I really cannot say now whether I loved the Moors5 or the Spaniards more. I fought on both sides; I would not have had the Spaniards beaten, and yet when the Moors lost I was vanquished6 with them; and when the poor young King Boabdil (I was his devoted7 partisan8 and at the same time a follower9 of his fiery10 old uncle and rival, Hamet el Zegri) heaved the Last Sigh of the Moor4, as his eyes left the roofs of Granada forever, it was as much my grief as if it had burst from my own breast. I put both these princes into the first and last historical romance I ever wrote. I have now no idea what they did in it, but as the story never came to a conclusion it does not greatly matter. I had never yet read an historical romance that I can make sure of, and probably my attempt must have been based almost solely11 upon the facts of Irving’s history. I am certain I could not have thought of adding anything to them, or at all varying them.
In reading his ‘Chronicle’ I suffered for a time from its attribution to Fray12 Antonio Agapida, the pious13 monk14 whom he feigns15 to have written it, just as in reading ‘Don Quixote’ I suffered from Cervantes masquerading as the Moorish16 scribe, Cid Hamet Ben Engeli. My father explained the literary caprice, but it remained a confusion and a trouble for me, and I made a practice of skipping those passages where either author insisted upon his invention. I will own that I am rather glad that sort of thing seems to be out of fashion now, and I think the directer and franker methods of modern fiction will forbid its revival17. Thackeray was fond of such open disguises, and liked to greet his reader from the mask of Yellowplush and Michael Angelo Titmarsh, but it seems to me this was in his least modern moments.
My ‘Conquest of Granada’ was in two octavo volumes, bound in drab boards, and printed on paper very much yellowed with time at its irregular edges. I do not know when the books happened in my hands. I have no remembrance that they were in any wise offered or commended to me, and in a sort of way they were as authentically18 mine as if I had made them. I saw them at home, not many months ago, in my father’s library (it has long outgrown19 the old bookcase, which has gone I know not where), and upon the whole I rather shrank from taking them down, much more from opening them, though I could not say why, unless it was from the fear of perhaps finding the ghost of my boyish self within, pressed flat like a withered20 leaf, somewhere between the familiar pages.
When I learned Spanish it was with the purpose, never yet fulfilled, of writing the life of Cervantes, although I have since had some forty-odd years to do it in. I taught myself the language, or began to do so, when I knew nothing of the English grammar but the prosody21 at the end of the book. My father had the contempt of familiarity with it, having himself written a very brief sketch22 of our accidence, and he seems to have let me plunge23 into the sea of Spanish verbs and adverbs, nouns and pronouns, and all the rest, when as yet I could not confidently call them by name, with the serene24 belief that if I did not swim I would still somehow get ashore25 without sinking. The end, perhaps, justified26 him, and I suppose I did not do all that work without getting some strength from it; but I wish I had back the time that it cost me; I should like to waste it in some other way. However, time seemed interminable then, and I thought there would be enough of it for me in which to read all Spanish literature; or, at least, I did not propose to do anything less.
I followed Irving, too, in my later reading, but at haphazard27, and with other authors at the same time. I did my poor best to be amused by his ‘Knickerbocker History of New York’, because my father liked it so much, but secretly I found it heavy; and a few years ago when I went carefully through it again. I could not laugh. Even as a boy I found some other things of his uphill work. There was the beautiful manner, but the thought seemed thin; and I do not remember having been much amused by ‘Bracebridge Hall’, though I read it devoutly28, and with a full sense that it would be very ‘comme il faut’ to like it. But I did like the ‘Life of Goldsmith’; I liked it a great deal better than the more authoritative29 ‘Life by Forster’, and I think there is a deeper and sweeter sense of Goldsmith in it. Better than all, except the ‘Conquest of Granada’, I liked the ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and the story of Rip Van Winkle, with their humorous and affectionate caricatures of life that was once of our own soil and air; and the ‘Tales of the Alhambra’, which transported me again, to the scenes of my youth beside the Xenil. It was long after my acquaintance with his work that I came to a due sense of Irving as an artist, and perhaps I have come to feel a full sense of it only now, when I perceive that he worked willingly only when he worked inventively. At last I can do justice to the exquisite30 conception of his ‘Conquest of Granada’, a study of history which, in unique measure, conveys not only the pathos31, but the humor of one of the most splendid and impressive situations in the experience of the race. Very possibly something of the severer truth might have been sacrificed to the effect of the pleasing and touching32 tale, but I do not under stand that this was really done. Upon the whole I am very well content with my first three loves in literature, and if I were to choose for any other boy I do not see how I could choose better than Goldsmith and Cervantes and Irving, kindred spirits, and each not a master only, but a sweet and gentle friend, whose kindness could not fail to profit him.
点击收听单词发音
1 liking | |
n.爱好;嗜好;喜欢 | |
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2 attenuated | |
v.(使)变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 );(使)变薄;(使)变小;减弱 | |
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3 passionately | |
ad.热烈地,激烈地 | |
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4 moor | |
n.荒野,沼泽;vt.(使)停泊;vi.停泊 | |
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5 moors | |
v.停泊,系泊(船只)( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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6 vanquished | |
v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 );战胜;克服;抑制 | |
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7 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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8 partisan | |
adj.党派性的;游击队的;n.游击队员;党徒 | |
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9 follower | |
n.跟随者;随员;门徒;信徒 | |
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10 fiery | |
adj.燃烧着的,火红的;暴躁的;激烈的 | |
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11 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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12 fray | |
v.争吵;打斗;磨损,磨破;n.吵架;打斗 | |
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13 pious | |
adj.虔诚的;道貌岸然的 | |
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14 monk | |
n.和尚,僧侣,修道士 | |
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15 feigns | |
假装,伪装( feign的第三人称单数 ); 捏造(借口、理由等) | |
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16 moorish | |
adj.沼地的,荒野的,生[住]在沼地的 | |
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17 revival | |
n.复兴,复苏,(精力、活力等的)重振 | |
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18 authentically | |
ad.sincerely真诚地 | |
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19 outgrown | |
长[发展] 得超过(某物)的范围( outgrow的过去分词 ); 长[发展]得不能再要(某物); 长得比…快; 生长速度超过 | |
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20 withered | |
adj. 枯萎的,干瘪的,(人身体的部分器官)因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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21 prosody | |
n.诗体论,作诗法 | |
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22 sketch | |
n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述 | |
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23 plunge | |
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲 | |
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24 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
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25 ashore | |
adv.在(向)岸上,上岸 | |
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26 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
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27 haphazard | |
adj.无计划的,随意的,杂乱无章的 | |
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28 devoutly | |
adv.虔诚地,虔敬地,衷心地 | |
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29 authoritative | |
adj.有权威的,可相信的;命令式的;官方的 | |
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30 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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31 pathos | |
n.哀婉,悲怆 | |
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32 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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