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the professor at the breakfast table-第23部分
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attraction as the alleged metropolis; and not call our people
provincials; and have to come begging to us to write the lives of
Hendrik Hudson and Gouverneur Morris!
The Little Gentleman was on his hobby; exalting his own city at the
expense of every other place。 I have my doubts if he had been in
either of the cities he had been talking about。 I was just going to
say something to sober him down; if I could; when the young
Marylander spoke up。
Come; now;he said;what's the use of these comparisons? Did n't I
hear this gentleman saying; the other day; that every American owns
all America? If you have really got more brains in Boston than other
folks; as you seem to think; who hates you for it; except a pack of
scribbling fools? If I like Broadway better than Washington Street;
what then? I own them both; as much as anybody owns either。 I am an
American;and wherever I look up and see the stars and stripes
overhead; that is home to me!
He spoke; and looked up as if he heard the emblazoned folds crackling
over him in the breeze。 We all looked up involuntarily; as if we
should see the national flag by so doing。 The sight of the dingy
ceiling and the gas…fixture depending therefrom dispelled the
illusion。
Bravo! bravo!said the venerable gentleman on the other side of the
table。 Those are the sentiments of Washington's Farewell Address。
Nothing better than that since the last chapter in Revelations。
Five…and…forty years ago there used to be Washington societies; and
little boys used to walk in processions; each little boy having a
copy of the Address; bound in red; hung round his neck by a ribbon。
Why don't they now? Why don't they now? I saw enough of hating each
other in the old Federal times; now let's love each other; I say;
let's love each other; and not try to make it out that there is n't
any place fit to live in except the one we happen to be born in。
It dwarfs the mind; I think;said I;to feed it on any localism。
The full stature of manhood is shrivelled
The color burst up into my cheeks。 What was I saying;I; who would
not for the world have pained our unfortunate little boarder by an
allusion?
I will go;he said;and made a movement with his left arm to let
himself down from his high chair。
No;no;he does n't mean it;you must not go;said a kind voice
next him; and a soft; white hand was laid upon his arm。
Iris; my dear!exclaimed another voice; as of a female; in accents
that might be considered a strong atmospheric solution of duty with
very little flavor of grace。
She did not move for this address; and there was a tableau that
lasted some seconds。 For the young girl; in the glory of half…blown
womanhood; and the dwarf; the cripple; the misshapen little creature
covered with Nature's insults; looked straight into each other's
eyes。
Perhaps no handsome young woman had ever looked at him so in his
life。 Certainly the young girl never had looked into eyes that
reached into her soul as these did。 It was not that they were in
themselves supernaturally bright;but there was the sad fire in them
that flames up from the soul of one who looks on the beauty of woman
without hope; but; alas! not without emotion。 To him it seemed as if
those amber gates had been translucent as the brown water of a
mountain brook; and through them he had seen dimly into a virgin
wilderness; only waiting for the sunrise of a great passion for all
its buds to blow and all its bowers to ring with melody。
That is my image; of course;not his。 It was not a simile that was
in his mind; or is in anybody's at such a moment;it was a pang of
wordless passion; and then a silent; inward moan。
A lady's wish;he said; with a certain gallantry of manner;makes
slaves of us all。 And Nature; who is kind to all her children; and
never leaves the smallest and saddest of all her human failures
without one little comfit of self…love at the bottom of his poor
ragged pocket;Nature suggested to him that he had turned his
sentence well; and he fell into a reverie; in which the old thoughts
that were always hovering dust outside the doors guarded by Common
Sense; and watching for a chance to squeeze in; knowing perfectly
well they would be ignominiously kicked out again as soon as Common
Sense saw them; flocked in pell…mell;misty; fragmentary; vague;
half…ashamed of themselves; but still shouldering up against his
inner consciousness till it warmed with their contact:John
Wilkes'sthe ugliest man's in Englandsaying; that with half…an…
hour's start he would cut out the handsomest man in all the land in
any woman's good graces; Cadenusold and savageleading captive
Stella and Vanessa; and then the stray line of a ballad; 〃And a
winning tongue had he;〃as much as to say; it is n't looks; after
all; but cunning words; that win our Eves over;just as of old when
it was the worst…looking brute of the lot that got our grandmother to
listen to his stuff and so did the mischief。
Ah; dear me! We rehearse the part of Hercules with his club;
subjugating man and woman in our fancy; the first by the weight of
it; and the second by our handling of it;we rehearse it; I say; by
our own hearth…stones; with the cold poker as our club; and the
exercise is easy。 But when we come to real life; the poker is in the
fore; and; ten to one; if we would grasp it; we find it too hot to
hold;lucky for us; if it is not white…hot; and we do not have to
leave the skin of our hands sticking to it when we fling it down or
drop it with a loud or silent cry!
I am frightened when I find into what a labyrinth of human
character and feeling I am winding。 I meant to tell my thoughts; and
to throw in a few studies of manner and costume as they pictured
themselves for me from day to day。 Chance has thrown together at the
table with me a number of persons who are worth studying; and I mean
not only to look on them; but; if I can; through them。 You can get
any man's or woman's secret; whose sphere is circumscribed by your
own; if you will only look patiently on them long enough。 Nature is
always applying her reagents to character; if you will take the pains
to watch her。 Our studies of character; to change the image; are
very much like the surveyor's triangulation of a geographical
province。 We get a base…line in organization; always; then we get an
angle by sighting some distant object to which the passions or
aspirations of the subject of our observation are tending; then
another;and so we construct our first triangle。 Once fix a man's
ideals; and for the most part the rest is easy。 A wants to die worth
half a million。 Good。 B (female) wants to catch him;and outlive
him。 All right。 Minor details at our leisure。
What is it; of all your experiences; of all your thoughts; of all
your misdoings; that lies at the very bottom of the great heap of
acts of consciousness which make up your past life? What should you
most di
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