cute什么意思现代大学英语精读4 thinking as a hobby 原文、课文对比版

2021年1月19日发(作者：communicated)

Thinking as a Hobby
by William Golding


While I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking; and since
I was later to claim thinking as my hobby, I came to an even stranger conclusion - namely, that I
myself could not think at all.


I
must
have
been
an
unsatisfactory
child
for
grownups
to
deal
with.
I
remember
how
incomprehensible they appeared to me at first, but not, of course, how I appeared to them. It was
the
headmaster
of
my
grammar
school
who
first
brought
the
subject
of
thinking
before
me
-
though neither in the way,
nor with the result he intended. He had some statuettes in his study.
They stood on a high cupboard behind his desk. One was a lady wearing nothing but a bath towel.
She seemed frozen in an eternal panic lest the bath towel slip down any farther, and since she had
no arms, she was in an unfortunate position to pull the towel up again. Next to her, crouched the
statuette of a leopard, ready to spring down at the top drawer of a filing cabinet labeled A-AH. My
innocence
interpreted
this
as
the
victim's
last,
despairing
cry.
Beyond
the
leopard was
a
naked,
muscular gentleman, who sat, looking down, with his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee.
He seemed utterly miserable.


Some
time
later,
I
learned
about
these
statuettes.
The
headmaster
had
placed
them
where
they
would face delinquent children, because they symbolized to him to whole of life. The naked lady
was the Venus of Milo. She was Love. She was not worried about the towel. She was just busy
being
beautiful.
The
leopard
was
Nature,
and
he
was
being
natural.
The
naked,
muscular
gentleman was not miserable. He was Rodin's Thinker, an image of pure thought. It is easy to buy
small plaster models of what you think life is like.


I had better explain that I was a frequent visitor to the headmaster's study, because of the latest
thing
I
had
done
or
left
undone.
As
we
now
say,
I
was
not
integrated.
I
was,
if
anything,
disintegrated;
and
I
was
puzzled.
Grownups
never
made
sense.
Whenever
I
found
myself
in
a
penal position before the headmaster's desk, with the statuettes glimmering whitely above him, I
would sink my head, clasp my hands behind my back, and writhe one shoe over the other.


The headmaster would look opaquely at me through flashing spectacles.
with you?

Well, what were they going to do with me? I would writhe my shoe some more and stare down at
the worn rug.




Then I would look at the cupboard, where the naked lady was frozen in her panic and the muscular
gentleman contemplated the hindquarters of the leopard in endless gloom. I had nothing to say to
the headmaster. His spectacles caught the light so that you could see nothing human behind them.


There was no possibility of communication.



No,
I
didn't
think,
wasn't
thinking,
couldn't
think
-
I
was
simply
waiting
in
anguish
for
the
interview to stop.



On one occasion the headmaster leaped to his feet, reached up and plonked Rodin's masterpiece
on the desk before me.


I surveyed the gentleman without interest or comprehension.



Clearly there was something missing in me. Nature had endowed the rest of the human race with a
sixth sense and left me out. This must be so, I mused, on my way back to the class, since whether I
had broken a window, or failed to remember Boyle's
Law, or been late for school,
my teachers
produced me one, adult answer:
As I saw the case, I had broken the window because I had tried to hit Jack Arney with a cricket
ball and missed him; I could not remember Boyle's Law because I had never bothered to learn it;
and I was late for school because I preferred looking over the bridge into the river. In fact, I was
wicked.
Were
my
teachers,
perhaps,
so
good
that
they
could
not
understand
the
depths
of
my
depravity?
Were
they
clear,
untormented
people
who
could
direct
their
every
action
by
this
mysterious
business
of
thinking? The
whole
thing
was incomprehensible.
In
my
earlier
years,
I
found even the statuette of the Thinker confusing. I did not believe any of my teachers were naked,
ever.
Like
someone
born
deaf,
but
bitterly
determined
to
find
out
about
sound,
I
watched
my
teachers to find out about thought.

