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a mortal antipathy-第20章

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while she is dressed in the glories of leaf and flower; and draw the

icy lid over my shining surface when she stands naked and ashamed in

the poverty of winter?'



〃I have had strange experiences and sad thoughts in the course of a

life not very long; but with a record which much longer lives could

not match in incident。  Oftentimes the temptation has come over me

with dangerous urgency to try a change of existence; if such change

is a part of human destiny;to seek rest; if that is what we gain by

laying down the burden of life。  I have asked who would be the friend

to whom I should appeal for the last service I should have need of。

Ocean was there; all ready; asking no questions; answering none。

What strange voyages; downward through its glaucous depths; upwards

to its boiling and frothing surface; wafted by tides; driven by

tempests; disparted by rude agencies; one remnant whitening on the

sands of a northern beach; one perhaps built into the circle of a

coral reef in the Pacific; one settling to the floor of the vast

laboratory where continents are built; to emerge in far…off ages!

What strange companions for my pall…bearers!  Unwieldy sea…monsters;

the stories of which are counted fables by the spectacled collectors

who think their catalogues have exhausted nature; naked…eyed

creatures; staring; glaring; nightmare…like spectres of the ghastly…

green abysses; pulpy islands; with life in gelatinous immensity;

what a company of hungry heirs at every ocean funeral!  No!  No!

Ocean claims great multitudes; but does not invite the solitary who

would fain be rid of himself。



'Shall I seek a deeper slumber at the bottom of the lake I love than

I have ever found when drifting idly over its surface?  No; again。  I

do not want the sweet; clear waters to know me in the disgrace of

nature; when life; the faithful body…servant; has ceased caring for

me。  That must not be。  The mirror which has pictured me so often

shall never know me as an unwelcome object。



〃If I must ask the all…subduing element to be my last friend; and

lead me out of my prison; it shall be the busy; whispering; not

unfriendly; pleasantly companionable river。





〃But Ocean and River and Lake have certain relations to the periods

of human life which they who are choosing their places of abode

should consider。  Let the child play upon the seashore。  The wide

horizon gives his imagination room to grow in; untrammelled。  That

background of mystery; without which life is a poor mechanical

arrangement; is shaped and colored; so far as it can have outline; or

any hue but shadow; on a vast canvas; the contemplation of which

enlarges and enriches the sphere of consciousness。  The mighty ocean

is not too huge to symbolize the aspirations and ambitions of the yet

untried soul of the adolescent。



〃The time will come when his indefinite mental horizon has found a

solid limit; which shuts his prospect in narrower bounds than he

would have thought could content him in the years of undefined

possibilities。  Then he will find the river a more natural intimate

than the ocean。  It is individual; which the ocean; with all its

gulfs and inlets and multitudinous shores; hardly seems to be。  It

does not love you very dearly; and will not miss you much when you

disappear from its margin; but it means well to you; bids you good…

morning with its coming waves; and good…evening with those which are

leaving。  It will lead your thoughts pleasantly away; upwards to its

source; downwards to the stream to which it is tributary; or the wide

waters in which it is to lose itself。  A river; by choice; to live by

in middle age。



〃In hours of melancholy reflection; in those last years of life which

have little left but tender memories; the still companionship of the

lake; embosomed in woods; sheltered; fed by sweet mountain brooks and

hidden springs; commends itself to the wearied and saddened spirit。

I am not thinking of those great inland seas; which have many of the

features and much of the danger that belong to the ocean; but of

those 'ponds;' as our countrymen used to call them until they were

rechristened by summer visitors; beautiful sheets of water from a

hundred to a few thousand acres in extent; scattered like raindrops

over the map of our Northern sovereignties。  The loneliness of

contemplative old age finds its natural home in the near neighborhood

of one of these tranquil basins。



Nature does not always plant her poets where they belong; but if we

look carefully their affinities betray themselves。  The youth will

carry his Byron to the rock which overlooks the ocean the poet loved

so well。  The man of maturer years will remember that the sonorous

couplets of Pope which ring in his ears were written on the banks of

the Thames。  The old man; as he nods over the solemn verse of

Wordsworth; will recognize the affinity between the singer and the

calm sheet that lay before him as he wrote;the stainless and sleepy

Windermere。



〃The dwellers by Cedar Lake may find it an amusement to compare their

own feelings with those of one who has lived by the Atlantic and the

Mediterranean; by the Nile and the Tiber; by Lake Leman and by one of

the fairest sheets of water that our own North America embosoms in

its forests。〃





Miss Lurida Vincent; Secretary of the Pansophian Society; read this

paper; and pondered long upon it。  She was thinking very seriously of

studying medicine; and had been for some time in frequent

communication with Dr。 Butts; under whose direction she had begun

reading certain treatises; which added to such knowledge of the laws

of life in health and in disease as she had brought with her from the

Corinna Institute。  Naturally enough; she carried the anonymous paper

to the doctor; to get his opinion about it; and compare it with her

own。  They both agreed that it was probably; they would not say

certainly; the work of the solitary visitor。  There was room for

doubt; for there were visitors who might well have travelled to all

the places mentioned; and resided long enough on the shores of the

waters the writer spoke of to have had all the experiences mentioned

in the paper。  The Terror remembered a young lady; a former

schoolmate; who belonged to one of those nomadic families common in

this generation; the heads of which; especially the female heads; can

never be easy where they are; but keep going between America and

Europe; like so many pith…balls in the electrical experiment;

alternately attracted and repelled; never in contented equilibrium。

Every few years they pull their families up by the roots; and by the

time they have begun to take hold a little with their radicles in the

spots to which they have been successively transplanted up they come

again; so that they never get a tap…root anywhere。  The Terror

suspected the daughter of one of these families of sending certain

anonymous articles of not dissimilar character to the one she had

just received。  But she knew the style of composition common among

the young girls; and she could hardly believe that it was one of them

who had sent this paper。  Could a brother of this young lady have

written it?  Possibly; she knew nothing more than that the young lady

had a brother; then a student at the University。  All the chances

were that Mr。 Maurice Kirkwood was the author。  So thought Lurida;

and so thought Dr。 Butts。



Whatever faults there were in this essay; it interested them both。

There was nothing which gave the least reason to suspect insanity on

the part of the writer; whoever he or she might be。  There were

references to suicide; it is true; but they were of a purely

speculative nature; and did not look to any practical purpose in that

direction。  Besides; if the stranger were the author of the paper; he

certainly would not choose a sheet of water like Cedar Lake to

perform the last offices for him; in case he seriously meditated

taking unceremonious leave of life and its accidents。  He could find

a river easily enough; to say nothing of other methods of effecting

his purpose; but he had committed himself as to the impropriety of

selecting a lake; so they need not be anxious about the white canoe

and its occupant; as they watched it skimming the surface of the deep

waters。



The holder of the Portfolio would never have ventured to come before

the public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers

belonging to the records of the Pansophian Society; which he can make

free use of; either for the illustration of the narrative; or for a

diversion during those intervals in which the flow of events is

languid; or even ceases for the time to manifest any progress。  The

reader can hardly have failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern

had become the focal point where a good deal of mental activity

converged。  There were the village people; including a number of

cultivated families; there were the vi
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