In some cases it takes a great many years to kill a[12] tutor by the process in question. You see, they do get food and clothes and fuel, in appreciable2 quantities, such as they are. You will even notice rows of books in their rooms, and a picture or two,——things that look as if they had surplus money; but these superfluities are the water of crystallization to scholars, and you can never get them away till the poor fellows effloresce into dust. Do not be deceived. The tutor breakfasts on coffee made of beans, edulcorated with milk watered to the verge3 of transparency; his mutton is tough and elastic4, up to the moment when it becomes tired out and tasteless; his coal is a sullen5, sulphurous anthracite, which rusts6 into ashes, rather than burns, in the shallow grate; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin for winter and too thick for summer. The greedy lungs of fifty hot-blooded boys suck the oxygen from the air he breathes in his recitation-room. In short, he undergoes a process of gentle and gradual starvation.
——The mother of little Iris7 was not called Electra, like hers of the old story, neither was her grandfather Oceanus. Her blood-name, which she gave away with her heart to the Latin tutor, was a plain old English one, and her water-name was Hannah, beautiful as recalling the mother of Samuel, and admirable as reading equally well from the initial letter forwards and from the terminal letter backwards8. The poor lady, seated with her companion at the chess-board of matrimony, had but just pushed forward her one little white pawn9 upon an empty square, when the Black Knight10, that cares nothing for castles or kings or queens, swooped11 down upon her and swept her from the larger board of life.
[13]
The old Latin tutor put a modest blue stone at the head of his late companion, with her name and age and Eheu! upon it,——a smaller one at her feet, with initials; and left her by herself, to be rained and snowed on,——which is a hard thing to do for those whom we have cherished tenderly.
About the time that the lichens12, falling on the stone, like drops of water, had spread into fair, round rosettes, the tutor had starved into a slight cough. Then he began to draw the buckle13 of his black pantaloons a little tighter, and took another reef in his never-ample waistcoat. His temples got a little hollow, and the contrasts of color in his cheeks more vivid than of old. After a while his walks fatigued14 him, and he was tired, and breathed hard after going up a flight or two of stairs. Then came on other marks of inward trouble and general waste, which he spoke15 of to his physician as peculiar16, and doubtless owing to accidental causes; to all which the doctor listened with deference17, as if it had not been the old story that one in five or six of mankind in temperate18 climates tells, or has told for him, as if it were something new. As the doctor went out, he said to himself,——“On the rail at last. Accommodation train. A good many stops, but will get to the station by and by.” So the doctor wrote a recipe with the astrological sign of Jupiter before it (just as your own physician does, inestimable reader, as you will see, if you look at his next prescription), and departed, saying he would look in occasionally. After this, the Latin tutor began the usual course of “getting better,” until he got so much better that his face was very sharp, and when he smiled,[14] three crescent lines showed at each side of his lips, and when he spoke, it was in a muffled19 whisper, and the white of his eye glistened20 as pearly as the purest porcelain,——so much better, that he hoped——by spring——he——might be able——to——attend——to his class again.——But he was recommended not to expose himself, and so kept his chamber21, and occasionally, not having anything to do, his bed. The unmarried sister with whom he lived took care of him; and the child, now old enough to be manageable, and even useful in trifling22 offices, sat in the chamber, or played about.
Things could not go on so forever, of course. One morning his face was sunken and his hands were very, very cold. He was “better,” he whispered, but sadly and faintly. After a while he grew restless and seemed a little wandering. His mind ran on his classics, and fell back on the Latin grammar.
“Iris!” he said,——“filiola mea!”——The child knew this meant my dear little daughter as well as if it had been English.——“Rainbow!”——for he would translate her name at times,——“come to me,——veni”——and his lips went on automatically, and murmured, “vel venito!”——The child came and sat by his bedside and took his hand, which she could not warm, but which shot its rays of cold all through her slender frame. But there she sat, looking steadily23 at him. Presently he opened his lips feebly, and whispered, “Moribundus.” She did not know what that meant, but she saw that there was something new and sad. So she began to cry; but presently remembering an old book that seemed to comfort him at times, got up and[15] brought a Bible in the Latin version, called the Vulgate. “Open it,” he said,——“I will read,——segnius irritant,——don’t put the light out,——ah! hæret lateri,——I am going,——vale, vale, vale, good by, good by,——the Lord take care of my child!——Domine, audi——vel audito!” His face whitened suddenly, and he lay still, with open eyes and mouth. He had taken his last degree.
