2012年6月30日 星期六

交通工具之進步



這個超音速噴氣機原型名為「X-54」,由波音公司、洛克希德-馬丁公司、灣流公司在美國宇航局的幫助下研製,從倫敦飛往雪梨只需短短4個小時。


 胡適多次(工程師學會年會........)談他一生中的交通之進步
留學搭船去美國花約20天(待查)
抗戰去美國 花約一周(待查)
1960年代只花一天 ....


(1960) 19031217,正是我12整歲的生日——那一天,在北卡羅來納州的海邊基帝霍克 (Kitty Hawk)沙灘上,兩個修理腳踏車的匠人,兄弟兩人,用他們自己製造的一架飛機,在沙灘上試起飛。弟弟叫Owille Wright,他飛起了12秒鐘;哥哥叫Wilbur Wright,他飛起了59秒鐘。

那是人類製造飛機飛在空中的第一次成功——現在那一天(1217)是全美國慶祝的“航空日”——但當時並沒有人注意到那兩個弟兄的試驗,但這兩個沒有受過大學教育的腳踏車修理匠人,他們並不失望,他們繼續試飛,繼續改良他們的飛機,一直到四年半之後(19085),才有重要的報紙來報導那兩個人的試飛,那時候,他們已能在空中飛38分鐘了!
這四十年中,航空工程的大發展,航空工業的大發展,這是你們學工程的人都知道的,航空工業在最近三十年裏已成了世界最大工業的一種。

我第一次看見飛機是在1912年;我第一次坐飛機是在1930年;我第一次飛過太平洋是在二十三年前(1937);第一次飛過大西洋是在十五年前(1945)。當我第一次飛渡太平洋的時候,從香港到三藩市總共費了七天!去年我第一次坐Jet機,從三藩市到紐約,五個半鐘點飛了3000英里!下月初,我又得飛過太平洋,當天中午起飛,當天晚上就到美國西岸了!
五十七年前,Kitty Hawk沙灘上兩個腳踏車修理匠人自造的一個飛機居然在空中飛起了12秒,那12秒鐘的飛行就給人類打開了一個新的時代——打開了人類的航空時代。

這不夠叫我們深信“努力不會白費”的人生觀嗎?

2012年6月29日 星期五

曼鏗 (H. L. Mencken) / 正論/ 拂士



 
先生又問:「你的孩子都看過《雄才怪傑》* (Inherit the Wind) 的電影嗎?那位代表田納西州檢察屬的皮雷耶是在開庭之後兩天才死的,不是當場辯論之後便死的。這個故事當中有位新聞記者叫做曼鏗 (H. L. Mencken),真是一位了不得的人,他在美國的影響,正如中國的胡適之。我在美國讀書時,他辦《太陽報》,又辦一種《水星雜誌》,是月刊。他對美國的種種都來批判,一出來,就被賣空了,在路上看見的學生,差不多每人手中都有一本。《太陽報》是曼鏗吃飯的地方,《水星雜誌》是他好玩來辦的。這個中學教員史東尼被控的案子發生後,《太陽報》全力支持他一切的費用,就是將來敗訴之後必須罰款的話,也是由《太陽報》來負擔的。曼鏗是這件案子中的主要人物,不知你們的孩子注意到了沒有 ?」


正論/拂士



胡適說的太陽報:After six years at the Herald Mencken moved to The Baltimore Sun, where he worked for Charles H. Grasty. He continued to contribute to the Sun full time until 1948, when he ceased to write there following a stroke.

水星雜誌:Mencken began writing the editorials and opinion pieces that made his name. On the side, he wrote short stories, a novel, and even poetry–which he later reviled. In 1908, he became a literary critic for the magazine The Smart Set, and in 1924, he and George Jean Nathan founded and edited The American Mercury, published by Alfred A. Knopf. It soon developed a national circulation and became highly influential on college campuses across America. In 1933, Mencken resigned as editor.

曼鏗(  H. L. Mencken)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

H. L. Mencken
Born Henry Louis Mencken
September 12, 1880
Baltimore, Maryland
Died January 29, 1956 (aged 75)
Baltimore, Maryland
Ethnicity German American
Occupation Journalist, satirist, critic
Notable credit(s) The Baltimore Sun
Religion Agnostic atheism
Spouse Sara Haardt
Relatives August Mencken, Jr
Brother
Family August Mencken, Sr.
Father
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English.[1] Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the 20th century. Many of his books are still in print.
Mencken is known for writing The American Language, a multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States, and for his satirical reporting on the Scopes trial, which he named the "Monkey" trial. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, pseudo-experts, temperance and uplifters. A keen cheer-leader of scientific progress, he was very skeptical of economic theories and particularly critical of anti-intellectualism, bigotry, populism, Christian fundamentalism, creationism, organized religion, the existence of God, and osteopathic/chiropractic medicine.
In addition to his literary accomplishments, Mencken was known for his controversial ideas. A frank admirer of Nietzsche, he was not a proponent of representative democracy,[2] which he believed was a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors. During and after World War I, he was sympathetic to the Germans, and was very distrustful of British "propaganda".[3] However, he overcame his inclination to embrace all things Bavarian, referring to Hitler and his followers as "ignorant thugs". He was an ardent opponent of any religious practices or institutions.[4]

