If very little came to me in those days from books, on the other hand my acquaintance with the drama vastly enlarged itself. There was a hapless company of players in the town from time to time, and they came to us for their printing. I believe they never paid for it, or at least never wholly, but they lavished5 free passes upon us, and as nearly as I can make out, at this distance of time, I profited by their generosity6, every night. They gave two or three plays at every performance to houses ungratefully small, but of a lively spirit and impatient temper that would not brook7 delay in the representation; and they changed the bill each day. In this way I became familiar with Shakespeare before I read him, or at least such plays of his as were most given in those days, and I saw “Macbeth” and “Hamlet,” and above all “Richard III.,” again and again. I do not know why my delight in those tragedies did not send me to the volume of his plays, which was all the time in the bookcase at home, but I seem not to have thought of it, and rapt as I was in them I am not sure that they gave me greater pleasure, or seemed at all finer, than “Rollo,” “The Wife,” “The Stranger,” “Barbarossa,” “The Miser8 of Marseilles,” and the rest of the melodramas9, comedies, and farces10 which I saw at that time. I have a notion that there were some clever people in one of these companies, and that the lighter11 pieces at least were well played, but I may be altogether wrong. The gentleman who took the part of villain12, with an unfailing love of evil, in the different dramas, used to come about the printing-office a good deal, and I was puzzled to find him a very mild and gentle person. To be sure he had a mustache, which in those days devoted13 a man to wickedness, but by day it was a blond mustache, quite flaxen, in fact, and not at all the dark and deadly thing it was behind the footlights at night. I could scarcely gasp14 in his presence, my heart bounded so in awe15 and honor of him when he paid a visit to us; perhaps he used to bring the copy of the show-bills. The company he belonged to left town in the adversity habitual16 with them.
Our own adversity had been growing, and now it became overwhelming. We had to give up the paper we had struggled so hard to keep, but when the worst came it was not half so bad as what had gone before. There was no more waiting till midnight for the telegraphic news, no more waking at dawn to deliver the papers, no more weary days at the case, heavier for the doom17 hanging over us. My father and his brothers had long dreamed of a sort of family colony somewhere in the country, and now the uncle who was most prosperous bought a milling property on a river not far from Dayton, and my father went out to take charge of it until the others could shape their business to follow him. The scheme came to nothing finally, but in the mean time we escaped from the little city and its sorrowful associations of fruitless labor18, and had a year in the country, which was blest, at least to us children, by sojourn19 in a log-cabin, while a house was building for us.
点击收听单词发音
1 accounting | |
n.会计,会计学,借贷对照表 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 rumor | |
n.谣言,谣传,传说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 reverberate | |
v.使回响,使反响 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 lavished | |
v.过分给予,滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 generosity | |
n.大度,慷慨,慷慨的行为 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 brook | |
n.小河,溪;v.忍受,容让 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 miser | |
n.守财奴,吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 melodramas | |
情节剧( melodrama的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 farces | |
n.笑剧( farce的名词复数 );闹剧;笑剧剧目;作假的可笑场面 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 lighter | |
n.打火机,点火器;驳船;v.用驳船运送;light的比较级 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 villain | |
n.反派演员,反面人物;恶棍;问题的起因 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 gasp | |
n.喘息,气喘;v.喘息;气吁吁他说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 awe | |
n.敬畏,惊惧;vt.使敬畏,使惊惧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 habitual | |
adj.习惯性的;通常的,惯常的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 sojourn | |
v./n.旅居,寄居;逗留 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |