【英文文学】A Book of Words.docx

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1、【英文文学】A Book of WordsChapter 1 LiteratureA GREAT, and I frankly admit, a somewhat terrifying, honour has come to me; but I think, compliments apart, that the most case-hardened worker in letters, speaking to such an assembly as this, must recognise the gulf that separates even the least of those who

2、 do things worthy to be written about from even the best of those who have written things worthy of being talked about.There is an ancient legend which tells us that when a man first achieved a most notable deed he wished to explain to his Tribe what he had done. As soon as he began to speak, howeve

3、r, he was smitten with dumbness, he lacked words, and sat down. Then there arose according to the story a masterless man, one who had taken no part in the action of his fellow, who had no special virtues, but who was afflicted that is the phrase with the magic of the necessary word. He saw; he told;

4、 he described the merits of the notable deed in such a fashion, we are assured, that the words “became alive and walked up and down in the hearts of all his hearers”. Thereupon, the Tribe seeing that the words were certainly alive, and fearing lest the man with the words would hand down untrue tales

5、 about them to their children, took and killed him. But, later, they saw that the magic was in the words, not in the man.We have progressed in many directions since the time of this early and destructive criticism, but, so far, we do not seem to have found a sufficient substitute for the necessary w

6、ord as the final record to which all achievement must look. Even to-day, when all is done, those who have done it must wait until all has been said by the masterless man with the words. It is certain that the overwhelming bulk of those words will perish in the future as they have perished in the pas

7、t; but it is true that a minute fraction will continue to exist, and by the light of these words, and by that light only, will our children be able to judge of the phases of our generation. Now we desire beyond all things to stand well with our children; but when our story comes to be told we do not

8、 know who will have the telling of it. We are too close to the tellers; there are many tellers and they are all talking together; and, even if we know them, we must not kill them. But the old and terrible instinct which taught our ancestors to kill the original story-teller warns us that we shall no

9、t be far wrong if we challenge any man who shows signs of being afflicted with the magic of the necessary word. May not this be the reason why, without any special legislation on its behalf, Literature has always stood a little outside the law as the one calling that is absolutely free free in the s

10、ense that it needs no protection? For instance, if, as occasionally happens, a Judge makes a bad law, or a surgeon a bad operation, or a manufacturer makes bad food, criticism upon their actions is by law and custom confined to comparatively narrow limits. But if a man, as occasionally happens, make

11、s a book, there is no limit to the criticism that may be directed against it. And this is perfectly as it should be. The world recognises that little things like bad law, bad surgery, and bad food, affect only the cheapest commodity that we know about human life. Therefore, in these circumstances, m

12、en can afford to be swayed by pity for the offender, by interest in his family, by fear, or loyalty, or respect for the organisation he represents, or even by a desire to do him justice. But when the question is of words words that may become alive and walk up and down in the hearts of the hearers i

13、t is then that this world of ours, which is disposed to take an interest in its future, feels instinctively that it is better that a thousand innocent people should be punished rather than that one guilty word should be preserved, carrying that which is an untrue tale of the Tribe. The chances, of c

14、ourse, are almost astronomically remote that any given tale will survive for so long as it takes an oak to grow to timber size. But that guiding instinct warns us not to trust to chance a matter of the supremest concern. In this durable record, if anything short of indisputable and undistilled truth

15、 be seen there, we all feel, “How shall our achievements profit us?” The Record of the Tribe is its enduring literature.The magic of Literature lies in the words, and not in any man. Witness, a thousand excellent, strenuous words can leave us quite cold or put us to sleep, whereas a bare half-hundre

16、d words breathed upon by some man in his agony, or in his exaltation, or in his idleness, ten generations ago, can still lead whole nations into and out of captivity, can open to us the doors of the three worlds, or stir us so intolerably that we can scarcely abide to look at our own souls. It is a

17、miracle one that happens very seldom. But secretly each one of the masterless men with the words has hope, or has had hope, that the miracle may be wrought again through him.And why not? If a tinker in Bedford gaol; if a pamphleteering shopkeeper, pilloried in London; if a muzzy Scot; if a despised

