The very stars are made of clay like mine.”
The mightiest1 and absurdest sleep-walker on the planet! Chained in the circle of his own imaginings, man is only too keen to forget his origin and to shame that flesh of his that bleeds like all flesh and that is good to eat. Civilization (which is part of the circle of his imaginings) has spread a veneer2 over the surface of the soft-shelled animal known as man. It is a very thin veneer; but so wonderfully is man constituted that he squirms on his bit of achievement and believes he is garbed3 in armour-plate.
Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy’s skull4 in the dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women from neighbouring clans5 like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood body of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. Nor has his mind changed. There is no faculty6 of the mind of man to-day that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago. Man has to-day no concept that is too wide and deep and abstract for the mind of Plato or Aristotle to grasp. Give to Plato or Aristotle the same fund of knowledge that man to-day has access to, and Plato and Aristotle would reason as profoundly as the man of to-day and would achieve very similar conclusions.
It is the same old animal man, smeared8 over, it is true, with a veneer, thin and magical, that makes him dream drunken dreams of self-exaltation and to sneer9 at the flesh and the blood of him beneath the smear7. The raw animal crouching10 within him is like the earthquake monster pent in the crust of the earth. As he persuades himself against the latter till it arouses and shakes down a city, so does he persuade himself against the former until it shakes him out of his dreaming and he stands undisguised, a brute11 like any other brute.
Starve him, let him miss six meals, and see gape12 through the veneer the hungry maw of the animal beneath. Get between him and the female of his kind upon whom his mating instinct is bent13, and see his eyes blaze like an angry cat’s, hear in his throat the scream of wild stallions, and watch his fists clench14 like an orang-outang’s. Maybe he will even beat his chest. Touch his silly vanity, which he exalts15 into high-sounding pride — call him a liar16, and behold17 the red animal in him that makes a hand clutching that is quick like the tensing of a tiger’s claw, or an eagle’s talon18, incarnate19 with desire to rip and tear.
It is not necessary to call him a liar to touch his vanity. Tell a plains Indian that he has failed to steal horses from the neighbouring tribe, or tell a man living in bourgeois20 society that he has failed to pay his bills at the neighbouring grocer’s, and the results are the same. Each, plains Indian and bourgeois, is smeared with a slightly different veneer, that is all. It requires a slightly different stick to scrape it off. The raw animals beneath are identical.
But intrude21 not violently upon man, leave him alone in his somnambulism, and he kicks out from under his feet the ladder of life up which he has climbed, constitutes himself the centre of the universe, dreams sordidly22 about his own particular god, and maunders metaphysically about his own blessed immortality23.
True, he lives in a real world, breathes real air, eats real food, and sleeps under real blankets, in order to keep real cold away. And there’s the rub. He has to effect adjustments with the real world and at the same time maintain the sublimity24 of his dream. The result of this admixture of the real and the unreal is confusion thrice confounded. The man that walks the real world in his sleep becomes such a tangled25 mass of contradictions, paradoxes26, and lies that he has to lie to himself in order to stay asleep.
In passing, it may be noted27 that some men are remarkably28 constituted in this matter of self-deception. They excel at deceiving themselves. They believe, and they help others to believe. It becomes their function in society, and some of them are paid large salaries for helping29 their fellow-men to believe, for instance, that they are not as other animals; for helping the king to believe, and his parasites30 and drudges31 as well, that he is God’s own manager over so many square miles of earth-crust; for helping the merchant and banking32 classes to believe that society rests on their shoulders, and that civilization would go to smash if they got out from under and ceased from their exploitations and petty pilferings.
Prize-fighting is terrible. This is the dictum of the man who walks in his sleep. He prates33 about it, and writes to the papers about it, and worries the legislators about it. There is nothing of the brute about him. He is a sublimated34 soul that treads the heights and breathes refined ether — in self-comparison with the prize-fighter. The man who walks in his sleep ignores the flesh and all its wonderful play of muscle, joint35, and nerve. He feels that there is something godlike in the mysterious deeps of his being, denies his relationship with the brute, and proceeds to go forth36 into the world and express by deeds that something godlike within him.
