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Music at Night and Other Essays
Como decia T. S. Eliot, el lugar de Huxley en la literatura inglesa es unico y esta sin duda asegurado. En estos ensayos, con su habitual libertad y alegria, Huxley trata variados temas que abarcan desde el arte, la literatura, la musica, la ciencia, la filosofia, la religion y la historia. Un libro de una amenidad y una lucidez indiscutibles."
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1931
About the author
Aldous Huxley
974 books14.3k followersAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
December 14, 2020
Un eseist plin de vervă și umor. Recomand pentru început 3 articole:
- „Cărți de citit în călătorie” (pp.59-66). Nu e bine să luăm cu noi tomuri groase, nu le vom citi. Preferabil e să punem în ghiozdan cărți de poezii, culegeri de maxime, o enciclopedie „de buzunar”. Maximele lui La Rochefoucauld sînt de bază: „Există oameni atît de plini de ei înșiși încît, atunci cînd se îndrăgostesc, sînt preocupați doar de propria lor pasiune și nu de persoana pe care o iubesc” (p.63).
-„Snobisme alese” (pp.112-116). Cel mai zdrobitor dintre toate este, de la o vreme, „snobismul noului”. Cu cît mai nou cu atît mai bun. Cine n-a cumpărat măcar o dată un anume produs nu pentru că e bun, ci pentru că e nou, să ridice un deget :)
- „Pascal” (pp.250-323). Blaise Pascal a intuit faptul că eul nostru este o entitate multiplă. Fiecare individ e locuit de o „colonie de euri” (p.290).
Cartea fiind greu de procurat, transcriu cu plăcere cîteva pasaje din eseul „Cărți de citit în călătorie”, menționat mai sus:
„Ori de cîte ori plec undeva, îmi supraevaluez calitățile de cititor” (p.59).
„Cartea care presupune o atenție continuă sau un efort mental prelungit nu-și găsește rostul în călătorie” (p.60).
„Da, maximele constituie cea mai agreabilă lectură într-o călătorie. Îți ia un minut ca să citești o cugetare ce-ți furnizează apoi material de gîndire pentru ceasuri întregi. Și cred că cele mai bune din toate sînt maximele lui La Rochefoucauld” (p.61).
„Eu unul nu plec de acasă pentru o zi fără să iau un volum [din Encyclopaedia Britannica, pe hîrtie de India, n.m, vg] cu mine. O consider cartea cărților. Răsfoindu-i paginile, scotocind printre fantasticele vrafuri de fapte stivuite laolaltă numai în virtutea hazardului alfabetic, mă bălăcesc în viciul meu intelectual. Un volum răzleț din Enciclopedie e întocmai ca mintea unui nebun erudit - îmbîcsită de idei corecte, dar fără nici o altă coeziune între ele decît că toate încep cu litera O. De la opust, care-i un baraj de lemn pe rîurile unde se practică plutăritul, treci de-a dreptul la oracole. Faptul că nu-ți pierzi și tu mințile pe parcursul lecturii Enciclopediei... se datorește capacității de a uita. Mintea omenească e dotată cu o imensă facultate de a uita. O însușire providențială...” (p.65).
Cînd mai am timp, revin și cu alte citate...
- „Cărți de citit în călătorie” (pp.59-66). Nu e bine să luăm cu noi tomuri groase, nu le vom citi. Preferabil e să punem în ghiozdan cărți de poezii, culegeri de maxime, o enciclopedie „de buzunar”. Maximele lui La Rochefoucauld sînt de bază: „Există oameni atît de plini de ei înșiși încît, atunci cînd se îndrăgostesc, sînt preocupați doar de propria lor pasiune și nu de persoana pe care o iubesc” (p.63).
-„Snobisme alese” (pp.112-116). Cel mai zdrobitor dintre toate este, de la o vreme, „snobismul noului”. Cu cît mai nou cu atît mai bun. Cine n-a cumpărat măcar o dată un anume produs nu pentru că e bun, ci pentru că e nou, să ridice un deget :)
- „Pascal” (pp.250-323). Blaise Pascal a intuit faptul că eul nostru este o entitate multiplă. Fiecare individ e locuit de o „colonie de euri” (p.290).
Cartea fiind greu de procurat, transcriu cu plăcere cîteva pasaje din eseul „Cărți de citit în călătorie”, menționat mai sus:
„Ori de cîte ori plec undeva, îmi supraevaluez calitățile de cititor” (p.59).
„Cartea care presupune o atenție continuă sau un efort mental prelungit nu-și găsește rostul în călătorie” (p.60).
„Da, maximele constituie cea mai agreabilă lectură într-o călătorie. Îți ia un minut ca să citești o cugetare ce-ți furnizează apoi material de gîndire pentru ceasuri întregi. Și cred că cele mai bune din toate sînt maximele lui La Rochefoucauld” (p.61).
„Eu unul nu plec de acasă pentru o zi fără să iau un volum [din Encyclopaedia Britannica, pe hîrtie de India, n.m, vg] cu mine. O consider cartea cărților. Răsfoindu-i paginile, scotocind printre fantasticele vrafuri de fapte stivuite laolaltă numai în virtutea hazardului alfabetic, mă bălăcesc în viciul meu intelectual. Un volum răzleț din Enciclopedie e întocmai ca mintea unui nebun erudit - îmbîcsită de idei corecte, dar fără nici o altă coeziune între ele decît că toate încep cu litera O. De la opust, care-i un baraj de lemn pe rîurile unde se practică plutăritul, treci de-a dreptul la oracole. Faptul că nu-ți pierzi și tu mințile pe parcursul lecturii Enciclopediei... se datorește capacității de a uita. Mintea omenească e dotată cu o imensă facultate de a uita. O însușire providențială...” (p.65).
