She knew she was quite wrong. It was the leaven1 of slavery. But these monopolist instincts, which have wrought2 more harm in the world we live in than fire or sword or pestilence3 or tempest, hardly die at all as yet in a few good men, and die, fighting hard for life, even in the noblest women.
She reasoned with herself against so hateful a feeling. Though she knew the truth, she found it hard to follow. No man indeed is truly civilized4 till he can say in all sincerity5 to every woman of all the women he loves, to every woman of all the women who love him, "Give me what you can of your love and of yourself; but never strive for my sake to deny any love, to strangle any impulse that pants for breath within you. Give me what you can, while you can, without grudging6, but the moment you feel you love me no more, don't pollute your own body by yielding it up to a man you have ceased to desire; don't do injustice7 to your own prospective8 children by giving them a father whom you no longer respect, or admire, or yearn9 for. Guard your chastity well. Be mine as much as you will, as long as you will, to such extent as you will, but before all things be your own; embrace and follow every instinct of pure love that nature, our mother, has imparted within you." No woman, in turn, is truly civilized till she can say to every man of all the men she loves, of all the men who love her, "Give me what you can of your love, and of yourself; but don't think I am so vile10, and so selfish, and so poor as to desire to monopolize11 you. Respect me enough never to give me your body without giving me your heart; never to make me the mother of children whom you desire not and love not." When men and women can say that alike, the world will be civilized. Until they can say it truly, the world will be as now a jarring battlefield for the monopolist instincts.
Those jealous and odious12 instincts have been the bane of humanity. They have given us the stiletto, the Morgue, the bowie-knife. Our race must inevitably13 in the end outlive them. The test of man's plane in the scale of being is how far he has outlived them. They are surviving relics14 of the ape and tiger. But we must let the ape and tiger die. We must cease to be Calibans. We must begin to be human.
Patriotism15 is the one of these lowest vices16 which most often masquerades in false garb17 as a virtue18. But what after all IS patriotism? "My country, right or wrong, and just because it is my country!" This is clearly nothing more than collective selfishness. Often enough, indeed, it is not even collective. It means merely, "MY business-interests against the business-interests of other people, and let the taxes of my fellow-citizens pay to support them." At other times it means pure pride of race, and pure lust20 of conquest; "MY country against other countries; MY army and navy against other fighters; MY right to annex21 unoccupied territory against the equal right of all other peoples; MY power to oppress all weaker nationalities, all inferior races." It NEVER means or can mean anything good or true. For if a cause be just, like Ireland's, or once Italy's, then 'tis a good man's duty to espouse22 it with warmth, be it his own or another's. And if a cause be bad, then 'tis a good man's duty to oppose it, tooth and nail, irrespective of your patriotism. True, a good man will feel more sensitively anxious that strict justice should be done by the particular community of which chance has made him a component23 member than by any others; but then, people who feel acutely this joint24 responsibility of all the citizens to uphold the moral right are not praised as patriots25 but reviled26 as unpatriotic. To urge that our own country should strive with all its might to be better, higher, purer, nobler, more generous than other countries,—the only kind of patriotism worth a moment's thought in a righteous man's eyes, is accounted by most men both wicked and foolish.
Then comes the monopolist instinct of property. That, on the face of it, is a baser and more sordid27 one. For patriotism at least can lay claim to some sort of delusive28 expansiveness beyond mere19 individual interest; whereas property stops short at the narrowest limits of personality. It is no longer "Us against the world!" but "Me against my fellow-citizens!" It is the last word of the intercivic war in its most hideous29 avatar. Look how it scars the fair face of our common country with its antisocial notice-boards, "Trespassers will be prosecuted30." It says in effect, "This is my land. As I believe, God made it; but I have acquired it, and tabooed it to myself, for my own enjoyment31. The grass on the wold grows green; but only for me. The mountains rise glorious in the morning sun; no foot of man, save mine and my gillies' shall tread them. The waterfalls leap white from the ledge32 in the glen; avaunt there, non-possessors; your eye shall never see them. For you the muddy street; for me, miles of upland. All this is my own. And I choose to monopolize it."
Or is it the capitalist? "I will add field to field," he cries aloud, despite his own Scripture33; "I will join railway to railway. I will juggle34 into my own hands all the instruments for the production of wealth that my cunning can lay hold of; and I will use them for my own purposes against producer and consumer alike with impartial35 egoism. Corn and coal shall lie in the hollow of my hand. I will enrich myself by making dear by craft the necessaries of life; the poor shall lack, that I may roll down fair streets in needless luxury. Let them starve, and feed me!" That temper, too, humanity must outlive. And those who are incapable36 of outliving it of themselves must be taught by stern lessons, as in the splendid uprising of the spirit of man in France, that their race has outstripped37 them.
Next comes the monopoly of human life, the hideous wrong of slavery. That, thank goodness, is now gone. 'Twas the vilest38 of them all—the nakedest assertion of the monopolist platform:—"You live, not for yourself, but wholly and solely39 for me. I disregard your claims to your own body and soul, and use you as my chattel40." That worst form has died. It withered41 away before the moral indignation even of existing humanity. We have the satisfaction of seeing one dragon slain42, of knowing that one monopolist instinct at least is now fairly bred out of us.
