On Meeting the Celebrated

William Somerset Maugham

I have always wondered at the passion many people have to meet the celebrated. The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account. The celebrated develop a technique to deal with the persons they come across. They show the world a mask, often an impressive one, but take care to conceal their real selves. They play the part that is expected from them, and with practice learn to play it very well, but you are stupid if you think that this public performance of theirs corresponds with the man within.

I have been attached, deeply attached, to a few people; but I have been interested in men in general not for their own sakes, but for the sake of my work. I have not, as Kant1) enjoined, regarded each man as an end in himself, but as material that might be useful to me as a writer. I have been more concerned with the obscure than with the famous. They are more often themselves. They have had no need to create a figure to protect themselves from the world or to impress it. Their idiosyncrasies2) have had more chance to develop in the limited circle of their activity, and since they have never been in the public eye it has never occurred to them that they have anything to conceal. They display their oddities3) because it has never struck them that they are odd. And after all it is with the common run of men that we writers have to deal; kings, dictators, commercial magnates are from our point of view very unsatisfactory. To write about them is a venture that has often tempted writers, but the failure that has attended their efforts shows that such beings are too exceptional to form a proper ground for a work of art. They cannot be made real. The ordinary is the writer's richer field. Its unexpectedness, its singularity, its infinite variety afford unending material. The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you. For my part I would much sooner spend a month on a desert island with a veterinary surgeon than with a prime minister.

注釋

1) Kant:即Immanuel Kant（伊曼努爾·康德1724－ 1804），德國古典哲學創始人

2) idiosyncrasy [7idiE5siNkrEsi] n. 特質, 特性

3) oddity [5Cditi] n.奇異, 古怪, 怪癖

論見名人

許多人熱衷于見名人，我始終不得其解。在朋友面前吹噓自己認識某某名人，由此而來的聲望只能證明自己的微不足道。名人個個練就了一套處世高招，無論遇上誰，都能應付自如。他們給世人展現的是一副面具，常常是美好難忘的面具，但他們會小心翼翼地掩蓋自己的真相。他們扮演的是大家期待的角色，演得多了，最后都能演得惟妙惟肖。如果你以為他們在公眾面前的表演就是他們的真實自我，那你就傻了。
我自己就喜歡一些人，非常喜歡他們。但我對人感興趣一般不是因為他們自身的緣故，而是出于我工作的需求。正如康德勸告的那樣，我從來沒有把認識某人作為目的，而是將其當作對一個作家有用的創作素材。比之名流顯士，我更加關注無名小卒。他們常常顯得較為自然真實，他們無須再創造另一個人物形象，用他來保護自己不受世人干擾，或者用他去感動世人。他們的社交圈子有限，自己的種種癖性也就越有可能得到滋長。因為他們從來沒有引起公眾的關注，也就從來沒有想到過要隱瞞什么。他們會表露他們古怪的一面，因為他們從來就沒有覺得有何古怪。總之，作家要寫的是普通人。在我們看來，國王、獨裁者和商界大亨等都是不符合條件的。去撰寫這些人物經常是作家們難以抗拒的冒險之舉，可為此付出的努力不免以失敗告終，這說明這些人物都過于特殊，無法成為一件藝術作品的創作根基，作家也不可能把他們寫得真真切切。老百姓才是作家的創作沃土，他們或變幻無常，或難覓其二，各式人物應有盡有，這些都給作家提供了無限的創作素材。大人物經常是千人一面，小人物身上才有一組組矛盾元素，是取之不盡的創作源泉，讓你驚喜不斷。就我而言，如要在孤島上度過一個月，我寧愿和一名獸醫相守，也不愿同一位首相做伴。