Contents

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[edit] Early life

Mencken was the son of August Mencken, Sr., a cigar factory owner of German extraction. When Henry was three, his family moved into a new home at 1524 Hollins Street,[5] in the Union Square neighborhood of Baltimore. Apart from five years of married life, Mencken was to live in that house for the rest of his days.
In his best-selling memoir Happy Days he described his childhood in Baltimore as "placid, secure, uneventful and happy".[6]
When he was nine years old, he read Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, which he later described as "the most stupendous event in my life".[7] He determined to become a writer himself. He read prodigiously. In one winter while in high school he read Thackeray and "then proceeded backward to Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Johnson and the other magnificos of the eighteenth century". He read the entire canon of Shakespeare, and became an ardent fan of Kipling and Thomas Huxley.[8] But as a boy Mencken also had practical interests, photography and chemistry in particular, and eventually had a home chemistry laboratory which he used to perform experiments of his own devising, some of them inadvertently dangerous.[9]
After graduating (with honors) from high school at the age of 16, he worked for three years in his father's cigar factory. He disliked this work, especially the selling part, and resolved to leave, with or without his father's blessing. In early 1898 he took a class in writing at one of the country's first correspondence schools (the Cosmopolitan University).[10] This was to be all of Mencken's formal education in journalism, or indeed in any other subject. On his father's death a few days after Christmas in the same year, the business reverted to his uncle, and Mencken was free to pursue his career in journalism. He applied in February 1899 to the Baltimore Morning Herald newspaper, and was hired as a part-timer there, but still kept his position at the factory for a few months. In June he was hired on as a full-time reporter, and his new career was well underway.

[edit] Career

After six years at the Herald Mencken moved to The Baltimore Sun, where he worked for Charles H. Grasty. He continued to contribute to the Sun full time until 1948, when he ceased to write there following a stroke.
Mencken began writing the editorials and opinion pieces that made his name. On the side, he wrote short stories, a novel, and even poetry–which he later reviled. In 1908, he became a literary critic for the magazine The Smart Set, and in 1924, he and George Jean Nathan founded and edited The American Mercury, published by Alfred A. Knopf. It soon developed a national circulation and became highly influential on college campuses across America. In 1933, Mencken resigned as editor.

[edit] Personal life

In 1930, Mencken married Sara Haardt, a professor of English at Goucher College in Baltimore and an author who was 18 years his junior. Haardt had led efforts in Alabama to ratify the 19th Amendment.[11] The two had met in 1923 after Mencken delivered a lecture at Goucher; a seven-year courtship ensued. The marriage made national headlines, and many were surprised that Mencken, who once called marriage "the end of hope" and who was well known for mocking relations between the sexes, had gone to the altar. "The Holy Spirit informed and inspired me", Mencken said. "Like all other infidels, I am superstitious and always follow hunches: this one seemed to be a superb one."[12] Even more startling, he was marrying an Alabama native despite his having written scathing essays about the American South. Haardt was in poor health from tuberculosis[13] throughout their marriage and died in 1935 of meningitis, leaving Mencken grief-stricken. He had always supported her writing, and after her death had a collection of her short stories published under the title Southern Album.

Mencken photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1932
During the Great Depression, Mencken did not support the New Deal. This cost him popularity, as did his strong reservations regarding the United States' participation in World War II, and his overt contempt for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He ceased writing for the Baltimore Sun for several years, focusing on his memoirs and other projects as editor, while serving as an advisor for the paper that had been his home for nearly his entire career. In 1948, he briefly returned to the political scene, covering the presidential election in which President Harry S. Truman faced Republican Thomas Dewey and Henry A. Wallace of the Progressive Party. His later work consisted of humorous, anecdotal, and nostalgic essays, first published in The New Yorker, then collected in the books Happy Days, Newspaper Days, and Heathen Days.
On November 23, 1948, Mencken suffered a stroke that left him aware and fully conscious but nearly unable to read or write, and able to speak only with some difficulty. After his stroke, Mencken enjoyed listening to European classical music and, after some recovery of his ability to speak, talking with friends, but he sometimes referred to himself in the past tense as if already dead. Preoccupied as he was with his legacy, he organized his papers, letters, newspaper clippings and columns, even grade school report cards. These materials were made available to scholars after his death in stages in 1971, 1981 and 1991, and include hundreds of thousands of letters sent and received–the only omissions were strictly personal letters received from women.
Mencken died in his sleep on January 29, 1956.[14] He was interred in Baltimore's Loudon Park Cemetery.[15]
Though it does not appear on his tombstone,[16] during his Smart Set days Mencken wrote a joking epitaph for himself:
If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.[17]

[edit] The man of ideas

In his capacity as editor and man of ideas, Mencken became close friends with the leading literary figures of his time, including Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Hergesheimer, Anita Loos, Ben Hecht, Sinclair Lewis, James Branch Cabell and Alfred Knopf, as well as a mentor to several young reporters, including Alistair Cooke. He also championed artists whose works he considered worthy. For example, he asserted that books such as Caught Short! A Saga of Wailing Wall Street (1929), by Eddie Cantor (ghost-written by David Freedman) did more to pull America out of the Great Depression than all government measures combined. He also mentored John Fante.
Mencken also published many works under various pseudonyms, including Owen Hatteras, John H. Brownell, William Drayham, W. L. D. Bell, and Charles Angofff.[18] As a ghost-writer for the physician Leonard K. Hirshberg, he wrote a series of articles and (in 1910) most of the book about the care for babies.
Mencken frankly admired Friedrich Nietzsche—he was the first writer to provide a scholarly analysis in English of Nietzsche's writings and philosophy—and Joseph Conrad. His humor and satire owe much to Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain. He did much to defend Theodore Dreiser, despite freely admitting his faults, including stating forthrightly that Dreiser often wrote badly and was a gullible man. Mencken also expressed his appreciation for William Graham Sumner in a 1941 collection of Sumner's essays, and regretted never having known Sumner personally.
Mencken recommended for publication the first novel by Ayn Rand, We the Living, calling it "a really excellent piece of work". Shortly after, Rand addressed him in correspondence as "the greatest representative of a philosophy" to which she wanted to dedicate her life, "individualism", and, later, listed him as her favorite columnist.[19]

Mencken is fictionalized in the play Inherit the Wind as the cynical sarcastic atheist E. K. Hornbeck (right), seen here as played by Gene Kelly in the Hollywood film version. On the left is Henry Drummond, based on Clarence Darrow and portrayed by Spencer Tracy.
For Mencken, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the finest work of American literature. Much of that book relates how gullible and ignorant country "boobs" (as Mencken referred to them) are swindled by confidence men like the (deliberately) pathetic "Duke" and "Dauphin" roustabouts with whom Huck and Jim travel down the Mississippi River. These scam-artists swindle by posing as enlightened speakers on temperance (to obtain the funds to get roaring drunk), as pious "saved" men seeking funds for far off evangelistic missions (to pirates on the high seas, no less), and as learned doctors of phrenology (who can barely spell). Mencken read the novel as a story of America's hilarious dark side, a place where democracy, as defined by Mencken, is "...the worship of Jackals by Jackasses".
As a nationally syndicated columnist and book author, he famously spoke out against Christian Science, social stigma, fakery, Christian radicalism, religious belief (and as a fervent nonbeliever the very notion of a Deity), osteopathy, antievolutionism, chiropractic,[20][21][22] and the "Booboisie", his word for the ignorant middle classes. In 1926, he deliberately had himself arrested for selling an issue of The American Mercury that was banned in Boston under the Comstock laws.[23] Mencken heaped scorn not only on the public officials he disliked, but also on the contemporary state of American republicanism itself: in 1931, the Arkansas legislature passed a motion to pray for Mencken's soul after he had called the state the "apex of moronia".[24]

[edit] Musical interests

Mencken had a great interest in music, playing the piano and favoring the works of Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn and Bach. His favorite piece of music was the first movement of Beethoven's Third "Eroica" Symphony. He was a member of Baltimore's Saturday Night Club, an assemblage which gathered weekly to play together and drink beer.

[edit] Views

The striking thing about Mencken’s mind is its ruthlessness and rigidity...Though one of the fairest of critics, he is the least pliant. ... [I]n spite of his skepticism, and his frequent exhortations to hold his opinion lightly, he himself has been conspicuous for seizing upon simple dogmas and sticking to them with fierce tenacity...true skeptics...see both truth and weakness in every case...

— Literary critic Edmund Wilson (1921)[25]
In every unbeliever's heart there is an uneasy feeling that, after all, he may awake after death and find himself immortal. This is his punishment for his unbelief. This is the agnostic's Hell.

— H.L. Mencken (Source)[26]

[edit] Elitism

Instead of arguing that one race or group was superior to another, Mencken believed that every community produced a few people of clear superiority. He considered groupings on a par with hierarchies, which led to a kind of natural elitism and natural aristocracy. "Superior" individuals, in Mencken's view, were those wrongly oppressed and disdained by their own communities, but nevertheless distinguished by their will and personal achievement— not by race or birth.
In 1989, per his instructions, Alfred A. Knopf published Mencken's "secret diary" as The Diary of H. L. Mencken. According to an item in the South Bay (California) Daily Breeze[27] on December 5, 1989, titled "Mencken's Secret Diary Shows Racist Leanings", Mencken's views shocked even the "sympathetic scholar who edited it", Charles A. Fecher of Baltimore. There was a club in Baltimore called the Maryland Club which had one Jewish member, and that member died. Mencken said, "There is no other Jew in Baltimore who seems suitable", according to the article. And the diary quoted him as saying of blacks, in 1943, "...it is impossible to talk anything resembling discretion or judgment to a colored woman..." However, violence against blacks outraged Mencken. For example, he had this to say about a Maryland lynching:
Not a single bigwig came forward in the emergency, though the whole town knew what was afoot. Any one of a score of such bigwigs might have halted the crime, if only by threatening to denounce its perpetrators, but none spoke. So Williams was duly hanged, burned and mutilated.

