But these faint scruples6 were soon removed — turned, indeed, to satisfaction by the evident improvement which declared itself in Ambrose Meyrick’s whole tone and demeanour. He no longer did his best to avoid rocker. He played, and played well and with relish7. The boy was evidently all right at heart: he had only wanted a sharp lesson, and it was clear that, once a loafer, he was now on his way to be a credit to the school. And by some of those secret channels which are known to masters and to masters alone, rather more than a glimmering8 of the truth as to Rawson’s black eyes and Pelly’s disfigured nose was vouchsafed9 to Horbury’s vision, and he was by no means displeased10 with his nephew. The two boys had evidently asked for punishment, and had got it. It served them right. Of course, if the swearing had been brought to his notice by official instead of by subterranean11 and mystic ways, he would have had to cane12 Meyrick a second time, since, by the Public School convention, an oath is a very serious offence — as bad as smoking, or worse; but, being far from a fool, under the circumstances he made nothing of it. Then the lad’s school work was so very satisfactory. It had always been good, but it had become wonderfully good. That last Greek prose had shown real grip of the language. The High Usher was pleased. His sharp lesson had brought forth13 excellent results, and he foresaw the day when he would be proud of having taught a remarkably14 fine scholar.
With the boys Ambrose was becoming a general favourite. He learned not only to play rocker, he showed Pelly how he thought that blow under the ear should be dealt with. They all said he was a good fellow; but they could not make out why, without apparent reason, he would sometimes burst out into loud laughter. But he said it was something wrong with his inside — the doctors couldn’t make it out — and this seemed rather interesting.
In after life he often looked back upon this period when, to all appearance, Lupton was “making a man” of him, and wondered at its strangeness. To boys and masters alike he was an absolutely normal schoolboy, busy with the same interests as the rest of them. There was certainly something rather queer in his appearance; but, as they said, generously enough, a fellow couldn’t help his looks; and, that curious glint in the eyes apart, he seemed as good a Luptonian as any in the whole six hundred. Everybody thought that he had absolutely fallen into line; that he was absorbing the ethos of the place in the most admirable fashion, subduing15 his own individuality, his opinions, his habits, to the general tone of the community around him — putting off, as it were, the profane16 dust of his own spirit and putting on the mental frock of the brotherhood17. This, of course, is one of the aims — rather, the great aim — of the system: this fashioning of very diverse characters into one common form, so that each great Public School has its type, which is easily recognisable in the grown-up man years after his school days are over. Thus, in far lands, in India and Egypt, in Canada and New Zealand, one recognises the brisk alertness of the Etonian, the exquisite18 politeness of Harrow, the profound seriousness of Rugby; while the note of Lupton may, perhaps, be called finality. The Old Luptonian no more thinks of arguing a question than does the Holy Father, and his conversation is a series of irreformable dogmas, and the captious19 person who questions any one article is made to feel himself a cad and an outsider.
Thus it has been related that two men who had met for the first time at a certain country house-party were getting on together capitally in the evening over their whisky and soda20 and cigars. Each held identical views of equal violence on some important topic — Home Rule or the Transvaal or Free Trade — and, as the more masterful of the two asserted that hanging was too good for Blank (naming a well-known statesman), the other would reply: “I quite agree with you: hanging is too good for Blank.”
“He ought to be burned alive,” said the one.
“That’s about it: he ought to be burned at the stake,” answered the other.
“Look at the way he treated Dash! He’s a coward and a damned scoundrel!”
“Perfectly right. He’s a damned cursed scoundrel!”
This was splendid, and each thought the other a charming companion. Unfortunately, however, the conversation, by some caprice, veered21 from the iniquities22 of Blank and glanced aside to cookery — possibly by the track of Irish stew23, used metaphorically24 to express the disastrous25 and iniquitous26 policy of the great statesman with regard to Ireland. But, as it happened, there was not the same coincidence on the question of cookery as there had been on the question of Blank. The masterful man said:
“No cookery like English. No other race in the world can cook as we do. Look at French cookery — a lot of filthy27, greasy28 messes.”
Now, instead of assenting29 briskly and firmly as before the other man said: “Been much in France? Lived there?”
