登陆注册
5161500000004

第4章 CHILDREN IN MIDWINTER(1)

Children are so flowerlike that it is always a little fresh surprise to see them blooming in winter.Their tenderness, their down, their colour, their fulness--which is like that of a thick rose or of a tight grape--look out of season.Children in the withering wind are like the soft golden-pink roses that fill the barrows in Oxford Street, breathing a southern calm on the north wind.The child has something better than warmth in the cold, something more subtly out of place and more delicately contrary; and that is coolness.To be cool in the cold is the sign of a vitality quite exquisitely alien from the common conditions of the world.It is to have a naturally, and not an artificially, different and separate climate.

We can all be more or less warm--with fur, with skating, with tea, with fire, and with sleep--in the winter.But the child is fresh in the wind, and wakes cool from his dreams, dewy when there is hoar-frost everywhere else; he is "more lovely and more temperate" than the summer day and than the winter day alike.He overcomes both heat and cold by another climate, which is the climate of life; but that victory of life is more delicate and more surprising in the tyranny of January.By the sight and the touch of children, we are, as it were, indulged with something finer than a fruit or a flower in untimely bloom.The childish bloom is always untimely.The fruit and flower will be common later on; the strawberries will be a matter of course anon, and the asparagus dull in its day.But a child is a perpetual primeur.

Or rather he is not in truth always untimely.Some few days in the year are his own season--unnoticed days of March or April, soft, fresh and equal, when the child sleeps and rises with the sun.Then he looks as though he had his brief season, and ceases for a while to seem strange.

It is no wonder that we should try to attribute the times of the year to children; their likeness is so rife among annuals.For man and woman we are naturally accustomed to a longer rhythm; their metre is so obviously their own, and of but a single stanza, without repetition, without renewel, without refrain.But it is by an intelligible illusion that we look for a quick waxing and waning in the lives of young children--for a waxing that shall come again another time, and for a waning that shall not be final, shall not be fatal.But every winter shows us how human they are, and how they are little pilgrims and visitants among the things that look like their kin.For every winter shows them free from the east wind;more perfectly than their elders, they enclose the climate of life.

And, moreover, with them the climate of life is the climate of the spring of life; the climate of a human March that is sure to make a constant progress, and of a human April that never hesitates.The child "breathes April and May"--an inner April and his own May.

The winter child looks so much the more beautiful for the season as his most brilliant uncles and aunts look less well.He is tender and gay in the east wind.Now more than ever must the lover beware of making a comparison between the beauty of the admired woman and the beauty of a child.He is indeed too wary ever to make it.So is the poet.As comparisons are necessary to him, he will pay a frankly impossible homage, and compare a woman's face to something too fine, to something it never could emulate.The Elizabethan lyrist is safe among lilies and cherries, roses, pearls, and snow.

He undertakes the beautiful office of flattery, and flatters with courage.There is no hidden reproach in the praise.Pearls and snow suffer, in a sham fight, a mimic defeat that does them no harm, and no harm comes to the lady's beauty from a competition so impossible.She never wore a lily or a coral in the colours of her face, and their beauty is not hers.But here is the secret: she is compared with a flower because she could not endure to be compared with a child.That would touch her too nearly.There would be the human texture and the life like hers, but immeasurably more lovely.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 回到原地等你来

    回到原地等你来

    许多年后,颜浣浣才知道,原来从小到大那些她一靠近就会开走的车,都是傅晏霖安排的。为了不引起她注意,甚至准备了上百辆不同款式的车和车牌轮流交替。从她在妈妈的肚子里开始,这个男人就一直派人守在她身边。她去的每个地方,都有他的线人,那些线人不会插手她任何的事情,他只是想知道她从小到大经历过什么。又生怕中间出了什么差错,改变了她的方向,她长大以后就找不到他了。但偶尔,他也会忍不住帮她避开一些会让她后来很难受的人。
  • 邪凤逆天:庶女魔妃

    邪凤逆天:庶女魔妃

    人活一世,她活两世!穿越成庶女?!爹爹不疼,嫡母迫害,姐姐欺辱,还是一个被废去筋脉的废人。然,没实力没关系,她会强到横着走,无人敢阻!没地位?没关系,她会让所有人都仰视她仰视到脖子痛为止!没钱?没关系,一身的医术只要出手百万金送到眼前,让你数钱数到手抽筋……忠我敬我者,我自护他重他荣华富贵皆与之分享,欺我骗我背叛我者,我皆诛之绝不留情!逆天算什么,人不容我必诛之,天不容我,我便破了这天……
  • 赔妻

    赔妻

    “你是谁?”秦梓萱的声音有些颤抖。“你的债权人。”逆光中,他抿起薄而性感的嘴唇,声音却冷如冰窖,让人有种不寒而栗的感觉。“债权人?”秦梓萱懵了,“我应该不认识你吧。”那他怎么会成为她的债权人呢?“你是不是搞错了?”对,一定是这样。“秦梓萱,秦梓扬最疼爱的妹妹,没错吧。”黑暗中,他低沉的声音冷冷地扬起。秦梓萱心中冷然一颤,“是又怎么样?”他到底是什么人,好像已经把她调查的一清二楚了。门,被用力的关上,细微的光线消失了,房间又恢复了黑暗。他一手狠狠捏住秦梓萱柔软的下颚,俯下身,邪魅地一笑,“那你就必须在床、上、取、悦、我!”
  • 仙眸

    仙眸

    叶清寒是十六岁的凡世少年,他的左目是父亲留给他的挚宝,可以见证宇宙的终极奥义,永不休止,四散飞扬的原始之爱,和圣洁的菱花世界,青源枫蔓下那绽放传世的莲魄菱花。在仙、佛、人、魂与凡世人间交织的世界里,他体验着亲情、爱情、友情在人神世界中的悲喜百味。莲台之央地藏王菩萨对少年郎不住口嘱,冥音长剑,是法器,不是兵戈,吾徒,莲魄切记。时至今日,九界众生的数量日益单薄。如何改变,宇宙法主苦思冥想。
  • 楠木向北

    楠木向北

    初遇,审讯室内,他看着她,“南警官还单身?可以考虑我。”再遇,疑犯坠楼身亡,她惊恐症发作,被他拥入怀中,“南慕,深呼吸。” 那一刻,她所有的慌乱和不安,归于平静。四年前,他是俊美冷漠的传奇神探,意气风发的专案组组长,而她还是个未毕业的警校学生。他是她的信仰,也是最令她仰望的男人。一朝变故,他褪下警服,躲进大学成为潦倒颓废的心理学讲师,任何有关犯罪的领域,再不触碰。四年后,连环凶杀案再现,重重疑云、步步杀机。他和她因命运之轮,再度纠缠。她处处针锋相对,他冷静自持、淡然处之。
  • 傅少宠妻要节制

    傅少宠妻要节制

    被未婚夫一手设计之后本该避之不及的男人站在她身前,“嫁给我,从此你的困扰和喜忧由我接管。”帮母亲治病,给她衣食无忧的生活,让她享受一般无二的荣宠。当她沉溺其中,恍然发现自己不过他权势阴谋场里的一枚棋子……婚姻的围城,商场的明争暗斗,男人运筹帷幄,攻算人心,如果过往皆是一场算计,唯有爱你不可欺。
  • 天域神尊

    天域神尊

    顿悟七年,开启无上道魂,灭皇城,踏天才,为寻茫茫大道。战远古六族,为红颜,一人一剑,傲战群雄。
  • 课外实验活动指南(有趣的课外活动)

    课外实验活动指南(有趣的课外活动)

    《有趣的课外活动:课外实验活动指南》收编了200余个课外小实验,其内容既包括物理中的热学、力学、光学和电学等知识,也包括化学和生物知识。本书收编的小实验,可操作性非常强,简单易行,所需要的工具和材料也是我们在日常生活中所能见到的。但是其中的知识却是深刻的!作者谢芾把课堂里学到的知识与课外从事的各项活动有机的结合到一起,涉猎物理、化学、地理、数学等学科,用一个个有益的小实验,小发明创造加深课本上学到的知识,以提升所学知识的印象。
  • 猎狮犬

    猎狮犬

    牧场里的牛羊被猎杀,牧羊人被攻击,猎犬遭伏击,血案接连不断,猎人的尊严遭到挑战,猎犬巴克的愤怒也到了极限。谁是凶手?一头巨型美洲狮以其智慧、雄心挑战人类,在悬崖地区与人展开生死搏斗。凯恩猎犬令人称叹的勇气和永不放弃的精神令人深深感动。
  • 杀手狂妃训邪夫

    杀手狂妃训邪夫

    忘情忘性的她,因为任务失败,被唯一信任的大师兄杀害穿越,来到古代一个傻女的身上。世态炎凉,她跟母亲受尽欺凌……“是姜氏派尔等来杀我?”她不怕。“是大皇子,还是我师兄再次派尔等来杀我?”哪怕大师兄说过,历史,只要他一人知道就够了,她也不怕。“是义兄派尔等来杀我?”她已经有些麻木,猛然回头,掀开那个黑布,发现,却是她最不愿意见到的那张脸……她恨,是否命运注定,她不管在二十一世纪,亦或在古代,都不能错信任何人,是否命中注定,要孤独一世?既然如此,那么,她便卸下伪装,让你们看看,傻子比你们这些自负的人更聪明百倍,更善于心计……王爷,有种,就来跟我单挑!