[edit] Democracy

Rather than dismissing democratic governance as a popular fallacy or treating it with open contempt, Mencken's response to it was a publicized sense of amusement. His feelings on this subject (like his casual feelings on many other such subjects) are sprinkled throughout his writings over the years, very occasionally taking center-stage with the full force of Mencken's prose:
[D]emocracy gives [the beatification of mediocrity] a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world—that he is genuinely running things. Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power—which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters—which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy.
This sentiment[28] is fairly consistent with Mencken's distaste for common notions and the philosophical outlook he unabashedly set down throughout his life as a writer (drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer, among others).
Mencken wrote as follows about the difficulties of good men reaching national office when such campaigns must necessarily be conducted remotely:
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.[29]

[edit] Anglo-Saxons

Mencken countered the arguments for Anglo-Saxon superiority prevalent in his time in a 1923 essay entitled "The Anglo-Saxon" which argued that if there was such a thing as a pure "Anglo-Saxon" race, it was defined by its inferiority and cowardice. "The normal American of the 'pure-blooded' majority goes to rest every night with an uneasy feeling that there is a burglar under the bed and he gets up every morning with a sickening fear that his underwear has been stolen."[30]

[edit] Jews

Mencken's views towards Jews appeared to evolve with time. In the 1930 edition of Treatise on the Gods Mencken wrote:
The Jews could be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of. As commonly encountered, they lack many of the qualities that mark the civilized man: courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence. They have vanity without pride, voluptuousness without taste, and learning without wisdom. Their fortitude, such as it is, is wasted upon puerile objects, and their charity is mainly a form of display.
This passage was subsequently removed from all subsequent editions at his express direction.[31]
Moreover, he viewed Adolf Hitler as a buffoon, and once compared him to a common Ku Klux Klan member.[32]
The writer Gore Vidal defended Mencken:
Far from being an anti-Semite, Mencken was one of the first journalists to denounce the persecution of the Jews in Germany at a time when the New York Times, say, was notoriously reticent. On November 27, 1938, Mencken writes (Baltimore Sun), "It is to be hoped that the poor Jews now being robbed and mauled in Germany will not take too seriously the plans of various politicians to rescue them." He then reviews the various schemes to "rescue" the Jews from the Nazis, who had not yet announced their own final solution.[33]
As Hitler gradually conquered Europe, Mencken attacked President Franklin D. Roosevelt for refusing to admit Jewish refugees into the United States and called for their wholesale admission:
There is only one way to help the fugitives, and that is to find places for them in a country in which they can really live. Why shouldn't the United States take in a couple hundred thousand of them, or even all of them?[34]

[edit] Memorials

[edit] Home

Mencken's home at 1524 Hollins Street, where he lived for 67 years before his death in 1956, in Baltimore's Union Square neighborhood was bequeathed to the University of Maryland, Baltimore on the death of Mencken's younger brother August in 1967. The City of Baltimore acquired the property in 1983 and the "H. L. Mencken House" became part of the City Life Museums. The house has been closed to general admission since 1997, but is opened for special events and group visits by arrangement.

[edit] Library

Shortly after World War II, Mencken expressed his intention of bequeathing his books and papers to Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library. At the time of his death in 1956, the Library was in possession of most of the present large collection. As a result, Mencken's papers as well as much of his library, which includes many books inscribed by major authors, are held in the Central branch of the Pratt Library on Cathedral Street in Baltimore. The original H. L. Mencken Room and Collection, on the third floor, housing this collection, was dedicated on April 17, 1956. The new Mencken Room, on the first floor of the Library's Annex, was opened in November 2003.
The collection contains Mencken's typescripts, his newspaper and magazine contributions, his published books, family documents and memorabilia, clipping books, a large collection of presentation volumes, a file of correspondence with prominent Marylanders, and the extensive material he collected while preparing The American Language.
Other collections of Menckenia are at Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, and Yale University. The Sara Haardt Mencken collection is at Goucher College. Some of Mencken's vast literary correspondence is held at the New York Public Library.

[edit] Works

Books
Posthumous collections
  • Minority Report (1956)
  • On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe (1956)
  • The American Scene (1965) (Huntington Cairns, ed).
  • The Bathtub Hoax and Blasts & Bravos from the Chicago Tribune (1958)
  • The Impossible H. L. Mencken: A Selection Of His Best Newspaper Stories (1991) (Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, ed).
  • My Life As Author and Editor (1992) (Jonathan Yardley, ed).
  • A Second Mencken Chrestomathy (1994)
  • Thirty-five Years of Newspaper Work (1996)
  • A Religious Orgy in Tennessee A Reporter's Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial (2006) (Melville House Publishing).
Chapbooks, pamphlets, and notable essays

李祖法 兄弟 Franklin Edgerton 三兄弟



 1961.4.21 胡適病中給李祖法寫信


 祖法兄
去年紐約的聚會  十分暢快   我至今還不曾忘記 .....
剪寄我的一篇短文  專寫祖韓收藏的"曹雪芹小象"  我很盼望祖韓能看見我此文  更盼望我能看見此幅畫上原有的乾隆中年大名士的題詠.......
 ----
 全美人壽保險有限公司 值得驕傲的傳統

全美人壽保險立至今已逾九十年,為無數家庭提供了財務保障。我們於一九零六年,以加州人壽保險公司為名在洛杉磯開業,到了一九三零年,我們與總部設於三藩市的全美集團合併。今天,我們已成為世界最大金融機構之一的成員,業務遍及六大洲的五十個國家。

自一九三零年代開始,全美人壽保險已投身服務華人社會。我們於一九三三年在中國上海開設第一家亞洲辦事處,並將業務擴展至華北各主要城市。 在近十年的時間內。我們以人壽保險方式為華人家庭及社會提供財務保障。一九四一年,公司被迫關閉中國大陸各辦事處,但我們仍未捨棄這些客戶。
儘管中國在二次大戰期間陷於一片混亂,我們仍然確保每個中國保單持有人能獲得十足的賠款,此項工作是由一名華籍保險代理李祖法負責。面臨敵軍的攻佔,李祖法仍妥為收藏全美人壽為數以千計家庭及公司承擔責任的文件及保單。

五年後,隨著戰爭結束,李祖法尋回這些文件,開始尋訪每個中國保單持有人或受益人。他付出了大量時間和精力,確保全美人壽保險能為那些信賴本公司的中國人履行賠償責任。


自本世紀以來,我們亦以可靠的摯友身份,為數以千計的美國華人提供服務。在本世紀的前五十年,全美人壽保險與美國西部的華人社會建立了特殊關係。全美人壽 保險以積極進取的經驗,於一九三三年成為首家以與白人相同保費為亞洲人提供保險的美國人壽保險公司。十五年後,才陸續有其他保險公司願為美國的華人社會提 供不設限制、規限或收取相同保費的保險。

全美人壽保險以開設第一家由華人管理及經營的特許保險代理公司來進一步顯示其對美國華人社會的支持。一九三七年,華人律師陳春榮在美國開辦第一家全華人的保險公司。時至今日,三藩市的陳春榮保險公司 (C.C. Wing Agency) 仍不斷幫助美籍華人在美國安享舒適無憂的生活。

多年來,我們一直為全球華人社會提供服務,並於一九四七年開始在香港開展業務。為致力開拓亞洲市場,我們於一九九二年在台灣開設辦事處,並於一九九三年在香港成立亞洲總部,並於同年在北京開設代辦處。

