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the professor at the breakfast table-第61部分
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northwestern breezes without losing the color and fragrance into
which their lives would have blossomed in the latitude of myrtles
and oranges。 Strange effects are produced by suffering any living
thing to be developed under conditions such as Nature had not
intended for it。 A French physiologist confined some tadpoles under
water in the dark。 Removed from the natural stimulus of light; they
did not develop legs and arms at the proper period of their growth;
and so become frogs; they swelled and spread into gigantic tadpoles。
I have seen a hundred colossal human tadpoles; overgrown Zarvce or
embryos; nay; I am afraid we Protestants should look on a
considerable proportion of the Holy Father's one hundred and thirty…
nine millions as spiritual larvae; sculling about in the dark by the
aid of their caudal extremities; instead of standing on their legs;
and breathing by gills; instead of taking the free air of heaven
into the lungs made to receive it。 Of course we never try to keep
young souls in the tadpole state; for fear they should get a pair or
two of legs by…and…by and jump out of the pool where they have been
bred and fed! Never! Never。 Never?
Now to go back to our plant。 You may know; that; for the earlier
stages of development of almost any vegetable; you only want air;
water; light; and warmth。 But by…and…by; if it is to have special
complex principles as a part of its organization; they must be
supplied by the soil;your pears will crack; if the root of the
tree gets no iron;your asparagus…bed wants salt as much as you do。
Just at the period of adolescence; the mind often suddenly begins to
come into flower and to set its fruit。 Then it is that many young
natures; having exhausted the spiritual soil round them of all it
contains of the elements they demand; wither away; undeveloped and
uncolored; unless they are transplanted。
Pray for these dear young souls! This is the second natural birth;…
for I do not speak of those peculiar religious experiences which
form the point of transition in many lives between the consciousness
of a general relation to the Divine nature and a special personal
relation。 The litany should count a prayer for them in the list of
its supplications; masses should be said for them as for souls in
purgatory; all good Christians should remember them as they remember
those in peril through travel or sickness or in warfare。
I would transport this child to Rome at once; if I had my will。 She
should ripen under an Italian sun。 She should walk under the
frescoed vaults of palaces; until her colors deepened to those of
Venetian beauties; and her forms were perfected into rivalry with
the Greek marbles; and the east wind was out of her soil。 Has she
not exhausted this lean soil of the elements her growing nature
requires?
I do not know。 The magnolia grows and comes into full flower on
Cape Ann; many degrees out of its proper region。 I was riding once
along that delicious road between the hills and the sea; when we
passed a thicket where there seemed to be a chance of finding it。
In five minutes I had fallen on the trees in full blossom; and
filled my arms with the sweet; resplendent flowers。 I could not
believe I was in our cold; northern Essex; which; in the dreary
season when I pass its slate…colored; unpainted farm…houses; and
huge; square; windy; 'squire…built 〃mansions;〃 looks as brown and
unvegetating as an old rug with its patterns all trodden out and the
colored fringe worn from all its border。
If the magnolia can bloom in northern New England; why should not a
poet or a painter come to his full growth here just as well? Yes;
but if the gorgeous tree…flower is rare; and only as if by a freak
of Nature springs up in a single spot among the beeches and alders;
is there not as much reason to think the perfumed flower of
imaginative genius will find it hard to be born and harder to spread
its leaves in the clear; cold atmosphere of our ultra…temperate zone
of humanity?
Take the poet。 On the one hand; I believe that a person with the
poetical faculty finds material everywhere。 The grandest objects of
sense and thought are common to all climates and civilizations。 The
sky; the woods; the waters; the storms; life; death love; the hope
and vision of eternity;these are images that write themselves in
poetry in every soul which has anything of the divine gift。
On the other hand; there is such a thing as a lean; impoverished
life; in distinction from a rich and suggestive one。 Which our
common New England life might be considered; I will not decide。 But
there are some things I think the poet misses in our western Eden。
I trust it is not unpatriotic to mention them in this point of view
as they come before us in so many other aspects。
There is no sufficient flavor of humanity in the soil out of which
we grow。 At Cantabridge; near the sea; I have once or twice picked
up an Indian arrowhead in a fresh furrow。 At Canoe Meadow; in the
Berkshire Mountains; I have found Indian arrowheads。 So everywhere
Indian arrowheads。 Whether a hundred or a thousand years old; who
knows? who cares? There is no history to the red race;there is
hardly an individual in it;a few instincts on legs and holding a
tomahawkthere is the Indian of all time。 The story of one red ant
is the story of all red ants。 So; the poet; in trying to wing his
way back through the life that has kindled; flitted; and faded along
our watercourses and on our southern hillsides for unknown
generations; finds nothing to breathe or fly in; he meets
〃A vast vacuity! all unawares;
Fluttering his pennons vain; plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep。〃
But think of the Old World;that part of it which is the seat of
ancient civilization! The stakes of the Britons' stockades are
still standing in the bed of the Thames。 The ploughman turns up an
old Saxon's bones; and beneath them is a tessellated pavement of the
time of the Caesars。 In Italy; the works of mediaeval Art seem to
be of yesterday;Rome; under her kings; is but an intruding
newcomer; as we contemplate her in the shadow of the Cyclopean walls
of Fiesole or Volterra。 It makes a man human to live on these old
humanized soils。 He cannot help marching in step with his kind in
the rear of such a procession。 They say a dead man's hand cures
swellings; if laid on them。 There is nothing like the dead cold
hand of the Past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the
solemn flow of the life of our race。 Rousseau came out of one of
his sad self…torturing fits; as he cast his eye on the arches of the
old Roman aqueduct; the Pont du Gard。
I am far from denying that there is an attraction in a thriving
railroad village。 The new 〃depot;〃 the smartly…painted pine houses;
the spacious brick hotel; the white meeting…house; and the row of
youthful and leggy trees before it; are exhilarating。 They s
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