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学海无涯苦作舟！
第一课
1 John
Koshak, Jr.,
knew that
Hurricane Camille would be bad. Radio
and
television
warnings
had
sounded
throughout
that
Sunday,
last
August
17,
as
Camille lashed northwestward across the
Gulf of Mexico. It was certain
to
pummel
Gulfport, Miss.,
where the Koshers lived. Along the coasts of
Louisiana, Mississippi
and Alabama,
nearly 150,000 people fled inland to safer 8round.
But, like thousands
of others in the
coastal communities, john was reluctant to abandon
his home unless
the
family
--
his
wife,
Janis,
and
their
seven
children,
abed
3
to
11
--
was
clearly
endangered.
2
Trying
to
reason
out
the
best
course
of
action,
he
talked
with
his
father
and
mother,
who
had
moved
into
the
ten-room
house
with
the
Koshaks
a
month
earlier
from California. He also consulted
Charles Hill, a long time friend, who had driven
from Las Vegas for a visit.
3
John,
37
--
whose
business
was
right
there
in
his
home
(
he
designed
and
developed educational
toys and supplies, and all of Magna Products'
correspondence
,
engineering drawings and art work were
there on the first floor) -- was familiar with
the
power
of
a
hurricane.
Four
years
earlier,
Hurricane
Betsy
had
demolished
undefined
his
former
home
a
few
miles
west
of
Gulfport
(Koshak
had
moved
his
family to a
motel
for the night). But
that house had stood only a few feet above sea
level.
the sea. The place
has been here since 1915, and no hurricane has
ever bothered it.
We' II probably be as
safe here as anyplace else.
4 The elder Koshak, a gruff,
warmhearted expert machinist of 67, agreed.
can
batten down
and ride it out,
before dark.
5 The men
methodically
prepared for
the hurricane. Since water mains might be
damaged, they filled bathtubs and
pails. A power failure was likely, so they checked
out
batteries
for
the
portable
radio
and
flashlights,
and
fuel
for
the
lantern.
John's
father moved a small generator into the
downstairs hallway, wired several light bulbs
to it and prepared a connection to the
refrigerator.
6
Rain fell steadily that afternoon; gray clouds
scudded
in from the Gulf on
the
rising
wind.
The
family
had
an
early
supper.
A
neighbor,
whose
husband
was
in
Vietnam, asked if she and her two
children could sit out the storm with the Koshaks.
Another neighbor came by on his way in-
land
—
would the Koshaks
mind taking care
of his dog?
7 It grew dark
before seven o' clock. Wind and rain now whipped
the house. John
sent his oldest son and
daughter upstairs to bring down mattresses and
pillows for the
younger
children.
He
wanted
to
keep
the
group
together
on
one
floor.
away
from
the
windows,
he
warned,
concerned
about
glass
flying
from
storm-shattered
panes
. As the wind mounted
to a roar, the house began leaking- the rain
seemingly
driven
right
through
the
walls.
With
mops,
towels,
pots
and
buckets
the
Koshaks
began a struggle
against the rapidly spreading water. At 8:30,
power failed, and Pop
Koshak turned on
the
generator
.
学海无涯苦作舟！
8 The roar of the hurricane
now was overwhelming. The house shook, and the
ceiling in the living room was falling
piece by piece. The French doors in an upstairs
room blew in with an explosive sound,
and the group heard gun- like reports as other
upstairs windows
disintegrated
. Water rose
above their
ankles
.
9 Then the
front door started to break away from its frame.
John and Charlie put
their shoulders
against it, but a blast of water hit the house,
flinging open the door and
shoving
them
down
the
hall.
The
generator
was
doused,
and
the
lights
went
out.
Charlie licked his lips and shouted to
John.
tasted salty.
10
out
the
back
door
to
the
oars!
John
yelled.
II
pass
the
children
along between us. Count them! Nine!
11 The children went from
adult to adult like buckets in a
fire
brigade
. But the
cars
wouldn't start; the electrical systems had been
killed by water. The wind was too
Strong
and
the
water
too
deep
to
flee
on
foot.
to
the
house!
john
yelled.
12
As
they
scrambled
back,
john
ordered,
on
the
stairs!
Frightened,
breathless and wet, the group settled on the
stairs, which were protected
by
two
interior
walls.
The
children
put
the
oat,
Spooky,
and
a
box
with
her
four
kittens on the landing. She
peered
nervously at her
litter. The neighbor's dog curled
up
and went to sleep.
13 The wind sounded like the roar of a
train passing a few yards away. The house
shuddered and shifted on its
foundations. Water inched its way up the steps as
first-
floor
outside
walls
collapsed.
No
one
spoke.
Everyone
knew
there
was
no
escape;
they would live or
die in the house.
14 Charlie Hill had more or less taken
responsibility for the neighbor and her two
children.
The
mother
was
on
the
verge
of
panic.
She
clutched
his
arm
and
kept
repeating,
15
16 Grandmother Koshak reached an arm
around her husband's shoulder and put
her
mouth
close
to
his
ear.
she
said,
love
you.
He
turned
his
head
and
answered,
17
John
watched
the
water
lap
at
the
steps,
and
felt
a
crushing
guilt.
He
had
underestimated
the
ferocity
of
Camille.
He
had
assumed
that
what
had
never
happened could not happen. He held his
head between his hands, and silently prayed:
18 A
moment later, the hurricane, in one mighty swipe,
lifted the entire roof off
the house
and skimmed it 40 feet through the air. The bottom
steps of the staircase
broke apart. One
wall began crumbling on the
marooned
group.
19 Dr. Robert H. Simpson,
director of the National Hurricane Center in
Miami,
Fla., graded Hurricane Camille
as
area in the Western
Hemisphere.
out
winds
of
nearly
200
m.p.h.
and
raised
tides
as
high
as
30
feet.
Along
the
Gulf
Coast it devastated everything in its
swath: 19,467 homes and 709 small businesses
were demolished or severely damaged. it
seized a 600, 000-gallon Gulfport oil tank
学海无涯苦作舟！
and
dumped it 3 ~ miles away. It tore three large
cargo ships from their
moorings
and
beached
them.
Telephone
poles
and
20-inch-thick
pines
cracked
like
guns
as
the
winds snapped them.
20 To the west
of Gulfport, the town of Pass Christian was
virtually wiped out.
Several
vacationers at the luxurious Richelieu Apartments
there held a hurricane party
to watch
the storm from their spectacular
vantage point
. Richelieu
Apartments were
smashed apart as if by
a gigantic fist, and 26 people perished.