18、German Jew; or a condemned French thief, or an English Admiralty official with a taste for letters can be miraculously afflicted with the magic of the necessary word, why not any man at any time? Our world, which is only concerned in the perpetuation of the record, sanctions that hope just as kindly

19、 and just as cruelly as Nature sanctions love.All it suggests is that the man with the Words shall wait upon the man of achievement, and step by step with him try to tell the story to the tribe. All it demands is that the magic of every word shall be tried out to the uttermost by every means, fair o

20、r foul, that the mind of man can suggest. There is no room, and the world insists that there shall be no room, for pity, for mercy, for respect, for fear, or even for loyalty between man and his fellow-man, when the record of the Tribe comes to be written. That record must satisfy, at all costs to t

21、he word and to the man behind the word. It must satisfy alike the keenest vanity and the deepest self-knowledge of the present; it must satisfy also the most shameless curiosity of the future. When it has done this it is literature of which it will be said, in due time, that it fitly represents its

22、age. I say in due time because ages, like individuals, do not always appreciate the merits of a record that purports to represent them. The trouble is that one always expects just a little more out of a thing than one puts into it. Whether it be an age or an individual, one is always a little pained

23、 and a little pessimistic to find that all one gets back is just ones bare deserts. This is a difficulty old as literature.A little incident that came within my experience a while ago shows that that difficulty is always being raised by the most unexpected people all about the world. It happened in

24、a land where the magic of words is peculiarly potent and far-reaching, that there was a Tribe that wanted rain, and the rain-doctors set about getting it. To a certain extent the rain-doctors succeeded. But the rain their magic brought was not a full driving downpour that tells of large prosperity;

25、it was patchy, local, circumscribed, and uncertain. There were unhealthy little squalls blowing about the country and doing damage. Whole districts were flooded out by waterspouts, and other districts annoyed by trickling showers, soon dried by the sun. And so the Tribe went to the rain-doctors, bei

26、ng very angry, and they said, “What is this rain that you make? You did not make rain like this in the time of our fathers. What have you been doing?” And the rain-doctors said, “We have been making our proper magic. Supposing you tell us what you have been doing lately?” And the Tribe said, “Oh, ou

27、r head-men have been running about hunting jackals, and our little people have been running about chasing grasshoppers! What has that to do with your rain-making?” “It has everything to do with it,” said the rain-doctors. “Just as long as your head-men run about hunting jackals, and just as long as

28、your little people run about chasing grasshoppers, just so long will the rain fall in this manner.Chapter 2 The Claims of ArtSOME few years ago in fact, before the Artists General Benevolent Institution was founded King Solomon, speaking of things in general, said that the race was not to the swift,

29、 nor the battle to the strong. Speaking of Art in particular, he said: “Nor yet favour to men of skill; but Time and Chance happeneth to them all”. Solomon was a generous patron of the arts, and an original man of letters. Nobody has improved on his remark; and you may have noticed that nobody has i

30、mproved the state of affairs that gave rise to it. There must be as many men nowadays as there were in Solomons time whose skill has not found favour, and I should like to try and interest you in the fate of a few of them.In an enlightened and democratic age like ours, it is possible to say that, if

31、 a mans skill has not found favour with the public, the blame must lie with the man, or with the skill. This is a pretty doctrine. I wish I could subscribe to it myself. There are, however, men who devote their skill to producing things and expressing ideas for which the public has no present need.

32、Being artists, these men must needs do the work that is laid upon them to do, and while they are doing it they are apt to overlook a number of important worldly considerations. It is reprehensible, of course and, worse than reprehensible, it is unbusinesslike but it happens; and it happens more freq

33、uently than people would imagine. The Callings are unlike the Professions. No one embraces the career of Art, any more than one enters Science or the Services, with the direct idea of making money. The material rewards of Art are oftenest so small that men may be forgiven if they sacrifice themselve

34、s and their belongings to make an appeal to the next generation, while they neglect their own. These, then, are the men who do not very greatly care whether their skill finds immediate favour or not. They have elected to take their chance with time to come; but the records of the Institution and the

35、 Orphan Fund will tell you that their descendants have to take certain or uncertain chances now.Besides these, there are the others whose skill, however much they may desire it, has not found favour. Time has not given them their chance; their skill has not found favour; and by the worlds verdict th

36、ey have not achieved success.The worlds verdict is, of course, of great financial value. The verdict of our fellow-craftsmen is a little nearer the facts of the case. Thank goodness, we all count among our friends delightful men and women whose skill has not found favour, but to whose skill, sympath

37、y, humour, and, above all, knowledge, we owe more than we realise. It may be that the very generosity of soul which impelled them to lavish themselves so unstintingly upon their associates has stood in the way of their more evident advancement, and that some of these good spirits are now facing I wo

38、nt say defeat: there is no abiding defeat in Art but the outer appearance of defeat. If this be so, it is a comfortable thought that an organisation exists which, by our good will, can help them as quietly and as unostentatiously as they helped us. For their lot is hard!It is much pleasanter to cont

39、emplate the man whose skill has found favour and keeps it. One is almost hypnotised into the belief that here, at least, Time and Chance have been eliminated by the progress of modern civilisation. Unluckily, last years report of the Institution shows that time and chance are as uncontrolled a brace

40、 of impressionists as ever they were rather brutal in their methods, but deadly sure of their effects. The report for last year is, quite rightly, a discreetly veiled document. It is a twelvemonths casualty-list among a very small proportion of those who set out to make life beautiful, and found it

41、very bitter. You can see that it covers several of the calamities that can overtake a working man want, disease, break-down, madness, and death. Your imagination can fill in the background.And, talking of imagination, do you know the Black Thought, Gentlemen? I am loth to remind you of it in this fe

42、nced and pleasant place, but it is the one emotion that all men of imagination have in common. It is a horror of great darkness that drops upon a man unbidden, and drives him to think lucidly, connectedly, with Cruikshank detail, of all the accidents whereby, through no fault of his own, he may be c

43、ut off from his work, and forced to leave those he loves defenceless to the world. You know the Black Thought, Gentlemen? It possesses some men in the dead of night; some in the sunshine; some when they are setting their palettes; some when they are stropping their razors; but only the very young, t

44、he very sound, and the very single, are exempt.If we look at this report again, we shall see that our blackest forebodings about our eyes, and our brain, and our hand, and our body, and our soul by which we live and work, have been realised last year in the case of these two hundred and two fellow-w

45、orkers. We only heard the bullets of Time and Chance; these others have had to stop them with their bodies.Gentlemen, I have to propose Prosperity to the Artists General Benevolent Institution. Will you please respond to it?Chapter 3 Values in LifePRINCIPAL PETERSON; most-learnedfellow-Doctors; and

46、You, discreet and well-conducted Students of our University: According to the ancient and laudable custom of the schools, I, as one of your wandering scholars returned, have been instructed to speak to you. The only penalty youth must pay for its enviable privilege is that of listening to people kno

47、wn, alas, to be older and alleged to be wiser. On such occasions youth feigns an air of polite interest and reverence, while age tries to look virtuous. Which pretences sit uneasily upon both of them.On such occasions very little truth is spoken. I will try not to depart from the convention. I will

48、not tell you how the sins of youth are due very largely to its virtues; how its arrogance is most often the result of its innate shyness; how its brutality is the outcome of its natural virginity of spirit. These things are true, but your preceptors might object to such texts without the proper note

49、s and emendations. But I can try to speak to you more or less truthfully on certain matters to which you may give the attention and belief proper to your years.When, to use a detestable phrase, you go out into “the battle of life”, you will be confronted by an organised conspiracy which will try to make you believe that the world is governed by the idea of wealth for wealths sake, and that all means which lead to the acquisition of that wealth are, if not laudable, at least expedient. Those of you wh