and conceit; but the work must be done anew in every generation and in
every individual. All men are conceived in the sin of ignorance and
born in the iniquity of half-knowledge; and every man needs to be
saved by wider knowledge and clearer vision. It is a matter of
comparative indifference where one is born; it is a matter of supreme
importance how one educates one's self. There is as genuine a
provincialism in Paris as in the remotest frontier town; it is better
dressed and better mannered, but it is not less narrow and vulgar.
There is as much vulgarity in the arrogance of a czar as in that of an
African chief; as much absurdity in the self-satisfaction of the man
who believes that the habit and speech of the boulevard are the
ultimate habit and speech of the race, as in that of the man who
accepts the manners of the mining camp as the finalities of human
intercourse. Culture is not an accident of birth, although
surroundings retard or advance it; it is always a matter of individual
education.

This education finds no richer material than that which is contained
in literature; for the characteristic of literature, as of all the
arts, is its universality of interest, its elevation of taste, its
disclosure of ideas, its constant appeal to the highest in the reader
by its revelation of the highest in the writer. Many of the noblest
works of literature are intensely local in colour, atmosphere,
material, and allusion; but in every case that which is of universal
interest is touched, evoked, and expressed. The artist makes the
figure he paints stand out with the greatest distinctness by the
accuracy of the details introduced and by the skill with which they
are handled; but the very definiteness of the figure gives force and
clearness to the revelation of the universal trait or characteristic
which is made through it. Père Goriot has the ineffaceable stamp of