I looked up. The sun was setting, a warm glow fell upon the dissolving mountains of Savoy and upon the shining mirror of the lake. The luminous7, tranquil8 breadth of it caught me and held me. "I am done for." The light upon the lake and upon the mountains, the downward swoop9 of a bird over the water and something in my heart, gave me the lie.
"What nonsense!" I said, and felt as if some dark cloud that had overshadowed me had been thrust back.
I stared across at Savoy as though that land had spoken. Why should I let all my life be ruled by the blunders and adventures of one short year of adventure? Why should I become the votary10 of a train of consequences? What had I been dreaming of all this time? Over there were gigantic uplands I had never seen and trodden; and beyond were great plains and cities, and beyond that the sea, and so on, great spaces and multitudinous things all round about the world. What did the things I had done, the things I had failed to do, the hopes crushed out of me, the tears and the anger, matter to that? And in some amazing way this thought so took possession of me that the question seemed also to carry with it the still more startling collateral12, what then did they matter to me? "Come out of yourself," said the mountains and all the beauty of the world. "Whatever you have done or suffered is nothing to the inexhaustible offer life makes you. We are you, just as much as the past is you."
It was as though I had forgotten and now remembered how infinitely13 multitudinous life can be. It was as if Tarvrille's neglected words to me had sprouted14 in the obscurity of my mind and borne fruit....
I cannot explain how that mood came, I am doing my best to describe it, and it is not easy even to describe. And I fear that to you who will have had I hope no experience of such shadows as I had passed through, it is impossible to convey its immense elation15.... I remember once I came in a boat out of the caves of Han after two hours in the darkness, and there was the common daylight that is nothing wonderful at all, and its brightness ahead there seemed like trumpets16 and cheering, like waving flags and like the sunrise. And so it was with this mood of my release.
There is a phrase of Peter E. Noyes', that queer echo of Emerson whom people are always rediscovering and forgetting again, a phrase that sticks in my mind,—"Every living soul is heir to an empire and has fallen into a pit." It's an image wonderfully apt to describe my change of mental attitude, and render the contrast between those intensely passionate17 personal entanglements18 that had held me tight and that wide estate of life that spreads about us all, open to all of us in just the measure that we can scramble19 out of our individual selves—to a more general self. I seemed to be hanging there at the brim of my stale and painful den11, staring at the unthought-of greatness of the world, with an unhoped-for wind out of heaven blowing upon my face.
I suppose the intention of the phrase "finding salvation," as religious people use it, is very much this experience. If it is not the same thing it is something very closely akin20. It is as if someone were scrambling21 out of a pit into a largeness—a largeness that is attainable22 by every man just in the measure that he realizes it is there.
I leave these fine discriminations to the theologian. I know that I went back to my hotel in Vevey with my mind healed, with my will restored to me, and my ideas running together into plans. And I know that I had come out that day a broken and apathetic23 man.
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1 Oxford | |
n.牛津(英国城市) | |
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2 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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3 tarnished | |
(通常指金属)(使)失去光泽,(使)变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 ); 玷污,败坏 | |
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4 prospects | |
n.希望,前途(恒为复数) | |
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5 confirmation | |
n.证实,确认,批准 | |
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6 condemned | |
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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7 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
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8 tranquil | |
adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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9 swoop | |
n.俯冲,攫取;v.抓取,突然袭击 | |
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10 votary | |
n.崇拜者;爱好者;adj.誓约的,立誓任圣职的 | |
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11 den | |
n.兽穴;秘密地方;安静的小房间,私室 | |
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12 collateral | |
adj.平行的;旁系的;n.担保品 | |
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13 infinitely | |
adv.无限地,无穷地 | |
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14 sprouted | |
v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 );抽芽;出现;(使)涌现出 | |
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15 elation | |
n.兴高采烈,洋洋得意 | |
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16 trumpets | |
喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 ); 小号; 喇叭形物; (尤指)绽开的水仙花 | |
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17 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
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18 entanglements | |
n.瓜葛( entanglement的名词复数 );牵连;纠缠;缠住 | |
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19 scramble | |
v.爬行,攀爬,杂乱蔓延,碎片,片段,废料 | |
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20 akin | |
adj.同族的,类似的 | |
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21 scrambling | |
v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 );攀登;争夺;(军事飞机)紧急起飞 | |
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22 attainable | |
a.可达到的,可获得的 | |
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23 apathetic | |
adj.冷漠的,无动于衷的 | |
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