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

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table-Part1_Oliver Wendell Holmes(1809-1894)_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
literature or art be without such associations? Who can tell what



we owe to the Mutual Admiration Society of which Shakspeare, and

Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher were members? Or to that of



which Addison and Steele formed the centre, and which gave us the

Spectator? Or to that where Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke, and



Reynolds, and Beauclerk, and Boswell, most admiring among all

admirers, met together? Was there any great harm in the fact that



the Irvings and Paulding wrote in company? or any unpardonable

cabal in the literary union of Verplanck and Bryant and Sands, and



as many more as they chose to associate with them?

The poor creature does not know what he is talking about, when he



abuses this noblest of institutions. Let him inspect its mysteries

through the knot-hole he has secured, but not use that orifice as a



medium for his popgun. Such a society is the crown of a literary

metropolis; if a town has not material for it, and spirit and good



feeling enough to organize it, it is a mere caravansary, fit for a

man of genius to lodge in, but not to live in. Foolish people hate



and dread and envy such an association of men of varied powers and

influence, because it is lofty, serene, impregnable, and, by the



necessity of the case, exclusive. Wise ones are prouder of the

title M. S. M. A. than of all their other honors put together.



- All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called

"facts." They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.



Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact

or two which they lead after them into decent company like so many



bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenioussuggestion, or

convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no "facts"



at this table. What! Because bread is good and wholesome and

necessary and nourishing, shall you thrust a crumb into my windpipe



while I am talking? Do not these muscles of mine represent a

hundred loaves of bread? and is not my thought the abstract of ten



thousand of these crumbs of truth with which you would choke off my

speech?



[The above remark must be conditioned and qualified for the vulgar

mind. The reader will of course understand the preciseamount of



seasoning which must be added to it before he adopts it as one of

the axioms of his life. The speaker disclaims all responsibility



for its abuse in incompetent hands.]

This business of conversation is a very serious matter. There are



men that it weakens one to talk with an hour more than a day's

fasting would do. Mark this that I am going to say, for it is as



good as a workingprofessional man's advice, and costs you nothing:

It is better to lose a pint of blood from your veins than to have a



nerve tapped. Nobody measures your nervous force as it runs away,

nor bandages your brain and marrow after the operation.



There are men of ESPRIT who are excessively exhausting to some

people. They are the talkers who have what may be called JERKY



minds. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence.

They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags



rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with one of these

jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief.



It is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel.

What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times!



A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to

our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds.



"Do not dull people bore you?" said one of the lady-boarders, - the

same that sent me her autograph-book last week with a request for a



few original stanzas, not remembering that "The Pactolian" pays me

five dollars a line for every thing I write in its columns.



"Madam," said I, (she and the century were in their teens

together,) "all men are bores, except when we want them. There



never was but one man whom I would trust with my latch-key."

"Who might that favored person be?"



"Zimmermann."

- The men of genius that I fancy most have erectile heads like the



cobra-di-capello. You remember what they tell of William Pinkney,

the great pleader; how in his eloquent paroxysms the veins of his






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