2018年3月SAT北美真题阅读--历史类文章
2018-05-21 14:09阅读：
作者：Charles Dickens
查尔斯·狄更斯
选自：《American Notes for General Circulation》《美国纪行》
But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general character
of the American people, and the general character of their social
system, as presented to a stranger’s eyes, I desire to express my
own opinions in a few words, before I bring these volumes to a
close.
They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and
affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their
warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of
these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which r
enders an educated American one of the most endearing and most
generous of friends. I never was so won upon, as by this class;
never yielded up my full confidence and esteem so readily and
pleasurably, as to them; never can make again, in half a year, so
many friends for whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a
life.
These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole
people. That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their
growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which
endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of
their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told.
It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself
mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its
wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the
popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable
brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen
plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently
dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce
it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great
sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness
and independence.
‘You carry,’ says the stranger, ‘this jealousy and distrust into
every transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from your
legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for
the suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your Institutions
and your people’s choice. It has rendered you so fickle, and so
given to change, that your inconstancy has passed into a proverb;
for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull
it down and dash it into fragments: and this, because directly you
reward a benefactor, or a public servant, you distrust him, merely
because he is rewarded; and immediately apply yourselves to find
out, either that you have been too bountiful in your
acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. Any man who attains a
high place among you, from the President downwards, may date his
downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any notorious
villain pens, although it militate directly against the character
and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, and is
believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and
confidence, however fairly won and well deserved; but you will
swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden with unworthy
doubts and mean suspicions. Is this well, think you, or likely to
elevate the character of the governors or the governed, among
you?’
The answer is invariably the same: ‘There’s freedom of opinion
here, you know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be
easily overreached. That’s how our people come to be
suspicious.’
