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Hunted Down

Charles Dickens

公版免费书 / 外国经典 · 8616字

更新时间:2016-01-15 18:01:43

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。

品牌:汇聚文源

上架时间:2015-09-01

出版社:北京汇聚文源文化发展有限公司

本书数字版权由汇聚文源提供,并由其授权上海阅文信息技术有限公司制作发行

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第1章

Most of us see some romances in life.In my capacity as Chief Manager of a Life Assurance Office,I think I have within the last thirty years seen more romances than the generality of men,however unpromising the opportunity may,at first sight,seem.

As I have retired,and live at my ease,I possess the means that Iused to want,of considering what I have seen,at leisure.My experiences have a more remarkable aspect,so reviewed,than they had when they were in progress.I have come home from the Play now,and can recall the scenes of the Drama upon which the curtain has fallen,free from the glare,bewilderment,and bustle of the Theatre.

Let me recall one of these Romances of the real world.

There is nothing truer than physiognomy,taken in connection with manner.The art of reading that book of which Eternal Wisdom obliges every human creature to present his or her own page with the individual character written on it,is a difficult one,perhaps,and is little studied.It may require some natural aptitude,and it must require (for everything does)some patience and some pains.That these are not usually given to it,-that numbers of people accept a few stock commonplace expressions of the face as the whole list of characteristics,and neither seek nor know the refinements that are truest,-that You,for instance,give a great deal of time and attention to the reading of music,Greek,Latin,French,Italian,Hebrew,if you please,and do not qualify yourself to read the face of the master or mistress looking over your shoulder teaching it to you,-I assume to be five hundred times more probable than improbable.Perhaps a little self-sufficiency may be at the bottom of this;facial expression requires no study from you,you think;it comes by nature to you to know enough about it,and you are not to be taken in.

I confess,for my part,that I HAVE been taken in,over and over again.I have been taken in by acquaintances,and I have been taken in (of course)by friends;far oftener by friends than by any other class of persons.How came I to be so deceived?Had I quite misread their faces?

No.Believe me,my first impression of those people,founded on face and manner alone,was invariably true.My mistake was in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away.

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