An idler by profession is therefore surely a man without ideals and without real culture, however elegant may be the external forms of culture he has gathered round him. They are empty forms without real substance, and every man of better culture is bound not to allow himself to be deceived thereby and not to respect such people.
5. But not much less harmful is the inordinate passion for work. When it is voluntary, it nearly always springs from ambition or greed, two of the worst enemies of true culture; they always show that one sets the highest value upon something else than culture. Or this passion for work is only a bad habit and the imitation of a bad example, or finally it may spring from a want of inner peace and control, which are themselves the fruit of culture.
Whoever works on Sundays just the same as on week-days, when he is not compelled to, you may quietly consider as little cultured as the man who does nothing any day.
6. A very necessary element in culture is an absolute trustworthiness and an upright conduct in all money-matters. To the cultured man it is not permitted to display prodigality, or an aristocratic contempt for money; a disposition like that always indicates lack of culture, and is unjust toward one’s needy fellow-men, besides being mostly pretence. Nor is it permitted him, on the other hand, to show undue parsimony, nor dishonesty even in the smallest particulars. On this point, the Scriptures say quite truly: “He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.”
An absolutely rightful employment of money, with the strictest honesty, with complete disregard for money as the goal of life, and yet with a proper valuation of it as the means of attaining higher ends, is perhaps the surest of all signs of a man of genuine culture; as the chase after gains and the worship of money most surely betrays the uncultured man.
7. Another sufficient indication of defective culture is arrogance toward inferiors or toward those who are poorer off, and this is usually combined with subservience toward superiors and toward the wealthy. This is the special characteristic of parvenus who spring from uncultured surroundings. A man of the best culture will always be polite and friendly, but the more so, the more he has to do with those who stand below him, with the dependent or the oppressed; and the less so, even to the bare edge of politeness, the more he has to do with some one who makes pretensions, or wants to treat him as an inferior. To show deep respect for the mere wealth of another is, as said before, the most unmistakable mark of a man completely lacking in any culture of his own.
8. There are still a number of minor signs of lack of culture, which may, however, be in part only bad habits or the result of defective bringing up; they do not always point conclusively to a general lack of culture. Among these minor signs one may rightly reckon: much talking about oneself; gossip and scandal over the personal affairs of others; a great tendency to talkativeness on all occasions; a hasty, uncertain, violent temperament; making many excuses for oneself where it is not necessary or has already been done; to accuse or disparage oneself in the hope that others will then assert the contrary; a too-zealous officiousness; or a too-effusive politeness.
The thoroughly fine aristocratic temperament, such as the English especially prefer, demands a very great self-possession and preciseness; but this can easily degenerate into indifference and coldness, and is then a fault. Enthusiasm and eagerness for whatever is good a cultured man always possesses; where this is lacking, there is also a lack of true culture, in spite of fine pretences.
But this is also certain: when the enthusiasm is genuine and is not merely manufactured or the zeal of a beginner in the noble art of life, then it will never be too forward and loud in expressing itself. A noisy virtue is always a little suspicious, or at least is still in its infancy.
Culture, therefore, is essentially the gradual development of inner power toward what is right and true, with the purpose of elevating and liberating one’s own higher nature from the bonds of the ordinary animal sensuality with which it came into the world, and of training it up to a higher level of life in complete soundness of mind and body. Wherever it does not do this, it is of very subordinate value; and this it must always above all things do in the so-called cultured classes, for whom this is a primal duty.