The Use and Abuse of Literature - Marjorie Garber [17]
I have often heard distinguished scholars say things about scholarship [wrote Alberti], that could really make anyone give up the desire to engage in it. Among other points, for there were many and varied arguments, they were open about the fact that they themselves, though at one time they had chosen to study books, would, if they could start over, gladly take up any other kind of life. I was far from believing that they were sincere, these men who had never spent any period of their lives not engaged in the study of texts, and not only did I believe that they spoke quite differently from what they felt, but I actually blamed them a little bit for it. I thought it wrong for learned men to discourage younger students and also wrong for highly intelligent men to continue on a course if they did not really believe in it. I diligently interrogated many men of learning and discovered that in fact almost all were of the same mind, namely estranged from the very study of books to which they had devoted their lives.4
And again:
No art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it. What we know to be true of all other arts is most especially true of reading and writing; there is no freedom from striving at any age. We see those who dedicate themselves to study poring over books, as the expression goes, from an early age, and left alone by everybody; we see them worn out and exhausted by anxious worrying—about the rod, the teachers, the struggle to learn—and by their constant assiduous reading. They often look anemic and lethargic for their age. In the next period, youth, when we are told that we can expect to see joy and happiness in boys’ faces, look at their pallor, their melancholy, how in every aspect of their physical bearing, as they come out of their daily imprisonment in schools and libraries, they seem repressed and almost crushed. Poor creatures, how exhausted, how listless, they are, thanks to long hours of wearisome reading, lack of sleep, too much mental effort, too many deep concerns. Anyone with a bit of humanity in him tends to pity their relentless toil or angrily condemn their folly, especially if they have hopes of being eventually rewarded by fortune. And rightly so, for outside of knowledge itself, no success (as measured by fortune’s goods) is going to come their way. They are very mistaken if they waste their labor and ambition on this particular pursuit, while a life led along other lines could, with no more labor and striving, probably raise them to the highest pinnacle of financial and social success.5
As for wealth, public recognition, and pleasure, forget it. “From these prizes,” Alberti explained, “scholars are excluded.” He set out in the remainder of his treatise to “make this perfectly clear” by “show[ing] first how much they get to enjoy themselves, second what fortunes fall in their laps, and finally, what honors are likely to be showered upon them.”6
It is almost irresistible to continue to quote Alberti in this vein. I will provide one more extended (and delectable) example to illustrate both the tone and the odd “contemporaneity” of this little book written over five hundred years ago. Scholars, Alberti said, are criticized if they travel, or even if they take time out for other simple enjoyments:
… who does not see at weddings, concerts, singing groups, or young people’s games how scholars are looked on with scorn and even hatred? Everybody thinks it becoming in a young man to play the lyre, to dance, and generally to practice the pleasing arts, and people consider these appropriate activities for the young. Those who are even moderately skilled in such arts are generally welcomed and are popular. If they are credited with some such ability, they are invited and asked to join in. But not the young scholars, they are pushed away and excluded. If they show their wan faces at such occasions, people consider them either ridiculous or burdensome, and if they try to participate, how they are laughed at and