Probably the society in question deserved no satire at all; but there is a sort of “culture for culture’s sake” which does deserve to be held up to ridicule.
We find nothing to laugh at, however, but a very real pathos, in the letters that are reaching us literally from all quarters of the globe; and we long to help the writers, as well as those who have similar needs and longings unexpressed. “How can I attain self-culture?” is the question asked in varying terms, but with the same refrain.
Girls, after schooldays are past, wake up to find themselves in a region of vast, dimly-perceived possibilities:
“Moving about in worlds not realised.”
More to be pitied is the lot of those who have not had any schooldays at all worth speaking of, and who are awaking to their own mental poverty—poverty, while there is wealth all about them which they cannot make their own. Their case is like that of the heir to some vast estates, who cannot enjoy them, because he cannot prove his title.
What, then, is this much talked-of culture?
There are several things which it is not.
To begin with, it is not a superficial smattering of certain accomplishments.
It is not a general readiness to talk about the reviews one has read of new books.
It is not the varnish acquired from associating day by day with well-educated and urbane people.