Cînd mai am timp, revin și cu alte citate...
April 17, 2026
‘Because we all know how to read, we imagine that we know what we read.’
Huxley's got my heart in a chokehold, so take note of that as I (my views) may very well be biased. Might come back later and round it off to a full five, I don't know.
After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. By mysterious analogy—evokes in the mind of the listener, sometimes the phantom of these experiences, sometimes even the experiences themselves in their full force of life it is a question of intensity; the phantom is dim, the reality, near & burning. Music may call up either—The intermittences of the heart are subject to no known law.’
November 1, 2025
Very enjoyable pieces of witty intelligent writing.
September 12, 2026
tldr: witty and well-written essays. I loved these not because I agree with them (some of them are really out there!), but because Huxley writes with unabashed candour and unapologetic attitude. It's good to see essayists being assertive and confident in their writing. Oh, and he also serves some stellar roasts.
These essays, despite being published in 1931, are exceedingly modern and relevant even today. They are also easily accessible, for Huxley writes on widely-known topics such as general philosophy, famous artists (Beethoven, El Greco, Shakespeare), religion, capitalism, consumerism, sexual liberation, and social stratification.
Huxley is an interesting figure. Although best known for his novel Brave New World, he was an incredibly prolific writer who wrote across various topics including general non-fiction, poetry, philosophy, and essays. Born in to a family of intelligentsia (his father was a renowned scientist nicknamed "Darwin's Bulldog" and his mother came from a family of novelists), Huxley could perhaps be considered as some kind of genius. In Music at Night and Other Essays, he combines his scientific expertise with his literary knowledge to put forth fresh takes on timeless arguments.
This collection is divided into four sections.
Section 1
Section 1 concerns mostly art and literature. It begins with the very strong "Tragedy and the Whole Truth" where he argues that tragedy and the Whole Truth are incompatible: i.e. if a writer reveals the Whole Truth (the greater perspective), she necessarily diminishes the pathos of the scene's tragedy. The example he uses here is taken from Homer's Odyssey, specifically the scene where Odysseus and his men mourn the six companions lost to the sea monster Scylla:
"When they had satisfied their thirst and hunger, they thought of their dear companions and wept, and in the midst of their tears sleep came gently upon them." (p3-4)
His main challenge here is against the claim postulated by literary critic I.A. Richards, who says that good tragedy will remain tragedy despite the circumstances in the scene. Huxley refutes this by using examples from Shakespeare, the world's greatest tragedian. Here, he introduces two slightly awkward terms: the chemically pure (that which singles out one specific tragic element of human nature) and the chemically impure (that which includes the whole picture of human nature).
The bottom line is that though the chemically pure influences our emotions more deeply, it is the chemically impure that leaves a lasting effect. I start with this illustration to showcase a bit to what extent Huxley lends authority from his understanding of science.
This sentiment carries over to his essay titled "Art and the Obvious." Here again, he introduces some awkward terms: "obvious trusts" (i.e. facts) and "great truths" (i.e. the chemically impure, the whole picture of human nature). Good art must deal with these delicately. Huxley's humour shines in this passage:
"[The purveyors of popular art] state the great, obvious, unchanging truths of human nature -- but state them, alas, in most cases with an emphatic incompetence, which, to the sensitive reader, makes their affirmations exceedingly distasteful and even painful. [...] When this great obvious truth is affirmed in a nauseatingly treacly mammy-song, in a series of soulful close-ups, in a post-Wilcoxian lyric or a page of magazine-story prose, the sensitive can only wince and avert their faces, blushing with a kind of vicarious shame for the whole of humanity." (p26)
Talk about attitude! What a brutal way to describe cliché! In any case, I feel like the current generation of publishing and entertainment does still favour the "nauseatingly treacly mammy-song," the "beastly expression" (p31).
Anyway, the offshoot of this ushers forth a wave of authors who want to entirely do away with "obvious truths," but these kinds of writers will fail to say anything at all. Human nature has not evolved since its inception.
Section II
Section II concerns mostly religious essays, especially religion's relationship with established science. In his essay "Meditation on the Moon," he rejects a strictly materialistic view of the world -- the moon is not just a stone, but a spirit, a kind of god.
Perhaps his most controversial (and exciting!) essay is "On Grace." Here, he tackles against the democratic Christians who claim that everybody is entitled to salvation: "plus d'élus," or "no more chosen ones," is their slogan. Huxley doesn't like this idea. He thinks that there are those who are predetermined to be saved and those who are eternally doomed. In his argument, he invokes all kinds of scientific/logical reasoning. It boils down to this.
There are people who are intellectually and spiritually superior to others --> God made them superior --> God does not believe in equality --> God will not equally save everyone
Of course, Huxley falls into the pitfall of equating superiority with salvation. He presupposes what God's metric of salvation might be, whereas He might be wholly apathetic towards this so-called superiority. Huxley also never quite confronts the question of why God may create humans who he has no intentions of saving. Nevertheless, he remains adamant in his claims, hoping that one day everyone will be able to accept the fact that some do not deserve Grace.
