Passage 5 The Humane Art L1185

I. Warm Up

1.1 Vocabulary

Vocabulary　Definition

posterity [pɑːˈsterəti]

n. 子孙；后代

all future generations

ostensibly [ɑːˈstensəbli]

adv. 表面上的

to all outward appearances; in an ostensible manner

surreptitious [ˌsɜːrəpˈtɪʃəs]

adj. 鬼鬼祟祟的；保密的

undertaken or done so as to escape being observed or known by others

drag [dræɡ]

n. 拖，拉

something that retards motion, action, or advancement

perpetual [pərˈpetʃuəl]

adj. 永久的；不断的

continuing forever

pompous [ˈpɑːmpəs]

adj. 爱炫耀的；浮夸的

excessively elevated or ornate

wind [wɪnd]

v. 弯曲前进；迂回

to move in a curving line or path

handsome [ˈhænsəm]

adj. 英俊的；美观的

moderately large

decline [dɪˈklaɪn]

n. 下降；减少

a change to a lower state or level

exquisite [ɪkˈskwɪzɪt]

adj. 精致的；细腻的；优美的

marked by flawless craftsmanship or by beautiful, ingenious, delicate, or elaborate execution

gluttonous [ˈɡlʌtənəs]

adj. 暴食的；贪吃的

having a huge appetite

ghoul [ɡuːl]

n. 食尸鬼

a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses

succulent [ˈsʌkjələnt]

adj. 多水分的；津津有味的

moist and tasty

incessant [ɪnˈsesnt]

adj. 不停的；不间断的

continuing or following without interruption

pang [pæŋ]

n. 苦闷；剧痛

a sharp attack of mental anguish

in default of

在缺少…的情况下

in the absence of

elicit [iˈlɪsɪt]

v. 引出；探出

to call forth or draw out

stagnate [ˈstæɡneɪt]

v. 停滞；不发展

to stop developing, progressing, moving, etc.

buffet [bəˈfeɪ]

v. 打击；伤害

to make one’s way especially under difficult conditions

foible [ˈfɔɪbl]

n. 小缺点

a minor flaw or shortcoming in character or behavior

1.2 Passage Introduction

Background Information

Virginia Woolf（弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫，原名Adeline Virginia Woolf，1882~1941）是20世纪英国著名的小说家、散文家、文学评论家和理论家。

在两次世界大战之间，Woolf成为了伦敦文学界的重要人物和著名文化团体——Bloomsbury Group（布鲁姆斯伯里）的核心。Bloomsbury Group是由一群著名英国作家、知识分子、哲学家和艺术家组成的较为松散的小团体，他们的作品和思想对后世的文学、美学、评论和经济学的发展甚至对女权主义、和平主义和性的态度都产生了举足轻重的影响。

Woolf是不幸的，童年的遭遇（幼年丧母、父亲因癌症受尽折磨而过世、被同母异父的兄长性骚扰）给她造成了不可磨灭的精神创伤。这位才情横溢的女作家饱受长期精神病痛的折磨，最终选择投河自尽，终年59岁。

本文是Virginia Woolf在阅读R. W. Ketton-Cremer为Horace Walpole写的传记后所作的读后感。Horace Walpole（霍勒斯·沃波尔，1717~1797）是英国艺术史学家、文人和收藏家。他出身显赫，是第一任英国首相Sir Robert Walpole（罗伯特·沃波尔勋爵）的第四个儿子。之后，Walpole继承了父亲Earl of Oxford（奥福德伯爵）的封号，成为了第四代奥福源伯爵。

Walpole最广为人知的莫过于那近4,000封对英国书信体文学（epistolary literature）和18世纪英国史研究做出巨大贡献的私人信件了。在这些写给不同友人的信中，Walpole所探讨的内容与题材非常广泛，涉及了文学、社会、政治等领域。

Horace Walpole创作的The Castle of Otranto（《奥特兰托城堡》）是英国文学史上第一部哥特式小说（Gothic fiction）。这部小说不仅在当时掀起了一股哥特式小说创作的热潮，其所开创的古典哥特式小说模式也影响了后世众多作家和作品，比如在著名作家Edgar Allan Poe（埃德加·爱伦·坡）的神秘故事和恐怖小说中、Mary Shelley（玛丽·雪莱）的Frankenstein（《弗兰肯斯坦》）中，都能看到来自Walpole名作的影响。

Walpole对中世纪艺术和历史的迷恋使他设计并把自己所租的草莓山庄改造成了理想中的“哥特式小城堡”。后来，这座庄园成为了哥特式建筑在全欧洲的样板。

Significance of the Writer’s Works

Woolf是20世纪文学创新方面的代表人物，主要体现她的英语语言和写作手法的作品有：

1915年小说《远航》（The Voyage Out）

1922年实验性小说《雅各的房间》（Jacob’s Room）

1925年小说《达洛维夫人》（Mrs. Dalloway）

1927年著名意识流小说《到灯塔去》（To the Lighthouse）

1929年长篇散文《一间自己的房间》（A Room of One’s Own）

1938年长篇散文《三个基尼金币》（Three Guineas）

Relevant Concepts

1. 意识流（Stream of Consciousness）

在文学领域，意识流是一种关注人物心理活动的叙事手法，多见于小说之中。意识流小说在叙事上可能比较松散跳跃，不按常规的情节发展或时间顺序的逻辑进行，而是按人物的意识活动与联想来安排，不受时空的限制。

Virginia Woolf是意识流文学的先锋。在她的众多作品中，《达洛维夫人》（Mrs. Dalloway）和《到灯塔去》（To the Lighthouse）是此类小说的杰出代表。与其他意识流作家不同，Woolf的作品语言具有诗化特征（Lyricism）；在内容上，这位女作家更加关注同时期女性的现实状态和内心世界。

2. 女权主义

女权主义指的是为了一个共同目标，即为女性重新定义、建立并获得政治、经济、个人和社会权利的一系列政治、社会运动和理论的总称。

Woolf在其小说和散文中都表达了她对女性现实和情感状态的关切。她的长篇散文《一间自己的屋子》（A Room of One’s Own）被看作是女权主义的代表作。在这篇文章里，Woolf的观点——女人要有一间属于自己的小屋，一笔属于自己的薪金，才能真正拥有创作的自由（A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.）——更是被女权主义者们奉为经典格言。

1.3. Reading Skills

1.3.1 Skimming

Get a brief picture of the passage through the following three steps:

1. Read the first, second and last sentence of the first paragraph.

2. Read the first sentence of the second paragraph.

3. Read the first two and the last two sentences of the third paragraph.

Please summarize the key ideas conveyed by the passage based on the sentences you have read as required.

1.3.2 Find the Keywords

According to his latest biographer, Horace Walpole’s letters were inspired not by the love of friends but by the love of posterity. He had meant to write the history of his own times. After twenty years he gave it up, and decided to write another kind of history—a history ostensibly inspired by friends but in fact written for posterity. Thus Mannstood for politics; Grayfor literature; Montaguand Lady Ossoryfor society. They were pegs, not friends, each chosen because he was “particularly connected... with one of the subjects about which he wished to enlighten and inform posterity.” But if we believe that Horace Walpole was a historian in disguise, we are denying his peculiar genius as a letter writer. The letter writer is no surreptitious historian. He is a man of short range sensibility; he speaks not to the public at large but to the individual in private. All good letter writers feel the drag of the face on the other side of the age and obey it—they take as much as they give. And Horace Walpole was no exception. There is the correspondence with Coleto prove it. We can see, in Mr. Lewis’sedition, how the Tory parson develops the radical and the free—thinker in Walpole, how the middle-class professional man brings to the surface the aristocrat and the amateur. If Cole had been nothing but a peg there would have been none of this echo, none of this mingling of voices. It is true that Walpole had an attitude and a style, and that his letters have a fine hard glaze upon them that preserves them, like the teeth of which he was so proud, from the little dents and rubs of familiarity. And of course—did he not insist that his letters must be kept?—he sometimes looked over his page at the distant horizon, as Madame de Sévigné, whom he worshipped, did too, and imagined other people in times to come reading him. But that he allowed the featureless face of posterity to stand between him and the very voice and dress of his friends, how they looked and how they thought, the letters themselves with their perpetual variety deny. Open them at random. He is writing about politics—about Wilkesand Chathamand the signs of coming revolution in France; but also about a snuffbox; and a red riband; and about two very small black dogs. Voices upon the stairs interrupt him; more sightseers have come to see Caligulawith his silver eyes; a spark from the fire has burnt the page he was writing; he cannot keep the pompous, style any longer, nor mend a careless phrase, and so, flexible as an eel, he winds from high politics to living faces and the past and its memories—“I tell you we should get together, and comfort ourselves with the brave days that we have known...I wished for you; the same scenes strike us both, and the same kind of visions has amused us both ever since we were born.” It is not thus that a man writes when his correspondent is a peg and he is thinking of posterity.

Nor again was he thinking of the great public, which, in a very few years, would have paid him handsomely for the brilliant pages that he lavished upon his friends. Was it, then, the growth of writing as a paid profession, and the change which that change of focus brought with it that led, in the nineteenth century, to the decline of this humane art? Friendship flourished, nor was there any lack of gift. Who could have described a party more brilliantly than Macaulayor a landscape more exquisitely than Tennyson? But there, looking them full in the face was the present moment—the great gluttonous public; and how can a writer turn at will from that impersonal stare to the little circle in the fire—lit room? Macaulay, writing to his sister, can no more drop his public manner than an actress can scrub her cheeks clean of paint and take her place naturally at the tea table. And Tennyson with his fear of publicity—“While I live the owls, when I die the ghouls”—left nothing more succulent for the ghoul to feed upon than a handful of dry little notes that anybody could read, or print or put under glass in a museum. News and gossip, the sticks and straws out of which the old letter writer made his nest, have been snatched away. The wireless and the telephone have intervened. The letter writer has nothing now to build with except what is most private; and how monotonous after a page or two the intensity of the very private becomes! We long that Keatseven should cease to talk about Fanny, and that Elizabethand Robert Browningshould slam the door of the sick room and take a breath of fresh air in an omnibus. Instead of letters posterity will have confessions, diaries, notebooks, like M. Gide’s—hybrid books in which the writer talks in the dark to himself about himself for a generation yet to be born.

Horace Walpole suffered none of these drawbacks. If he was the greatest of English letter writers it was not only thanks to his gifts but to his immense good fortune. He had his places to begin with—an income of £2,500 dropped yearly into his mouth from Collectorships and Usherships and was swallowed without a pang. “...nor can I think myself,” he wrote serenely,“ as a placeman a more useless or a less legal engrosser of part of the wealth of the nation than deans and prebendaries”—indeed the money was well invested. But besides those places, there was the other—his place in the very centre of the audience, facing the stage. There he could sit and see without being seen; contemplate without being called upon to act. Above all he was blessed in his little public—a circle that surrounded him with that warm climate in which he could live the life of incessant changes which is the breath of a letter writer’s existence. Besides the wit and the anecdote and the brilliant descriptions of masquerades and midnight revelries his friends drew from him something superficial yet profound, something changing yet entire—himself shall we call it in default of one word for that which friends elicit but the great public kills? From that sprang his immortality. For a self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living. As an historian he would have stagnated among historians. But as a letter writer he buffets his way among the crowd, holding out a hand to each generation in turn—laughed at, criticized, despised, admired, but always in touch with the living. When Macaulay met him in October 1833, he struck that hand away in a burst of righteous indignation. “His mind was a bundle of inconstant whims and affectations. His features were covered by mask within mask.” His letters, like PATÉ DE FOIE GRAS, owed their excellence “to the diseases of the wretched animal which furnishes it”—such was Macaulay’s greeting. And what greater boon can any writer ask than to be trounced by Lord Macaulay? We take the reputation he has gored, repair it and give it another spin and another direction—another lease of life. Opinion, as Mr. Ketton-Cremer says, is always changing about Walpole. “The present age looks upon him with a more friendly eye” than the last. Is it that the present age is deafened with boom and blatancy? Does it hear in Walpole’s low tones things that are more interesting, more penetrating, more true than can be said by the loud speakers? Certainly there is something wonderful to the present age in the sight of a whole human being—of a man so blessed that he could unfold every gift, every foible, whose long life spreads like a great lake reflecting houses and friends and wars and snuffboxes and revolutions and lap dogs, the great and the little, all intermingled, and behind them a stretch of the serene blue sky. “Nor will （death） I think see me very unwilling to go with him, though I have no disappointments, but I came into the world so early, and have seen so much that I am satisfied.” Satisfied with his life in the flesh, he could be still more satisfied with his life in the spirit. Even now he is being collected and pieced together, letter and answer, himself and the reflections of himself, so that whoever else may die, Horace Walpole is immortal. Whatever ruin may befall the map of Europe in years to come, there will still be people, it is consoling to reflect, to hang absorbed over the map of one human face.

II. Text Structure

Fill in the blank based on the context.

Writing Techniques of the Essay

Argumentation

Claim

Horace Walpole’s letters were inspired not by the love of friends but by the love of posterity.

Reasons

He had meant to write the history of his own times.

After twenty years he gave it up, and decided to write another kind of history—a history ostensibly inspired by friends but in fact written for posterity.

But that he allowed the featureless face of posterity to stand between him and the very voice and dress of his friends, how they looked and how they thought, the letters themselves with their perpetual variety deny.

He cannot keep the pompous, style any longer, nor mend a careless phrase, and so, flexible as an eel, he winds from high politics to living faces and the past and its memories—

Claim

Horace Walpole had a genius as a letter writer.

Reasons

He is a man of short range sensibility; he speaks not to the public at large but to the individual in private.

All good letter writers feel the drag of the face on the other side of the age and obey it—they take as much as they give.

It is true that Walpole had an attitude and a style, and that his letters have a fine hard glaze upon them that preserves them, like the teeth of which he was so proud, from the little dents and rubs of familiarity.

Claim

Was it, then, the growth of writing as a paid profession, and the change which that change of focus brought with it that led, in the nineteenth century, to the decline of this humane art?

Reasons

But there, looking them full in the face was the present moment—the great gluttonous public; and how can a writer turn at will from that impersonal stare to the little circle in the fire-lit room?

Claim

If he was the greatest of English letter writers it was not only thanks to his gifts but to his immense good fortune.

Reasons

He had his places to begin with—an income of £2,500 dropped yearly into his mouth from Collectorships and Usherships and was swallowed without a pang.

Claim

But besides those places, there was the other—his place in the very centre of the audience, facing the stage.

Reasons

There he could sit and see without being seen; contemplate without being called upon to act.

III. Theme

Discuss the theme of the story.

Keywords:

Write a sentence with all the words and expressions in the box. Make sure the sentence is able to convey the theme of this passage.

The theme of this passage is_______.

IV. Rhetorical Analysis

Read the sample exercise, complete the rhetorical analysis and translate the sentences below.

Sample

It is true that Walpole had an attitude and a style, and that his letters have a fine hard glaze upon them that preserves them, like the teeth of which he was so proud, from the little dents and rubs of familiarity.

修辞 simile

分析 标志词：like。此处作者把Walpole的态度和风格比作他的牙齿，这种态度和风格是在写给友人的信件中体现出来的，没有因为亲密关系而遗失。这种修辞方式通过在具有共同特征（用glaze来保护）的抽象和具体事物（attitude, style和teeth）之间建立联系，使得之前抽象的事物变得具体可感，给读者留下鲜明深刻的印象，增强了语言的感染力。

翻译 Walpole的确有一种态度和一种风格，不因相熟而随意放纵。的确，在信中，这些品质被完好无缺地保存着，就好像保护他所引以为傲的牙齿不被磨损一样，为它们上了一层优质的硬釉。

1. Who could have described a party more brilliantly than Macaulay or a landscape more exquisitely than Tennyson? But there, looking them full in the face was the present moment—the great gluttonous public; and how can a writer turn at will from that impersonal stare to the little circle in the fire-lit room?

2. Macaulay, writing to his sister, can no more drop his public manner than an actress can scrub her cheeks clean of paint and take her place naturally at the tea table.

3. Was it, then, the growth of writing as a paid profession, and the change which that change of focus brought with it that led, in the nineteenth century, to the decline of this humane art?

4. And Tennyson with his fear of publicity—“While I live the owls, when I die the ghouls”—left nothing more succulent for the ghoul to feed upon than a handful of dry little notes that anybody could read, or print or put under glass in a museum.

5. Besides the wit and the anecdote and the brilliant descriptions of masquerades and midnight revelries his friends drew from him something superficial yet profound, something changing yet entire—himself shall we call it in default of one word for that which friends elicit but the great public kills?

V. Language and Style

5.1 Language Analysis

Read the sample exercise, complete the language analysis and translate the following sentences.

Sample

Certainly there is something wonderful to the present age in the sight of a whole human being—of a man so blessed that he could unfold every gift, every foible, whose long life spreads like a great lake reflecting houses and friends and wars and snuff boxes and revolutions and lap dogs, the great and the little, all intermingled, and behind them a stretch of the serene blue sky.

语法标签 破折号，并列结构

分析 此处破折号的作用是解释说明之前提到的something wonderful。And连接的并列成分都归属于whose引导的定语从句。

翻译 当然，从全人类的角度看，Walpole身上的品质对于这个时代而言是重要的——一个被上苍如此眷顾的人，能够坦然呈现自己的每一个天赋、每一个缺点，他的一生就像一个巨大的湖泊一样延展开来，映着建筑、朋友、战争、鼻烟盒、革命和小狗，那些伟大的和微不足道的事情，全部混合在一起，在它们背后是一片宁静蔚蓝的天空。

1. From that sprang his immortality.

2. But there, looking them full in the face was the present moment—the great gluttonous public; and how can a writer turn at will from that impersonal stare to the little circle in the fire-lit room?

3. Was it, then, the growth of writing as a paid profession, and the change which that change of focus brought with it that led, in the nineteenth century, to the decline of this humane art?

4. But that he allowed the featureless face of posterity to stand between him and the very voice and dress of his friends, how they looked and how they thought, the letters themselves with their perpetual variety deny.

5.2 Style and Tone

Please choose the best answers to fill in the blanks below.

The Humane Art is an/a 　1　 by Virginia Woolf after reviewing a new biography of English art historian and letter writer Horace Walpole. Instead of reviewing the life story of Walpole, Woolf explores the private function of letter writing and moans the uncertain fate of this humane art. She employs a variety of sentence lengths: maximizing the advantage of simple and short sentences to make her 　2　 clear and keeping her evidence 　3　 via complex and long sentences. This essay has achieved an/a 　4　 tone with Woolf’s lyric language, quotations from celebrities and delicately arranged 　5　 .

1. A. story

B. narration

C. essay

2. A. claim

B. reason

C. evidence

3. A. overwhelming

B. intriguing

C. fragile

4. A. extremely persuasive and thought-provoking

B. humorous but critical

C. satiric and witty

5. A. personification and metaphor

B. rhetoric questions and parallelism

C. simile and parallelism

VI. Exercises

6.1 Vocabulary

Fill in the Blanks

Choose one of the following words to complete the sentences below. Use each word only once. Be sure to pay close attention to the context clues provided.

1. This ______ consumption of our natural resources cannot continue anymore.

2. The trail ______ through the trees.

3. When no one was looking, he took a ______ puff on his cigarette.

4. As a beginner in writing, you’d better avoid using a ______ tone that does not sound like the way you speak.

5. It was designed to ______ the best thinking within the government.

6. Mrs. Woods loves those rare and ______ accessories.

7. The ______ in sales embarrassed our company.

8. In the next few years, the nation’s wealth will either ______ or shrink.

Multiple Choice

Use the context clues from each sentence below, and choose the best definition for the italicized word, and choose the appropriate answer.

9. All good letter writers feel the drag of the face on the other side of the age and obey it—they take as much as they give.

A. lag

B. delay

C. retard

10. After twenty years he gave it up, and decided to write another kind of history—a history ostensibly inspired by friends but in fact written for posterity.

A. seemingly

B. obscurely

C. apparently

11. Who could have described a party more brilliantly than Macaulay or a landscape more exquisitely than Tennyson?

A. exclusively

B. delicately

C. deliberately

12. himself shall we call it in default of one word for that which friends elicit but the great public kills?

A. error

B. absence

C. demon

13. As an historian he would have stagnated among historians.

A. slowed

B. declined

C. stopped developing

6.2 Text Comprehension

True or False

Indicate whether each statement is true or false by writing T or F in the blank provided.

1. ______ Walpole wrote for his friends, not the future generations.

2. ______ Walpole and Macaulay did better than Tennyson in terms of describing the landscape.

3. ______ Walpole only talked about important issues in his letters.

4. ______ Walpole talked about different subject matters with different friends

5. ______ The drawbacks, such as news and gossip, the wireless and the telephone, were brought about mainly by political development.

Short Answers

Read the passage and answer the questions below.

6. What are the claims made in paragraph 1? How does the author develop them?

7. Why the author considers letter writing as “the humane art”?