The Summing Up (1. W. Somerset Maugham. This is not. an autobiography nor is it a book of recollections. In one way and another I. Fact and fiction are so intermingled in my work. I can hardly distinguish one from the other. It. would not interest me to record the facts, even if I could remember them, of. I have already made a better use. They would seem, moreover, very tame. I. have had a varied, and often an interesting, life, but not an adventurous one. I have never. kept a diary. I wish now that during the year that followed my first success as. I had done so, for I met then many persons of consequence, and it. At that period the confidence of the. South Africa, but the aristocracy. At certain political houses I frequented they still talked as. Have You Got Any Castles? Have you had belly bugs before? Think you might have them now? YouTube History of Music: Birth of Country Music: Country Western. Chronological discography of country western music from its origins through musicians who recorded. I have always wondered at the passion many people have to meet the celebrated. The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know. British. Empire were their private business. It gave me a peculiar sensation to hear. Tom should have. the Home Office and whether Dick would be satisfied with Ireland. During this. period I met persons who by their rank, fame, or position might very well have. It's midnight in the library and characters from well known books of fiction come to life. Director: Frank Tashlin Producer: Leon Schlesinger Translate. Hound Advice!= Orlando - Heaven Must Have Sent You ERROR: Pablo. Slow Time Down!= Various Artists-Sub Zero Dance Compilation - You Got To Let. I did not find them. The English are a political nation. I was often asked to houses where politics were the ruling interest. I. could not discover in the eminent statesmen I met there any marked capacity. I. concluded, perhaps rashly, that no great degree of intelligence was needed to. Since then I have known in various countries a good many. I have continued to be puzzled by. I have found them ill- informed. I have not often discovered in them. At one time I was. But. since I have seen statesmen who did not seem to me very clever conduct public. Have You Got Any Castles? Directed by Frank Tashlin, the film. In the present day, the word miscegenation is avoided by many scholars, because the term suggests a concrete biological phenomenon, rather than a. Wild movie reviews & Metacritic score: After years of reckless behavior, a heroin addiction and the destruction of her marriage, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Wither. I cannot but think I was wrong: it must be that. In the same way I have known men of affairs who have. Nor was the. conversation that I heard then as clever as I had expected. It seldom gave you. It was easy, though not always, gay, amiable and. Serious topics were not dealt with, for there was a feeling that. So far as I could judge conversation consisted in little more. One might have thought that the only use of culture was to enable. I have always. wondered at the passion many people have to meet the celebrated. The prestige. you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves. The celebrated develop a technique. They show the world a mask, often an. They play the part. I have been. attached, deeply attached, to a few people; but I have been interested in men. I have not, as. Kant enjoined, regard each man as an end in himself, but as material that might. I have been more concerned with the obscure than. They are more often themselves. They have had no need to. Their. idiosyncrasies have had more chance to develop in the limited circle of their. They display their. And after all it. To write. about them is a venture that has often tempted writers, but the failure that. They cannot be made real. The ordinary is the. Its unexpectedness, its singularity, its infinite. The great man is too often all of a piece; it. You never come to the end of surprises he has in store for you. In this book. I am going to try to sort out my thoughts on the subjects that have chiefly. But such conclusions as I have come. It has seemed to me that if I set them down in some sort of order. I should see for myself more distinctly what they really were and so might get. I have long thought that I should like to. The opportunity. seemed ideal. But I have always found that I was assailed by so many impressions. I saw so many strange things, and met so many people who excited my fancy, that. I had no time to reflect. The experience of the moment was so vivid that I. I have been. held back also by the irksomeness of setting down my thoughts in my own person. Long habit has made it more comfortable for me to speak through the. I can decide what they would think more readily than. I can decide what I think myself. The one has always been a pleasure to me; the. I have willingly put off. I am glad at. last to collect all these thoughts that for so long have floated at haphazard. When they are written down I shall. I choose with the years that remain to me. It is. inevitable that in it I should say many things that I have said before; that is. I have called it The Summing Up. When. a judge sums up a case he recapitulates the facts that have been put before the. He does not offer new evidence. There are few subjects within. I have not lightly or seriously touched upon. It is about certain subjects that are important to me and it. I can only treat of these subjects as they have. But it is not about my doings. I have no desire to lay bare my. I put limits to the intimacy that I wish the reader to enter upon. There are matters on which I am content to maintain my privacy. No one. can tell the whole truth about himself. It is not only vanity that has prevented. Rousseau in the. course of his Confessions. By. describing them so frankly he falsified his values and so gave them in his book. They were events among a. There is a sort of man who pays no. This is the. type that most often writes about himself. He leaves out his redeeming. I write this. book to disembarrass my soul of certain notions that have hovered about in it. I do not seek to persuade anybody. I am devoid of the pedagogic. I know a thing never feel in myself the desire to impart it. I do not much care if people agree with me. Of course I think I am. I should not think as I do, and they are wrong, but it does. Nor does it greatly disturb me to. I have a. certain confidence in my instinct. I must write. as though I were a person of importance; and indeed, I am – to myself. To. myself I am the most important person in the world; though I do not forget. Absolute. but from the standpoint of common sense, I am of no consequence whatever. It. would have made small difference to the universe if I had never existed. Though. I may seem to write as though significance must necessarily be attached to. I mean only that they are of moment to me for the purpose. I may have occasion to mention them. I think few. serious writers, by which I do not mean only writers of serious things, can be. But so far as I am concerned, I look. Even in my life I have seen. I have, sink. into oblivion. If in the. following pages I seem to express myself dogmatically, it is only because I. I think” or “to my mind”. The reader can take it or. If he has the patience to read what follows he will see that there is. I am certain, and this is that there is very little. When I began. to write I did so as though it were the most natural thing in the world. I took. to it as a duck takes to water. I have never quite got over my astonishment at. I do not see why such an inclination should have. When Henry Arthur Jones. I should be one of the most successful dramatists of the day. I suppose. he saw in it directness and an effective way of presenting a scene that. My language was commonplace, my vocabulary. But to write was an. I did not stop to. I wrote well or badly. It was not till some years later that it. The. discovery was forced upon me by the difficulty I found in getting my meaning. I wrote dialogue fluently, but when it came to a page of. I found myself entangled in all sorts of quandaries. I would. struggle for a couple of hours over two or three sentences that I could in no. I made up my mind to teach myself how to write. But at that. time a florid prose was admired. Richness of texture was sought by means of a. The intelligent young read. Walter Pater with. My common sense suggested to me that it was anaemic stuff; behind. I was conscious of a tired, wan personality. But I would. listen to my common sense. I persuaded myself that this was the height of. I read Intentions. The Picture of. Dorian Gray. I was intoxicated by the colour and rareness of the. Salome. Fortunately I could never find an opportunity to use them. It was generally thought then that the Authorized Version of the Bible. English language has produced. I read. it diligently, especially the Song of. Solomon, jotting down for future use turns of phrase that struck me and. I studied Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Dying. I had occasion to read parts of it the other day. I. know Andalusia a great deal better than I knew. I have changed my mind about a good many things of which I wrote. I soon saw that this was impossible. The book was written by someone I have. It bored me to distraction. But what I am concerned with. I wrote it. It is. It has neither ease nor spontaneity. It does not remind one of an. Italian brocade, with its rich pattern of gold, but of a curtain material. Burne- Jones. and reproduced by Morris. Here are. no flowery periods, fantastic turns of phrase, or high- flown images. It is a. civilized prose, natural, discreet, and pointed. There is no attempt to. It looks as though Swift made do with. Swift’s prose is like a. French canal, bordered with poplars, that runs through a gracious and. Its tranquil charm fills you with satisfaction, but it. You go on and on. So, much as you may admire Swift’s. I think if I had my time over again I would give to the prose of. Dryden the close study. I gave to that of Swift. I did not come across it till I had lost the. The prose of Dryden is delicious. It has not. the perfection of Swift nor the easy elegance of Addison, but it has. Dryden was a very good poet, but it is not the general opinion that. Prose had never been written in England like. Dryden flourished at a. He had in his bones the sonorous periods and the baroque. Jacobean language, and under the influence of the nimble and. French he turned it into an. He was the first of the rococo artists. If. Swift reminds you of a French canal Dryden recalls an English river winding its. It. is alive, varied, windswept; and it has the pleasant open- air smell of England. The work I. did was certainly very good for me. I began to write better; I did not write. I wrote stiffly and self- consciously. It was not till five. I set out again to write a novel. By then I no longer had. I put aside all thought of fine writing. I wanted. to write without any frills of language, in as bare and unaffected a manner as. I could. I had so much to say that I could afford to lose no words.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |