爱华网Mark Twain ---
Mirror of America
Noel Grove
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Most Americans remember Mark Twain as thefather of Huck Finn's idyllic cruise through eternal boyhood andTom Sawyer's endless summer of freedom and adventure. In-deed, thisnation's best-loved author was every bit as ad-venturous,patriotic, romantic, and humorous as anyone has ever imagined. Ifound another Twain as well – one who grew cynical, bitter,saddened by the profound personal tragedies life dealt him, a manwho became obsessed with the frailties of the human race, who sawclearly ahead a black wall of night.
Tramp printer, river pilot , Confederate guerrilla, prospector,starry-eyed optimist, acid-tongued cynic: The man who became MarkTwain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens and he ranged across thenation for more than a third of his life, digesting the newAmerican experience before sharing it with the world as writer andlecturer. He adopted his pen name from the cry heard in hissteamboat days, signaling two fathoms (12 feet) of water -- anavigable depth. His popularity is attested by the fact that morethan a score of his books remain in print, and translations arestill read around the world.
The geographic core, in Twain's early years, was the great valleyof the Mississippi River, main artery of transportation in theyoung nation's heart. Keelboats ， flatboats , and large raftscarried the first major commerce. Lumber, corn, tobacco, wheat, andfurs moved downstream to the delta country; sugar, molasses ,cotton, and whiskey traveled north. In the 1850's, before theclimax of westward expansion, the vast basin drained three-quartersof the settled United States.
Young Mark Twain entered that world in 1857 as a cub pilot on asteamboat. The cast of characters set before him in his newprofession was rich and varied a cosmos . He participatedabundantly in this life, listening to pilothouse talk of feuds ,piracies, lynchings ,medicine shows, and savage waterside slums.All would resurface in his books, together with the colorfullanguage that he soaked up with a memory that seemedphonographic
Steamboat decks teemed not only with the main current ofpioneering humanity, but its flotsam of hustlers, gamblers, andthugs as well. From them all Mark Twain gained a keen perception ofthe human race, of the difference between what people claim to beand what they really are. His four and a half year s in thesteamboat trade marked the real beginning of his education, and themost lasting part of it. In later life Twain acknowledged that theriver had acquainted him with every possible type of human nature.Those acquaintanceships strengthened all his writing, but he neverwrote better than when he wrote of the people a-long the greatstream.
When railroads began drying up the demand for steam-boat pilotsand the Civil War halted commerce, Mark Twain left the rivercountry. He tried soldiering for two weeks with a motleyband ofConfederate guerrillas who diligently avoided contact with theenemy. Twain quit after deciding, "... I knew more about retreatingthan the man that invented retreating. "
He went west by stagecoach and succumbed to the epidemic of goldand silver fever in Nevada's Washoe region. For eight months heflirted with the colossal wealth available to the lucky and thepersistent, and was rebuffed . Broke and discouraged, he accepted ajob as reporter with the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, toliterature's enduring gratitude.
From the discouragement of his mining failures, Mark Twain begandigging his way to regional fame as a newspaper reporter andhumorist. The instant riches of a mining strike would not be his inthe reporting trade, but for making money, his pen would provemightier than his pickax. In the spring of 1864, less than twoyears after joining the Territorial Enterprise, he boarded thestagecoach for San Francisco, then and now a hotbed of hopefulyoung writers.
Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscles,but he had to leave the city for a while because of some scathingcolumns he wrote. Attacks on the city government, concerning suchissues as mistreatment of Chinese, so angered officials that hefled to the goldfields in the Sacramento Valley. His descriptionsof the rough-country settlers there ring familiarly in modern worldaccustomed to trend setting on the West Coast. "It was a splendidpopulation – for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brainedslothsstayed at home... It was that population that gave toCalifornia a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushingthem through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessnessof cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day – and whenshe projects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual, andsays 'Well, that is California all over. '"
In the dreary winter of 1864-65 in Angels Camp, he kept anotebook. Scattered among notationsabout the weather and thetedious mining-camp meals lies an entry noting a story he had heardthat day – an entry that would determine his course forever:"Coleman with his jumping frog – bet stranger $50 – stranger had nofrog, and C. got him one – in the meantime stranger filled C. 'sfrog full of shot and he couldn't jump. The stranger's frog won."Retold with his descriptive genius, the story was printed innewspapers across the United States and became known as "TheCelebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." Mark Twain's nationalreputation was now well established as "the wild humorist of thePacific slope."
