顶级的生活第二季

《 顶级的生活第二季》

　　I was then curious, indeed, to see it; and when I came to it, itwas nothing but this: it was a timber house, or a house built, aswe call it in England, with lath and plaster, but all thisplastering was really China ware - that is to say, it was plasteredwith the earth that makes China ware. The outside, which the sunshone hot upon, was glazed, and looked very well, perfectly white,and painted with blue figures, as the large China ware in Englandis painted, and hard as if it had been burnt. As to the inside,all the walls, instead of wainscot, were lined with hardened andpainted tiles, like the little square tiles we call galley-tiles inEngland, all made of the finest china, and the figures exceedingfine indeed, with extraordinary variety of colours, mixed withgold, many tiles making but one figure, but joined so artificially,the mortar being made of the same earth, that it was very hard tosee where the tiles met. The floors of the rooms were of the samecomposition, and as hard as the earthen floors we ha

　　I had a great many discourses with them about their circumstanceswhen they were among the savages. They told me readily that theyhad no instances to give of their application or ingenuity in thatcountry; that they were a poor, miserable, dejected handful ofpeople; that even if means had been put into their hands, yet theyhad so abandoned themselves to despair, and were so sunk under theweight of their misfortune, that they thought of nothing butstarving. One of them, a grave and sensible man, told me he wasconvinced they were in the wrong; that it was not the part of wisemen to give themselves up to their misery, but always to take holdof the helps which reason offered, as well for present support asfor future deliverance: he told me that grief was the mostsenseless, insignificant passion in the world, for that it regardedonly things past, which were generally impossible to be recalled orto be remedied, but had no views of things to come, and had noshare in anything that looked like deliverance, but rath