We all have our notions of what it means to be cultured. Money, public behaviour, private standards of decency, morality, etc ad infinitum. Anton Chekov, the Russian author wrote this letter in 1886, when he was 26, to his elder brother Nikolay who was 28, with the ‘eight traits of cultured people’. Timeless truths, if you are wondering how our idea of culture has progressed over 125 years since Chekov advised his brother.