The Complete Works of Xu Zhimo's Classical Prose

Chapter 21
He met Shakespeare in school and discovered the magic of poetry and drama.The inspiration for his philosophy, like Gerd's, was the pantheistic Spinoser.His early friends were three modern French poets: Claudel (Paul Claudel, French Ambassador to Japan), Ande Suares, and Charles Peguy (later he co-organized Cahiers de Ja Quinzaine).At that time, Waigner was the overwhelming genius and the hero of Roland and his young friends.But an even more important influence on him personally was Tolstoy.He had read his works a long time ago and admired him very much. Later he read his "On Art". The old Russian elephant walked into the garden of art using a stolen metaphor and stepped on it with his left foot. A pot of flowers was Shakespeare, and another pot of flowers was trampled down with his right foot, which was Beidefafen. At this time, the young Romain Rolland went astray in his thinking.Shakespeare, Bayesian, and Tuoshi are all his heroes, but Tuoshi angrily reprimanded Shakespeare and Pei's first-class authors, saying that their art is unworthy, irrelevant, and not really humane art. His early self It also has to be related.In Roland, an ardent seeker of truth, this came like a thunderbolt in the blue sky; he could no longer hold back his doubts.He wrote a letter to Tolstoy, stating his conflicted psychology.He was 22 years old.After a few weeks, Roland almost forgot about the letter, and suddenly received an email one day: a long letter with 38 pages, written by the great Tolstoy to this unknown French boy! "Dear brother," the sixty-year-old man called him, "I received your first letter, and I was deeply moved. When I read your letter, tears came into my eyes."

The following is his opinion on art: the motivation for us to devote ourselves to life should not be the love of art, but the love of human beings.Only a man who has been subjected to such inspiration can hope to achieve something worthwhile in his life.These are still his old sayings, but what deeply moved the young Roland was that the saints of this era were so earnestly sympathizing with him, comforting him, and instructing him, an unknown stranger.We can roughly imagine his excitement at that time.Therefore, in the past few decades, whenever Roland wrote to him from young people, he never failed to write a reply in his own hand, treating his younger generation with the same love and sincerity.I don't know how many young people have been inspired by him.This is a rewarding fact.

We can know that any good deed that is not forced is like the smoky wind in spring, which spreads the seeds of life along the way and awakens the lively world.

But Roland was still far away from the day of fame at that time, although he had only made unremitting efforts since childhood.He has to experience the disappointment of his life experience (his marriage is unfortunate, he has lived almost as a hermit for the past 30 years, he is now in Lushan, Switzerland, and it is said that he is living with his sister), and all kinds of spiritual pains before he can truly endure. The reward for his labor is the recognition and acceptance of his genius.He wrote twelve full-length plays, three of the most famous biographies (Michel Langelo, Beidefafen, Tolstoy), and ten Jean Christophe, which is considered one of the most important works of this era , and he and his friends ran a gray magazine for 15 years, but his name was still hidden in the obscure ashes. It was not until he was nearly 50 years old that the world began to marvel at his brilliance.Beidehuafen has a few words that I think can be applied to Roland, who has worked hard all his life:

I have no friends, and I must live alone; but I know that in the bottom of my heart God is near to me, nearer than anyone else.I was not afraid to approach him, I had always known him.I have never been anxious about my own music, which is not to be stumbled by bad luck, and whoever understands it has the power to relieve him of the torments that torment others.

Originally published in "Morning Supplement" on January 1925, 10, included in "The Scale and Claw of Paris"

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, the British novelist and poet, died last month at the age of 87.His will stated that after his death he was buried in a village in Daoqianshide, his hometown.But after his death, the British government insisted on burying him in the Westminster Cathedral, and the result of the discussion was an unprecedented and strange burial method.They didn't know whose idea it was, they tore out his heart from his chest, and thus divided him into two bodies. His heart, according to his last words, was buried in his hometown, his body. In order to show respect to geniuses for the country, he has to partner with the British emperors, ministers, nobles and many poets laureate as neighbors.Both funerals were held on the same day.In the city of London, the great abbey at Westminster was filled by hundreds of admirers of the dead, and the most notable mourners were Burneshaw, John Gossy, Sir Bailey, Edmund Goss, Gippo Lin, Mrs. Hardy, the current Prime Minister Borwin, former Prime Minister MacDonald and his party; this funeral is said to be a grand ceremony that has not been seen since the poet Tannyson.At the same time, in a small village in Daoqianside, Hardy's old folks, wearing out-of-fashion clothes and hats, holding uncut flowers and plants picked up from the fields, singing old folk mourning songs, are also holding a festival. In the funeral, the heart of the poet is buried here. If Hardy has feelings after his death, which side is he willing to enjoy?According to the attitude expressed in his poems, we must guess that he is inclined to the kindness of his native land. The beauty, fragrance and luxuriance of this ceremony alone should attract a poet's heart.But some people say that Hardy once received the Prince of Wales, took pictures with him, and never declined the doctorate of Oxford University and the government's "Order of Merit". Those who refuse to deal with the world of vanity.What makes us most strange is that the British government, who is responsible for it, has no respect for the last words of the deceased, and must put the poet's remains in the boring gold and purple bushes!A poet is a poet after all. We cannot doubt that his wish is to cling to the old ocher grassland of Wessex and the ever-changing winds and clouds of Wessex forever. He is not completely able to give up the warmth of human feelings. No longer longing for his kind,
There at least smiles abound,

