Now, is it industry or a love of sport which makes us sit in long and solemn rows in an oppressively hot room, blinking at glaring lights, breathing a vitiated air, wriggling3 on straight and narrow chairs, and listening, as well as heat and fatigue4 and discomfort5 will permit, to a lecture which might just as well have been read peacefully by our own firesides? Do we do this thing for amusement, or for intellectual gain? Outside, the winter sun is setting clearly in a blue-green sky. People are chatting gayly in the streets. Friends are drinking cups of fragrant6 tea in pleasant lamp-lit rooms. There are concerts, perhaps, or matinées, where the deft7 comedian8 provokes continuous laughter. No; it is not amusement{124} that we seek in the lecture-hall. Too many really amusing things may be done on a winter afternoon. Too many possible pleasures lie in wait for every spare half-hour. We can harbor no delusions9 on that score.
Is it industry, then, that packs us side by side in serried11 Amazonian ranks, broken here and there by a stray and downcast man? But on the library shelves stand thick as autumn leaves the unread books. Hidden away in obscure corners are the ripe old authors whom we know by name alone. The mist of an unspoken tongue veils from us the splendid treasures of antiquity12, and we comfort ourselves with glib13 commonplaces about “the sympathetic study of translations.” No; it can hardly be the keen desire of culture which makes us patient listeners to endless lectures. Culture is not so easy of access. It is not a thing passed lightly from hand to hand. It is the reward of an intelligent quest, of delicate intuitions, of a broad and generous sympathy with all that is best in the world. It has been nobly defined by Mr. Symonds as “the raising of the intellectual faculties14 to their highest potency15 by means of conscious training.” We{125} cannot gain this fine mastery over ourselves by absorbing—or forgetting—a mass of details upon disconnected subjects,—“a thousand particulars,” says Addison, “which I would not have my mind burdened with for a Vatican.” If we will sit down and seriously try to reckon up our winnings in years of lecture-going, we may yet find ourselves reluctant converts to Mr. Bagehot’s cruel conclusions. It is the old, old search for a royal road to learning. It is the old, old effort at a compromise which cheats us out of both pleasure and profit. It is the old, old determination to seek some short cut to acquirements, which, like “conversing with ingenious men,” may save us, says Bishop16 Berkeley, from “the drudgery17 of reading and thinking.”
The necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other. At times we envy the happy Hermit18 of Prague, who never saw pen or ink; at times we think somewhat wistfully of the sedate19 and dignified20 methods of the past, when students, to use Sir{126} Walter Scott’s illustration, paid their tickets at the door, instead of scrambling21 over the walls to distinction. It shows a good deal of agility22 and self-reliance to scale the walls; and such athletic23 interlopers, albeit24 a trifle disordered in appearance, are apt to boast of their unaided prowess: how with “little Latin and less Greek” they have become—not Shakespeares indeed, nor even Scotts—but prominent, very prominent citizens indeed. The notion is gradually gaining ground that common-school education is as good as college education; that extension lectures and summer classes are acceptable substitutes for continuous study and mental discipline; that reading translations of the classics is better, because easier, than reading the classics themselves; and that attending a “Congress” of specialists gives us, in some mysterious fashion, a very respectable knowledge of their specialties25. It is after this manner that we enjoy, in all its varied26 aspects, that energetic idleness which Mr. Bagehot recommends as a deliberate sedative27 for our restless self-esteem.
Yet the sacrifice of time alone is worth some{127} sorrowful consideration. We laugh at the droning pedants28 of the old German universities who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, had well-nigh drowned the world with words. The Tübingen chancellor29, Penziger, gave, it is said, four hundred and fifty-nine lectures on the prophet Jeremiah, and over fifteen hundred lectures on Isaiah; while the Viennese theologian, Hazelbach, lectured for twenty-two consecutive30 years on the first chapter of Isaiah, and was cruelly cut off by death before he had finished with his theme. But the bright side of this picture is that only students—and theological students at that—attended these limitless dissertations31. Theology was then a battle-field, and the heavy weapons forged for the combat were presumed to be as deadly as they were cumbersome32. During all those twenty-two years in which Herr Hazelbach held forth33 so mercilessly, German maidens34 and German matrons formed no part of his audience. They at least had other and better things to do. German artisans and German tradesmen troubled themselves little about Isaiah. German ploughmen went about their daily toil35 as placidly36 as if Herr Hazelbach{128} had been born a mute. The sleepy world had not then awakened37 to its duty of disseminating38 knowledge broadcast and in small doses, so that our education, as Dr. Johnson discontentedly observed of the education of the Scotch39, is like bread in a besieged40 town,—“every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.”
