首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
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 troubl
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 troubl
admin
2015-07-27
35
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?
Those who first argued against Wagner finally agreed with him because they
选项
A、were worn out by his long speech.
B、were convinced by his sound argument.
C、were forced to keep silent.
D、loved him too much to argue with him any longer
答案
A
解析
事实细节题。第三段第二句说到,“任何人在最无足轻重的问题上露出丝毫的异议,都会激得他强烈谴责。他可能会一连好几个小时滔滔不绝,千方百计地证明自己如何如何正确。有一种使人耗尽心力的雄辩本事,听者最后都被他弄得头昏脑胀,耳朵发聋,为了图个清静,只好同意他的说法。”可见听者最后赞同瓦格纳是因为受不了他长篇大论的谈话,故答案为[A]。[B]“被他有力的论断说服”、[D]“太爱他而不愿跟他继续争辩”都和原文相去甚远,皆可排除。听者是为了图个耳根清净勉强同意他的看法,而不是被迫保持沉默,故排除[C].
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/iuOO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
WhofirstclaimedAustraliafortheU.K.?
ItusedtobesaidthatEnglishpeopletaketheirpleasuresadly.Nodoubtthiswouldstillbetrueiftheyhavehadanyple
Historianshaveonlyrecentlybeguntonotetheincreaseindemandforluxurygoodsandservicestookplaceineighteenth-centur
EffectiveAssignmentsUsingLibraryandInternetResourcesAwell-designedassignmentcanteachstudentsvaluableresearchskill
当前,世界多极化和经济全球化深入发展,科学技术突飞猛进,给亚洲的发展带来新的机遇,也带来新的挑战。亚洲有49个国家和地区,大部分是发展中经济体。经济全球化,有利于它们更多地获得资金,尤其是跨国企业的投资,加快经济发展和结构调整;有利于它们更好地利用自身优势
DanielDefoewasmostfamousforhisadventurestory______.
HowtoConquerPublicSpeakingFearI.IntroductionA.Publicspeaking—acommonsourceofstressforeveryoneB.Thetruthabou
Theworldisgoingthroughthebiggestwaveofmergersandacquisitionseverwitnessed.TheprocesssweepsfromhyperactiveAmer
It’sdisturbingtopictureyourkindergartnerinacasino,butmaybeyououghttotry.Americankidsarebornintoaculturetha
WhichdayisLincoln’sBirthday?
随机试题
润滑剂具有润滑、冷却、防锈和密封等作用。( )
________与________是以其对象是否是特定的为标准所作的分类。
A.2.0~3.5B.3.5~5.0C.6.7~7.0D.7.0E.7.5~8.5胃黏液层靠近上皮细胞侧的pH约为
致病性葡萄球菌能产生多种溶血素,其中对人有致病作用的主要是
甲欠乙十万元久不归还,乙反复催讨。某日,甲持凶器闯入乙家,殴打乙致其重伤,迫乙交出十万元欠条并在已备好的还款收条上签字。关于甲的行为性质,下列哪一选项是正确的?(2010年卷二17题)
中央银行的负债业务包括()。
下列各项中,属于企业市场营销组合中产品策略的有()。(2014年)
标志着中国半殖民地半封建社会基本形成的不平等条约是()。
2014年是“和平共处五项原则”发表60周年,下列与其发表时间相同的历史事件是:
Itlookedjustlikeanotheraircraftfromtheoutside.Thepilottoldhisyoungpassengersthatitwasbuiltin1964.Butappear
最新回复
(
0
)