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
19
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
Therearesuperstitionsattachedtonumbers;eventhoseancientGreeksbelievedthatallnumbersandtheirmultiplehavesomemy
Itcanbetemptingtohidefromthepeople,placesandtaskswhichmakelifestressful.Byremovingyoufromthesituation,it’s
Aco-educationalschoolofferschildrennothinglessthanatrueversionofsocietyinminiature.Boysandgirlsaregiventhe
TheearliestknownsettlersontheBritainIslandwere
Systematiceffortsatnationalnutritionplanningindevelopingcountriesgobackbarelyadecade.Duringthatbrieftimethere
Tounderstandthemarketingconcept,it’sonlynecessarytounderstandthedifferencebetweenmarketingandselling.Nottooma
TheNewDealwasadvancedbyPresident
WhichofthefollowingsportswasNOTinventedinBritain?
______wasregardedasthebeginningofromanticisminthe18thBritain.
WhichofthefollowingtribesfirstcametoBritain?
随机试题
急性阑尾炎主要的病因是
8岁儿童,发热2周,食欲差,乏力,近2天高热、头痛,喷射性呕吐,1天来烦躁、嗜睡。查体:嗜睡状,右侧鼻唇沟变浅,心、肺、腹(一),未见卡介苗瘢痕,PPD(++),脑膜刺激征(+),巴氏征(+),脑脊液压力高,外观透明,白细胞100×106/L,单核70%,
髁状突颈部骨折后髁状突常被拉向前内方是由于患侧
某学校食堂数十名学生在进食奶油蛋糕后2~4小时,出现恶心、剧烈呕吐,伴有强烈的腹痛,水样泻,体温正常或低热,这些症状最可能是哪一种食物中毒
在对一个系统进行工程经济分析时,通常把该系统在考察期间各时点实际发生的资金流出和资金流入称为()。
某垃圾焚烧厂建设项目,按照现行相关法律法规之规定,应在( )阶段征求公众对该项目可能造成环境影响的意见。
对于量大、成堆难以逐一清点,而且价值又不高的财产物资,一般采用()清查。
某企业批量生产一种零件,投产批量为5件,经过4道工序加工,按照加工顺序,单件每道工序作业时间依次为20分钟、10分钟、20分钟、15分钟,假设零件移动用时为零。如果该企业采取平行移动方式进行零件移动,则有利于()。
根据营业税法律制度的规定,下列各项中,按“交通运输业”税目征收营业税的有()。
Kentuckyisfamousmainlyforfriedchicken,bourbonandhorse-racing.Fewpeoplethinkofitasamanufacturingpowerhouse.But
最新回复
(
0
)