For well over a century, one street in New
York City has been known as the heart of the
American theater. The name of the street is
Broadway. Mention that name to anyone who
has ever visited New York, he will remember 【M1】______
bright lights, eager crowds, and an electric
air of excitement. Over the years, Broadway
has been known success and failure, praise 【M2】______
and scorn. In recent times it has faced special
problems, both artistic and financial. Yet,
despite of an its imperfections, Broadway 【M3】______
remains the center of theatrical activity
in the United States. The goal of young
performers in the U.S. is still to act in
a Broadway play.
Today the high cost of theatrical production
is limiting both quantity and qualification. 【M4】______
Whereas it was possible to produce a play on
Broadway for $ 10,000 or less before World
War Ⅱ, it costs at least ten times as many 【M5】______
to do so today. As a result, less plays are 【M6】______
produced, and producers seldom dare to try
new forms of drama since they may not prove profit. 【M7】______
On Broadway, a play must be popular
sufficiently to attract audiences over a long 【M8】______
period of time. A long run is essential because
Broadway theaters are not given financial support
by the government, as like leading theaters in 【M9】______
most other countries. Yet, funds are raised 【M10】______
for individual productions and must be repaid
to the investors, if at all possible. Thus
producers need to find plays which will please
audiences. Often the result is a play with little
artistic value.
【M1】
The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means, and the exercise of ordinary qualities. 1. The common life of every day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords ample opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind; and its most beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room for self-improvement. The road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and Work in the truest spirit, will usually be the most successful.
Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators. In the pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner qualities are found the most useful—such as common sense, attention, application, and perseverance.
2. Genius may not be necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain the use of these ordinary qualities. The very greatest men have been among the least believers in the power of genius, and as worldly wise and persevering as successful men of the commoner sort. Some have even defined genius to be only common sense intensified. A distinguished teacher and president of a college spoke of it as the power of making efforts. John Foster held it to be the power of lighting one's own fire. Buffon said of genius "it is patience".
Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the very highest order, and yet, when asked by what means he had worked out his extraordinary discoveries, he modestly answered, "By always thinking unto them." At another time he thus expressed his method of study: "I keep the subject continually before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light." 3. It was in Newton's case, as in every other, only by diligent application and perseverance that his great reputation was achieved. Even his recreation consisted in change of study, laying down one subject to take up another. To Dr. Bentley he said, "If I have done the public any service, it is due to nothing but industry and patient thought."
4. The extraordinary results effected by dint of sheer industry and perseverance, have led many distinguished men to doubt whether the gift of genius be so exceptional an endowment as it is usually supposed to be. Thus Voltaire held that it is only a very slight line of separation that divides the man of genius from the man of ordinary mould. Beccaria was even of opinion that all men might be poets and orators, and Reynolds that they might be painters and sculptors. If this were really so, that stolid Englishman might not have been so very far wrong after all, who, on Canova's death, inquired of his brother whether it was "his intention to carry on the business".
Locke, Helvetius, and Diderot believed that all men have an equal aptitude for genius, and that what some are able to effect, under the laws which regulate the operations of the intellect, must also be within the reach of others who, under like circumstances, apply themselves to like pursuits. 5. But while admitting to the fullest extent the wonderful achievements of labor, and recognizing the fact that men of the most distinguished genius have invariably been found the most indefatigable workers, it must nevertheless be sufficiently obvious that, without the original endowment of heart and brain, no amount of labor, however well applied, could have produced a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Beethoven, or a Michelangelo.
Dalton, the chemist, repudiated the notion of his being "a genius", attributing everything which he had accomplished to simple industry and accumulation. John Hunter said of himself, "My mind is like a beeh