登陆注册
5224900000004

第4章 WHY "DARKEST ENGLAND"?(2)

A pygmy boy of eighteen worked with consuming zeal;time with him was too precious to waste in talk.His mind seemed ever concentrated on work.Mr.Stanley said:--"When I once stopped him to ask him his name,his face seemed to say,'Please don't stop me.I must finish my task.'

"All alike,the baboon variety and the handsome innocents,are cannibals.They are possessed with a perfect mania for meat.We were obliged to bury our dead in the river,lest the bodies should be exhumed and eaten,even when they had died from smallpox."Upon the pygmies and all the dwellers of the forest has descended a devastating visitation in the shape of the ivory raiders of civilisation.The race that wrote the Arabian Nights,built Bagdad and Granada,and invented Algebra,sends forth men with the hunger for gold in their hearts,and Enfield muskets in their hands,to plunder and to slay.They exploit the domestic affections of the forest dwellers in order to strip them of all they possess in the world.That has been going on for years.It is going on to-day.It has come to be regarded as the natural and normal law of existence.Of the religion of these hunted pygmies Mr.Stanley tells us nothing,perhaps because there is nothing to tell.But an earlier traveller,Dr.Kraff,says that one of these tribes,by name Doko,had some notion of a Supreme Being,to whom,under the name of Yer,they sometimes addressed prayers in moments of sadness or terror.In these prayers they say;"Oh Yer,if Thou dost really exist why dost Thou let us be slaves?We ask not for food or clothing,for we live on snakes,ants,and mice.Thou hast made us,wherefore dost Thou let us be trodden down?"It is a terrible picture,and one that has engraved itself deep on the heart of civilisation.But while brooding over the awful presentation of life as it exists in the vast African forest,it seemed to me only too vivid a picture of many parts of our own land.As there is a darkest Africa is there not also a darkest England?Civilisation,which can breed its own barbarians,does it not also breed its own pygmies?May we not find a parallel at our own doors,and discover within a stone's throw of our cathedrals and palaces similar horrors to those which Stanley has found existing in the great Equatorial forest?

The more the mind dwells upon the subject,the closer the analogy appears.The ivory raiders who brutally traffic in the unfortunate denizens of the forest glades,what are they but the publicans who flourish on the weakness of our poor?The two tribes of savages the human baboon and the handsome dwarf,who will not speak lest it impede him in his task,may be accepted as the two varieties who are continually present with us--the vicious,lazy lout,and the toiling slave.They,too,have lost all faith of life being other than it is and has been.As in Africa,it is all trees trees,trees with no other world conceivable;so is it here--it is all vice and poverty and crime.To many the world is all slum,with the Workhouse as an intermediate purgatory before the grave.And just as Mr.Stanley's Zanzibaris lost faith,and could only be induced to plod on in brooding sullenness of dull despair,so the most of our social reformers,no matter how cheerily they may have started off,with forty pioneers swinging blithely their axes as they force their way in to the wood,soon become depressed and despairing.Who can battle against the ten thousand million trees?Who can hope to make headway against the innumerable adverse conditions which doom the dweller in Darkest England to eternal and immutable misery?What wonder is it that many of the warmest hearts and enthusiastic workers feel disposed to repeat the lament of the old English chronicler,who,speaking of the evil days which fell upon our forefathers in the reign of Stephen,said "It seemed to them as if God and his Saints were dead."An analogy is as good as a suggestion;it becomes wearisome when it is pressed too far.But before leaving it,think for a moment how close the parallel is,and how strange it is that so much interest should be excited by a narrative of human squalor and human heroism in a distant continent,while greater squalor and heroism not less magnificent may be observed at our very doors.

The Equatorial Forest traversed by Stanley resembles that Darkest England of which I have to speak,alike in its vast extent--both stretch,in Stanley's phrase,"as far as from Plymouth to Peterhead;"its monotonous darkness,its malaria and its gloom,its dwarfish de-humanized inhabitants,the slavery to which they are subjected,their privations and their misery.That which sickens the stoutest heart,and causes many of our bravest and best to fold their hands in despair,is the apparent impossibility of doing more than merely to peck at the outside of the endless tangle of monotonous undergrowth;to let light into it,to make a road clear through it,that shall not be immediately choked up by the ooze of the morass and the luxuriant parasitical growth of the forest--who dare hope for that?

At present,alas,it would seem as though no one dares even to hope!

It is the great Slough of Despond of our time.

同类推荐
  • 青囊序

    青囊序

    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。
  • 孟春纪

    孟春纪

    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。
  • 经典释文

    经典释文

    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。
  • Buttercup Gold and Other Stories

    Buttercup Gold and Other Stories

    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。
  • 孙子略解

    孙子略解

    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
  • 释签缘起

    释签缘起

    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。
  • 直斋书录解题

    直斋书录解题

    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。
  • 禁区降临

    禁区降临

    2018年,虚现降临,开启人类的新时代。成为觉醒者的他们万人敬仰,谱写着人类的新篇章。而普通人,被称之为无能者,挣扎在社会的最底层。无能者王乐,因一只妖狐不幸惨死,却又死而复生。意外接触神秘组织,自己的复活竟不是偶然的幸运。他终将踏上寻求真理之路,发现自己身上所隐藏的秘密。ps:有冒险,有副本,有救世,有团队,可能偶尔还有些日常,恋爱什么的..反正我也单身,才不会写。
  • 宠宠欲动:总裁,夫人又出逃

    宠宠欲动:总裁,夫人又出逃

    在线咨询:怎么报复一个男人,求方法。 网友一:恐吓,恶整他。 穆绵绵:结果我被他绑架,恶整。 网友二:追上他,到手后,甩了他。 穆绵绵:我追上了,我失身了! 网友三:怀上他的孩子,然后带球跑,扳回一局。 穆绵绵:我怀孕了,没跑成,被逼婚,怎么办! 沈擎生:老婆别闹,咱们现在就谈谈二胎计划。 穆绵绵:……
  • 去朋友家的路上

    去朋友家的路上

    儿童性侵阴影下的孤独挣扎,禁锢一生的心灵之伤。孤独的童年,变调的童话,令读者心碎而难忘的文学杰作。昨天,今天,明天,他几乎总是孤单一人。他走在去朋友家的路上,走向人生破碎的那一刻。他叫维格沃特,十一岁。家里的气氛沉重,生病的母亲情绪反复无常,动不动就光火,父亲则是个典型的和事佬。在一个昏暗的冬日下午,他出外到一个朋友家去,黑暗中“可乐人”的眼睛盯住了他。这一天,改变了他的一生。三十多年以后,一头筋疲力尽的大象横卧在奥斯陆郊外的一条马路上,只有维格沃特知道这大象来自何方。
  • 执宰诸天

    执宰诸天

    一个少年,崛起于微末,面对仇恨,爱情,道义时,走上了一条不归之路!我愿为你,堕落成魔,屠戮一生,执宰诸天!(本人已有完本书籍《祖仙》,273W字,《一念飞仙》370W字,希望大家多多支持!)
  • 最伟大的励志书

    最伟大的励志书

    本书是成功学大师们的呕心之作,都蕴含着无穷的智慧和力量,曾改变了无数人的行为方式和思维模式,被誉为走向成功的必修课。它们全面阐述了成功的素质和技巧,为无数人指明了成功的方向。这本书将会给所有热爱和喜欢读书的朋友带来智慧、勇气、信心和快乐,帮助大家登上成功的巅峰。
  • 父王母妃热恋中

    父王母妃热恋中

    一不小心,古灵精怪的她竟撞到了某位腹黑王爷的浴池……从此,一段精彩的追逐赛正式开始,他追,她躲,她使计,他拆招,到最后,是谁毁了清白,又是谁想要负责?片段①:“雅儿,趴你母妃窗户边儿做甚?”他好笑,五岁的小女儿竟在趴墙根儿。小胖手赶紧捂住他的薄唇:“嘘!父王小声点儿,母妃热恋中……”什么?他的脸立即成了青黑色……片段②:“乖女儿,写什么呢,这般认真?”他接过女儿的大作,一看:“休书?”“嗯嗯,给您的,母妃没空写,雅儿替她代笔呢。”小女娃儿眨巴着水灵灵的大眼睛,满脸自豪,可爱极了。
  • 耕堂劫后十种:秀露集

    耕堂劫后十种:秀露集

    本书是作者的杂文作品集。一、戏的梦二、书的梦三、画的梦四、石子——病期琐事五、乡里旧闻等。
  • 网游之魔法行星

    网游之魔法行星

    凭借强化物品的金手指,宅男屌丝张小明在现实社会、黑科技游戏、外太空、轮回世界都混得……还可以。更新时间,上午11点,下午6点。迄今经历的世界:银河英雄传说(前)-全职猎人(初)-美国队长1(中)-火影忍者(前)-大剑(前)-死神(前)-海贼王(前)-异形大战铁血战士1(完)-生化危机1(完)-倩女幽魂1(完)-黑客帝国1(完)-黑夜传说1(完)-仙剑奇侠传1(完)-圣斗士(前)-火星异种(完)-明日边缘(完)-复仇者联盟1(完)-新龙门客栈(完)-大唐双龙传(初)-哈利波特2消失的密室