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The Golden Age-Part8_Kenneth Grahame(1859-1932)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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had not intended to keep it in any case; so I passed in, while he



held the gate open politely, murmuring "Venit Hesperus ite,

capellae: come, little kid!" and then apologising abjectly for a



familiarity which (he said) was less his than the Roman poet's.

A straight flagged walk led up to the cool-looking old house, and



my host, lingering in his progress at this rose-tree and that,

forgot all about me at least twice, waking up and apologising



humbly after each lapse. During these intervals I put two and

two together, and identified him as the Rector: a bachelor,



eccentric, learnedexceedingly, round whom the crust of legend

was already beginning to form; to myself an object of special



awe, in that he was alleged to have written a real book. "Heaps

o' books," Martha, my informant, said; but I knew the exact rate



of discountapplicable to Martha's statements.

We passed eventually through a dark hall into a room which struck



me at once as the ideal I had dreamed but failed to find. None

of your feminine fripperies here! None of your chair-backs and



tidies! This man, it was seen, groaned under no aunts. Stout

volumes in calf and vellum lined three sides; books sprawled



or hunched themselves on chairs and tables; books diffused the

pleasant odour of printers' ink and bindings; topping all, a



faint aroma of tobacco cheered and heartened exceedingly, as

under foreign skies the flap and rustle over the wayfarer's head



of the Union Jack--the old flag of emancipation! And in one

corner, book-piled like the rest of the furniture, stood a piano.



This I hailed with a squeal of delight. "Want to strum?"

inquired my friend, as if it was the most natural wish in the



world--his eyes were already straying towards another corner,

where bits of writing-table peeped out from under a sort of



Alpine system of book and foolscap.

"O, but may I?" I asked in doubt. "At home I'm not allowed to--



only beastly exercises!"

"Well, you can strum here, at all events," he replied; and



murmuring absently, Age, dic Latinum, barbite, carmen, he made

his way, mechanically guided as it seemed, to the irresistible



writing-able. In ten seconds he was out of sight and call. A

great book open on his knee, another propped up in front, a score



or so disposed within easy reach, he read and jotted with an

absorption almost passionate. I might have been in Boeotia, for



any consciousness he had of me. So with a light heart I

turned to and strummed.



Those who painfully and with bleeding feet have scaled the crags

of mastery over musical instruments have yet their loss in



this,--that the wild joy of strumming has become a vanished

sense. Their happiness comes from the concord and the relative



value of the notes they handle: the pure, absolute quality and

nature of each note in itself are only appreciated by the



strummer. For some notes have all the sea in them, and some

cathedral bells; others a woodland joyance and a smell of



greenery; in some fauns dance to the merry reed, and even the

grave centaurs peep out from their caves. Some bring moonlight,



and some the deep crimson of a rose's heart; some are blue, some

red, and others will tell of an army with silken standards and



march-music. And throughout all the sequence of suggestion, up

above the little white men leap and peep, and strive against the



imprisoning wires; and all the big rosewood box hums as it were

full of hiving bees.



Spent with the rapture, I paused a moment and caught my friend's

eye over the edge of a folio. "But as for these Germans," he



began abruptly, as if we had been in the middle of a

discussion, "the scholarship is there, I grant you; but the



spark, the fine perception, the happy intuition, where is it?

They get it all from us!"



"They get nothing whatever from US," I said decidedly: the

word German only suggesting Bands, to which Aunt Eliza was



bitterly hostile.




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