英国散文欣赏：pineneNotes on the English Character by E.M. Forster
cocksucker日耳曼人英语First note. I had better let the cat out of the bag at once and record my opinion that the character of the English is esntially middle class. There is a sound historical reason for this, for, since the end of the eighteenth century, the middle class have been the dominant force in our community. They gained wealth by the Industrial Revolution, political power by the Reform Bill of 1832; they are connected with the ri and organization of the British Empire; they are responsible for the literature of the nineteenth century. Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. The qualities characterize the middle class in every country, but in England they are national characteristics also, becau only in England have the middle class been in power for one hundred and fifty years. Napoleon, in his rude way, called us "a nation of shopkeepers." We prefer to call ourlves "a great commercial nation" -- it sounds more dignified -- but the two phras amount to the same. Of cour there are other class： there is an aristocracy, there are the poor. But it is on the middle class that the eye of the critic rests -- just as it rests on the poor in Russia and on the aristocracy in Japan. Russia is symbolized by the peasant or
最新英文歌曲by the factory worker; Japan by the samurai; the national figure of England is Mr. Bull with his top hat, his comfortable clothes, his substantial stomach, and his substantial balance at the bank. Saint George may caper on banners and in the speeches of politicians, but it is John Bull who delivers the goods. And even Saint George-- if Gibbon is correct-- wore a top hat once; he was an army contractor and supplied indifferent bacon. It all amounts to the same in the end.
Second Note. Just as the heart of England is the middle class, so the heart of the middle class is the public school system. This extraordinary institution is local. It does not even exist all over the British Isles. It is unknown in Ireland, almost unknown in Scotland （countries excluded from my survey）, and though it may inspire other great institutions--Aligarh, for example, and some of the schools in the United States--it remains unique, becau it was created by the Anglo-Saxon middle class, and can flourish only where they flourish. How perfectly it express their character -- far better for instance, than does the university, into which social and spiritual complexities have already entered. With its boarding-hous, its compulsory games, its system of prefects a
nd fagging, its insistence on good form and on esprit de corps, it produces a type who weight is out of all proportion to its numbers. On leaving his school, the boy either ts to work at once -- goes into the army or into business, or emigrates -- or el proceeds to the university, and after three or four years there enters some other profession -- becomes a barrister, doctor, civil rvant, schoolmaster, or journalist. （If through some mishap he does not become a manual worker or an artist.） In all the careers his education, or the abnce of it, influences him. Its memories influence him also. Many men look back on their school days as the happiest of their lives. They remember with regret that golden time when life, though hard, was not yet complex, when they all worked together and played together and thought together, so far as they thought at all; when they were taught that school is the world in miniature and believed that no one can love his country who does not love his school. And they prolong that time as best they can by joining their Old Boys' society： indeed, some of them remain Old Boys and nothing el for the rest of their lives. They attribute all good to the school. They worship it. They quote the remark that "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Et
平安夜歌词whateveron." It is nothing to them that the remark is inapplicable historically and was never made by the Duke of Wellington, and that the Duke of Wellington was an Irishman. They go on quoting it becau it express their ntiments; they feel that if the Duke of Wellington didn't make it he ought to have, and if he wasn't an Englishman he ought to have been. And they go forth into a world that is not entirely compod of public-school men or even of Anglo-Saxons, but of men who are as various as the sands of the a; into a world of who richness and subtlety they have no conception. They go forth into it with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds, and undeveloped hearts. And it is this undeveloped heart that is largely responsible for the difficulties of Englishmen abroad. An undeveloped heart--not a cold one. The difference is important, and on it my next note will be bad.
For it is not that the Englishman can't feel -- it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks--his pipe might fall out if he did. He must bottle up his emotions, or let them out only on a very special occasion.
2012专八真题
Once upon a time （this is an anecdote） I went for a week's holiday on the Continent with an Indian friend. We both enjoyed ourlves and were sorry when the week was over, but on parting our behaviour was absolutely different. He was plunged in despair.
但是你没有 He felt that becau the holiday was over all happiness was over until the world ended. He could not express his sorrow too much. But in me the Englishman came out strong. I reflected that we should meet again in a month or two, and could write in the interval if we had anything to say; and under the circumstances I could not e what there was to make a fuss about. It wasn't as if we were parting forever or dying. "Buck up," I said, "do buck up." He refud to buck up, and I left him plunged in gloom.
The conclusion of the anecdote is even more instructive. For when we met the next month our conversation threw a good deal of light on the English character. I began by scolding my friend. I told him that he had been wrong to feel and display so much emotion upon so slight an occasion; that it was inappropriate. The word "inappropriate" roud him to fury. "What？" he cried. "Do you measure out your emotions as if they were
ronanpotatoes？" I did not like the simile of the potatoes, but after a moment's reflection I said： "Yes, I do; and what's more, I think I ought to. A small occasion demands a little emotion just as a large occasion demands a great one. I would like my emotions to be appropriate. This may be measuring them like potatoes, but it is better than slopping them about like water from a pail, which is what you did." He did not like the simile of the pail. "If tho are your opinions, they part us forever," he cried, and left the room. Returning immediately, he added： "No--but your whole attitude toward emotion is wrong. Emotion has nothing to do with appropriateness. It matters only that it shall be sincere. I happened to feel deeply. I showed it. It doesn't matter whether I ought to have felt deeply or not."
This remark impresd me very much. Yet I could not agree with it, and said that I valued emotion as much as he did, but ud it differently; if I poured it out on small occasions I was afraid of having none left for the great ones, and of being bankrupt at the cris of life. Note the word "bankrupt." I spoke as a member of a prudent middle-class nation, always anxious to meet my liabilities, but my friend spoke as an Oriental, and the
竞争者英文
Oriental has behind him a tradition, not of middle-class prudence but of kingly munificence and splendour. He feels his resources are endless, just as John Bull feels his are finite. As regards material resources, the Oriental is clearly unwi. Money isn't endless. If we spend or give away all the money we have, we haven't any more, and must take the conquences, which are frequently unpleasant. But, as regards the resources of the spirit, he may be right. The emotions may be endless. The more we express them, the more we may have to express. True love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away.