21 Seconds
after the roof blew off the Koshak house, john
yelled,
-- into our bedroom! Count the
kids.
the
circle
of
adults.
Grandmother
Koshak
implored
,
let's
sing!
The
children
were too frightened to respond. She carried on
alone for a few bars; then her
voice
trailed away.
22 Debris flew as the living-room
fireplace and its chimney collapsed. With two
walls
in
their
bedroom
sanctuary
beginning
to
disintegrate,
John
ordered,
the
television room!
23 For an instant, John put his arm
around his wife. Janis understood. Shivering
from the wind and rain and fear,
clutching two children to her, she thought, Dear
Lord,
give me the strength to endure
what I have to. She felt anger against the
hurricane. We
won't let it win.
24 Pop Koshak
raged silently, frustrated at not being able to do
anything to fight
Camille.
Without
reason,
he
dragged
a
cedar
chest
and
a
double
mattress
from
a
bed-room
into
the
TV
room.
At
that
moment,
the
wind
tore
out
one
wall
and
extinguished the lantern. A second wall
moved,
wavered
, Charlie Hill
tried to support
it, but it
toppled
on him, injuring his
back. The house, shuddering and rocking, had
moved 25 feet from its foundations. The
world seemed to be breaking apart.
25
get
that
mattress
up!
John
shouted
to
his
father.
it
a
lean-to
against
the wind. Get the kids under it. We can prop it up
with our heads and
shoulders!
26 The larger children
sprawled
on the floor, with
the smaller ones in a layer on
top of
them, and the adults bent over all nine. The floor
tilted. The box containing the
litter
of kittens slid off a shelf and vanished in the
wind. Spooky flew off the top of a
sliding
bookcase
and
also
disappeared.
The
dog
cowered
with
eyes
closed.
A
third
wall gave way. Water
lapped across the slanting floor. John grabbed a
door which was
still
hinged
to one closet wall.
kids on this.
27 In that moment, the wind slightly
diminished, and the water stopped rising.
Then the water began receding. The main
thrust of Camille had passed. The Koshaks
and their friends had survived.
28 With the
dawn, Gulfport people started coming back to their
homes. They saw
human bodies -- more
than 130 men, women and children died along the
Mississippi
coast- and parts of the
beach and highway
were strewn
with
dead dogs, cats, cattle.
Strips of clothing
festooned
the standing trees,
and blown down power lines
coiled
like
black
spaghetti
over the roads.
29
None
of
the
returnees
moved
quickly
or
spoke
loudly;
they
stood
shocked,
学海无涯苦作舟！
trying
to absorb the shattering scenes before their eyes.
30
By this time, organizations within the area and,
in effect, the entire population
of
the
United
States
had
come
to
the
aid
of
the
devastated
coast.
Before
dawn,
the
Mississippi
National
Guard
and
civil-
defense
units were moving in to handle
traffic,
guard
property,
set
up
communications
centers,
help
clear
the
debris
and
take
the
homeless
by
truck
and
bus
to
refugee
centers.
By
10
a.m.,
the
Salvation
Army's
canteen trucks and Red Cross volunteers
and staffers were going wherever possible to
distribute hot drinks, food, clothing
and bedding.
31
From hundreds of towns
and cities
across the country
came several
million
dollars in
donations; household and medical supplies streamed
in by plane, train, truck
and car. The
federal government shipped 4,400,000 pounds of
food, moved in mobile
homes, set up
portable classrooms, opened offices to provide
low-interest, long-term
business loans.
32
Camille,
meanwhile,
had
raked
its
way
northward
across
Mississippi,
dropping
more
than
28
inches
of
rain
into
West
Virginia
and
southern
Virginia,
causing
rampaging
floods,
huge
mountain
slides
and
111
additional
deaths
before
breaking up over the
Atlantic Ocean.
33 Like many other Gulfport families,
the Koshaks quickly began reorganizing
their lives, John divided his family in
the homes of two friends. The neighbor with her
two children went to a refugee center.
Charlie Hill found a room for rent. By Tuesday,
Charlie's
back had improved,
and he pitched in
with
Seabees
in
the
worst
volunteer
work of all
--searching for bodies. Three days after the
storm, he decided not to return
to Las
Vegas, but to
34 Near the end of the first
week, a friend offered the
Koshaks his apartment,
and
the family was reunited. The children appeared to
suffer no psychological damage
from
their
experience;
they
were
still
awed
by
the
incomprehensible
power
of
the
hurricane,
but enjoyed describing what they had seen and
heard on that frightful night,
Janis
had
just
one
delayed
reaction.
A
few
nights
after
the
hurricane,
she
awoke
suddenly at 2 a.m. She
quietly got up and went outside. Looking up at the
sky and,
without knowing she was going
to do it, she began to cry softly.
35 Meanwhile, John, Pop and
Charlie were picking through the
wreckage
of the
home. It could have been depressing,
but it wasn't: each salvaged item represented a
little victory over the
wrath
of the storm. The dog
and cat suddenly appeared at the
scene,
alive and hungry.
36 But the
blues
did occasionally
afflict
all the adults.
Once, in a low mood, John
said to his
parents,
enjoy the children, and look
what happened.
37 His father, who had made up his mind
to start a
welding
shop when
living
was normal again, said,
38
going to be better here than it ever
was before.
39
Later,
Grandmother
Koshak
reflected
:
lost
practically
all
our
possessions,
but
the family came through
it. When
I think of that,
I
realize we lost
学海无涯苦作舟！
nothing
important.
第二课
1 As the
corpse went past the flies left the restaurant
table in a cloud and rushed after
it,
but they came back a few minutes later.
2 The little
crowd of mourners
-- all men and boys,
no women--threaded their
way across the
market place between the piles of pomegranates and
the taxis and the
camels, walling a
short chant over and over again. What really
appeals to the flies is
that the
corpses here are never put into coffins, they are
merely wrapped in a piece of
rag and
carried on a rough wooden bier on the shoulders of
four friends. When the
friends get to
the burying-ground they hack an oblong hole a foot
or two deep, dump
the
body
in
it
and
fling
over
it
a
little
of
the
dried-up,
lumpy
earth,
which
is
like
broken
brick.
No
gravestone,
no
name,
no
identifying
mark
of
any
kind.
The
burying-ground
is
merely
a
huge
waste
of
hummocky
earth,
like
a
derelict
building-lot. After a month or two no
one can even be certain where his own relatives
are buried.
