“Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanliness, to safety, to modesty9, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched10 silk (as it were, the emblem11 and beatified ghost of an Apron), which some highest-bred housewife, sitting at Nurnberg Work-boxes and Toy-boxes, has gracefully12 fastened on; to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him with thongs13, wherein the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his trowel; or to those jingling14 sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise half-naked Vulcans hammer and smelt15 in their smelt-furnace, — is there not range enough in the fashion and uses of this Vestment? How much has been concealed16, how much has been defended in Aprons! Nay17, rightly considered, what is your whole Military and Police Establishment, charged at uncalculated millions, but a huge scarlet-colored, iron-fastened Apron, wherein Society works (uneasily enough); guarding itself from some soil and stithy-sparks, in this Devil’s-smithy (Teufels-schmiede) of a world? But of all Aprons the most puzzling to me hitherto has been the Episcopal or Cassock. Wherein consists the usefulness of this Apron? The Overseer (Episcopus) of Souls, I notice, has tucked in the corner of it, as if his day’s work were done: what does he shadow forth18 thereby19?” &c. &c.
Or again, has it often been the lot of our readers to read such stuff as we shall now quote?
“I consider those printed Paper Aprons, worn by the Parisian Cooks, as a new vent7, though a slight one, for Typography; therefore as an encouragement to modern Literature, and deserving of approval: nor is it without satisfaction that I hear of a celebrated20 London Firm having in view to introduce the same fashion, with important extensions, in England.” — We who are on the spot hear of no such thing; and indeed have reason to be thankful that hitherto there are other vents21 for our Literature, exuberant22 as it is. — Teufelsdrockh continues: “If such supply of printed Paper should rise so far as to choke up the highways and public thoroughfares, new means must of necessity be had recourse to. In a world existing by Industry, we grudge23 to employ fire as a destroying element, and not as a creating one. However, Heaven is omnipotent24, and will find us an outlet25. In the mean while, is it not beautiful to see five million quintals of Rags picked annually26 from the Laystall; and annually, after being macerated, hot-pressed, printed on, and sold, — returned thither27; filling so many hungry mouths by the way? Thus is the Laystall, especially with its Rags or Clothes-rubbish, the grand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-motion, from which and to which the Social Activities (like vitreous and resinous28 Electricities) circulate, in larger or smaller circles, through the mighty29, billowy, storm-tost chaos30 of Life, which they keep alive!” — Such passages fill us, who love the man, and partly esteem31 him, with a very mixed feeling.
Farther down we meet with this: “The Journalists are now the true Kings and Clergy32: henceforth Historians, unless they are fools, must write not of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs; but of Stamped Broad-sheet Dynasties, and quite new successive Names, according as this or the other Able Editor, or Combination of Able Editors, gains the world’s ear. Of the British Newspaper Press, perhaps the most important of all, and wonderful enough in its secret constitution and procedure, a valuable descriptive History already exists, in that language, under the title of Satan’s Invisible World Displayed; which, however, by search in all the Weissnichtwo Libraries, I have not yet succeeded in procuring33 (vermochte night aufzutreiben).”
Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does Teufelsdrockh, wandering in regions where he had little business, confound the old authentic34 Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, imaginary Historian of the Brittische Journalistik; and so stumble on perhaps the most egregious35 blunder in Modern Literature!
点击收听单词发音
1 aprons | |
围裙( apron的名词复数 ); 停机坪,台口(舞台幕前的部份) | |
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2 apron | |
n.围裙;工作裙 | |
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4 majesty | |
n.雄伟,壮丽,庄严,威严;最高权威,王权 | |
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5 worthies | |
应得某事物( worthy的名词复数 ); 值得做某事; 可尊敬的; 有(某人或事物)的典型特征 | |
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6 levity | |
n.轻率,轻浮,不稳定,多变 | |
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7 vent | |
n.通风口,排放口;开衩;vt.表达,发泄 | |
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8 satire | |
n.讽刺,讽刺文学,讽刺作品 | |
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9 modesty | |
n.谦逊,虚心,端庄,稳重,羞怯,朴素 | |
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10 notched | |
a.有凹口的,有缺口的 | |
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11 emblem | |
n.象征,标志;徽章 | |
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12 gracefully | |
ad.大大方方地;优美地 | |
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13 thongs | |
的东西 | |
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14 jingling | |
叮当声 | |
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15 smelt | |
v.熔解,熔炼;n.银白鱼,胡瓜鱼 | |
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16 concealed | |
a.隐藏的,隐蔽的 | |
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17 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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18 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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19 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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20 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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21 vents | |
(气体、液体等进出的)孔、口( vent的名词复数 ); (鸟、鱼、爬行动物或小哺乳动物的)肛门; 大衣等的)衩口; 开衩 | |
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22 exuberant | |
adj.充满活力的;(植物)繁茂的 | |
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23 grudge | |
n.不满,怨恨,妒嫉;vt.勉强给,不情愿做 | |
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24 omnipotent | |
adj.全能的,万能的 | |
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25 outlet | |
n.出口/路;销路;批发商店;通风口;发泄 | |
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26 annually | |
adv.一年一次,每年 | |
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27 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
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28 resinous | |
adj.树脂的,树脂质的,树脂制的 | |
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29 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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30 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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31 esteem | |
n.尊敬,尊重;vt.尊重,敬重;把…看作 | |
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32 clergy | |
n.[总称]牧师,神职人员 | |
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33 procuring | |
v.(努力)取得, (设法)获得( procure的现在分词 );拉皮条 | |
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34 authentic | |
a.真的,真正的;可靠的,可信的,有根据的 | |
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35 egregious | |
adj.非常的,过分的 | |
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