円卓随筆 — ウィリアム・ハズリット
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners Author : William Hazlitt Release date : January 1, 2002 [eBook #3020] Most recently updated: December 26, 2019 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3020 Credits : Produced by Christopher Hapka, and David Widger *** START OF ON THE PLEASURE OF PAINTING ESSAY II. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED ESSAY III. ON THE PAST AND FUTURE ESSAY IV. ON GENIUS AND COMMON SENSE ESSAY V. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED ESSAY VI. CHARACTER OF COBBETT ESSAY VII. ON PEOPLE WITH ONE IDEA ESSAY VIII. ON THE IGNORANCE OF THE LEARNED ESSAY IX. THE INDIAN JUGGLERS ESSAY X. ON LIVING TO ONE'S-SELF(1) ESSAY XI. ON THOUGHT AND ACTION ESSAY XII. ON WILL-MAKING ESSAY XIII. ON CERTAIN INCONSISTENCIES IN SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES ESSAY XIV. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED ESSAY XV. ON PARADOX AND COMMON-PLACE ESSAY XVI. ON VULGARITY AND AFFECTATION VOLUME II ESSAY I. ON A LANDSCAPE OF NICOLAS POUSSIN ESSAY II. ON MILTON'S SONNETS ESSAY III. ON GOING A JOURNEY ESSAY IV. ON COFFEE-HOUSE POLITICIANS ESSAY V. ON THE ARISTOCRACY OF LETTERS ESSAY VI. ON CRITICISM ESSAY VII. ON GREAT AND LITTLE THINGS ESSAY VIII. ON FAMILIAR STYLE ESSAY IX. ON EFFEMINACY OF CHARACTER ESSAY X. WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE ESSAY XI. ON CORPORATE BODIES ESSAY XII. WHETHER ACTORS OUGHT TO SIT IN THE BOXES? ESSAY XIII. ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY ESSAY XIV. ON PATRONAGE AND PUFFING ESSAY XV. ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER ESSAY XVI. ON THE PICTURESQUE AND IDEAL ESSAY XVII. ON THE FEAR OF DEATH VOLUME I ESSAY I. ON THE PLEASURE OF PAINTING 'There is a pleasure in painting which none but painters know.' In writing, you have to contend with the world; in painting, you have only to carry on a friendly strife with Nature. You sit down to your task, and are happy. From the moment that you take up the pencil, and look Nature in the face, you are at peace with your own heart. No angry passions rise to disturb the silent progress of the work, to shake the hand, or dim the brow: no irritable humours are set afloat: you have no absurd opinions to combat, no point to strain, no adversary to crush, no fool to annoy—you are actuated by fear or favour to no man. There is 'no juggling here,' no sophistry, no intrigue, no tampering with the evidence, no attempt to make black white, or white black: but you resign yourself into the hands of a greater power, that of Nature, with the simplicity of a child, and the devotion of an enthusiast—'study with joy her manner, and with rapture taste her style.' The mind is calm, and full at the same time. The hand and eye are equally employed. In tracing the commonest object, a plant or the stump of a tree, you learn something every moment. You perceive unexpected differences, and discover likenesses where you looked for no such thing. You try to set down what you see—find out your error, and correct it. You need not play tricks, or purposely mistake: with all your pains, you are still far short of the mark. Patience grows out of the endless pursuit, and turns it into a luxury. A streak in a flower, a wrinkle in a leaf, a tinge in a cloud, a stain in an old wall or ruin grey, are seized with avidity as the spolia opima of this sort of mental warfare, and furnish out labour for another half-day. The hours pass away untold, without chagrin, and without weariness; nor would you ever wish to pass them otherwise. Innocence is joined with industry, pleasure with business; and the mind is satisfied, though it is not engaged in thinking or in doing any mischief.(1) I have not much pleasure in writing these Essays , or in reading them afterwards; though I own I now and then meet with a phrase that I like, or a thought that strikes me as a true one. But after I begin them, I am only anxious to get to the end of them, which I am not sure I shall do, for I seldom see my way a page or even a sentence beforehand; and when I have as by a miracle escaped, I trouble myself little more about them. I sometimes have to write them twice over: then it is necessary to read the proof , to prevent mistakes by the printer; so that by the time they appear in a tangible shape, and one can con them over with a conscious, sidelong glance to the public approbation, they have lost their gloss and relish, and become 'more tedious than a twice-told tale.' For a person to read his own works over with any great delight, he ought first to forget that he ever wrote them. Familiarity naturally breeds contempt. It is, in fact, like poring fondly over a piece of blank paper; from repetition, the words convey no distinct meaning to the mind—are mere idle sounds, except that our vanity claims an interest and property in them. I have more satisfaction in my own thoughts than in dictating them to others: words are necessary to explain the impression of certain things upon me to the reader, but they rather weaken and draw a veil over than strengthen it to myself. However I might say with the poet, 'My mind to me a kingdom is,' yet I have little ambition 'to set a throne or chair of state in the understandings of other men.' The ideas we cherish most exist best in a kind of shadowy abstraction, Pure in the last recesses of the mind, and derive neither force nor interest from being exposed to public view. They are old familiar acquaintance, and any change in them, arising from the adventitious ornaments of style or dress, is little to their advantage. After I have once written on a subject, it goes out of my mind: my feelings about it have been melted down into words, and then I forget. I have, as it were, discharged my memory of its old habitual reckoning, and rubbed out the score of real sentimen