首页
登录
职称英语
He was an undersized little man, with a head too big for his body — a sickly
He was an undersized little man, with a head too big for his body — a sickly
游客
2023-12-13
57
管理
问题
He was an undersized little man, with a head too big for his body — a sickly little man. His nerves were bad. He had skin trouble. It was agony for him to wear anything next to his skin coarser than silk. And he had delusions of grandeur.
He was a monster of conceit. Never for one minute did he look at the world or at people, except in relation to himself. He was the only most important person in the world, to himself; in his own eyes he was the only person who existed. He believed himself to be one of the greatest dramatists in the world, one of the greatest thinkers, Beethoven, and Plato, rolled into one. And you would have had no difficulty in hearing him talk. He was one of the most exhausting conversationalists that ever lived. An evening with him was an evening spent in listening to a monologue. Sometimes he was brilliant; sometimes he was maddeningly tiresome. But whether he was being brilliant or dull, he had one sole topic of conversation: himself. What he thought and what he did.
He had a mania for being in the right. The slightest hint of disagreement, from anyone, on the most trivial point, was enough to set him off on a harangue that might exhausting volubility, and that in the end his hearer, stunned and deafened, would agree with, for the sake of peace.
It never occurred to him that he and his doing were not of the most intense and fascinating interest to anyone with whom he came in contact. He had theories about almost any subject under the sun, including vegetarianism, the drama, politics, and music; and in support of these theories he wrote pamphlets, letters, books...thousands upon thousands of words, hundreds and hundreds of pages. He not only wrote these things, and published them — usually at somebody else’s expense — but he would sit and read them aloud, for hours, to his friends and his family.
He had the emotional stability of a six-year-old child. When he felt out of sorts, he would rave and stamp, or sink into suicidal gloom and talk darkly of going to the East to end his days as a Buddhist monk. Ten minutes later, when something pleased him, he would rush out of doors and run around the garden, or jump up and down on the sofa, or stand on his head.
He was almost innocent of any sense of responsibility. Not only did he seem incapable of supporting himself, but it never occurred to him that he was under any obligation to do so. He was convinced that the world owed him a living. In support of this belief, he borrowed money from everybody who was good for a loan — men, women, friends, or strangers. He wrote begging letters by the score, sometimes groveling without shame, at others loftily offering his intended benefactor the privilege of contributing to his support, and being mortally offended if the recipient declined the honor. I have found no record of his ever paying or repaying money to anyone who did not have a legal claim upon it.
The name of this monster was Richard Wagner. Everything that I have said about him you can find on record: in newspapers, in police reports, in the testimony of people who knew him, in his own letters, between the lines of his autobiography. And the curious thing about this record is that it doesn’t matter in the least. Because this undersized, sickly, disagreeable, fascinating little man was right all the time. The joke was on us. He was one of the world’s greatest dramatists; he was a great thinker; he was one of the most stupendous musical geniuses that, up to now, the world has ever seen. The world did owe him a living.
When you consider what he wrote — thirteen operas and music dramas, eleven of them still holding the stage, eight of them unquestionably worth ranking among the world’s great musical-dramatic masterpieces — when you listen to what he wrote, the debts and heartaches that people had to endure from him don’t seem much of a price. Think of the luxury with which for a time, at least, fate rewarded Napoleon, the man who mined France and looted Europe; and then perhaps you will agree that a few thousand dollars’ worth of debts were not too heavy a price to pay for the Ring trilogy.
Listening to his music, one does not forgive him for what he may or may not have been. It is not a matter of forgiveness. It is a matter of being dumb with wonder that poor brain and body didn’t burst under the torment of the demon of creative energy that lived inside him, struggling, clawing, scratching to be released; tearing, shrieking at him to write the music that was in him. The miracle is that what he did in the little space of seventy years could not have been done at all, even by a great genius. Is there any wonder that he had no time to be a man? [br] The sentence "...it doesn’t matter in the least" in the seventh paragraph means
选项
A、this record of Wagner’s misbehaviors doesn’t affect his life at all.
B、this record of Wagner’s misbehaviors doesn’t let him misunderstood.
C、this record of Wagner’s misbehaviors doesn’t have him laughed at.
D、this record of Wagner’s misbehaviors doesn’t undermine his reputation.
答案
D
解析
语义理解题。第七段二至四句说到“我所谈到的关于他的一切情况都有记录可查——包括报纸、警方报告、认识他的人的证词、他本人的信件以及他的自传。但令人奇怪的是,it doesn’t matter in the least。”因为,这个身材矮小、满脸病容、脾气古怪、令人着迷的小个子自始至终都是对的。”接着进一步解释“该受嘲笑的是我们。他是全世界最伟大的剧作家之一,一位伟大的思想家,是迄今为止全世界最了不起的音乐天才之一。这个世界确实应该养活他。”显然这句话的意思是尽管瓦格纳有种种问题,但是这对他的名望丝毫无损,因为他拥有如此出众的成就,故答案为[D]。本段谈论的是人们对瓦格纳的看法,与他自己的生活无关,故排除[A]。[B]、[C]两项和本段无关,可排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3269146.html
相关试题推荐
Itwasalittleafter5a.m.inmyhomewhenJerzyDudek,thePolishgoalkeepe
Itwasalittleafter5a.m.inmyhomewhenJerzyDudek,thePolishgoalkeepe
Itwasalittleafter5a.m.inmyhomewhenJerzyDudek,thePolishgoalkeepe
Humanityusesalittlelessthanhalfthewateravailableworldwide.Yetoccur
Humanityusesalittlelessthanhalfthewateravailableworldwide.Yetoccur
Humanityusesalittlelessthanhalfthewateravailableworldwide.Yetoccur
Humanityusesalittlelessthanhalfthewateravailableworldwide.Yetoccur
Humanityusesalittlelessthanhalfthewateravailableworldwide.Yetoccur
"Toerrishuman,toforgive,divine","Alittlelearningisadangerousthing"
Shebrokeoffwithalittleshudder.ItwasarelieftoFramtonNuttelwhenth
随机试题
"Additionalsocialstressesmayalsooccurbecauseoftheproblemarisingfromm
[originaltext]Hometheatershavethetendencytoreplacetheroleofcinema
求下列函数的偏导数
诊断反流性食管炎最准确的方法是A.食管吞钡x线检查 B.食管滴酸试验 C.食
在二等水准观测时,下面哪些措施不能减弱大气折光的影响?( )A.视线离地面一定
在东西方的很多文化中,女性会被认为应该承担更多的家庭角色,因此真正走上商业舞台的
生产建设兵团进行的农业生产未包括在农业统计范围内。()
图所示为某市防灾应急指挥中心的结构平面布置图。该中心为普通钢筋混凝土框架结构,地
水泥混凝土面层实测项目中包含( )。A.中线平面偏位 B.弯拉强度 C.弯沉
资本金现金流量表中,作为现金流出的项目有()。A、借款本金偿还 B、回收固定
最新回复
(
0
)