📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 66
1We may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the human race, some enterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for
2shelter. Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay out doors, even in wet and cold. It plays
3house, as well as horse, having an instinct for it. Who does not remember the interest with which when young he looked
4at shelving rocks, or any approach to a cave? It was the natural yearning of that portion of our most primitive ancestor
5which still survived in us. From the cave we have advanced to roofs of palm leaves, of bark and boughs, of linen woven
6and stretched, of grass and straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At last, we know not what it is to live
7in the open air, and our lives are domestic in more senses than we think. From the hearth to the field is a great
8distance. It would be well perhaps if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us
9and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds
10do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots. However, if one designs to construct a dwelling
11house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a workhouse, a
12labyrinth without a clue, a museum, an almshouse, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. Consider first how slight a
13shelter is absolutely necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in tents of thin cotton cloth,
14while the snow was nearly a foot deep around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it deeper to keep out
15the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which
16vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the
17railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to me that
18every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the
19air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in
20his soul be free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative. You could sit up as late as
21you pleased, and, whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent. Many a man is
22harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as
23this. I am far from jesting. Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be
24disposed of. A comfortable house for a rude and hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors, was once made here almost
25entirely of such materials as Nature furnished ready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians
26subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, "The best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and
27warm, with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up, and made into great flakes,
28with pressure of weighty timber, when they are green.... The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of a kind
29of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and warm, but not so good as the former.... Some I have seen, sixty or a
30hundred feet long and thirty feet broad.... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and found them as warm as the best
31English houses." He adds, that they were commonly carpeted and lined within with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were
32furnished with various utensils. The Indians had advanced so far as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat
33suspended over the hole in the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first instance constructed in a day
34or two at most, and taken down and put up in a few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one. In the
35savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I
36think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their
37holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In
38the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very
39small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and
40winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live. I do not mean
41to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter
42because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he,
43in the long run, any better afford to hire. But, answers one, by merely paying this tax the poor civilized man secures
44an abode which is a palace compared with the savage's. An annual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars, these
45are the country rates, entitles him to the benefit of the improvements of centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint
46and paper, Rumford fireplace, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump, spring lock, a commodious cellar, and many
47other things. But how happens it that he who is said to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized man, while
48the savage, who has them not, is rich as a savage? If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the
49condition of man,--and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,--it must be shown that it has
50produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call
51life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. An average house in this neighborhood
52costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life,
53even if he is not encumbered with a family;--estimating the pecuniary value of every man's labor at one dollar a day,
54for if some receive more, others receive less;--so that he must have spent more than half his life commonly before his
55wigwam will be earned. If we suppose him to pay a rent instead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage
56have been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms? It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole
57advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future, so far as the individual is
58concerned, mainly to the defraying of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself. Nevertheless
59this points to an important distinction between the civilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have designs on us
60for our benefit, in making the life of a civilized people an institution, in which the life of the individual is to a
61great extent absorbed, in order to preserve and perfect that of the race. But I wish to show at what a sacrifice this
62advantage is at present obtained, and to suggest that we may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without
63suffering any of the disadvantage. What mean ye by saying that the poor ye have always with you, or that the fathers
64have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? "As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have
65occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel." "Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the
66soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die."
🎉 全部完成！共 66 行