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Lady Baltimore-Part11_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Daddy Ben!" John Mayrant returned pleasantly, and then resuming to me:

"No more can I believe everything." Then he gave a brief, comical laugh.



"And I hope my aunts won't find that out! They would think me gone to

perdition indeed. But I always go to church here" (he pointed to the



quiet building, which, for all its modest size and simplicity, had a

stately and inexpressible charm), "because I like to kneel where my



mother said her prayers, you know." He flushed a little over this

confidence into which he had fallen, but he continued: "I like the words



of the service, too, and I don't ask myself over-curiously what I do

believe; but there's a permanent something within us--a Greater Self--



don't you think?"

"A permanent something," I assented, "which has created all the religions



all over the earth from the beginning, and of which Christianity itself

is merely one of the present temples."



He made an exclamation at my word "present."

"Do you think anything in this world is final?" I asked him.



"But--" he began, somewhat at a loss.

"Haven't you found out yet that human nature is the one indestructible



reality that we know?"

"But--" he began again.



"Don't we have the 'latest thing' all the time, and never the ultimate

thing, never, never? The latest thing in women's hats is that



huge-brimmed affair with the veil as voluminous as a double-bed mosquito

netting. That hat will look improbable next spring. The latest thing in



science is radium. Radium has exploded the conservation of energy

theory--turned it into a last year's hat. Answer me, if Christianity is



the same as when it wore among its savage ornaments a devil with horns

and a flaming Hell! Forever and forever the human race reaches out its



hand and shapes some system, some creed, some government, and declares:

'This is at length the final thing, the cure-all,' and lo and behold,



something flowing and eternal in the race itself presently splits the

creed and the government to pieces! Truth is a very marvelous thing. We



feel it; it can fill our eyes with tears, our hearts with joy, it can

make us die for it; but once our human lips attempt to formulate and thus



imprison it, it becomes a lie. You cannot shut truth up in any words."

"But it shall prevail!" the boy exclaimed with a sort of passion.



"Everything prevails," I answered him.

"I don't like that," he said.



"Neither do I," I returned. "But Jacob got Esau's inheritance by a mean

trick."



"Jacob was punished for it."

"Did that help Esau much?"



"You are a pessimist!"

"Just because I see Jacob and Esau to-day, alive and kicking in Wall



Street, Washington, Newport, everywhere?"

"You're no optimist, anyhow!"



"I hope I'm blind in neither eye."

"You don't give us credit--"



"For what?"

"For what we've accomplished since Jacob."



"Printing, steam, and electricity, for instance? They spread the Bible

and the yellow journal with equal velocity."



"I don't mean science. Take our institutions."

"Well, we've accomplished hospitals and the stock market--a pretty even



set-off between God and the devil."

He laughed. "You don't take a high view of us!"



"Nor a low one. I don't play ostrich with any of the staring permanences

of human nature. We're just as noble to-day as David was sometimes, and



just as bestial to-day as David was sometimes, and we've every

possibility inside us all the time, whether we paint our naked skins, or



wear steel armor or starched shirts."

"Well, I believe good is the guiding power in the world."






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