THE RICH BOY I

Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created—nothing. That is because we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want any one to know or than we know ourselves. When I hear a man proclaiming himself an "average, honest, open fellow," I feel pretty sure that he has some definite and perhaps terrible abnormality which he has agreed to conceal—and his protestation of being average and honest and open is his way of reminding himself of his misprision.

 

There are no types, no plurals¹. There is a rich boy, and this is his and not his brothers' story. All my life I have lived among his brothers but this one has been my friend. Besides, if I wrote about his brothers I should have to begin by attacking all the lies that the poor have told about the rich and the rich have told about themselves—such a wild structure they have erected² that when we pick up a book about the rich, some instinct prepares us for unreality. Even the intelligent and impassioned reporters of life have made the country of the rich as unreal as fairy-land.

 

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical³ where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. The only way I can describe young Anson Hunter is to approach him as if he were a foreigner and cling stubbornly to my point of view. If I accept his for a moment I am lost—I have nothing to show but a preposterous⁴ movie.

 

1 plurals   

n.复数，复数形式( plural的名词复数 )

参考例句：

2 ERECTED   

adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立

参考例句：

• A monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral. 在圣保罗大教堂为他修了一座纪念碑。
• A monument was erected to the memory of that great scientist. 树立了一块纪念碑纪念那位伟大的科学家。

3 cynical   

adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的

参考例句：

• The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。
• He was cynical that any good could come of democracy.他不相信民主会带来什么好处。

4 preposterous   

adj.荒谬的，可笑的

参考例句：

• The whole idea was preposterous.整个想法都荒唐透顶。
• It would be preposterous to shovel coal with a teaspoon.用茶匙铲煤是荒谬的。