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The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table-Part36_Oliver Wendell Holmes(1809-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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ambrotypes, if I remember rightly); there are TOURNURES nothing can



humanize, and movements nothing can subdue to the gracious suavity

or elegant languor or stately serenity which belong to different



styles of dandyism.

We are forming an aristocracy, as you may observe, in this country,



- not a GRATIA-DEI, nor a JUREDIVINO one, - but a DE-FACTO upper

stratum of being, which floats over the turbid waves of common life



like the iridescent film you may have seen spreading over the water

about our wharves, - very splendid, though its origin may have been



tar, tallow, train-oil, or other such unctuous commodities. I say,

then, we are forming an aristocracy; and, transitory as its



individual life often is, it maintains itself tolerably, as a

whole. Of course, money is its corner-stone. But now observe



this. Money kept for two or three generations transforms a race, -

I don't mean merely in manners and hereditaryculture, but in blood



and bone. Money buys air and sunshine, in which children grow up

more kindly, of course, than in close, back streets; it buys



country-places to give them happy and healthy summers, good

nursing, good doctoring, and the best cuts of beef and mutton.



When the spring-chickens come to market - I beg your pardon, - that

is not what I was going to speak of. As the young females of each



successive season come on, the finest specimens among them, other

things being equal, are apt to attract those who can afford the



expensive luxury of beauty. The physicalcharacter of the next

generation rises in consequence. It is plain that certain families



have in this way acquired an elevated type of face and figure, and

that in a small circle of city-connections one may sometimes find



models of both sexes which one of the rural counties would find it

hard to match from all its townships put together. Because there



is a good deal of running down, of degeneration and waste of life,

among the richer classes, you must not overlook the equally obvious



fact I have just spoken of, - which in one or two generations more

will be, I think, much more patent than just now.



The weak point in our chryso-aristocracy is the same I have alluded

to in connection with cheap dandyism. Its thoroughmanhood, its



high-caste gallantry, are not so manifest as the plate-glass of its

windows and the more or less legitimate heraldry of its coach-



panels. It is very curious to observe of how small account

military folks are held among our Northern people. Our young men



must gild their spurs, but they need not win them. The equal

division of property keeps the younger sons of rich people above



the necessity of military service. Thus the army loses an element

of refinement, and the moneyed upper class forgets what it is to



count heroism among its virtues. Still I don't believe in any

aristocracy without pluck as its backbone. Ours may show it when



the time comes, if it ever does come.

- These United States furnish the greatest market for intellectual



GREEN FRUIT of all the places in the world. I think so, at any

rate. The demand for intellectual labor is so enormous and the



market so far from nice, that young talent is apt to fare like

unripe gooseberries, - get plucked to make a fool of. Think of a



country which buys eighty thousand copies of the "Proverbial

Philosophy," while the author's admiring countrymen have been



buying twelve thousand! How can one let his fruit hang in the sun

until it gets fully ripe, while there are eighty thousand such



hungry mouths ready to swallow it and proclaim its praises?

Consequently, there never was such a collection of crude pippins



and half-grown windfalls as our native literature displays among

its fruits. There are literary green-groceries at every corner,



which will buy anything, from a button-pear to a pine-apple. It

takes a long apprenticeship to train a whole people to reading and



writing. The temptation of money and fame is too great for young

people. Do I not remember that glorious moment when the late Mr. -



we won't say who, - editor of the - we won't say what, offered me

the sum of fifty cents PER double-columned quarto page for shaking



my young boughs over his foolscap apron? Was it not an

intoxicating vision of gold and glory? I should doubtless have



revelled in its wealth and splendor, but for learning that the




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