李名觉和他的父亲李祖法
李宜华

李名觉是李祖法的独子。
李祖法一生先后娶过三位太太,第一位上海名媛唐瑛,第二位ESTHER 陈,第三位胡彩琪。这三位都是时代的摩登女性。第一、第二位夫人和他结合没多久就离异,第三位陪伴他直到他寿终正寝。他这一辈子喝足“洋墨水”,对待婚姻大事也很西化,似乎并不奇怪。他的第一任夫 人唐瑛为他生了一儿子,名觉,但他收养了第二位太太带过来的一男一女,男孩取名为名新,跟随李家的排行。当他娶第三位夫人之前,已上了点年纪,感到寂寞, 身边又无人照顾。胡彩琪是个寡妇,丈夫死后留下三个儿子,无依无靠。她毕业于上海中西女中,受过西洋化教育,很自然,她和李祖法能一拍即合。
李祖法一生事业辉煌,在香港经营人寿保险业,知名度很高。1931年,他在上海担任美商OCCIDENTAL人寿保险公司的总代理人,成就显著。1941年,太平洋战争爆发后,该公司被迫在华停业。他将所有投保客户的资料埋藏起来,胜利后,他挖出客户资料、文件,化几年时间追查客户下落。有的客户已死亡,OCCIDENTAL人寿保险公司不辜负客户对它的信任,按政策兑现客户的索取,此举大大提高了该公司信誉,李祖法功不可没,知名度也大大上升。1947年,OCCIDENTAL 人寿保险公司在香港开办,李祖法去了香港。以后,他在香港经营自己的人寿保险公司。他很会理财,也极能守财,因此他一生中积累的财产不少,是坤大房字辈最阔的一个。
对 一个有独子的父亲来说,精心培养儿子是绝对的重要。李祖法也不例外。他希望儿子能接他的班。但是偏偏他儿子对他那一行,丝毫不感兴趣。名觉自从六岁父母离 异之后,一直跟父亲生活在一起,只有周末和母亲在一起,母亲带他看戏、听歌剧、音乐会,把他带进了戏剧艺术的殿堂,鼓励他学画。在上海,他学了两年国画。 他母亲不但美貌,绰约多姿,而且能演会唱,曾经是戏剧业余演员,他继承了母亲的遗传基因,对戏剧艺术,情有独钟,随着年龄增张,他的艺术细胞渐渐滋长。他 从事艺术得到母亲的鼓励,但遭到父亲的反对。虽说父亲受西方教育,但对儿子有志从事艺术工作却嗤之以鼻,他认为搞艺术不实际。父子二人话不投机,经常引起 争论,甚至很对立,父亲把儿子看作是“叛逆者”。
1948年,父亲把他带到香港,他有机会到他堂叔祖永的永华电影制片厂去参观,看到拍摄电影的过程,引起他极大的兴趣。 十九岁的李名觉,到了该上大学的时候,他父亲把他送到加州一家规模不大的学院OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE 去读书。该学院和OCCIDENTAL保险公司有关,公司的子弟可以免费上学。父亲的目的很明显,希望儿子继承他的衣钵。名觉感到自 己英语水平不够,就选修了许多艺术、美术等科目,这样,他的平均分数可以好一些。每逢假期,名觉身无分文,无处可去,就去旧金山他王家表兄王绍垓家度假。 他有两年在上海学国画的底子,而且能画得相当出色,他学水彩画、绘图,由于他对松脂过敏,所以他避免画油画。他也尝试过电影制作课,感觉并不喜欢,因为电 影场景分隔太多。大学三年级的时候,他选了演说作为主修科目,戏剧设在演说系内。这时候,他遇到了戏剧教授OMAR PAXSON。这位教授对学生具有极大的感染力。名觉受他的感染,从此改变了他的人生道路,认定他该学戏剧。 他会画,又对戏剧在舞台上的制作过程极感兴趣。学生们的演出,一般都热衷于表演,不愿做舞台设计,他愿意干,因为他喜欢画、雕塑和设计,他喜欢思考。这样,他为Paxson教授 制作了《SILVER WHISTLE》这部剧的布景,也是他第一个作品。他爱上了这一行,最重要的是,他能适应戏剧界这个圈子。以后他为Paxson 所有的作品做舞台设计。他们在校的一伙儿兴高采烈,喝大量咖啡,日以继夜地工作。等到戏上演过后,他们尽兴举行“派对”。取得了在大学三年、四年级舞台设计的经验之后,毫无疑问,名觉选择了戏剧作为他的事业的起点。为了实现他的理想,他感到需要生活和知识哺育他成长。在Occidental学院毕业后,他决定继续到加州大学洛杉矶分校读书。美国学院为他提供了广阔的天地,让他接触到戏剧舞台设计的现代化思想,德国著名戏剧家布莱希特的作品和理论,在他以后的作品中,这些思想得以升华。
在这期间,他有幸遇到“伯乐”。 HEARN 教授看到了这匹“千里马”,把他介绍给世纪灯光公司经理KookKoo先生 对名觉说,“你到纽约来,来找我”。名觉毫不犹豫, 直奔纽约这块充满希望和机会的地方。名觉带上他的画夹,画和设计到了纽约。Kook 没有食言,把他介绍给了美国最著名的舞台设计大师Mielziner梅尔齐纳。梅氏看了名觉的画,表示 赞赏,让他在画室干一份没有工资的活儿,他立即欣然接受,但是,父亲和继父知道后却大为惊惶。“什么,大学毕业,和三个女人合租一个公寓住,去替一个舞台 设计者白干!发痴了!”,对他们来说名觉在叛逆的路上走得太远了。然而,他母亲却支持他。朦胧之中,她觉得他的决定是正确的。名觉毅然跟定梅氏这位享有美 国舞台设计最高地位的大师了,实际上他起先干的都是些杂活儿,包括打扫工作室,简直就是梅氏的一名炊八儿。五十年代中,正是梅氏事业的顶峰。他的工作室很 忙。 名觉有机会学习和参与各项设计工作,他的一项小小的设计受到肯定,百老汇搞道具的Lynn 先生对梅氏说:“这孩子行!” 从此,他成为梅氏工作室的第二助手,每周工资75元。他太高兴了,感到在父亲和继父眼里可以证明自己是在干正经的活儿了。