3 When you walk through a town like
this -- two hundred thousand inhabitants of
whom at least twenty thousand own
literally nothing except the rags they stand up
in--
when
you
see
how
the
people
live,
and
still
more
how
easily
they
die,
it
is
always
difficult to believe that you
are
walking among human
beings. All colonial empires
are in
reality founded upon this fact. The people have
brown faces--besides, there are
so
many
of
them!
Are
they
really
the
same
flesh
as
your
self?
Do
they
even
have
names? Or are they
merely a kind of undifferentiated brown stuff,
about as individual
as bees or coral
insects? They rise out of the
earth
，
they sweat and starve
for a few
years, and then they sink
back into the nameless mounds of the graveyard and
nobody
notices that they are gone. And
even the graves themselves soon fade back into the
soil. Sometimes, out for a walk as you
break your way through the prickly pear, you
notice
that
it is
rather
bumpy
underfoot,
and
only
a
certain
regularity
in
the
bumps
tells you that you are
walking over skeletons.
4 I was feeding
one of the gazelles in the public gardens.
5 Gazelles are
almost the only animals that look good to eat when
they are still
alive,
in
fact,
one
can
hardly
look
at
their
hindquarters
without
thinking
of
a
mint
sauce. The gazelle I was feeding seemed
to know that this thought was in my mind,
for though it took the piece of bread I
was holding out it obviously did not like me. It
nibbled nibbled rapidly at the bread,
then lowered its head and tried to butt me, then
took another nibble and then butted
again. Probably its idea was that if it could
drive
me away the bread would somehow
remain hanging in mid-air.
6 An Arab navvy
working on the path nearby lowered his heavy hoe
and sidled
slowly towards us. He looked
from the gazelle to the bread and from the bread
to the
gazelle, with a sort of quiet
amazement, as though he had never seen anything
quite
like this before. Finally he said
shyly in French:
7 I tore off a piece and he stowed it
gratefully in some secret place under his rags.
This man is an employee of
the
municipality.
学海无涯苦作舟！
8 When you go
through the Jewish Quarters you gather some idea
of what the
medieval
ghettoes
were
probably
like.
Under
their
Moorish
Moorishrulers
the
Jews
were
only allowed to own land in certain restricted
areas, and after centuries of this
kind
of treatment they have ceased to bother about
overcrowding. Many of the streets
are a
good deal
less than six feet
wide, the houses are
completely windowless,
and
sore-eyed children cluster everywhere
in unbelievable numbers, like clouds of flies.
Down the centre of the street there is
generally running a little river of urine.
9 In the bazaar
huge families of Jews, all dressed in the long
black robe and little
black
skull-cap,
are
working
in
dark
fly-infested
booths
that
look
like
caves.
A
carpenter sits crosslegged at a
prehistoric lathe, turning chairlegs at lightning
speed.
He works the lathe with a bow in
his right hand and guides the chisel with his left
foot,
and thanks to a lifetime of
sitting in this position his left leg is warped
out of shape. At
his side his grandson,
aged six, is already starting on the simpler parts
of the job.
10
I was just passing the coppersmiths' booths when
somebody noticed that I was
lighting a
cigarette. Instantly, from the dark holes all
round, there was a frenzied rush
of
Jews, many of them old grandfathers with flowing
grey beards, all clamouring for a
cigarette.
Even
a
blind
man
somewhere
at
the
back
of
one
of
the
booths
heard
a
rumour of
cigarettes and came crawling out, groping in the
air with his hand. In about
a minute I
had used up the whole packet. None of these
people, I suppose, works less
than
twelve hours a day, and every one of them looks on
a cigarette as a more or less
impossible luxury.
11 As the Jews live in
self-contained communities they follow the same
trades as
the
Arabs,
except
for
agriculture.
Fruitsellers,
potters,
silversmiths,
blacksmiths,
butchers,
leather-workers,
tailors,
water-carriers,
beggars,
porters
--
whichever
way
you
look you see nothing but Jews. As a matter of fact
there are thirteen thousand of
them,
all living in the space of a few acres. A good job
Hitlet wasn't here. Perhaps he
was on
his way, however. You hear the usual dark rumours
about Jews, not only from
the Arabs but
from the poorer Europeans.
12
The
Jews!
They'
re
the
real
rulers
of
this
country,
you
know.
They’ve
got
all
the
money.
They control the banks, finance --
everything.
13
I
said,
it
a
fact
that
the
average
Jew
is
a
labourer
working
for
about
a penny an hour?
14
the Jews.
15 In just the same way, a
couple of hundred years ago, poor old women used
to
be
burned
for
witchcraft
when
they
could
not
even
work
enough
magic
to
get
themselves a square meal. square meal
16
All
people
who
work
with
their
hands
are
partly
invisible,
and
the
more
important the work they do, the less
visible they are. Still, a white skin is always
fairly
conspicuous.
In
northern
Europe,
when
you
see
a
labourer
ploughing
a
field,
you
probably give him a second glance. In a
hot country, anywhere south of Gibraltar or
east of Suez, the chances are that you
don't even see him. I have noticed this again and
again. In a tropical landscape one's
eye takes in everything except the human beings.
学海无涯苦作舟！
It takes
in the dried-up soil, the prickly pear, the palm
tree and the distant mountain,
but it
always misses the peasant hoeing at his patch. He
is the same colour as the earth,
and a
great deal less interesting to look at.
17
It
is
only
because
of
this
that
the
starved
countries
of
Asia
and
Africa
are
accepted
as
tourist
resorts.
No
one
would
think
of
running
cheap
trips
to
the
Distressed
Areas.
But
where
the
human
beings
have
brown
skins
their
poverty
is
simply not noticed. What does Morocco
mean to a Frenchman? An orange grove or a
job in Government service. Or to an
Englishman? Camels, castles, palm trees, Foreign
Legionnaires, brass trays, and bandits.
One could probably live there for years without
noticing
that
for
nine-tenths
of
the
people
the
reality
of
life
is
an
endless
back-breaking struggle to wring a
little food out of an eroded soil.
18 Most of Morocco is so
desolate that no wild animal bigger than a hare
can
live on it. Huge areas which were
once covered with forest have turned into a
treeless
waste where the soil is
exactly like broken-up brick. Nevertheless a good
deal of it is
cultivated, with
frightful labour. Everything is done by hand. Long
lines of women,
bent double like
inverted capital Ls, work their way slowly across
the fields, tearing
up the prickly
weeds with their hands, and the peasant
gathering lucerne for fodder
pulls it up stalk by stalk instead of
reaping it, thus saving an inch or two on each
stalk.
The plough is a wretched wooden
thing, so frail that one can easily carry it on
one's
shoulder, and fitted underneath
with a rough iron spike which stirs the soil to a
depth
of about four inches. This is as
much as the strength of the animals is equal to.
It is
usual to plough with a cow and a
donkey yoked together. Two donkeys would not be
quite strong enough, but on the other
hand two cows would cost a little more to feed.
The peasants possess no narrows, they
merely plough the soil several times over in
different directions, finally leaving
it in rough furrows, after which the whole field
has
to be shaped with hoes into small
oblong patches to conserve water. Except for a day
or two after the rare rainstorms there
is never enough water. A long the edges of the
fields
channels
are
hacked
out
to
a
depth
of
thirty
or
forty
feet
to
get
at
the
tiny
trickles which run
through the subsoil.
19 Every afternoon a file of very old
women passes down the road outside my
house, each carrying a load of
firewood. All of them are mummified with age and
the
sun,
and
all
of
them
are
tiny.
It
seems
to
be
generally
the
case
in
primitive
communities that
the women, when they get beyond a certain age,
shrink to the size of
children.
One
day
poor
creature
who
could
not
have
been
more
than
four
feet
tall
crept past me under a vast load of
wood. I stopped her and put a five-sou sou piece (
a
little
more
than
a
farthing
into
her
hand.
She
answered
with
a
shrill
wail,
almost
a
scream,
which was partly gratitude but mainly surprise. I
suppose that from her point
of view, by
taking any notice of her, I seemed almost to be
violating a law of nature.
She accept-
ed her status as an old woman, that is to say as a
beast of burden. When a
family is
travelling it is quite usual to see a father and a
grown-up son riding ahead on
donkeys,
and an old woman following on foot, carrying the
baggage.
20 But
what is strange about these people is their
invisibility. For several weeks,
always
at
about
the
same
time
of
day,
the
file
of
old
women
had
hobbled
past
the
house with their
firewood, and though they had registered
themselves on my eyeballs
学海无涯苦作舟！
I cannot
truly say that I had seen them. Firewood was
passing -- that was how I saw it.
It
was
only
that
one
day
I
happened
to
be
walking
behind
them,
and
the
curious
up-and-down motion
of a load of wood drew my attention to the human
being beneath
it. Then for the first
time I noticed the poor old earth-coloured bodies,
bodies reduced
to bones and leathery
skin, bent double under the crushing weight. Yet I
suppose I had
not
been
five
minutes
on
Moroccan
soil
before
I
noticed
the
overloading
of
the
donkeys
and was infuriated by it. There is no question
that the donkeys are damnably
treated.
The
Moroccan
donkey
is
hardly
bigger
than
a
St.
Bernard
dog,
it
carries
a
load
which
in
the
British
Army
would
be
considered
too
much
for
a
fifteen-hands
mule, and very
often its packsaddle is not taken off its back for
weeks together. But
what is peculiarly
pitiful is that it is the most willing creature on
earth, it follows its
master like a dog
and does not need either bridle or halter . After
a dozen
years of
devoted
work it suddenly drops dead, whereupon its master
tips it into the ditch and
the village
dogs have torn its guts out before it is cold.
21
This
kind
of
thing
makes
one's
blood
boil,
whereas--
on
the
whole
--
the
plight of the human beings does not. I
am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact.
People
with
brown
skins
are
next
door
to
invisible.
Anyone
can
be
sorry
for
the
donkey
with its galled back, but it is generally owing to
some kind of accident if one
even
notices the old woman under her load of sticks.
22 As the
storks flew northward the Negroes were marching
southward -- a long,
dusty
column,
infantry
,
screw-gun
batteries,
and
then
more
infantry,
four
or
five
thousand men in all,
winding up the road with a clumping of boots and a
clatter of
iron wheels.
23
They
were
Senegalese,
the
blackest
Negroes
in
Africa,
so
black
that
sometimes
it
is
difficult
to
see
whereabouts
on
their
necks
the
hair
begins.
Their
splendid
bodies
were
hidden
in
reach-
me-down
khaki
uniforms,
their
feet
squashed
into boots that
looked like blocks of wood, and every tin hat
seemed to be a couple of
sizes too
small. It was very hot and the men had marched a
long way. They slumped
under the weight
of their packs and the curiously sensitive black
faces were glistening
with sweat.
24 As they went
past, a tall, very young Negro turned and caught
my eye. But the
look he gave me was not
in the least the kind of look you might expect.
Not hostile,
not contemptuous, not
sullen, not even inquisitive. It was the shy,
wide-eyed Negro
look, which actually is
a look of profound respect. I saw how it was. This
wretched
boy, who is a French citizen
and has therefore been dragged from the forest to
scrub
floors and catch syphilis in
garrison towns, actually has feelings of reverence
before a
white skin. He has been taught
that the white race are his masters, and he still
believes
it.
25
But
there
is
one
thought
which
every
white
man
(and
in
this
connection
it
doesn't
matter
twopence if he calls
himself a
socialist) thinks when he sees a black
army
marching
past.
much
longer
can
we
go
on
kidding
these
people?
How
long before they turn their guns in the
other direction?
26
It
was
curious
really.
Every
white
man
there
had
this
thought
stowed
somewhere
or
other
in
his
mind.
I
had
it,
so
had
the
other
onlookers,
so
had
the
学海无涯苦作舟！
officers on their sweating chargers and
the white N. C. Os marching in the ranks. It
was a kind of secret which we all knew
and were too clever to tell; only the Negroes
didn't know it. And really it was like
watching a flock of cattle to see the long column,
a mile or two miles of
armed
men, flowing peacefully up the
road,
while the
great
white birds drifted over them in the
opposite direction, glittering like scraps of
Paper.
第三课
1 Conversation is the most sociable of
all human activities. And it is an activity only
of
humans.
However
intricate
the
ways
in
which
animals
communicate
with
each
other, they do not
indulge in anything that deserves the name of
conversation.
2 The charm of conversation is that it
does not really start from anywhere, and
no one has any idea where it will go as
it meanders or leaps and sparkles or just glows.
The
enemy
of
good
conversation
is
the
person
who
has
to
say.
Conversation is not for
making a point. Argument may often be a part of
it, but the
purpose of the argument is
not to convince. There is no winning in
conversation. In
fact, the best
conversationalists are those who are prepared to
lose. Suddenly they see
the moment for
one of their best anecdotes, but in a flash the
conversation has moved
on and the
opportunity is lost. They are ready to let it go.
3
Perhaps
it
is
because
of
my
up-bringing
in
English
pubs
that
I
think
bar
conversation
has
a
charm
of
its
own.
