世界经典英语短篇散文《生活的道路》赏析
火腿蛋三明治
The lives of most men are determined by their environmen t.They accept the circumstances amid which fate has throw n them not only with resignation but even with good wil l.They are like streetcars running contentedly on their rai ls and they despi the sprightly flivver that dashes in an d out of the traffic and speeds so jauntily across the ope n country.I respect them;they are good citizens,good hus bands,and good fathers,and of cour somebody has to pa y the taxes;but I do not find them exciting.I am fascin ated by the men,few enough in all conscience,who take li fe in their own hands and em to mould it to their ow n liking.It may be that we have no such thing as free w ill,but at all events we have the illusion of it.
At a cross-road it does em to us that we might go eithe r to the right or the left and,the choice once made,i t is difficult to e that the whole cour of the world' s history obliged us to take the turning we did.
I never met a more interesting man than Mayhew.He wa s a lawyer in Detroit.He was an able and a successful on e.By the time he was thirty-five he had a large and a l ucrative practice,he had amasd a competence,and he stoo d on the threshold of a distinguished career,he had an ac ute brain,an attrac
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办婚礼酒店tive personality,and uprightness.Ther e was no reason why he should not become,financially,a p ower in the land.One evening he was sitting in his clu b with a group of friends and they were perhaps a littl e wor(or the better)for liquor.One of them had recent ly come from Italy and he told them of a hou he had en at Capri,a hou on the hill,overlooking the Bay o f Naples,with a large and shady garden.He described to t hem the beauty of the most beautiful island in the Mediterr anean.
“It sounds fine,”said Mayhew.“Is that hou for sale?”“Everything is for sale in Italy.”
“Let's nd'em a cable and make an offer for it.”
“What in heaven's name would you do with a hou in Capr i?”
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“Live in it,”said Mayhew.
He nt for a cable form,wrote it out,and dispatched i t.In a few hours the reply came back.The offer was acce pted.
Mayhew was no hypocrite and he made no cret of the fac t that he would never have done so wild a thing if he ha d been sober,but when he was he did not regret it.He w as neither an impulsive nor a
n emotional man,but a very h onest and sincere one.He would never have continued from b ravado in a cour that he had come to the conclusion wa s unwi.He made up his mind to do exactly as he had sa id.
He did not care for wealth and he had enough money on whi ch to live in Italy.He thought he could do more with lif e than spend it on composing the trivial quarrels of unimpo rtant people.He had no definite plan.He merely wanted t o get away from a life that had given him all it had t o offer.I suppo his friends thought him crazy;some mus t have done all they could to dissuade him.He arranged hi s affairs,packed up his furniture,and started.
Capri is a gaunt rock of austere outline,bathed in a dee p blue a;but its vineyards,green and smiling,give i t a soft and easy grace.It is friendly,remote,and debon air.I find it strange that Mayhew should have ttled o n this lovely island,for I never knew a man more innsib le to beauty.I do not know what he sought there:happines s,freedom,or merely leisure;I know what he found.In th is place which appeals so extravagantly to the n he liv ed a life entirely of the spirit.
For the island is rich with historic associations and ove r it broods always the enigmatic memory of Tiberius the Emp eror.From his windows which overlooked the Bay of Naple s,with the noble shape o
f Vesuvius changing colour with th e changing light,Mayhew saw a hundred places that recalle d the Romans and the Greeks.The past began to haunt hi m.All that he saw for the first time,for he had neve r been abroad before,excited his fancy;and in his soul s tirred the creative imagination.He was a man of energy.Pr ently he made up his mind to write a history.For som e time he looked about for a subject,and at last decide
d on th
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e cond century o
f the Roman Empire.It was littl
e known and it emed to him to offer problems analogous w ith tho o
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f our own day.
He began to collect books and soon he had an immen libra ry.His legal training had taught him to read quickly.H e ttled down to work.At first he had been accustomed t o foregather in the evening with the painters,writers,an d such like who met in the little tavern near the Piazz
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a,but prently he withdrew himlf,for his absorption i n his studies became more pressing.He had been accustome d to bathe in that bland a and to take long walks amon g the pleasant vineyards,but little by little,grudging th e time,he cead to do so.
He worked harder than he had ever worked in Detroit.He wo uld start at noon and work all through the night till th e whistle of the steamer that goes every morning from Capr i to Naples told him that it was five o'clock and time t o go to bed.His subject opened out before him,vaster an d more significant,and he imagined a work that would pu t him forever beside the great historians of the past.A s the years went by he was to be found ldom in the way s of men.He could be tempted to come out of his hou o nly by a game of chess or the chance of an argument.H e loved to t his brain against another's.He was widel y read now,not only in history,but in philosophy and sci ence;and he was a skillful controversialist,quick,logica l,and incisive.But he had good-humour and kindliness;thou gh he took a very human pleasure in victory,he did not e xult in it to your mortification.
When first he came to the island he was a big,brawny fel low,with thick black hair and a black beard,of a powerfu l physique;but gradually his skin became pale and waxy;h e grew thin and frail.It was an odd contradiction in th e most logical of men that,though a convinced and impetuou s materi
alist,he despid the body;he looked upon it a s a vile instrument which he could force to do the spirit' s bidding.Neither illness nor lassitude prevented him fro m going on with his work.For fourteen years he toiled unr emittingly.
He made thousands and thousands of notes.He sorted and cla ssified them.He had his subject at his finger ends,and a t last was ready to begin.He sat down to write.He died. The body that he,the materialist,had treated so contumelio usly took its revenge on him.
That vast accumulation of knowledge is lost for ever.Vai n was that ambition,surely not an ignoble one,to t hi s name beside tho of Gibbon and Mommn.His memory is t reasured in the hearts of a few friends,fewer,alas!As t he years pass on,and to the world he is unknown in deat h as he was in life.
And yet to me his life was a success.The pattern is goo d and complete.He did what he wanted,and he died when h
is goal was in sight and never knew the bitterness of a n end achieved.
