Chapter 9 Interest in the Arts

Many people pursue a regular and uninterrupted course of idleness in the evenings because they think that there is no alternative to idleness but the study of literature; and they do not happen to have a taste for literature. This is a great mistake.

Of course it is impossible, or at any rate very difficult, properly to study anything whatever without the aid of printed books. But if you desire to understand the deeper depths of bridge or of boat-sailing you would not be deterred¹ by your lack of interest in literature from reading the best books on bridge or boat-sailing. We must, therefore, distinguish between literature, and books treating of subjects not literary. I shall come to literature in due course.

Let me now remark to those who have never read Meredith, and who are capable of being unmoved by a discussion as to whether Mr. Stephen Phillips is or is not a true poet, that they are perfectly² within their rights. It is not a crime not to love literature. It is not a sign of imbecility. The mandarins of literature will order out to instant execution the unfortunate individual who does not comprehend, say, the influence of Wordsworth on Tennyson. But that is only their impudence³. Where would they be, I wonder, if requested to explain the influences that went to make Tschaikowsky’s “Pathetic Symphony”?

There are enormous fields of knowledge quite outside literature which will yield magnificent results to cultivators. For example (since I have just mentioned the most popular piece of high-class music in England to-day), I am reminded that the Promenade⁴ Concerts begin in August. You go to them. You smoke your cigar or cigarette (and I regret to say that you strike your matches during the soft bars of the “Lohengrin” overture), and you enjoy the music. But you say you cannot play the piano or the fiddle⁵, or even the banjo; that you know nothing of music.

What does that matter? That you have a genuine taste for music is proved by the fact that, in order to fill his hall with you and your peers, the conductor is obliged to provide programmes from which bad music is almost entirely⁶ excluded (a change from the old Covent Garden days!).

Now surely your inability to perform “The Maiden’s Prayer” on a piano need not prevent you from making yourself familiar with the construction of the orchestra to which you listen a couple of nights a week during a couple of months! As things are, you probably think of the orchestra as a heterogeneous⁷ mass of instruments producing a confused agreeable mass of sound. You do not listen for details because you have never trained your ears to listen to details.

If you were asked to name the instruments which play the great theme at the beginning of the C minor⁸ symphony you could not name them for your life’s sake. Yet you admire the C minor symphony. It has thrilled you. It will thrill you again. You have even talked about it, in an expansive mood, to that lady — you know whom I mean. And all you can positively⁹ state about the C minor symphony is that Beethoven composed it and that it is a “jolly fine thing.”

Now, if you have read, say, Mr. Krehbiel’s “How to Listen to Music” (which can be got at any bookseller’s for less than the price of a stall at the Alhambra, and which contains photographs of all the orchestral instruments and plans of the arrangement of orchestras) you would next go to a promenade concert with an astonishing intensification¹⁰ of interest in it. Instead of a confused mass, the orchestra would appear to you as what it is — a marvellously balanced organism whose various groups of members each have a different and an indispensable function. You would spy out the instruments, and listen for their respective sounds. You would know the gulf¹¹ that separates a French horn from an English horn, and you would perceive why a player of the hautboy gets higher wages than a fiddler, though the fiddle is the more difficult instrument. You would live at a promenade concert, whereas previously¹² you had merely existed there in a state of beatific¹³ coma¹⁴, like a baby gazing at a bright object.

The foundations of a genuine, systematic¹⁵ knowledge of music might be laid. You might specialise your inquiries¹⁶ either on a particular form of music (such as the symphony), or on the works of a particular composer. At the end of a year of forty-eight weeks of three brief evenings each, combined with a study of programmes and attendances at concerts chosen out of your increasing knowledge, you would really know something about music, even though you were as far off as ever from jangling “The Maiden’s Prayer” on the piano.

“But I hate music!” you say. My dear sir, I respect you.

What applies to music applies to the other arts. I might mention Mr. Clermont Witt’s “How to Look at Pictures,” or Mr. Russell Sturgis’s “How to Judge Architecture,” as beginnings (merely beginnings) of systematic vitalising knowledge in other arts, the materials for whose study abound¹⁷ in London.

“I hate all the arts!” you say. My dear sir, I respect you more and more.

I will deal with your case next, before coming to literature.

1 deterred   

v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I told him I wasn't interested, but he wasn't deterred. 我已告诉他我不感兴趣，可他却不罢休。
• Jeremy was not deterred by this criticism. 杰里米没有因这一批评而却步。 来自辞典例句

2 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

3 impudence   

n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼

参考例句：

• His impudence provoked her into slapping his face.他的粗暴让她气愤地给了他一耳光。
• What knocks me is his impudence.他的厚颜无耻使我感到吃惊。

4 promenade   

n./v.散步

参考例句：

• People came out in smarter clothes to promenade along the front.人们穿上更加时髦漂亮的衣服，沿着海滨散步。
• We took a promenade along the canal after Sunday dinner.星期天晚饭后我们沿着运河散步。

5 fiddle   

n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动

参考例句：

• She plays the fiddle well.她小提琴拉得好。
• Don't fiddle with the typewriter.不要摆弄那架打字机了。

6 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

7 heterogeneous   

adj.庞杂的；异类的

参考例句：

• There is a heterogeneous mass of papers in the teacher's office.老师的办公室里堆满了大批不同的论文。
• America has a very heterogeneous population.美国人口是由不同种族组成的。

8 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

9 positively   

adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实

参考例句：

• She was positively glowing with happiness.她满脸幸福。
• The weather was positively poisonous.这天气着实讨厌。

10 intensification   

n.激烈化，增强明暗度；加厚

参考例句：

• The intensification of the immunological response represents the body's natural defense. 增强免疫反应代表身体的自然保卫。 来自辞典例句
• Agriculture in the developing nations is not irreversibly committed, to a particular pattern of intensification. 发展中国家的农业并没有完全为某种集约化形式所束缚。 来自辞典例句

11 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

12 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

13 beatific   

adj.快乐的，有福的

参考例句：

• All parents wish their children could have a safe and beatific life.父母都渴望他们的孩子们平安快乐。
• Perhaps the Beatific Vision itself has some remote kinship with this lowly experience.或许至福幻象本身就同这种平凡的体验有着某种淡薄的血缘关系。

14 coma   

n.昏迷，昏迷状态

参考例句：

• The patient rallied from the coma.病人从昏迷中苏醒过来。
• She went into a coma after swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.她吃了一整瓶安眠药后就昏迷过去了。

15 systematic   

adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的

参考例句：

• The way he works isn't very systematic.他的工作不是很有条理。
• The teacher made a systematic work of teaching.这个教师进行系统的教学工作。

16 inquiries   

n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听

参考例句：

• He was released on bail pending further inquiries. 他获得保释，等候进一步调查。
• I have failed to reach them by postal inquiries. 我未能通过邮政查询与他们取得联系。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

17 abound   

vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于

参考例句：

• Oranges abound here all the year round.这里一年到头都有很多橙子。
• But problems abound in the management of State-owned companies.但是在国有企业的管理中仍然存在不少问题。