THE IRISHMAN.

 He says "Shure" and "Bedad" and in moments of exultation¹ "Beghorra." That is all the Irish he knows.

 

He is very poor, but scrupulously² honest. His great ambition is to pay his rent, and he is devoted³ to his landlord.

 

He is always cheerful and always good. We never knew a bad Irishman on the stage. Sometimes a stage Irishman seems to be a bad man—such as the "agent" or the "informer"—but in these cases it invariably turns out in the end that this man was all along a Scotchman, and thus what had been a mystery becomes clear and explicable.

 

The stage Irishman is always doing the most wonderful things imaginable. We do not see him do those wonderful things. He does them when nobody is by and tells us all about them afterward⁴: that is how we know of them.

 

We remember on one occasion, when we were young and somewhat inexperienced, planking our money down and going into a theater solely⁵ and purposely to see the stage Irishman do the things he was depicted⁶ as doing on the posters outside.

 

They were really marvelous, the things he did on that poster.

 

In the right-hand upper corner he appeared running across country on all fours, with a red herring sticking out from his coat-tails, while far behind came hounds and horsemen hunting him. But their chance of ever catching⁷ him up was clearly hopeless.

 

To the left he was represented as running away over one of the wildest and most rugged⁸ bits of landscape we have ever seen with a very big man on his back. Six policemen stood scattered⁹ about a mile behind him. They had evidently been running after him, but had at last given up the pursuit as useless.

 

In the center of the poster he was having a friendly fight with seventeen ladies and gentlemen. Judging from the costumes, the affair appeared to be a wedding. A few of the guests had already been killed and lay dead about the floor. The survivors¹⁰, however, were enjoying themselves immensely, and of all that gay group he was the gayest.

 

At the moment chosen by the artist, he had just succeeded in cracking the bridegroom's skull¹¹.

 

"We must see this," said we to ourselves. "This is good." And we had a bob's worth.

 

But he did not do any of the things that we have mentioned, after all—at least, we mean we did not see him do any of them. It seems he did them "off," and then came on and told his mother all about it afterward.

 

He told it very well, but somehow or other we were disappointed. We had so reckoned on that fight.

 

By the bye, we have noticed, even among the characters of real life, a tendency to perform most of their wonderful feats¹² "off."

 

It has been our privilege since then to gaze upon many posters on which have been delineated strange and moving stage events.

 

We have seen the hero holding the villain¹³ up high above his head, and throwing him about that carelessly that we have felt afraid he would break something with him.

 

We have seen a heroine leaping from the roof of a house on one side of the street and being caught by the comic man standing¹⁴ on the roof of a house on the other side of the street and thinking nothing of it.

 

We have seen railway trains rushing into each other at the rate of sixty miles an hour. We have seen houses blown up by dynamite¹⁵ two hundred feet into the air. We have seen the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the destruction of Pompeii, and the return of the British army from Egypt in one "set" each.

 

Such incidents as earthquakes, wrecks¹⁶ in mid-ocean, revolutions and battles we take no note of, they being commonplace and ordinary.

 

But we do not go inside to see these things now. We have two looks at the poster instead; it is more satisfying.

 

The Irishman, to return to our friend, is very fond of whisky—the stage Irishman, we mean. Whisky is forever in his thoughts—and often in other places belonging to him, besides.

 

The fashion in dress among stage Irishmen is rather picturesque¹⁷ than neat. Tailors must have a hard time of it in stage Ireland.

 

The stage Irishman has also an original taste in hats. He always wears a hat without a crown; whether to keep his head cool or with any political significance we cannot say.

1 exultation   

n.狂喜，得意

参考例句：

• It made him catch his breath, it lit his face with exultation. 听了这个名字，他屏住呼吸，乐得脸上放光。
• He could get up no exultation that was really worthy the name. 他一点都激动不起来。

2 scrupulously   

adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地

参考例句：

• She toed scrupulously into the room. 她小心翼翼地踮着脚走进房间。 来自辞典例句
• To others he would be scrupulously fair. 对待别人，他力求公正。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史

3 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

4 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

5 solely   

adv.仅仅，唯一地

参考例句：

• Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
• The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。

6 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。

7 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

8 rugged   

adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的

参考例句：

• Football players must be rugged.足球运动员必须健壮。
• The Rocky Mountains have rugged mountains and roads.落基山脉有崇山峻岭和崎岖不平的道路。

9 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

10 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

11 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

12 feats   

功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He used to astound his friends with feats of physical endurance. 过去，他表现出来的惊人耐力常让朋友们大吃一惊。
• His heroic feats made him a legend in his own time. 他的英雄业绩使他成了他那个时代的传奇人物。

13 villain   

n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因

参考例句：

• He was cast as the villain in the play.他在戏里扮演反面角色。
• The man who played the villain acted very well.扮演恶棍的那个男演员演得很好。

14 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

15 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

16 wrecks   

n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉

参考例句：

• The shores are strewn with wrecks. 海岸上满布失事船只的残骸。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• My next care was to get together the wrecks of my fortune. 第二件我所关心的事就是集聚破产后的余财。 来自辞典例句

17 picturesque   

adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的

参考例句：

• You can see the picturesque shores beside the river.在河边你可以看到景色如画的两岸。
• That was a picturesque phrase.那是一个形象化的说法。