“Surely a simple matter to keep enough coffee in the house! A schoolgirl could do it! And yet they let themselves run short of coffee! I ask for nothing out of the way. I make no inordinate1 demands on the household. But I do like good coffee. And I can’t have it! Strange! As for that mutton—one would think there was no clock in the kitchen. One would think that nobody had ever cooked a leg of mutton before. How many legs of mutton have they cooked between them in their lives? Scores; hundreds; I dare say thousands. And yet it hasn’t yet dawned on them that a leg of mutton of a certain weight requires a certain time for cooking, and that if it is put down late one of two things must occur—either it will be undercooked or the dinner will be late! Simple enough! Logical enough! Four women in the house (three servants and the wicked, negligent2 Mrs. Omicron), and yet they must needs waste a leg of mutton through nothing but gross carelessness! It isn’t as if it hadn’t happened before! It isn’t as if I hadn’t pointed3 it out! But women are amateurs. All women are alike. All housekeeping is amateurish4. She (Mrs. Omicron, the criminal) has nothing in this world to do but run the house—and see how she runs it! No order! No method! Has she ever studied housekeeping scientifically? Not she! Does she care? Not she! If she had any real sense of responsibility, if she had the slightest glimmering5 of her own short-comings, she wouldn’t have started on the ring question. But there you are! She only thinks of spending, and titivating herself. I wish she had to do a little earning. She’d find out a thing or two then. She’d find out that life isn’t all moonstones and motor-cars. Ring, indeed! It’s the lack of tact6 that annoys me. I am an ill-used man. All husbands are ill-used men. The whole system wants altering. However, I must keep my end up. And I will keep my end up. Ring, indeed! No tact!”
He fostered a secret fury. And he enjoyed fostering it. There was exaggeration in these thoughts, which, he would admit next day, were possibly too sweeping7 in their scope. But he would maintain the essential truth of them. He was not really and effectively furious against Mrs. Omicron; he did not, as a fact, class her with forgers and drunken chauffeurs8; indeed, the fellow loved her in his fashion. But he did pass a mature judgment9 against her. He did wrap up his grudge10 in cotton-wool and put it in a drawer and examine it with perverse11 pleasure now and then. He did increase that secretion12 of poison which weakens the social health of nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand married lives—however delightful13 they may be. He did render more permanent a noxious14 habit of mind. He did appreciably15 and doubly and finally impair16 the conjugal17 happiness—for it must not be forgotten that in creating a grievance18 for himself he also gave his wife a grievance. He did, in fine, contribute to the general mass of misunderstanding between sex and sex.
If he is reading this, as he assuredly is, Mr. Omicron will up and exclaim:
“My wife a grievance! Absurd! The facts are incontrovertible. What grievance can she have?”
The grievance that Mr. Omicron, becoming every day more and more the plain man, is not exercising imagination in the very field where it is most needed.
What is a home, Mr. Omicron? You reply that a home is a home. You have always had a home. You were born in one. With luck you will die in one. And you have never regarded a home as anything but a home. Your leading idea has ever been that a home is emphatically not an office nor a manufactory. But suppose you were to unscale your eyes—that is to say, use your imagination—try to see that a home, in addition to being a home, is an office and manufactory for the supply of light, warmth, cleanliness, ease, and food to a given number of people? Suppose you were to allow it to occur to you that a home emphatically is an organization similar to an office and manufactory—and an extremely complicated and delicate one, with many diverse departments, functioning under extremely difficult conditions? For thus it in truth is. Could you once accomplish this feat19 of imaginative faculty20, you would never again say, with that disdainful accent of yours: “Mrs. Omicron has nothing in the world to do but run the house.” For really it would be just as clever for her to say: “Mr. Omicron has nothing in the world to do but run the office.”
I admit heartily21 that Mrs. Omicron is not perfect. She ought to be, of course; but she, alas22! falls short of the ideal. Yet in some details she can and does show the way to that archangel, her husband. When her office and manufactory goes wrong, you, Mr. Omicron, are righteously indignant and superior. You majestically23 wonder that with four women in the house, etc., etc. But when you come home and complain that things are askew24 in your masculine establishment, and that a period of economy must set in, does she say to you with scorn: “Don’t dare to mention coffee to-night. I really wonder that with fourteen (or a hundred and forty) grown men in your establishment you cannot produce an ample and regular income?” No; she makes the best of it. She is sympathetic. And you, Mr. Omicron, would be excessively startled and wounded if she were not sympathetic. Put your imagination to work and you will see how interesting are these comparisons.
《A Man from the North》
《A Man from the North》
点击收听单词发音
1 inordinate | |
adj.无节制的;过度的 | |
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2 negligent | |
adj.疏忽的;玩忽的;粗心大意的 | |
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3 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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4 amateurish | |
n.业余爱好的,不熟练的 | |
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5 glimmering | |
n.微光,隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光,发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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6 tact | |
n.机敏,圆滑,得体 | |
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7 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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8 chauffeurs | |
n.受雇于人的汽车司机( chauffeur的名词复数 ) | |
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9 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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10 grudge | |
n.不满,怨恨,妒嫉;vt.勉强给,不情愿做 | |
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11 perverse | |
adj.刚愎的;坚持错误的,行为反常的 | |
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12 secretion | |
n.分泌 | |
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13 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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14 noxious | |
adj.有害的,有毒的;使道德败坏的,讨厌的 | |
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15 appreciably | |
adv.相当大地 | |
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16 impair | |
v.损害,损伤;削弱,减少 | |
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17 conjugal | |
adj.婚姻的,婚姻性的 | |
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18 grievance | |
n.怨愤,气恼,委屈 | |
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19 feat | |
n.功绩;武艺,技艺;adj.灵巧的,漂亮的,合适的 | |
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20 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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21 heartily | |
adv.衷心地,诚恳地,十分,很 | |
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22 alas | |
int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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23 majestically | |
雄伟地; 庄重地; 威严地; 崇高地 | |
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24 askew | |
adv.斜地;adj.歪斜的 | |
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