【国外英文文学】Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories.doc

PAGE PAGE 1 【国外英文文学】Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories Contents: THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON ON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF LYING ABOUT MAGNANIMOUS-INCIDENT LITERATURE PUNCH, BROTHERS, PUNCH THE GREAT REVOLUTION IN PITCAIRN THE CANVASSERS TALE AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER PARIS NOTES LEGEND OF SAGENFELD, IN GERMANY SPEECH ON THE BABIES SPEECH ON THE WEATHER CONCERNING THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE ROGERS THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON It was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winters day. The town of Eastport, in the state of Maine, lay buried under a deep snow that was newly fallen. The customary bustle in the streets was wanting. One could look long distances down them and see nothing but a dead-white emptiness, with silence to match. Of course I do not mean that you could see the silence--no, you could only hear it. The sidewalks were merely long, deep ditches, with steep snow walls on either side. Here and thereyou might hear the faint, far scrape of a wooden shovel, and if you were quick enough you might catch a glimpse of a distant black figure stooping and disappearing in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next moment with a motion which you would know meant the heaving out of a shovelful of snow. But you needed to be quick, for that black figure would not linger, but would soon drop that shovel and scud for the house, thrashing itself with its arms to warm them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for snow-shovelers or anybody else to stay out long. Presently the sky darkened; then the wind rose and began to blow in fitful, vigorous gusts, which sent clouds of powdery snow aloft, and straight ahead, and everywhere. Under the impulse of one of these gusts, great white drifts banked themselves like graves across the streets; a moment later another gust shifted them around the other way, driving a fine spray of snow from their sharp crests, as the gale drives the spume flakes from wave-crests at sea; a third