You might think that borrowing a match upon the street is a simple thing. But any man who has ever tried it will assure you that it is not, and will be prepared to swear on oath to the truth of my experience of the other evening.
I was standing on the corner of the street with a cigar that I wanted to light. I had no match. I waited till a decent, ordinary man came along. Then I said:
"Excuse me, sir, but could you oblige me with the loan of a match？"
"A match？" he said, "why, certainly." Then he unbuttoned his overcoat and put his hand in the pocket of his waistcoat. "I know I have one," he went on, "and I'd almost swear it's in the bottom pocket — or, hold on, though, I guess it may be in the top — just wait till I put these parcels down on the sidewalk."
"Oh, don't trouble," I said. "It's really of no consequence."
"Oh, it's no trouble, I'll have it in a minute; I know there must be one in here somewhere"—he was digging his fingers into his pockets as he spoke — "but you see this isn't the waistcoat that I generally…"
I saw that the man was getting excited about it. "Well, never mind," I protested; "if that isn't the waistcoat that you generally — why, it doesn't matter."
"Hold on, now, hold on!" the man said. "I've got one of the cursed things in here somewhere. I guess it must be in with my watch. No, it's not there either. Wait till I try my coat. If that damned tailor only knew enough to make a pocket so that a man could get at it!"
He was getting pretty well worked up now. He had thrown down his walking-stick and was searching his pockets with his teeth set. "It's that cursed young boy of mine," he exasperated; "this comes of his fooling in my pockets. By God! perhaps I won't warm him up when I get home. Say, I'll bet that it's in my hippocket. You just hold up the tail of my overcoat a second till I…"
"No, no," I protested again,"please don't take all this trouble, it really doesn't matter. I'm sure you needn't take off your overcoat, and oh, pray don't throw away your letters and things in the snow like that, and tear out your pockets by the roots! Please, please don't trample over your overcoat and put your feet through the parcels. I do hate to hear you swearing at your little boy, with that peculiar grumble in your voice. Don't — please don't tear your clothes so savagely."
Suddenly the man gave a grunt of joy, and drew his hand up from inside the lining of his coat.
"I've got it," he cried. "Here you are!" Then he brought it out under the light.
It was a toothpick.
Yielding to the impulse of the moment I pushed him under the wheels of a trolley-car and ran.
The author narrates the story in a _________________ tone？
A．sorrowful
B．humorous
C．indifferent
D．excited
The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means, and the exercise of ordinary qualities. 1. The common life of every day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords ample opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind; and its most beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room for self-improvement. The road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and Work in the truest spirit, will usually be the most successful.
Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators. In the pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner qualities are found the most useful—such as common sense, attention, application, and perseverance.
2. Genius may not be necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain the use of these ordinary qualities. The very greatest men have been among the least believers in the power of genius, and as worldly wise and persevering as successful men of the commoner sort. Some have even defined genius to be only common sense intensified. A distinguished teacher and president of a college spoke of it as the power of making efforts. John Foster held it to be the power of lighting one's own fire. Buffon said of genius "it is patience".
Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the very highest order, and yet, when asked by what means he had worked out his extraordinary discoveries, he modestly answered, "By always thinking unto them." At another time he thus expressed his method of study: "I keep the subject continually before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light." 3. It was in Newton's case, as in every other, only by diligent application and perseverance that his great reputation was achieved. Even his recreation consisted in change of study, laying down one subject to take up another. To Dr. Bentley he said, "If I have done the public any service, it is due to nothing but industry and patient thought."
4. The extraordinary results effected by dint of sheer industry and perseverance, have led many distinguished men to doubt whether the gift of genius be so exceptional an endowment as it is usually supposed to be. Thus Voltaire held that it is only a very slight line of separation that divides the man of genius from the man of ordinary mould. Beccaria was even of opinion that all men might be poets and orators, and Reynolds that they might be painters and sculptors. If this were really so, that stolid Englishman might not have been so very far wrong after all, who, on Canova's death, inquired of his brother whether it was "his intention to carry on the business".
Locke, Helvetius, and Diderot believed that all men have an equal aptitude for genius, and that what some are able to effect, under the laws which regulate the operations of the intellect, must also be within the reach of others who, under like circumstances, apply themselves to like pursuits. 5. But while admitting to the fullest extent the wonderful achievements of labor, and recognizing the fact that men of the most distinguished genius have invariably been found the most indefatigable workers, it must nevertheless be sufficiently obvious that, without the original endowment of heart and brain, no amount of labor, however well applied, could have produced a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Beethoven, or a Michelangelo.
Dalton, the chemist, repudiated the notion of his being "a genius", attributing everything which he had accomplished to simple industry and accumulation. John Hunter said of himself, "My mind is like a beeh