——Little Miss Iris could not be said to begin life with a very brilliant rainbow over her, in a worldly point of view. A limited wardrobe of man’s attire24, such as poor tutors wear,——a few good books, principally classics,——a print or two, and a plaster model of the Pantheon, with some pieces of furniture which had seen service,——these, and a child’s heart full of tearful recollections and strange doubts and questions, alternating with the cheap pleasures which are the anodynes of childish grief; such were the treasures she inherited.——No,——I forgot. With that kindly25 sentiment which all of us feel for old men’s first children,——frost-flowers of the early winter season,——the old tutor’s students had remembered him at a time when he was laughing and crying with his new parental26 emotions, and running to the side of the plain crib in which his alter ego27, as he used to say, was swinging, to hang over the little heap of stirring clothes, from which looked the minute, red, downy, still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips,——in that unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken by a smile, and which gives to the earliest moon-year or two of an infant’s life the character of a first old age, to counterpoise that second childhood which there is one chance in a dozen it may reach by and by. The boys had remembered[16] the old man and young father at that tender period of his hard, dry life. There came to him a fair, silver goblet28, embossed with classical figures, and bearing on a shield the graven words, Ex dono pupillorum. The handle on its side showed what use the boys had meant it for, and a kind letter in it, written with the best of feeling, in the worst of Latin, pointed29 delicately to its destination. Out of this silver vessel30, after a long, desperate, strangling cry, which marked her first great lesson in the realities of life, the child took the blue milk, such as poor tutors and their children get, tempered with water, and sweetened a little, so as to bring it nearer the standard established by the touching31 indulgence and partiality of Nature,——who has mingled32 an extra allowance of sugar in the blameless food of the child at its mother’s breast, as compared with that of its infant brothers and sisters of the bovine33 race.
But a willow34 will grow in baked sand wet with rainwater. An air-plant will grow by feeding on the winds. Nay35, those huge forests that overspread great continents have built themselves up mainly from the air-currents with which they are always battling. The oak is but a foliated atmospheric36 crystal deposited from the aerial ocean that holds the future vegetable world in solution. The storm that tears its leaves has paid tribute to its strength, and it breasts the tornado37 clad in the spoils of a hundred hurricanes.
Poor little Iris! What had she in common with the great oak in the shadow of which we are losing sight of her?——She lived and grew like that,——this was all. The blue milk ran into her veins38 and filled them with[17] thin, pure blood. Her skin was fair, with a faint tinge39, such as the white rosebud40 shows before it opens. The doctor who had attended her father was afraid her aunt would hardly be able to “raise” her,——“delicate child,”——hoped she was not consumptive,——thought there was a fair chance she would take after her father.
A very forlorn-looking person, dressed in black, with a white neckcloth, sent her a memoir41 of a child who died at the age of two years and eleven months, after having fully42 indorsed all the doctrines43 of the particular persuasion44 to which he not only belonged himself, but thought it very shameful45 that everybody else did not belong. What with foreboding looks and dreary46 death-bed stories, it was a wonder the child made out to live through it. It saddened her early years, of course,——it distressed47 her tender soul with thoughts which, as they cannot be fully taken in, should be sparingly used as instruments of torture to break down the natural cheerfulness of a healthy child, or, what is infinitely48 worse, to cheat a dying one out of the kind illusions with which the Father of All has strewed49 its downward path.
The child would have died, no doubt, and, if properly managed, might have added another to the long catalogue of wasting children who have been as cruelly played upon by spiritual physiologists50, often with the best intentions, as ever the subject of a rare disease by the curious students of science.
Fortunately for her, however, a wise instinct had guided the late Latin tutor in the selection of the partner of his life, and the future mother of his child. The[18] deceased tutoress was a tranquil51, smooth woman, easily nourished, as such people are,——a quality which is inestimable in a tutor’s wife,——and so it happened that the daughter inherited enough vitality52 from the mother to live through childhood and infancy53 and fight her way towards womanhood, in spite of the tendencies she derived54 from her other parent.
——Two and two do not always make four, in this matter of hereditary55 descent of qualities. Sometimes they make three, and sometimes five. It seems as if the parental traits at one time showed separate, at another blended,——that occasionally the force of two natures is represented in the derivative56 one by a diagonal of greater value than either original line of living movement,——that sometimes there is a loss of vitality hardly to be accounted for, and again a forward impulse of variable intensity57 in some new and unforeseen direction.