Bar
friends
are
not
deeply
involved
in
each
other's
lives. They are companions, not intimates. The
fact that their marriages may be
on the
rooks, or that their love affairs have been broken
or even that they got out of
bed on the
wrong side is simply not a concern. They are like
the musketeers of Dumas
who, although
they lived side by side with each other, did not
delve into,each other's
lives or the
recesses of their thoughts and feelings.
4
It
was
on
such
an
occasion
the
other
evening,
as
the
conversation
moved
desultorily here and there, from the
most commonplace to thoughts of Jupiter, without
any focus and with no need for one,
that suddenly the alchemy of conversation took
place,
and
all
at
once
there
was
a
focus.
I
do
not
remember
what
made
one
of
our
companions
say
it--she
clearly
had
not
come
into
the
bar
to
say
it,
it
was
not
something that was
pressing on her mind--but her remark fell quite
naturally into the
talk.
5
term of criticism, that it means
language which one should not properly
use.
6 The glow of the conversation burst
into flames. There were affirmations and
protests and denials, and of course the
promise, made in all such conversation, that we
would look it up on the morning. That
would settle it; but conversation does not need
to be settled; it could still go
ignorantly on.
7
It
was
an
Australian
who
had
given
her
such
a
definition
of
King's
English,
the descendants of
convicts. We had traveled in five minutes to
Australia. Of course,
there
would
be
resistance
to
the
King's
English
in
such
a
society.
There
is
always
resistance in the lower classes to any
attempt by an upper class to lay down rules for
学海无涯苦作舟！
8
Look
at
the
language
barrier
between
the
Saxon
churls
and
their
Norman
conquerors. The
conversation had swung from Australian convicts of
the 19th century
to the English
peasants of the 12th century. Who was right, who
was wrong, did not
matter. The
conversation was on wings.
9 Someone took one of the
best-known of examples, which is still always
worth
the reconsidering. When we talk
of meat on our tables we use French words; when we
speak of the animals from which the
meat comes we use Anglo-Saxon words. It is a
pig in its sty it is pork (porc) on
the table. They are cattle in the fields, but we
sit
down
to
beef
(boeuf).
Chickens
become
poultry
(poulet),
and
a
calf
becomes
veal
(veau). Even if our menus were not
wirtten in French out of snobbery, the English we
used in them would still be Norman
English. What all this tells us is of a deep class
rift in the culture of England after
the Norman conquest.
10
The
Saxon
peasants
who
tilled
the
land
and
reared
the
animals
could
not
afford the meat, which
went to Norman tables. The peasants were allowed
to eat the
rabbits that scampered over
their fields and, since that meat was cheap, the
Norman
lords of course turned up their
noses at it. So rabbit is still rabbit on our
tables, and not
changed into some
rendering of lapin.
11 As we listen today to
the arguments about bilingual education, we ought
to
think ourselves back into the shoes
of the Saxon peasant. The new ruling class had
built a cultural barrier against him by
building their French against his own language.
There must have been a great
deal
of cultural
humiliation felt by the
English when
they revolted
under Saxon leaders like Hereward the Wake.
the term had existed then--had become
French. And here in America now, 900 years
later, we are still the heirs to it.
12
So
the
next
morning,
the
conversation
over,
one
looked
it
up.
The
phrase
came
into
use
some
time
in
the
16th
century.
English
is
found
in
Nash's
Newes
of
the
Intercepting
Certaine
Letters
in
1593,
and
in
1602,
Dekker
wrote
of
someone,
clipst
the
Kinge's
English.
Is
the
phrase
in
Shakespeare?
That
would
be
the
confirmation
that
it
was
in
general
use.
He
uses
it
once,
when
Mistress Quickly in
in a rage,
and it rings
true.
13 One could have expected that it
would be about then that the phrase would
be coined. After five centuries of
growth, o1f tussling with the French of the
Normans
and the Angevins and the
Plantagenets and at last absorbing it, the
conquered in the
end conquering the
conqueror. English had come royally into its own.
14
There was a King's (or Queen' s) English to be
proud of. The Elizabethans
blew on it
as on a dandelion clock, and its seeds multiplied,
and floated to the ends of
the earth.
as racial discrimination.
15 Yet there
had been something in the remark of the
Australian. The phrase has
always been
used a little pejoratively and even facetiously by
the lower classes. One
feels that even
Mistress Quickly--a servant--is saying that Dr.
Caius--her master--will
lose
his
control
and
speak
with
the
vigor
of
ordinary
folk.
If
the
King's
English
is
学海无涯苦作舟！
they say with a jeer
dominance is still there.
16 There is
always a great danger, as Carlyle put it, that
things for us.
the King's
English, like the Anglo-French of the Normans, is
a class representation of
reality.
Perhaps
it
is
worth
trying
to
speak
it,
but
it
should
not
be
laid
down
as
an
edict , and
made immune to change from below.
17 I have an
unending love affair with dictionaries-Auden once
said that all a
writer needs is a pen,
plenty of paper and
agree
with
the
person
who
said
that
dictionaries
are
instruments
of
common
sense.
The
King's English is a model
—
a
rich and instructive one--but it ought not to be
an
ultimatum.
18
So
we
may
return
to
my
beginning.
Even
with
the
most
educated
and
the
most literate, the
King's English slips and slides in conversation.
There is no worse
conversationalist
than the one who punctuates his words as he speaks
as if he were
writing, or even who
tries to use words as if he were composing a piece
of prose for
print. When E. M. Forster
writes of
vividness of the phrase, the
force and even terror in the image. But if E. M.
Forster sat
in
our
living
room
and
said,
are
all
following
each
other
down
the
sinister
corridor of our age,
19 Great
authors
are constantly being
asked by
foolish
people to
talk
as
they
write. Other people may celebrate
the lofty conversations in which the great minds
are
supposed to have indulged in the
great salons of 18th century Paris, but one
suspects
that the great minds were
gossiping and judging the quality of the food and
the wine.
Henault,
then
the
great
president
of
the
First
Chamber
of
the
Paris
Parlement,
complained
bitterly of the
on
to
observe
that
the
only
difference
between
her
cook
and
the
supreme
chef,
Brinvilliers , lay in
their intentions.
20 The one place
not
to
have
dictionaries
is
in
a sit ting
room or
at
a dining
table. Look the thing up the next
morning, but not in the middle of the
conversation.
Other
wise
one
will
bind
the
conversation,
one
will
not
let
it
flow
freely
here
and
there. There would have been no
conversation the other evening if we had been able
to
settle
at
one
the
meaning
of
King's
English.
We
would
never
hay
gone
to
Australia, or leaped back
in time to the Norman Conquest.
21 And there
would have been nothing to think about the next
morning. Perhaps
above all, one would
not have been engaged by interest in the musketeer
who raised
the subject, wondering more
about her. The bother about teaching chimpanzees
how
to talk is that they will probably
try to talk sense and so ruin all conversation.
第四课
1 We observe today not a victory of
party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing
an end as well as a beginning,
signifying renewal as well as change. For I have
sworn
学海无涯苦作舟！
before you and Almighty God the same
solemn oath our forebears prescribednearly a
century and three-quarters ago.
2 The world is
very different now. For man holds in his mortal
hands the power
to abolish all forms of
human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet
the same
revolutionary belief for which
our forebears fought is still at issue around the
globe,
the belief that the rights of
man come not from the generosity of the state but
from the
hand of God.
3 We dare not forget today
that we are the heirs of that first revolution.
Let the
word go forth from this time
and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch
has been
passed
to
a
new
generation
of
Americans,
born
in
this
century,
tempered
by
war,
disciplined by a hard and bitter peace,
proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to
witness
or
permit
the
slow
undoing
of
these
human
rights
to
which
this
nation
has
always been committed, and
to which we are committed today at home
and around
the world.
4 Let every nation know,
whether it wishes us well or i11, that we shall
pay any
price,
bear
any
burden,
meet
any
hardship,
support
any
friend,
oppose
any
foe
to
assure the survival and the success of
liberty.
5 This
much we pledge--and more.
6 To those old allies whose cultural
and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the
loyalty of faithful friends. United,
there is little we cannot do in a host of co-
operative
ventures. Divided, there is
little we can do, for we dare not meet a powerful
challenge
at odds and split asunder.
7 To those new
states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free,
we pledge our
word
that
one
form
of
colonial
control
shall
not
have
passed
away
merely
to
be
replaced
by
a
far
more
iron
tyranny.
We
shall
not
always
expect
to
find
them
supporting our view. But we shall
always hope to find them strongly supporting their
own freedom, and to remember that, in
the past, those who foolishly sought power by
riding the back of the tiger ended up
inside.
8 To
those peoples in the huts and villages of half the
globe struggling to break
the bonds of
mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help
them help themselves, for
whatever
period
is
required,
not
because
the
Communists
may
be
doing
it,
not
because we seek their votes, but
because it is right. If a free society cannot help
the
many who are poor, it cannot save
the few who are rich.
9 To our sister republics south of our
border, we offer a special pledge: to convert
our good words into good deeds, in a
new alliance for progress, to assist free men and
free governments in casting off the
chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of
hope cannot become the prey of hostile
powers. Let all our neighbors know that we
shall join with them to
oppose aggression or subversion
anywhere in the Americas.
And let every
other power know that this hemisphere intends to
remain the master of
its own house.
10 To that
world assembly of sovereign states, the United
Nations, our last best
hope
in
an
age
where
the
instruments
of
war
have
far
outpaced
the
instruments
of
peace, we renew our pledge of support:
to prevent it from becoming merely a forum
for invective, to strengthen its shield
of the new and the weak, and to enlarge the area
学海无涯苦作舟！
in which
its writ may run.
11 Finally, to those nations who would
make themselves our adversary, we offer
not a pledge but a request: that both
sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the
dark
powers
of
destruction
unleashed
by
science
engulf
all
humanity
in
planned
or
accidental self-destruction.
12 We dare not
tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms
are sufficient
beyond doubt can we be
certain beyond doubt that they will never be
employed.
13
But neither can two great and powerful groups of
nations take comfort from
our
present
course--both
sides
overburdened
by
the
cost
of
modern
weapons,
both
rightly alarmed by the steady spread of
the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that
uncertain balance of terror that stays
the hand of mankind's final war.
14 So let us begin anew,
remembering on both sides that civility is not a
sign of
weakness, and sincerity is
always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate
out of fear,
but let us never fear to
negotiate.
15
Let
both
sides
explore
what
problems
unite
us
instead
of
belaboring
those
problems which divide us.
16 Let both sides, for the
first time, formulate serious and precise
proposals for
the
inspection
and
control
of
arms
and
bring
the
absolute
power
to
destroy
other
nations under the
absolute control of all nations.
17
Let
both
sides
seek
to
invoke
the
wonders
of
science
instead
of
its
terrors.
Together let us explore the stars,
conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the
ocean
depths and encourage the arts and
commerce.
18
Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the
earth the command of Isaiah
to
19 And if a
beachhead of co-operation may push back the jungle
of suspicion, let
both
sides
join in
creating a new
endeavor, not
a new balance
of power, but
a new
world of
law, where the strong are just and the weak secure
and the peace preserved.
20
All
this
will
not
be
finished
in
the
first
one
hundred
days.
Nor
will
it
be
finished in
the first one thousand days, nor in the life of
this Administration, nor even
perhaps
in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
21 In your
hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will
rest the final success
or
failure
of
our
course.
Since
this
country
was
founded,
each
generation
of
Americans has been summoned to give
testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of
young Americans who answered the call
to service surround the globe.
22 Now the trumpet summons
us again--not as a call to bear arms, though arms
we need; not as a call to battle,
though embattled we are; but a call to bear the
burden
of
a
long
twilight
struggle,
year
in
and
year
out,
in
hope,
patient
in
tribulation,
and war itself.
23 Can we
forge against these enemies a grand and
global alliance, North
and
South, East and West, that can assure a
more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you
join in the historic effort?
24 In the long
history of the world, only a few generations have
been granted the
role of defending
freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not
shrink from this
学海无涯苦作舟！
responsibility;
I welcome
it.
I do not
believe that
any of us would
exchange
places
with
any
other
people
or
any
other
generation.
The
energy,
the
faith,
the
devotion
which we bring to
this endeavor will light our country and all who
serve it, and the
glow from that fire
can truly light the world.
25 And so, my fellow Americans ask not
what your country can do for you; ask
what you can do for your country.
26 My fellow
citizens of the world, ask not what America will
do for you, but
what together we can do
for the freedom of man.
27 Finally, whether you are citizens of
America or citizens of the world, ask of us
here the same high standards of
strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a
good conscienceour only sure reward,
with history the final judge of our deeds, let us
go forth to lead the land we love,
asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that
here on earth God's work must truly be
our own.