There discourse tricks around,

There, now and then, are found
Life-loyalties.
When I met Hardy in the summer of 1 (see "To Hardy" in the appendix to Chapter [-]), my impression was that

Hardy was old.Hardy was weary.In the grotesque tones of his recent writing (and that is for at least three or forty years) we have often heard the low cry of a weary soul: "Well, enough, enough, I've seen enough, I've worked enough ;Let me go! Let me go!" Time, life: he explains, he dissects, he asks, he laughs, he laughs, he scolds, he mourns, he curses, when he begs to let him go one day earlier .But the raw force of the ruthless iron arm seemed to pinch the little old man who was not even five feet four tall, and said to him with a half-sarcastic and half-satisfied sneer: "Look, sooner or later there will be such a day; but you are panting all day long." You have to do something for me to see!" The poor, tired and transparent old silkworm, in the dark room, in the gap between the wheat firewood on the cocoon mountain, turned his wrinkled head forward and backward I want to sleep but I can't sleep, and at the same time I can't help but vomit out the stomach, knowing that it won't be able to vomit until then...

Fate is a trick, Hardy won't die!I think he has at least 20 years to live.

I really thought he could live to be a hundred years old, but he died after only two years!

In the past four years, we have lost two great philosophers of this era, France's Franz and England's Hardy.This is not only a loss for the literary world, because the two of them, each governing their own galaxies, each radiating their own brilliance, are clearly the twin towns of human thought since the end of the nineteenth century, and their lives and deaths are worth living forever. Commemorative.I say "human beings" because in the realm of thought and spirit we cannot distinguish nations from nations.Just as Peng Jonson said Shakespeare "He belongs to all ages", these great souls not only always cover all human beings, they are beyond the constraints of time and space.We miss them, just as we miss the Lord who created everything, and we only feel that the praise that words can express is superfluous.We only need to appreciate their boundless kindness in solemn silence.They are eternal.star in the sky.

Their greatness is no accident.Thought is the highest profession, because the object of its responsibility is not the world or man-made things, but the eternity of all things.In the exploration of the visions they each saw, they did not know fatigue and slack. "I am thinking, so I am alive." Theirs is a double life.Behind the physical life there is another activity, call it "spiritual life" or "spiritual life" or whatever, its existence cannot be doubted.It's not that we ordinary people don't have this invisible life, but even if we do, our life is intermittent, incomplete, erratic, and fleeting.But for the few people who have a "mission", this kind of life has roots, origin, consciousness, posture and humor, and has a complete expression.Just as a mountain depicts its strange or majestic form in the lake it projects, a poet or philosopher also projects his deeper life form in the universe he silently observes.Happiness is the man who can realize this eternal and endless life in a short and finite existence, but also his sorrow, because thought is a heavy cross, and it must be resisted to resist it. Going through the perilous road of life without falling in the middle is by no means a matter that can be easily attempted.

Hardy was a strong man; not only did he bear his burden, but he came to the end of his journey.What are some of the most important impressions of the creative life of these 70 years (although Hardy first published his novels, but he was enthusiastic about writing poetry in his early years)?No one was more sullen, more serious, more earnest in thought than he.Whether he writes novels, poems, or plays, his purpose is always simple and consistent.His reason is his unique spectroscope. He just, in Arnold's famous saying, "applies thought to life", and through its prism, the complex phenomena of life are suddenly dissected into the essence of pigment.Poets and artists are by definition creators of the universe.Shelley has Shelley's universe, Bedfaffin has Bedfaffin's universe, and Rambrandt has Rambrandt's universe.The activity of the imagination is the starting point of the creation of the universe.But only a few with "complete imagination" or "absolute imagination" can create a complete universe; such as Shakespeare and Goethe and Dande.Hardy's universe is also a whole.If some people say that the change of climate in his universe is too monotonous, it always looks like this gloomy autumn and winter, and never sees the warm sunshine happily jumping out of the clouds, his answer is that the era he represents is unfortunately not Richard It is not white, but the era of the most fully developed self-consciousness since the end of the nineteenth century; this is a season of killing in human history

It never looks like summer now whatever
weather's there...

