LoveisaFallacy原文.docx

1、LoveisaFallacy原文Love is a FallacyMax Shulman1Charles Lamb, as merry and enterprising a month of Sundaysa fellow as you will meet in a month of Sundays, unfettered the informalessay with his memorable Old China and Dreams Children. There follows an informal essay that ventures even beyond Lambs front

2、ier, indeed, informal may not be quite the right word to describe this essay; limp or flaccid or possibly spongy are perhaps more appropriate.2Vague though its category, it is without doubt an essay. It develops an argument; it cites instances; it reaches a conclusion. Could Carlyle domore? CouldRus

3、kin ?3Read, then, the following essay which undertakes to demonstrate that logic, far from being a dry, pedantic discipline, is a living, breathingthing, full of beauty, passion, and trauma -Authors Note4Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious , acuteand astute-I was all of these. M

4、y brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemists scales, as penetrating as a scalpel.And-think of it! -I was only eighteen.5It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Butch, my roommate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same background

5、, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough young fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the verynegation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender yourself to idiocy just because e

6、verybody else is doing it-this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.6One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis.Dont move, I said. Dont take a laxative. Ill get a doctor.7Raccoon, he mu

7、mbled thickly.8Raccoon? I said, pausing in my flight.91 want a raccoon coat, he wailed.10I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. Why do you want a raccoon coat?111 should have known it, he cried, pounding his temples. 1 should have known theyd come back when the Charleston came ba

8、ck.Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I cant get a raccoon coat.12Can you mean. I said incredulously, that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?13All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Whereve you been?14In the library, I said, naming a place not frequented by Bi

9、g Menon Campus15He leaped from the bed and paced the room, Ive got to have a raccoon coat, he said passionately. Ive got to!16Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weight too much. Theyre unsightly. They-17 You dont understand, he interrupte

10、d impatiently. Its the thing to do. Dont you want to be in the swim?18No, I said truthfully.19Well, I do, he declared. Id give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!20My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear.Anything? I asked, looking at him narrowly.21Anything, he affirmed in rin

11、ging tones.22I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to set my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didnt have it exactly, but at least h

12、e had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.23I had long covetedPolly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desirefor this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions but I was not one to let my heart rule myhead. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly

13、 calculated, entirely cerebralreason.24I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyers career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, g

14、racious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.25Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportionsbut Ifelt sure that time would supply the lack She already had the makings.26Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness

15、of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding, At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house-a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper ofsauerkraut-without

16、even getting her fingers moist.27Intelligent she was not. in fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up.At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.28Petey, I said, are you in