The Libido for the Ugly
爱丑之欲
H. L.
Mencken
1 On a
Winter day some years ago, coming out of
Pittsburgh on one of the
expresses of
the Pennsylvania Railroad, I rolled eastward for
an hour through the coal
and steel
towns of Westmoreland county. It was familiar
ground; boy and man, I had
been through
it often before. But somehow I had never quite
sensed its appalling
desolation. Here
was the very heart of industrial America, the
center of its most
lucrative and
characteristic activity, the boast and pride of
the richest and grandest
nation ever
seen on earth--and here was a scene so dreadfully
hideous , so intolerably
bleak and
forlorn that it reduced the whole aspiration of
man to a macabre and
depressing joke .
Here was wealth beyond computation, almost beyond
imagination--and here were human
habitations so abominable that they would have
disgraced a race of alley cats.
2 I am not
speaking of mere filth. One expects steel towns to
be dirty. What I
allude to is the
unbroken and agonizing ugliness, the sheer
revolting monstrousness,
of every house
in sight. From East Liberty to Greensburg, a
distance of twenty-five
miles, there
was not one in sight from the train that did not
insult and lacerate the eye.
Some were
so bad, and they were among the most pretentious
--churches, stores,
warehouses, and the
like--that they were down-right startling; one
blinked before
them as one blinks
before a man with his face shot away. A few linger
in memory,
horrible even there: a crazy
little church just west of Jeannette, set like a
dormer-window on the side of a bare
leprous hill; the headquarters of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars at another forlorn town, a
steel stadium like a huge rattrap somewhere
further down the line. But most of all
I recall the general effect--of hideousness
without a break. There was not a single
decent house within eyerange from the
Pittsburgh to the Greensburg yards.
There was not one that was not misshapen, and
学海无涯苦作舟！
there
was not one that was not shabby.
3 The country itself is not
uncomely, despite the grime of the endless mills.
It is,
in form, a narrow river valley,
with deep gullies running up into the hills. It is
thickly
settled, but not: noticeably
overcrowded. There is still plenty of room for
building,
even in the larger towns, and
there are very few solid blocks. Nearly every
house, big
and little, has space on all
four sides. Obviously, if there were architects of
any
professional sense or dignity in
the region, they would have perfected a chalet to
hug
the hillsides--a chalet with a
high-pitched roof, to throw off the heavy Winter
snows,
but still essentially a low and
clinging building, wider than it was tall. But
what have
they done? They have taken as
their model a brick set on end. This they have
converted into a thing of dingy
clapboards with a narrow, low-pitched roof. And
the
whole they have set upon thin,
preposterous brick piers . By the hundreds and
thousands these abominable houses cover
the bare hillsides, like gravestones in some
gigantic and decaying cemetery. On
their deep sides they are three, four and even
five
stories high; on their low sides
they bury themselves swinishly in the mud. Not a
fifth
of them are perpendicular . They
lean this way and that, hanging on to their bases
precariously . And one and all they are
streaked in grime, with dead and eczematous
patches of paint peeping through the
streaks.
4 Now
and then there is a house of brick. But what
brick! When it is new it is the
color
of a fried egg. When it has taken on the patina of
the mills it is the color of an
egg
long past all hope or caring. Was it necessary to
adopt that shocking color? No
more than
it was necessary to set all of the houses on end.
Red brick, even in a steel
town, ages
with some dignity. Let it become downright black,
and it is still sightly ,
especially if
its trimmings are of white stone, with soot in the
depths and the high
spots washed by the
rain. But in Westmoreland they prefer that uremic
yellow, and so
they have the most
loathsome towns and villages ever seen by mortal
eye.
5 I award
this championship only after laborious research
and incessant prayer. I
have seen, I
believe, all of the most unlovely towns of the
world; they are all to be
found in the
United States. I have seen the mill towns of
decomposing New England
and the desert
towns of Utah, Arizona and Texas. I am familiar
with the back streets
of Newark,
Brooklyn and Chicago, and have made scientific
explorations to Camden,
N. J. and
Newport News, Va. Safe in a Pullman , I have
whirled through the g1oomy,
Godforsaken
villages of Iowa and Kansas, and the malarious
tidewater hamlets of
Georgia. I have
been to Bridgeport, Conn., and to Los Angeles. But
nowhere on this
earth, at home or
abroad, have I seen anything to compare to the
villages that huddle
aloha the line of
the Pennsylvania from the Pittsburgh yards to
Greensburg. They are
incomparable in
color, and they are incomparable in design. It is
as if some titanic and
aberrant genius
, uncompromisingly inimical to man, had devoted
all the ingenuity of
Hell to the making
of them. They show grotesqueries of ugliness that,
in
retrospect ,become almost diabolical
.One cannot imagine mere human beings
concocting such dreadful things, and
one can scarcely imagine human beings bearing
life in them.
6 Are they so frightful because the
valley is full of foreigners--dull, insensate
brutes, with no love of beauty in them?
Then why didn't these foreigners set up
学海无涯苦作舟！
similar
abominations in the countries that they came from?
You will, in fact, find
nothing of the
sort in Europe--save perhaps in the more putrid
parts of England. There
is scarcely an
ugly village on the whole Continent. The peasants,
however poor,
somehow manage to make
themselves graceful and charming habitations, even
in
Spain. But in the American village
and small town the pull is always toward ugliness,
and in that Westmoreland valley it has
been yielded to with an eagerness bordering
upon passion. It is incredible that
mere ignorance should have achieved such
masterpieces of horror.
7 On certain levels of the
American race, indeed, there seems to be a
positive
libido for the ugly, as on
other and less Christian levels there is a libido
for the
beautiful. It is impossible to
put down the wallpaper that defaces the average
American home of the lower middle class
to mere inadvertence , or to the obscene
humor of the manufacturers. Such
ghastly designs, it must be obvious, give a
genuine
delight to a certain type of
mind. They meet, in some unfathomable way, its
obscure
and unintelligible demands. The
taste for them is as enigmatical and yet as common
as the taste for dogmatic theology and
the poetry of Edgar A Guest.
8 Thus I suspect (though
confessedly without knowing) that the vast
majority of
the honest folk of
Westmoreland county, and especially the 100%
Americans among
them, actually admire
the houses they live in, and are proud of them.
For the same
money they could get
vastly better ones, but they prefer what they have
got. Certainly
there was no pressure
upon the Veterans of Foreign Wars to choose the
dreadful
edifice that bears their
banner, for there are plenty of vacant buildings
along the
trackside, and some of them
are appreciably better. They might, in- deed, have
built a
better one of their own. But
they chose that clapboarded horror with their eyes
open,
and having chosen it, they let it
mellow into its present shocking depravity. They
like
it as it is: beside it, the
Parthenon would no doubt offend them. In precisely
the same
way the authors of the rat-
trap stadium that I have mentioned made a
deliberate choice:
After painfully
designing and erecting it, they made it perfect in
their own sight by
putting a completely
impossible penthouse painted a staring yellow, on
top of it. The
effect is that of a fat
woman with a black eye. It is that of a
Presbyterian grinning. But
they like
it.
9 Here is
something that the psychologists have so far
neglected: the love of
ugliness for its
own sake, the lust to make the world intolerable.
Its habitat is the
United States. Out
of the melting pot emerges a race which hates
beauty as it hates
truth. The etiology
of this madness deserves a great deal more study
than it has got.
There must be causes
behind it; it arises and flourishes in obedience
to biological laws,
and not as a mere
act of God. What, precisely, are the terms of
those laws? And why
do they run
stronger in America than elsewhere? Let some
honest Privat Dozent in
pathological
sociology apply himself to the problem.
The Sad Young Men
悲哀的年轻一代
Rod W.
Horton and Herbert W. Edwards
学海无涯苦作舟！
1 No aspect of
life in the Twenties has been more commented upon
and
sensationally romanticized than the
so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation.
The slightest mention of the decade
brings nostalgic recollections to the
middle-aged and curious questionings by
the young: memories of the deliciously
illicit thrill of the first visit to a
speakeasy, of the brave denunciation of Puritan
morality, and of the fashionable
experimentations in amour in the parked sedan on a
country road; questions about the
naughty, jazzy parties, the flask-toting
the moral and stylistic vagaries of the
young people really so
wild?
must of necessity be
always accompanied by a Younger
Generation Problem;
so wild,
irresponsible, and immoral in social behavior at
the time can now be seen in
perspective
as being something considerably less sensational
than the degenerauon of
our jazzmad
youth.
2
Actually, the revolt of the young people was a
logical outcome of conditions in
the
age: First of all, it must be remembered that the
rebellion was not confined to the
Unit-
ed States, but affected the entire Western world
as a result of the aftermath of
the
first serious war in a century. Second, in the
United States it was reluctantly
realized by some- subconsciously if not
openly -- that our country was no longer
isolated in either politics or
tradition and that we had reached an international
stature
that would forever prevent us
from retreating behind the artificial walls of a
provincial
morality or the geographical
protection of our two bordering oceans.
3 The rejection
of Victorian gentility was, in any case,
inevitable. The booming
of American
industry, with its gigantic, roaring factories,
its corporate impersonality,
and its
largescale aggressiveness, no longer left any room
for the code of polite
behavior and
well-bred morality fashioned in a quieter and less
competitive age. War
or no war, as the
generations passed, it became increasingly
difficult for our young
people to
accept standards of behavior that bore no
relationship to the bustling
business
medium in which they were expected to battle for
success. The war acted
merely as a
catalytic agent in this breakdown of the Victorian
social structure, and by
precipitating
our young people into a pattern of mass murder it
released their inhibited
violent
energies which, after the shooting was over, were
turned in both Europe and
America to
the destruction of an obsolescent nineteenth-
century society.
4 Thus in a changing world youth was
faced with the challenge of bringing our
mores up to date. But at the same time
it was tempted, in America at least, to escape
its responsibilities and retreat behind
an air of naughty alcoholic sophistication and a
pose of Bohemian immorality. The
faddishness , the wild spending of money on
transitory pleasures and momentary
novelties , the hectic air of gaiety, the
experimentation in sensation -- sex,
drugs, alcohol, perversions -- were all part of
the
pattern of escape, an escape made
possible by a general prosperity and a post-war
fatigue with politics, economic
restrictions, and international responsibilities.
Prohibition afforded the young the
additional opportunity of making their pleasures
illicit , and the much-publicized
orgies and defiant manifestoes of the
intellectuals
学海无涯苦作舟！
crowding into Greenwich Village gave
them a pattern and a philosophic defense for
their escapism. And like most escapist
sprees, this one lasted until the money ran out,
until the crash of the world economic
structure at the end of the decade called the
party to a halt and forced the revelers
to sober up and face the problems of the new
age.
5 The rebellion started with World War
I. The prolonged stalemate of 1915 --
1916, the increasing insolence of
Germany toward the United States, and our official
reluctance to declare our status as a
belligerent were intolerable to many of our
idealistic citizens, and with typical
American adventurousness enhanced somewhat by
the strenuous
jingoism of Theodore Roosevelt, our
young men began to enlist
under foreign
flags. In the words of Joe Williams, in John Dos
Passos' U. S. A., they
service, in 1916-- 1917, was
still a romantic occupation. The young men of
college
age in 1917 knew nothing of
modern warfare. The strife of 1861 --1865 had
popularly
become, in motion picture and
story, a magnolia-scented soap opera, while the
one
hundred-days' fracas with Spain in
1898 had dissolved into a one-sided victory at
Manila and a cinematic charge up San
Juan Hill. Furthermore, there were enough high
school assembly orators proclaiming the
character-forming force of the strenuous life
to convince more than enough otherwise
sensible boys that service in the European
conflict would be of great personal
value, in addition to being idealistic and
exciting.
Accordingly, they began to
join the various armies in increasing numbers, the
wherever else they could
find a place. Those who were reluctant to serve in
a foreign
army talked excitedly about
Preparedness, occasionally considered joining the
National Guard, and rushed to enlist
when we finally did enter the conflict. So
tremendous was the storming of
recruitment centers that harassed sergeants
actually
pleaded with volunteers to
self-respecting person wanted to suffer
the disgrace of being drafted, the enlistment
craze continued unabated.
6 Naturally, the spirit of
carnival and the enthusiasm for high military
adventure
were soon dissipated once the
eager young men had received a good taste of
twentieth- century warfare. To their
lasting glory, they fought with distinction, but
it
was a much altered group of soldiers
who returned from the battlefields in 1919.
Especially was this true of the college
contingent, whose idealism had led them to
enlist early and who had generally seen
a considerable amount of action. To them, it
was bitter to return to a home town
virtually untouched by the conflict, where
citizens
still talked with the naive
Fourth-of-duly bombast they themselves had been
guilty of
two or three years earlier.
It was even more bitter to find that their old
jobs had been
taken by the stay-at-
homes, that business was suffering a recession
that prevented the
opening up of new
jobs, and that veterans were considered problem
children and less
desirable than non-
veterans for whatever business opportunities that
did exist. Their
very homes were often
uncomfortable to them; they had outgrown town and
families
and had developed a sudden
bewildering world-weariness which neither they nor
their
relatives could understand. Their
energies had been whipped up and their naivete
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