The Yule Log and the Democrat

 A blasting sneer¹ has stricken me from time to time, to the effect that I believe in the Fireside Woman. For that matter, in the present season, I believe very much in the Fireside Man. But the very word selected for this withering² insinuation shows the shallowness of the philosophy which prompts it. Surely there could not be a more stunted³ stupidity than the suggestion that a thing must be mild and monotonous⁴ because it has to do with fire. Why should the woman be tame because she is nearest to the wildest thing in the world? It is much more absurd to say it is prosaic⁵ to live by the fireside, than to say it is prosaic to live upon the edge of a precipice⁶. It is tenable that some people would be prosaic anywhere; but it is not the fault of the precipice. It would sound paradoxical even in a fairy-tale to say that a princess was always yawning with ennui⁷ because she was introduced to a golden griffin or a crimson⁸ dragon; and in the round of daily fact, fire is about the nearest thing to a dragon that we know. Those who cannot get a fairy-tale out of the fire will not get it out of anything else. It may be affirmed, with fair certainty, that the people who talk most scornfully about the Fireside Woman do not get it at all, and do not wish her to get it at all. Herein lies all the absurdity⁹ of the alternatives to domesticity paraded by our progressive friends.

I am not speaking, of course, of work that must be done, especially in abnormal times; I am speaking of the psychology¹⁰ of tedium¹¹ and of the romance of life. It is apparently¹² demanded that the fire should be concealed¹⁴ in the entrails of an engine; that it should work through a labyrinth¹⁵ of bolts and bars; that it should litter around it numberless dreary¹⁶ offices, and leave behind it a train of indirect and mechanical servants, each further than the last from the least faint vibration¹⁷ of the original energy. Then, if in some outlying shed a woman has to stand counting tickets, or tying up parcels from morning till night, that woman is supposed to be free. She has Burst the Fetters¹⁸. She is Living Her Own Life. But there is supposed to be nothing but dullness for the woman who is face to face with that elemental fury which drives and fashions the whole. There is nothing poetical¹⁹ (as compared with the tickets and labels) in the woman who repeats the primordial²⁰ adventure of Prometheus. And there is nothing artistic²¹ (as compared with the shed) about the terrestrial light which turns the greyest room to gold; which reclothes the woman’s raggedest children round the hearth²² with the colours of a company of Fra Angelico, so that the mere²³ reflections of the flame can conquer the solid hues²⁴ of drab and dust, and all her household is clothed with scarlet²⁵.

The fire is in this, perhaps, the finest and simplest symbol of a truth persistently²⁶ misunderstood. These elementary things, the land, the roof, the family, may seem mean and miserable²⁷; and in a cynical²⁸ civilization very probably will seem mean and miserable. But the things themselves are not mean or miserable; and any reformer who says they are is not only taking hold of the stick by the wrong end, he is cutting off the branch by which he is hanging. The stamp of social failure is not that men have these simple things, but, rather, that they do not have them; or even when they do, do not know that they have them. If the Fireside Woman is dull, it is because she never looks at the fire. It is because she is not, in the wise and philosophical²⁹ sense, enough of a fire-worshipper. And she lacks this faculty³⁰ because the whole drift of the modern world discourages that creative concentration, that intensive cultivation³² of the fancy, which filled the lives of our fathers with crowds of little household gods, and which created all the lesser³³ and lighter³⁴ sanctities that surround Christmas.

Amid the wild and wandering adventures of the fireside are some which made possible the very scientific progress which is prone³⁵ to carp at it. The engine, of which I spoke³⁶ recently, was (we have all been told) suggested because James Watt³⁷ looked at the kettle. I will not conceal¹³ a suspicion that our society might have evolved better if he had looked at the fire. I mean, of course, if he had not only looked at it, but seen it, which is not always the same thing. If he had seen what there is to be seen, he might possibly have done many things. He might, for instance, have revived the Trade Guilds³⁸ of Glasgow, which failed to grasp his discovery; he might have taught them to take hold of the new energy and turn it towards democracy, instead of going off and handing over his invention to the Capitalists. For the defect which betrayed all Watt’s school and generation, full as it was of a virile³⁹ and thrifty⁴⁰ Radicalism⁴¹, was precisely⁴² that it did not draw from these primal⁴³ sources of piety⁴⁴ and poetry. It was not sufficiently⁴⁵ religious, and, therefore, not sufficiently domestic; and the rich rode it down at last. For the hearth is the only possible altar of insurrection, as even the pagans knew; from that fire alone are taken the flaming brands which can really lay waste the wicked cities. The truth can be told well enough by saying that James Watt would not really have comprehended the word Christmas; and would have been much annoyed if told to consider the Yule log instead of the kettle. He was the Fireside Man; but he was not domestic enough to be dangerous. For it is the domestic man and not the wild man, just as it is the domestic dog and not the wild dog, who really fights with thieves and dies at his post. There has not been a genuine popular war in England since the war of Wat Tyler, and the origin of that, it will be remembered, was strictly⁴⁶ domestic. It was so domestic that it would not happen at all in the modern world: Wat Tyler would simply be automatically shot into prison for resisting a rational and necessary scientific inspection⁴⁷. It was the growth of an unhuman and unhomelike philosophy that made all the difference between the Wat of the fourteenth century and the Watt of the nineteenth. And the spirit of real democracy will not re-emerge until it rises from the fireside and comes forth⁴⁸ in the red reality of fire; the giant of Christmas brandishing⁴⁹ the Yule log for a club.

But there is another feature in the flaming hearth which illustrates⁵⁰ its natural kinship with Christmas. It is a place, as Christmas is a time; and these vivid limitations are vital to man as a mystic. It is not merely that the idea of everything being in its right place makes all the difference between a fire in a house and a house on fire. It is that the fireplace is a frame; and it is the frame that creates the picture. By being tied to a special spot the sacred dragon becomes more powerful and, in the high imaginative sense, more free. This is that link between hearths⁵¹ and altars which the heathen felt, and of which I have already spoken. If the household be the heart of politics, the fire is the heart of the household; and the vital organ is spread equally everywhere only in the very low organisms. The universe of the mere universalist is one of the very low organisms. The theosophic generalizations⁵² about Nirvana and the All may be compared to the American fashion of abolishing the fireplace altogether and heating the whole house artificially to the same temperature—a depressing habit. I can imagine that a system of hot-water pipes might satisfy a Pantheist; the notion suggests a rather dreary parody⁵³ of Pan and his pipes. I can imagine that a Buddhist⁵⁴ might want his whole house warmed like the palm-house at Kew; but, I think, a limited and localized fire will always be as much associated with Christians⁵⁵ as it has always been associated with Christmas.

Shakespeare, himself like a large and liberal fire round which winter tales are told, has hit the mark in this matter exactly, as it concerns the poet or maker⁵⁶ of fictive things. Shakespeare does not say that the poet loses himself in the All, that he dissipates concrete things into a cloudy twilight⁵⁷, that he turns this home of ours into a vista⁵⁸ or any vaguer thing. He says the exact opposite. It is “a local habitation and a name” that the poet gives to what would otherwise be nothing. This seeming narrowness which men complain of in the altar and the hearth is as broad as Shakespeare and the whole human imagination, and should command the respect even of those who think the cult³¹ of Christmas really is all imagination. Even those who can only regard the great story of Bethlehem as a fairy-tale told by the fire will yet agree that such narrowness is the first artistic necessity even of a good fairy-tale. But there are others who think, at least, that their thought strikes deeper and pierces to a more subtle truth in the mind. There are others for whom all our fairy-tales, and even all our appetite for fairy-tales, draw their fire from one central fairy-tale, as all forgeries⁵⁹ draw their significance from a signature. They believe that this fable⁶⁰ is a fact, and that the other fables⁶¹ cannot really be appreciated even as fables until we know it is a fact. For them, personality is a step beyond universality; one might almost call it an escape from universality. And what they follow is as much something more than Pantheism as a flame is something more than a temperature. For them, God is not bound down and limited by being merely everything; He is also at liberty to be something. And for them Christmas will always deal with a reality exactly as Shakespeare’s poetry deals with an unreality; it will give, not to airy nothing, but to the enormous and overwhelming everything, a local habitation and a Name.

1 sneer   

v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语

参考例句：

• He said with a sneer.他的话中带有嘲笑之意。
• You may sneer,but a lot of people like this kind of music.你可以嗤之以鼻，但很多人喜欢这种音乐。

2 withering   

使人畏缩的，使人害羞的，使人难堪的

参考例句：

• She gave him a withering look. 她极其蔑视地看了他一眼。
• The grass is gradually dried-up and withering and pallen leaves. 草渐渐干枯、枯萎并落叶。

3 stunted   

adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的

参考例句：

• the stunted lives of children deprived of education 未受教育的孩子所过的局限生活
• But the landed oligarchy had stunted the country's democratic development for generations. 但是好几代以来土地寡头的统治阻碍了这个国家民主的发展。

4 monotonous   

adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的

参考例句：

• She thought life in the small town was monotonous.她觉得小镇上的生活单调而乏味。
• His articles are fixed in form and monotonous in content.他的文章千篇一律，一个调调儿。

5 prosaic   

adj.单调的，无趣的

参考例句：

• The truth is more prosaic.真相更加乏味。
• It was a prosaic description of the scene.这是对场景没有想象力的一个描述。

6 precipice   

n.悬崖，危急的处境

参考例句：

• The hut hung half over the edge of the precipice.那间小屋有一半悬在峭壁边上。
• A slight carelessness on this precipice could cost a man his life.在这悬崖上稍一疏忽就会使人丧生。

7 ennui   

n.怠倦，无聊

参考例句：

• Since losing his job,he has often experienced a profound sense of ennui.他自从失业以来，常觉百无聊赖。
• Took up a hobby to relieve the ennui of retirement.养成一种嗜好以消除退休后的无聊。

8 crimson   

n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色

参考例句：

• She went crimson with embarrassment.她羞得满脸通红。
• Maple leaves have turned crimson.枫叶已经红了。

9 absurdity   

n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论

参考例句：

• The proposal borders upon the absurdity.这提议近乎荒谬。
• The absurdity of the situation made everyone laugh.情况的荒谬可笑使每个人都笑了。

10 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

11 tedium   

n.单调；烦闷

参考例句：

• We played games to relieve the tedium of the journey.我们玩游戏，来解除旅行的沉闷。
• In myself I could observe the following sources of tedium. 从我自己身上，我所观察到的烦闷的根源有下列一些。

12 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

13 conceal   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽

参考例句：

• He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方，他只好隐瞒身份。
• He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。

14 concealed   

a.隐藏的，隐蔽的

参考例句：

• The paintings were concealed beneath a thick layer of plaster. 那些画被隐藏在厚厚的灰泥层下面。
• I think he had a gun concealed about his person. 我认为他当时身上藏有一支枪。

15 labyrinth   

n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路

参考例句：

• He wandered through the labyrinth of the alleyways.他在迷宫似的小巷中闲逛。
• The human mind is a labyrinth.人的心灵是一座迷宫。

16 dreary   

adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的

参考例句：

• They live such dreary lives.他们的生活如此乏味。
• She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence.她听够了那些关于酗酒和暴力的乏味故事。

17 vibration   

n.颤动，振动；摆动

参考例句：

• There is so much vibration on a ship that one cannot write.船上的震动大得使人无法书写。
• The vibration of the window woke me up.窗子的震动把我惊醒了。

18 fetters   

n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 )；束缚v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• They were at last freed from the fetters of ignorance. 他们终于从愚昧无知的束缚中解脱出来。
• They will run wild freed from the fetters of control. 他们一旦摆脱了束缚，就会变得无法无天。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 poetical   

adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的

参考例句：

• This is a poetical picture of the landscape. 这是一幅富有诗意的风景画。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• John is making a periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion. 约翰正在对陈腐的诗风做迂回冗长的研究。 来自辞典例句

20 primordial   

adj.原始的；最初的

参考例句：

• It is the primordial force that propels us forward.它是推动我们前进的原始动力。
• The Neanderthal Man is one of our primordial ancestors.的尼安德特人是我们的原始祖先之一.

21 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

22 hearth   

n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面

参考例句：

• She came and sat in a chair before the hearth.她走过来，在炉子前面的椅子上坐下。
• She comes to the hearth,and switches on the electric light there.她走到壁炉那里，打开电灯。

23 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

24 hues   

色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点

参考例句：

• When the sun rose a hundred prismatic hues were reflected from it. 太阳一出，更把它映得千变万化、异彩缤纷。
• Where maple trees grow, the leaves are often several brilliant hues of red. 在枫树生长的地方，枫叶常常呈现出数种光彩夺目的红色。

25 scarlet   

n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的

参考例句：

• The scarlet leaves of the maples contrast well with the dark green of the pines.深红的枫叶和暗绿的松树形成了明显的对比。
• The glowing clouds are growing slowly pale,scarlet,bright red,and then light red.天空的霞光渐渐地淡下去了，深红的颜色变成了绯红，绯红又变为浅红。

26 persistently   

ad.坚持地；固执地

参考例句：

• He persistently asserted his right to a share in the heritage. 他始终声称他有分享那笔遗产的权利。
• She persistently asserted her opinions. 她果断地说出了自己的意见。

27 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

28 cynical   

adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的

参考例句：

• The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。
• He was cynical that any good could come of democracy.他不相信民主会带来什么好处。

29 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

30 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

31 cult   

n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜

参考例句：

• Her books aren't bestsellers,but they have a certain cult following.她的书算不上畅销书，但有一定的崇拜者。
• The cult of sun worship is probably the most primitive one.太阳崇拜仪式或许是最为原始的一种。

32 cultivation   

n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成

参考例句：

• The cultivation in good taste is our main objective.培养高雅情趣是我们的主要目标。
• The land is not fertile enough to repay cultivation.这块土地不够肥沃，不值得耕种。