Two year s later the opportunity came for him to take adistinctly American look at the Old World. In New York City thesteamship Quaker City prepared to sail on a pleasure cruise toEurope and the Holy Land. For the first time, a sizablegroup ofUnited States citizens planned to journey as tourists -- amilestone , of sorts, in a country's development. Twain wasassigned to accompany them, as correspondent 工for a Californianewspaper. If readers expected the usual glowing travelogue , theywere sorely surprised.
Unimpressed by the Sultan of Turkey, for example, he reported,“... one could set a trap anywhere and catch a dozen abler men in anight.” Casually he debunked revered artists and art treasures, andtook unholy verbalshots at the Holy Land. Back home, morenewspapers began printing his articles. America laughed with him.Upon his return to the States the book version of his travels, TheInnocents Abroad, became an instant best-seller.
At the age of 36 Twain settled in Hartford, Connecticut. His bestbooks were published while he lived there.
As early as 1870 Twain had experimented with a story about theboyhood adventures of a lad he named Billy Rogers. Two years later,he changed the name to Tom, and began shaping his adventures into astage play. Not until 1874 did the story begin developing in earnest. After publication in 1876, Tom Sawyer quickly became aclassic tale of American boyhood. Tom's mischievousdaring,ingenuity , and the sweet innocence of his affection for BeckyThatcher are almost as sure to be studied in American schoolsto-day as is the Declaration of Independence.
Mark Twain's own declaration of independence came from anothercharacter. Six chapters into Tom Sawyer, he drags in "the juvenilepariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard."Fleeing a respectable life with the puritanical Widow Douglas, Huckprotests to his friend, Tom Sawyer: "I've tried it, and it don'twork; it don't work, Tom. It ain't for me ... The widder eats by abell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell –everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."
Nine years after Tom Sawyer swept the nation, Huck was given alife of his own, in a book often consider ed the best ever writtenabout Americans. His raft flight down the Mississippi with arunaway slave presents a moving panorama for exploration ofAmerican society.
On the river, and especially with Huck Finn, Twain found theultimate expression of escape from the pace he lived by and oftendeplored, from life's regularities and the energy-sapping clamorforsuccess.
Mark Twain suggested that an ingredient was missing in theAmerican ambition when he said: "What a robustpeople, what a nationof thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on theshelf occasionally and renew our edges."
Personal tragedy haunted his entire life, in the deaths of lovedones: his father, dying of pneumonia when Sam was 12; his brotherHenry, killed by a steamboat explosion; the death of his son,Langdon, at 19 months. His eldest daughter, Susy, died of spinalmeningitis , Mrs. Clemens succumbed to a heart attack in Florence,and youngest daughter., Jean, an epileptic, drowned in an upstairsbathtub .
Bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh. Themoralizing of his earlier writing had been well padded with humor.Now the gloves came off with biting satire. He pretended to praisethe U. S. military for the massacre of 600 Philippine Moros in thebowl of a volcanic, crater . In The Mysterious Stranger, heinsisted that man drop his religious illusions and depend uponhimself, not Providence, to make a better world.
The last of his own illusions seemed to have crumbled near theend. Dictating his autobiography late in life, he commented with acrushing sense of despair on men's final release from earthlystruggles: "... they vanish from a world where they were of noconsequence; where they achieved nothing; where they were a mistakeand a failure and a foolishness; where they have left no sign thatthey had existed – a world which will lament them a day and for-getthem forever.”
(from National Geographic, Sept., 1975)
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NOTES 1) Mark Twain:This was the pseudonym of the Americanhumorist and writer, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910). Thephrase, meaning "two fathoms deep”, was employed in makingsoundings on the Mississippi river boats. Among his well-knownworks are Innocent. Abroad (1869), Tom Sawyer (1876), andHuckleberry Finn (1884-5.” )
2) tramp printer: a person who goes around doing odd jobs ofprinting
3) Confederate guerrilla: a guerrilla fighter who supported thesouthern Confederacy (See note below on "Civil War" )
4) cub pilot: a young inexperienced pilot; a person just learningto become a pilot
5) the Civil War: This refers to the American Civil War (1861-65),also called the War of Secession. This war was fought between thenorthern states (Federal States or the Union) and the southernstates (the Con federacy or confederate States of America) whichseceded from the U. S. in opposition to the proposed abolition ofslavery. The southern states were defeated.
