Another such thing is music; but here the proverbial fallacy again exerts its power, as it does not, for some obscure and unreasoning discrimination, in acting. Most people seem to think that if they cannot sing, or play the piano, fiddle, or sackbut, admirably well, they must not do any of these things at all. That they should not indiscriminately force their inferior performances upon the public, or even upon their acquaintances, I admit. But that there is no place "in the home" for inferior musical performances, is an untruth that I flatly deny.
How many sons and daughters have not, with a very small talent, given their parents—and even the less fondly prejudiced ears of their friends—great pleasure with the singing of simple songs? Then one day there comes to the singer the serpent of dissatisfaction;singing lessons are taken, and—if the pupil is of moderate talent and modest disposition—limitations are discovered. And then, in nine cases out of ten, the singing is dropped, like a hot penny. How many fathers have not banished music from their homes by encouraging their daughters to take singing lessons? Yet a home may be the fresher for singing that would deserve brickbats at a parish concert.
I may pause here to notice the curious exception that people who cannot on any account be persuaded to sing in the drawing-room, or even in the bath, will without hesitation uplift their tuneless voices at religious meetings or in church. There is a perfectly good and honorable explanation of this, I believe, but it belongs to the realm of metaphysics and is beyond my present scope.
This cursed belief, that if a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well, is the cause of a great impoverishment in our private life, and also, to some extent, of the lowering of standards in our public life. For this tenet of proverbial faith has two effects on small talents: it leads modest persons not to exercise them at all, and immodest persons to attempt to do so too much and to force themselves upon the public. It leads to the decay of letter-writing and of the keeping of diaries, and, as surely, it leads to the publication of memoirs and diaries that should remain locked in the writers' desks.
It leads Mr. Blank not to write verses at all — which he might very well do, for the sake of his own happiness, and for the amusement of his friends—and it leads Miss Dash to pester the overworked editors of various journals with her unsuccessful imitations of Mr. de la Mare, Mr. Yeats, and Dr. Bridges.The result is that our national artistic life now suffers from two great needs: A wider amateur practice of the arts, and a higher, more exclusive, professional standard. Until these are achieved we shall not get the best out of our souls.
The truth is, I conceive, that there is for most of us only one thing —beyond, of course, our duties of citizenship and our personal duties as sons, or husbands, or fathers, daughters, or wives, or mothers—that is worth doing well—that is to say, with all our energy.That one thing may be writing, or it may be making steam-engines, or laying bricks. But after that there are hundreds of things that are worth doing badly, with only part of our energy, for the sake of the relaxation they bring us, and for the contacts which they give us with our minds. And the sooner England realizes this, as once she did, the happier, the more contented, the more gracious, will our land be.
There are even, I maintain, things that are in themselves better done badly than well.Consider fishing, where one's whole pleasure is often spoiled by having to kill a fish. Now, if one could contrive always to try to catch a fish, and never to do so, one might—But that is another story.
威廉姆斯生于英格兰，在剑桥受过教育。第一次世界大战后，他成为伦敦《泰晤士报》的一名记者。威廉姆斯写了几本关于18世纪诗歌和戏剧方面的书，发表在各种期刊和杂志上，出版了他自己的诗集。以下这篇文章最早发表在1923年伦敦的《展望》一书中。
或许，对工作和创作而言，最大的威胁莫过于唯恐做得不好或者害怕做错。对于这个问题，这篇文章就是一种安慰。威廉姆斯认为，不必事事较真，这样，我们的生活才能得以丰富，我们的个性才能得以发展完善。运动和音乐就是两个很好的例子，大多数人都酷爱运动和音乐，它们的确能给人带来乐趣，仅这一点就够了，人们并不需要有多深的造诣。
查尔斯·拉姆写了一系列有关时下谬误的文章。可惜我一时记不清了。如果不是狡猾的仆人突然误导我，我倒不觉得他写过什么公众交口称赞而我却认为有害的文章。下面这句似是而非的忠告，我从孩提时就印在脑海中，人们总是对我说：“如果一件事情值得去做，那么，就应该好好去做。”
从没有哪一个谬论让人们如此热衷。因为世界上有很多事情都值得去做，但并不是事事都应该好好去做。伟大的哲人赫伯特·斯宾塞曾对刚在台球桌上战胜他的年轻人说：“先生，一般球技表现为：好的眼力和稳定的手法，但从你的球技上看，你浪费了很多时间。”是否每一种游戏都值得持之以恒地练习和应用呢？
对职业运动员，我无话可说。他们是公众表演者，和其他人一样，他们通过自己在某项特定运动中的技能，至少可以实现个人的首要社会责任——通过自己的合法劳动维持自己及家人的生活。但对于玩乐的业余爱好者，我们该怎么说呢？我认为，这些人是最应受到鄙视的。他们没有赚钱，仅仅为了自私的娱乐，就日复一日地投身于这种游戏。他们忽视了业余爱好者和专业人士之间合理的区别。最终他们为自己的技术所累，他们没做出任何对社会有价值的事情，没有垒起一块砖，没有犁过一亩地，没有写过一行文字，甚至没有通过劳动来养活家人和教育后代。
不可否定，他们为某些人提供了娱乐，但他们一直没有勇气去参加测试。在这种测试中，我们需要每一个表演者证明他的职业选择是正确的——证明公众愿意为他的表演付费。当他们的辉煌期过去以后，不要说给整个世界留下什么，他们又给自己留下了什么呢？什么也没有留下，除了很快就会被遗忘的名字。也许他们的名字会被俱乐部里矮胖的绅士记住。
的确，玩游戏是一种并不值得好好去做的事情。
但这并不是说全然不值得去做，就像前面的谚语暗示我们的一样。没有什么比玩自己喜欢的游戏更惬意和更有益的了，哪怕玩不好，也不会影响真正喜欢它的人的心情。太在乎输赢的人并不是真正的运动爱好者——这个观点不新，但它的含义并没被发掘。很少有人仅仅为了娱乐而玩游戏。为比赛而设的障碍被人们普遍接受，这不正好证明了这一点吗？为什么我们总是希望在自己的竞技能力之外额外得分呢？
“哦，但是，”我的读者也许会说，“弱一些的参赛者希望额外得分是为了促使强者有更好的表现。”但我并不这样认为。也许有时候，一个强壮但虚荣的参赛者希望给弱者额外加分，以使他的胜利更为显著。但我并不认为这是一个正确解释。前些天去参加网球锦标赛时，我就把想法说给大赛秘书听了。“为什么要设置这些无聊的障碍呢？为什么不让我们尽情发挥？”我问他。“因为，”他回答道，“如果不设置这些障碍，就没有好一点儿的玩家参赛了。”这不就是承认了我们大多数人没有意识到草草行事的真正价值，还要固执己见、自欺欺人吗？
然而，并不是只有像游戏这样的小事才可以不必那么较真。虽然很奇怪，但事实是，我们易于接受草草地做某些事情，却不能接受草草地去做另一些事情。在我们认为可以草草去做的事情中，我以演戏为例，尽管演戏同其他表演艺术一样，其价值会因其短暂性而减少，但如果达到顶峰，也可以认为是一门伟大的艺术，一件值得好好去做的事情。演戏可以影响人类多变的情感，这就是演员所创造的东西——我们所说的表演艺术家，是指能影响人类情感的有创造性的艺术家——是观众内心深处的一种印象、情感和思想，这是无法记录的。
所以，我认为，演戏可称得上是一种艺术，虽然我只是简单地拿出了我的论据。然而，是否有人因为演得不好而不让其进入业余的戏剧表演呢？从来没有！因为演戏就像我这篇短文所写的一样，是一种可以不必较真去做的事情。