8 qualities of cultured people

A must-know for 20-somethings, says a literary giant

MANILA, Philippines — Anton Chekhov, dubbed the greatest writer of short stories in literary history, is not one to judge people's culture based on the number of books they read or if they can name the artist behind a High Renaissance painting.

"In order to be cultured and not to stand below the level of your surroundings it is not enough to have read (Charles Dickens') 'The Pickwick Papers' and learnt a monologue from (Goethe's) 'Faust'," he wrote.

Chekhov wrote eight qualities of cultured people in a letter to this older brother Nikolay, a painter.

The noteworthy correspondence was among the various letters compiled and first published in 1920, over a decade after the Russian great's death in 1904.

In the letter written in Moscow in 1886, Chekhov cites Nikolay's complaints and assures him of his good qualities.

"You have often complained to me that people 'don't understand you'! Goethe and Newton did not complain of that .... Only Christ complained of it, but He was speaking of His doctrine and not of Himself ... People understand you perfectly. And if you do not understand yourself, it is not their fault," he wrote.

Chekhov then enumerated Nikolay's laudable characteristics before rebuking him for lacking culture.

"I think you are kind to the point of softness, magnanimous, unselfish, ready to share your last farthing; you have no envy nor hatred; you are simple-hearted, you pity men and beasts; you are trustful, without spite or guile, and do not remember evil ... You have a gift from above such as other people have not: you have talent. This talent places you above millions of men, for on earth only one out of two million is an artist," Chekhov said.

"You have only one failing, and the falseness of your position, and your unhappiness and your catarrh of the bowels are all due to it. That is your utter lack of culture," he added.

He then listed conditions cultured people must satisfy

1. They respect human personality, and therefore they are always kind, gentle, polite, and ready to give in to others. They do not make a row because of a hammer or a lost piece of india-rubber; if they live with anyone they do not regard it as a favor and, going away, they do not say "nobody can live with you." They forgive noise and cold and dried-up meat and witticisms and the presence of strangers in their homes.
2. They have sympathy not for beggars and cats alone. Their heart aches for what the eye does not see ... They sit up at night in order to help ... to pay for brothers at the University, and to buy clothes for their mother.
3. They respect the property of others, and therefore pay their debts.
4. They are sincere, and dread lying like fire. They don't lie even in small things. A lie is insulting to the listener and puts him in a lower position in the eyes of the speaker. They do not pose, they behave in the street as they do at home, they do not show off before their humbler comrades. They are not given to babbling and forcing their uninvited confidences on others. Out of respect for other people's ears they more often keep silent than talk.
5. They do not disparage themselves to rouse compassion. They do not play on the strings of other people's hearts so that they may sigh and make much of them. They do not say "I am misunderstood," or "I have become second-rate," because all this is striving after cheap effect, is vulgar, stale, false ...
6. They have no shallow vanity. They do not care for such false diamonds as knowing celebrities, shaking hands with the drunken P., [Translator's Note: Probably Palmin, a minor poet.] listening to the raptures of a stray spectator in a picture show, being renowned in the taverns ... If they do a pennyworth they do not strut about as though they had done a hundred roubles' worth, and do not brag of having the entry where others are not admitted ... The truly talented always keep in obscurity among the crowd, as far as possible from advertisement ... Even Krylov has said that an empty barrel echoes more loudly than a full one.
7. If they have a talent they respect it. They sacrifice to it rest, women, wine, vanity ... They are proud of their talent ... Besides, they are fastidious.
8. They develop the aesthetic feeling in themselves. They cannot go to sleep in their clothes, see cracks full of bugs on the walls, breathe bad air, walk on a floor that has been spat upon, cook their meals over an oil stove. They seek as far as possible to restrain and ennoble the sexual instinct ... What they want in a woman is not a bed-fellow ... They do not ask for the cleverness which shows itself in continual lying. They want especially, if they are artists, freshness, elegance, humanity, the capacity for motherhood ... They do not swill vodka at all hours of the day and night, do not sniff at cupboards, for they are not pigs and know they are not. They drink only when they are free, on occasion ... For they want mens sana in corpore sano (A healthy mind in a healthy body).

Chekhov further explained that cultured people constantly work "day and night" and constantly read, study and act.

"Every hour is precious for it. Come to us, smash the vodka bottle, lie down and read. You must drop your vanity, you are not a child. You will soon be thirty. It is time," he said, concluding the letter.