PEOPLE WHO AFFECT CULTURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7293, 4 January 1902, Page 3

PEOPLE WHO AFFECT CULTURE.

A large class of people dn not realise that while culture, the genuine article, is a valuable and beautiful thing, counterfeit culture is like imitation jewellery, worse than nono at. all. The woman who affects culture, having a right and laudable -desire to improve herself, and her surroundings, set* to work in a wrong way to accomplish her aims. She begins by studying to be correct in hey manner of speech. She avoids idioms, she orally "dots her i's ands crosses her tf*," and she is particular/ to give the proper accent to such wordts as "detail." She acquires also the habit of starting, arguments as to the proper pronunciation of words, and if one of her friends chances to miiscall a word she- takes occasion to use the same term- herself a moment later, pro-nouncing-it correctly. She is conspicuously careful about . her grammar, too, and never allows herself to become so absorbed in her subject as to put a pronoun in the objective case when it shoxild! be in the nominative. The woman who affects culture reads much from writers ghe.is intellectually unable to appreciate, supposing that the fact of having perused! a book puts her on a I par with people who have not only read but also enjoyed! it... She is 'ignorant of the well-known truth | that the mmd 1 , like the body, is nourished only by what it can digest, and so, although she likes Longfellow and. Tennyson, she pores over Shakspere andi Browning. While thus intellectually "building her house upon itfhe sands," the -woman of wham I write does not forget to reform the ways of her household. In a flat, with one servamt, she makes an attempt, which would be ludicrous if. it were not. pitiable, to maintain the state and formality which* seemed' so simple a matter in a large establishment she has lately visited. j {She never answers the door-bell herself. The anaid-of -all-work must leave her washtub half a dozen tinies on Monday morning, dry her hands, change her . gin^han*. apron for a white one, and, card l-ay in hand, go to the door to find heiiself ccri 1 fronted by the man with the gas bill, or an agent who has eluded the watchfulness of the janitor. The next attack of this seeker after culr ture is against her husband's comfort. She omits from her bill of fare the occasional " boiled; dinner " 'he is fond of, and gives him instead game, which he detests. . Her meals are too elaborate when has guests, and the fruit seen upon her table is out of season and expensive. Whtn oranges are in their prime she buys sour strawberries;, when, peaches, and melrns are at -their -best- £he searches ihe market for oranges, and on Christmas she substitutes a many-course affair for nihe good-old-fashioned turkey, dinner. I might go on. and tell of innumerable ways in which, the woman who merely affects culture stamps herself as an imitator, but I have said enough to enable you to recognise her kind. That culture and refinement are things we should all strive to attain is not to be doubted for a moment, but we should endeavour also to remember that neither of these consists in aggressive correctness of manner or speech, in intellectual posing, in a stilted way of living ; in short, in assuming mentally, morally or socially to be that which we are not. True culture is innate. It is i-.-t to be put on from the outside, like a manile. It is, rather, an inner radiance .-Jiowmg through an " outward andi visible sign " of inward gentleness of heart and nobility of soul. .