“Never set foot in the beastly country! Don’t like their ways, and don’t care to dine off snails30 and frogs swimming in oil.”
The other man began then to talk of the simple but excellent meals he had relished31 in France — the savoury cro?te-au-pot, the bouilli— good eating when flavoured by a gherkin or two; velvety32 épinards au jus, a roast partridge, a salad, a bit of Roquefort and a bunch of grapes. But he had barely mentioned the soup when the masterful one wheeled round his chair and offered a fine view of his strong, well-knit figure — as seen from the back. He did not say anything — he simply took up the paper and went on smoking. The other men stared in amazement33: the amateur of French cookery looked annoyed. But the host — a keen-eyed old fellow with a white moustache, turned to the enemy of frogs and snails and grease and said quite simply: “I say, Mulock, I never knew you’d been at Lupton.”
Mulock gazed. The other men held their breath for a moment as the full force of the situation dawned on them, and then a wild scream of laughter shrilled34 from their throats. Yells and roars of mirth resounded35 in the room. Their delight was insatiable. It died for a moment for lack of breath, and then burst out anew in still louder, more uproarious clamour, till old Sir Henry Rawnsley, who was fat and short, could do nothing but choke and gasp36 and crow out a sound something between a wheeze37 and a chuckle38. Mulock left the room immediately, and the house the next morning. He made some excuse to his host, but he told enquiring39 friends that, personally, he disliked bounders.
The story, true or false, illustrates40 the common view of the Lupton stamp.
“We try to teach the boys to know their own minds,” said the Headmaster, and the endeavour seems to have succeeded in most cases. And, as Horbury noted41 in an article he once wrote on the Public School system, every boy was expected to submit himself to the process, to form and reform himself in accordance with the tone of the school.
“I sometimes compare our work with that of the metal founder,” he says in the article in question. “Just as the metal comes to the foundry rudis indigestaque moles42, a rough and formless mass, without the slightest suggestion of the shape which it must finally assume, so a boy comes to a great Public School with little or nothing about him to suggest the young man who, in eight or nine years’ time, will say good-bye to the dear old school, setting his teeth tight, restraining himself from giving up to the anguish43 of this last farewell. Nay44, I think that ours is the harder task, for the metal that is sent to the foundry has, I presume, been freed of its impurities45; we have to deal rather with the ore — a mass which is not only shapeless, but contains much that is not metal at all, which must be burnt out and cast aside as useless rubbish. So the boy comes from his home, which may or may not have possessed46 valuable formative influences; which we often find has tended to create a spirit of individualism and assertiveness47; which, in numerous cases, has left the boy under the delusion48 that he has come into the world to live his own life and think his own thoughts. This is the ore that we cast into our furnace. We burn out the dross49 and rubbish; we liquefy the stubborn and resisting metal till it can be run into the mould — the mould being the whole tone and feeling of a great community. We discourage all excessive individuality; we make it quite plain to the boy that he has come to Lupton, not to live his life, not to think his thoughts, but to live our life, to think our thoughts. Very often, as I think I need scarcely say, the process is a somewhat unpleasant one, but, sooner or later, the stubbornest metal yields to the cleansing50, renewing, restoring fires of discipline and public opinion, and the shapeless mass takes on the shape of the Great School. Only the other day an old pupil came to see me and confessed that, for the whole of his first year at Lupton, he had been profoundly wretched. ‘I was a dreamy young fool,’ he said. ‘My head was stuffed with all sorts of queer fancies, and I expect that if I hadn’t come to Lupton I should have turned out an absolute loafer. But I hated it badly that first year. I loathed51 rocker — I did, really — and I thought the fellows were a lot of savages52. And then I seemed to go into a kind of cloud. You see, Sir, I was losing my old self and hadn’t got the new self in its place, and I couldn’t make out what was happening. And then, quite suddenly, it all came out light and clear. I saw the purpose behind it all — how we were all working together, masters and boys, for the dear old school; how we were all “members one of another,” as the Doctor said in Chapel53; and that I had a part in this great work, too, though I was only a kid in the Third. It was like a flash of light: one minute I was only a poor little chap that nobody cared for and who didn’t matter to anybody, and the next I saw that, in a way, I was as important as the Doctor himself — I was a part of the failure or success of it all. Do you know what I did, Sir? I had a book I thought a lot of —Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe. It was my poor sister’s book; she had died a year before when she was only seventeen, and she had written my name in it when she was dying — she knew I was fond of reading it. It was just the sort of thing I used to like — morbid54 fancies and queer poems, and I was always reading it when the fellows would let me alone. But when I saw what life really was, when the meaning of it all came to me, as I said just now, I took that book and tore it to bits, and it was like tearing myself up. But I knew that writing all that stuff hadn’t done that American fellow much good, and I didn’t see what good I should get by reading it. I couldn’t make out to myself that it would fit in with the Doctor’s plans of the spirit of the school, or that I should play up at rocker any better for knowing all about the “Fall of the House of Usher,” or whatever it’s called. I knew my poor sister would understand, so I tore it up, and I’ve gone straight ahead ever since — thanks to Lupton.’ Like a refiner’s fire. I remembered the dreamy, absent-minded child of fifteen years before; I could scarcely believe that he stood before — keen, alert, practical, living every moment of his life, a force, a power in the world, certain of successful achievement.”
