These Post-Prandials used once to be provided with a sting in their tail, like the common scorpion1. By way of change, I turn them out now with a sting in their head, like the common mosquito. Mosquitoes are much less dangerous than scorpions2, but they're a deal more irritating.
Not that I am sanguine3 enough to expect I shall irritate Englishmen. Your Englishman is far too cock-sure of the natural superiority of Britons to Foreigners, the natural superiority of England to Abroad, ever to be irritated by even the gentlest criticism. He accepts it all with lordly indifference4. He brushes it aside as the elephant might brush aside the ineffective gadfly. No proboscis5 can pierce that pachydermatous hide of his. If you praise him to his face, he accepts your praise as his obvious due, with perfect composure and without the slightest elation6. If you blame him in aught, he sets it down to your ignorance and mental inferiority. You say to him, "Oh, Englishman, you are great; you are wise; you are rich beyond comparison. You are noble; you are generous; you are the prince among nations." He smiles a calm smile, and thinks you a very sensible fellow. But you add, "Oh, my lord, if I may venture to say so, there is a smudge on your nose, which I make bold to attribute to the settlement of a black on your intelligent countenance7." He is not angry. He is not even contemptuously amused. He responds, "My friend, you are wrong. There is never a smudge on my immaculate face. No blacks fly in London. The sky is as clear there in November as in August. All is pure and serene8 and beautiful." You answer, "Oh, my lord, I admit the force of your profound reasoning. You light the gas at ten in the morning only to show all the world you can afford to burn it." At that, he gropes his way along Pall9 Mall to his club, and tells the men he meets there how completely he silenced you.
And yet, My Lord Elephant, there is use in mosquitoes. Mr. Mattieu Williams once discovered the final cause of fleas10. Certain people, said he, cannot be induced to employ the harmless necessary tub. For them, Providence12 designed the lively flea11. He compels them to scratch themselves. By so doing they rouse the skin to action and get rid of impurities13. Now, this British use of the word Abroad is a smudge on the face of the otherwise perfect Englishman. Perchance a mosquito-bite may induce him to remove it with a little warm water and a cambric pocket-handkerchief.
To most Englishmen, the world divides itself naturally into two unequal and non-equivalent portions—Abroad and England. Of these two, Abroad is much the larger country; but England, though smaller, is vastly more important. Abroad is inhabited by Frenchmen and Germans, who speak their own foolish and chattering14 languages. Part of it is likewise pervaded15 by Chinamen, who wear pigtails; and the outlying districts belong to the poor heathen, chiefly interesting as a field of missionary16 enterprise, and a possible market for Manchester piece-goods. We sometimes invest our money abroad, but then we are likely to get it swallowed up in Mexicans or Egyptian Unified17. If you ask most people what has become of Tom, they will answer at once with the specific information, "Oh, Tom has gone Abroad." I have one stereotyped18 rejoinder to an answer like that. "What part of Abroad, please?" That usually stumps19 them. Abroad is Abroad; and like the gentleman who was asked in examination to "name the minor20 prophets," they decline to make invidious distinctions. It is nothing to them whether he is tea-planting in the Himalayas, or sheep-farming in Australia, or orange-growing in Florida, or ranching21 in Colorado. If he is not in England, why then he is elsewhere; and elsewhere is Abroad, one and indivisible.
In short, Abroad answers in space to that well-known and definite date, the Olden Time, in chronology.
People will tell you, "Foreigners do this"; "Foreigners do that"; "Foreigners smoke so much"; "Foreigners always take coffee for breakfast." "Indeed," I love to answer; "I've never observed it myself in Central Asia." 'Tis Parson Adams and the Christian22 religion. Nine English people out of ten, when they talk of Abroad, mean what they call the Continent; and when they talk of the Continent, they mean France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy; in short, the places most visited by Englishmen when they consent now and again to go Abroad for a holiday. "I don't like Abroad," a lady once said to me on her return from Calais. Foreigners, in like manner, means Frenchmen, Germans, Swiss, Italians. In the country called Abroad, the most important parts are the parts nearest England; of the people called Foreigners, the most important are those who dress like Englishmen. The dim black lands that lie below the horizon are hardly worth noticing.
Would it surprise you to learn that most people live in Asia? Would it surprise you to learn that most people are poor benighted23 heathen, and that, of the remainder, most people are Mahommedans, and that of the Christians24, who come next, most people are Roman Catholics, and that, of the other Christian sects25, most people belong to the Greek Church, and that, last of all, we get Protestants, more particularly Anglicans, Wesleyans, Baptists? Have you ever really realised the startling fact that England is an island off the coast of Europe? that Europe is a peninsula at the end of Asia? that France, Germany, Italy, are the fringe of Russia? Have you ever really realised that the English-speaking race lives mostly in America? that the country is vastly more populous26 than London? that our class is the froth and the scum of society? Think these things out, and try to measure them on the globe. And when you speak of Abroad, do please specify27 what part of it.