He sits at a desk and chases dollars through the weeks and months and years of his life. To him the life godlike resolves into a problem something like this: Since the great mass of men toil37 at producing wealth, how best can he get between the great mass of men and the wealth they produce, and get a slice for himself? With tremendous exercise of craft, deceit, and guile38, he devotes his life godlike to this purpose. As he succeeds, his somnambulism grows profound. He bribes39 legislatures, buys judges, “controls” primaries, and then goes and hires other men to tell him that it is all glorious and right. And the funniest thing about it is that this arch-deceiver believes all that they tell him. He reads only the newspapers and magazines that tell him what he wants to be told, listens only to the biologists who tell him that he is the finest product of the struggle for existence, and herds42 only with his own kind, where, like the monkey-folk, they teeter up and down and tell one another how great they are.
In the course of his life godlike he ignores the flesh — until he gets to table. He raises his hands in horror at the thought of the brutish prize-fighter, and then sits down and gorges44 himself on roast beef, rare and red, running blood under every sawing thrust of the implement45 called a knife. He has a piece of cloth which he calls a napkin, with which he wipes from his lips, and from the hair on his lips, the greasy46 juices of the meat.
He is fastidiously nauseated47 at the thought of two prize-fighters bruising48 each other with their fists; and at the same time, because it will cost him some money, he will refuse to protect the machines in his factory, though he is aware that the lack of such protection every year mangles49, batters50, and destroys out of all humanness thousands of working-men, women, and children. He will chatter51 about things refined and spiritual and godlike like himself, and he and the men who herd43 with him will calmly adulterate the commodities they put upon the market and which annually52 kill tens of thousands of babies and young children.
He will recoil53 at the suggestion of the horrid54 spectacle of two men confronting each other with gloved hands in the roped arena55, and at the same time he will clamour for larger armies and larger navies, for more destructive war machines, which, with a single discharge, will disrupt and rip to pieces more human beings than have died in the whole history of prize-fighting. He will bribe40 a city council for a franchise56 or a state legislature for a commercial privilege; but he has never been known, in all his sleep-walking history, to bribe any legislative57 body in order to achieve any moral end, such as, for instance, abolition58 of prize-fighting, child-labour laws, pure food bills, or old age pensions.
“Ah, but we do not stand for the commercial life,” object the refined, scholarly, and professional men. They are also sleep-walkers. They do not stand for the commercial life, but neither do they stand against it with all their strength. They submit to it, to the brutality59 and carnage of it. They develop classical economists60 who announce that the only possible way for men and women to get food and shelter is by the existing method. They produce university professors, men who claim the role of teachers, and who at the same time claim that the austere61 ideal of learning is passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence. They serve the men who lead the commercial life, give to their sons somnambulistic educations, preach that sleep-walking is the only way to walk, and that the persons who walk otherwise are atavisms or anarchists62. They paint pictures for the commercial men, write books for them, sing songs for them, act plays for them, and dose them with various drugs when their bodies have grown gross or dyspeptic from overeating and lack of exercise.
Then there are the good, kind somnambulists who don’t prize-fight, who don’t play the commercial game, who don’t teach and preach somnambulism, who don’t do anything except live on the dividends63 that are coined out of the wan41, white fluid that runs in the veins64 of little children, out of mothers’ tears, the blood of strong men, and the groans65 and sighs of the old. The receiver is as bad as the thief — ay, and the thief is finer than the receiver; he at least has the courage to run the risk. But the good, kind people who don’t do anything won’t believe this, and the assertion will make them angry — for a moment. They possess several magic phrases, which are like the incantations of a voodoo doctor driving devils away. The phrases that the good, kind people repeat to themselves and to one another sound like “abstinence,” “temperance,” “thrift,” “virtue.” Sometimes they say them backward, when they sound like “prodigality,” “drunkenness,” “wastefulness,” and “immorality.” They do not really know the meaning of these phrases, but they think they do, and that is all that is necessary for somnambulists. The calm repetition of such phrases invariably drives away the waking devils and lulls66 to slumber67.