The Iand's sharp features seemed to be
The century's corpse outlet
The ancient germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
A true and pure philosophy of life cannot be formed by empty concepts, nor can it be attached to meditation. Its secret lies in "recording the various phenomena obtained by observation and feeling with a humble attitude, karma, opportunities and changes."Hardy's poems, according to him, are just "unorganized impressions", but this is only the poet's modest statement. In fact, if we look at these "unorganized impressions" together, his achievements It is simply that, according to his unique rhythm, he specially created a universe and a life.

No one but Hardy can touch the pulse of his time so accurately, and the slightest beating under his fingers will reveal its inner message.Hardy's characterization is unmistakable.As the history of human beings, as Hajill said, is only "a progress in the consciousness of freedom" ("Human history is a progress in the consciousness of Freedom"), Hardy is credited: because he pushed us in this An indispensable way forward in the progress of consciousness.

Hardy's death should end an important period in history.The starting point of this period is Lu Sao's thoughts and his personality. In his words and deeds, modern "self-liberation" and "self-awareness" realized their official birth.From the Confessions to the French Revolution, from the French Revolution to the Romantic Movement, from the Romantic Movement to Nietzsche (with Daustawski), from Nietzsche to Hardy in these 170 years we see human impulsive emotions, out of Constrained by rationality, it bursts out like a flame, spurting out various movements and doctrines in this flame, and at the same time, in the bottom of the ashes, "modern consciousness" is bred, morbid, self-defeating, doubtful, tired, The blazing flames that floated down became more depressed, and the dead ash at the bottom expanded, until a sense of disillusionment softened all vivid efforts, crushed emotions, and paralyzed reason. Human beings suddenly found that their steps had strayed to the edge of despair, When you don't stop, the future is only death and silence.When Hardy first started writing novels, Victoria was in its most prosperous days, and the suggestion of evolution and the effect of laissez-faire aroused a climax of optimism, covering up all injustices and strangeness in a short time.

The sorrow of the end of the century when Hardy stopped writing novels replaced the vain hopes of the early years.When Hardy first published his collection of poems, the power that had been destroyed in the past century had already accumulated into an undercurrent that could collapse anytime soon.When Hardy published his later collections of poetry, this undercurrent broke into the European War and the Russian Revolution.This is not to say that we can find the shadow of this or that world event in Hardy's thinking, no, except that he used Napoleon's deeds to write his greatest poetic drama (The Dynasts) and several famous war songs. Hardy just pretended not to see the major changes in the world. In his works, no matter in poetry or prose, he can't find the slightest trace.What Hardy cared most about during the past 70 to [-] years was not only the blooming and falling of a flower, the waxing and waning of the moon, the twinkling of stars, the sighs of village girls, the historical sites and legends in the countryside, the lights falling on the streets or in distant villages, The birth, old age, sickness and death of neighbors, the flying of night moths and the sound of birds on dead trees?

There is no such contempt like this old man, no such stubbornness like him.He has no companion but his own thoughts.He doesn't ask about any world except the world of his own hometown.

But if we can look deeply and regard the facts of history as clouds on the surface of the water, the activities of thought are the undercurrents under the water, and determine the direction of life invisibly. The importance of our poets lies in the differences obtained from these observations. phenomenon in the record.

Around [-] he wrote

"...Mankind shall cease. So let it be," I said to love.
In [-] he wrote
If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst…

In [-] he wrote
That I could think there trembles through his happy good-night air Some blessed hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware.
In [-] he wrote
…the greatest of things is charity…

Hardy was not a dogmatic pessimist, although he sometimes failed to contain his indignation and depression.The quotations from the above verses can be seen that even in his most depressed and darkest moments, he did not give up his determination to find a way out for his thoughts and the determination to find a way out for the future of mankind.His realism and his so-called pessimism are just his faithfulness and bravery in thought.In a preface to his poems published in [-], he mentioned the purpose of his poems, and there is a very important passage:

(End of this chapter)