ref: 875917404eca131b254d0f16548b32d22e74b816
parent: 6923dd3f5c596219f88e3a74a6770ee99716b666
author: aiju <aiju@phicode.de>
date: Thu Jul 14 05:57:50 EDT 2011
fixed /lib/human
--- a/lib/human
+++ b/lib/human
@@ -434,8 +434,8 @@
ated feeling. The higher stage of culture, which places itself under the rule of knowledge (though not under its tyranny), requires a much greater sobriety of feeling and a stronger concentration of words--in this the Greeks in the age of Demosthenes preceded us. Extravagance characterizes all modern writings; even if they are written simply, the words in them are still felt too eccentrically. Rigorous reflection, compression, coldness, plainness (even taken intentionally to the limits)--in short, restraint of feeling and taciturnity: that alone can help.-- Such a cold way of writing and feeling, incidentally, is now very attractive by its contrast; and therein, of course, lies a new danger. For bitter cold can be as good a stimulant as a high degree of heat.
196. GOOD NARRATORS, BAD EXPLAINERS.-- Good narrators can display in the actions of their characters an admirable psychological certainty and consistency, which often stands in downright ludicrous contrast to their lack of skill in thinking psychologically. Thus their culture appears at one moment as excellently high as in the next it appears regrettably low. Too often it even happens that they are obviously explaining the actions and natures of their own heroes incorrectly--there is no doubt about it, as improbable as it sounds. The greatest pianist may have thought only a little about technical requirements and the special virtue, vice, use and educability of each finger (dactylic ethics), and make crude errors when he speaks about such things.
-ld can be as good a stimulant as a high degree of heat.
-
+ld can be as good a stimulant as a high degree of heat.
+
eaks about such things.
197. WRITING OF ACQUAINTANCES AND THEIR READERS.-- We read the writings of acquaintances (friends and enemies) doubly, inasmuch as our knowledge keeps whispering alongside, “That is by him, a sign of his inner nature, his experience, his gift;" and, on the other hand, a different kind of knowledge tries to ascertain what the yield of the work itself is, what esteem it deserves aside from its author, what enrichment of learning it brings with it. As is self evident, these two kinds of reading and weighing interfere with one another. Even a conversation with a friend will produce good fruits of knowledge only when both people finally think solely of the matter at hand and forget that they are friends.
--
⑨