There is a select society of all the centuries to which they and theirs can be admitted for the asking

From Books and Libraries by James Russell Lowell.

We often hear of people who will descend to any servility, submit to any insult for the sake of getting themselves or their children into what is euphemistically called good society. Did it ever occur to them that there is a select society of all the centuries to which they and theirs can be admitted for the asking?