英语短篇小说欣赏-Advice to Little Girls
Advice to Little GirlsMarkTwain
Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every
trifling offence. This retaliation should only be resorted to under peculiarly
aggravated circumstances.
If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one of your
more fortunate little play-mates has a costly China one, you should treat her
with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt to make a
forcible swap with her unless your conscience would justify you in it, and you
know you are able to do it.
You ought never to take your little brother’s “chewing-gum” away from him
by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise of the first two
dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a grindstone. In the
artless simplicity natural to his time of life, he will regard it as a perfectly
fair transaction. In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has
lured the obtuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.
If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not
correct him with mud—never, on any account, throw mud at him, because it will
spoil his clothes. It is better to scold him a little, for then you obtain
desirable results. You secure his immediate attention to the lessons you are
inculcating, and at the same time your hot water will have a tendency to move
impurities from his person, and possibly the skin, in spots.
If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you
won’t. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids
you, and then afterwards act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of
your best judgment.
You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you are
indebted for your food, and your nice bed, and for your beautiful clothes, and
for the privilege of staying home from school when you let on that you are sick.
Therefore you ought to respect their little prejudices, and humor their little
whims, and put up with their little foibles until they get to crowding you too
much.
Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged. You ought
never to “sass” old people unless they “sass” you first.
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