After this description (which is so far from being overcharged that I have omitted, for the sake of brevity, many admirable characteristics), the reader may ask in what could possibly consist the Philistinism of a nature that had attained such excellence. The answer is that it consisted in the perfect willingness with which he remained outside of every intellectual movement, and in the restriction of his mental activity to riches and religion. He used to say that "a man must be contentedly ignorant of many things," and he lived in this contented ignorance. He knew nothing of the subjects that awaken the passionate interest of intellectual men. He knew no language but his own, bought no books, knew nothing about the fine arts, never travelled, and remained satisfied with the life of his little provincial town. Totally ignorant of all foreign literatures, ancient or modern, he was at the same time so slightly acquainted with that of his own country that he had not read, and scarcely even knew by name, the most famous authors of his own generation. His little bookcase was filled almost exclusively with evangelical sermons and commentaries. This is Philistinism on the intellectual side, the mental inertness that remains "contentedly ignorant" of almost everything that a superior intellect cares for. But, besides this, there is also a Philistinism on the physical side, a physical inertness; and in this, too, my friend was a real Philistine. In spite of great natural strength, he remained inexpert in all manly exercises, and so had not enjoyed life on that side as he might have done, and as the Bohemian generally contrives to do. He belonged to that class of men who, as soon as they reach middle age, are scarcely more active than the chairs they sit upon, the men who would fall from a horse if it were lively, upset a boat if it were light, and be drowned if they fell into the water. Such men can walk a little on a road, or they can sit in a carriage and be dragged about by horses. By this physical inertia my friend was deprived of one set of impressions, as he was deprived by his intellectual inertia of another. He could not enjoy that close intimacy with nature which a Bohemian generally finds to be an important part of existence.