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Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow-Part7_Jerome K.Jerome(1859-1927)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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giggle myself; "it will make you roar;" and I told it them.



There was dead silence when I finished--it was one of those long

jokes, too--and then, at last, somebody said: "And that was the



joke?"

I assured them that it was, and they were very polite and took my word



for it. All but one old gentleman at the other end of the table, who

wanted to know which was the joke--what he said to her or what she



said to him; and we argued it out.

Some people are too much the other way. I knew a fellow once whose



natural tendency to laugh at everything was so strong that if you

wanted to talk seriously to him, you had to explain beforehand that



what you were going to say would not be amusing. Unless you got him

to clearly understand this, he would go off into fits of merriment



over every word you uttered. I have known him on being asked the time

stop short in the middle of the road, slap his leg, and burst into a



roar of laughter. One never dared say anything really funny to that

man. A good joke would have killed him on the spot.



In the present instance I vehemently repudiated the accusation of

frivolity, and pressed Mrs. Cutting for practical ideas. She then



became thoughtful and hazarded "samplers;" saying that she never heard

them spoken much of now, but that they used to be all the rage when



she was a girl.

I declined samplers and begged her to think again. She pondered a



long while, with a tea-tray in her hands, and at last suggested the

weather, which she was sure had been most trying of late.



And ever since that idiotic suggestion I have been unable to get the

weather out of my thoughts or anything else in.



It certainly is most wretched weather. At all events it is so now at

the time I am writing, and if it isn't particularly unpleasant when I



come to be read it soon will be.

It always is wretched weather according to us. The weather is like



the government--always in the wrong. In summer-time we say it is

stifling; in winter that it is killing; in spring and autumn we find



fault with it for being neither one thing nor the other and wish it

would make up its mind. If it is fine we say the country is being



ruined for want of rain; if it does rain we pray for fine weather. If

December passes without snow, we indignantly demand to know what has



become of our good old-fashioned winters, and talk as if we had been

cheated out of something we had bought and paid for; and when it does



snow, our language is a disgrace to a Christian nation. We shall

never be content until each man makes his own weather and keeps it to



himself.

If that cannot be arranged, we would rather do without it altogether.



Yet I think it is only to us in cities that all weather is so

unwelcome. In her own home, the country, Nature is sweet in all her



moods. What can be more beautiful than the snow, falling big with

mystery in silent softness, decking the fields and trees with white as



if for a fairy wedding! And how delightful is a walk when the frozen

ground rings beneath our swinging tread--when our blood tingles in the



rare keen air, and the sheep-dogs' distant bark and children's

laughter peals faintly clear like Alpine bells across the open hills!



And then skating! scudding with wings of steel across the swaying ice,

making whirring music as we fly. And oh, how dainty is spring--Nature



at sweet eighteen!

When the little hopeful leaves peep out so fresh and green, so pure



and bright, like young lives pushing shyly out into the bustling

world; when the fruit-tree blossoms, pink and white, like village



maidens in their Sunday frocks, hide each whitewashed cottage in a

cloud of fragilesplendor; and the cuckoo's note upon the breeze is



wafted through the woods! And summer, with its deep dark green and

drowsy hum--when the rain-drops whispersolemn secrets to the



listening leaves and the twilight lingers in the lanes! And autumn!

ah, how sadly fair, with its golden glow and the dying grandeur of its



tinted woods--its blood-red sunsets and its ghostly evening mists,

with its busy murmur of reapers, and its laden orchards, and the






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