2004年,当他回忆1954年到1962年这段时间,他觉得这是他自我发现的阶段。他跟梅氏学徒四年受到最好的训练,学到了许多高招,梅氏的影响在他身上有很深的烙印,他们之间的友谊建筑在互相尊重之上。这种良师益友的关系延续到1976年梅氏去世。另一位对他有影响的导师是Boris Aronson。这两位导师的风格各异。他吸取了两种不同风格的优点,但他始终不断在探索自己的道路和风格。名师出高徒,最终“青出于蓝而胜于蓝”。这和他不断探索、不懈努力的精神分不开的。
为 使他的舞台设计成功,他必须研究戏剧剧本、歌剧重要唱段,音乐、历史背景、人物、对白、服装等等。作为一名舞台设计者,不只是能画,而是要有艺术各方面的 造诣和修养。实际上,一个舞台设计师比建筑设计师所需要的知识面更为广泛。在他接受一项设计之前,他必定细读剧本,然后对导演的总体计划提出问题,讨论各 种方式的选择,设计该是抽象的?还是现实的?有无阶段性?所用材料是金属的?木制的?还是花岗石的?然后他作草图拿给导演看,他的设计是否符合导演的制作 方向。在这之后,他做成模型涂上色彩。这些是舞台设计必要的程序。
1958年,他和Elizabeth RapportBetsy贝西)相遇。当时这位女士正在协助设计家George  Jenkkins设计纽约“莎翁戏剧节”莎剧的服装,是一位很有志向的女性。她和名觉志趣相同,情投意合,终成眷属。他母亲和继父参加了他们的婚礼。名觉素有“工作狂”的名声。最典型的表现就在他们结婚那一天,婚礼过后,名觉就去参加一个会和Limon先生讨论Missa Brevis一剧中的服装问题,这个会拖得很长,与会者感到他神色渐渐不安,问他出了什么问题,方才知道这是他的大喜日子。名觉说:“我今天刚结婚,还有“派对”等着我。Limon立即说:“那你还在这儿干什么?快回去!”。
婚后,他们和名觉母亲同住在纽约的一个公寓大楼。母子各住一套不太大的公寓里。名觉夫妇一起工作,共同创作模型。他们四间一套的公寓拥挤、杂乱。每晚睡觉前,把做好模型的放在专门的桌子上。妻子为他制定了工作日程表。每天工作12小时,早上六点起床,晚上10点睡觉,每周工作七天。接着,他们一连生了三个儿子,维仁、维宁和维法,这下够他们俩忙的。家 里本来就堆满书、图纸、模型,添了三个小孩,住房面积却没增加,就更加拥挤不堪。名觉是个自由职业者,没有设计事务所,家中也没有单独的工作室。早上起来 后,他把卧室变成工作室。夫人要把一家人的生活和工作安排妥贴,使他们的工作和生活两不误。名觉说,没有他妻子的帮助,他真要垮了。贝西相夫教子几十年,名觉的成名和她的努力是分不开的。她是他的贤内助,也是他事业的经理。孩子们成家立业,离开他们后,他们并没因此住得宽敞,仍然满屋子堆满了书、画、文件、素描、各项目的记录、图样、模型,这些东西没有档案保存制度,要找到它们只能依靠记忆。杂乱无章似乎是艺术家们的通病。只有少数艺术家把家管理得有条有理。踏进名觉的家,见到的景象,应该不会令人惊讶。
1958年,他学徒满师后,开始独立工作,施展他的才能。从19591963年,他共制作了九个舞台设计。1962年,他开始为百老汇歌剧做舞台设计。同年,他又为莎士比 亚的《威尼斯商人》、《风暴》和《李尔王》做舞台设计。以后他又为莎翁戏剧节做舞台设计,除了4部〈莎剧〉之外,他几乎为所有《莎剧》做过舞台设计。他的 设计不墨守成规,不断创有新意。他说:“莎剧,和歌剧一样,都具有它的现实性。在莎剧里,演员要从心底念出独白;在歌剧里,歌唱家用C高音把歌声传送给观 众,这是他们的表述,而设计者要寻找一个和他们有同样份量的、能和他们配合的视觉的表述”。他说:“我是个设计者,不是装饰者”。这一阶段他受德国戏剧家 布莱希特理论的影响,设计注重外表形式和空间的篇幅。
李名觉成为美国首屈一指的舞台设计家,同时他又是一名出色的教授,他的教学同样成绩斐然。实际上,他今天的成绩是由舞台设计和教学经验相辅相成的。从1967年起,李名觉在做设计工作的同时,又在纽约大学艺术学院的教学。自1969年迄今,他在耶鲁大学任教,每周三次往返于纽约和纽黑文之间,并担任设计系的系主任。2001年,当他回顾走过的道路时说:“教 学和设计莎翁戏剧是我发展道路上最重要的经历。教学使我和青年一代的戏剧艺术家有了接触,使我能深入到他们的思想、他们的挫折、他们的需要、他们的抱负中 去。“六十年代,我的设计过程和与导演合作的方式有了改变,很大一部分是因为我在耶鲁大学教一年级课时,让学生参与设计和导演。他发觉这比和导演合作更有 意义,设计者必须像导演那样想问题,而不是逼迫导演作为一个设计者来想问题。为达到这一目的,必须帮助一个设计者把自己看作是个导演。这样的教学法逐渐发 展、成熟,到七十年代、八十年代,确立为训练设计者和导演的标准。他在耶鲁戏剧学院教研究生一年级的课,班上也有导演专业的学生。他敏锐地感觉到,这一课 的目的不应该让导演把自己想作是个设计者,而是要使导演成为更好的导演。每学期,他让学生自由发挥创作莎翁戏剧的舞台设计。他不是通过批评而是通过提出问 题来指导学生。有时他好象是个心理分析师,帮助学生澄清思想,解释他们的选择。他从不把自己的意见强加于他们,他习惯转弯抹角回答学生的问题,留有余地让 他们自己思考。现代一些第一流的舞台设计师很多是他的徒弟。在美国的戏剧界内,只有舞台设计仍保留着师徒制度。
到七十年代,他成为美国最忙的一个舞台设计者,也是他自我挑战,自我背叛的阶段。他不断自我审视,对自己的作品提出疑问,寻找新的方向。1974年到1978年,他设计的哲学的一大转变是:由“从外到里”,变为“从里到外”,因为戏剧的核心是动作和情感。这一转变和他设计莎翁戏剧节的标志式的作品时的理念大相径庭。
直到二十一世纪初,他在国内外的作品达二百多部,包括歌剧、莎剧、舞剧、芭蕾舞剧、话剧;他为台湾的《红楼梦》大型舞剧、在上海上演的《喜福会》话剧做舞台设计。他设计的几十座模型被收藏在林肯中心的表演艺术图书馆内展出。
年逾七旬的李名觉是美国名副其实的舞台设计大师,公认他的设计有突破,有他自己的表述。他重视评论,认为评论是戏剧和其它表演艺术的一个重要部分。 他对自己的作品也不断重新评价、批评,对自己过去的作品十有八九感到不满意,不满足已有的成绩,不断追求完美。艺术家需要的是实事求是和有意义的评论。他 说,他在北京听到对他作品的评论多是些官样文章,使他感到不知所措,并不乐意。他作品获得的奖,包括“马海伦奖”、“东尼奖”、“青云奖”有十多次之多。2003年三月,获得美国国家艺术人文奖, 被邀进入白宫参加受奖仪式。白宫主人小布希总统夫妇邀请获奖者全家参加受奖仪式。这一极大的荣誉却引起他一家人的热烈争论。他们全家父子四人反对布希对伊 拉克战争的政策,表示要拒绝进入白宫去领取这份荣誉。夫人贝西,觉得采取抵制的办法不妥,把这份荣誉看作是给全体华人的荣誉,对艺术的尊重, 应该参加。名觉很尊重他夫人的意见,接受了这次邀请,说服了三个儿子中的一个和他们同去参加了仪式。
李 祖法生前看到他儿子在美国享有盛誉,成为大师级的人物,但他始终不认同儿子选择的职业。他思想固执,不谙艺术,对艺术家抱有很深的偏见,认为舞台设计这一 行上不了档次,说得不好听,在他眼里,舞台设计者跟油漆匠也差不了多少。。老人去世前两年,名觉夫妇去香港看望他父亲。年老体衰的父亲面对这样出色的儿 子,虽然他可能心中暗暗自喜, 却仍然振振有词地对儿子说:“所有的艺术家都是道德败坏者”。这一次,儿子没有顶撞他父亲。他 决定不再和他父亲争论了。他说:“和他争论没什么意思了”。他父亲这一辈子把他看成是个叛逆者,而艺术家,他认为,都是叛逆者,他们寻找自己的道路,不满 现状,无论是社会、政治还是艺术方面,他们不满足公认的智慧。对保守者来说,艺术家很可怕,因为无论从社会道德或社会谴责的角度,他们的看法是模棱两可 的,他们没有固定的道德标准。老人并不为儿子的成就感到十分自豪,而是带着他没有接班人的遗憾心情离开人世。李名觉获国家艺术人文奖后,有记者采访他, 问:什么是他成功的秘诀?他回答说,他没有听他父亲的话,走自己要走的路。李名觉仍然继续在艺术的殿堂里探索、漫游、追踪自己走过的路,审视、回顾自己的 作品,与时俱进,不断创新。他的三个儿子,没有一个继承他的事业,选择走自己的路。这对李名觉来说,是很自然的事,人各有志。
最后, 我们作为李氏家族的成员不能不誇耀贝西,这位李家的儿媳妇。她也是个有天赋的、有高尚的艺术品位的设计家,但深涵内秀,不露声色。早年她设计舞台灯光和服装,以后她一心一意协助名觉的事业, 有时还不得不放弃自己的爱好。他们结婚整整五十年。名觉的成就和她的鼎力相助是分不开的,无论 在事业上或三个孩子的教育上,贝西全力以赴、全神贯注。应该说他们这一对是最佳的黄金搭档。她是名觉名副其实的“另一半”。他们两人仍住在几十年前的老公 寓里,有了第三代,汝安、汝瑛和汝名。三个天真活泼的孩子陪伴着他温馨的晚年。
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1956.7.22
胡適與Edgerton 三兄弟都有交往



Edgerton, Franklin, 1885-1963. 原耶魯梵文教授 7.15慶生
 簡傳Franklin Edgerton

www.jstor.org/stable/411570

著作

The Bhagavad Gītā - Franklin Edgerton - Google Books


Guide to the Franklin Edgerton Papers

 

 


Henry   Edgerton老二  法官
 William Edgerton, 胡適三兄弟中主要朋