世界上最優美的散文--- 人生短篇

讀書的樂趣佚名人類世世代代的聰明才智，幾百年來愉悅人們的故事，都可以輕鬆實惠地從書中獲得。不過，讀者必須懂得利用知識，進而獲得最大收益。世上最不幸的人就是那些從未體會過閱讀佳作所帶來的快樂的人。我對人很感興趣，對他們個人和發掘他們同樣興趣十足。我所認識的一些卓越的人物只能到作家的想像中尋找，然後又體現在作家的作品之中，最後變成我的想像。我從書中結識了新朋友，擴大了社會知識，也學到了新的語言。如果說我是對人感興趣，那麼其他人的興趣則是關注怎樣而不是誰的問題。書中的人物可謂豐富多彩，不僅有科幻小說中描寫的兩萬年後的超人，還可以追溯到人類歷史的開端。記錄的事情也是千奇百怪，從對福爾摩斯偵探故事的巧妙敘述到科學發現和管教孩子的方法 。讀書是一種思維享受，有點像體育運動。善於讀書的人需要強烈的求知慾，豐富的知識和敏捷的反應。讀書之所以是一種樂趣，並不在於作者告訴你什麼，而是因為讀書使你積極思考。在作者的引導下，你的想像任意馳騁，甚至超越作者的想像。對比作者的經歷，你會得出自己的結論，也許相同，也許相悖，而隨著你對作者思想的理解，你也會變得越來越深 刻。每一部書都獨自存在，猶如獨戶房子。而圖書館的書籍則像城市中的建築。儘管它們各成一體，但卻共同構成一個整體。不僅它們之間相互關聯，而且也與其他城市相互聯繫。相同或相近的看法在不同的地方出現。文學作品中反映的就是人們生活中經常出現的事情，但在不同時期作者的處理卻大相徑庭。書籍之間也相互影響，它們傳承過去，體現現在，預測將來，相互聯繫，代代相傳，形同各個家族。不管你從何時讀起，都會有一種觀點與你相符。長遠來看，你不僅從書中了解世界，體驗別人的生活，你也會認識你自己。只有你誠心讀書，閱讀才會成為一種樂趣。假如你讀的是別人認為「該」讀的書，你很可能覺得索然寡味。假如你放下自己不喜歡的書，另試一本，直到發現自己覺得有意義的書，然後心情輕鬆地讀下去，你肯定會感到心情暢快。假如你因閱讀而變得更為高尚、聰明、善良、文雅，讀書就不再是一種負擔了。The Pleasure of ReadingAnonymousAll the wisdom of the ages, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries, are easily and cheaply available to all of us within the covers of bo oks but we must know how to avail ourselves of this treasure and how to get the most from it. The most unfortunate people in the world are those who have never discovered how satisfying it is to read good books.I am most interested in people, in them and finding out about them. Some of the most remarkable people I"ve met existed only in a writer"s imagination, then on the pages of his book, and then, again, in my imagination. I"ve found in boo ks new friends, new societies, new words.If I am interested in people, others are interested not so much in who as i n how. Who in the books includes everybody from science fiction superman two hun dred centuries in the future all the way back to the first figures in history. H ow covers everything from the ingenious explanations of Sherlock Holmes to the d iscoveries of science and ways of teaching mannner to children.Reading is pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the author"s or even goes beyo nd his. Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.Every book stands by itself, like a one family house, but books in a librar y are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add u p to something, they are connected with each other and with other cities. The sa me ideas, or related ones, turn up in different places; the human problems that repeat themselves in life repeat themselves in literature, but with different so lutions according to different writings at different times. Books influence each other; they link the past, the present and the future and have their own genera tions, like families. Wherever you start reading you connect yourself with one o f the families of ideas, and in the long run, you not only find out about the wo rld and the people in it; you find out about yourself, too.Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you you 「ought」 to read, you probably won"t have fun. But if you put down a book you don"t like and try another till you find one that means som ething to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good tim e — and if you become, as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder, or more g entle, you won"t have suffered during the process.讀書樂約翰·盧伯克約翰·盧伯克（1834—1913），英國考古學家，生物學家和政治家。出生於倫敦，曾任下議院議員，提出過數十個議案，包括1871年通過的《銀行節假日法》（後來被稱為「聖盧伯克日」）。書對於人類就如同記憶對於個人一樣。書籍記載了民族的歷史，人類的發現、世代累積的知識和經驗；書為我們描述自然界的奇蹟和美麗，幫我們渡過難關，在我們傷痛時給予安慰，將疲勞的日子變為快樂短暫的時刻；書知識武裝我們的頭腦，填滿美好而快樂的思想，然後提升自我，超越自我。讀書時，請不要做皇宮裡的國王，最好讓自己沉醉在山林海濱，探詢美麗奇景，而不必受疲憊、麻煩和費用巨大之苦。書籍把珍貴無價的祝福撒在身邊的小徑，我們心情高尚，想像豐富地穿梭其中，去探尋壯麗迷人的地區。麥考萊擁有財富和名聲、地位和權力，然而他在傳記里告訴我們，他一生中最快樂的時光就是與書為伴。在一封寫給一個小女孩的迷人信件中，他寫道：「如果有人能使我做有史以來最偉大的國王，擁有宮殿、園林、美酒、佳肴、馬車、華服和上百名僕從，卻以不能讀書為條件，我不會做這個國王。我寧願做個窮人，住在小閣樓卻能飽覽群書，而不願變成不愛讀書的國王。」The Delights of BooksJohn LubbockBooks are to mankind what memory is to the individual. They contain the hist ory of our race, the discoveries we have made, the accumulated knowledge and exp erience of ages; they picture for us the marvels and beauties of nature; help us in our difficulties, comfort us in sorrow and in suffering, change hours of wea riness into moments of delight, store our minds with ideas, fill them with good and happy thoughts, and lift us out of and above ourselves.When we read we may not only be kings and live in palaces, but, what is far better, we may transport ourselves to the mountains or the seashore, and visit t he most beautiful parts of the earth, without fatigue, inconvenience, expense. P recious and priceless are the blessing, which the books scatter around our daily paths. We walk, in imagination, with the noblest spirits, through the most subl ime and enchanting regions.Macaulay had wealth and fame, rank and power, and yet he tells us in his bio graphy that he owed the happiest hours of his life to books. In a charming lette r to a little girl, he says: 「If any one would make me the greatest king that e ver lived, with palaces and gardens and fine dinners,and wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I should not read books, I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in garret with plent y of books than a king who did not love reading.」關於讀書阿諾德·本涅特阿諾德·本涅特(1867—1931)，本世紀初期英國著名的小說家、散文家。他的文風受法國自然主義的影響較深，行文冷靜客觀，準確工整；他的文字也簡單易懂，與所敘內容非常協調，具有很好的藝術效果。鮑斯威爾的《約翰遜傳》今天出了新版第一卷（奧古斯丁·比勒爾編）。這再次提醒我這本書我還沒怎麼讀過。我在思索,那些一個普通文化人應該讀，不讀即為罪過的書籍,是否真有人讀了或幾乎讀完了?