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

Heroes and Hero Worship-Part4_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_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
contemporaries who had seen him, being once all dead. And in three hundred

years, and in three thousand years--! To attempt _theorizing_ on such



matters would profit little: they are matters which refuse to be

_theoremed_ and diagramed; which Logic ought to know that she _cannot_



speak of. Enough for us to discern, far in the uttermost distance, some

gleam as of a small real light shining in the centre of that enormous



camera-obscure image; to discern that the centre of it all was not a

madness and nothing, but a sanity and something.



This light, kindled in the great dark vortex of the Norse Mind, dark but

living, waiting only for light; this is to me the centre of the whole. How



such light will then shine out, and with wondrous thousand-fold expansion

spread itself, in forms and colors, depends not on _it_, so much as on the



National Mind recipient of it. The colors and forms of your light will be

those of the _cut-glass_ it has to shine through.--Curious to think how,



for every man, any the truest fact is modelled by the nature of the man! I

said, The earnest man, speaking to his brother men, must always have stated



what seemed to him a _fact_, a real Appearance of Nature. But the way in

which such Appearance or fact shaped itself,--what sort of _fact_ it became



for him,--was and is modified by his own laws of thinking; deep, subtle,

but universal, ever-operating laws. The world of Nature, for every man, is



the Fantasy of Himself. this world is the multiplex "Image of his own

Dream." Who knows to what unnamable subtleties of spiritual law all these



Pagan Fables owe their shape! The number Twelve, divisiblest of all, which

could be halved, quartered, parted into three, into six, the most



remarkable number,--this was enough to determine the _Signs of the Zodiac_,

the number of Odin's _Sons_, and innumerable other Twelves. Any vague



rumor of number had a tendency to settle itself into Twelve. So with

regard to every other matter. And quite unconsciously too,--with no notion



of building up " Allegories "! But the fresh clear glance of those First

Ages would be prompt in discerning the secret relations of things, and



wholly open to obey these. Schiller finds in the _Cestus of Venus_ an

everlasting aesthetic truth as to the nature of all Beauty; curious:--but



he is careful not to insinuate that the old Greek Mythists had any notion

of lecturing about the "Philosophy of Criticism"!--On the whole, we must



leave those boundless regions. Cannot we conceive that Odin was a reality?

Error indeed, error enough: but sheer falsehood, idle fables, allegory



aforethought,--we will not believe that our Fathers believed in these.

Odin's _Runes_ are a significant feature of him. Runes, and the miracles



of "magic" he worked by them, make a great feature in tradition. Runes are

the Scandinavian Alphabet; suppose Odin to have been the inventor of



Letters, as well as "magic," among that people! It is the greatest

invention man has ever made! this of marking down the unseen thought that



is in him by written characters. It is a kind of second speech, almost as

miraculous as the first. You remember the astonishment and incredulity of



Atahualpa the Peruvian King; how he made the Spanish Soldier who was

guarding him scratch _Dios_ on his thumb-nail, that he might try the next



soldier with it, to ascertain whether such a miracle was possible. If Odin

brought Letters among his people, he might work magic enough!



Writing by Runes has some air of being original among the Norsemen: not a

Phoenician Alphabet, but a native Scandinavian one. Snorro tells us



farther that Odin invented Poetry; the music of human speech, as well as

that miraculous runic marking of it. Transport yourselves into the early



childhood of nations; the first beautiful morning-light of our Europe, when

all yet lay in fresh young radiance as of a great sunrise, and our Europe



was first beginning to think, to be! Wonder, hope; infiniteradiance of

hope and wonder, as of a young child's thoughts, in the hearts of these



strong men! Strong sons of Nature; and here was not only a wild Captain

and Fighter; discerning with his wild flashing eyes what to do, with his



wild lion-heart daring and doing it; but a Poet too, all that we mean by a

Poet, Prophet, great devout Thinker and Inventor,--as the truly Great Man



ever is. A Hero is a Hero at all points; in the soul and thought of him




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