necessity is sheer knowledge? Australia was made by men of this stamp, and they still rule it, but their rule is passing, as it was bound to pass, before the unruffled intelligence of the Time-Spirit. These were the men who gave us our absurd nomenclature of birds and flowers. If they saw a bird was black and had one dissonant cry, they called it a jay, and it sufficed. A flower is yellow and little: call it a primrose. And so on. Then their children arose in their turn, and found themselves rich, and took to building cities, and we have (what Mr. Sala calls) Marvellous Melbourne, with the Picture-gallery and Statue-gallery which we know, and the crowning glory of its Government House, perhaps the most hideous hospital in existence. Or the good Sydney people would like to decorate their Post-office with emblematic sculpture, and the result is, what has at last become, the mockery of a Continent. And at last, too, the Picture Gallery at Melbourne is coming into disrepute, and some day, perhaps, the Government House will do the same. It would be pleasant, I think, to see it turned into an asylum. No nation that calls itself civilized stands in more need of Culture, of the best that has been thought and known in the world, in each and every branch of it, than Australia does. Some faint perception of this seems positively to be beginning to dawn upon its complacency. Let us do all we can to forward this. “The Australians,” said an Australian to me the other day, “are much more fond of beautiful things than the English.” “Alas,” I answered, “that is not saying much, but I have not yet remarked it.” No, the one commendable wish that the Australians have, is that they really do want the best article in things, and for the best article they are ready to pay. The unfortunate thing is, that there seems nothing in which they are yet qualified to know the best article when they see it! “We want finepictures,” say the Victorians, and they are befooled by ship-loads of London tea-trays, which no one but members of Assembly and the wives of tradespeople and squatters would take for anything else.—And yet, how is it possible for me to continue to pile up anathemas like this against these Australians for whom I hope so much, unless it be that I think in this way to do the little best I can towards helping to the realization of my hopes? But this is an old tale now, and we will say no more of it.

In every aspect of life, then, from its highest to its lowest, let us remember this idea of Culture, let us make for the best article, and be secure in its possession. The other day a Melbourne lady was saying to me how pretty and charming a place the Fitzroy Gardens were as a public park. “But the brown plaster statues,” I said, “and the concrete water-shrines.” And this Melbourne lady frankly declared her allegiance to these things, and, when in my disagreeable unsatisfied way I began to compare them with the marble copies from the Antique which are to be seen in the Inner Domain and Botanical Gardens in Sydney, she frankly told me thatafter allit was onlya matter of opinion, andmyopinion was this andherswas that! “And so,” I said, “my dear lady, it is,after all, onlya matter of opinionwhether the Apollo of the Belvidere or the Venus of Milo is more beautiful or less beautiful than the statue of Burke and Wills in Collins Street, not to say the brown-plaster statues in the Fitzroy Gardens?” And then this Melbourne lady, who had read many novels and magazines, and several volumes of sermons and even popular “philosophy books,” maintained her original assertion with the charming assurance of her sex; and I could only think that it was a pity she had not Culture—did not know the best, or even the second or third best, of what has been known and thought in the world in the matter of sculptural beauty, for then she would not have helped to persuade her husband to vote for the erection of any more brown-plaster statues and concrete water-shrines in the public places of his city. But, as it is, I am so thankful that the Sydney people have decorated one of their public places with really fine marble copies from the Antique (which none of these Australians, with their superior love for beautiful things has yet, so far as I am aware, thought of defacing), that I wonder at myself for thinking of saying it is a pity to see beside these so many poor modern and perhapscolonial products; for who can be wise—do I say in an hour, in a day, in a year, in a life-time? nay, rather, in a generation? Certainly not the architects and public decorators of Australia. Let us be thankful for what we have got, and diligently go on showing our thankfulness by asking for more.

