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the professor at the breakfast table-第24部分
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acts of consciousness which make up your past life? What should you
most dislike to tell your nearest friend?Be so good as to pause for
a brief space; and shut the volume you hold with your finger between
the pages。 Oh; that is it!
What a confessional I have been sitting at; with the inward ear of my
soul open; as the multitudinous whisper of my involuntary confidants
came back to me like the reduplicated echo of a cry among the craggy
bills!
At the house of a friend where I once passed the night was one of
those stately upright cabinet desks and cases of drawers which were
not rare in prosperous families during the last century。 It had held
the clothes and the books and the papers of generation after
generation。 The hands that opened its drawers had grown withered;
shrivelled; and at last been folded in death。 The children that
played with the lower handles had got tall enough to open the desk;
to reach the upper shelves behind the folding…doors;grown bent
after a while;and then followed those who had gone before; and left
the old cabinet to be ransacked by a new generation。
A boy of ten or twelve was looking at it a few years ago; and; being
a quick…witted fellow; saw that all the space was not accounted for
by the smaller drawers in the part beneath the lid of the desk。
Prying about with busy eyes and fingers; he at length came upon a
spring; on pressing which; a secret drawer flew from its hiding…
place。 It had never been opened but by the maker。 The mahogany
shavings and dust were lying in it as when the artisan closed it;
and when I saw it; it was as fresh as if that day finished。
Is there not one little drawer in your soul; my sweet reader; which
no hand but yours has ever opened; and which none that have known you
seem to have suspected? What does it hold?A sin?I hope not。
What a strange thing an old dead sin laid away in a secret drawer of
the soul is! Must it some time or other be moistened with tears;
until it comes to life again and begins to stir in our
consciousness;as the dry wheel…animalcule; looking like a grain of
dust; becomes alive; if it is wet with a drop of water?
Or is it a passion? There are plenty of withered men and women
walking about the streets who have the secret drawer in their hearts;
which; if it were opened; would show as fresh as it was when they
were in the flush of youth and its first trembling emotions。
What it held will; perhaps; never be known; until they are dead and
gone; and same curious eye lights on an old yellow letter with the
fossil footprints of the extinct passion trodden thick all over it。
There is not a boarder at our table; I firmly believe; excepting the
young girl; who has not a story of the heart to tell; if one could
only get the secret drawer open。 Even this arid female; whose armor
of black bombazine looks stronger against the shafts of love than any
cuirass of triple brass; has had her sentimental history; if I am not
mistaken。 I will tell you my reason for suspecting it。
Like many other old women; she shows a great nervousness and
restlessness whenever I venture to express any opinion upon a class
of subjects which can hardly be said to belong to any man or set of
men as their strictly private property;not even to the clergy; or
the newspapers commonly called 〃religious。〃 Now; although it would
be a great luxury to me to obtain my opinions by contract; ready…
made; from a professional man; and although I have a constitutional
kindly feeling to all sorts of good people which would make me happy
to agree with all their beliefs; if that were possible; still I must
have an idea; now and then; as to the meaning of life; and though the
only condition of peace in this world is to have no ideas; or; at
least; not to express them; with reference to such subjects; I can't
afford to pay quite so much as that even for peace。
I find that there is a very prevalent opinion among the dwellers on
the shores of Sir Isaac Newton's Ocean of Truth; that salt; fish;
which have been taken from it a good while ago; split open; cured and
dried; are the only proper and allowable food for reasonable people。
I maintain; on the other hand; that there are a number of live fish
still swimming in it; and that every one of us has a right to see if
he cannot catch some of them。 Sometimes I please myself with the
idea that I have landed an actual living fish; small; perhaps; but
with rosy gills and silvery scales。 Then I find the consumers of
nothing but the salted and dried article insist that it is poisonous;
simply because it is alive; and cry out to people not to touch it。 I
have not found; however; that people mind them much。
The poor boarder in bombazine is my dynamometer。 I try every
questionable proposition on her。 If she winces; I must be prepared
for an outcry from the other old women。 I frightened her; the other
day; by saying that faith; as an intellectual state; was self…
reliance; which; if you have a metaphysical turn; you will find is
not so much of a paradox as it sounds at first。 So she sent me a
book to read which was to cure me of that error。 It was an old book;
and looked as if it had not been opened for a long time。 What should
drop out of it; one day; but a small heart…shaped paper; containing a
lock of that straight; coarse; brown hair which sets off the sharp
faces of so many thin…flanked; large…handed bumpkins! I read upon
the paper the name 〃Hiram。〃 Love! love! love!everywhere!
everywhere!under diamonds and housemaids' 〃jewelry;〃lifting the
marrowy camel's…hair; and rustling even the black bombazine! No;
no;I think she never was pretty; but she was young once; and wore
bright ginghams; and; perhaps; gay merinos。 We shall find that the
poor little crooked man has been in love; or is in love; or will be
in love before we have done with him; for aught that I know!
Romance! Was there ever a boarding…house in the world where the
seemingly prosaic table had not a living fresco for its background;
where you could see; if you had eyes; the smoke and fire of some
upheaving sentiment; or the dreary craters of smouldering or burnt…
out passions? You look on the black bombazine and high…necked
decorum of your neighbor; and no more think of the real life that
underlies this despoiled and dismantled womanhood than you think of a
stone trilobite as having once been full of the juices and the
nervous thrills of throbbing and self…conscious being。 There is a
wild creature under that long yellow pin which serves as brooch for
the bombazine cuirass;a wild creature; which I venture to say would
leap in his cage; if I should stir him; quiet as you think him。 A
heart which has been domesticated by matrimony and maternity is as
tranquil as a tame bullfinch; but a wild heart which has never been
fairly broken in flutters fiercely long after you think time has
tamed it down;like that purple finch I had the other day; whic
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