There was Mr. Houghton. He was always telling me to think. With a modest satisfaction, he would
tell that he had thought a bit himself. Then why did he spend so much time drinking? Or was there
more sense in drinking than there appeared to be? But if not, and if drinking were in fact ruinous
to
health
-
and
Mr.
Houghton
was
ruined,
there
was
no
doubt
about
that
-
why
was
he
always
talking about the clean life and the virtues of fresh air? He would spread his arms wide with the
action of a man who habitually spent his time striding along mountain ridges.


Sometimes, exalted by his own oratory, he would leap from his desk and hustle us outside into a
hideous wind.


He would stand before us, rejoicing in his perfect health, an open-air man. He would put his hands
on his waist and take a tremendous breath. You could hear the wind trapped in the cavern of his
chest and struggling with all the unnatural impediments. His body would reel with shock and his
ruined
face
go
white
at
the
unaccustomed
visitation.
He
would
stagger
back
to
his
desk
and
collapse there, useless for the rest of the morning.

Mr. Houghton was given to high-minded monologues about the good life, sexless and full of duty.
Yet in the middle of one of these monologues, if a girl passed the window, tapping along on her


neat little feet, he would interrupt his discourse, his neck would turn of itself and he would watch
her out of sight. In this instance, he seemed to me ruled not by thought but by an invisible and
irresistible spring in his nape.

His neck was an object of great interest to me. Normally it bulged a bit over his collar. But Mr.
Houghton had fought in the First World War alongside both Americans and French, and had come
-
by
who
knows
what
illogic?
-
to
a
settled
detestation
of
both
countries.
If
either
country
happened to be prominent in current affairs, no argument could make Mr. Houghton think well of
it. He would bang the desk, his neck would bulge still further and go red.
like,


Mr. Houghton thought with his neck.


There was Miss. Parsons. She assured us that her dearest wish was our welfare, but I knew even
then, with the mysterious clairvoyance of childhood, that what she wanted most was the husband
she never got. There was Mr. Hands - and so on.

I have dealt at length with my teachers because this was my introduction to the nature of what is
commonly
called
thought.
Through
them
I
discovered
that
thought
is
often
full
of
unconscious
prejudice, ignorance, and hypocrisy. It will lecture on disinterested purity while its neck is being
remorselessly twisted toward a skirt. Technically, it is about as proficient as most businessmen's
golf,
as
honest
as
most
politician's
intentions,
or
-
to
come
near
my
own
preoccupation
-
as
coherent as most books that get written. It is what I came to call grade-three thinking, though more
properly, it is feeling, rather than thought.

True,
often
there
is
a
kind
of
innocence
in
prejudices,
but
in
those
days
I
viewed
grade-three
thinking with an intolerant contempt and an incautious mockery. I delighted to confront a pious
lady who hated the Germans with the proposition that we should love our enemies. She taught me
a
great
truth
in
dealing
with
grade- three
thinkers;
because
of
her,
I
no
longer
dismiss
lightly
a
mental process which for nine-tenths of the population is the nearest they will ever get to thought.
They
have
immense
solidarity.
We
had
better
respect
them,
for
we
are
outnumbered
and
surrounded. A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands
at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their
beliefs. Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on
the side of a hill.


Grade-two thinking is the detection of contradictions. I reached grade two when I trapped the poor,
pious lady. Grade-two thinkers do not stampede easily, though often they fall into the other fault
and lag behind. Grade-two thinking is a withdrawal, with eyes and ears open. It became my hobby
and
brought
satisfaction
and
loneliness
in
either
hand.
For
grade-two
thinking
destroys
without
having
the
power
to
create.
It
set
me
watching
the
crowds
cheering
His
Majesty
the
King
and
asking myself what all the fuss was about, without giving me anything positive to put in the place
of
that
heady
patriotism.
But
there
were
compensations.
To
hear
people
justify
their
habit
of
hunting
foxes
and
tearing
them
to
pieces
by
claiming
that
the
foxes
like
it.
To
her
our
Prime
Minister talk about the great benefit we conferred on India by jailing people like Pandit Nehru and
Gandhi.
To
hear
American
politicians
talk
about
peace
in
one
sentence
and
refuse
to
join
the
League of Nations in the next. Yes, there were moments of delight.