Last, and hardest of all to eradicate43 in our midst, comes the monopoly of the human heart, which is known as marriage. Based upon the primitive44 habit of felling the woman with a blow, stunning45 her by repeated strokes of the club or spear, and dragging her off by the hair of her head as a slave to her captor's hut or rock-shelter, this ugly and barbaric form of serfdom has come in our own time by some strange caprice to be regarded as of positively46 divine origin. The Man says now to himself, "This woman is mine. Law and the Church have bestowed47 her on me. Mine for better, for worse; mine, drunk or sober. If she ventures to have a heart or a will of her own, woe48 betide her! I have tabooed her for life: let any other man touch her, let her so much as cast eyes on any other man to admire or desire him—and, knife, dagger49, or law-court, they shall both of them answer for it." There you have in all its native deformity another monopolist instinct—the deepest-seated of all, the grimmest, the most vindictive50. "She is not yours," says the moral philosopher of the new dispensation; "she is her own; release her! The Turk hales his offending slave, sews her up in a sack, and casts her quick into the eddying51 Bosphorus. The Christian52 Englishman, with more lingering torture, sets spies on her life, drags what he thinks her shame before a prying53 court, and divorces her with contumely. All this is monopoly, and essentially54 slavery. Mankind must outlive it on its way up to civilization."
And then the Woman, thus taught by her lords, has begun to retort in these latter days by endeavoring to enslave the Man in return. Unable to conceive the bare idea of freedom for both sexes alike, she seeks equality in an equal slavery. That she will never achieve. The future is to the free. We have transcended55 serfdom. Women shall henceforth be the equals of men, not by levelling down, but by levelling up; not by fettering56 the man, but by elevating, emancipating57, unshackling the woman.
All this Herminia knew well. All these things she turned over in her mind by herself on the evening of the day when Harvey Kynaston came to tell her of his approaching marriage. Why, then, did she feel it to some extent a disappointment? Why so flat at his happiness? Partly, she said to herself, because it is difficult to live down in a single generation the jealousies58 and distrusts engendered59 in our hearts by so many ages of harem life. But more still, she honestly believed, because it is hard to be a free soul in an enslaved community. No unit can wholly sever60 itself from the social organism of which it is a corpuscle. If all the world were like herself, her lot would have been different. Affection would have been free; her yearnings for sympathy would have been filled to the full by Harvey Kynaston or some other. As it was, she had but that one little fraction of a man friend to solace61 her; to resign him altogether to another woman, leaving herself bankrupt of love, was indeed a bitter trial to her.
Yet for her principles' sake and Dolly's, she never let Harvey Kynaston or his wife suspect it; as long as she lived, she was a true and earnest friend at all times to both of them.
点击收听单词发音
1 leaven | |
v.使发酵;n.酵母;影响 | |
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2 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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3 pestilence | |
n.瘟疫 | |
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4 civilized | |
a.有教养的,文雅的 | |
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5 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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6 grudging | |
adj.勉强的,吝啬的 | |
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7 injustice | |
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利 | |
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8 prospective | |
adj.预期的,未来的,前瞻性的 | |
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9 yearn | |
v.想念;怀念;渴望 | |
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10 vile | |
adj.卑鄙的,可耻的,邪恶的;坏透的 | |
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11 monopolize | |
v.垄断,独占,专营 | |
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12 odious | |
adj.可憎的,讨厌的 | |
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13 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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14 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
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15 patriotism | |
n.爱国精神,爱国心,爱国主义 | |
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16 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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17 garb | |
n.服装,装束 | |
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18 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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19 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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20 lust | |
n.性(淫)欲;渴(欲)望;vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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21 annex | |
vt.兼并,吞并;n.附属建筑物 | |
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22 espouse | |
v.支持,赞成,嫁娶 | |
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23 component | |
n.组成部分,成分,元件;adj.组成的,合成的 | |
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24 joint | |
adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合 | |
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25 patriots | |
爱国者,爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
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26 reviled | |
v.辱骂,痛斥( revile的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27 sordid | |
adj.肮脏的,不干净的,卑鄙的,暗淡的 | |
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28 delusive | |
adj.欺骗的,妄想的 | |
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29 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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30 prosecuted | |
a.被起诉的 | |
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31 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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32 ledge | |
n.壁架,架状突出物;岩架,岩礁 | |
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33 scripture | |
n.经文,圣书,手稿;Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》,《圣经》中的一段 | |
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34 juggle | |
v.变戏法,纂改,欺骗,同时做;n.玩杂耍,纂改,花招 | |
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35 impartial | |
adj.(in,to)公正的,无偏见的 | |
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36 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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37 outstripped | |
v.做得比…更好,(在赛跑等中)超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38 vilest | |
adj.卑鄙的( vile的最高级 );可耻的;极坏的;非常讨厌的 | |
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39 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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40 chattel | |
n.动产;奴隶 | |
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41 withered | |
adj. 枯萎的,干瘪的,(人身体的部分器官)因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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42 slain | |
杀死,宰杀,杀戮( slay的过去分词 ); (slay的过去分词) | |
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43 eradicate | |
v.根除,消灭,杜绝 | |
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44 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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45 stunning | |
adj.极好的;使人晕倒的 | |
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46 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
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47 bestowed | |
赠给,授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48 woe | |
n.悲哀,苦痛,不幸,困难;int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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49 dagger | |
n.匕首,短剑,剑号 | |
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50 vindictive | |
adj.有报仇心的,怀恨的,惩罚的 | |
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51 eddying | |
涡流,涡流的形成 | |
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52 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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53 prying | |
adj.爱打听的v.打听,刺探(他人的私事)( pry的现在分词 );撬开 | |
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54 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
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55 transcended | |
超出或超越(经验、信念、描写能力等)的范围( transcend的过去式和过去分词 ); 优于或胜过… | |
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56 fettering | |
v.给…上脚镣,束缚( fetter的现在分词 ) | |
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57 emancipating | |
v.解放某人(尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚)( emancipate的现在分词 ) | |
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58 jealousies | |
n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 );妒羡 | |
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59 engendered | |
v.产生(某形势或状况),造成,引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60 sever | |
v.切开,割开;断绝,中断 | |
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61 solace | |
n.安慰;v.使快乐;vt.安慰(物),缓和 | |
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