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1、【英文读物】Excavating a HusbandChapter 1Katherine Boulby had reached her fiftieth year, and all these years had been spent in single blessedness. It is true that she had not realized the entirety of the perfect calm and peace that abides in the maiden state, for her brother Joseph and she lived together.
2、 But Miss Katherineas she was commonly called in her native townwas of a cheerful disposition and said that she felt she was indeed blessed among women, as she had graciously been endowed with sense enough to choose a free and unfettered life, and the vexations and limitations contingent upon the pr
3、oximity of one of the male sex, had been mitigated as much as possible for her as her brother was a quiet, fairly pliant man who rarely interfered with her plans for broadening and enriching her mind.This mental culture was Miss Katherines chief aim in life, and it was not a selfish one. She never r
4、efused to give abundantly of her knowledge, and ever strove to correct and purify the literary and artistic tastes of her friends. It would be quite 2 impossible to state upon what lines Miss Katherine pursued her mental cultivation, for, like the great geniuses, she was extremely versatile, and in
5、almost every subject she described an avenue which, if followed to the end would lead at last to the goal whither she was bound. As Miss Katherine strayed from one path to another in the great labyrinth of learning, it is very probable that she was inextricably lost and didnt know it. But she found
6、pleasure and sustenance therein, and never sought to find herself.Now, it is far from my purpose to represent my heroine as a blue-stocking or as other than a most charming person. Had she pursued her studies methodically and scientifically she might not have been the same delightful woman that she
7、was, but she flitted from romantic prose to didactic poetry and from poetry to astrology, and thence to architecture, history or biology. In Miss Katherine you found a person who possessed a rare instinct concerning hobbies. She never became so abstruse as to be unintelligible to her friends who wer
8、e not hobbyists. She dealt in interesting and easy generalities.In fact, Miss Katherine was one of a type the world cannot spare. Of good, sound, common sense she possessed the usual allotment, but in rare, child-like enthusiasm and love of romance she was richly endowed. It is true that at times 3
9、everything but romantic fancies seemed expelled from her mind, but the complications thus arising were of no moment when all the brightness and zest she infused into life were considered. It was psychologically impossible for Miss Katherine to view the commonplace occurrences of everyday life in the
10、 same light as do most of us. She found in a very ordinary event the nucleus of something interesting and romantic. So you see there was nothing of the blue-stocking about my heroine.There is another matter upon which the reader must be clear. One might think from Miss Katherines fervent thankfulnes
11、s for her single state that she had an aversion to men. Such was the case only in theory. It seemed more fitting for a single woman of artistic temperament to avow a distaste for the society of the coarser sex, but in reality she got along rather better with men than women. As a rule, men are better
12、 listeners than women, and Miss Katherine found them more disposed to listen to her latest ideas and freshest aspirations than were women. She did not credit these listeners with ability to understand all she was saying and this incapacity in man was the reason she had never married. She had a susce
13、ptible heart, but it would respond only to him who would understand her. She was not at all averse to marriage and kept a vigilant eye upon the horizon that she might catch the first possible 4 glimpse of the romantic figure she confidently expected would one day loom thereon. His appearance was lon
14、g delayed, and, while Miss Katherine did not mourn because of this, still she wisely considered moving to where she would view a new and broader horizon.One day she came upon the following advertisement:“For RentFurnished house, property of Captain Peter Shannon; delightful situation, attractive and
15、 comfortable house; garden contains very choice plants and shrubs. Apply, W. J. Skinner, Ocean View.”“There!” exclaimed Miss Katherine to her brother, “isnt it delightful to find just what we want with so little trouble?”“How do you know its just what we want?” asked Joseph, who had partially consen
16、ted to his sisters suggestion that they rent a house near the sea during the spring and summer.Miss Katherine did not possess any occult power by which she could visualize the property advertised, but she did have a remarkable faculty for reading between lines. It often happened that she found there that which defied every other interpretation, but this was possibly owing to her highly developed imagination. She had so often urged he
