Now the moment a man begins asking himself those questions (and all men begin at some[Pg 2] time or another if you give them rope enough) man finds himself a very puzzling fellow. There was a school—it can hardly be called a school of philosophy—and it is now as dead as mutton, but anyhow there was a school which explained the business in the very simple method known to the learned as tautology—that is, saying the same thing over and over again. For just as the woman in Molière was dumb because she was affected2 with the quality of dumbness, so man, according to this school, did all the extraordinary things he does do because he had developed in that way. They took in a lot of people while they were alive (I believe a few of the very old ones still survive), they took in nobody more than themselves; but they have not taken in any of the younger generation. We who come after these scientists continue to ask ourselves the old question, and if there is no finding of an answer to it, so much the worse; for asking it, every instinct of our nature tells us, is the proper curiosity of man.
Of the great many things which man does which he should not do or need not do, if he were wholly explained by the verb "to be," you may count walking. Of course if you build up a long series of guesses as to the steps by which he learnt to walk, and call that an explanation, there is no more to be said. It is[Pg 3] as though I were to ask you why Mr Smith went to Liverpool, and you were to answer by giving me a list of all the stations between Euston and Lime Street, in their exact order. At least that is what it would be like if your guesses were accurate, not only in their statement, but also in their proportion, and also in their order. It is millions to one that your guesses are nothing of the kind. But even granted by a miracle that you have got them all quite right (which is more than the wildest fanatic3 would grant to the dearest of his geologians) it tells me nothing.
What on earth persuaded the animal to go on like that? Or was it nothing on earth but something in heaven?
Just watch a man walking, if he is a proper man, and see the business of it: how he expresses his pride, or his determination, or his tenacity4, or his curiosity, or perhaps his very purpose in his stride! Well, all that business of walking that you are looking at is a piece of extraordinarily5 skilful6 trick-acting, such that were the animal not known to do it you would swear he could never be trained to it by any process, however lengthy7, or however minute, or however strict. This is what happens when a man walks: first of all he is in stable equilibrium8, though the arc of stability is minute. If he stands with[Pg 4] his feet well apart, his centre of gravity (which is about half way up him or a little more) may oscillate within an arc of about five degrees on either side of stability and tend to return to rest. But if it oscillates beyond that five degrees or so, the stability of his equilibrium is lost, and down he comes. Men have been known to sleep standing9 up without a support, especially on military service, which is the most fatiguing10 thing in the world; but it is extremely rare, and you may say of a man so standing, even with his feet well spread, that he is already doing a fine athletic11 feat12.
But wait a moment: he desires to go, to proceed, to reach a distant point, and instead of going on all fours, where equilibrium would indeed be stable, what does he do? He deliberately13 lifts one of his supports off the ground, and sends his equilibrium to the devil; at the same time he leans a little forward so as to make himself fall towards the object he desires to attain14. You do not know that he does this, but that is because you are a man and your ignorance of it is like the ignorance in which so many really healthy people stand to religion, or the ignorance of a child who thinks his family established for ever in comfort, wealth and security. What you really do, man, when you want to get to that distant place (and let this be a parable15 of all adventure and of all[Pg 5] desire) is to take an enormous risk, the risk of coming down bang and breaking something: you lift one foot off the ground, and, as though that were not enough, you deliberately throw your centre of gravity forward so that you begin to fall.
That is the first act of the comedy.
The second act is that you check your fall by bringing the foot which you had swung into the air down upon the ground again.
That you would say was enough of a bout1. Slide the other foot up, take a rest, get your breath again and glory in your feat. But not a bit of it! The moment you have got that loose foot of yours firm on the earth, you use the impetus16 of your first tumble to begin another one. You get your centre of gravity by the momentum17 of your going well forward of the foot that has found the ground, you lift the other foot without a care, you let it swing in the fashion of a pendulum18, and you check your second fall in the same manner as you checked your first; and even after that second clever little success you do not bring your feet both firmly to the ground to recover yourself before the next venture: you go on with the business, get your centre of gravity forward of the foot that is now on the ground, swinging the other beyond it like a pendulum, stopping your third catastrophe19, and so on; and you[Pg 6] have come to do all this so that you think it the most natural thing in the world!
Not only do you manage to do it but you can do it in a thousand ways, as a really clever acrobat20 will astonish his audience not only by walking on the tight-rope but by eating his dinner on it. You can walk quickly or slowly, or look over your shoulder as you walk, or shoot fairly accurately21 as you walk; you can saunter, you can force your pace, you can turn which way you will. You certainly did not teach yourself to accomplish this marvel22, nor did your nurse. There was a spirit within you that taught you and that brought you out; and as it is with walking, so it is with speech, and so at last with humour and with irony23, and with affection, and with the sense of colour and of form, and even with honour, and at last with prayer.
By all this you may see that man is very remarkable24, and this should make you humble25, not proud; for you have been designed in spite of yourself for some astonishing fate, of which these mortal extravagances so accurately seized and so well moulded to your being are but the symbols.
Walking, like talking (which rhymes with it, I am glad to say), being so natural a thing to man, so varied26 and so unthought about, is[Pg 7] necessarily not only among his chief occupations but among his most entertaining subjects of commonplace and of exercise.
Thus to walk without an object is an intense burden, as it is to talk without an object. To walk because it is good for you warps27 the soul, just as it warps the soul for a man to talk for hire or because he thinks it his duty. On the other hand, walking with an object brings out all that there is in a man, just as talking with an object does. And those who understand the human body, when they confine themselves to what they know and are therefore legitimately29 interesting, tell us this very interesting thing which experience proves to be true: that walking of every form of exercise is the most general and the most complete, and that while a man may be endangered by riding a horse or by running or swimming, or while a man may easily exaggerate any violent movement, walking will always be to his benefit—that is, of course, so long as he does not warp28 his soul by the detestable habit of walking for no object but exercise. For it has been so arranged that the moment we begin any minor30 and terrestrial thing as an object in itself, or with merely the furtherance of some other material thing, we hurt the inward part of us that governs all. But walk for glory or for adventure, or to see new[Pg 8] sights, or to pay a bill or to escape the same, and you will very soon find how consonant31 is walking with your whole being. The chief proof of this (and how many men have tried it, and in how many books does not that truth shine out!) is the way in which a man walking becomes the cousin or the brother of everything round.
If you will look back upon your life and consider what landscapes remain fixed32 in your memory, some perhaps you will discover to have struck you at the end of long rides or after you have been driven for hours, dragged by an animal or a machine. But much the most of these visions have come to you when you were performing that little miracle with a description of which I began this: and what is more, the visions that you get when you are walking, merge33 pleasantly into each other. Some are greater, some lesser34, and they make a continuous whole. The great moments are led up to and are fittingly framed.
There is no time or weather, in England at least, in which a man walking does not feel this cousinship with everything round. There are weathers that are intolerable if you are doing anything else but walking: if you are crouching35 still against a storm or if you are driving against it; or if you are riding in extreme cold; or if you are running too quickly[Pg 9] in extreme heat; but it is not so with walking. You may walk by night or by day, in summer or in winter, in fair weather or in foul36, in calm or in a gale37, and in every case you are doing something native to yourself and going the best way you could go. All men have felt this.
Walking, also from this same natural quality which it has, introduces particular sights to you in their right proportion. A man gets into his motor car, or more likely into somebody else's, and covers a great many miles in a very few hours. And what remains38 to him at the end of it, when he looks closely into the pictures of his mind, is a curious and unsatisfactory thing: there are patches of blurred39 nothingness like an uneasy sleep, one or two intense pieces of impression, disconnected, violently vivid and mad, a red cloak, a shining streak40 of water, and more particularly a point of danger. In all that ribbon of sights, each either much too lightly or much too heavily impressed, he is lucky if there is one great view which for one moment he seized and retained from a height as he whirled along. The whole record is like a bit of dry point that has been done by a hand not sure of itself upon a plate that trembled, now jagged chiselling41 bit into the metal; now blurred or hardly impressed it at all: only in[Pg 10] some rare moment of self-possession or of comparative repose42 did the hand do what it willed and transfer its power.
