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The Soul of the Far East-Part5_Percival Lowell(1855-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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breathe to any one before, find a tongue for her who seems



fore-destined to understand. The long-closed floodgates of feeling

are thrown wide, and our personality, pent up from the time of its



inception for very mistrust, sweeps forth in one uncontrollable

rush. For then the most reticent becomes confiding; the most



self-contained expands. Then every detail of our past lives assumes

an importance which even we had not divined. To her we tell them



all,--our boyish beliefs, our youthful fancies, the foolish with

the fine, the witty with the wise, the little with the great.



Nothing then seems quite unworthy, as nothing seems quite worthy

enough. Flowers and weeds that we plucked upon our pathway, we heap



them in her lap, certain that even the poorest will not be tossed

aside. Small wonder that we bring as many as we may when she bends



her head so lovingly to each.

As our past rises in reminiscence with all its oldtime reality, no



less clearly does our future stand out to us in mirage. What we

would be seems as realizable as what we were. Seen by another



beside ourselves, our castles in the air take on something of the

substance of stereoscopic sight. Our airiest fancies seem solid



facts for their reality to her, and gilded by lovelight, they

glitter and sparkle like a true palace of the East. For once all is



possible; nothing lies beyond our reach. And as we talk, and she

listens, we two seem to be floating off into an empyrean of our own



like the summer clouds above our heads, as they sail dreamily on

into the far-away depths of the unfathomable sky.



It would be more than mortal not to believe in ourselves when

another believes so absolutely in us. Our most secret thoughts are



no longer things to be ashamed of, for she has sanctioned them.

Whatever doubt may have shadowed us as to our own imaginings



disappears before the smile of her appreciation. That her

appreciation may be prejudiced is not a possibility we think of



then. She understands us, or seems to do so to our own better

understanding of ourselves. Happy the man who is thus understood!



Happy even he who imagines that he is, because of her eager wish to

comprehend; fortunate, indeed, if in this one respect he never comes



to see too clearly.

No such blissful infatuation falls to the lot of the Far Oriental.



He never is the dupe of his own desire, the willingvictim of his

self-illusion. He is never tempted to reveal himself, and by thus



revealing, realize. No lovingappreciation urges him on toward the

attainment of his own ideal. That incitement to be what he would



seem to be, to become what she deems becoming, he fails to feel.

Custom has so far fettered fancy that even the wish to communicate



has vanished. He has now nothing to tell; she needs no ear to hear.

For she is not his love; she is only his wife,--what is left of a



romance when the romance is left out. Worse still, she never was

anything else. He has not so much as a memory of her, for he did



not marry her for love; he may not love of his own accord, nor for

the matter of that does he wish to do so. If by some mischance he



should so far forget to forget himself, it were much better for him

had he not done so, for the choice of a bride is not his, nor of a



bridegroom hers. Marriage to a Far Oriental is the most important

mercantile transaction of his whole life. It is, therefore, far too



weighty a matter to be entrusted to his youthful indiscretion; for

although the person herself is of lamentably little account in the



bargain, the character of her worldly circumstances is most material

to it. So she is contracted for with the same care one would



exercise in the choice of any staple business commodity.

The particular sample is not vital to the trade, but the grade of



goods is. She is selected much as the bride of the Vicar of Wakefield

chose her wedding-gown, only that the one was at least cut to suit,



while the other is not. It is certainly easier, if less fitting,

to get a wife as some people do clothes, not to their own order,






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