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the new machiavelli-第33章

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He was manifestly chagrined。  〃You're a fool;〃 he said。



I made no answer。



〃You're a damned fool;〃 he said。  〃But I suppose you've got to do 

it。  You could have come hereThat don't matter; though; now。 。 。  

You'll have your time and spend your money; and be a poor half…

starved clergyman; mucking about with the women all the day and 

afraid to have one of your own ever; or you'll be a schoolmaster or 

some such fool for the rest of your life。  Or some newspaper chap。   

That's what you'll get from Cambridge。  I'm half a mind not to let 

you。  Eh?  More than half a mind。 。 。 。〃



〃You've got to do the thing you can;〃 he said; after a pause; 〃and 

likely it's what you're fitted for。〃







4





I paid several short visits to Staffordshire during my Cambridge 

days; and always these relations of mine produced the same effect of 

hardness。   My uncle's thoughts had neither atmosphere nor mystery。   

He lived in a different universe from the dreams of scientific 

construction that filled my mind。  He could as easily have 

understood Chinese poetry。  His motives were made up of intense 

rivalries with other men of his class and kind; a few vindictive 

hates springing from real and fancied slights; a habit of 

acquisition that had become a second nature; a keen love both of 

efficiency and display in his own affairs。  He seemed to me to have 

no sense of the state; no sense and much less any love of beauty; no 

charity and no sort of religious feeling whatever。  He had strong 

bodily appetites; he ate and drank freely; smoked a great deal; and 

occasionally was carried off by his passions for a 〃bit of a spree〃 

to Birmingham or Liverpool or Manchester。  The indulgences of these 

occasions were usually followed by a period of reaction; when he was 

urgent for the suppression of nudity in the local Art Gallery and a 

harsh and forcible elevation of the superficial morals of the 

valley。  And he spoke of the ladies who ministered to the delights 

of his jolly…dog period; when he spoke of them at all; by the 

unprintable feminine equivalent。  My aunt he treated with a kindly 

contempt and considerable financial generosity; but his daughters 

tore his heart; he was so proud of them; so glad to find them money 

to spend; so resolved to own them; so instinctively jealous of every 

man who came near them。



My uncle has been the clue to a great number of men for me。  He was 

an illuminating extreme。  I have learnt what not to expect from them 

through him; and to comprehend resentments and dangerous sudden 

antagonisms I should have found incomprehensible in their more 

complex forms; if I had not first seen them in him in their feral 

state。



With his soft felt hat at the back of his head; his rather heavy; 

rather mottled face; his rationally thick boots and slouching tweed…

clad form; a little round…shouldered and very obstinate looking; he 

strolls through all my speculations sucking his teeth audibly; and 

occasionally throwing out a shrewd aphorism; the intractable 

unavoidable ore of the new civilisation。



Essentially he was simple。  Generally speaking; he hated and 

despised in equal measure whatever seemed to suggest that he 

personally was not the most perfect human being conceivable。  He 

hated all education after fifteen because he had had no education 

after fifteen; he hated all people who did not have high tea until 

he himself under duress gave up high tea; he hated every game except 

football; which he had played and could judge; he hated all people 

who spoke foreign languages because he knew no language but 

Staffordshire; he hated all foreigners because he was English; and 

all foreign ways because they were not his ways。  Also he hated 

particularly; and in this order; Londoner's; Yorkshiremen; Scotch; 