33 lesser   

adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地

参考例句：

• Kept some of the lesser players out.不让那些次要的球员参加联赛。
• She has also been affected,but to a lesser degree.她也受到波及，但程度较轻。

34 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

35 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

36 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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

37 watt   

n.瓦，瓦特

参考例句：

• The invention of the engine is creditable to Watt.发动机的发明归功于瓦特。
• The unit of power is watt.功率的单位是瓦特。

38 guilds   

行会，同业公会，协会( guild的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• View list of the guilds that Small has war on. 看目前有哪些公会是我们公会开战的对象及对我们开战的对象。
• Guilds and kingdoms fit more with the Middle Age fantasy genre. （裴）:公会和王国更适合中世纪奇幻类型。

39 virile   

adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的

参考例句：

• She loved the virile young swimmer.她爱上了那个有男子气概的年轻游泳运动员。
• He wanted his sons to become strong,virile,and athletic like himself.他希望他的儿子们能长得像他一样强壮、阳刚而又健美。

40 thrifty   

adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的

参考例句：

• Except for smoking and drinking,he is a thrifty man.除了抽烟、喝酒，他是个生活节俭的人。
• She was a thrifty woman and managed to put aside some money every month.她是个很会持家的妇女，每月都设法存些钱。

41 radicalism   

n. 急进主义, 根本的改革主义

参考例句：

• His radicalism and refusal to compromise isolated him. 他的激进主义与拒绝妥协使他受到孤立。
• Education produced intellectual ferment and the temptations of radicalism. 教育带来知识界的骚动，促使激进主义具有了吸引力。

42 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

43 primal   

adj.原始的；最重要的

参考例句：

• Jealousy is a primal emotion.嫉妒是最原始的情感。
• Money was a primal necessity to them.对于他们，钱是主要的需要。

44 piety   

n.虔诚，虔敬

参考例句：

• They were drawn to the church not by piety but by curiosity.他们去教堂不是出于虔诚而是出于好奇。
• Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and goodness.经验使我们看到虔诚与善意之间有着巨大的区别。

45 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

46 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

47 inspection   

n.检查，审查，检阅

参考例句：

• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。
• The soldiers lined up for their daily inspection by their officers.士兵们列队接受军官的日常检阅。

48 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

49 brandishing   

v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 )；炫耀

参考例句：

• The horseman came up to Robin Hood, brandishing his sword. 那个骑士挥舞着剑，来到罗宾汉面前。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He appeared in the lounge brandishing a knife. 他挥舞着一把小刀，出现在休息室里。 来自辞典例句

50 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：

• This historical novel illustrates the breaking up of feudal society in microcosm. 这部历史小说是走向崩溃的封建社会的缩影。
• Alfred Adler, a famous doctor, had an experience which illustrates this. 阿尔弗莱德 - 阿德勒是一位著名的医生，他有过可以说明这点的经历。 来自中级百科部分

51 hearths   

壁炉前的地板，炉床，壁炉边( hearth的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The soldiers longed for their own hearths. 战士想家。
• In the hearths the fires down and the meat stopped cooking. 在壁炉的火平息和肉停止做饭。

52 generalizations   

一般化( generalization的名词复数 )； 普通化； 归纳； 概论

参考例句：

• But Pearlson cautions that the findings are simply generalizations. 但是波尔森提醒人们，这些发现是简单的综合资料。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 大脑与疾病
• They were of great service in correcting my jejune generalizations. 他们纠正了我不成熟的泛泛之论，帮了我大忙。

53 parody   

n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文

参考例句：

• The parody was just a form of teasing.那个拙劣的模仿只是一种揶揄。
• North Korea looks like a grotesque parody of Mao's centrally controlled China,precisely the sort of system that Beijing has left behind.朝鲜看上去像是毛时代中央集权的中国的怪诞模仿，其体制恰恰是北京方面已经抛弃的。

54 Buddhist   

adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒

参考例句：

• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。
• In the eye of the Buddhist,every worldly affair is vain.在佛教徒的眼里，人世上一切事情都是空的。

55 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

56 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

57 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

58 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。

59 forgeries   

伪造( forgery的名词复数 )； 伪造的文件、签名等

参考例句：

• The whole sky was filled with forgeries of the brain. 整个天空充满了头脑里臆造出来的膺品。
• On inspection, the notes proved to be forgeries. 经过检查，那些钞票证明是伪造的。

60 fable   

n.寓言；童话；神话

参考例句：

• The fable is given on the next page. 这篇寓言登在下一页上。
• He had some motive in telling this fable. 他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

61 fables   

n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说

参考例句：

• Some of Aesop's Fables are satires. 《伊索寓言》中有一些是讽刺作品。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Little Mexican boys also breathe the American fables. 墨西哥族的小孩子对美国神话也都耳濡目染。 来自辞典例句