Such were the influences to which Ambrose Meyrick was being subjected, and with infinite success, as it seemed to everybody who watched him. He was regarded as a conspicuous55 instance of the efficacy of the system — he had held out so long, refusing to absorb the “tone,” presenting an obstinate56 surface to the millstones which would, for his own good, have ground him to powder, not concealing57 very much his dislike of the place and of the people in it. And suddenly he had submitted with a good grace: it was wonderful! The masters are believed to have discussed the affair amongst themselves, and Horbury, who confessed or boasted that he had used sharp persuasion58, got a good deal of kudos59 in consequence.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
pangs
|
|
| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
usher
|
|
| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
scouting
|
|
| 守候活动，童子军的活动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
murmur
|
|
| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
inconvenient
|
|
| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
scruples
|
|
| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
relish
|
|
| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
glimmering
|
|
| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
vouchsafed
|
|
| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 )；允诺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
displeased
|
|
| a.不快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
subterranean
|
|
| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
cane
|
|
| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
remarkably
|
|
| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
subduing
|
|
| 征服( subdue的现在分词 )； 克制； 制服； 色变暗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
profane
|
|
| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
brotherhood
|
|
| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
captious
|
|
| adj.难讨好的，吹毛求疵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
soda
|
|
| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
veered
|
|
| v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
iniquities
|
|
| n.邪恶( iniquity的名词复数 )；极不公正 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
stew
|
|
| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
metaphorically
|
|
| adv. 用比喻地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
disastrous
|
|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
iniquitous
|
|
| adj.不公正的；邪恶的；高得出奇的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
filthy
|
|
| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
assenting
|
|
| 同意，赞成( assent的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
snails
|
|
| n.蜗牛；迟钝的人；蜗牛( snail的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
relished
|
|
| v.欣赏( relish的过去式和过去分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
velvety
|
|
| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
amazement
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
shrilled
|
|
| （声音）尖锐的，刺耳的，高频率的( shrill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
resounded
|
|
| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
gasp
|
|
| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
wheeze
|
|
| n.喘息声，气喘声；v.喘息着说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
chuckle
|
|
| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
enquiring
|
|
| a.爱打听的，显得好奇的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
illustrates
|
|
| 给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
moles
|
|
| 防波堤( mole的名词复数 )； 鼹鼠； 痣； 间谍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
anguish
|
|
| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
nay
|
|
| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
impurities
|
|
| 不纯( impurity的名词复数 )； 不洁； 淫秽； 杂质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
assertiveness
|
|
| n.过分自信 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
delusion
|
|
| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
dross
|
|
| n.渣滓；无用之物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
cleansing
|
|
| n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
loathed
|
|
| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
savages
|
|
| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
chapel
|
|
| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
morbid
|
|
| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
conspicuous
|
|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
obstinate
|
|
| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
concealing
|
|
| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
persuasion
|
|
| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
kudos
|
|
| n.荣誉，名声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |