Chapter 4 my first love (2)

"It would be sacrilege," he said, "to remove the original bindings of books. My God! Are you really going to tear and throw away those covers that have felt the press of hands you venerate in memory? You to so wantonly destroy the most sacred sentiments?" Yeah, doesn't The New England Primer remind me of Captivate Waite?It was she who introduced this book to me one spring day sixty-three years ago.She was my age, a beautiful sunny girl—a very, very beautiful girl, like every girl who disappears in time.We belong to the same class in the same Sunday school.I remember that extraordinary day when she brought me a golden apple.It was she who discovered the Primer in the mahogany bookcase.How happy we are when we turn the pages of the little book together, enjoy the vivid pictures, and read the fascinating words!John Rogers (c. 1500-1555), a famous English martyr, was the first translator of the King James Version of the English Bible.When he was burned to death, the bishop asked him if he was willing to change his beliefs, and he replied: "What I believe and preach, I will also testify with my blood." Amazing!

On this distant day, I cannot recall the experience of being with Captivity, we were completely immersed in the situation represented by the woodcut: the unfortunate Rogers stood in the unbearable fire, in his His wife and many children were gradually engulfed by the fire. They lined up and looked at Rogers helplessly.The moving artistic effect surpassed the picture - even now, I still can't chew the experience, the woodcut no longer makes my throat choke, and the tears no longer fill my eyes. How lasting are the impressions left on my young mind!I never forgot, in all the years of toil and life, since that little Primer gave me my first taste of trembling sweetness: "Young Obatias, David, Josiah, all so pious"; "Zerchius climbed the tree, and Christ saw it"; and "Vashti was cast aside for pride."When we linger on those pictures for a long time, seeing Timothy slowly rising from the land of evil, Xerxes wearing funeral shrouds, and proud Clay's army gradually being submerged, all this, let us Experiencing more sympathetic tremors and pain, I recalled Captivity's (and myself's) overwhelming sense of dread.

I write my heart Inseparable [The above quotations and stories are from the 1777 edition of The New England Primer. 】 This is a couplet in that little "Primary Reader". This sentence is absolutely true. I can say that on that spring day more than sixty years ago, my heart sprouted for this little book. First love.Sixty years have passed, the scene has not changed, the habits remain, the fashion reincarnates, the teeth grow, but the love has not eroded, and the infatuation has not changed.This example is enough to prove that the love of books exceeds any other kind of love.Women are naturally fickle, and so are men: their friendship is fragile and fragile, and they turn against each other in small gaps.

However, this is not the case with the love of books, because books do not change their hearts.For thousands of years, just like yesterday, the trickling words, said the same words; the eloquent words, expressed the same joy, the same promise, the same comfort; Eternal and constant, unchanged for thousands of years. As far as gender rules go, Captivity Waite is an exception.Frankly, she is very close to a perfect book - you can just think of her as a sixteenth volume if you like, clear, clean, neatly cropped, carefully edited, with wide margins, bound Sophistication; the disposition and intelligence she exhibits to match her appearance can be seen as her text.The child was Benjamin Waite [Benjamin Waite (1644-1704), an early American colonist, was born in Massachusetts.The story of him crossing the vast Canada and rescuing his family from the Indians is widely circulated in the United States. ]’s great-great-granddaughter, in 1677, Benjamin’s family was taken captive by Indians, and he went to Canada with a group of people. After months of searching, he finally found and redeemed all the captives.

Historians have said that the names of Benjamin Waite and his companions, and their Canadian travels through the middle of nowhere, should be "forever remembered by every family in distress or happiness in the Connecticut Valley."The friend of my boyhood, who will occasionally be mentioned in what follows me, will also be disturbed by a name, that of a survivor of that Indian atrocity, and honored as a memorial of sacrifice and valor. Honorable name.