"Scientific psychology may succeed where Christianity and the political religions have failed. Let us hope so. In a world where most people had been taught to love their fellows there would be no difficulty in reconciling the claims of Grace with those of Justice, of universality with favouritism."
It must be said that Huxley is no religious fanatic. If anything, he is the opposite and rejects traditional religion. His impetus is more on hierarchy and superiority, which we see shortly in his following essay "Belief and actions."
In "Belief and actions," Huxley discusses Clemenceau's statement that "the thing that gives people courage is ideas" (p111). "But what are the principal courage-giving, emotion-transforming, and action-inspiring ideas of the present epoch?" he asks (p113).
Certainly, it's not religion. Nor is it political ideology. It's also not "money-making" or "power-seeking" either. What remains as the motivating factor is one's desire to do whatever they want. It is one's right to happiness. And this, Huxley worries, isn't very strong.
Following this, in "Notes on Liberty and the Boundaries of the Promised Land," Huxley dismantles this "right to happiness." The right to happiness is not an innate human right, Huxley states, but a right to the extent that one can afford it. Property -- money, means, materials -- is the only metric by which this right is measured.
So, what if we were to equalize all men and give them the same amount of property? It's no good. Due to the law of diminishing returns, Huxley says that the more one has access to something, the less it makes one happy. This applies not only to the experience, for example going to the Bahamas every week, but also to the exclusivity, i.e. if everyone could go to the Bahamas every month, the Bahamas would cease to be special.
It's clear that Huxley is acting on some internalized snobbery, which he makes obvious with the example he uses to illustrate his so-called law of diminishing returns. In the following essay, "On the charms of history and the future of past," he puts forth a case.
In a world motivated solely by hedonistic pleasures, which are demonstrably subject to the Law of Diminishing Returns, Huxley prophesises (yes, he uses the word "prophesy") that more people would flock to history. Why history? Because history is just a collection of sensational and easily-digestible stories, ones that appeal to the lowest common denominator (like Tutankhamun, in Huxley's example) that also just happen to carry cultural credit. In other words, snobbery credit. Knowing things that are importing, things that others don't, things that allow one to belong to a certain exclusive group, such things are snobbery credit. Snobbery credit makes people happy.
Or so it goes. The assumption across all this is that superiority and snobbery are the main ingredients for happiness. He even postulates that if such a world were to continue, people will naturally divide themselves into a caste system -- something, I think, akin to the one is his Brave New World. Going back to his essay "On Grace," it seems like Huxley is confident about the idea that only a select few are entitled to a full life (and therefore happiness) at the expense of others. We will see this idea recurring in other essays to come (as we will get closer to a eugenics "utopia").
Oh well. What can I say? Aldous Huxley was a privileged white man after all. Thankfully, his prophecy hasn't come true. People who are interested in history (mostly) aren't doing it for some snobbery credit. And, with the rise of instant gratification entertainment -- short-form videos, doomscrolling, etc. -- we have entirely bypassed the Law of Diminishing Returns, for these activities are endless and require no investment in the first place.
Section III
Section III concerns love and sex. Again, Huxley invokes both literature and science to support his claims here.
In his "To the Puritan all things are impure," Huxley wants to argue in favour of sexual liberation. People's repugnance to descriptions of sex stems only from their Pavlovian conditional of Puritan values since childhood. This says nothing of sex's a priori repugnance.
"When the contemporary child takes a normal, healthy interest in sex and sexology, the majority of young parents do not weep over hum, or beat him, or tell him that his soul is lost. It follows, therefore, that his future reactions to sex will be less violently painful than the reactions of those who were children in the high old days of Podsnapian respectability."
Here, we are exposed to one of Huxley's wittiest sentences. "Man is an animal that thinks." Men should not be deprived of his freedom to know his body and his instincts. The spiritual man exists only at the expense of man as an animal.
In a quick turn of a phrase, Huxley then goes on to critique Fordism -- Henry Ford, the assembly line, minimum wage, the seven-day work week... basically life as we know it. He says that men sacrifice their animal selves this time not to religion, but to the machine.
The following essays all criticize sexual censorship: how kisses are removed from films but murder is permitted, how books about the displeasure of marriage are banned, how artwork depicting the nude form is burnt. From here, we realise that by "sex," Huxley means it in the mildest terms possible.
In "Ethics of Andalusia," he makes yet another prophesy. In the future, people will no longer be persecuted for being over-sexed, given the downward trend of religion, but for being over-monied (rich), given the upward trend of Fordism and socialism. This has become somewhat true, although it is bad faith to grant Huxley full credits, for he could not have envisioned to what extent people can become "over-monied."
Section IV
Section IV is about education, culture, and snobbery. See for yourself: "When culture was confined to the few, it had a rarity-value comparable to that of pearls or caviar. The golden ages of culture-snobbery were the dark ages of education" (p205).
The essay "Foreheads Villainous Low," which calls to mind Virginia Woolf's essay "Middlebrow," criticises the rise of universal education. Universal education, he says, is futile. It is a waste, because the majority of the population cannot be educated, no matter how many hours of schooling it receives. It should be noted that Huxley has a very aristocratic understanding of education, focusing more on the high arts than, say, general literacy and arithmetic.
