第 4 节
作者:竹水冷      更新:2021-02-20 05:39      字数:9321
  ird; and 〃eagle eye of Jove〃 in the following  sentence was replaced by 〃dread Commoter of our globe。〃  The phrase  〃a natural Chiffney…bit〃 (p。 109); I have found unintelligible to… day through lapse of time even to professional equestrians and  stable…keepers。  Samuel Chiffney; a famous rider and trainer; was  born in 1753; and won the Derby on Skyscraper in 1789。  He managed  the Prince of Wales's stud; was the subject of discreditable  insinuations; and was called before the Jockey Club。  Nothing was  proved against him; but in consequence of the FRACAS the Prince  severed his connection with the Club and sold his horses。  Chiffney  invented a bit named after him; a curb with two snaffles; which  gave a stronger bearing on the sides of a horse's mouth。  His rule  in racing was to keep a slack rein and to ride a waiting race; not  calling on his horse till near the end。  His son Samuel; who  followed him; observed the same plan; from its frequent success the  term 〃Chiffney rush〃 became proverbial。  In his ride through the  desert (p。 169) Kinglake speaks of his 〃native bells … the innocent  bells of Marlen; that never before sent forth their music beyond  the Blaygon hills。〃  Marlen bells is the local name for the fine  peal of St。 Mary Magdalen; Taunton。  The Blaygon; more commonly  called the Blagdon Hills; run parallel with the Quantocks; and  between them lies the fertile Vale of Taunton Deane。  〃Damascus;〃  he says; on p。 245; 〃was safer than Oxford〃; and adds a note on Mr。  Everett's degree which requires correction。  It is true that an  attempt was made to NON…PLACET Mr。 Everett's honorary degree in the  Oxford Theatre in 1843 on the ground of his being a Unitarian; not  true that it succeeded。  It was a conspiracy by the young lions of  the Newmania; who had organized a formidable opposition to the  degree; and would have created a painful scene even if defeated。   But the Proctor of that year; Jelf; happened to be the most…hated  official of the century; and the furious groans of undergraduate  displeasure at his presence; continuing unabated for three…quarters  of an hour; compelled Wynter; the Vice…Chancellor; to break up the  Assembly; without recitation of the prizes; but not without  conferring the degrees in dumb show: unconscious Mr。 Everett  smilingly took his place in red gown among the Doctors; the Vice… Chancellor asserting afterwards; what was true in the letter though  not in the spirit; that he did not hear the NON…PLACETS。  So while  Everett was obnoxious to the Puseyites; Jelf was obnoxious to the  undergraduates; the cannonade of the angry youngsters drowned the  odium of the theological malcontents; in the words of Bombastes:
  〃Another lion gave another roar; And the first lion thought the last a bore。〃
  The popularity of 〃Eothen〃 is a paradox: it fascinates by violating  all the rules which convention assigns to viatic narrative。  It  traverses the most affecting regions of the world; and describes no  one of them: the Troad … and we get only his childish raptures over  Pope's 〃Homer's Iliad〃; Stamboul … and he recounts the murderous  services rendered by the Golden Horn to the Assassin whose SERAIL;  palace; council chamber; it washes; Cairo … but the Plague shuts  out all other thoughts; Jerusalem … but Pilgrims have vulgarized  the Holy Sepulchre into a Bartholomew Fair。  He gives us  everywhere; not history; antiquities; geography; description;  statistics; but only KINGLAKE; only his own sensations; thoughts;  experiences。  We are told not what the desert looks like; but what  journeying in the desert feels like。  From morn till eve you sit  aloft upon your voyaging camel; the risen sun; still lenient on  your left; mounts vertical and dominant; you shroud head and face  in silk; your skin glows; shoulders ache; Arabs moan; and still  moves on the sighing camel with his disjointed awkward dual swing;  till the sun once more descending touches you on the right; your  veil is thrown aside; your tent is pitched; books; maps; cloaks;  toilet luxuries; litter your spread…out rugs; you feast on  scorching toast and 〃fragrant〃 (10) tea; sleep sound and long; then  again the tent is drawn; the comforts packed; civilization retires  from the spot she had for a single night annexed; and the Genius of  the Desert stalks in。
