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I know she puts the blame on me. I hear of it, not from people who know you, but from people who do not know you, and do not desire to know you. I hear of it often. She talks of the influence of an elder over a younger man, for instance. It is one of her favourite attitudes towards the question, and it is always a successful appeal to popular prejudice and ignorance. I need not ask you what influence I had over you. You know I had none. It was one of your frequent boasts that I had none, and the only one indeed that was well-founded. What was there, as a mere matter of fact, in you that I could influence? Your brain? It was undeveloped. Your imagination? It was dead. Your heart? It was not yet born. Of all the people who have ever crossed my life you were the one, and the only one, I was unable in my way to influence in any direction[150a]. When I lay ill and helpless in a fever[150b] caught from tending on you, I had not sufficient influence over you to induce you to get me even a cup of milk to drink, or to see that I had the ordinary necessaries of a sickroom, or to take the trouble to drive a couple of hundred yards to a bookseller’s to get me a book at my own expense. When I was actually engaged in writing, and penning comedies that were to beat Congreve for brilliancy, and Dumas fils for philosophy, and I suppose everybody else for every other quality, I had not sufficient influence with you to get you to leave me undisturbed as an artist should be left. Wherever my writing room was, it was to you an ordinary lounge, a place to smoke and drink hock-and-seltzer[150c] in, and chatter about absurdities. The “influence of an elder over a younger man” is an excellent theory till it comes to my ears[150d]. Then it becomes grotesque. When it comes to your ears, I suppose you smile—to yourself. You are certainly entitled to do so. I hear also much of what she says about money. She states, and with perfect justice, that she was ceaseless in her entreaties to me not to supply you with money. I admit it. Her letters were endless, and the postscript “Pray do not let Alfred know that I have written to you” appears in them all. But it was no pleasure to me to have to pay every single thing for you from your morning shave to your midnight hansom[150e]. It was a horrible bore. I used to complain to you again and again about it. I used to tell you—you remember, don’t you?—how I loathed your regarding me as a “useful” person, how no artist wishes to be so regarded or so treated; artists, like art itself, being of their very essence quite useless. You used to get very angry when I said it to you. The truth always made you angry. Truth, indeed, is a thing that is most painful to listen to and most painful to utter[150f]. But it did not make you alter your views or you mode of life. Every day I had to pay for every single thing you did all day long. Only a person of absurd good nature or of indescribable folly would have done so. I unfortunately was a complete combination of both[150g]. When I used to suggest that you mother should supply you with the money you wanted, you always had a very pretty and graceful answer. You said that the income allowed her by your father—some ￡1500 a year I believe—was quite inadequate to the wants of a lady of her position, and that you could not go to her for more money than you were getting already. You were quite right about her income being one absolutely unsuitable to a lady of her position and tastes, but you should not have made that an excuse for living in luxury on me: it should on the contrary have been a suggestion to you for economy in you own life. The fact is that you were, and are I suppose still, a typical sentimentalist. For a sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. To propose to spare your mother’s pocket was beautiful. To do so at my expense was ugly[150h]. You think that one can have one’s emotions for nothing. One cannot. Even the finest and the most self-sacrificing emotions have to be paid for[150i]. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine. The intellectual and emotional life of ordinary people is a very contemptible affair. Just as they borrow their ideas from a sort of circulating library of thought—the Zeitgeist of an age that has no soul— and send them back soiled at the end of each week, so they always try to get their emotions on credit, and refuse to pay the bill when it comes in. You should pass out of that conception of life[150j]. As soon as you have to pay for an emotion you will know its quality, and be the better for such knowledge[150k]. And remember that the sentimentalist is always a cynic at heart. Indeed sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism. And delightful as cynicism is from its intellectual side, now that it has left the Tub for the Club[150l],[150.1] it never can be more than the perfect philosophy for a man who has no soul. It has its social value, and to an artist all modes of expression are interesting, but in itself it is a poor affair, for to the true cynic nothing is ever revealed.
