"Bennett, Arnold - Literary Taste. (How To Form It)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bennett Arnold)

in order to be perfectly mad about Wordsworth's *Prelude*?
Or am I born without the faculty of pure taste in literature,
despite my vague longings? I do wish I could smack my lips
over Wordsworth's *Prelude* as I did over that splendid story by H. G. Wells,
*The Country of the Blind*, in the *Strand Magazine*!"...
Yes, I am convinced that in your dissatisfied, your diviner moments,
you address yourself in these terms. I am convinced that I have
diagnosed your symptoms.


Now the enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an agreeable one;
if it is not agreeable it cannot succeed. But this does not imply
that it is an easy or a brief one. The enterprise of beating Colonel Bogey
at golf is an agreeable one, but it means honest and regular work.
A fact to be borne in mind always! You are certainly not going to realise
your ambition--and so great, so influential an ambition!--by spasmodic
and half-hearted effort. You must begin by making up your mind adequately.
You must rise to the height of the affair. You must approach
a grand undertaking in the grand manner. You ought to mark the day
in the calendar as a solemnity. Human nature is weak, and has need
of tricky aids, even in the pursuit of happiness. Time will be
necessary to you, and time regularly and sacredly set apart.
Many people affirm that they cannot be regular, that regularity numbs them.
I think this is true of a very few people, and that in the rest
the objection to regularity is merely an attempt to excuse idleness.
I am inclined to think that you personally are capable of regularity.
And I am sure that if you firmly and constantly devote certain specific hours
on certain specific days of the week to this business of forming
your literary taste, you will arrive at the goal much sooner.
The simple act of resolution will help you. This is the first preliminary.


The second preliminary is to surround yourself with books,
to create for yourself a bookish atmosphere. The merely physical side
of books is important--more important than it may seem to the inexperienced.
Theoretically (save for works of reference), a student has need for
but one book at a time. Theoretically, an amateur of literature
might develop his taste by expending sixpence a week, or a penny a day,
in one sixpenny edition of a classic after another sixpenny edition
of a classic, and he might store his library in a hat-box or a biscuit-tin.
But in practice he would have to be a monster of resolution to succeed
in such conditions. The eye must be flattered; the hand must be flattered;
the sense of owning must be flattered. Sacrifices must be made
for the acquisition of literature. That which has cost a sacrifice
is always endeared. A detailed scheme of buying books will come later,
in the light of further knowledge. For the present, buy--buy whatever
has received the *imprimatur* of critical authority. Buy without any
immediate reference to what you will read. Buy! Surround yourself
with volumes, as handsome as you can afford. And for reading,
all that I will now particularly enjoin is a general and inclusive tasting,