You may say that riding upon a horse one has a better chance. That is true, but after all one is busy riding. Look back upon the very many times that you have ridden, and though you will remember many things you will not remember them in that calm and perfect order in which they presented themselves to you when you were afoot. As for a man running, if it be for any distance the effort is so unnatural43 as to concentrate upon himself all a man's powers, and he is almost blind to exterior44 things. Men at the end of such efforts are actually and physically45 blind; they fall helpless.
Then there is the way of looking at the world which rich men imagine they can purchase with money when they build a great house looking over some view—but it is not in the same street with walking! You see the sight nine times out of ten when you are ill attuned46 to it, when your blood is slow and unmoved, and when the machine is not going. When you are walking the machine is always going, and every sense in you is doing what it should with the right emphasis and in due discipline to make a perfect record of all that is about.
[Pg 11]
Consider how a man walking approaches a little town; he sees it a long way off upon a hill; he sees its unity47, he has time to think about it a great deal. Next it is hidden from him by a wood, or it is screened by a roll of land. He tops this and sees the little town again, now much nearer, and he thinks more particularly of its houses, of the way in which they stand, and of what has passed in them. The sky, especially if it has large white clouds in it and is for the rest sunlit and blue, makes something against which he can see the little town, and gives it life. Then he is at the outskirts48, and he does not suddenly occupy it with a clamour or a rush, nor does he merely contemplate49 it, like a man from a window, unmoving. He enters in. He passes, healthily wearied, human doors and signs; he can note all the names of the people and the trade at which they work; he has time to see their faces. The square broadens before him, or the market-place, and so very naturally and rightly he comes to his inn, and he has fulfilled one of the great ends of man.
There is your monster who thinks of it as a place to which a man does not walk but into which he slinks to drink; and there is your[Pg 12] monster who thinks of it as a place to be reached in a railway train and there to put on fine clothes for dinner and to be waited upon by Germans. There is your more amiable51 monster, who says: "I hear there is a good inn at Little Studley or Bampton Major. Let us go there." He waits until he has begun to be hungry, and he shoots there in an enormous automobile52. There is your still more amiable monster, who in a hippo-mobile hippogriffically tools into a town and throws the ribbons to the person in gaiters with a straw in his mouth, and feels (oh, men, my brothers) that he is doing something like someone in a book. All these men, whether they frankly53 hate or whether they pretend to love, are the enemies of inns, and the enemies of inns are accursed before their Creator and their kind.
There are some things which are a consolation54 for Eden and which clearly prove to the heavily-burdened race of Adam that it has retained a memory of diviner things. We have all of us done evil. We have permitted the modern cities to grow up, and we have told such lies that now we are accursed with newspapers. And we have so loved wealth that we are all in debt, and that the poor are a burden to us and the rich are an offence. But we ought to keep up our hearts and not to despair, because we can still all of us pray[Pg 13] when there is an absolute necessity to do so, and we have wormed out the way of building up that splendid thing which all over Christendom men know under many names and which is called in England an INN.
I have sometimes wondered when I sat in one of these places, remaking my soul, whether the inn would perish out of Europe. I am convinced the terror was but the terror which we always feel for whatever is exceedingly beloved.
There is an inn in the town of Piacenza into which I once walked while I was still full of immortality55, and there I found such good companions and so much marble, rooms so large and empty and so old, and cooking so excellent, that I made certain it would survive even that immortality which, I say, was all around. But no! I came there eight years later, having by that time heard the noise of the Subterranean56 River and being well conscious of mortality. I came to it as to a friend, and the beastly thing had changed! In place of the grand stone doors there was a sort of twirlygig like the things that let you in to the Zoo, where you pay a shilling, and inside there were decorations made up of meaningless curves like those with which the demons57 have punished the city of Berlin; the salt at the table was artificial and largely[Pg 14] made of chalk, and the faces of the host and hostess were no longer kind.