如果真有這樣一個人，那他一定是個非常非常老的人，而且是從嬰孩時期就要開始讀書,每天要堅持16個小時。我不記得曾否讀完任何一位作家的全部著作，即使簡·奧斯汀也不例外。我從未看過《蘇珊》和《沃森一家》，其中有一本是絕好的書。莎士比亞、培根、斯賓塞的大部分作品我也不曾讀過,喬叟的書幾乎沒讀過；康格里夫、德萊頓、蒲柏、斯威夫特、斯特恩、約翰遜、斯科特、科勒律治、雪萊、拜倫、埃奇沃斯、蘭姆、利· 亨特、華茲華斯（幾乎全部）、丁尼生、史文朋、勃朗特姐妹、喬治·艾略特、N·毛里斯、喬治·梅瑞迪斯、托馬斯，哈代、薩維奇·蘭道、薩克雷、卡萊爾—— 事實上每一位古典作家和大多數現代大家的作品我都不曾拜讀過，我未讀過的名著的名字也可以寫一卷書了。只有一位作家——簡·奧斯丁,我可稱得上熟悉。對濟慈和史蒂文生我也稍微了解。英國作家僅此而已。至於外國作家，我只熟悉莫泊桑和龔古兒兄弟。《唐·吉訶德》還未看完。然而我不能說自己瀆職。自20歲起，我就酷愛讀書。從那時起,我除了讀「正經」書外幾乎可以說什麼也沒讀（除了文學批評家的職業所要求的）。我有適度的空閑時間,讀書慾望強烈穩定，我選擇書籍的品位肯定高出常人；然而多年來,我對那些浩瀚的「人人必讀」書目幾乎沒有什麼印象。On ReadingArnold BennettThe appearance today of the first volume of a new edition of Boswell"s Johns on, edited by Augustine Birrell, reminds me once again that I have read but litt le of that work. Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approx imately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and th at not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man, who has read steadily that which he ought to have read 16 hours a day, from early infancy.I cannot recall a single author of whom I have read everything — even of Ja ne Austen. I have never seen Susan and The Watsons, one of which I have been tol d is superlatively good. Then there are large tracts of Shakespeare, Bacon, Spen ser, nearly all Chaucer, Congreve, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Sterne, Johnson, Scott, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Edgeworth, Ferrier, Lamb, Leigh Hunt, Wordsworth (nea rly all), Tennyson, Swinbume, and Brontes, George Eliot, W. Morris, George Mered ith, Thomas Hardy, Savage Landor, Thackeray, Carlyle—in fact every classical au thor and most good modern authors, which I have never even overlooked. A list of the masterpieces I have not read would fill a volume. With only one author can I call myself familiar, Jane Austen. With Keats and Stevenson, I have an acquain tance. So far of English. Of foreign authors I am familiar with Maupassant and the Goncourts. I have yet to finish Don Quixote!Nevertheless I cannot accuse myself of default. I have been extremely fond o f reading since I was 20, and since I was 20 I have read practically nothing (sa ve professionally, as a literary critic) but what was 「right」. My leisure has b een moderate, my desire strong and steady, my taste in selection certainly above the average, and yet in 10 years I seem scarcely to have made an impression upo n the intolerable multitude of volumes which 「everyone is supposed to have read 」.力量無限托瑪斯·德·昆西托瑪斯·德·昆西（1785—1859），19世紀前期英國著名的浪漫主義散文家，其代表作為《一個英國吸鴉片者的陳述》。本文節選自他的文章《知識的文學與力量的文學》。除此之外，還有一種東西比真理更為神奇——那就是力量，或者說，它和真理有著深刻的感應。比如說，兒童對於社會的影響是什麼呢？由於兒童的弱小、孤獨、天真、純樸而引起的種種特殊的讚歎憐愛之情，不僅使人的真性情不斷地得到鞏固和更新，而且，因為脆弱喚醒了寬容，天真象徵著天堂，純樸遠離世俗。