May 13th, 1——

"BULLS AND BEARS IN A HARD STRUGGLE OVER WHEAT." Uncle Theodore read the great headline from his evening paper.

"Wild scenes prevailed to-day at the Board of Trade," he continued, "when John Smith began taking in his profits on wheat. It is estimated that he made a profit of over three hundred thousand in less than half an hour. Altogether he has cleared more than five millions on his wheat deal, and that within six months."

"Dear me! Dear me!" cried grandmother, "and people dying for want of bread!"
 
"Well," returned Uncle Theodore, "Smith is only a highly sensitive product of our so-called civilisation¹; the civilisation we are rushing and straining to carry to the quiet, unassuming people whom we call heathen. They have no millionaires, made so at the expense of their brothers. When we teach them all the graft², lynching, homicide, enormities of trusts, railroads, new religions, and quack³ remedies, we shall have them civilised."

"Christianity has to blush for Christendom," sighed grandmother.

I have been asking grandmother since how bulls and bears could struggle over wheat; and she tells me that the strugglers are not four-footed beasts at all, but men. I see how it is, bulls and bears are both cantankerous⁴ animals, which, if they come in conflict about anything, are sure to have a fight; and men who have given evidence of like natures have been called after those fierce animals. It must be that way. I have asked grandmother whether that is not the way they came by their names, and she said she supposed it must be.

1 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

2 graft   

n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接

参考例句：

• I am having a skin graft on my arm soon.我马上就要接受手臂的皮肤移植手术。
• The minister became rich through graft.这位部长透过贪污受贿致富。

3 quack   

n.庸医；江湖医生；冒充内行的人；骗子

参考例句：

• He describes himself as a doctor,but I feel he is a quack.他自称是医生，可是我感觉他是个江湖骗子。
• The quack was stormed with questions.江湖骗子受到了猛烈的质问。

4 cantankerous   

adj.爱争吵的，脾气不好的

参考例句：

• He met a crabbed,cantankerous director.他碰上了一位坏脾气、爱争吵的主管。
• The cantankerous bus driver rouse on the children for singing.那个坏脾气的公共汽车司机因为孩子们唱歌而骂他们。