在Nabu Public Domain Reprints影印旧书里欣喜地发现一本西方人写日本浮世绘的 ，作者Arthur Davison Ficke是美国的“诗人的诗人”（a poet's poet）兼日本艺术专家。诗人的序言很有趣：艺术的审美特质远离日常生活时，才能唤起升华的快乐，于是诗歌便是“最堕落的”艺术了，因为它与人的关系太紧了，读者也都免不了用同样的语言来交流。与诗歌相反的是音乐，它用陌生的语言，摆脱了诗歌语言的“熟”，一串串音符不会令听众想着把什么东西带回家。平面艺术（graphic arts）介于二者之间，是最幸运的艺术，它经营观众不熟悉的材料，所以观众乐意接受它的图形与和谐，二不想从中寻求看惯了的文字记录。诗人的文字别有味道，我抄在下面：

That sublimated pleasure which is the seal of all the arts reaches its purest condition when evoked by a work in which the æsthetic quality is not too closely mingled with the every-day human. Poetry, because of its close human ties, is to a certain extent a corrupt art; its medium is that base speech which we use for communicating information, and few are the readers whose minds can absolve wordsfrom the work-a-day obligation of conveying, first of all, mere tidings. Music,on the other hand, employing a medium wholly sacred to its own uses, starts with no such handicap; its succession of notes awakens in the listener no expectation of an eventual body of facts to carry home. Between the two extremes lie the graphic arts. These are perhaps most fortunate when they deal with material not familiar to the spectator, for it is then that he most readily accepts them as designs and harmonies, without looking to them for a literal record of things only too well known to him.

   感觉诗人在说，艺术像烤牛排一样，不能太熟，也不能太生，不生不熟才诱人。绘画的幸运就是它介乎诗歌与音乐之间，犹如在“似与不似之间”，像一种量子态，可以随观众的眼光任意坍缩。

如果假定声音约等于音乐，那么老话说“画为哑诗，诗为音画”（paintingis silent poetry, and poetry is a speaking picture）——这话出处很多，源头大概在古希腊——是把音乐作为诗与画的“中介”；借Lessing拉奥孔的说法，则是界限（limit）。

   不过，诗人本来要说的是，“异族”（alien race）绘画有着“本土人”感觉不到的纯美的“初始强度”（an initial strength of purely æsthetic appeal），它不会令“我们”对它怀有什么需求，它代表陌生的世界，与我们没有逻辑关联。“洋画”吸引土人，全靠它异域情调下的和谐、韵律和景象（qualities of harmony, rhythm, and vision which in these strangesurroundings），而土人看“土画”，会有太多的联想乱他的心（so many adventitious associations operate to distract him）。被灯红酒绿乱了眼的人，可能会在吉普赛乞丐身上找到人的本性。（Likea man whom Mayfair bewilders with its fashions, he may find that fundamental verity, that humanity which he seeks only among the Gipsy beggars.）