|
 | Essays on Paul Bourget Ebook | |
|
 | |  | | E-book Category: Classic
E-book Title: Essays on Paul Bourget
Author: Mark Twain
Book Description: WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US
He reports the American joke correctly. In Boston they ask, How much
does he know? in New York, How much is he worth? in Philadelphia, Who
were his parents? And when an alien observer turns his telescope upon
us--advertisedly in our own special interest--a natural apprehension
moves us to ask, What is the diameter of his reflector?
I take a great interest in M. Bourget's chapters, for I know by the
newspapers that there are several Americans who are expecting to get a
whole education out of them; several who foresaw, and also foretold, that
our long night was over, and a light almost divine about to break upon
the land.
"His utterances concerning us are bound to be weighty and well
timed."
"He gives us an object-lesson which should be thoughtfully and
profitably studied."
These well-considered and important verdicts were of a nature to restore
public confidence, which had been disquieted by questionings as to
whether so young a teacher would be qualified to take so large a class as
70,000,000, distributed over so extensive a schoolhouse as America, and
pull it through without assistance.
I was even disquieted myself, although I am of a cold, calm temperament,
and not easily disturbed. I feared for my country. And I was not wholly
tranquilized by the verdicts rendered as above. It seemed to me that
there was still room for doubt. In fact, in looking the ground over I
became more disturbed than I was before. Many worrying questions came up
in my mind. Two were prominent. Where had the teacher gotten his
equipment? What was his method?
He had gotten his equipment in France.
Then as to his method! I saw by his own intimations that he was an
Observer, and had a System that used by naturalists and other scientists.
The naturalist collects many bugs and reptiles and butterflies and
studies their ways a long time patiently. By this means he is presently
able to group these creatures into families and subdivisions of families
by nice shadings of differences observable in their characters. Then he
labels all those shaded bugs and things with nicely descriptive group
names, and is now happy, for his great work is completed, and as a result
he intimately knows every bug and shade of a bug there, inside and out.
It may be true, but a person who was not a naturalist would feel safer
about it if he had the opinion of the bug. I think it is a pleasant
System, but subject to error.More... | |
| | | | | |  |
|  |
| Recommended Product for "Essays on Paul Bourget" | | |
| |  | |  |
|
