Almost wholly I think I was dreaming of public service in those days. The Harbury tradition pointed4 steadfastly5 towards the state, and all my world was bare of allurements6 to any other type of ambition. Success in art or literature did not appeal to us, and a Harbury boy would as soon think of being a great tinker as a great philosopher. Science we called "stinks"; our three science masters were ex officio ridiculous and the practical laboratory a refuge for oddities. But a good half of our fathers at least were peers or members of parliament, and our sense of politics was close and keen. History, and particularly history as it came up through the eighteenth century to our own times, supplied us with a gallery of intimate models, our great uncles and grandfathers and ancestors at large figured abundantly in the story and furnished the pattern to which we cut our anticipations of life. It was a season of Imperialism8, the picturesque9 Imperialism of the earlier Kipling phase, and we were all of us enthusiasts10 for the Empire. It was the empire of the White Man's Burthen in those days; the sordid11 anti-climax of the Tariff12 Reform Movement was still some years ahead of us. It was easier for us at Harbury to believe then than it has become since, in our own racial and national and class supremacy13. We were the Anglo-Saxons, the elect of the earth, leading the world in social organization, in science and economic method. In India and the east more particularly we were the apostles of even-handed justice, relentless14 veracity15, personal cleanliness, and modern efficiency. In a spirit of adventurous16 benevolence17 we were spreading those blessings18 over a reluctant and occasionally recalcitrant19 world of people for the most part "colored." Our success in this had aroused the bitter envy and rivalry20 of various continental21 nations, and particularly of France, Russia, and Germany. But France had been diverted to North Africa, Russia to Eastern Asia, and Germany was already the most considered antagonist22 in our path towards an empire over the world.
This was the spacious23 and by no means ignoble24 project of the later nineties. Most of us Harbury boys, trained as I had been trained to be uncritical, saw the national outlook in those terms. We knew little or nothing, until the fierce wranglings of the Free Traders and Tariff Reformers a few years later brought it home to us, of the commercial, financial and squalid side of our relations with the vast congeries of exploited new territories and subordinated and subjugated25 populations. We knew nothing of the social conditions of the mass of people in our own country. We were blankly ignorant of economics. We knew nothing of that process of expropriation and the exploitation of labor7 which is giving the world the Servile State. The very phrase was twenty years ahead of us. We believed that an Englishman was a better thing in every way than any other sort of man, that English literature, science and philosophy were a shining and unapproachable light to all other peoples, that our soldiers were better than all other soldiers and our sailors than all other sailors. Such civilization and enterprise as existed in Germany for instance we regarded as a shadow, an envious26 shadow, following our own; it was still generally believed in those days that German trade was concerned entirely27 with the dishonest imitation of our unapproachable English goods. And as for the United States, well, the United States though blessed with a strain of English blood, were nevertheless "out of it," marooned28 in a continent of their own and—we had to admit it—corrupt.
Given such ignorance, you know, it wasn't by any means ignoble to be patriotic29, to dream of this propagandist Empire of ours spreading its great peace and culture, its virtue30 and its amazing and unprecedented31 honesty,—its honesty!—round the world.
点击收听单词发音
1 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 anticipations | |
预期( anticipation的名词复数 ); 预测; (信托财产收益的)预支; 预期的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 triumphant | |
adj.胜利的,成功的;狂欢的,喜悦的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 steadfastly | |
adv.踏实地,不变地;岿然;坚定不渝 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 allurements | |
n.诱惑( allurement的名词复数 );吸引;诱惑物;有诱惑力的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 imperialism | |
n.帝国主义,帝国主义政策 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 enthusiasts | |
n.热心人,热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 sordid | |
adj.肮脏的,不干净的,卑鄙的,暗淡的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 tariff | |
n.关税,税率;(旅馆、饭店等)价目表,收费表 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 supremacy | |
n.至上;至高权力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 relentless | |
adj.残酷的,不留情的,无怜悯心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 veracity | |
n.诚实 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 adventurous | |
adj.爱冒险的;惊心动魄的,惊险的,刺激的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 benevolence | |
n.慈悲,捐助 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 blessings | |
n.(上帝的)祝福( blessing的名词复数 );好事;福分;因祸得福 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 recalcitrant | |
adj.倔强的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 rivalry | |
n.竞争,竞赛,对抗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 continental | |
adj.大陆的,大陆性的,欧洲大陆的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 antagonist | |
n.敌人,对抗者,对手 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 ignoble | |
adj.不光彩的,卑鄙的;可耻的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 subjugated | |
v.征服,降伏( subjugate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 envious | |
adj.嫉妒的,羡慕的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 marooned | |
adj.被围困的;孤立无援的;无法脱身的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 unprecedented | |
adj.无前例的,新奇的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |