【国外英文文学】Ponkapog Papers.doc

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1、【国外英文文学】Ponkapog PapersPonkapog Papersby Thomas Bailey AldrichTO FRANCIS BARTLETTTHESE miscellaneous notes andessays are called Ponkapog Papersnot simply because they chanced, forthe most part, to be written within thelimits of the old Indian Reservation,but, rather, because there is somethingtypica

2、l of their unpretentiousness in themodesty with which Ponkapog assumesto being even a village. The littleMassachusetts settlement, nestled underthe wing of the Blue Hills, has no illu-sions concerning itself, never mistakesthe cackle of the bourg for the soundthat echoes round the world, and nomore

3、thinks of rivalling great centres ofhuman activity than these slight papersdream of inviting comparison betweenthemselves and important pieces ofliterature. Therefore there seems some-thing especially appropriate in the geo-graphical title selected, and if the au-thors choice of name need furtherexc

4、use, it is to be found in the alluringalliteration lying ready at his hand.REDMAN FARM, Ponkapog,1903.CONTENTSLEAVES FROM A NOTE BOOKASIDES TOM FOLIO FLEABODY AND OTHER QUEER NAMES A NOTE ON LAIGLON PLOT AND CHARACTER THE CRUELTY OF SCIENCE LEIGH HUNT AND BARRY CORNWALL DECORATION DAY WRITERS AND TA

5、LKERS ON EARLY RISING UN POETE MANQUE THE MALE COSTUME OF THE PERIOD ON A CERTAIN AFFECTATION WISHMAKERS TOWN HISTORICAL NOVELS POOR YORICK THE AUTOGRAPH HUNTERROBERT HERRICKLEAVES FROM A NOTE BOOKIN his Memoirs, Kropotkin states the singularfact that the natives of the Malayan Archipel-ago have an

6、idea that something is extracted fromthem when their likenesses are taken by photo-graphy. Here is the motive for a fantastic shortstory, in which the hero-an author in vogueor a popular actor-might be depicted as havingall his good qualities gradually photographedout of him. This could well be the

7、result oftoo prolonged indulgence in the effort to looknatural. First the man loses his charming sim-plicity; then he begins to pose in intellectualattitudes, with finger on brow; then he becomesmorbidly self-conscious, and finally ends in anasylum for incurable egotists. His death mightbe brought a

8、bout by a cold caught in going outbareheaded, there being, for the moment, no hatin the market of sufficient circumference to meethis enlarged requirement.THE evening we dropped anchor in the Bayof Yedo the moon was hanging directly overYokohama. It was a mother-of-pearl moon,and might have been man

9、ufactured by any ofthe delicate artisans in the Hanchodori quarter.It impressed one as being a very good imitation,but nothing more. Nammikawa, the cloisonne-worker at Tokio, could have made a bettermoon.I NOTICE the announcement of a new editionof The Two First Centuries of FlorentineLiterature, by

10、 Professor Pasquale Villari. Iam not acquainted with the work in question,but I trust that Professor Villari makes it plainto the reader how both centuries happened to befirst.THE walking delegates of a higher civiliza-tion, who have nothing to divide, look upon thenotion of property as a purely art

11、ificial creationof human society. According to these advancedphilosophers, the time will come when no manshall be allowed to call anything his. The bene-ficent law which takes away an authors rightsin his own books just at the period when oldage is creeping upon him seems to me a hand-some stride to

12、ward the longed-for millennium.SAVE US from our friends-our enemies wecan guard against. The well-meaning rector ofthe little parish of Woodgates, England, andseveral of Robert Brownings local admirershave recently busied themselves in erecting atablet to the memory of the first known fore-father of

13、 the poet. This lately turned up an-cestor, who does not date very far back, was alsonamed Robert Browning, and is described onthe mural marble as formerly footman andbutler to Sir John Bankes of Corfe Castle.Now, Robert Browning the poet had as goodright as Abou Ben Adhem himself to ask to beplaced

14、 on the list of those who love their fellowmen; but if the poet could have been consultedin the matter he probably would have preferrednot to have that particular footman exhumed.However, it is an ill wind that blows nobodygood. Sir John Bankes would scarcely havebeen heard of in our young century i

15、f it hadnot been for his footman. As Robert stood dayby day, sleek and solemn, behind his masterschair in Corfe Castle, how little it entered intothe head of Sir John that his highly respectablename would be served up to posterity-like acold relish-by his own butler! By Robert!IN the east-side slums

16、 of New York, some-where in the picturesque Bowery district,stretches a malodorous little street whollygiven over to long-bearded, bird-beaked mer-chants of ready-made and second-hand clothing.The contents of the dingy shops seem to haverevolted, and rushed pell-mell out of doors, andtaken possessio

17、n of the sidewalk. One couldfancy that the rebellion had been quelled at thispoint, and that those ghastly rows of completesuits strung up on either side of the doorwayswere the bodies of the seditious ringleaders.But as you approach these limp figures, eachdangling and gyrating on its cord in a mos

18、tsuggestive fashion, you notice, pinned to thelapel of a coat here and there, a strip of paperannouncing the very low price at which youmay become the happy possessor. That dis-sipates the illusion.POLONIUS, in the play, gets killed-and notany too soon. If it only were practicable to killhim in real

19、 life! A story-to be called ThePassing of Polonius-in which a king issues adecree condemning to death every long-winded,didactic person in the kingdom, irrespective ofrank, and is himself instantly arrested and de-capitated. The man who suspects his owntediousness is yet to be born.WHENEVER I take u

20、p Emersons poems I findmyself turning automatically to his Bacchus.Elsewhere, in detachable passages embedded inmediocre verse, he rises for a moment to heightsnot reached by any other of our poets; butBacchus is in the grand style throughout. Its tex-ture can bear comparison with the worlds bestin

21、this kind. In imaginative quality and austererichness of diction what other verse of ourperiod approaches it? The day Emerson wroteBacchus he had in him, as Michael Drayton saidof Marlowe, those brave translunary thingsthat the first poets had.IMAGINE all human beings swept off the face ofthe earth,

22、 excepting one man. Imagine thisman in some vast city, New York or London.Imagine him on the third or fourth day of hissolitude sitting in a house and hearing a ringat the door-bell!No man has ever yet succeeded in painting anhonest portrait of himself in an autobiography,however sedulously he may h

23、ave set to workabout it. In spite of his candid purpose heomits necessary touches and adds superfluousones. At times he cannot help draping histhought, and the least shred of drapery becomesa disguise. It is only the diarist who accom-plishes the feat of self-portraiture, and he, with-out any such e

24、nd in view, does it unconsciously.A man cannot keep a daily record of his com-ings and goings and the little items that makeup the sum of his life, and not inadvertentlybetray himself at every turn. He lays bare hisheart with a candor not possible to the self-consciousness that inevitably colors pre

25、meditatedrevelation. While Pepys was filling those smalloctavo pages with his perplexing cipher henever once suspected that he was adding a pho-tographic portrait of himself to the worlds gal-lery of immortals. We are more intimatelyacquainted with Mr. Samuel Pepys, the innerman-his little meannesse

26、s and his large gener-osities-then we are with half the persons wecall our dear friends.THE young girl in my story is to be as sensitiveto praise as a prism is to light. Whenever any-body praises her she breaks into colors.IN the process of dusting my study, the othermorning, the maid replaced an en

27、graving ofPhilip II. of Spain up-side down on the man-tel-shelf, and his majesty has remained in thatundignified posture ever since. I have no dis-position to come to his aid. My abhorrence ofthe wretch is as hearty as if he had not beendead and-otherwise provided for these lastthree hundred years.

28、Bloody Mary of Englandwas nearly as merciless, but she was sincere anduncompromising in her extirpation of heretics.Philip II., whose one recorded hearty laugh wasoccasioned by the news of the St. Bartholomewmassacre, could mask his fanaticism or drop itfor the time being, when it seemed politic to

29、doso. Queen Mary was a maniac; but the suc-cessor of Torquemada was the incarnation ofcruelty pure and simple, and I have a mind tolet my counterfeit presentment of him stand onits head for the rest of its natural life. I cor-dially dislike several persons, but I hate no-body, living or dead, except

30、ing Philip II. ofSpain. He appears to give me as much troubleas Charles I. gave the amiable Mr. Dick.AMONG the delightful men and women whomyou are certain to meet at an English countryhouse there is generally one guest who is sup-posed to be preternaturally clever and amusing-so very droll, dont yo

31、u know. He recitesthings, tells stories in costermonger dialect, andmimics public characters. He is a type of aclass, and I take him to be one of the elemen-tary forms of animal life, like the acalephae.His presence is capable of adding a gloom toan undertakers establishment. The last time Ifell in

32、with him was on a coaching trip throughDevon, and in spite of what I have said I mustconfess to receiving an instant of entertainmentat his hands. He was delivering a little dis-sertation on the English and American lan-guages. As there were two Americans on theback seat-it seems we term ourselves A

33、mur-ricans-his choice of subject was full of tact.It was exhilarating to get a lesson in pronuncia-tion from a gentleman who said boult for bolt,called St. John Sin Jun, and did not knowhow to pronounce the beautiful name of hisown college at Oxford. Fancy a perfectly soberman saying Maudlin for Mag

34、dalen! Perhapsthe purest English spoken is that of the Englishfolk who have resided abroad ever since theElizabethan period, or thereabouts.EVERY one has a bookplate these days, and thecollectors are after it. The fool and his book-plate are soon parted. To distribute ones ex-libris is inanely to de

35、stroy the only significanceit has, that of indicating the past or presentownership of the volume in which it is placed.WHEN an Englishman is not highly imaginativehe is apt to be the most matter-of-fact of mortals.He is rarely imaginative, and seldom has an alertsense of humor. Yet England has produ

36、cedthe finest of humorists and the greatest ofpoets. The humor and imagination whichare diffused through other peoples concentratethemselves from time to time in individualEnglishmen.THIS is a page of autobiography, though notwritten in the first person: Many years ago anoted Boston publisher used t

37、o keep a largememorandum-book on a table in his personaloffice. The volume always lay open, and was inno manner a private affair, being the receptacleof nothing more important than hastily scrawledreminders to attend to this thing or the other. Itchanced one day that a very young, unfledgedauthor, p

38、assing through the city, looked in uponthe publisher, who was also the editor of afamous magazine. The unfledged had a copyof verses secreted about his person. The pub-lisher was absent, and young Milton, feelingthat they also serve who only stand and wait,sat down and waited. Presently his eye fell

39、upon the memorandum-book, lying there spreadout like a morning newspaper, and almost inspite of himself he read: Dont forget to seethe binder, Dont forget to mail E- hiscontract, Dont forget H-s proofs, etc.An inspiration seized upon the youth; he tooka pencil, and at the tail of this long list ofdo

40、nt forgets he wrote: Dont forget toaccept A s poem. He left his manuscripton the table and disappeared. That afternoonwhen the publisher glanced over his memo-randa, he was not a little astonished at the lastitem; but his sense of humor was so strong thathe did accept the poem (it required a strongs

41、ense of humor to do that), and sent the lad acheck for it, though the verses remain to thisday unprinted. That kindly publisher was wiseas well as kind.FRENCH novels with metaphysical or psycholo-gical prefaces are always certain to be particu-larly indecent.I HAVE lately discovered that Master Harr

42、ySandford of England, the priggish little boyin the story of Sandford and Merton, has aworthy American cousin in one Elsie Dinsmore,who sedately pirouettes through a seemingly end-less succession of girls books. I came acrossa nest of fifteen of them the other day. Thisimpossible female is carried f

43、rom infancy up tograndmotherhood, and is, I believe, still lei-surely pursuing her way down to the tomb in anecstatic state of uninterrupted didacticism. Thereare twenty-five volumes of her and the grand-daughter, who is also christened Elsie, and is hergrandmothers own child, with the same preco-ci

44、ous readiness to dispense ethical instruction toher elders. An interesting instance of hereditarytalent!H-s intellect resembles a bamboo-slender,graceful, and hollow. Personally, he is long andnarrow, and looks as if he might have beenthe product of a rope-walk. He is loosely puttogether, like an ill-constructed sentenc