It is characteristic of modern education that it is satisfied with the semblance and not the substance of learning. I was taught _about_ Shakspere, but not Shakspere. I was instructed in the history of literature, but not in literature itself. I knew the names of the works of numerous English authors and I knew what Taine and others thought about them, but I knew comparatively little of what was between the covers of the books themselves. I was, I find, a student of letters by proxy. As time went on I gradually forgot that I had not, in fact, actually perused these volumes; and to-day I am accustomed to refer familiarly to works I never have read at all--not a difficult task in these days of handbook knowledge and literary varnish. It is this patent superficiality that so bores me with the affected culture of modern social intercourse. We all constantly attempt to discuss abstruse subjects in philosophy and art, and pretend to a familiarity with minor historical characters and events. Now why try to talk about Bergson's theories if you have not the most elementary knowledge of philosophy or metaphysics? Or why attempt to analyze the success or failure of a modern post-impressionist painter when you are totally ignorant of the principles of perspective or of the complex problems of light and shade? You might as properly presume to discuss a mastoid operation with a surgeon or the doctrine of _cypres_ with a lawyer. You are equally qualified. I frankly confess that my own ignorance is abysmal. In the last twenty-eight years what information I have acquired has been picked up principally from newspapers and magazines; yet my library table is littered with books on modern art and philosophy, and with essays on literary and historical subjects. I do not read them. They are my intellectual window dressings. I talk about them with others who, I suspect, have not read them either; and we confine ourselves to generalities, with a careful qualification of all expressed opinions, no matter how vague and elusive. For example--a safe conversational opening: "Of course there is a great deal to be said in favor of Bergson's general point of view, but to me his reasoning is inconclusive. Don't you feel the same way--somehow?" You can try this on almost anybody. It will work in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred; for, of course, there is a great deal to be said in favor of the views of anybody who is not an absolute fool, and most reasoning is open to attack at least for being inconclusive. It is also inevitable that your cultured friend--or acquaintance--should feel the same way--somehow. Most people do--in a way.