Now, because of universal education, everyone is ostensibly on the same playing field. Everyone now has equal power. The majority, which are the stupid, now get to decide the trend. The result: anti-intellectualism and success defined by material possession rather than intellectual endeavours. Is it true? Maybe. At the very least, there are traces of these in the modern society, although it's hard to definitively confirm Huxley's theory of causation.
The rest of the essays go on to critique rampant consumerism and its abject effect on the psyche. In "The Beauty Industry," for example, he speaks of how consumerism has allowed women to cultivate outward beauty but denigrates their inner beauty.
The last quarter of the book is dedicated to a goliath of an essay titled "Vulgarity in Literature." I read through a little bit of it but ultimately decided to skip it. It is too pretentious for me, and I think I already have a good idea of what Huxley wants to posit from his other essays.
Rating: 4/5
Read time: 5 hours
These essays, despite being published in 1931, are exceedingly modern and relevant even today. They are also easily accessible, for Huxley writes on widely-known topics such as general philosophy, famous artists (Beethoven, El Greco, Shakespeare), religion, capitalism, consumerism, sexual liberation, and social stratification.
Huxley is an interesting figure. Although best known for his novel Brave New World, he was an incredibly prolific writer who wrote across various topics including general non-fiction, poetry, philosophy, and essays. Born in to a family of intelligentsia (his father was a renowned scientist nicknamed "Darwin's Bulldog" and his mother came from a family of novelists), Huxley could perhaps be considered as some kind of genius. In Music at Night and Other Essays, he combines his scientific expertise with his literary knowledge to put forth fresh takes on timeless arguments.
This collection is divided into four sections.
Section 1
Section 1 concerns mostly art and literature. It begins with the very strong "Tragedy and the Whole Truth" where he argues that tragedy and the Whole Truth are incompatible: i.e. if a writer reveals the Whole Truth (the greater perspective), she necessarily diminishes the pathos of the scene's tragedy. The example he uses here is taken from Homer's Odyssey, specifically the scene where Odysseus and his men mourn the six companions lost to the sea monster Scylla:
"When they had satisfied their thirst and hunger, they thought of their dear companions and wept, and in the midst of their tears sleep came gently upon them." (p3-4)
His main challenge here is against the claim postulated by literary critic I.A. Richards, who says that good tragedy will remain tragedy despite the circumstances in the scene. Huxley refutes this by using examples from Shakespeare, the world's greatest tragedian. Here, he introduces two slightly awkward terms: the chemically pure (that which singles out one specific tragic element of human nature) and the chemically impure (that which includes the whole picture of human nature).
The bottom line is that though the chemically pure influences our emotions more deeply, it is the chemically impure that leaves a lasting effect. I start with this illustration to showcase a bit to what extent Huxley lends authority from his understanding of science.
This sentiment carries over to his essay titled "Art and the Obvious." Here again, he introduces some awkward terms: "obvious trusts" (i.e. facts) and "great truths" (i.e. the chemically impure, the whole picture of human nature). Good art must deal with these delicately. Huxley's humour shines in this passage:
"[The purveyors of popular art] state the great, obvious, unchanging truths of human nature -- but state them, alas, in most cases with an emphatic incompetence, which, to the sensitive reader, makes their affirmations exceedingly distasteful and even painful. [...] When this great obvious truth is affirmed in a nauseatingly treacly mammy-song, in a series of soulful close-ups, in a post-Wilcoxian lyric or a page of magazine-story prose, the sensitive can only wince and avert their faces, blushing with a kind of vicarious shame for the whole of humanity." (p26)
Talk about attitude! What a brutal way to describe cliché! In any case, I feel like the current generation of publishing and entertainment does still favour the "nauseatingly treacly mammy-song," the "beastly expression" (p31).
Anyway, the offshoot of this ushers forth a wave of authors who want to entirely do away with "obvious truths," but these kinds of writers will fail to say anything at all. Human nature has not evolved since its inception.
Section II
Section II concerns mostly religious essays, especially religion's relationship with established science. In his essay "Meditation on the Moon," he rejects a strictly materialistic view of the world -- the moon is not just a stone, but a spirit, a kind of god.
Perhaps his most controversial (and exciting!) essay is "On Grace." Here, he tackles against the democratic Christians who claim that everybody is entitled to salvation: "plus d'élus," or "no more chosen ones," is their slogan. Huxley doesn't like this idea. He thinks that there are those who are predetermined to be saved and those who are eternally doomed. In his argument, he invokes all kinds of scientific/logical reasoning. It boils down to this.
There are people who are intellectually and spiritually superior to others --> God made them superior --> God does not believe in equality --> God will not equally save everyone
Of course, Huxley falls into the pitfall of equating superiority with salvation. He presupposes what God's metric of salvation might be, whereas He might be wholly apathetic towards this so-called superiority. Huxley also never quite confronts the question of why God may create humans who he has no intentions of saving. Nevertheless, he remains adamant in his claims, hoping that one day everyone will be able to accept the fact that some do not deserve Grace.
"Scientific psychology may succeed where Christianity and the political religions have failed. Let us hope so. In a world where most people had been taught to love their fellows there would be no difficulty in reconciling the claims of Grace with those of Justice, of universality with favouritism."
It must be said that Huxley is no religious fanatic. If anything, he is the opposite and rejects traditional religion. His impetus is more on hierarchy and superiority, which we see shortly in his following essay "Belief and actions."
