【英文原著类】The Trees of Pride(骄傲之树).pdf

The Trees of Pride
The Trees of Pride
by Gilbert K. Chesterton
1
The Trees of Pride
I. THE TALE OF THE
PEACOCK TREES
Squire Vane was an elderly schoolboy of English education and Irish
extraction. His English education, at one of the great public schools, had
preserved his intellect perfectly and permanently at the stage of boyhood.
But his Irish extraction subconsciously upset in him the proper solemnity
of an old boy, and sometimes gave him back the brighter outlook of a
naughty boy. He had a bodily impatience which played tricks upon him
almost against his will, and had already rendered him rather too radiant a
failure in civil and diplomatic service. Thus it is true promise is
the key of British policy, especially as effecting an impartiality among the
religions of India; but Vane's attempt to meet the Moslem halfway by
kicking off one boot at the gates of the mosque, was felt not so much to
indicate true impartiality as something that could only be called an
aggressive indifference. Again, it is true that an English aristocrat can
hardly enter fully into the feelings of either party in a quarrel between a
Russian Jew and an Orthodox procession carrying relics; but Vane's idea
that the procession might carry the Jew as well, himself a venerable and
historic relic, was misunderstood on both sides. In short, he was a man
who particularly prided himself on having no nonsense about him; with
the result that he was always doing nonsensical things. He seemed to be
standing on his head merely to prove that he was hard-headed.
He had just finished a hearty breakfast, in the society of his daughter,
at a table under a tree in his garden by the Cornish coast. For, having a
glorious circulation, he insisted on as many outdoor meals as possible,
though spring had barely touched the woods and warmed the seas round
that southern extremity of England. His daughter Barbara, a good-
looking girl with heavy red hair and a face as grave as one