I always considered my father — I speak of him in the past tense, because we are now separated for ever; because he is henceforth as dead to me as if the grave had closed over him — I always considered my father to be the proudest man I ever knew; the proudest man I ever heard of. His was not that conventional pride, which the popular notions are fond of characterising by a stiff, stately carriage; by a rigid2 expression of features; by a hard, severe intonation3 of voice; by set speeches of contempt for poverty and rags, and rhapsodical braggadocio4 about rank and breeding. My father’s pride had nothing of this about it. It was that quiet, negative, courteous5, inbred pride, which only the closest observation could detect; which no ordinary observers ever detected at all.
Who that observed him in communication with any of the farmers on any of his estates — who that saw the manner in which he lifted his hat, when he accidentally met any of those farmers’ wives — who that noticed his hearty6 welcome to the man of the people, when that man happened to be a man of genius — would have thought him proud? On such occasions as these, if he had any pride, it was impossible to detect it. But seeing him when, for instance, an author and a new-made peer of no ancestry7 entered his house together — observing merely the entirely8 different manner in which he shook hands with each — remarking that the polite cordiality was all for the man of letters, who did not contest his family rank with him, and the polite formality all for the man of title, who did — you discovered where and how he was proud in an instant. Here lay his fretful point. The aristocracy of rank, as separate from the aristocracy of ancestry, was no aristocracy for him. He was jealous of it; he hated it. Commoner though he was, he considered himself the social superior of any man, from a baronet up to a duke, whose family was less ancient than his own.
Among a host of instances of this peculiar9 pride of his which I could cite, I remember one, characteristic enough to be taken as a sample of all the rest. It happened when I was quite a child, and was told me by one of my uncles now dead — who witnessed the circumstance himself, and always made a good story of it to the end of his life.
A merchant of enormous wealth, who had recently been raised to the peerage, was staying at one of our country houses. His daughter, my uncle, and an Italian Abbe were the only guests besides. The merchant was a portly, purple-faced man, who bore his new honours with a curious mixture of assumed pomposity10 and natural good-humour. The Abbe was dwarfish11 and deformed12, lean, sallow, sharp-featured, with bright bird-like eyes, and a low, liquid voice. He was a political refugee, dependent for the bread he ate, on the money he received for teaching languages. He might have been a beggar from the streets; and still my father would have treated him as the principal guest in the house, for this all-sufficient reason — he was a direct descendant of one of the oldest of those famous Roman families whose names are part of the history of the Civil Wars in Italy.
On the first day, the party assembled for dinner comprised the merchant’s daughter, my mother, an old lady who had once been her governess, and had always lived with her since her marriage, the new Lord, the Abbe, my father, and my uncle. When dinner was announced, the peer advanced in new-blown dignity, to offer his arm as a matter of course to my mother. My father’s pale face flushed crimson13 in a moment. He touched the magnificent merchant-lord on the arm, and pointed14 significantly, with a low bow, towards the decrepit15 old lady who had once been my mother’s governess. Then walking to the other end of the room, where the penniless Abbe was looking over a book in a corner, he gravely and courteously16 led the little, deformed, limping language-master, clad in a long, threadbare, black coat, up to my mother (whose shoulder the Abbe’s head hardly reached), held the door open for them to pass out first, with his own hand; politely invited the new nobleman, who stood half-paralysed between confusion and astonishment17, to follow with the tottering18 old lady on his arm; and then returned to lead the peer’s daughter down to dinner himself. He only resumed his wonted expression and manner, when he had seen the little Abbe — the squalid, half-starved representative of mighty19 barons20 of the olden time — seated at the highest place of the table by my mother’s side.
It was by such accidental circumstances as these that you discovered how far he was proud. He never boasted of his ancestors; he never even spoke21 of them, except when he was questioned on the subject; but he never forgot them. They were the very breath of his life; the deities22 of his social worship: the family treasures to be held precious beyond all lands and all wealth, all ambitions and all glories, by his children and his children’s children to the end of their race.
In home-life he performed his duties towards his family honourably23, delicately, and kindly24. I believe in his own way he loved us all; but we, his descendants, had to share his heart with his ancestors — we were his household property as well as his children. Every fair liberty was given to us; every fair indulgence was granted to us. He never displayed any suspicion, or any undue25 severity. We were taught by his direction, that to disgrace our family, either by word or action, was the one fatal crime which could never be forgotten and never be pardoned. We were formed, under his superintendence, in principles of religion, honour, and industry; and the rest was left to our own moral sense, to our own comprehension of the duties and privileges of our station. There was no one point in his conduct towards any of us that we could complain of; and yet there was something always incomplete in our domestic relations.