In "Belief and actions," Huxley discusses Clemenceau's statement that "the thing that gives people courage is ideas" (p111). "But what are the principal courage-giving, emotion-transforming, and action-inspiring ideas of the present epoch?" he asks (p113).
Certainly, it's not religion. Nor is it political ideology. It's also not "money-making" or "power-seeking" either. What remains as the motivating factor is one's desire to do whatever they want. It is one's right to happiness. And this, Huxley worries, isn't very strong.
Following this, in "Notes on Liberty and the Boundaries of the Promised Land," Huxley dismantles this "right to happiness." The right to happiness is not an innate human right, Huxley states, but a right to the extent that one can afford it. Property -- money, means, materials -- is the only metric by which this right is measured.
So, what if we were to equalize all men and give them the same amount of property? It's no good. Due to the law of diminishing returns, Huxley says that the more one has access to something, the less it makes one happy. This applies not only to the experience, for example going to the Bahamas every week, but also to the exclusivity, i.e. if everyone could go to the Bahamas every month, the Bahamas would cease to be special.
It's clear that Huxley is acting on some internalized snobbery, which he makes obvious with the example he uses to illustrate his so-called law of diminishing returns. In the following essay, "On the charms of history and the future of past," he puts forth a case.
In a world motivated solely by hedonistic pleasures, which are demonstrably subject to the Law of Diminishing Returns, Huxley prophesises (yes, he uses the word "prophesy") that more people would flock to history. Why history? Because history is just a collection of sensational and easily-digestible stories, ones that appeal to the lowest common denominator (like Tutankhamun, in Huxley's example) that also just happen to carry cultural credit. In other words, snobbery credit. Knowing things that are importing, things that others don't, things that allow one to belong to a certain exclusive group, such things are snobbery credit. Snobbery credit makes people happy.
Or so it goes. The assumption across all this is that superiority and snobbery are the main ingredients for happiness. He even postulates that if such a world were to continue, people will naturally divide themselves into a caste system -- something, I think, akin to the one is his Brave New World. Going back to his essay "On Grace," it seems like Huxley is confident about the idea that only a select few are entitled to a full life (and therefore happiness) at the expense of others. We will see this idea recurring in other essays to come (as we will get closer to a eugenics "utopia").
Oh well. What can I say? Aldous Huxley was a privileged white man after all. Thankfully, his prophecy hasn't come true. People who are interested in history (mostly) aren't doing it for some snobbery credit. And, with the rise of instant gratification entertainment -- short-form videos, doomscrolling, etc. -- we have entirely bypassed the Law of Diminishing Returns, for these activities are endless and require no investment in the first place.
Section III
Section III concerns love and sex. Again, Huxley invokes both literature and science to support his claims here.
In his "To the Puritan all things are impure," Huxley wants to argue in favour of sexual liberation. People's repugnance to descriptions of sex stems only from their Pavlovian conditional of Puritan values since childhood. This says nothing of sex's a priori repugnance.
"When the contemporary child takes a normal, healthy interest in sex and sexology, the majority of young parents do not weep over hum, or beat him, or tell him that his soul is lost. It follows, therefore, that his future reactions to sex will be less violently painful than the reactions of those who were children in the high old days of Podsnapian respectability."
Here, we are exposed to one of Huxley's wittiest sentences. "Man is an animal that thinks." Men should not be deprived of his freedom to know his body and his instincts. The spiritual man exists only at the expense of man as an animal.
In a quick turn of a phrase, Huxley then goes on to critique Fordism -- Henry Ford, the assembly line, minimum wage, the seven-day work week... basically life as we know it. He says that men sacrifice their animal selves this time not to religion, but to the machine.
The following essays all criticize sexual censorship: how kisses are removed from films but murder is permitted, how books about the displeasure of marriage are banned, how artwork depicting the nude form is burnt. From here, we realise that by "sex," Huxley means it in the mildest terms possible.
In "Ethics of Andalusia," he makes yet another prophesy. In the future, people will no longer be persecuted for being over-sexed, given the downward trend of religion, but for being over-monied (rich), given the upward trend of Fordism and socialism. This has become somewhat true, although it is bad faith to grant Huxley full credits, for he could not have envisioned to what extent people can become "over-monied."
Section IV
Section IV is about education, culture, and snobbery. See for yourself: "When culture was confined to the few, it had a rarity-value comparable to that of pearls or caviar. The golden ages of culture-snobbery were the dark ages of education" (p205).
The essay "Foreheads Villainous Low," which calls to mind Virginia Woolf's essay "Middlebrow," criticises the rise of universal education. Universal education, he says, is futile. It is a waste, because the majority of the population cannot be educated, no matter how many hours of schooling it receives. It should be noted that Huxley has a very aristocratic understanding of education, focusing more on the high arts than, say, general literacy and arithmetic.
Now, because of universal education, everyone is ostensibly on the same playing field. Everyone now has equal power. The majority, which are the stupid, now get to decide the trend. The result: anti-intellectualism and success defined by material possession rather than intellectual endeavours. Is it true? Maybe. At the very least, there are traces of these in the modern society, although it's hard to definitively confirm Huxley's theory of causation.
The rest of the essays go on to critique rampant consumerism and its abject effect on the psyche. In "The Beauty Industry," for example, he speaks of how consumerism has allowed women to cultivate outward beauty but denigrates their inner beauty.