我知道她将罪怪到我头上。这事我听人说了，不是认识你的人，而是不认识、也不想认识你的人。我常常听人说了。她讲到年长者对年轻人的影响，比如说。对这个问题，这是她最喜欢采取的态度之一，并且总能迎合公众的偏见和无知。我用不着问你，我对你有过什么影响。你知道我对你毫无影响的。这是你常常用来夸口的一件事情，而且确实是唯一有根有据的一件。事实上，你又有什么东西我影响得了的？你的头脑？发育还不全呢。你的想象力？死了。你的心？还没长出来呢。我平生所遇的人当中，你是一个，唯一的一个，我一点也无法影响、无法左右的人[150a]。当我因为照料你的病而染疾发烧无人在旁[150b]时，并没有足够的影响力说得动你，为我哪怕是弄来一杯牛奶，或者是通常病人所需的物件，或者是驾车到一两百码外的书店，用我自己的钱帮忙买一本书来。当我切实在写作时，笔下喜剧，论文采将胜过康格里夫，论哲理将超过小仲马，其他方方面面我想也无人能出其右，可就是没有足够的影响力叫得动你，别来打搅我，让我像艺术家所应该的那样安静独处。无论我的写作室在哪儿，在你都是间平常的娱乐室，一个抽烟喝酒[150c]的地方，一个闲聊奇谈怪事的地方。“年长者对年轻人的影响”，这论调多好听，但传到我耳朵就不行了[150d]。于是成了怪论一则。传到你耳朵时，我想你听了会笑的——暗自窃笑。你当然有权笑了。我也听到她许多关于钱财的谈论。她声称，而且是非常的理直气壮，说她不断地央求我不要给你钱。这我承认。她来的信无休无止，封封都带一句“务请别让阿尔弗莱德知道我写信给你”。但样样东西为你掏腰包，从早晨的剃须膏到夜半的马车费，我可一点也不喜欢[150e]。简直扫兴透顶。对此我每每啧有烦言。我常对你说——你还记得不是？——我多么讨厌你把我当成个“有用的”人，搞艺术的多么不喜欢被人这么看，这么对待；艺术家，如同艺术本身，就其本质而言是很没用的。这话你听了常常大发脾气。真话总是让你生气。的确，真话是最难听得进耳也最难说得出口的[150f]。但这并未使你的人生观或生活方式有所改变。每一天，我都要为你那一整天里干的每一件事掏钱。只有好心好到荒唐的地步，或者愚蠢得不像话的人，才会这么做。而我不幸的是二者集于一身[150g]了。我常建议你母亲应该提供你所需的钱，这时你总是回答得很好听，很有风度。你说你父亲给她的钱——我相信是一年1500英镑左右——对于她这种身份的女士是很不够的，你不能在已经拿的钱之外再向她要了。你说得不错，她的进项与她这样的身份和品味是极不相称的，可这也不该成为你靠我的钱花天酒地的借口啊。恰恰相反，这应该提醒你自己的生活要保持节俭才是。事实上你当时是，我猜现在仍然是，一个典型的自作多情的人。因为一个人若自作多情，无非是想既享受感情的痛快，又不用为此破费。提议别让你母亲掏腰包是美好的。不掏她的腰包来掏我的腰包则是丑陋的[150h]。你以为人可以白白地获得感情。不行的。即使是最美好、最富有自我牺牲精神的感情，也不是白送上门的[150i]。奇怪的是，使之美好的，正是这一点。匹夫之辈的心智和感情生活是非常可鄙的。就像他们从一种思想的流动图书馆——一个没有灵魂的时代的 “时代精神”——借来理念，一周过后又污渍斑斑地将其归还那样，他们总是想法赊购感情，等账单送来了又拒绝支付。 你不该还停留在那种生活观念中[150j]。一旦你必须花费去偿付一种感情时，就会明白它的质量，并因为明白了它的质量而得到长进[150k]。还要记住，自作多情的人内心里总是玩世不恭的。的确，自作多情不过是玩世不恭的公假日罢了。尽管从心智方面看犬儒主义的玩世不恭还挺讨人喜欢的，但既然该主义已经爬出了木盆钻进了俱乐部[150l]，那它永远只能是给一个没有灵魂的人的绝妙哲学。它有它的社会价值，而对艺术家来说一切表达方式都是有意思的，但就其本身而言，它是很贫乏的，因为对十足的犬儒主义者来说没有一样东西是明白的。
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