  Herein; in these subjective chatty confidences; is part of the  spell he lays upon us: while we read we are IN the East: other  books; as Warburton says; tell us ABOUT the East; this is the East  itself。  And yet in his company we are always ENGLISHMEN in the  East: behind Servian; Egyptian; Syrian; desert realities; is a  background of English scenery; faint and unobtrusive yet persistent  and horizoning。  In the Danubian forest we talk of past school… days。  The Balkan plain suggests an English park; its trees planted  as if to shut out 〃some infernal fellow creature in the shape of a  new…made squire〃; Jordan recalls the Thames; the Galilean Lake;  Windermere; the Via Dolorosa; Bond Street; the fresh toast of the  desert bivouac; an Eton breakfast; the hungry questing jackals are  the place…hunters of Bridgewater and Taunton; the Damascus gardens;  a neglected English manor from which the 〃family〃 has been long  abroad; in the fierce; dry desert air are heard the 〃Marlen〃 bells  of home; calling to morning prayer the prim congregation in far…off  St。 Mary's parish。  And a not less potent factor in the charm is  the magician's self who wields it; shown through each passing  environment of the narrative; the shy; haughty; imperious Solitary;  〃a sort of Byron in the desert;〃 of cultured mind and eloquent  speech; headstrong and not always amiable; hiding sentiment with  cynicism; yet therefore irresistible all the more when he  condescends to endear himself by his confidence。  He meets the  Plague and its terrors like a gentleman; but shows us; through the  vicarious torments of the cowering Levantine that it was courage  and coolness; not insensibility; which bore him through it。  A foe  to marriage; compassionating Carrigaholt as doomed to travel  〃Vetturini…wise;〃 pitying the Dead Sea goatherd for his ugly wife;  revelling in the meek surrender of the three young men whom he sees  〃led to the altar〃 in Suez; he is still the frank; susceptible;  gallant bachelor; observantly and critically studious of female  charms: of the magnificent yet formidable Smyrniotes; eyes; brow;  nostrils; throat; sweetly turned lips; alarming in their latent  capacity for fierceness; pride; passion; power: of the Moslem women  in Nablous; 〃so handsome that they could not keep up their  yashmaks:〃 of Cypriote witchery in hair; shoulder…slope;  tempestuous fold of robe。  He opines as he contemplates the plain;  clumsy Arab wives that the fine things we feel and say of women  apply only to the good…looking and the graceful: his memory wanders  off ever and again to the muslin sleeves and bodices and 〃sweet  chemisettes〃 in distant England。  In hands sensual and vulgar the  allusions might have been coarse; the dilatings unseemly; but the  〃taste which is the feminine of genius;〃 the self…respecting  gentleman…like instinct; innocent at once and playful; keeps the  voluptuary out of sight; teaches; as Imogen taught Iachimo; 〃the  wide difference 'twixt amorous and villainous。〃  Add to all these  elements of fascination the unbroken luxuriance of style; the easy  flow of casual epigram or negligent simile; … Greek holy days not  kept holy but 〃kept stupid〃; the mule who 〃forgot that his rider  was a saint and remembered that he was a tailor〃; the pilgrims  〃transacting their salvation〃 at the Holy Sepulchre; the  frightened; wavering guard at Satalieh; not shrinking back or  running away; but 〃looking as if the pack were being shuffled;〃  each man desirous to change places with his neighbour; the white  man's unresisting hand 〃passed round like a claret jug〃 by the  hospitable Arabs; the travellers dripping from a Balkan storm  compared to 〃men turned back by the Humane Society as being  incurably drowned。〃  Sometimes he breaks into a canter; as in the  first experience of a Moslem city; the rapturous escape from  respectability and civilization; the apostrophe to the Stamboul  sea; the glimpse of the Mysian Olympus; the burial of the poor dead  Greek; the Janus view of Orient and Occident from the Lebanon  watershed; the pathetic terror of Bedouins and camels on entering a  walled city; until; once more in the saddle; and winding through  the Taurus defiles; he saddens us by a first discordant note; the  note of sorrow that the entrancing tale is at an end。
  Old times return to me as I handle the familiar pages。  To the  schoolboy six and fifty years ago arrives from home a birthday  gift; the bright green volume; with its showy paintings of the  impaled robbers and the Jordan passage; its bulky Tatar; towering  high above his scraggy steed; impressed in shining gold upon its  cover。  Read; borrowed; handed round; it is devoured and discussed  with fifth form critical presumption; the adventurous audacity  arresting; the literary charm not analyzed but felt; the vivid  personality of the old Etonian winged with public school  freemasonry。  Scarcely in the acquired insight of all the  intervening years