My Dear William,
In my opinion you are keeping something back. Last year when you went to Paris and did not see Madame du Deffand but measured the exact length of every nose on every tombstone — I can assure you they have grown no longer or shorter since — I was annoyed, I admit. But I had the sense to see that, after all, you were alive, and a clergyman, and from Bletchley — in fact, you were as much out of place in Paris as a cowslip impaled1 upon the diamond horns of a duchess’s tiara. Put him back in Bletchley, I said, plant him in his own soil, let him burble on in his own fashion, and the miracle will happen. The cows will low; the church bells will ring; all Bletchley will come alive; and, reading over William’s shoulder, we shall see deep, deep into the hearts of Mrs. Willis and Mr. Robinson.
I regret to tell you that I was wrong. You are not a cowslip. You do not bloom. The hearts of Mrs. Willis and Mr. Robinson remain sealed books to us. You write January 16th, 1766, and it is precisely2 as if I had written January 16th, 1932. In other words, you have rubbed all the bloom off two hundred years and that is so rare a feat3 — it implies something so queer in the writer — that I am intrigued4 and puzzled and cannot help asking you to enlighten me. Are you simply a bore, William? No that is out of the question. In the first place, Horace Walpole did not tolerate bores, or write to them, or go for country jaunts5 with them; in the second, Miss Waddell loves you. You shed all round you, in the eyes of Miss Waddell, that mysterious charm which those we love impart to their meanest belongings6. She loves your parrot; she commiserates7 your cat. Every room in your house is familiar to her. She knows about your Gothic chamber8 and your neat arched bed; she knows how many steps led up to the pantry and down to the summer house; she knows, she approves, how you spent every hour of your day. She sees the neighbours through the light of your eyes. She laughs at some; she likes others; she knows who was fat and who was thin, and who told lies, who had a bad leg, and who was no better than she should have been. Mr. and Mrs. Barton, Thomas Tansley, Mr. and Mrs. Lord of Mursley, the Diceys, and Dr. Pettingal are all real and alive to her: so are your roses, your horses, your nectarines and your knats.
Would that I could see through her eyes! Alas9, wherever I look I see blight10 and mildew11. The moss12 never grows upon your walls. Your nectarines never ripen13. The blackbird sings, but out of tune14. The knats — and you say “I hardly know a place so pestered15 with that vermin as Bletchley”— bite, just like our gnats16. As for the human beings they pass through the same disenchantment. Not that I have any fault to find with your friends or with Bletchley either. Nobody is very good, but then nobody is very bad. Tom sometimes hits a hare, oftener he misses; the fish sometimes bite, but not always; if it freezes it also thaws17, and though the harvest was not bad it might have been better. But now, William, confess. We know in our hearts, you and I, that England in the eighteenth century was not like this. We know from Woodforde, from Walpole, from Thomas Turner, from Skinner, from Gray, from Fielding, from Jane Austen, from scores of memoirs18 and letters, from a thousand forgotten stone masons, bricklayers and cabinet makers19, from a myriad20 sources, that I have not learning to name or space to quote, that England was a substantial, beautiful country in the eighteenth century; aristocratic and common; hand-made and horse-ploughed; an eating, drinking, bastard-begetting, laughing, cursing, humorous, eccentric, lovable land. If with your pen in your hand and the dates facing you, January 16th, 1766, you see none of all this, then the fault is yours. Some spite has drawn21 a veil across your eyes. Indeed, there are pouches22 under them I could swear. You slouch as you walk. You switch at thistles half-heartedly with your stick. You do not much enjoy your food. Gossip has no relish23 for you. You mention the “scandalous story of Mr. Felton Hervey, his two daughters and a favourite footman” and add, “I hope it is not true.” So do I, but I cannot put much life into my hoping when you withhold24 the facts. You stop Pettingal in the middle of his boasting — you cut him short with a sarcasm25 — just as he was proving that the Greeks liked toasted cheese and was deriving26 the word Bergamy from the Arabic. As for Madame Geoffrin, you never lose a chance of saying something disobliging about that lady; a coffee-pot has only to be reputed French for you to defame it. Then look how touchy27 you are — you grumble28, the servants are late with the papers, you complain, Mr. Pitt never thanked you for the pigeons (yet Horace Walpole thought you a philosopher); then how you suspect people’s motives29; how you bid fathers thrash their little boys; how you are sure the servant steals the onions. All these are marks of a thin-blooded poverty-stricken disposition30. And yet — you are a good man; you visit the poor; you bury the infected; you have been educated at Cambridge; you venerate31 antiquity32. The truth is that you are concealing33 something, even from Miss Waddell.
Why, I ask, did you write this diary and lock it in a chest with iron hoops34 and insist that no one was to read it or publish it for twenty years after your death unless it were that you had something on your mind, something that you wished to confess and get rid of? You are not one of those people who love life so well that they cherish even the memory of roast mutton, like Woodforde; you did not hate life so much that you must shriek35 out your curse on it, Eke36 poor Skinner. You write and write, ramblingly, listlessly, like a person who is trying to bring himself to say the thing that will explain to himself what is wrong with himself. And you find it very hard. You would rather mention anything but that — Miss Chester, I mean, and the boat on the Avon. You cannot force yourself to admit that you have kept that lock of hair in your drawer these thirty years. When Mrs. Robinson, her daughter, asked you for it (March 19th 1766) you said you could not find it. But you were not easy under that concealment37. You did at length go to your private drawer (November 26th, 1766) and there it was, as you well knew. But even so, with the lock of hair in your hand, you still seek to put us off the scent38. You ramble39 on about giving Mrs. Robinson a barrel of oysters40; about potted rabbits; about the weather, until suddenly out it comes, “Gave Mrs. Robinson a braided Lock of Lady Robinson’s Mother’s hair (and Sister to Mrs. Robinson of Cransley), which I cut off in a Boat on the River Avon at Bath about 30 years ago when my Sister Jane and myself were much acquainted with her, then Miss Chester.” There we have it. The poisoned tooth is out. You were once young and ardent41 and very much in love. Passion overcame you. You were alone. The wind blew a lock of Miss Chester’s hair from beneath her hat. You reached forward. You cut it. And then? Nothing. That is your tragedy — you yourself failed yourself. You think of that scene twenty times a day, I believe, as you saunter, rather heavily; along the damp paths at Bletchley. That is the dreary42 little tune that you hum as you stoop over your parments measuring noses, deciphering dates —“I failed, failed, failed on the boat on the Avon.” That is why your nectarines are blighted43; and the parrot dies; and the parlour cat is scalded; and you love nobody except, perhaps, your little dun-coloured horse. That is why you “always had a mind to live retired44 in Glamorganshire.” That is why Mr. Pitt never thanked you for the pigeons. That is why Mr. Stonehewer became His Majesty’s Historiographer, while you visited paupers45 in Fenny46 Stratford. That is why he never came to see you, and why you observed so bitterly, that “people suffer themselves to forget their old friends when they are surrounded by the great and are got above the world.” You see, William, if you hoard47 a failure, if you come to grudge48 even the sun for shining — and that, I think, is what you did — fruit does not ripen; a blight falls upon parrots and cats; people would actually rather that you did not give them pigeons.
But enough. I may be wrong. Miss Chester’s hair may have nothing to do with it. And Miss Waddell may be right — every good quality of heart and head may be yours. I am sure I hope so. But I beg, William, now that you are about to begin a fresh volume, at Cambridge too, with men of character and learning, that you will pull yourself together. Speak out. Justify49 the faith that Miss Waddell has in you. For you are keeping one of the finest scholars of her time shut up in the British Museum among mummies and policemen and wet umbrellas. There must be a trifle of ninety-five volumes more of you in those iron-bound chests. Lighten her task; relieve our anxiety, and so add to the gratitude50 of your obliged obedient servant,Virginia Woolf.
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1
impaled
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| 钉在尖桩上( impale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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4
intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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jaunts
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| n.游览( jaunt的名词复数 ) | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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commiserates
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| n.怜悯，同情( commiserate的名词复数 )v.怜悯，同情( commiserate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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mildew
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| n.发霉；v.（使）发霉 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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13
ripen
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| vt.使成熟；vi.成熟 | |
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14
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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15
pestered
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| 使烦恼，纠缠( pester的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
gnats
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| n.叮人小虫( gnat的名词复数 ) | |
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thaws
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| n.（足以解冻的）暖和天气( thaw的名词复数 )；（敌对国家之间）关系缓和v.（气候）解冻( thaw的第三人称单数 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化 | |
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memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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pouches
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| n.（放在衣袋里或连在腰带上的）小袋( pouch的名词复数 )；（袋鼠等的）育儿袋；邮袋；（某些动物贮存食物的）颊袋 | |
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23
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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24
withhold
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| v.拒绝，不给；使停止，阻挡 | |
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25
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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26
deriving
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| v.得到( derive的现在分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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touchy
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| adj.易怒的；棘手的 | |
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28
grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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29
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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30
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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venerate
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| v.尊敬，崇敬，崇拜 | |
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32
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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33
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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34
hoops
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| n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓 | |
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35
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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36
eke
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| v.勉强度日，节约使用 | |
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37
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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38
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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39
ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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40
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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41
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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42
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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43
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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44
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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45
paupers
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| n.穷人( pauper的名词复数 )；贫民；贫穷 | |
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46
fenny
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| adj.沼泽的；沼泽多的；长在沼泽地带的；住在沼泽地的 | |
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47
hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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48
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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49
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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50
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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