The last quarter of the book is dedicated to a goliath of an essay titled "Vulgarity in Literature." I read through a little bit of it but ultimately decided to skip it. It is too pretentious for me, and I think I already have a good idea of what Huxley wants to posit from his other essays.
Rating: 4/5
Read time: 5 hours
January 29, 2018
I can't help but taking off my hat to the strongly insightful reads of mr huxley. This one is no exception
November 6, 2019
Cultural criticism of the best sort - precise and laconic, and written by an educated person. Pretty much every idea you could glean from all the overpraised "theorists" of modern times is contained here, expressed better and made interesting instead of dreary lecture-fodder for assembly-line degree mills. This is the way the world ended, we are the shadows haunting its wake. {quote from Dante to go here}
September 18, 2025
Essays, and an essay on reasoning. An interesting mix, but sometimes too analytical.
Particularly beautiful or interesting excerpts:
"One of our most ordinary reactions to a good piece of literary art is expressed in the formula: ‘This is what I have always felt and thought, but have never been able to put clearly into words, even for myself.'"
"A book can be written in terms of pure phantasy and yet, by implication, tell the Whole Truth"
"Moonless, this June night is all the more alive with stars. Its darkness is perfumed with faint gusts from the blossoming lime trees, with the smell of wetted earth and the invisible greenness of the vines. There is silence; but a silence that breathes with the soft breathing of the sea [...]
Far away, the passage of a train is like a long caress, moving gently, with an inexorable gentleness, across the warm living body of the night."
"[...] an idea persists; once you have persuaded yourself of its truth, an idea justifies the continuance in cold blood of actions which emotion could only have dictated in the heat of the moment. Indeed it does more than justify actions and feelings; it imposes them. If you accept an idea as true, then it becomes your duty to act on it [...]"
"[...]the deepest source of beauty—the experiencing soul."
Particularly beautiful or interesting excerpts:
"One of our most ordinary reactions to a good piece of literary art is expressed in the formula: ‘This is what I have always felt and thought, but have never been able to put clearly into words, even for myself.'"
"A book can be written in terms of pure phantasy and yet, by implication, tell the Whole Truth"
"Moonless, this June night is all the more alive with stars. Its darkness is perfumed with faint gusts from the blossoming lime trees, with the smell of wetted earth and the invisible greenness of the vines. There is silence; but a silence that breathes with the soft breathing of the sea [...]
Far away, the passage of a train is like a long caress, moving gently, with an inexorable gentleness, across the warm living body of the night."
"[...] an idea persists; once you have persuaded yourself of its truth, an idea justifies the continuance in cold blood of actions which emotion could only have dictated in the heat of the moment. Indeed it does more than justify actions and feelings; it imposes them. If you accept an idea as true, then it becomes your duty to act on it [...]"
"[...]the deepest source of beauty—the experiencing soul."
November 15, 2015
Would love to see Penguin bring this back into print.
Standout essays:
'And wanton optics roll the melting eye'
Beliefs and Actions
Obstacle race
Foreheads villainous low
Those personal touches
Wanted, a new pleasure
Standout essays:
'And wanton optics roll the melting eye'
Beliefs and Actions
Obstacle race
Foreheads villainous low
Those personal touches
Wanted, a new pleasure
January 5, 2015
Clear, concise, explanatory, all the things that a good essay should be. The topics are varied, clearly dear to the authors heart, and allow him to place himself in a rapidly changing world. Published in 1931 before his departure for America these essays give a revealing insight into the pre-war world.
February 8, 2013
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music
:)
:)
June 11, 2023
Erudite, playful, pedantic, argumentative and interesting essays and thoughts. Occasionally outdated through no fault of his own.
November 10, 2022
"Cât de încântători, cât de interesanți și de extraordinari sunt oamenii de la distanță!" (Ochiul spectatorului)
Știu sigur c-am citit de 2 ori selecția asta din eseurile lui Huxley, acum peste 20 de ani. Și că mi-au plăcut într-atât de mult, încât nu m-am îndurat să dau la anticariat cartea, deși e ferfenițită ca o varză. Dar le-am uitat complet cu excepția unuia singur, norocul meu! Așa c-am luat-o la recitit, să văd dacă îmi place și a treia oară, surpriza e că da, are stil și penel, ia peste picior mari autori (face un mișto crunt de Conrad, care, zice Huxley, nu-și înțelege personajele; mie Conrad îmi place mult, dar mă distrează și critica acidă a lui Huxley, până la urmă, eu una chiar nu sunt sigură ce înseamnă de fapt să-ți înțelegi personajele, a înțeles-o Flaubert pe Emma? Sau pe baba cu papagalul?).
Vorbește mult despre snobism, despre picturi și cărți. O lectură foarte plăcută.
Eseul pe care nu l-am uitat este despre cea mai frumoasă pictură din lume.
