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the professor at the breakfast table-第49部分
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and the reflection of a red curtain on our cheek。 Is he not a POET
that painted us?
〃Blest be the art that can immortalize!〃
COWPER。
Young folks look on a face as a unit; children who go to school
with any given little John Smith see in his name a distinctive
appellation; and in his features as special and definite an
expression of his sole individuality as if he were the first created
of his race: As soon as we are old enough to get the range of three
or four generations well in hand; and to take in large family
histories; we never see an individual in a face of any stock we
know; but a mosaic copy of a pattern; with fragmentary tints from
this and that ancestor。 The analysis of a face into its ancestral
elements requires that it should be examined in the very earliest
infancy; before it has lost that ancient and solemn look it brings
with it out of the past eternity; and again in that brief space when
Life; the mighty sculptor; has done his work; and Death; his silent
servant; lifts the veil and lets us look at the marble lines he has
wrought so faithfully; and lastly; while a painter who can seize all
the traits of a countenance is building it up; feature after
feature; from the slight outline to the finished portrait。
I am satisfied; that; as we grow older; we learn to look upon our
bodies more and more as a temporary possession and less and less as
identified with ourselves。 In early years; while the child 〃feels
its life in every limb;〃 it lives in the body and for the body to a
very great extent。 It ought to be so。 There have been many very
interesting children who have shown a wonderful indifference to the
things of earth and an extraordinary development of the spiritual
nature。 There is a perfect literature of their biographies; all
alike in their essentials; the same 〃disinclination to the usual
amusements of childhood 〃; the same remarkable sensibility; the same
docility; the same conscientiousness; in short; an almost uniform
character; marked by beautiful traits; which we look at with a
painful admiration。 It will be found that most of these children
are the subjects of some constitutional unfitness for living; the
most frequent of which I need not mention。 They are like the
beautiful; blushing; half…grown fruit that falls before its time
because its core is gnawed out。 They have their meaning;they do
not…live in vain;but they are windfalls。 I am convinced that many
healthy children are injured morally by being forced to read too
much about these little meek sufferers and their spiritual
exercises。 Here is a boy that loves to run; swim; kick football;
turn somersets; make faces; whittle; fish; tear his clothes; coast;
skate; fire crackers; blow squash 〃tooters;〃 cut his name on fences;
read about Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor; eat the widest…
angled slices of pie and untold cakes and candies; crack nuts with
his back teeth and bite out the better part of another boy's apple
with his front ones; turn up coppers; 〃stick〃 knives; call names;
throw stones; knock off hats; set mousetraps; chalk doorsteps; 〃cut
behind 〃 anything on wheels or runners; whistle through his teeth;
〃holler〃 Fire! on slight evidence; run after soldiers; patronize an
engine…company; or; in his own words; 〃blow for tub No。 11;〃 or
whatever it may be;isn't that a pretty nice sort of a boy; though
he has not got anything the matter with him that takes the taste of
this world out? Now; when you put into such a hot…blooded; hard…
fisted; round…cheeked little rogue's hand a sad…looking volume or
pamphlet; with the portrait of a thin; white…faced child; whose life
is really as much a training for death as the last month of a
condemned criminal's existence; what does he find in common between
his own overflowing and exulting sense of vitality and the
experiences of the doomed offspring of invalid parents? The time
comes when we have learned to understand the music of sorrow; the
beauty of resigned suffering; the holy light that plays over the
pillow of those who die before their time; in humble hope and trust。
But it is not until he has worked his way through the period of
honest hearty animal existence; which every robust child should make
the most of;not until he has learned the use of his various
faculties; which is his first duty;that a boy of courage and
animal vigor is in a proper state to read these tearful records of
premature decay。 I have no doubt that disgust is implanted in the
minds of many healthy children by early surfeits of pathological
piety。 I do verily believe that He who took children in His arms
and blessed them loved the healthiest and most playful of them just
as well as those who were richest in the tuberculous virtues。 I
know what I am talking about; and there are more parents in this
country who will be willing to listen to what I say than there are
fools to pick a quarrel with me。 In the sensibility and the
sanctity which often accompany premature decay I see one of the most
beautiful instances of the principle of compensation which marks the
Divine benevolence。 But to get the spiritual hygiene of robust
natures out of the exceptional regimen of invalids is just simply
what we Professors call 〃bad practice〃; and I know by experience
that there are worthy people who not only try it on their own
children; but actually force it on those of their neighbors。
Having been photographed; and stereographed; and chromatographed;
or done in colors; it only remained to be phrenologized。 A polite
note from Messrs。 Bumpus and Crane; requesting our attendance at
their Physiological Emporium; was too tempting to be resisted。 We
repaired to that scientific Golgotha。
Messrs。 Bumpus and Crane are arranged on the plan of the man and the
woman in the toy called a 〃weather…house;〃 both on the same wooden
arm suspended on a pivot;so that when one comes to the door; the
other retires backwards; and vice versa。 The more particular
speciality of one is to lubricate your entrance and exit;that of
the other to polish you off phrenologically in the recesses of the
establishment。 Suppose yourself in a room full of casts and
pictures; before a counterful of books with taking titles。 I wonder
if the picture of the brain is there; 〃approved〃 by a noted
Phrenologist; which was copied from my; the Professor's; folio
plate; in the work of Gall and Spurzheim。 An extra convolution; No。
9; Destructiveness; according to the list beneath; which was not to
be seen in the plate; itself a copy of Nature; was very liberally
supplied by the artist; to meet the wants of the catalogue of
〃organs。〃 Professor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of women;
horn…combers and gold…beaders; or somewhere about that range of
life;looking so credulous; that; if any Second…Advent Miller or
Joe Smith should come along; he could string the whole lot of them
on his cheapest
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