What we lack in quantity, however, we are pleased to make up in variety. We range freely over a mass of subjects from the religion of the Ph?nicians to the poets of Australia, and from the Song of Solomon to the latest electrical invention. We have lectures in the morning upon Plato and Aristotle, and in the afternoon upon Emerson and Arthur Hugh Clough. We take a short course of German metaphysics,—which is supposed to be easily compressed into six lectures,—and follow it up immediately with another on French art, or the folk-lore of the North American Indians. No topic is too vast to be handled deftly41, and finished up in a few afternoons. A fortnight for the Renaissance42, a week for Greek architecture, ten days for Chaucer, three weeks for anthropology43. It is amazing how far we can go in a winter, when{129} we travel at this rate of speed. “What under the sun is bringing all the women after Hegel?” asked a puzzled librarian not very long ago. “There isn’t one of his books left in the library, and twenty women come in a day to ask for him.” It was explained to this custodian44 that a popular lecturer had been dwelling45 with some enthusiasm upon Hegel, and that the sudden demand for the philosopher was a result of his contagious46 eloquence47. It seemed for the nonce like a revival48 of pantheism; but in two weeks every volume was back in its place, and the gray dust of neglect was settling down as of yore upon each hoary49 head. The women, fickle50 as in the days of the troubadours, had wandered far from German erudition, and were by that time wrestling with the Elizabethan poets, or the constitutional history of republics. The sun of philosophy had set.
One rather dismal51 result of this rapid transit52 is the amount of material which each lecture is required to hold, and which each lecture-goer is expected to remember. A few centuries of Egyptian history or of Medi?val song are packed down by some system of{130} mental hydraulic53 pressure into a single hour’s discourse54; and, when they escape, they seem vast enough to fill our lives for a week. “When Macaulay talks,” complained Lady Ashburton tartly55, “I am not only overflowed56 with learning, but I stand in the slops.” We have much the same uncomfortable sensation at an afternoon lecture, when the tide of information, of dry, formidable, relentless57 facts, rises higher and higher, and our spirits sink lower and lower with every fresh development. “The need of limit, the feasibility of performance,” has not yet dawned upon the new educators who have taken the world in hand; and, as a consequence, we, the students, have never learned to survey our own intellectual boundaries. We assume in the first place that we have an intelligent interest in literature, science, and history, art, architecture, and arch?ology; and, in the second, that it is possible for us to learn a moderate amount about all these things without any unreasonable58 exertion59. This double delusion10 lures60 us feebly on until we have listened to so much, and remembered so little, that we are a good deal like the infant Paul Dombey won{131}dering in pathetic perplexity whether a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or three times four was Taurus a bull.
“When all can read, and books are plentiful62, lectures are unnecessary,” says Dr. Johnson, who hated “by-roads in education,” and novel devices—or devices which were novel a hundred and thirty years ago—for softening63 and abridging64 hard study. He hated also to be asked the kind of questions which we are now so fond of answering in the columns of our journals and magazines. What should a child learn first? How should a boy be taught? What course of study would he recommend an intelligent youth to pursue? “Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of rope-dancing, or a course of anything to which he is inclined,” was the great scholar’s petulant65 reply to one of these repeated inquiries66; and, though it sounds ill-natured, we have some human sympathy for the pardonable irritation67 which prompted it. Dr. Johnson, I am well aware, is not a popular authority to quote in behalf of any cause one wishes to advance; but his heterodoxy in the matter of lectures is supported openly by{132} Charles Lamb, and furtively68 by some living men of letters, who strive, though with no great show of temerity69, to stem the ever-increasing current of popular instruction. One eminent70 scholar, being entreated71 to deliver a course of lectures on a somewhat abstruse72 theme, replied that if people really desired information on that subject, and if they could read, he begged to refer them to two books he had written several years before. By perusing73 these volumes, which were easy of access, they would know all that he once knew, and a great deal more than he knew at the present time, as he had unhappily forgotten much that was in them. It would be simpler, he deemed, and it would be cheaper, than bringing him across the ocean to repeat the same matter in lectures.
As for Lamb, we have not only his frankly74 stated opinion, but—what is much more diverting—we have also the unconscious confession75 of a purely76 human weakness with which it is pleasant to sympathize. Like all the rest of us, this charming and fallible genius found that heroic efforts in the future cost less than very moderate exertions77 in the{133} present. He was warmly attached to Coleridge, and he held him in sincere veneration78. When the poet came to London in 1816, we find Lamb writing to Wordsworth very enthusiastically, and yet with a vague undercurrent of apprehension:—
“Coleridge is absent but four miles, and the neighborhood of such a man is as exciting as the presence of fifty ordinary persons. ’Tis enough to be within the whiff and wind of his genius for us not to possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him, or with the author of ‘The Excursion,’ I should in a very little time lose my own identity, and be dragged along in the currents of other people’s thoughts, hampered79 in a net.”
