then, that it is the highest mark of female culture now in that beautiful
town to despise culture, to affect the gayest and most joyous ignorance
--ignorance of books, of all forms of so-called intellectual development,
and all literary men, women, and productions whatsoever! This genuine
movement of freedom may be a real emancipation. If it should reach the
metropolis, what a relief it might bring to thousands who are, under a
high sense of duty, struggling to advance the intellectual life. There is
this to be said, however, that it is only the very brightest people,
those who have no need of culture, who have in fact passed beyond all
culture, who can take this position in regard to it, and actually revel
in the delights of ignorance. One must pass into a calm place when he is
beyond the desire to know anything or to do anything.

It is a chilling thought, unless one can rise to the highest philosophy
of life, that even the broad 'a', when it is attained, may not be a
permanence. Let it be common, and what distinction will there be in it?
When devotion to study, to the reading of books, to conversation on
improving topics, becomes a universal fashion, is it not evident that one
can only keep a leadership in fashion by throwing the whole thing
overboard, and going forward into the natural gayety of life, which cares
for none of these things? We suppose the Constitution of the United
States will stand if the day comes--nay, now is--when the women of
Chicago call the women of Boston frivolous, and the women of Boston know
their immense superiority and advancement in being so, but it would be a
blank surprise to the country generally to know that it was on the wrong
track. The fact is that culture in this country is full of surprises, and
so doubles and feints and comes back upon itself that the most diligent
recorder can scarcely note its changes. The Drawer can only warn; it
cannot advise.