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Dreams-Part2_Jerome K.Jerome(1859-1927)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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and here set them down; because then you would be able to see what

they were like for yourselves, and that would be so much more simpler



than my explaining to you how beautiful they were. Unfortunately,

however, I cannot now call to mind any of them.



I was very proud of this essay, and when I got back to town I called

on a very superior friend of mine, a critic, and read it to him. I do



not care for him to see any of my usual work, because he really is a

very superior person indeed, and the perusal of it appears to give him



pains inside. But this article, I thought, would do him good.

"What do you think of it?" I asked, when I had finished.



"Splendid," he replied, "excellently arranged. I never knew you were

so well acquainted with the works of the old writers. Why, there is



scarcely a classic of any note that you have not quoted from. But

where--where," he added, musing, "did you get that last idea but two



from? It's the only one I don't seem to remember. It isn't a bit of

your own, is it?"



He said that, if so, he should advise me to leave it out. Not that it

was altogether bad, but that the interpolation of a modern thought



among so unique a collection of passages from the ancients seemed to

spoil the scheme.



And he enumerated the various dead-and-buried gentlemen from whom he

appeared to think I had collated my article.



"But," I replied, when I had recovered my astonishmentsufficiently to

speak, "it isn't a collection at all. It is all original. I wrote



the thoughts down as they came to me. I have never read any of these

people you mention, except Shakespeare."



Of course Shakespeare was bound to be among them. I am getting to

dislike that man so. He is always being held up before us young



authors as a model, and I do hate models. There was a model boy at

our school, I remember, Henry Summers; and it was just the same there.



It was continually, "Look at Henry Summers! he doesn't put the

preposition before the verb, and spell business b-i-z!" or, "Why can't



you write like Henry Summers? He doesn't get the ink all over the

copy-book and half-way up his back!" We got tired of this everlasting



"Look at Henry Summers!" after a while, and so, one afternoon, on the

way home, a few of us lured Henry Summers up a dark court; and when he



came out again he was not worth looking at.

Now it is perpetually, "Look at Shakespeare!" "Why don't you write



like Shakespeare?" "Shakespeare never made that joke. Why don't you

joke like Shakespeare?"



If you are in the play-writing line it is still worse for you. "Why

don't you write plays like Shakespeare's?" they indignantly say.



"Shakespeare never made his comic man a penny steamboat captain."

"Shakespeare never made his hero address the girl as 'ducky.' Why



don't you copy Shakespeare?" If you do try to copy Shakespeare, they

tell you that you must be a fool to attempt to imitate Shakespeare.



Oh, shouldn't I like to get Shakespeare up our street, and punch him!

"I cannot help that," replied my critical friend--to return to our



previous question--"the germ of every thought and idea you have got in

that article can be traced back to the writers I have named. If you



doubt it, I will get down the books, and show you the passages for

yourself."



But I declined the offer. I said I would take his word for it, and

would rather not see the passages referred to. I felt indignant.



"If," as I said, "these men--these Platos and Socrateses and Ciceros

and Sophocleses and Aristophaneses and Aristotles and the rest of them



had been takingadvantage of my absence to go about the world spoiling

my business for me, I would rather not hear any more about them."



And I put on my hat and came out, and I have never tried to write

anything original since.



I dreamed a dream once. (It is the sort of thing a man would dream.

You cannot very well dream anything else, I know. But the phrase



sounds poetical and biblical, and so I use it.) I dreamed that I was

in a strange country--indeed, one might say an extraordinary country.



It was ruled entirely by critics.

The people in this strange land had a very high opinion of



critics--nearly as high an opinion of critics as the critics

themselves had, but not, of course, quite--that not being



practicable--and they had agreed to be guided in all things by the

critics. I stayed some years in that land. But it was not a cheerful



place to live in, so I dreamed.

There were authors in this country, at first, and they wrote books.



But the critics could find nothing original in the books whatever, and

said it was a pity that men, who might be usefully employed hoeing



potatoes, should waste their time and the time of the critics, which




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