章节正文
course, that I thought out my thoughts to the exact point here
set down. In those fortunate days of old one was free from the
hard necessity of transmuting the vague idea into the
mechanical inadequate medium of words. But the feeling was
there, that I might not possess the qualities of character for so
delicate a position.
The unnatural halo round Edward got more pronounced, his own
demeanour more responsible and dignified, with the arrival of his
new clothes. When his trunk and play-box were sent in, the
approaching cleavage between our brother, who now belonged to the
future, and ourselves, still claimed by the past, was accentuated
indeed. His name was painted on each of them, in large letters,
and after their arrival their owner used to disappear
mysteriously, and be found eventually wandering round his
luggage, murmuring to himself, "Edward----, in a rapt, remote
sort of way. It was a weakness, of course, and pointed to a soft
spot in his character; but those who can remember the sensation
of first seeing their names in print will not think hardly of
him.
As the short days sped by and the grim event cast its shadow
longer and longer across our threshold, an unnatural politeness,
a civilityscarce canny, began to pervade the air. In those
latter hours Edward himself was frequently heard to say "Please,
and also "Would you mind fetchin' that ball?" while Harold
and I would sometimes actually find ourselves trying to
anticipate his wishes. As for the girls, they simply grovelled.
The Olympians, too, in their uncouth way, by gift of carnal
delicacies and such-like indulgence, seemed anxious to
demonstrate that they had hitherto misjudged this one of us.
Altogether the situation grew strained and false, and I think a
general relief was felt when the end came.
We all trooped down to the station, of course; it is only in
later years that the farce of "seeing people off" is seen in its
true colours. Edward was the life and soul of the party; and if
his gaiety struck one at times as being a trifle overdone, it was
not a moment to be critical. As we tramped along, I promised him
I would ask Farmer Larkin not to kill any more pigs till he came
back for the holidays, and he said he would send me a proper
catapult,--the real lethal article, not a kid's plaything. Then
suddenly, when we were about half-way down, one of the girls fell
a-snivelling.
The happy few who dare to laugh at the woes of sea-sickness will
perhaps remember how, on occasion, the sudden collapse of a
fellow-voyager before their very eyes has caused them
hastily to revise their self-confidence and resolve to walk more
humbly for the future. Even so it was with Edward, who turned
his head aside, feigning an interest in the landscape. It was
but for a moment; then he recollected the hat he was wearing,--a
hard bowler, the first of that sort he had ever owned. He took
it off, examined it, and felt it over. Something about it seemed
to give him strength, and he was a man once more.
At the station, Edward's first care was to dispose his boxes on
the platform so that every one might see the labels and the
lettering thereon. One did not go to school for the first time
every day! Then he read both sides of his ticket carefully;
shifted it to every one of his pockets in turn; and finally fell
to chinking of his money, to keep his courage up. We were all
dry of conversation by this time, and could only stand round and
stare in silence at the victim decked for the altar. And, as I
looked at Edward, in new clothes of a manly cut, with a hard hat
upon his head, a railway ticket in one pocket and money of his
own in the other,--money to spend as he liked and no
questions asked!--I began to feel dimly how great was the gulf
already yawning betwixt us. Fortunately I was not old enough to
realise, further, that here on this little platform the old order
lay at its last gasp, and that Edward might come back to us, but
it would not be the Edward of yore, nor could things ever be the
same again.
When the train steamed up at last, we all boarded it impetuously
with the view of selecting the one peerlesscarriage to which
Edward might be intrusted with the greatest comfort and honour;
and as each one found the ideal compartment at the same moment,
and vociferously maintained its merits, he stood some chance for
a time of being left behind. A porter settled the matter by
heaving him through the nearest door; and as the train moved off,
Edward's head was thrust out of the window, wearing on it an
unmistakable first-quality grin that he had been saving up
somewhere for the supreme moment. Very small and white his face
looked, on the long side of the retreating train. But the grin
was visible, undeniable, stoutly maintained; till a curve swept
him from our sight, and he was borne away in the dying
rumble, out of our placid backwater, out into the busy world of
rubs and knocks and competition, out into the New Life.
When a crab has lost a leg, his gait is still more awkward than
his wont, till Time and healing Nature make him totus teres
atque rotundus once more. We straggled back from the station
disjointedly; Harold, who was very silent, sticking close to me,
his last slender props while the girls in front, their heads
together, were already reckoning up the weeks to the holidays.