6) trend setting: taking the lead in starting new trends or newways of doing things
7) Pacific slope: the west coast of the United States, which slopesdown to the Pacific
8) I've tried it ... stand it: uneducated English of an Americanboy:'don't' for 'doesn't', 'ain't' for 'isn't', 'widder' for'widow','gits' for 'gets' and 'body' for 'person'
9) Philippine Moros: Moslems of Malay origin living in S.Philippines
词汇(Vocabulary)
idyllic( adj. ):pastoral or picturesque；pleasingand simple 田园诗的；田园风光的；生动逼真的；质朴宜人的
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cynical( adj.):believing that people arenotivated in all their actions only by selfishness；denying thesincerity of people's motives and actions，or the value ofliving玩世不恭的；愤世嫉俗的
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obsess(v．):haunt or trouble in mind，esp. to anabnormal degree；preoccupygreatly使分心；使心神困扰(尤指精神反常、着迷)
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frailty( n.):the quality or condition of beingfrail；weakness(esp. moral weakness)脆弱性；虚弱性(尤指意志薄弱)
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tramp( n.):the act of tramping；a journey onfoot；hike步行；徒步旅行
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prospector( n.):a person who prospects for valuableores，oil，etc．(矿藏等的)勘探者；探矿者
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starry—eyed( adj.):with the eyes sparkling in a glowof wonder，romance，visionarydreams，etc．过于理想的；不切实际的；盲目乐观的
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acid—tongued( adj.):sharp，sarcastic inspeech说话尖刻的
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cynic( n.):a cynicalperson玩世不恭的人；好挖苦人的人；愤世嫉俗的人
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navigable( n.):wide and deep enough，or free enoughfrom obstructions，to be traveled on byvessels可行船的；可通航的；可航行的
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attest( n.):serve as proof of；demonstrate；makeclear作为……的证据，为……作证；论证；表明
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artery( n.):a main road orchannel干线，干道，大路；干渠
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keelboat( n.):a large，shallow freight boat with akeel，formerly used on theMississippi，Missouri，etc．(旧时密西西比河、密苏西河等用的)龙骨船
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flatboat( n.):a boat with a flat bottom，forcarrying freight in shallow waters or onrivers平底船
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molasses( n.):a thick，usually dark brown syrupproduced during／he refining of sugar，or fromsorghum，etc．糖蜜，糖浆
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cub( n.):an inexperienced，awkwardyouth阅历浅的年轻人
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cosmos( n.):the universe considered as aharmonious and orderly system宇宙
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feud( n.):a bitter，long—continued，and deadlyquarrel，esp. between clans offamilies(尤指部落或家族间的)世仇，累世宿仇，夙怨，长期不和
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lynch(v．):[Am．]murder(an accused person)by mobaction and without lawful trial，as byhanging[美]私刑处死
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phonographic( adj.):[Am．]of a phonograph or the soundsmade by sb. [美]留声机的，唱机的
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teem( v．):be full，as though ready to bringforth young；abound；swarm充满；富于；大量地出现；涌现
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flotsam( n.):transient，unemployedpeople；vagrants流离失所者，流浪者，游民；失业者；被毁掉的人
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hustler( n.):[Am．slang]aprostitute[美俚]妓女
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thug( n.):a rough，brutalhoodlum，gangster，robber，etc．恶棍；暴徒；强盗
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motley( adj. ):having or composed of manydifferent or clashingelements；heterogeneous混乱的；杂乱的
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succumb( v．):①give way(to)；yield；submit ②die①屈服，屈从(常与to连用)②死
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epidemic( n.):the rapid，widespread occurrence of afad，fashion，etc．(风尚、风气、爱好等的)一时流行，风行
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flirt( v．):trifle ortoy(with)玩弄，戏耍；做着玩；不认真地对待，不认真地考虑(常与with连用)
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colossal( adj.):1ike a colossus insize；huge；gigantic；enormous巨大的，庞大的
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rebuff( v．):check orrepulse挫败；阻止
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broke(adj.):[colloq．]having little or nomoney；bankrupt[口]无钱的，身无分文的；破了产的
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hone(v．):sharpen with or as with ahone把……放在磨石上磨
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scathing( adj. ):searing；withering；injurious；harsh orcaustic严厉的，尖刻的