So it was with this child. She had glanced off from her parental probabilities at an unexpected angle. Instead of taking to classical learning like her father, or sliding quietly into household duties like her mother, she broke out early in efforts that pointed in the direction of Art. As soon as she could hold a pencil she began to sketch58 outlines of objects round her with a certain air and spirit. Very extraordinary horses, but their legs looked as if they could move. Birds unknown to Audubon, yet flying, as it were, with a rush. Men with impossible legs, which did yet seem to have a vital connection with their most improbable bodies. By and by the doctor, on his beast,——an old man with a face looking as if Time had kneaded it like dough59 with his knuckles,[19] with a rhubarb tint60 and flavor pervading61 himself and his sorrel horse and all their appurtenances. A dreadful old man! Be sure she did not forget those saddle-bags that held the detestable bottles out of which he used to shake those loathsome62 powders which, to virgin63 childish palates that find heaven in strawberries and peaches, are——Well, I suppose I had better stop. Only she wished she was dead sometimes when she heard him coming. On the next leaf would figure the gentleman with the black coat and white cravat64, as he looked when he came and entertained her with stories concerning the death of various little children about her age, to encourage her, as that wicked Mr. Arouet said about shooting Admiral Byng. Then she would take her pencil, and with a few scratches there would be the outline of a child, in which you might notice how one sudden sweep gave the chubby65 cheek, and two dots darted66 at the paper looked like real eyes.
By and by she went to school, and caricatured the schoolmaster on the leaves of her grammars and geographies, and drew the faces of her companions, and, from time to time, heads and figures from her fancy, with large eyes, far apart, like those of Raffaelle’s mothers and children, sometimes with wild floating hair, and then with wings and heads thrown back in ecstasy67. This was at about twelve years old, as the dates of these drawings show, and, therefore, three or four years before she came among us. Soon after this time, the ideal figures began to take the place of portraits and caricatures, and a new feature appeared in her drawing-books in the form of fragments of verse and short poems.
点击收听单词发音
1 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 appreciable | |
adj.明显的,可见的,可估量的,可觉察的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 verge | |
n.边,边缘;v.接近,濒临 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 elastic | |
n.橡皮圈,松紧带;adj.有弹性的;灵活的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 sullen | |
adj.愠怒的,闷闷不乐的,(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 rusts | |
n.铁锈( rust的名词复数 );(植物的)锈病,锈菌v.(使)生锈( rust的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 iris | |
n.虹膜,彩虹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 backwards | |
adv.往回地,向原处,倒,相反,前后倒置地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 pawn | |
n.典当,抵押,小人物,走卒;v.典当,抵押 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 knight | |
n.骑士,武士;爵士 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 swooped | |
俯冲,猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 lichens | |
n.地衣( lichen的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 buckle | |
n.扣子,带扣;v.把...扣住,由于压力而弯曲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 fatigued | |
adj. 疲乏的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 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: |
|
|
16 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 deference | |
n.尊重,顺从;敬意 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 temperate | |
adj.温和的,温带的,自我克制的,不过分的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 muffled | |
adj.(声音)被隔的;听不太清的;(衣服)裹严的;蒙住的v.压抑,捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 );用厚厚的衣帽包着(自己) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 glistened | |
v.湿物闪耀,闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 trifling | |
adj.微不足道的;没什么价值的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 attire | |
v.穿衣,装扮[同]array;n.衣着;盛装 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 parental | |
adj.父母的;父的;母的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 ego | |
n.自我,自己,自尊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 goblet | |
n.高脚酒杯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 mingled | |
混合,混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 ); 混进,与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 bovine | |
adj.牛的;n.牛 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 willow | |
n.柳树 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 atmospheric | |
adj.大气的,空气的;大气层的;大气所引起的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 tornado | |
n.飓风,龙卷风 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 tinge | |
vt.(较淡)着色于,染色;使带有…气息;n.淡淡色彩,些微的气息 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 rosebud | |
n.蔷薇花蕾,妙龄少女 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 memoir | |
n.[pl.]回忆录,自传;记事录 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 doctrines | |
n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 );教义;学说;(政府政策的)正式声明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 persuasion | |
n.劝说;说服;持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 shameful | |
adj.可耻的,不道德的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 distressed | |
痛苦的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 infinitely | |
adv.无限地,无穷地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 strewed | |
v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 );散落于;点缀;撒满 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 physiologists | |
n.生理学者( physiologist的名词复数 );生理学( physiology的名词复数 );生理机能 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 tranquil | |
adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 infancy | |
n.婴儿期;幼年期;初期 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 hereditary | |
adj.遗传的,遗传性的,可继承的,世袭的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 derivative | |
n.派(衍)生物;adj.非独创性的,模仿他人的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 sketch | |
n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 dough | |
n.生面团;钱,现款 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 tint | |
n.淡色,浅色;染发剂;vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 pervading | |
v.遍及,弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 loathsome | |
adj.讨厌的,令人厌恶的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 cravat | |
n.领巾,领结;v.使穿有领结的服装,使结领结 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 chubby | |
adj.丰满的,圆胖的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 darted | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
67 ecstasy | |
n.狂喜,心醉神怡,入迷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |