章节正文
a long brilliantpathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing
grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger,
glared wilder and still wilder. A huge shape developed itself
out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke,
starred and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away
into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came,
till its long sides began to glow with spots of light
which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster
like a torch-light procession.
"`What is it? Oh! what is it, Uncle Dan'l?'
"With deep solemnity the answer came:
"`It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!'
"It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling in a moment.
And then while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and stronger
and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's voice
lifted up its supplications.
"`O Lord, we's ben mightywicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go
to de bad place, but, good Lord, deah Lord, we ain't ready yit,
we ain't ready -- let dese po' chil'en hab one mo' chance,
jes' one mo' chance. Take de ole niggah if you's got to hab somebody. --
Good Lord, good deah Lord, we don't know whah you's a gwine to,
we don't know who you's got yo' eye on, but we knows by de way you's a comin',
we know by de way you's a tiltin' along in yo' charyot o' fiah
dat some po' sinner's a gwine to ketch it. But, good Lord, dese chil'en
don't 'blong heah, dey's f'm Obedstown whah dey don't know nuffin,
an' you knows, yo' own sef, dat dey ain't 'sponsible. An' deah Lord,
good Lord, it ain't like yo' mercy, it ain't like yo' pity, it ain't like
yo' long-sufferin' lovin'-kindness for to take dis kind o' 'vantage
o' sich little chil'en as dese is when dey's so many ornery grown folks
chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down dah. O Lord,
spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away f'm dey frens,
jes' let 'em off jes' dis once, and take it out'n de ole niggah.
HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, de ole ----'
"The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party,
and not twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud-valve
suddenly burst forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly
Uncle Dan'l snatched a child under each arm and scoured into the woods
with the rest of the pack at his heels. And then, ashamed of himself,
he halted in the deep darkness and shouted (but rather feebly):
"`Heah I is, Lord, heah I is!'
"There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then,
to the surprise and comfort of the party, it was plain
that the august presence had gone by, for its dreadful noises were receding.
Uncle Dan'l headed a cautious reconnoissance in the direction of the log.
Sure enough `The Lord' was just turning a point a short distance up the river,
and while they looked, the lights winked out and the coughing
diminished by degrees and presently ceased altogether.
"`H'wsh! Well now dey's some folks says dey ain't no 'ficiency in prah.
Dis chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo' dat prah?
Dat's it. Dat's it!'"
There follows a discussion as to whether or not the prayer caused
the apparition to go by, of which of course Uncle Dan'l has no doubt.
The apparition reappears and Uncle Dan'l betakes himself to prayer again,
this time a long way off.
I wrote the authors of `The Gilded Age' and asked the source
of `Uncle Daniel's Apparition and Prayer'. Mr. Clemens kindly replied
that he is the author of the piece, and that it is pure fiction
without either history or tradition back of it.
A comparison of the two stories shows some differences.
The scene in the one case is the Alabama River, in the other the Mississippi.
Moreover, the PERSONNEL is different. The Negro man in Twain's story
is about forty, in Lanier's he is old and has been blind for forty years.
Another difference Mr. Sidney Lanier points out to his wife
in his letter of October 1, 1874: "Cliff's and my `Power of Prayer'
will come out in the Scribner's; probably in the `Etchings'
at the end of the Magazine. I wrote thee what Dr. Holland said
anent its resemblance to something of Mark Twain's in plot.
Day before yesterday I called and asked Dr. Holland what work of Mark Twain's
he referred to. `Well,' said he, `I know nothing about it myself:
I read the poem to a friend, and he suggested that the plot
was like something of Mark Twain's. But yesterday I read him your note,
and he then recollected that in Twain's version it is God Almighty
that is coming up the bend. In yours it is the Devil: -- which certainly
makes a little difference!' and here he broke into a great laugh.
`Yes,' I rejoined, `a difference toto coelo,' whereat he laughed again,
and told me he had already ordered a check to be sent me for the poem."
Mr. Clifford Lanier was born at Griffin, Ga., April 24, 1844, entered business
in Montgomery, Ala., at fourteen, subsequently attended college
for a year and a half, and in May, 1862, joined his brother
in the Confederate Army. His soldier life has been detailed
in connection with that of the poet. In October, 1864, Mr. Clifford Lanier
was assigned as signal officer to the blockade-runner `Talisman',
which, after two successful runs to the Bermuda Islands,
was wrecked in December, 1864. He escaped, however,
and surrendered to the Federal authorities at the end of April, 1865.
He has been successively lawyer, hotel manager, and superintendent of schools
in Montgomery, Ala. For several years past he has been a director
of the Bank of Montgomery and other corporations. All the while, however,
he has been deeply interested in literature and has written
some graceful sketches and poems, among which may be mentioned the following:
`Thorn-fruit' (1867), `Love and Loyalty at War' (1893),
`Biding Tryst' (1894), prose; `Greatest of These is Love',
`The American Philomel', `Keats and Fanny B----', `The Spirit of Art',
`Antinous to Hadrian', `Time', `Tireless', `Tramp' (in Stedman
and Hutchinson's `Library of American Literature'), `Love and Life',
`Edgar Allan Poe', etc. As stated in the `Introduction',
the Chautauquans of 1898 have named themselves "The Laniers"
in honor of Messrs. Sidney and Clifford Lanier. The motto of the class
is the first line of Mr. Clifford Lanier's `Transformation'
(`Sunday-school Times', Phila., June 30, 1894):
"The humblest life that lives may be divine."
8. The complete `Poems' has `the' before `world', but Mrs. Lanier
thinks the poet must have used `de' here as elsewhere.
Rose-morals
I. -- Red
Would that my songs might be [1]
What roses make by day and night --
Distillments of my clod of misery
Into delight.
Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast
As yon red rose, and dare the day,
All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?
Say yea -- say yea!
Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye;
The wind is up; so; drift away.
That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly, [11]
I strive, I pray.
II. -- White
Soul, get thee to the heart
Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there --
There breathe the meditations of thine art
Suffused with prayer.
Of spirit grave yet light,
How fervent fragrances uprise
Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white
Virginities!
Mulched with unsavory death, [21]
Grow, Soul! unto such white estate,
That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath,
Thy work, thy fate.
____
Baltimore, 1875.
Notes: Rose-morals
Rose-morals in English literature probably begin with
Sir John Mandeville in the fourteenth century. At any rate,
in the eighteenth chapter of his `Voyage and Travels' he professes
to tell us the origin of red and white roses. A fair maid had been
unjustly accused of wrong-doing and doomed to die by fire.
"And as the woode began to brenne (burn) about hir, she made hir prayer
to our Lorde as she was not gyltie of that thing, that he would helpe hir
that it might be knowne to all men. And whan (when) she had thus sayde,
she entered the fyre and anone the fyre went out, and those braunches
that were brenninge (burning) became red Roses and those braunches
that were not kindled became white Rosiers (rose bushes) full of white roses,
and those were the fyrst roses and rosyers that any man sawe,
and so was the mayden saved through the grace of God."
Thomas Carew has several rose-moralities, as `The True Beauty',
beginning "He that loves a rosy cheek," and his exquisite
`Red and White Roses':
"Read in these roses the sad story
Of my hard fate and your own glory:
In the white you may discover
The paleness of a fainting lover;
In the red, the flames still feeding
On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding.
The white will tell you how I languish,
And the red express my anguish:
The white my innocence displaying,
The red my martyrdom betraying.
The frowns that on your brow resided
Have those roses thus divided;
Oh! let your smiles but clear the weather,
And then they both shall grow together."*
--
* See Saintsbury's `Elizabethan Literature' (Macmillan & Co., New York, 1887),
p. 363.
--
Rollicking Robert Herrick, too, draws his morals, now advising the virgins
to make much of time, as in his `Gather ye rose-buds while ye may',
now preaching a rarelypatheticsermon, as in `To Blossoms':
"Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.
"What, were ye born to be
An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.
"But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride
Like you, awhile, they glide
Into the grave."*
--
* `Palgrave', p. 89.
--
Much like this last piece in import, and scarcely inferior to it in execution,
is `My life is like the summer rose' of Richard Henry Wilde,
which is familiar to every one.
Paul Hamilton Hayne's `The Red and the White Rose' (`Poems', pp. 231-232)
is an interesting dialogue, which the author concludes by making the former
an "earthly queen" and the latter a "heaven-bound votaress".
Mrs. Browning's `A Lay of the Early Rose' shows that we are not to strive
"for the dole of praise."
To ----, with a Rose
I asked my heart to say [1]
grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger,
glared wilder and still wilder. A huge shape developed itself
out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke,
starred and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away
into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came,
till its long sides began to glow with spots of light
which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster
like a torch-light procession.
"`What is it? Oh! what is it, Uncle Dan'l?'
"With deep solemnity the answer came:
"`It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!'
"It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling in a moment.
And then while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and stronger
and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's voice
lifted up its supplications.
"`O Lord, we's ben mightywicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go
to de bad place, but, good Lord, deah Lord, we ain't ready yit,
we ain't ready -- let dese po' chil'en hab one mo' chance,
jes' one mo' chance. Take de ole niggah if you's got to hab somebody. --
Good Lord, good deah Lord, we don't know whah you's a gwine to,
we don't know who you's got yo' eye on, but we knows by de way you's a comin',
we know by de way you's a tiltin' along in yo' charyot o' fiah
dat some po' sinner's a gwine to ketch it. But, good Lord, dese chil'en
don't 'blong heah, dey's f'm Obedstown whah dey don't know nuffin,
an' you knows, yo' own sef, dat dey ain't 'sponsible. An' deah Lord,
good Lord, it ain't like yo' mercy, it ain't like yo' pity, it ain't like
yo' long-sufferin' lovin'-kindness for to take dis kind o' 'vantage
o' sich little chil'en as dese is when dey's so many ornery grown folks
chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down dah. O Lord,
spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away f'm dey frens,
jes' let 'em off jes' dis once, and take it out'n de ole niggah.
HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, de ole ----'
"The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party,
and not twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud-valve
suddenly burst forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly
Uncle Dan'l snatched a child under each arm and scoured into the woods
with the rest of the pack at his heels. And then, ashamed of himself,
he halted in the deep darkness and shouted (but rather feebly):
"`Heah I is, Lord, heah I is!'
"There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then,
to the surprise and comfort of the party, it was plain
that the august presence had gone by, for its dreadful noises were receding.
Uncle Dan'l headed a cautious reconnoissance in the direction of the log.
Sure enough `The Lord' was just turning a point a short distance up the river,
and while they looked, the lights winked out and the coughing
diminished by degrees and presently ceased altogether.
"`H'wsh! Well now dey's some folks says dey ain't no 'ficiency in prah.
Dis chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo' dat prah?
Dat's it. Dat's it!'"
There follows a discussion as to whether or not the prayer caused
the apparition to go by, of which of course Uncle Dan'l has no doubt.
The apparition reappears and Uncle Dan'l betakes himself to prayer again,
this time a long way off.
I wrote the authors of `The Gilded Age' and asked the source
of `Uncle Daniel's Apparition and Prayer'. Mr. Clemens kindly replied
that he is the author of the piece, and that it is pure fiction
without either history or tradition back of it.
A comparison of the two stories shows some differences.
The scene in the one case is the Alabama River, in the other the Mississippi.
Moreover, the PERSONNEL is different. The Negro man in Twain's story
is about forty, in Lanier's he is old and has been blind for forty years.
Another difference Mr. Sidney Lanier points out to his wife
in his letter of October 1, 1874: "Cliff's and my `Power of Prayer'
will come out in the Scribner's; probably in the `Etchings'
at the end of the Magazine. I wrote thee what Dr. Holland said
anent its resemblance to something of Mark Twain's in plot.
Day before yesterday I called and asked Dr. Holland what work of Mark Twain's
he referred to. `Well,' said he, `I know nothing about it myself:
I read the poem to a friend, and he suggested that the plot
was like something of Mark Twain's. But yesterday I read him your note,
and he then recollected that in Twain's version it is God Almighty
that is coming up the bend. In yours it is the Devil: -- which certainly
makes a little difference!' and here he broke into a great laugh.
`Yes,' I rejoined, `a difference toto coelo,' whereat he laughed again,
and told me he had already ordered a check to be sent me for the poem."
Mr. Clifford Lanier was born at Griffin, Ga., April 24, 1844, entered business
in Montgomery, Ala., at fourteen, subsequently attended college
for a year and a half, and in May, 1862, joined his brother
in the Confederate Army. His soldier life has been detailed
in connection with that of the poet. In October, 1864, Mr. Clifford Lanier
was assigned as signal officer to the blockade-runner `Talisman',
which, after two successful runs to the Bermuda Islands,
was wrecked in December, 1864. He escaped, however,
and surrendered to the Federal authorities at the end of April, 1865.
He has been successively lawyer, hotel manager, and superintendent of schools
in Montgomery, Ala. For several years past he has been a director
of the Bank of Montgomery and other corporations. All the while, however,
he has been deeply interested in literature and has written
some graceful sketches and poems, among which may be mentioned the following:
`Thorn-fruit' (1867), `Love and Loyalty at War' (1893),
`Biding Tryst' (1894), prose; `Greatest of These is Love',
`The American Philomel', `Keats and Fanny B----', `The Spirit of Art',
`Antinous to Hadrian', `Time', `Tireless', `Tramp' (in Stedman
and Hutchinson's `Library of American Literature'), `Love and Life',
`Edgar Allan Poe', etc. As stated in the `Introduction',
the Chautauquans of 1898 have named themselves "The Laniers"
in honor of Messrs. Sidney and Clifford Lanier. The motto of the class
is the first line of Mr. Clifford Lanier's `Transformation'
(`Sunday-school Times', Phila., June 30, 1894):
"The humblest life that lives may be divine."
8. The complete `Poems' has `the' before `world', but Mrs. Lanier
thinks the poet must have used `de' here as elsewhere.
Rose-morals
I. -- Red
Would that my songs might be [1]
What roses make by day and night --
Distillments of my clod of misery
Into delight.
Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast
As yon red rose, and dare the day,
All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?
Say yea -- say yea!
Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye;
The wind is up; so; drift away.
That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly, [11]
I strive, I pray.
II. -- White
Soul, get thee to the heart
Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there --
There breathe the meditations of thine art
Suffused with prayer.
Of spirit grave yet light,
How fervent fragrances uprise
Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white
Virginities!
Mulched with unsavory death, [21]
Grow, Soul! unto such white estate,
That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath,
Thy work, thy fate.
____
Baltimore, 1875.
Notes: Rose-morals
Rose-morals in English literature probably begin with
Sir John Mandeville in the fourteenth century. At any rate,
in the eighteenth chapter of his `Voyage and Travels' he professes
to tell us the origin of red and white roses. A fair maid had been
unjustly accused of wrong-doing and doomed to die by fire.
"And as the woode began to brenne (burn) about hir, she made hir prayer
to our Lorde as she was not gyltie of that thing, that he would helpe hir
that it might be knowne to all men. And whan (when) she had thus sayde,
she entered the fyre and anone the fyre went out, and those braunches
that were brenninge (burning) became red Roses and those braunches
that were not kindled became white Rosiers (rose bushes) full of white roses,
and those were the fyrst roses and rosyers that any man sawe,
and so was the mayden saved through the grace of God."
Thomas Carew has several rose-moralities, as `The True Beauty',
beginning "He that loves a rosy cheek," and his exquisite
`Red and White Roses':
"Read in these roses the sad story
Of my hard fate and your own glory:
In the white you may discover
The paleness of a fainting lover;
In the red, the flames still feeding
On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding.
The white will tell you how I languish,
And the red express my anguish:
The white my innocence displaying,
The red my martyrdom betraying.
The frowns that on your brow resided
Have those roses thus divided;
Oh! let your smiles but clear the weather,
And then they both shall grow together."*
--
* See Saintsbury's `Elizabethan Literature' (Macmillan & Co., New York, 1887),
p. 363.
--
Rollicking Robert Herrick, too, draws his morals, now advising the virgins
to make much of time, as in his `Gather ye rose-buds while ye may',
now preaching a rarelypatheticsermon, as in `To Blossoms':
"Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.
"What, were ye born to be
An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.
"But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride
Like you, awhile, they glide
Into the grave."*
--
* `Palgrave', p. 89.
--
Much like this last piece in import, and scarcely inferior to it in execution,
is `My life is like the summer rose' of Richard Henry Wilde,
which is familiar to every one.
Paul Hamilton Hayne's `The Red and the White Rose' (`Poems', pp. 231-232)
is an interesting dialogue, which the author concludes by making the former
an "earthly queen" and the latter a "heaven-bound votaress".
Mrs. Browning's `A Lay of the Early Rose' shows that we are not to strive
"for the dole of praise."
To ----, with a Rose
I asked my heart to say [1]
- brilliant [´briliənt]
a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词) - mysterious [mi´stiəriəs] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (初中英语单词)
- wicked [´wikid] a.邪恶的；不道德的 (初中英语单词)
- steamer [´sti:mə] n.汽船；轮船；蒸笼 (初中英语单词)
- thunder [´θʌndə] n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词)
- ashamed [ə´ʃeimd] a.惭愧；不好意思 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- discussion [di´skʌʃən] n.讨论；辩论 (初中英语单词)
- tradition [trə´diʃən] n.传统；惯例；传说 (初中英语单词)
- comparison [kəm´pærisən] n.比较；对照；比喻 (初中英语单词)
- holland [´hɔlənd] n.荷兰 (初中英语单词)
- yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
- connection [kə´nekʃən] n.联系；关系；联运 (初中英语单词)
- federal [´fedərəl] a.联邦的，联邦制的 (初中英语单词)
- lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
- manager [´mænidʒə] n.经理；管理人；干事 (初中英语单词)
- literature [´litərətʃə] n.文学；文献；著作 (初中英语单词)
- graceful [´greisfəl] a.优美的，流畅的 (初中英语单词)
- velvet [´velvit] n.&a.天鹅绒(般的) (初中英语单词)
- origin [´ɔridʒin] n.起源；由来；出身 (初中英语单词)
- rarely [´reəli] ad.难得；非凡地 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
- import [im´pɔ:t, ´impɔ:t] vt.&n.进口；输入 (初中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- abreast [ə´brest] ad.并排，并肩 (高中英语单词)
- resemblance [ri´zembləns] n.类似；肖像；外表 (高中英语单词)
- subsequently [´sʌbsikwəntli] a.其次，接着 (高中英语单词)
- confederate [kən´fedəreit] a.同盟的 n.同盟者 (高中英语单词)
- superintendent [,su:pərin´tendənt, ,sju:-] n.管理人，负责人 (高中英语单词)
- loyalty [´lɔiəlti] n.忠诚；忠心；忠实 (高中英语单词)
- strive [straiv] vi.争取；努力；奋斗 (高中英语单词)
- innocence [´inəsəns] n.无罪；天真 (高中英语单词)
- sermon [´sə:mən] n.说教；训诫；讲道 (高中英语单词)
- fruitful [´fru:tfəl] a.成功的；丰富的 (高中英语单词)
- inferior [in´fiəriə] n.下级的 n.下级；晚辈 (高中英语单词)
- pathway [´pɑ:θwei] n.小路 (英语四级单词)
- duplicate [´dju:plikit] vt.复写 a.副的 n.复本 (英语四级单词)
- flaming [´fleimiŋ] a.熊熊燃烧的；热情的 (英语四级单词)
- cautious [´kɔ:ʃəs] a.小心的；谨慎的 (英语四级单词)
- alabama [,ælə´bæmə] n.亚拉巴马(州) (英语四级单词)
- version [´və:ʃən, ´və:rʒən] n.翻译；说明；译本 (英语四级单词)
- whereat [weər´æt] ad.对于...；在这里 (英语四级单词)
- pathetic [pə´θetik] a.可怜的；悲哀的 (英语四级单词)
- solemnity [sə´lemniti] n.庄严；(隆重的)仪式 (英语六级单词)
- suspense [sə´spens] n.悬挂；悬虑不安 (英语六级单词)
- august [ɔ:´gʌst] a.尊严的；威严的 (英语六级单词)
- apparition [,æpə´riʃən] n.(幽灵)出现；鬼；幻影 (英语六级单词)
- personnel [,pə:sə´nel] n人事(部门)；全体人员 (英语六级单词)
- fervent [´fə:vənt] a.强烈的；热情的 (英语六级单词)
- martyrdom [´mɑ:tədəm] n.殉难；牺牲 (英语六级单词)
- preaching [´pri:tʃiŋ] n.说教 a.说教的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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