登陆注册
19923200000012

第12章

Emerson,as I say,I had once met in Cambridge,but Whittier never;and I have a feeling that poet as Cambridge felt him to be,she had her reservations concerning him.I cannot put these into words which would not oversay them,but they were akin to those she might have refined upon in regard to Mrs.Stowe.Neither of these great writers would have appeared to Cambridge of the last literary quality;their fame was with a world too vast to be the ,test that her own "One entire and perfect crysolite"would have formed.Whittier in fact had not arrived at the clear splendor of his later work without some earlier turbidity;he was still from time to time capable of a false rhyme,like morn and dawn.As for the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'her syntax was such a snare to her that it sometimes needed the combined skill of all the proof-readers and the assistant editor to extricate her.Of course,nothing was ever written into her work,but in changes of diction,in correction of solecisms,in transposition of phrases,the text was largely rewritten on the margin of her proofs.The soul of her art was present,but the form was so often absent,that when it was clothed on anew,it would have been hard to say whose cut the garment was of in many places.In fact,the proof-reading of the 'Atlantic Monthly'was something almost fearfully scrupulous and perfect.The proofs were first read by the under proof-reader in the printing-office;then the head reader passed them to me perfectly clean as to typography,with his own abundant and most intelligent comments on the literature;and then I read them,making what changes I chose,and verifying every quotation,every date,every geographical and biographical name,every foreign word to the last accent,every technical and scientific term.Where it was possible or at all desirable the proof was next submitted to the author.When it came back to me,I revised it,accepting or rejecting the author's judgment according as he was entitled by his ability and knowledge or not to have them.The proof now went to the printers for correction;they sent it again to the head reader,who carefully revised it and returned it again to me.I read it a second time,and it was again corrected.After this it was revised in the office and sent to the stereotyper,from whom it came to the head reader for a last revision in the plates.

It would not do to say how many of the first American writers owed their correctness in print to the zeal of our proof-reading,but I may say that there were very few who did not owe something.The wisest and ablest were the most patient and grateful,like Mrs.Stowe,under correction;it was only the beginners and the more ignorant who were angry;and almost always the proof-reading editor had his way on disputed points.

I look back now,with respectful amazement at my proficiency in detecting the errors of the great as well as the little.I was able to discover mistakes even in the classical quotations of the deeply lettered Sumner,and I remember,in the earliest years of my service on the Atlantic,waiting in this statesman's study amidst the prints and engravings that attested his personal resemblance to Edmund Burke,with his proofs in my hand and my heart in my mouth,to submit my doubts of his Latinity.Iforget how he received them;but he was not a very gracious person.

Mrs.Stowe was a gracious person,and carried into age the inalienable charm of a woman who must have been very,charming earlier.I met her only at the Fieldses'in Boston,where one night I witnessed a controversy between her and Doctor Holmes concerning homoeopathy and allopathy which lasted well through dinner.After this lapse of time,I cannot tell how the affair ended,but I feel sure of the liking with which Mrs.Stowe inspired me.There ,was something very simple,very motherly in her,and something divinely sincere.She was quite the person to take 'au grand serieux'the monstrous imaginations of Lady Byron's jealousy and to feel it on her conscience to make public report of them when she conceived that the time had come to do so.

In Francis Parkman I knew much later than in some others a differentiation of the New England type which was not less characteristic.He,like so many other Boston men of letters,was of patrician family,and of those easy fortunes which Clio prefers her sons to be of;but he paid for these advantages by the suffering in which he wrought at what is,I suppose,our greatest history.He wrought at it piecemeal,and sometimes only by moments,when the terrible head aches which tormented him,and the disorder of the heart which threatened his life,allowed him a brief respite for the task which was dear to him.

He must have been more than a quarter of a century in completing it,and in this time,as he once told me,it had given him a day-laborer's wages;but of course money was the least return he wished from it.I read the regularly successive volumes of 'The Jesuits in North America,The Old Regime in Canada',the 'Wolfe and Montcalm',and the others that went to make up the whole history with a sufficiently noisy enthusiasm,and our acquaintance began by his expressing his gratification with the praises of them that I had put in print.We entered into relations as contributor and editor,and I know that he was pleased with my eagerness to get as many detachable chapters from the book in hand as he could give me for the magazine,but he was of too fine a politeness to make this the occasion of his first coming to see me.He had walked out to Cambridge,where I then lived,in pursuance of a regimen which,I believe,finally built up his health;that it was unsparing,I can testify from my own share in one of his constitutionals in Boston,many years later.

同类推荐
  • 王郭两先生崇论

    王郭两先生崇论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说太子沐魄经

    佛说太子沐魄经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 马关议和中之伊李问答

    马关议和中之伊李问答

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 龙虎中丹诀

    龙虎中丹诀

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 平胡录

    平胡录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 望断南飞雁

    望断南飞雁

    那个夜里他们几乎没有入睡,在空旷的房子里,耳边是不停息的银滩上潮汐的狂欢 。 南雁出生在广西北海 -- 那童年真是乏善可陈啊,只记得是在银滩上跑啊跑啊,忽然站下来,一转身,就大了 --她所有的形容,都是诸如此类,与南中国海相关。
  • 什么是我们的年代

    什么是我们的年代

    我们这一代人,80年代的人,年近而立的我们,却怎么也找不到真正属于我们自己的年代。
  • 游戏王之女神裙摆

    游戏王之女神裙摆

    主角是loli,主角是蕾丝,主角无敌,有TV和DIY,极少部分的决斗会出现不靠谱的东西,比如某些怪兽的萌娘版精灵啥的,部分卡片效果按原文处理不按调整来,出现BUG请告诉我,以上!。
  • 遥寄安说否

    遥寄安说否

    与男朋友分手后的夏雨晴喝了一个烂醉,被杨历鹰捡回家,醒来后更是发现自己签订了一个婚姻协议书。被迫与杨历鹰领证后,夏雨晴辞职搬到了杨历鹰的房子里。带杨历鹰见过父母后,夏妈夏爸对杨历鹰很满意,同时催促着双方父母见面,杨历鹰推脱,同时为夏雨晴介绍在容式的工作……
  • 奇山:佛教道教名山

    奇山:佛教道教名山

    本书分为山西五台山、四川峨眉山、江西龙虎山和四川青城山等四部分,内容包括:佛教的传入和灵鹫寺、清凉山佛教的极盛时期、藏传佛教的传入和兴盛、画中姑娘幻化的峨眉山、大上清宫中的百神传说等。
  • 都市护花狂少

    都市护花狂少

    我等生来自由身,谁敢高高在上。是我的就是我的,无论谁想抢夺,灭杀便是。平凡少年阮凌风获神秘传承,斗狂少,追校花,脚踩强龙手牵美艳,纵横校园驰骋花都。
  • 杨炯诗全集

    杨炯诗全集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 女皇万岁:天下为局

    女皇万岁:天下为局

    安月只是没有听算命的话,就掉入了下水井给摔死了,穿越成了替身公主,然而她不愿意在男尊女卑的世界里任人摆布,所以奋而崛起,以天下为局,风月作棋,终成一代女帝。
  • 邵琦

    邵琦

    纳尼,我竟然被卖了。好吧,这就是师兄所说的报恩吗?她不禁扯了扯嘴角。此文不虐,清新淡雅。
  • 三岛遇上的案件

    三岛遇上的案件

    (第一次连载,请多指教!)三岛在警察局中不断遇到奇怪的案件,这一具具尸体背后是怎样的故事呢?或满溢温情或人性黑暗,或爱或憎,这便大抵是我们所处的这个世界。