Abroad is not all alike. There are differences between Poland, Peru, and Palestine. What is true of France is not true of Fiji. Distinguish carefully between Timbuctoo, Tobolsk, and Toledo.
It is not our insularity28 that makes us so insular29. 'Tis a gift of the gods, peculiar30 to Englishmen. The other inhabitants of these Isles31 of Britain are comparatively cosmopolitan32. The Scotchman goes everywhere; the world is his oyster34. Ireland is an island still more remote than Great Britain; but the Irishman has never been so insular as the English. I put that down in part to his Catholicism: his priests have been wheels in a world-wide system; his relations have been with Douai, St. Omer, and Rome; his bishops35 have gone pilgrimages and sat on Vatican Councils; his kinsmen36 are the MacMahons in France, the O'Donnels in Spain, the Taafes in Austria. Even in the days of the Regency this was so: look at Lever and his heroes! When England drank port, County Clare drank claret. But ever since the famine, Ireland has expanded. Every Irishman has cousins in Canada, in Australia, in New York, in San Francisco. The Empire is Irish, with the exception of India; and India, of course, is a Scotch33 dependency. Irishmen and Scotchmen have no such feelings about Abroad and its Foreigners as Londoners entertain. But Englishmen never quite get over the sense that everybody must needs divide the world into England and Elsewhere. To the end no Englishman really grasps the fact that to Frenchmen and Germans he himself is a foreigner. I have met John Bulls who had passed years in Italy, but who spoke37 of the countrymen of C?sar and Dante and Leonardo and Garibaldi with the contemptuous toleration one might feel towards a child or an Andaman Islander. These Italians could build Giotto's campanile; could paint the Transfiguration; could carve the living marble on the tombs of the Medici; could produce the Vita Nuova; could beget38 Galileo, Galvani, Beccaria; but still—they were Foreigners. Providence in its wisdom has decreed that they must live Abroad—just as it has decreed that a comprehension of the decimal system and its own place in the world should be limitations eternally imposed upon the English intellect.
点击收听单词发音
1 scorpion | |
n.蝎子,心黑的人,蝎子鞭 | |
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2 scorpions | |
n.蝎子( scorpion的名词复数 ) | |
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3 sanguine | |
adj.充满希望的,乐观的,血红色的 | |
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4 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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5 proboscis | |
n.(象的)长鼻 | |
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6 elation | |
n.兴高采烈,洋洋得意 | |
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7 countenance | |
n.脸色,面容;面部表情;vt.支持,赞同 | |
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8 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
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9 pall | |
v.覆盖,使平淡无味;n.柩衣,棺罩;棺材;帷幕 | |
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10 fleas | |
n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 );爱财如命;没好气地(拒绝某人的要求) | |
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11 flea | |
n.跳蚤 | |
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12 providence | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
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13 impurities | |
不纯( impurity的名词复数 ); 不洁; 淫秽; 杂质 | |
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14 chattering | |
n. (机器振动发出的)咔嗒声,(鸟等)鸣,啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的,啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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15 pervaded | |
v.遍及,弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16 missionary | |
adj.教会的,传教(士)的;n.传教士 | |
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17 unified | |
(unify 的过去式和过去分词); 统一的; 统一标准的; 一元化的 | |
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18 stereotyped | |
adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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19 stumps | |
(被砍下的树的)树桩( stump的名词复数 ); 残肢; (板球三柱门的)柱; 残余部分 | |
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20 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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21 ranching | |
adj.放牧的 | |
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22 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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23 benighted | |
adj.蒙昧的 | |
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24 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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25 sects | |
n.宗派,教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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26 populous | |
adj.人口稠密的,人口众多的 | |
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27 specify | |
vt.指定,详细说明 | |
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28 insularity | |
n.心胸狭窄;孤立;偏狭;岛国根性 | |
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29 insular | |
adj.岛屿的,心胸狭窄的 | |
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30 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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31 isles | |
岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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32 cosmopolitan | |
adj.世界性的,全世界的,四海为家的,全球的 | |
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33 scotch | |
n.伤口,刻痕;苏格兰威士忌酒;v.粉碎,消灭,阻止;adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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34 oyster | |
n.牡蛎;沉默寡言的人 | |
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35 bishops | |
(基督教某些教派管辖大教区的)主教( bishop的名词复数 ); (国际象棋的)象 | |
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36 kinsmen | |
n.家属,亲属( kinsman的名词复数 ) | |
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37 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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38 beget | |
v.引起;产生 | |
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