Our statesmen sell themselves and their country for gold. Our municipal servants and state legislators commit countless68 treasons. The world of graft69! The world of betrayal! The world of somnambulism, whose exalted70 and sensitive citizens are outraged71 by the knockouts of the prize-ring, and who annually not merely knock out, but kill, thousands of babies and children by means of child labour and adulterated food. Far better to have the front of one’s face pushed in by the fist of an honest prize-fighter than to have the lining72 of one’s stomach corroded73 by the embalmed74 beef of a dishonest manufacturer.
In a prize-fight men are classed. A lightweight fights with a light-weight; he never fights with a heavy-weight, and foul75 blows are not allowed. Yet in the world of the somnambulists, where soar the sublimated spirits, there are no classes, and foul blows are continually struck and never disallowed76. Only they are not called foul blows. The world of claw and fang77 and fist and club has passed away — so say the somnambulists. A rebate78 is not an elongated79 claw. A Wall Street raid is not a fang slash80. Dummy81 boards of directors and fake accountings are not foul blows of the fist under the belt. A present of coal stock by a mine operator to a railroad official is not a claw rip to the bowels82 of a rival mine operator. The hundred million dollars with which a combination beats down to his knees a man with a million dollars is not a club. The man who walks in his sleep says it is not a club. So say all of his kind with which he herds. They gather together and solemnly and gloatingly make and repeat certain noises that sound like “discretion,” “acumen,” “initiative,” “enterprise.” These noises are especially gratifying when they are made backward. They mean the same things, but they sound different. And in either case, forward or backward, the spirit of the dream is not disturbed.
When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is immediately stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed83 by the audience as he leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his sleep strikes a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and awarded the prize; and amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize into a seat in the United States Senate, into a grotesque84 palace on Fifth Avenue, and into endowed churches, universities and libraries, to say nothing of subsidized newspapers, to proclaim his greatness.
The red animal in the somnambulist will out. He decries85 the carnal combat of the prize-ring, and compels the red animal to spiritual combat. The poisoned lie, the nasty, gossiping tongue, the brutality of the unkind epigram, the business and social nastiness and treachery of to-day — these are the thrusts and scratches of the red animal when the somnambulist is in charge. They are not the upper cuts and short arm jabs and jolts86 and slugging blows of the spirit. They are the foul blows of the spirit that have never been disbarred, as the foul blows of the prize-ring have been disbarred. (Would it not be preferable for a man to strike one full on the mouth with his fist than for him to tell a lie about one, or malign87 those that are nearest and dearest?)
For these are the crimes of the spirit, and, alas88! they are so much more frequent than blows on the mouth. And whosoever exalts the spirit over the flesh, by his own creed89 avers90 that a crime of the spirit is vastly more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand the somnambulists convicted by their own creed — only they are not real men, alive and awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases that dispel91 all doubt as to their undiminished and eternal gloriousness.
It is well enough to let the ape and tiger die, but it is hardly fair to kill off the natural and courageous92 apes and tigers and allow the spawn93 of cowardly apes and tigers to live. The prize-fighting apes and tigers will die all in good time in the course of natural evolution, but they will not die so long as the cowardly, somnambulistic apes and tigers club and scratch and slash. This is not a brief for the prize-fighter. It is a blow of the fist between the eyes of the somnambulists, teetering up and down, muttering magic phrases, and thanking God that they are not as other animals.
Glen Ellen, California.
June 1900.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
mightiest
|
|
| adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 )；巨大的；强有力的；浩瀚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
veneer
|
|
| n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
garbed
|
|
| v.（尤指某类人穿的特定）服装，衣服，制服( garb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
skull
|
|
| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
clans
|
|
| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
faculty
|
|
| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
smear
|
|
| v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
smeared
|
|
| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
sneer
|
|
| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
crouching
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
brute
|
|
| n.野兽，兽性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
gape
|
|
| v.张口，打呵欠，目瞪口呆地凝视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
clench
|
|
| vt.捏紧（拳头等），咬紧（牙齿等），紧紧握住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
exalts
|
|
| 赞扬( exalt的第三人称单数 )； 歌颂； 提升； 提拔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
liar
|
|
| n.说谎的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
behold
|
|
| v.看，注视，看到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
talon
|
|
| n.爪；（如爪般的）手指；爪状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
incarnate
|
|
| adj.化身的，人体化的，肉色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
bourgeois
|
|
| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
intrude
|
|
| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
sordidly
|
|
| adv.肮脏地；污秽地；不洁地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
23
immortality
|
|
| n.不死，不朽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
sublimity
|
|
| 崇高，庄严，气质高尚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
tangled
|
|
| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
paradoxes
|
|
| n.似非而是的隽语，看似矛盾而实际却可能正确的说法( paradox的名词复数 )；用于语言文学中的上述隽语；有矛盾特点的人[事物，情况] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
remarkably
|
|
| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
helping
|
|
| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
parasites
|
|
| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
drudges
|
|
| n.做苦工的人，劳碌的人( drudge的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
banking
|
|
| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
prates
|
|
| v.（古时用语）唠叨，啰唆( prate的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
34
sublimated
|
|
| v.（使某物质）升华( sublimate的过去式和过去分词 )；使净化；纯化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
joint
|
|
| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
toil
|
|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
guile
|
|
| n.诈术 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
bribes
|
|
| n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
bribe
|
|
| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
wan
|
|
| (wide area network)广域网 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
herds
|
|
| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
herd
|
|
| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
gorges
|
|
| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
implement
|
|
| n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
nauseated
|
|
| adj.作呕的，厌恶的v.使恶心，作呕( nauseate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
bruising
|
|
| adj.殊死的；十分激烈的v.擦伤(bruise的现在分词形式) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
mangles
|
|
| n.轧布机，轧板机，碾压机（mangle的复数形式）vt.乱砍（mangle的第三人称单数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
batters
|
|
| n.面糊（煎料）( batter的名词复数 )；面糊（用于做糕饼）；（ 棒球） 正在击球的球员；击球员v.连续猛击( batter的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
chatter
|
|
| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
annually
|
|
| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
recoil
|
|
| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
horrid
|
|
| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
arena
|
|
| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
franchise
|
|
| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
legislative
|
|
| n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
abolition
|
|
| n.废除，取消 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
brutality
|
|
| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
economists
|
|
| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
austere
|
|
| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
anarchists
|
|
| 无政府主义者( anarchist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
dividends
|
|
| 红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
veins
|
|
| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
groans
|
|
| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
lulls
|
|
| n.间歇期（lull的复数形式）vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的第三人称单数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
slumber
|
|
| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
countless
|
|
| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
graft
|
|
| n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
exalted
|
|
| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
outraged
|
|
| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
lining
|
|
| n.衬里，衬料 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
corroded
|
|
| 已被腐蚀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
embalmed
|
|
| adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
foul
|
|
| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
disallowed
|
|
| v.不承认（某事物）有效( disallow的过去式和过去分词 )；不接受；不准；驳回 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
fang
|
|
| n.尖牙，犬牙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
rebate
|
|
| v./n.折扣，回扣，退款；vt.给...回扣，给...打折扣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
elongated
|
|
| v.延长，加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
slash
|
|
| vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
dummy
|
|
| n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
bowels
|
|
| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
hissed
|
|
| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
grotesque
|
|
| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
decries
|
|
| v.公开反对，谴责( decry的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
jolts
|
|
| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
malign
|
|
| adj.有害的；恶性的；恶意的；v.诽谤，诬蔑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
alas
|
|
| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
creed
|
|
| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
avers
|
|
| v.断言( aver的第三人称单数 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
dispel
|
|
| vt.驱走，驱散，消除 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
courageous
|
|
| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
spawn
|
|
| n.卵，产物，后代，结果；vt.产卵，种菌丝于，产生，造成；vi.产卵，大量生产 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |