Topical Guide 224
Mark Dorset
Eureka Moments
Work and Play
ANOTHER ASIDE. I was surprised and, I must admit, annoyed, to discover, as I described my guilty feelings about working on the “Tales for Tars,” deceiving my father by disguising work I wanted to do as work I had to do, how little my attitude toward work that brings pleasure has changed. I still feel guilty when I’m doing such work, still feel that if I’m having a good time I must not be working hard enough, still feel that work that brings pleasure can’t be real work. One of the most persistent and pernicious of the wrong ideas I learned in school, an idea reinforced by my father’s attitude toward his work at the gas station, and by his attitude toward the avocations my grandfathers pursued—Guppa’s tinkering, Big Grandfather’s boatbuilding—was the idea that work, real work, was not a pleasure. One might derive a little backhanded pleasure from seeing a job done at last (pleasure of the I-keep-hitting-myself-on-the-head-because-it-feels-so-good-when-I-stop variety, the kind of pleasure celebrated in beer commercials: “Hey, you made it through another day on that lousy job! It’s time to pop open a frosty Lethe and forget the whole dirty business!”
Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
. . . according to my father and to many of my teachers (I exclude half a dozen magnificent ones), the pleasure didn’t come from the work itself. I’m sorry that they never knew what pleasure comes from working well, that when you’re working as well as you can you’re inclined to giggle, and that when you find yourself, once in a rare while, working better than you ever thought you could, the feeling is so euphoric that a tingle runs across your back and you have a suspicion that you might be growing wings.
Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
The first thing to do is to make them admit that they are idiots and machines during working hours. “Our civilization being what it is”—this is what you’ll have to say to them—“you’ve got to spend eight hours out of every twenty-four as a mixture between an imbecile and a sewing machine. It’s very disagreeable, I know. It’s humiliating and disgusting. But there you are. You’ve got to do it; otherwise the whole fabric of our world will fall to bits and we’ll all starve. Do the job, then, idiotically and mechanically, and spend your leisure hours in being a real complete man or woman, as the case may be. Don’t mix the two lives together; keep the bulkheads watertight between them. The genuine human life in your leisure hours is the real thing. The other’s just a dirty job that’s got to be done. And never forget that it is dirty and, except in so far as it keeps you fed and society intact, utterly unimportant, utterly irrelevant to the real human life. Don’t be deceived by the canting rogues who talk of the sanctity of labor and the christian service that businessmen do their fellows.
Victor Goti, in Miguel de Unamuno’s Mist (Niebla)
The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he will work at it come hell or high water.
Stendhal, The Life of Haydn (maybe; read on), quoted by Sean B. Carroll in Brave Genius
I was going to leave that statement about finding sustaining joy in one’s art just as you see it above. After all, it appears that way in the prestigious Babbington Review (Issue Number 4). However, its citation in The Babbington Review is from a secondary source. I decided to do a little Web searching for the original source.
I found many, many, many duplications of the version above, but none of them cited a work of Haydn’s as the source. Eventually, however, I found this (emphasis added):
None of the masters in Vienna would give lessons gratis, to a boy of the choir who had no patronage; and it is to this misfortune, perhaps, that Haydn owes his originality. All the poets have imitated Homer, who imitated no one: in this alone he has not been followed; and it is perhaps owing to this, more especially, that he is the great poet whom the world admires. For my own part, I wish, my friend, that all the ‘courses of literature’ were at the bottom of the ocean: they teach people of small abilities to produce works without faults, and [Insert their here; see below. MD] nature makes them produce them without beauties. We are afterwards obliged to wade through all these dull essays [I think efforts is what’s meant by essays here. MD]: our love for the arts is diminished thereby; whilst the want of instruction will, assuredly, never stop the course of a man, whom nature has formed to be great. Look at Shakespeare, at Cervantes; it is likewise the history of Haydn. A master might have prevented him from falling into some of the faults which he committed in the sequel, when he wrote for the church, and the theatre; but he would certainly have been less original. He alone is a man of genius, who finds such delightful enjoyment in his art, that he pursues it in spite of obstacles. The torrent which is destined to become a mighty river, will overthrow the dykes by which its course may be restrained.
Stendahl, The Life of Haydn, in a Series of Letters Written at Vienna Followed by the Life of Mozart, with Observations on Metastasio, and on the Present State of Music in France and Italy (translated by Robert Brewin)
I also found this note inluded in the Cambridge University Press 2014 eBook edition:
Marie-Henri Beyle (1783–1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal, is remembered today for such novels as Le Rouge et le Noir. In his lifetime, he wrote in a variety of literary genres and under a multitude of names. Louis-Alexandre-César Bombet was his choice of pseudonym for these early works, originally published in French in 1814. His lives of Haydn and Mozart were substantially derived from works by Giuseppe Carpani and Théophile Winckler respectively. Despite this audacious plagiarism, Stendhal's passion for music is evident, especially for Mozart, whose Clemenza di Tito he had enjoyed in Königsberg during the winter of 1812 whilst serving in Napoleon's army. Of especial interest to the modern reader are Stendhal's frequent digressions expressing his forthright opinions on the issues and figures of his day. This reissue is of Robert Brewin's English translation of 1817, with additional notes by the composer William Gardiner.
I still have many unanswered questions, including these:
1. Who turned “in spite of obstacles” into “come hell or high water”?
2. What was Stendhal’s French for “pursues it in spite of obstacles”?
3. What was Giuseppe Carpani’s Italian for “pursues it in spite of obstacles”?
OMG, I found the answer to number two (emphasis added):
Aucun des maîtres de Vienne ne voulut donner de leçons gratis à un petit enfant de chœur sans protection c’est peut-être à ce malheur que Haydn doit son originalité. Tous les poëtes ont imité Homère, qui n’imita personne en cela seulement il n’a pas été suivi, et c’est peut-être à cela surtout qu’il doit d'être le grand poëte que tout le monde admire. Pour moi, je voudrais, mon cher ami, que tous les cours de littérature fussent au fond de l’Océan: ils apprennent aux gens médiocres à faire des ouvrages sans fautes, et leur naturel les leur fait produire sans beautés. Il nous faut ensuite essuyer tous ces malheureux essais; notre amour pour les arts en est diminué; tandis que le manque de leçons n’arrêtera certainement pas un homme fait pour aller au grand. Voyez Shakspeare, voyez Cervantes; c’est aussi l'histoire de notre Haydn. Un maître lui eût fait éviter quelques-unes des fautes dans lesquelles il tomba dans la suite en écrivant pour l’église et pour le théâtre mais certainement il eût été moins original. L’homme de génie est celui-là seulement qui trouve une si douce jouissance à exercer son art, qu’il travaille malgré tous les obstacles. Mettez des digues à ces torrents, celui qui doit devenir un fleuve fameux saura bien les renverser.
Stendahl, Vies de Haydn, de Mozart et de Métastase, Lettre IV, Bade, 20 juin 1808 (loads slowly)
I’d still like to know the answers to questions one and three. (Robert K. Merton, where are you when I need you?)
Listening during the morning workout:
Robyn Rosenfeld and Alex Zoppa interviewing April Gornik on their podcast ARTLAWS.
A new painting of Gornik’s will be included in the show “Empire of Water” at The Church art center in Sag Harbor, New York, March 27 through May 30.
[more to come on Monday, March 28, 2022]
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