英文名著精选阅读:《红字》第八章(上)
Chapter 08 THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER
第八章 小鬼和牧师
GOVERNOR BELLINGHAM, in a loose gown and easy cap- much as elderly gentlemen loved to enduethemselves with, in their domesticprivacy-walked foremost, and appeared to be showing off his estate, and expatiatingon his projected improvements. The wide circumferenceof an elaborateruff, beneath his grey beard, in the antiquated fashion of King James' reign, caused his head to look not a little like that of John the Baptist in a charger. The impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more than autumnalage, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment wherewithhe had evidently done his utmost to surround himself. But it is an error to suppose that our grave forefathers- though accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfeignedlyprepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty- made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp. This creed was never taught, for instance, by the venerablepastor, John Wilson, whose beard, white as a snow-drift, was seen over Governor Bellingham's shoulder; while its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalised in the New England climate, and that purple grapes might possibly be compelledto flourish, against the sunny garden-wall. The old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom of the English Church, had a long-established and legitimate taste for all good and comfortable things; and however sternhe might show himself in the pulpit, or in his public reproof of such transgressionsas that of Hester Prynne, still, the genialbenevolenceof his private life had won him warmer affection than was accorded to any of his professional contemporaries.
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