This is well enough by way of anticipation80; but later on, when Coleridge is a fixed81 star in the London skies, and is preparing to give his lectures on Shakespeare and English poetry, Lamb’s kind heart warms to his perpetually impecunious82 friend. He writes now to Payne Collier, with little enthusiasm, but with great earnestness, bespeaking83 his interest and assistance. He reminds Collier of his friendship and admiration84 for Coleridge, and bids him re{134}member that he and all his family attended the poet’s lectures five years before. He tells him alluringly85 that this is a brand-new course, with nothing metaphysical about it, and adds: “There are particular reasons just now, and have been for the last twenty years, why he [Coleridge] should succeed. He will do so with a little encouragement.”
Doubtless; but it is worthy86 of note that the next time the subject is mentioned is in a letter to Mrs. Wordsworth, written more than two months later. The lectures are now in progress; very successful, we hear; but—Lamb has been to none of them. He intends to go soon, of course,—so do we always; but, in the mean while, he is treating resolution with a good deal of zest87, and making the best plea he can for his defalcation88. With desperate candor89 he writes:—
“I mean to hear some of the course, but lectures are not much to my taste, whatever the lecturer may be. If read, they are dismal flat, and you can’t think why you are brought together to hear a man read his works, which you could read so much better at leisure yourself. If delivered extempore, I am always in{135} pain lest the gift of utterance90 should suddenly fail the orator91 in the middle, as it did me at the dinner given in honor of me at the London Tavern92. ‘Gentlemen,’ said I, and there I stopped; the rest my feelings were under the necessity of supplying.”
We can judge pretty well from this letter just how many of those lectures on Shakespeare Lamb was likely to hear; and all doubts are set at rest when we find Coleridge, the following winter, endeavoring to lure61 his reluctant friend to another course by the presentation of a complimentary93 ticket. Even this device fails of its wonted success. Lamb is eloquent94 in thanks, and lame95 in excuses. He has been in an “incessant hurry.” He was unable to go on the evening he was expected because it was the night of Kenney’s new comedy, “which has utterly96 failed,”—this is mentioned as soothing97 to Coleridge’s wounded feelings. He has mistaken his dates, and supposed there would be no lectures in Christmas week. He is as eager to vindicate98 himself as Miss Edgeworth’s Rosamond, and he is as sanguine99 as ever about the future. “I trust,” he writes, “to hear many a course yet;” and{136} with this splendid resolution, which is made without a pang100, he wanders brightly off to a more engaging topic.
It is a charming little bit of comedy, and has, withal, such a distinctly modern touch, that we might fancy it enacted101 in this year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-four by any of our weak and erring102 friends.
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1
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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comedian
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| n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员 | |
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delusions
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| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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serried
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| adj.拥挤的；密集的 | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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glib
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| adj.圆滑的，油嘴滑舌的 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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potency
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| n. 效力，潜能 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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sedate
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| adj.沉着的，镇静的，安静的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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specialties
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| n.专门，特性，特别；专业( specialty的名词复数 )；特性；特制品；盖印的契约 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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sedative
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| adj.使安静的，使镇静的；n. 镇静剂，能使安静的东西 | |
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pedants
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| n.卖弄学问的人，学究，书呆子( pedant的名词复数 ) | |
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chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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dissertations
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| 专题论文，学位论文( dissertation的名词复数 ) | |
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cumbersome
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| adj.笨重的，不便携带的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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disseminating
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| 散布，传播( disseminate的现在分词 ) | |
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scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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anthropology
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| n.人类学 | |
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custodian
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| n.保管人，监护人；公共建筑看守 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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contagious
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| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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hoary
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| adj.古老的；鬓发斑白的 | |
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fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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hydraulic
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| adj.水力的；水压的，液压的；水力学的 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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tartly
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| adv.辛辣地，刻薄地 | |
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overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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lures
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| 吸引力，魅力（lure的复数形式） | |
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lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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abridging
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| 节略( abridge的现在分词 )； 减少； 缩短； 剥夺（某人的）权利（或特权等） | |
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petulant
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| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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temerity
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| n.鲁莽，冒失 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abstruse
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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impecunious
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| adj.不名一文的，贫穷的 | |
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bespeaking
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| v.预定( bespeak的现在分词 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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alluringly
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| 诱人地，妩媚地 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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defalcation
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| n.盗用公款，挪用公款，贪污 | |
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candor
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| n.坦白，率真 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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complimentary
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| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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vindicate
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| v.为…辩护或辩解，辩明；证明…正确 | |
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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101
enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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erring
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| 做错事的，错误的 | |
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