登陆注册
15418200000007

第7章 THE RHINE GOLD(2)

Presently there comes a poor devil of a dwarf stealing along the slippery rocks of the river bed, a creature with energy enough to make him strong of body and fierce of passion, but with a brutish narrowness of intelligence and selfishness of imagination: too stupid to see that his own welfare can only be compassed as part of the welfare of the world, too full of brute force not to grab vigorously at his own gain.Such dwarfs are quite common in London.He comes now with a fruitful impulse in him, in search of what he lacks in himself, beauty, lightness of heart, imagination, music.The Rhine maidens, representing all these to him, fill him with hope and longing; and he never considers that he has nothing to offer that they could possibly desire, being by natural limitation incapable of seeing anything from anyone else's point of view.With perfect simplicity, he offers himself as a sweetheart to them.But they are thoughtless, elemental, only half real things, much like modern young ladies.That the poor dwarf is repulsive to their sense of physical beauty and their romantic conception of heroism, that he is ugly and awkward, greedy and ridiculous, disposes for them of his claim to live and love.They mock him atrociously, pretending to fall in love with him at first sight, and then slipping away and making game of him, heaping ridicule and disgust on the poor wretch until he is beside himself with mortification and rage.They forget him when the water begins to glitter in the sun, and the gold to reflect its glory.They break into ecstatic worship of their treasure; and though they know the parable of Klondyke quite well, they have no fear that the gold will be wrenched away by the dwarf, since it will yield to no one who has not forsworn love for it, and it is in pursuit of love that he has come to them.They forget that they have poisoned that desire in him by their mockery and denial of it, and that he now knows that life will give him nothing that he cannot wrest from it by the Plutonic power.It is just as if some poor, rough, vulgar, coarse fellow were to offer to take his part in aristocratic society, and be snubbed into the knowledge that only as a millionaire could he ever hope to bring that society to his feet and buy himself a beautiful and refined wife.His choice is forced on him.He forswears love as thousands of us forswear it every day;and in a moment the gold is in his grasp, and he disappears in the depths, leaving the water-fairies vainly screaming "Stop thief!" whilst the river seems to plunge into darkness and sink from us as we rise to the cloud regions above.

And now, what forces are there in the world to resist Alberic, our dwarf, in his new character of sworn plutocrat? He is soon at work wielding the power of the gold.For his gain, hordes of his fellow-creatures are thenceforth condemned to slave miserably, overground and underground, lashed to their work by the invisible whip of starvation.They never see him, any more than the victims of our "dangerous trades" ever see the shareholders whose power is nevertheless everywhere, driving them to destruction.The very wealth they create with their labor becomes an additional force to impoverish them; for as fast as they make it it slips from their hands into the hands of their master, and makes him mightier than ever.You can see the process for yourself in every civilized country today, where millions of people toil in want and disease to heap up more wealth for our Alberics, laying up nothing for themselves, except sometimes horrible and agonizing disease and the certainty of premature death.All this part of the story is frightfully real, frightfully present, frightfully modern; and its effects on our social life are so ghastly and ruinous that we no longer know enough of happiness to be discomposed by it.It is only the poet, with his vision of what life might be, to whom these things are unendurable.If we were a race of poets we would make an end of them before the end of this miserable century.Being a race of moral dwarfs instead, we think them highly respectable, comfortable and proper, and allow them to breed and multiply their evil in all directions.If there were no higher power in the world to work against Alberic, the end of it would be utter destruction.

Such a force there is, however; and it is called Godhead.The mysterious thing we call life organizes itself into all living shapes, bird, beast, beetle and fish, rising to the human marvel in cunning dwarfs and in laborious muscular giants, capable, these last, of enduring toil, willing to buy love and life, not with suicidal curses and renunciations, but with patient manual drudgery in the service of higher powers.And these higher powers are called into existence by the same selforganization of life still more wonderfully into rare persons who may by comparison be called gods, creatures capable of thought, whose aims extend far beyond the satisfaction of their bodily appetites and personal affections, since they perceive that it is only by the establishment of a social order founded on common bonds of moral faith that the world can rise from mere savagery.But how is this order to be set up by Godhead in a world of stupid giants, since these thoughtless ones pursue only their narrower personal ends and can by no means understand the aims of a god? Godhead, face to face with Stupidity, must compromise.Unable to enforce on the world the pure law of thought, it must resort to a mechanical law of commandments to be enforced by brute punishments and the destruction of the disobedient.And however carefully these laws are framed to represent the highest thoughts of the framers at the moment of their promulgation, before a day has elapsed that thought has grown and widened by the ceaseless evolution of life;and lo! yesterday's law already fallen out with today's thought.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 创帝之兵

    创帝之兵

    韦浪,对现实的生活冷漠,对生活充满着放弃!穿越异世界的他重新燃起对新世界的希望。他将彻底打破了异界所有的战争格局!重生的他将面临一个他所不熟悉的世界,他将是一个无拘无束的,拥有着坚定信念的,为自己梦想而战超级强者。弱肉强食的世界里面,不成王便成寇!打造一个异世界不一样的梦想之兵
  • 契娘系统

    契娘系统

    生前惨死,怨念重生,女帝独女,呼风唤雨。R型系统已启动,契约生效。任务清单:扮男装,逗御医,勾将军,调王爷...什么!任务失败当场抹杀!安啦~这种厚颜无耻秀下限,伤风败俗没节操的事情,她一定会干的。说白了:就是公主,将军,御医,花魁一路进阶升级的萌逗进化史。
  • 废材救世主

    废材救世主

    且看废材屌丝如何救世。哦,或许还能泡妞,如果废材屌丝能够泡得到吧。。。。。。
  • 穿越之我成了一头猪

    穿越之我成了一头猪

    没吃过猪肉,还没见过猪跑吗?可你见过会飞的猪吗?可你见过会御剑的猪吗?可你见过会打太极拳的猪吗?一代太极拳天才穿越仙界,发现自己变成了一头猪,而且还是一头名猪,从此修最NB的功法,泡最美的主人,吃遍仙界无敌手。这个仙器不错,吃了,有点咯牙。这池灵泉不错,喝了,不会是仙女的洗澡水吧。这个美女不错,跟了,长得太像我前女友。这个敌人很坏,废了,以后什么仙王转世就不要在我面前出现了。诸天万界,世间万物,有啥我不能吞的。小弟:大哥,我上厕所没带纸你能帮帮我吗?猪:滚犊子。PS:打破常规,不一样的修仙,只有你想不到,其实我也想不到。PPS:本书作者已疯,只会扯蛋,如有雷同,实属不幸。
  • 凯和四叶草之恋

    凯和四叶草之恋

    一个普通的四叶草,在转学的时候遇到了男神王俊凯,并成为了同桌,发生了许多有趣的事情,比如游乐园的一次爱之初体验,让他们生出了爱的幼苗,他们经过许多生死让他们懂得了怎么珍惜。。。。
  • 高墙內外

    高墙內外

    故事简介:某女子监狱年轻漂亮的监区长温馨,面对灵魂扭曲、劣迹斑斑的各色女犯,坚持“以人为本”的教育理念,“一把钥匙开一把锁”。在对女犯的教育改造中,大胆探索和试行心理矫治、家访汇报、狱内结婚、亲情同居、社会帮教、社区矫正等多种新的教育改造手段,从而使监区发生了较大变化。然而,改革与守旧、创新与传统的思想观念发生了激烈碰撞。不仅如此,温馨的忘我牺牲和敬业奉献精神,却遭到了当市长的婆母和做“大生意”的大姑姐的不满和反对。特别是她因勇救罪犯而丧失生育能力后婚姻破裂,离婚后又遇到原中小学同学、现女监医院院长和原大学同学、现律师所主任从不同侧面向其发起的“爱”的攻势,使其又陷入“爱”的重围。时过不久,原大姑姐和婆母分别以诈骗罪和受贿罪被判入狱并在她主管的监区服刑。爱恨情仇,公法私怨,相互交织;亲情、友情、爱情,剪不断,理还乱。温馨不计前嫌,以德报怨,用“大爱”矫正扭曲的灵魂,用智慧化解了各种矛盾,从一个侧面讴歌了我国监狱干警肩负历史使命,勇于探索创新,严格文明执法的高尚情操和无私奉献情怀。
  • 朕要美人不要江山

    朕要美人不要江山

    他是他国质子野心勃勃想要一统天下,她是21世纪最出色的特工代号冥狐一朝穿越她决心在这个世界闯出一番天地,却不料一次相逢竟将两人的缘分紧紧捆在一起,她承认她动心了,可为什么柔情似水下竟只有欺骗与利用,真相来的那么快那么残忍,她决心离去,失去她的他方才明白没有了她这万里江山只不过是过眼云烟,可是一切都太晚了。。。(本文有些虐,请各位备好卫生纸)
  • TFBOYS之你是我的光荣

    TFBOYS之你是我的光荣

    南宫域雪,一个外表强大内心不堪一击的人。上官芯芯,不仅是吃货而且还是逗笔一枚。欧阳冷夏,高冷。三位女主与三小只会擦出怎样的烟火呢?!敬请期待吧,欢迎各位读者入坑~
  • 城主的和他的小伙伴

    城主的和他的小伙伴

    宁辰在某天和一个奇怪的老虎签订契约成为了一个移动城池的城主,他的生活发生了极大的变化,在老虎的建议下他需要召集伙伴一起去进行冒险,新的故事就要开始了。
  • 帝天之巅

    帝天之巅

    天命十把索,一锁一乾坤。他,是被命运锁住的男人,但他要逆天!且看易星天外点星、镜中蜕凡,以十脉之力踏立帝天之巅!