The foundations of a genuine, systematic knowledge of music might be laid. You might specialise your inquiries either on a particular form of music (such as the symphony), or on the works of a particular composer. At the end of a year of forty-eight weeks of three brief evenings each, combined with a study of programmes and attendances at concerts chosen out of your increasing knowledge, you would really know something about music, even though you were as far off as ever from jangling “The Maiden’s Prayer” on the piano.
“But I hate music!” you say. My dear sir, I respect you.
What applies to music applies to the other arts. I might mention Mr. Clermont Witt’s How to Look at Pictures, or Mr. Russell Sturgis’s How to Judge Architecture, as beginnings (merely beginnings) of systematic vitalising knowledge in other arts, the materials for whose study abound in London.
“I hate all the arts!” you say. My dear sir, I respect you more and more.
I will deal with your case next, before coming to literature.