“culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world.“
Robert Browning, another Victorian poet, similarly raised a similar ideal: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”
Toady I am afraid that we are surrounded by the worst which has been thought and said in the world.
As Yeats put it,
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
(from “The Second Coming”)