It may seem incomprehensible, even ridiculous, to some persons, but it is nevertheless true, that we were none of us ever on intimate terms with him. I mean by this, that he was a father to us, but never a companion. There was something in his manner, his quiet and unchanging manner, which kept us almost unconsciously restrained. I never in my life felt less at my ease — I knew not why at the time — than when I occasionally dined alone with him. I never confided26 to him my schemes for amusement as a boy, or mentioned more than generally my ambitious hopes, as a young man. It was not that he would have received such confidences with ridicule27 or severity, he was incapable28 of it; but that he seemed above them, unfitted to enter into them, too far removed by his own thoughts from such thoughts as ours. Thus, all holiday councils were held with old servants; thus, my first pages of manuscript, when I first tried authorship, were read by my sister, and never penetrated29 into my father’s study.
Again, his mode of testifying displeasure towards my brother or myself, had something terrible in its calmness, something that we never forgot, and always dreaded30 as the worst calamity31 that could befall us.
Whenever, as boys, we committed some boyish fault, he never displayed outwardly any irritation32 — he simply altered his manner towards us altogether. We were not soundly lectured, or vehemently33 threatened, or positively34 punished in anyway; but, when we came in contact with him, we were treated with a cold, contemptuous politeness (especially if our fault showed a tendency to anything mean or ungentlemanlike) which cut us to the heart. On these occasions, we were not addressed by our Christian35 names; if we accidentally met him out of doors, he was sure to turn aside and avoid us; if we asked a question, it was answered in the briefest possible manner, as if we had been strangers. His whole course of conduct said, as though in so many words — You have rendered yourselves unfit to associate with your father; and he is now making you feel that unfitness as deeply as he does. We were left in this domestic purgatory36 for days, sometimes for weeks together. To our boyish feelings (to mine especially) there was no ignominy like it, while it lasted.
I know not on what terms my father lived with my mother. Towards my sister, his demeanour always exhibited something of the old-fashioned, affectionate gallantry of a former age. He paid her the same attention that he would have paid to the highest lady in the land. He led her into the dining-room, when we were alone, exactly as he would have led a duchess into a banqueting-hall. He would allow us, as boys, to quit the breakfast-table before he had risen himself; but never before she had left it. If a servant failed in duty towards him, the servant was often forgiven; if towards her, the servant was sent away on the spot. His daughter was in his eyes the representative of her mother: the mistress of his house, as well as his child. It was curious to see the mixture of high-bred courtesy and fatherly love in his manner, as he just gently touched her forehead with his lips, when he first saw her in the morning.
In person, my father was of not more than middle height. He was very slenderly and delicately made; his head small, and well set on his shoulders — his forehead more broad than lofty — his complexion37 singularly pale, except in moments of agitation38, when I have already noticed its tendency to flush all over in an instant. His eyes, large and gray, had something commanding in their look; they gave a certain unchanging firmness and dignity to his expression, not often met with. They betrayed his birth and breeding, his old ancestral prejudices, his chivalrous39 sense of honour, in every glance. It required, indeed, all the masculine energy of look about the upper part of his face, to redeem40 the lower part from an appearance of effeminacy, so delicately was it moulded in its fine Norman outline. His smile was remarkable41 for its sweetness — it was almost like a woman’s smile. In speaking, too, his lips often trembled as women’s do. If he ever laughed, as a young man, his laugh must have been very clear and musical; but since I can recollect42 him, I never heard it. In his happiest moments, in the gayest society, I have only seen him smile.
There were other characteristics of my father’s disposition43 and manner, which I might mention; but they will appear to greater advantage, perhaps, hereafter, connected with circumstances which especially called them forth1.
收听单词发音 |
1
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
rigid
|
|
| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
intonation
|
|
| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
braggadocio
|
|
| n.吹牛大王 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
courteous
|
|
| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
hearty
|
|
| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
ancestry
|
|
| n.祖先，家世 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
pomposity
|
|
| n.浮华；虚夸；炫耀；自负 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
dwarfish
|
|
| a.像侏儒的，矮小的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
deformed
|
|
| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
crimson
|
|
| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
decrepit
|
|
| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
courteously
|
|
| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
astonishment
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
tottering
|
|
| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
barons
|
|
| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
deities
|
|
| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
honourably
|
|
| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
undue
|
|
| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
confided
|
|
| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
ridicule
|
|
| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
penetrated
|
|
| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
dreaded
|
|
| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
calamity
|
|
| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
irritation
|
|
| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
vehemently
|
|
| adv. 热烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
positively
|
|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
purgatory
|
|
| n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
complexion
|
|
| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
agitation
|
|
| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
chivalrous
|
|
| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
redeem
|
|
| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
recollect
|
|
| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |