登陆注册
5429400000040

第40章 CHANGED TIMES(2)

I suppose none of us recognise the great part that is played in life by eating and drinking. The appetite is so imperious that we can stomach the least interesting viands, and pass off a dinner-hour thankfully enough on bread and water; just as there are men who must read something, if it were only BRADSHAW'S GUIDE. But there is a romance about the matter after all. Probably the table has more devotees than love; and I am sure that food is much more generally entertaining than scenery. Do you give in, as Walt Whitman would say, that you are any the less immortal for that?

The true materialism is to be ashamed of what we are. To detect the flavour of an olive is no less a piece of human perfection than to find beauty in the colours of the sunset.

Canoeing was easy work. To dip the paddle at the proper inclination, now right, now left; to keep the head down stream; to empty the little pool that gathered in the lap of the apron; to screw up the eyes against the glittering sparkles of sun upon the water; or now and again to pass below the whistling tow-rope of the DEO GRATIAS of Conde, or the FOUR SONS OF AYMON - there was not much art in that; certain silly muscles managed it between sleep and waking; and meanwhile the brain had a whole holiday, and went to sleep. We took in, at a glance, the larger features of the scene; and beheld, with half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling washerwomen on the bank. Now and again we might be half-wakened by some church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a trail of river grass that clung about the paddle and had to be plucked off and thrown away. But these luminous intervals were only partially luminous.

A little more of us was called into action, but never the whole.

The central bureau of nerves, what in some moods we call Ourselves, enjoyed its holiday without disturbance, like a Government Office.

The great wheels of intelligence turned idly in the head, like fly-wheels, grinding no grist. I have gone on for half an hour at a time, counting my strokes and forgetting the hundreds. I flatter myself the beasts that perish could not underbid that, as a low form of consciousness. And what a pleasure it was! What a hearty, tolerant temper did it bring about! There is nothing captious about a man who has attained to this, the one possible apotheosis in life, the Apotheosis of Stupidity; and he begins to feel dignified and longaevous like a tree.

There was one odd piece of practical metaphysics which accompanied what I may call the depth, if I must not call it the intensity, of my abstraction. What philosophers call ME and NOT-ME, EGO and NONEGO, preoccupied me whether I would or no. There was less ME and more NOT-ME than I was accustomed to expect. I looked on upon somebody else, who managed the paddling; I was aware of somebody else's feet against the stretcher; my own body seemed to have no more intimate relation to me than the canoe, or the river, or the river banks. Nor this alone: something inside my mind, a part of my brain, a province of my proper being, had thrown off allegiance and set up for itself, or perhaps for the somebody else who did the paddling. I had dwindled into quite a little thing in a corner of myself. I was isolated in my own skull. Thoughts presented themselves unbidden; they were not my thoughts, they were plainly some one else's; and I considered them like a part of the landscape. I take it, in short, that I was about as near Nirvana as would be convenient in practical life; and if this be so, I make the Buddhists my sincere compliments; 'tis an agreeable state, not very consistent with mental brilliancy, not exactly profitable in a money point of view, but very calm, golden, and incurious, and one that sets a man superior to alarms. It may be best figured by supposing yourself to get dead drunk, and yet keep sober to enjoy it. I have a notion that open-air labourers must spend a large portion of their days in this ecstatic stupor, which explains their high composure and endurance. A pity to go to the expense of laudanum, when here is a better paradise for nothing!

This frame of mind was the great exploit of our voyage, take it all in all. It was the farthest piece of travel accomplished. Indeed, it lies so far from beaten paths of language, that I despair of getting the reader into sympathy with the smiling, complacent idiocy of my condition; when ideas came and went like motes in a sunbeam; when trees and church spires along the bank surged up, from time to time into my notice, like solid objects through a rolling cloudland; when the rhythmical swish of boat and paddle in the water became a cradle-song to lull my thoughts asleep; when a piece of mud on the deck was sometimes an intolerable eyesore, and sometimes quite a companion for me, and the object of pleased consideration; - and all the time, with the river running and the shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my strokes and forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal in France.

同类推荐
  • The Depot Master

    The Depot Master

    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。
  • 息除中夭陀罗尼经

    息除中夭陀罗尼经

    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。
  • 慧林宗本禅师别录

    慧林宗本禅师别录

    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。
  • 识小编

    识小编

    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。
  • 泾林续记

    泾林续记

    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
  • 颜氏家训

    颜氏家训

    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。
  • 生肖次元行

    生肖次元行

    创意嘛来自十二生肖历险记第一次写小说,尽力写好…感觉自己正在创造自己的黑历史…还有,更新不是稳定……当前进度:神话时代,七个晚上的哈利波特,斗罗,暗黑3和现在的漫威
  • THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

    THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

    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。
  • 教你进行创意制作(培养学生动手能力小丛书)

    教你进行创意制作(培养学生动手能力小丛书)

    《培养学生动手能力小丛书:教你进行创意制作(最新版)》是一本自然科学类读物。《培养学生动手能力小丛书:教你进行创意制作(最新版)》不仅能丰富青少年朋友课余生活,提升其动手能力,同时也能够让其理解能力和动手能力得到协调发展,从而成长为社会主义现代化建设需要的复合型人才。
  • 暖婚来袭:国民老公宠妻无度

    暖婚来袭:国民老公宠妻无度

    他是最至高无上的隐世豪门帝少,邪肆高贵又腹黑。她是被人抛弃的私生女。阴差阳错她被他误解成奴。她愤怒对视:“你以为你是谁?”他魅惑一笑逼近她:“如王胜神。”她气愤不已砸坏了他所有价值高昂的古董,他却将她带到了商城:“喜欢砸东西?整栋楼都给你随便砸。“权还是钱,只要你要的我统统都能给你。”他低低笑着,冷峻邪肆,拍了拍床,“一切都看你的表现……”魔性撒旦惹上身,扮猪装逼爽点无限。强欢霸爱放肆宠,你,还能往哪逃呢?
  • 乱世情劫:夫君太给力

    乱世情劫:夫君太给力

    武林中一片波谲云诡。龙寻该如何保重自己?在这暗藏汹涌的武林中为师报仇,保卫武林?颜若夕、颜若舞姐妹二人联手相抗蛮邦,究竟谁胜谁负?生死边缘的考验,真实与谎言的交替,鬼一是否还会坚信诺言,对若夕不离不弃?
  • 世界帝国史话:罗马帝国

    世界帝国史话:罗马帝国

    本书向您叙述罗马帝国的兴亡时也和您一起领略罗马帝国璀璨的文明。罗马帝国是西方最为强盛的帝国,它创造了将地中海括为内湖的版图神话,称雄西方世界达数百年;它也是世界古代史上最大的国家之一,在疆域全盛时,罗马帝国控制着约590万平方公里的土地。罗马帝国对西方世界的影响可谓深远,其发达的物质文明和精神文明给现在的西欧诸国留下了无数难以估价的宝藏,在今天的西方世界里,到处都有无法消除的古罗马影响的痕迹。此外,罗马帝国的建立,极大地促进了西方世界经济和文化的交流。
  • 栲栳山人诗集

    栲栳山人诗集

    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。
  • 婚变

    婚变

    午后。阳光密密麻麻的从空中照射,街上的行人来来往往的忙碌着。温诺挺着已经有了九个月大的身圆滚滚的肚子,在人行道上快步走着,让人看的有些心惊胆战。虽然一幅黑色的眼镜框遮住了她大半个脸庞,但是她脸上散发出来的喜悦还是无法掩盖!站定脚步,她抬头看着“依恋咖啡馆”几个字,嘴角轻轻的笑着,好有格调的名字,她喜欢。右手扶着腰间,左手领着黑色的包包,温诺推开了玻璃门。……
  • 刘生觅莲记

    刘生觅莲记

    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。