I very well remember another inn which was native to the Chiltern Hills. This place had bow windows, which were divided into medium-sized panes58, each of the panes a little rounded; and these window-panes were made of that sort of glass which I will adore until I die, and which has the property of distorting exterior objects: of such glass the windows of schoolrooms and of nurseries used to be made. I came to that place after many years by accident, and I found that Orcus, which has devoured59 all lovely things, had devoured this too. The inn was called "an Hotel," its front was rebuilt, the window's had only two panes, each quite enormous and flat, one above and one below, and the glass was that sort of thick, transparent60 glass through which it is no use to look, for you might as well be looking through air. All the faces were strange except that of one old servant in the stable-yard. I asked him if he regretted the old front, and he said "Lord, no!" Then he told me in great detail how kind the brewers had been to his master and how willingly they had rebuilt the whole place. These things reconcile one with the grave.
Well then, if walking, which has led me into this digression, prepares one for the inns[Pg 15] where they are worthy61, it has another character as great and as symbolic62 and as worthy of man. For remember that of the many ways of walking there is one way which is the greatest of all, and that is to walk away.
Put your hand before your eyes and remember, you that have walked, the places from which you have walked away, and the wilderness63 into which you manfully turned the steps of your abandonment.
There is a place above the Roman Wall beyond the River Tyne where one can do this thing. Behind one lies the hospitality and the human noise which have inhabited the town of the river valley for certainly two thousand years. Before one is the dead line of the road, and that complete emptiness of the moors64 as they rise up toward Cheviot on the one hand and Carter Fell upon the other. The earth is here altogether deserted65 and alone: you go out into it because it is your business to go: you are walking away. As for your memories, they are of no good to you except to lend you that dignity which can always support a memoried man; you are bound to forget, and it is your business to leave all that you have known altogether behind you, and no man has eyes at the back of his head—go forward. Upon my[Pg 16] soul I think that the greatest way of walking, now I consider the matter, or now that I have stumbled upon it, is walking away.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
bout
|
|
| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
affected
|
|
| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
fanatic
|
|
| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
tenacity
|
|
| n.坚韧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
extraordinarily
|
|
| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
skilful
|
|
| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
lengthy
|
|
| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
equilibrium
|
|
| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
fatiguing
|
|
| a.使人劳累的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
athletic
|
|
| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
feat
|
|
| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
attain
|
|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
parable
|
|
| n.寓言，比喻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
impetus
|
|
| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
momentum
|
|
| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
pendulum
|
|
| n.摆，钟摆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
catastrophe
|
|
| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
acrobat
|
|
| n.特技演员，杂技演员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
accurately
|
|
| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
marvel
|
|
| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
irony
|
|
| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
varied
|
|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
warps
|
|
| n.弯曲( warp的名词复数 )；歪斜；经线；经纱v.弄弯，变歪( warp的第三人称单数 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
warp
|
|
| vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
legitimately
|
|
| ad.合法地；正当地，合理地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
minor
|
|
| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
consonant
|
|
| n.辅音；adj.[音]符合的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
merge
|
|
| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
lesser
|
|
| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
crouching
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
foul
|
|
| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
gale
|
|
| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
blurred
|
|
| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
streak
|
|
| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
chiselling
|
|
| n.錾v.凿，雕，镌( chisel的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
repose
|
|
| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
unnatural
|
|
| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
exterior
|
|
| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
physically
|
|
| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
attuned
|
|
| v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 )；调音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
unity
|
|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
outskirts
|
|
| n.郊外，郊区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
contemplate
|
|
| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
tempted
|
|
| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
amiable
|
|
| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
automobile
|
|
| n.汽车，机动车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
consolation
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
immortality
|
|
| n.不死，不朽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
subterranean
|
|
| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
demons
|
|
| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
panes
|
|
| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
devoured
|
|
| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
transparent
|
|
| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
symbolic
|
|
| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
wilderness
|
|
| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
moors
|
|
| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |