酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Three Men in a Boat-Part8_Jerome K.Jerome(1859-1927)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页
will be sold for old china, and put in a glass cabinet. And people will



pass it round, and admire it. They will be struck by the wonderful depth

of the colour on the nose, and speculate as to how beautiful the bit of



the tail that is lost no doubt was.

We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog. We are too familiar



with it. It is like the sunset and the stars: we are not awed by their

loveliness because they are common to our eyes. So it is with that china



dog. In 2288 people will gush over it. The making of such dogs will

have become a lost art. Our descendants will wonder how we did it, and



say how clever we were. We shall be referred to lovingly as "those grand

old artists that flourished in the nineteenth century, and produced those



china dogs."

The "sampler" that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as



"tapestry of the Victorian era," and be almost priceless. The blue-and-

white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked



and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use

them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the



"Presents from Ramsgate," and "Souvenirs of Margate," that may have

escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English



curios.

At this point Harris threw away the sculls, got up and left his seat, and



sat on his back, and stuck his legs in the air. Montmorency howled, and

turned a somersault, and the top hamper jumped up, and all the things



came out.

I was somewhat surprised, but I did not lose my temper. I said,



pleasantly enough:

"Hulloa! what's that for?"



"What's that for? Why - "

No, on second thoughts, I will not repeat what Harris said. I may have



been to blame, I admit it; but nothing excuses violence of language and

coarseness of expression, especially in a man who has been carefully



brought up, as I know Harris has been. I was thinking of other things,

and forgot, as any one might easily understand, that I was steering, and



the consequence was that we had got mixed up a good deal with the tow-

path. It was difficult to say, for the moment, which was us and which



was the Middlesex bank of the river; but we found out after a while, and

separated ourselves.



Harris, however, said he had done enough for a bit, and proposed that I

should take a turn; so, as we were in, I got out and took the tow-line,



and ran the boat on past Hampton Court. What a dear old wall that is

that runs along by the river there! I never pass it without feeling



better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall; what

a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the



moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot,

to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy



clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades and tints and

hues in every ten yards of that old wall. If I could only draw, and knew



how to paint, I could make a lovely sketch of that old wall, I'm sure.

I've often thought I should like to live at Hampton Court. It looks so



peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in

the early morning before many people are about.



But, there, I don't suppose I should really care for it when it came to

actual practice. It would be so ghastly dull and depressing in the



evening, when your lamp cast uncanny shadows on the panelled walls, and

the echo of distant feet rang through the cold stone corridors, and now



drew nearer, and now died away, and all was death-like silence, save the

beating of one's own heart.



We are creatures of the sun, we men and women. We love light and life.

That is why we crowd into the towns and cities, and the country grows



more and more deserted every year. In the sunlight - in the daytime,

when Nature is alive and busy all around us, we like the open hill-sides



and the deep woods well enough: but in the night, when our Mother Earth

has gone to sleep, and left us waking, oh! the world seems so lonesome,



and we get frightened, like children in a silent house. Then we sit and

sob, and long for the gas-lit streets, and the sound of human voices, and



the answering throb of human life. We feel so helpless and so little in

the great stillness, when the dark trees rustle in the night-wind. There



are so many ghosts about, and their silent sighs make us feel so sad.

Let us gather together in the great cities, and light huge bonfires of a



million gas-jets, and shout and sing together, and feel brave.

Harris asked me if I'd ever been in the maze at Hampton Court. He said



he went in once to show somebody else the way. He had studied it up in a

map, and it was so simple that it seemed foolish - hardly worth the



twopence charged for admission. Harris said he thought that map must




文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号