But no; the time has passed when silly people can say that silliness is,after all, only amatter of opinion—or, if it has not passed, then we ought all of us to be striving our utmost to make it be passed. Culture is possible to so many! Its text-books are no longer in the hands of the incompetent: we have really no excuse for thinking Mr. Martin Tupper is preferable as a poet to Lord Tennyson, or Miss Eliza Cook to Mr. Arnold; and I will confess that I look with suspicion on the intellectual attainments of a man who sees no difference in theopinionof Darwin or Professor Huxley and of the popular Theologians and Mr. Lilly. Look, I say, at the text-books of Culture now, of the best which has been known and thought in the world. We have all seen Professor Huxley’s little primer of Physiology. Well, that is for Science. Then there is Mr. Stopford Brooke’s little primer of English Literature. That is for Literature; and these are only examples. Really, now, wehaveno excuse for reading the wrong books and thinking the wrong thoughts any more. And we have not, either, to confine ourselves to the thought of our own language. Everywhere excellent translations of noteworthy works are to be found. We would get to know something of the literature of Greece? At the end of Mr. Jebbs’ excellent little primer of Greek Literature, we shall find a list of the best translations. We have heard people talking of Professor Haeckel and his wonderful physiological work? Good translations of his best-known books are to hand. And so on throughout the whole domain of thought.

Let us sum up and conclude. We see, then, I think, what Culture is, and what is the purpose and system which should form and guide it. There is only one thing more to say about it, and that is that Culture, in this sense of the word, is the distinct product of our own times. No other country at no other time possessed it. The Jews possessed an unrivalled insight into Religion, into the sense of Righteousness. It is to a Jew that we owe most of what is best in Religion. Indeed, to the great majority of us his name is still a synonyme forReligion. But Righteousness is not the sole necessity of life—there is also Beauty. “Beauty,” says Keats,

“beauty is truth, truth beauty: this is allye know on earth or that ye need to know.”

“beauty is truth, truth beauty: this is all

ye know on earth or that ye need to know.”

But Keats, we remember, was a Pagan, a modern Greek, and men like this are quite as apt to think that Beauty is “the one thing needful” as the other stamp of man is to think that Righteousness is “the one thing needful;” whereas the real fact is that both are needful. What an advantage, then, have we over both Jews and Greeks in our appreciation of this! At the best, it is not possible to look upon either Paul or Plato as exponents of anything final. It requires two wings to soar with, and who can think that this “ugly little Jew,” as M. Renan has it, who talked nonsense about an Art which at best seemed to him mostly diabolical, was dowered with two? Nor yet can we think this of that “high Athenian gentleman,” as Carlyle retorts, with his illustrious Master who would have been so “terribly at ease in Zion.” Let us recognize it at once: the Jews are great and the Greeks are great, but neither of them by themselves can satisfy us. Nay, further; to the sense of Righteousness and Beauty must now be added that sense which Bacon first brought with any fertility to us—the sense of Science. “And we,” says Arnold,

“and we have been on many thousand lines,and we have shown, in each, spirit and power.”

“and we have been on many thousand lines,

and we have shown, in each, spirit and power.”

And it is just from the combination of the results of our spirit and power on these many thousand lines that this Culture of ours, this unique product of our times, springs. It was not before this possible. How could Paul understand the Greek Art? how could Plato have understood the Hebrew Righteousness? It was not till the Renascence, till Shakspere, that such a thing was possible, and it was not till Modernity, till Goethe, that it was possible to find these two senses, the sense of Beauty and of Righteousness, united to that third great sense, the sense of Science. I do not say that our age is necessarily a peculiarly great age: you may call it the dwarf on the giant’s shoulders, if you please; but what I do say is, that it is the first age which has been able to attain to anything like a really comprehensive Culture, a knowledge of the best that has been known and thought in the world. Possibly we are only on the threshold of Truth: possibly it will be left to another age to work out and complete what we have butbegun; but this I think is certain: Weareon the threshold, and the sooner we realize it, the sooner shall we realize that we are men in whom it is incumbent to put off childish things, the sooner shall we advance into the palace and very home.

Ah, then, let us no longer content ourselves with anything less than the best article! Let us live for the Idea of Culture, for and by it—for the best that has been thought and known in the world! Let us, too, like Goethe, resolve to wean ourselves from halves, from partial and prejudiced views of things, and to live “im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen”—“for the Whole, the Good, the Beautiful!”

December, 1885.

Back to Index Next