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sluggish( adj. ):slow or slow—moving；notactive；dull(行动)缓慢的；迟钝的
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sloth( n.):a lazyperson懒汉
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astound( v．):bewilder with suddensurprise；astonishgreatly；amaze使震惊，使惊愕，使大吃一惊
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tedious( adj.):long or verbose andvearisome；triesome；boring冗长乏味的；使人厌倦的；沉闷的
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travelogue( n.):a lecture on travels, usuallyaccompanied by the showing ofpictures旅行见闻讲座
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Sultan( n.):a Moslemruler苏丹(一些伊斯兰教国家统治者的称号)
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debunk( v．):[Am．colloq．]expose the false orexaggeratedclaims，pretensions，glamour，etc．[美口]揭露，揭发，揭穿
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revere( v．):regard with deep respect，love，andawe；venerate尊敬，崇敬；敬畏
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ingenuity( n.):the quality of beingingenious；cleverness，originality，skill，etc．机灵，机智，足智多谋；独创性，创造力；熟练，巧妙
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juvenile( adj.):young andyouthful年轻的；青年的
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pariah( n.):any person despised or rejected byothers；outcast为社会所遗弃者；流浪者
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puritanical( adj.):extremely or excessively strict inmatters of morals and religion宗教(或道德)上极端拘谨的
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panorama( n.):an unlimited view in alldirections全景；全图
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deplore( v．):be regretful or sorryabout懊悔，悔恨，对……深感遗憾
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sap( v．):undermine in anyway；weaken；exhaust削弱；耗竭
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clamor( n.):a loudoutcry；uproar大声呼喊，喧嚷，喧嚣，吵闹
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robust( adj. ):strong and healthy；full ofvigor；hardy健壮的；精力充沛的
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haunt( v．):appear or recur repeatedly to，oftento the point of obsession(思想、回忆等)萦绕；(疾病等)缠住
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pneumonia( n.):inflammation or infection of thealveoli of the lungs of varying degrees of severity and caused byany of a number of agents，such as bacteria orviruses肺炎．
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meningitis( n.):inflammation of the meninges．esp. asthe result of infection by bacteria orviruses脑脊膜炎
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epileptic( n.):a person who hasepilepsy癫痫患者
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pad( v．):stuff，cover，or line with a pad orpadding填塞；衬填
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crater( n.):a bowl—shaped cavity，as at the mouthof a volcano or on the surface of themoon碗形洞(如火山口、环形山、月亮表面的坑状地方)
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crumble( v． ):fall topieces；disintegrate；decay破碎，破裂；使溃散，使瓦解，消灭
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lament( v.):feel or express deep sorrowfor；mourn or grieve for为……而悲痛；哀悼；为……而伤心
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短语(Expressions)
everybit:(infml)equalIy；entirely完全，同样地
例：He is every bit as mean as she is．他与她同样平庸。
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inprint: (of abook)available for sale from the publisher；(of a person’swork)printed in a book，efc．(指书)可买到，已出版
例：It was the first time he had seen his work inprint．这是他第一次看见自己的作品出版。
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soakup: to receive andabsorb stll．接受并吸收
例：That child soaks up new facts like asponge!那孩子吸收新知识像海绵似的!
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succumbto: stop resisting；yieldto，submit to屈服，屈从
例：Several children have measles，and the others are bound to SUCcumbto it．有几个孩子患了麻疹，其他孩子也必然会被传染。
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flirtwith: to deal playfullyor superficiMly with不认真考虑、对待
例：I am flirting with the idea of getting ajob．我胡思乱想着要去找份工作。
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ofsorts: (derogative)of apoor or inferior type(贬义)差劲的，劣等
例：It was a meal of sorts，but nobody enjoyedit．这勉强算是一顿饭，谁都没有吃好。
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auover: what one wouldexpect 0f the person specified正像所说的人一样
例：That sounds like my sister allover．听起来跟我姐姐一模一样。
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inearnest: seriously，notjokingly严肃地，认真地
例：Both sides are deeply in earnest，with passions that approximatethose of civil war。双方都很坚决认真，像是鼓足劲要打一场内战似的。