Home at last, Harold suggested one or two occupations of a spicy
and contraband flavour, but though we did our manful best there
was no knocking any interest out of them. Then I suggested
others, with the same want of success. Finally we found
ourselves sitting silent on an upturned wheelbarrow, our chins on
our fists, staring haggardly into the raw new conditions of our
changed life, the ruins of a past behind our backs.
And all the while Selina and Charlotte were busy stuffing
Edward's rabbits with unwonted forage, bilious and green;
polishing up the cage of his mice till the occupants raved and
swore like householders in spring-time; and collecting
materials for new bows and arrows, whips, boats, guns, and four-
in-hand harness, against the return of Ulysses. Little did they
dream that the hero, once back from Troy and all its onsets,
would scornfully condemn their clumsy but laborious armoury as
rot and humbug and only fit for kids! This, with many another
like awakening, was mercifully hidden from them. Could the veil
have been lifted, and the girls permitted to see Edward as he
would appear a short three months hence, ragged of attire and
lawless of tongue, a scorner of tradition and an adept in strange
new physical tortures, one who would in the same half-hour
dismember a doll and shatter a hallowed belief,--in fine, a sort
of swaggering Captain, fresh from the Spanish Main,--could they
have had the least hint of this, well, then perhaps--. But which
of us is of mental fibre to stand the test of a glimpse into
futurity? Let us only hope that, even with certain
disillusionment ahead, the girls would have acted precisely as
they did.
And perhaps we have reason to be very grateful that, both as
children and long afterwards, we are never allowed to guess how
the absorbing pursuit of the moment will appear, not only to
others, but to ourselves, a very short time hence. So we pass,
with a gusto and a heartiness that to an onlooker would seem
almost pathetic, from one droll devotion to another misshapen
passion; and who shall care to play Rhadamanthus, to appraise the
record, and to decide how much of it is solid achievement, and
how much the merest child's play?
End
set down. In those fortunate days of old one was free from the
hard necessity of transmuting the vague idea into the
mechanical inadequate medium of words. But the feeling was
there, that I might not possess the qualities of character for so
delicate a position.
The unnatural halo round Edward got more pronounced, his own
demeanour more responsible and dignified, with the arrival of his
new clothes. When his trunk and play-box were sent in, the
approaching cleavage between our brother, who now belonged to the
future, and ourselves, still claimed by the past, was accentuated
indeed. His name was painted on each of them, in large letters,
and after their arrival their owner used to disappear
mysteriously, and be found eventually wandering round his
luggage, murmuring to himself, "Edward----, in a rapt, remote
sort of way. It was a weakness, of course, and pointed to a soft
spot in his character; but those who can remember the sensation
of first seeing their names in print will not think hardly of
him.
As the short days sped by and the grim event cast its shadow
longer and longer across our threshold, an unnatural politeness,
a civilityscarce canny, began to pervade the air. In those
latter hours Edward himself was frequently heard to say "Please,
and also "Would you mind fetchin' that ball?" while Harold
and I would sometimes actually find ourselves trying to
anticipate his wishes. As for the girls, they simply grovelled.
The Olympians, too, in their uncouth way, by gift of carnal
delicacies and such-like indulgence, seemed anxious to
demonstrate that they had hitherto misjudged this one of us.
Altogether the situation grew strained and false, and I think a
general relief was felt when the end came.
We all trooped down to the station, of course; it is only in
later years that the farce of "seeing people off" is seen in its
true colours. Edward was the life and soul of the party; and if
his gaiety struck one at times as being a trifle overdone, it was
not a moment to be critical. As we tramped along, I promised him
I would ask Farmer Larkin not to kill any more pigs till he came
back for the holidays, and he said he would send me a proper
catapult,--the real lethal article, not a kid's plaything. Then
suddenly, when we were about half-way down, one of the girls fell
a-snivelling.
The happy few who dare to laugh at the woes of sea-sickness will
perhaps remember how, on occasion, the sudden collapse of a
fellow-voyager before their very eyes has caused them
hastily to revise their self-confidence and resolve to walk more
humbly for the future. Even so it was with Edward, who turned
his head aside, feigning an interest in the landscape. It was
but for a moment; then he recollected the hat he was wearing,--a
hard bowler, the first of that sort he had ever owned. He took
it off, examined it, and felt it over. Something about it seemed
to give him strength, and he was a man once more.
At the station, Edward's first care was to dispose his boxes on
the platform so that every one might see the labels and the
lettering thereon. One did not go to school for the first time
every day! Then he read both sides of his ticket carefully;
shifted it to every one of his pockets in turn; and finally fell
to chinking of his money, to keep his courage up. We were all
dry of conversation by this time, and could only stand round and
stare in silence at the victim decked for the altar. And, as I
looked at Edward, in new clothes of a manly cut, with a hard hat
upon his head, a railway ticket in one pocket and money of his
own in the other,--money to spend as he liked and no
questions asked!--I began to feel dimly how great was the gulf
already yawning betwixt us. Fortunately I was not old enough to
realise, further, that here on this little platform the old order
lay at its last gasp, and that Edward might come back to us, but
it would not be the Edward of yore, nor could things ever be the
same again.
When the train steamed up at last, we all boarded it impetuously
with the view of selecting the one peerlesscarriage to which
Edward might be intrusted with the greatest comfort and honour;
and as each one found the ideal compartment at the same moment,
and vociferously maintained its merits, he stood some chance for
a time of being left behind. A porter settled the matter by
heaving him through the nearest door; and as the train moved off,
Edward's head was thrust out of the window, wearing on it an
unmistakable first-quality grin that he had been saving up
somewhere for the supreme moment. Very small and white his face
looked, on the long side of the retreating train. But the grin
was visible, undeniable, stoutly maintained; till a curve swept
him from our sight, and he was borne away in the dying
rumble, out of our placid backwater, out into the busy world of
rubs and knocks and competition, out into the New Life.
When a crab has lost a leg, his gait is still more awkward than
his wont, till Time and healing Nature make him totus teres
atque rotundus once more. We straggled back from the station
disjointedly; Harold, who was very silent, sticking close to me,
his last slender props while the girls in front, their heads
together, were already reckoning up the weeks to the holidays.
Home at last, Harold suggested one or two occupations of a spicy
and contraband flavour, but though we did our manful best there
was no knocking any interest out of them. Then I suggested
others, with the same want of success. Finally we found
ourselves sitting silent on an upturned wheelbarrow, our chins on
our fists, staring haggardly into the raw new conditions of our
changed life, the ruins of a past behind our backs.
And all the while Selina and Charlotte were busy stuffing
Edward's rabbits with unwonted forage, bilious and green;
polishing up the cage of his mice till the occupants raved and
swore like householders in spring-time; and collecting
materials for new bows and arrows, whips, boats, guns, and four-
in-hand harness, against the return of Ulysses. Little did they
dream that the hero, once back from Troy and all its onsets,
would scornfully condemn their clumsy but laborious armoury as
rot and humbug and only fit for kids! This, with many another
like awakening, was mercifully hidden from them. Could the veil
have been lifted, and the girls permitted to see Edward as he
would appear a short three months hence, ragged of attire and
lawless of tongue, a scorner of tradition and an adept in strange
new physical tortures, one who would in the same half-hour
dismember a doll and shatter a hallowed belief,--in fine, a sort
of swaggering Captain, fresh from the Spanish Main,--could they
have had the least hint of this, well, then perhaps--. But which
of us is of mental fibre to stand the test of a glimpse into
futurity? Let us only hope that, even with certain
disillusionment ahead, the girls would have acted precisely as
they did.
And perhaps we have reason to be very grateful that, both as
children and long afterwards, we are never allowed to guess how
the absorbing pursuit of the moment will appear, not only to
others, but to ourselves, a very short time hence. So we pass,
with a gusto and a heartiness that to an onlooker would seem
almost pathetic, from one droll devotion to another misshapen
passion; and who shall care to play Rhadamanthus, to appraise the
record, and to decide how much of it is solid achievement, and
how much the merest child's play?
End
- fortunate [´fɔ:tʃənət]
a.幸运的，侥幸的 (初中英语单词) - medium [´mi:diəm] n.中间；平均 a.中等的 (初中英语单词)
- character [´kæriktə] n.特性；性质；人物；字 (初中英语单词)
- responsible [ri´spɔnsəbəl] a.尽责的；责任重大的 (初中英语单词)
- arrival [ə´raivəl] n.到达；到达的人(物) (初中英语单词)
- weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- trifle [´traifəl] n.琐事，小事；少量 (初中英语单词)
- resolve [ri´zɔlv] v.决心 n.决心；刚毅 (初中英语单词)
- dispose [di´spəuz] v.处置；安排；布置 (初中英语单词)
- platform [´plætfɔ:m] n.(平)台；讲台；站台 (初中英语单词)
- victim [´viktim] n.牺牲者；受害者 (初中英语单词)
- carriage [´kæridʒ] n.马车；客车；货运 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- supreme [su:´pri:m, sju:-] a.最高的，无上的 (初中英语单词)
- visible [´vizəbəl] a.可见的；明显的 (初中英语单词)
- competition [,kɔmpi´tiʃən] n.比赛；竞争 (初中英语单词)
- slender [´slendə] a.细长的；微薄的 (初中英语单词)
- harness [´hɑ:nis] vt.上马具 n.马具 (初中英语单词)
- condemn [kən´dem] vt.谴责；定罪，判处 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- tradition [trə´diʃən] n.传统；惯例；传说 (初中英语单词)
- physical [´fizikəl] a.物质的；有形的 (初中英语单词)
- mental [´mentl] a.精神的；心理的 (初中英语单词)
- glimpse [glimps] n.&v.瞥见 (初中英语单词)
- grateful [´greitful] a.感谢的；令人愉快的 (初中英语单词)
- pursuit [pə´sju:t] n.追踪；追击；事务 (初中英语单词)
- devotion [di´vəuʃən] n.献身；忠诚；热爱 (初中英语单词)
- achievement [ə´tʃi:vmənt] n.完成；成就，成绩 (初中英语单词)
- pronounced [prə´naunst] a.发出音的；显著的 (高中英语单词)
- dignified [´dignifaid] a.尊贵的 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- threshold [´θreʃhəuld] n.门槛；入门；开端 (高中英语单词)
- hitherto [,hiðə´tu:] ad.至今，迄今 (高中英语单词)
- critical [´kritikəl] a.批评的；关键性的 (高中英语单词)
- half-way [´hɑ:fwei] ad.半途；几乎 (高中英语单词)
- collapse [kə´læps] vi.&n.崩溃；病倒；衰败 (高中英语单词)
- landscape [´lændskeip] n.风景；景色；风景画 (高中英语单词)
- fortunately [´fɔ:tʃənətli] ad.幸运地 (高中英语单词)
- porter [´pɔ:tə] n.守门人；勤杂工人 (高中英语单词)
- awkward [´ɔ:kwəd] a.笨拙的；为难的 (高中英语单词)
- clumsy [´klʌmzi] a.笨拙的；粗俗的 (高中英语单词)
- ragged [´rægid] a.衣服破烂的 (高中英语单词)
- attire [ə´taiə] vt.装饰；穿 n.衣服 (高中英语单词)
- shatter [´ʃætə] v.毁坏 n.粉碎；碎片 (高中英语单词)
- precisely [pri´saisli] ad.精确地；刻板地 (高中英语单词)
- unnatural [,ʌn´nætʃərəl] a.不自然的 (英语四级单词)
- eventually [i´ventʃuəli] ad.最后，终于 (英语四级单词)
- civility [si´viliti] n.礼貌；礼仪 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- indulgence [in´dʌldʒəns] n.沉迷；宽容；恩惠 (英语四级单词)
- plaything [´plei,θiŋ] n.玩具；玩物 (英语四级单词)
- revise [ri´vaiz] vt.修订；修改 (英语四级单词)
- compartment [kəm´pɑ:tmənt] n.间隔；隔室 (英语四级单词)
- placid [´plæsid] a.平静的；温和的 (英语四级单词)
- hallowed [´hæləud] a.神圣的，崇高的 (英语四级单词)
- pathetic [pə´θetik] a.可怜的；悲哀的 (英语四级单词)
- pervade [pə´veid] vt.遍及；充满；渗透 (英语六级单词)
- uncouth [ʌn´ku:θ] a.粗野的；笨拙的 (英语六级单词)
- gaiety [´geəti] n.欢乐；乐事；华丽 (英语六级单词)
- peerless [´piələs] a.无比的；无匹敌的 (英语六级单词)
- reckoning [´rekəniŋ] n.计算；算帐；估计 (英语六级单词)
- charlotte [´ʃɑ:lət] n.水果奶油布丁 (英语六级单词)
- forage [´fɔridʒ] n.饲料 v.搜寻(粮草) (英语六级单词)
- laborious [lə´bɔ:riəs] a.吃力的 (英语六级单词)
- awakening [ə´weikəniŋ] n.&a.觉醒(中的) (英语六级单词)
- appraise [ə´preiz] vt.估价；品(鉴)定 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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