登陆注册
5148700000025

第25章 ORDERED SOUTH(1)

BY a curious irony of fate, the places to which we are sent when health deserts us are often singularly beautiful.

Often, too, they are places we have visited in former years, or seen briefly in passing by, and kept ever afterwards in pious memory; and we please ourselves with the fancy that we shall repeat many vivid and pleasurable sensations, and take up again the thread of our enjoyment in the same spirit as we let it fall.We shall now have an opportunity of finishing many pleasant excursions, interrupted of yore before our curiosity was fully satisfied.It may be that we have kept in mind, during all these years, the recollection of some valley into which we have just looked down for a moment before we lost sight of it in the disorder of the hills; it may be that we have lain awake at night, and agreeably tantalised ourselves with the thought of corners we had never turned, or summits we had all but climbed: we shall now be able, as we tell ourselves, to complete all these unfinished pleasures, and pass beyond the barriers that confined our recollections.

The promise is so great, and we are all so easily led away when hope and memory are both in one story, that Idaresay the sick man is not very inconsolable when he receives sentence of banishment, and is inclined to regard his ill-health as not the least fortunate accident of his life.Nor is he immediately undeceived.The stir and speed of the journey, and the restlessness that goes to bed with him as he tries to sleep between two days of noisy progress, fever him, and stimulate his dull nerves into something of their old quickness and sensibility.And so he can enjoy the faint autumnal splendour of the landscape, as he sees hill and plain, vineyard and forest, clad in one wonderful glory of fairy gold, which the first great winds of winter will transmute, as in the fable, into withered leaves.And so too he can enjoy the admirable brevity and simplicity of such little glimpses of country and country ways as flash upon him through the windows of the train; little glimpses that have a character all their own; sights seen as a travelling swallow might see them from the wing, or Iris as she went abroad over the land on some Olympian errand.Here and there, indeed, a few children huzzah and wave their hands to the express; but for the most part it is an interruption too brief and isolated to attract much notice; the sheep do not cease from browsing;a girl sits balanced on the projecting tiller of a canal boat, so precariously that it seems as if a fly or the splash of a leaping fish would be enough to overthrow the dainty equilibrium, and yet all these hundreds of tons of coal and wood and iron have been precipitated roaring past her very ear, and there is not a start, not a tremor, not a turn of the averted head, to indicate that she has been even conscious of its passage.Herein, I think, lies the chief attraction of railway travel.The speed is so easy, and the train disturbs so little the scenes through which it takes us, that our heart becomes full of the placidity and stillness of the country;and while the body is borne forward in the flying chain of carriages, the thoughts alight, as the humour moves them, at unfrequented stations; they make haste up the poplar alley that leads toward the town; they are left behind with the signalman as, shading his eyes with his hand, he watches the long train sweep away into the golden distance.

Moreover, there is still before the invalid the shock of wonder and delight with which he will learn that he has passed the indefinable line that separates South from North.And this is an uncertain moment; for sometimes the consciousness is forced upon him early, on the occasion of some slight association, a colour, a flower, or a scent; and sometimes not until, one fine morning, he wakes up with the southern sunshine peeping through the PERSIENNES, and the southern patois confusedly audible below the windows.Whether it come early or late, however, this pleasure will not end with the anticipation, as do so many others of the same family.It will leave him wider awake than it found him, and give a new significance to all he may see for many days to come.There is something in the mere name of the South that carries enthusiasm along with it.At the sound of the word, he pricks up his ears; he becomes as anxious to seek out beauties and to get by heart the permanent lines and character of the landscape, as if he had been told that it was all his own - an estate out of which he had been kept unjustly, and which he was now to receive in free and full possession.Even those who have never been there before feel as if they had been; and everybody goes comparing, and seeking for the familiar, and finding it with such ecstasies of recognition, that one would think they were coming home after a weary absence, instead of travelling hourly farther abroad.

It is only after he is fairly arrived and settled down in his chosen corner, that the invalid begins to understand the change that has befallen him.Everything about him is as he had remembered, or as he had anticipated.Here, at his feet, under his eyes, are the olive gardens and the blue sea.

Nothing can change the eternal magnificence of form of the naked Alps behind Mentone; nothing, not even the crude curves of the railway, can utterly deform the suavity of contour of one bay after another along the whole reach of the Riviera.

And of all this, he has only a cold head knowledge that is divorced from enjoyment.He recognises with his intelligence that this thing and that thing is beautiful, while in his heart of hearts he has to confess that it is not beautiful for him.It is in vain that he spurs his discouraged spirit; in vain that he chooses out points of view, and stands there, looking with all his eyes, and waiting for some return of the pleasure that he remembers in other days, as the sick folk may have awaited the coming of the angel at the pool of Bethesda.

同类推荐
  • 上清金书玉字上经

    上清金书玉字上经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 天王太子辟罗经

    天王太子辟罗经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • The Rights Of Man

    The Rights Of Man

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • The Absentee

    The Absentee

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 日本国考略

    日本国考略

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 一个人去战斗

    一个人去战斗

    一个从农村出来的孩子,不屈不饶,一步一个脚印去拼搏的故事。
  • 新婚难眠,慕少女人不许抢

    新婚难眠,慕少女人不许抢

    婚后几年,丈夫对她的恨依旧深入骨髓。而她为了救身患血癌的儿子,不惜亲自送女人讨丈夫欢心。“慕先生,还满意吗?”她心口滴血地问道。“唐九月,我对你更感兴趣……”他笑容阴沉。他变着法子折磨她:“我怎么可能让你生个孩子去救那个野种……”等她绝望的转身,他却深情的抱着她,“别走,月儿……”情节虚构,请勿模仿--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 门后是诸天万界

    门后是诸天万界

    从那天起,叶岚家出现了一扇门。门后,是诸天万界! 这是一个哥哥带着妹妹穿越诸天万界即轻松又悠闲且一点也不惊险刺激的冒险故事。 本书采用双位面循环。 目前虚拟平行世界:斗罗大陆。 书友群:874107548,欢迎加入。
  • 医妃遮天:惹上至尊邪王

    医妃遮天:惹上至尊邪王

    她,21世纪著名外科医生,医术精湛,一遭穿越成为了太子府人人可欺负的小妾。从死人堆里爬出来,控制了瘟疫,给皇帝治痔疮……他,一国太子,身份尊贵,却有着多重身份。天下第一阁至尊阁阁主、天下第一高手都是他的囊中之物。她运用自己的医术和智慧从一个小妾一步一步成为太子妃,并且与这个世界最卓越的男子并肩而行。而他为了她倾尽天下!【情节虚构,请勿模仿】
  • 嗜血总裁听我的

    嗜血总裁听我的

    传说中他是让人闻风丧胆的枭雄,他手中垄断着整个国家的经济命脉。他杀伐决断,冷酷无情。他就是萧室家族丢失了十多年的小儿子萧震赫。如今他摇身一变,回到家中,是来报恩,还是来寻仇?都只在他一念间!但他的这一念却被身边的小娇妻狠狠的制约着!
  • 父母不该说的10句话

    父母不该说的10句话

    本书详细剖析了家庭教育中经常遇到的典型案例,以此来提示父母,对孩子说话一定要把握尺度,注意分寸,不要伤害了孩子幼小的心灵。编写本书的目的就是希望所有的父母终止家庭教育中对孩子的语言伤害,提醒父母们嘴下留情,在平时不经意或者生气时,也要做到言语谨慎,对孩子的未来人生负责。
  • 激荡岁月:1976年的中国

    激荡岁月:1976年的中国

    “读点国史:辉煌年代国史丛书”选择在共和国历史上产生过重大转折或引起过社会加速发展,具有里程碑意义的12个年份为切入点,一年一本,以生动的文笔和翔实的资料记述了这一年份发生的重大历史事件,描述其经济政治发展状况和社会风貌,论述其在新中国65年发展历程中的重要地位。
  • 元诗别裁集

    元诗别裁集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 绝世盛宠之腹黑傻王甜心妃

    绝世盛宠之腹黑傻王甜心妃

    “和爹爹说甜言蜜语的功夫比起来,叔叔这点儿本事根本就是小巫见大巫啊!你们两个那甜甜腻腻的模样,让我看了牙齿都快酸倒了。”说着,小爱立马用双手捂住自己的腮帮子,一脸酸涩的表情。“如今,你却说叔叔他们这样不好。看样子,真如那句老话说的。当局者迷!敢情你自己根本就没有感觉啊。”“小丫头片子,你这是在洗涮你娘吗?”小爱本来就是一个戏精,如今更是将自己往日的内心感受表现得淋漓尽致。被女儿吐槽自己和老公天天太腻歪,田昕顿时羞红了脸。“难道女儿说错了吗?”“当然错了。”看小爱还敢跟自己狡辩,田昕立马为自己辩解起来。“你叔叔和八王妃成亲多年,我和你爹却不是。我们……”“对!爹爹和娘亲是小别胜新婚!”“小正,你这词用得不妥。”“文漠!?”看伯文漠突然在小正的面前蹲下来,田昕还以为他是想帮自己。没成想,他一开口她就差点儿跪倒下去。“爹爹和你娘亲是先结婚,再谈的恋爱。所以,我们现在正值热恋期。这热恋期的男女,本来就应该像这样,亲亲热热甜甜蜜蜜。你和你妹妹,那都是意外。”
  • 陪你到世界终结

    陪你到世界终结

    对于麦芒同学的死党而言,有她的生活完全可以写成一部血流加泪流成河的诗史,因为她隔三差五就会干出点不可理喻的邪门事……