Las aici un citat lung care mi se pare actual:
"Arta proasta este de doua soiuri: cea anodina, stupida si lipsita de talent, adica arta proasta într-un sens negativ; si arta pozitiv proasta, care e minciuna si fatarnicie. Adeseori, minciuna este spusa atît de bine, încît aproape toata lumea se lasa prinsa de ea - cel putin o bucata de vreme. Pîna la urma, însa, minciuna iese la iveala. Moda se schimba, publicul învata sa priveasca totul sub o optica diferita, si, acolo unde i se parea odinioara ca vede o opera admirabila, care-l misca, descopera azi prefacatoria. In istoria artelor gasim nenumarate prefacatorii de acest gen, cîndva considerate drept valori autentice, si descoperite mai tîrziu a fi falsuri. Încă mai auzim slabe reverberari ale afirmatiei ca Ossian a fost cîndva citit, ca Bulwer a fost considerat un mare romancier, iar "Festus" Beiley un poet viguros. Iar duplicatele lor din ziua de azi, aduna cu sîrg bani si elogii.
Adeseori ma întreb daca nu fac si eu parte din aceste duplicate. Imposibil de stiut. Pentru ca poti foarte bine sa fii un farsor artistic fara sa ai intentia de a însela, ba chiar nutrind cea mai arza¬toare dorinta de a fi onest.
Uneori, sarlatanul e un om de geniu, si atunci ai de-a face cu artisti ciudati ca Wagner sau Bernini, care reusesc sa converteasca falsitatea si teatralul în sublim."
Știu sigur c-am citit de 2 ori selecția asta din eseurile lui Huxley, acum peste 20 de ani. Și că mi-au plăcut într-atât de mult, încât nu m-am îndurat să dau la anticariat cartea, deși e ferfenițită ca o varză. Dar le-am uitat complet cu excepția unuia singur, norocul meu! Așa c-am luat-o la recitit, să văd dacă îmi place și a treia oară, surpriza e că da, are stil și penel, ia peste picior mari autori (face un mișto crunt de Conrad, care, zice Huxley, nu-și înțelege personajele; mie Conrad îmi place mult, dar mă distrează și critica acidă a lui Huxley, până la urmă, eu una chiar nu sunt sigură ce înseamnă de fapt să-ți înțelegi personajele, a înțeles-o Flaubert pe Emma? Sau pe baba cu papagalul?).
Vorbește mult despre snobism, despre picturi și cărți. O lectură foarte plăcută.
Eseul pe care nu l-am uitat este despre cea mai frumoasă pictură din lume.
Las aici un citat lung care mi se pare actual:
"Arta proasta este de doua soiuri: cea anodina, stupida si lipsita de talent, adica arta proasta într-un sens negativ; si arta pozitiv proasta, care e minciuna si fatarnicie. Adeseori, minciuna este spusa atît de bine, încît aproape toata lumea se lasa prinsa de ea - cel putin o bucata de vreme. Pîna la urma, însa, minciuna iese la iveala. Moda se schimba, publicul învata sa priveasca totul sub o optica diferita, si, acolo unde i se parea odinioara ca vede o opera admirabila, care-l misca, descopera azi prefacatoria. In istoria artelor gasim nenumarate prefacatorii de acest gen, cîndva considerate drept valori autentice, si descoperite mai tîrziu a fi falsuri. Încă mai auzim slabe reverberari ale afirmatiei ca Ossian a fost cîndva citit, ca Bulwer a fost considerat un mare romancier, iar "Festus" Beiley un poet viguros. Iar duplicatele lor din ziua de azi, aduna cu sîrg bani si elogii.
Adeseori ma întreb daca nu fac si eu parte din aceste duplicate. Imposibil de stiut. Pentru ca poti foarte bine sa fii un farsor artistic fara sa ai intentia de a însela, ba chiar nutrind cea mai arza¬toare dorinta de a fi onest.
Uneori, sarlatanul e un om de geniu, si atunci ai de-a face cu artisti ciudati ca Wagner sau Bernini, care reusesc sa converteasca falsitatea si teatralul în sublim."
August 2, 2026
I've had this book for ages, and have read two others by Huxley- Brave New World and Island, both were good, especially Brave New World, but I'd always put this one on hold, as it looked a bit hard work, but thought I'd finally try it out...glad I did, as it's actually very interesting indeed.
Most of the essays are short, at only a few pages, but they pack in a lot of detail, and so you need to read them slowly to take in the information, so it's not an easy-breezy type book, more something to slowly savour, and take time to think about as you go along.
Huxley's essay writing style is engaging and very readable, but because of his intellect and seemingly inexhaustible depths of knowledge, you can end up having to look into a few things afterwards to find out the meaning of a certain word, work out who a certain person is, decipher some historical detail etc...but learning is fun though, I suppose!
There are the odd essays that aren't quite as sparkling and interesting as others, but the vast majority are really high quality and have you thinking about certain topics in a new light, at times. The only one that I wasn't that keen on was unfortunately by far the longest essay- Vulgarity in Literature, which finishes off the collection. It starts fine and ends alright, but the big chunk in the middle gets way too scholarly, and feels more suited to literary academics than to the general reader. It also unbalances the book, as all the other essays are very short or at least fairly brief, and you end up feeling like a really good read has been tainted slightly by this essay, even though parts of Vulgarity in Literature are interesting...however, without this essay, or edited right down, the book would be a five star read, so it is a slight shame to be honest...
Still, overall, a very good, thought provoking read, which makes you realise how ridiculously well read Aldous Huxley was, as you wonder at his intellectual powers, and enjoy the journey he takes you on...very impressive!
April 9, 2013
amazing how contemporary most of these essays still read. If it hadn't been for India's GDP estimated at some 100 odd million pounds, the essay about the Beauty Industry might just as well have been written last week.
July 9, 2025
“ Moonless, this June night is all the more alive with stars. Its darkness is perfumed with faint gusts from the blossoming lime trees, with the smell of wetted earth and the invisible greenness of the vines. There is silence; but a silence that breathes with the soft breathing of the sea and, in the thin shrill noise of a cricket, insistently, incessantly harps on the fact of its own deep perfection. Far away, the passage of a train is like a long caress, moving gently, with an inexorable gentle-ness, across the warm living body of the night.
Music, you say; it would be a good night for music. But I have music here in a box, shut up, like one of those bottled djinns in the Arabian Nights, and ready at a touch to break out of its prison. I make the necessary mechanical magic, and suddenly, by some miraculously appropriate coincidence (for I had selected the record in the dark, without knowing what music the machine would play), suddenly the introduction to the Benedictus in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis begins to trace its patterns on the moonless sky.”
Music, you say; it would be a good night for music. But I have music here in a box, shut up, like one of those bottled djinns in the Arabian Nights, and ready at a touch to break out of its prison. I make the necessary mechanical magic, and suddenly, by some miraculously appropriate coincidence (for I had selected the record in the dark, without knowing what music the machine would play), suddenly the introduction to the Benedictus in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis begins to trace its patterns on the moonless sky.”
March 25, 2021
TOATE MARILE ADEVĂRURI SÎNT ADEVĂRURI evidente. Dar nu şi toate adevărurile evidente sînt mari adevăruri. De pildă, e mai mult decât evident că viaţa e scurtă şi destinul capricios. E evident că, în foarte mare măsură, fericirea depinde de noi înşine şi nu de circumstanţe exterioare. E evident că, în general, părinţii îşi iubesc copiii şi bărbaţii şi femeile sînt atraşi în felurite chipuri unii de ceilalţi. E evident că multora le place viaţa la ţară şi că în faţa priveliştilor naturii încearcă senzaţii de exaltare, de veneraţie, duioşie, veselie, melancolie. E evident că majoritatea bărbaţilor şi femeilor sînt atraşi de căminele, de patria lor, de crezurile în care au fost crescuţi din copilărie, de codul moral al tribului din care fac parte.
Toate acestea, repet, sînt adevăruri evidente şi în acelaşi timp mari, pentru că au o semnificaţie universală, pentru că se referă la caracteristici fundamentale ale naturii umane.
Toate acestea, repet, sînt adevăruri evidente şi în acelaşi timp mari, pentru că au o semnificaţie universală, pentru că se referă la caracteristici fundamentale ale naturii umane.
June 8, 2021
Es un libro lleno de reflexiones sobre los cambios de la sociedad en el siglo XX. Entre otros temas de debate, pone en relieve la importancia de la máquina como figura esencial en la vida humana, un nuevo ser al que adorar, dejando de lado la religión. Hay capítulos que me han parecido magníficos, como el que trata sobre los obstáculos que necesitamos poner en nuestra vida para sentir que es digna. Además, hay numerosas referencias a otras obras literarias y a música que me parecen interesantes.
No le he puesto la máxima calificación porque los últimos capítulos no me han gustado tanto.
Aún así merece la pena leerlo al completo.
No le he puesto la máxima calificación porque los últimos capítulos no me han gustado tanto.
Aún así merece la pena leerlo al completo.
December 5, 2022
Some of the essays were great but most of them made me think Aldous Huxley was probably quite insufferable at parties :) Seems like he might have been the Art Deco version of the mansplaining redditor type to me. I could definitely see the seeds of Brave New World in some of the essays, it was written at around the same time as this collection and published the following year. Perhaps that will be my next endeavour.
June 3, 2024
"It refines and corrects and gives a style to our emotional life, and does so swiftly, with power. Brought into contact with tragedy, the elements of our being fall, for the moment at any rate, into an ordered and beautiful pattern, as the iron filings arrange themselves under the influence of the magnet."
January 1, 2021
It touches on so many subjects. The cosmetic industry, the moon, the human experience, consumism, freedom, the search for a new pleasure. These are just a few of the topics Huxley writes about in this book.
Super interesting.
Super interesting.
June 10, 2022
Fine essays from a great author. Funnily, I found this book after listening to a jazz album with the same name, that proved to be named after the book - Music at Night by The New York Second septet. Any way, great read.
November 27, 2022
esssays on art, art criticism, human behavior, politics, and your mom. he seems, interestingly, to have really believed in the eugenics he writes about in brave new world. as an alpha, i guess he would.
July 12, 2026
velik je problem što nisam podcrtavala i mada sam neke citate htjela stvarno zapamtiti, zadnji eseji o vulgarnosti u književnosti su mi bili zaista naporni i nedorečeni i nažalost pokvarili dojam knjige cjelokupno
September 14, 2022
A collection of essays much like a pond with occasional patches of lilypads and ripples of poignancy. I think the most valuable thing I got out of it was an introduction to El Greco.
August 16, 2024
Some super interesting nuggets to be found here, although my knowledge certainly isn’t expansive enough to fully understand all that is being said.
October 18, 2015
¡Magistral!
Éste libro es una obra maestra, de principio a fin. El tema que trata al final fue lo más inesperado (en el buen sentido de la palabra) que jamás pensé leer.
Éste libro es una obra maestra, de principio a fin. El tema que trata al final fue lo más inesperado (en el buen sentido de la palabra) que jamás pensé leer.
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