this, but I
said that it seemed to me that most people were afraid not to know
everything. Not knowing too much is a natural gift, and unless a man can
make his ignorance contagious--inspire people with the books he dares
not read--of course the only thing he can do is to give up and read
everything, and belong to Society. He certainly cannot belong to himself
unless he protects himself with well-selected, carefully guarded, daring
ignorance. Think of the books--the books that are dictated to us--the
books that will not let a man go,--and behind every book a hundred
intelligent men and women--one's friends, too--one's own kin----

P. G. S. of M.: "But the cultured man must----"

The cultured man is the man who can tell me what he does not know, with
such grace that I feel ashamed of knowing it.

Now there's M----, for example. Other people seem to read to talk, but I
never see him across a drawing-room without an impulse of barbarism, and
I always get him off into a corner as soon as I can, if only to rest
myself--to feel that I have a right not to read everything. He always
proves to me something that I can get along without. He is full of the
most choice and picturesque bits of ignorance. He is creatively
ignorant. He displaces a book every time I see him--which is a deal
better in these days than writing one. A man should be measured by his
book-displacement. He goes about with his thinking face, and a kind of
nimbus over him, of never needing to read at all. He has nothing
whatever to give but himself, but I had rather have one of his
_questions_ about a book I had read, than all the other opinions and
subtle distinctions in the room--or the book itself.

P. G. S. of M. "But the cultured man must----"

NOT. It is the very essence of a cultured man that when he hears the
word "must" it is on his own lips. It is the very essence of his culture
that he says it to himself. His culture is his belonging to himself, and
his belonging to himself is the first condition of his being worth
giving to other people. One longs for Elia. People know too much, and
there doesn't seem to be a man living who can charm them from the error
of their way. Knowledge takes the place of everything else, and all one
can do in this present day as he reads the reviews and goes to his club,
is to look forward with a tired heart to the prophecy of Scripture,
"Knowledge shall pass away."

Where do we see the old and sweet content of loving a