Welch and Irish; because they were not 〃reet Staffordshire;〃 and he 

hated all other Staffordshire men as insufficiently 〃reet。〃  He 

wanted to have all his own women inviolate; and to fancy he had a 

call upon every other woman in the world。  He wanted to have the 

best cigars and the best brandy in the world to consume or give away 

magnificently; and every one else to have inferior ones。  (His 

billiard table was an extra large size; specially made and very 

inconvenient。)  And he hated Trade Unions because they interfered 

with his autocratic direction of his works; and his workpeople 

because they were not obedient and untiring mechanisms to do his 

bidding。  He was; in fact; a very naive; vigorous human being。  He 

was about as much civilised; about as much tamed to the ideas of 

collective action and mutual consideration as a Central African 

negro。



There are hordes of such men as he throughout all the modern 

industrial world。  You will find the same type with the slightest 

modifications in the Pas de Calais or Rhenish Prussia or New Jersey 

or North Italy。  No doubt you would find it in New Japan。  These men 

have raised themselves up from the general mass of untrained; 

uncultured; poorish people in a hard industrious selfish struggle。  

To drive others they have had first to drive themselves。  They have 

never yet had occasion nor leisure to think of the state or social 

life as a whole; and as for dreams or beauty; it was a condition of 

survival that they should ignore such cravings。  All the distinctive 

qualities of my uncle can be thought of as dictated by his 

conditions; his success and harshness; the extravagances that 

expressed his pride in making money; the uncongenial luxury that 

sprang from rivalry; and his self…reliance; his contempt for broad 

views; his contempt for everything that he could not understand。



His daughters were the inevitable children of his life。  Queer girls 

they were!  Curiously 〃spirited〃 as people phrase it; and curiously 

limited。  During my Cambridge days I went down to Staffordshire 

several times。  My uncle; though he still resented my refusal to go 

into his business; was also in his odd way proud of me。  I was his 

nephew and poor relation; and yet there I was; a young gentleman 

learning all sorts of unremunerative things in the grandest manner; 

〃Latin and mook;〃 while the sons of his neighhours; not nephews 

merely; but sons; stayed unpolished in their native town。  Every 

time I went down I found extensive changes and altered relations; 

and before I had settled down to them off I went again。  I don't 

think I was one person to them; I was a series of visitors。  There 

is a gulf of ages between a gaunt schoolboy of sixteen in unbecoming 

mourning and two vividly self…conscious girls of eighteen and 

nineteen; but a Cambridge 〃man〃 of two and twenty with a first and 

good tennis and a growing social experience; is a fair contemporary 

for two girls of twenty…three and twenty…four。



A motor…car appeared; I think in my second visit; a bottle…green 

affair that opened behind; had dark purple cushions; and was 

controlled mysteriously by a man in shiny black costume and a flat 

cap。  The high tea had been shifted to seven and rechristened 

dinner; but my uncle would not dress nor consent to have wine; and 

after one painful experiment; I gathered; and a scene; he put his 

foot down and prohibited any but high…necked dresses。



〃Daddy's perfectly impossible;〃 Sybil told me。



The foot had descended vehemently!  〃My own daughters!〃 he had said; 

〃dressed up like 〃and had arrested himself and fumbled and 

decided to say〃actresses; and showin' their fat arms for every 

fool to stare at!〃  Nor would he have any people invited to dinner。  

He didn't; he had explained; want strangers poking about in his 

house when he came home tired。  So such calling as occurred went on 

during his absence in the afternoon。



One of the peculiarities of the life of these ascendant families of 

the industrial class to which wealth has come; is its tremendous 

insulations。  There were no customs of intercourse in the Five 

Towns。   All the isolated prosperities of the district sprang from 

economising; hard driven homes; in which there was neither time nor 

means for hospitality。  Social intercourse centred very largely upon 

the church or chapel; and the chapels were better at bringing people 

together than the Establishment to which my cousins belonged。  Their 

chief outlet to the wider world lay therefore through the 

acquaintances they had formed at school; and through two much less 

prosperous families of relations who lived at Longton and Hanley。  A 

number of gossiping friendships with old school mates were 〃kept 

up;〃 and my cousins would 〃spend the afternoon〃 or even spend the 

day with these; such occasions led to other encounters and 

interlaced with the furtive correspondences and snatched meetings 

that formed the emotional thread of their lives。  When the billiard 

table had been new; my uncle had taken to asking in a few approved 
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