Literary Giant: Washington Irving 发布时间：2007-8-15 21:27:24
recorded his glimpses of western tribes in A Tour on the Prairies (1835). His most intimate contact with Indians was gathered through his acquaintance with a half-breed guide on this trip. In two succeeding volumes, Astoria (1836) and The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837), he continued to bring to his materials a strong sense of the beauty and dignity of Indians and an awareness of the wrongs they suffered. These two books, like other western narratives of the nineteenth century, have great importance as sources for writers of fiction, among them Poe, Melville, Hawthorn. From A History of New York, 1809 Let us suppose, then, that the inhabitants of the moon, by astonishing advancement in science, and by profound insight into that lunar philosophy, the mere flickering of which have of late years dazzled the feeble optics, and addled the shallow brains of the good people of our globe-let us suppose, I say, that the inhabitants of the moon, by these means, had arrived at such a command of their energies, such an enviable state of perfectibility, as to control the elements, and navigate the boundless regions of space. Let us suppose a roving crew of these soaring philosophers, in the course of an aerial voyage of discovery among the stars, should chance to alight upon this outlandish planet. And here I beg my readers will not have the uncharitable ness to smile, as is too frequently the fault of volatile readers when perusing the grave speculations of philosophers. I am far from indulging in any sportive vein at present; nor is the supposition I have been making so wild as many may deem it. It has long been a very serious and anxious question with me, and many a time and oft, in the course of my overwhelming cares and contrivances for the welfare and protection of this my native planet, have I lain awake whole nights debating in my mind, whether it were most probable we should first discover and civilize the moon, or the moon discover and civilize our globe. Neither would the prodigy of sailing in the air and cruising among the stars be a whit more astonishing and incomprehensible to us than was the European mystery of navigating floating castles, through the world of waters, to the simple natives. We have already discovered the art of coasting along the aerial shores of our planet, by means of balloons, as the savages had of venturing along their sea-coasts in canoes; and the disparity between the former, and the aerial vehicles of the philosophers from the moon, might not be greater than that between the bark canoes of the savages, and the mighty ships of their discoverers. I might here pursue 上一页 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] 下一页
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