所以，這些在上帝面前最寶貴的品質也就永遠保存在記憶里，而且它們的理想不斷地被重溫。高級的文學，也就是力量的文學，同樣回答了這個問題。你能從《失樂園》中學到什麼知識？什麼也學不到。你又能從一本食譜里學到什麼呢？從每一段你都能學到過去所不知道的某種新知識。但是，你會因此就把一本微不足道的食譜看得比那部神聖的詩篇還高明嗎？我們從彌爾頓那裡學來的並不是什麼知識，因為即使有一百萬條知識，也不過是在塵俗的地面上行走一百萬次罷了。但彌爾頓給予我們的是力量——也就是說，運用自己潛在的感應能力，向著無限的領域擴張。在那裡，脈搏的每一次跳動，力量的每一次彙集，都意味著上升一步，好似沿著雅各的天梯，從地面一步一步登上那奧秘莫測的蒼穹。知識的步伐，從開始到終結，只能在同一水平面上將人往前運載，但卻無法使人從原來的地面上提高一步。然而，力量所邁出的第一步就是飛躍，就是向另一種境界的超越——在那裡，塵世的一切都會被忘卻。The Power Is UnlimitedThomas De QuinceyBesides which, there is a rarer thing than truth — namely power, or deep sy mpathy with truth. What is the effect, for instance, upon society, of children? By the pity, by the tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration which co nnect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, and with the simplic ity of children, not only are the primal affections strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are dearest in the sight of heaven — the frai lty, for instance, which appeals to forbearance, the simplicity which is most al ien from the worldly — are kept up in perpetual remembrance, and their ideals a re continually refreshed. A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature, viz, the literature of power. What do you learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery book? Something new, somethin g that you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you o we is power—that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sy mpathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step u pward, a step論教育阿爾弗烈德·諾斯·懷特海阿爾弗烈德·諾斯·懷特海（1861—1947），英國著名數學家與哲學家，劍橋大學畢業1914—1924年間任倫敦大學實用數學教授。1924—1937年受美國哈佛大學聘請，在該校講授哲學，嗣後即繼續留居美國。懷特海是近代英美知識界影響較廣的學者之一。教育是獲得運用知識的藝術。這門藝術非常不易傳授。即使是一本具有真正教育價值的教科書，可以斷定，也會有書評家說它教起課來不容易使用。教起課來當然不容易使用。教起來不費功夫的書是沒有意義的,只配燒掉，因為它根本沒有教育價值。教育就如同其他領域，寬闊的櫻草路是通往絕境的。這條害人之路就表現在一套書或講義上面，憑藉這些資料,學生往往簡單背誦可能會在考試中出現的問題便了事。我想提一下，這樣的教育體制是沒有任何出路的，否則就必須做到：允許授課的老師親自去組織和修改考試中的問題,提問自己的學生……我們再來討論我上面提出的觀點，一定要把理論概念具體地運用到學生的課程之中。這條原則在具體運用中十分困難，因為它關係到教育的中心問題,必須不斷地更新知識,使知識保持生命力,防止知識僵化。……我呼籲那些奮鬥在一線的教師要，經受良好的訓練。這樣，把死板知識灌注到學生們的頭腦當中是沒問題的。給學生一本書就讓他們學,這樣就萬事大吉了。於是學生就學會解二次方程了。但是教會他去解二次方程的目的又何在呢?按照傳統的回答就是：人的頭腦就是工具，要想好好利用就必須先塑造它，學習解二次方程就是塑造頭腦這個工具的一部分。這種觀點也有道理,否則不會經歷這麼久遠。但是這個片面道理卻包含著一個根本性的錯誤，它抑制了天才智慧。我不知道是誰提出頭腦是一個工具的。對此我一無所知,也可能是希臘七智中的哪一個或者他們七個商量後共同弄出來的。到底誰是始作俑者先不管，由於受到名流們的推崇，這種說法毫無疑問已經獲得了很大權威。但是不管它的權威有多大，不管它能援引的稱讚有多強大，我都毫不猶豫地肯定，對教育理論而言,這就是一個最要命、最錯誤和最危險的觀念。頭腦從來都不是被動的，它一息不停地活動，非常靈敏，富於接受事物，對刺激感覺敏銳。你不能等你把它塑造後再去使用它。不管你的題材會引起什麼興趣，這種興趣必須此時此地就召喚起來；不管你如何培養自己的學生，他的能力必須此時此地就運用起來；不管你會對學生的思想產生怎樣的影響，這些傾向必須此時此地就展示出來。這就是教育上的規律，一條很難把握的規律。困難就是這樣：一般概念的理解，思維活動的習慣，精神收穫的愉悅，即使安排得恰如其分,也不好用語言形式確切地表達。從事教學的一線教師們都懂得，教育是個耐心的過程，要掌握具體的細節,一分一秒也不能中斷。學習不會是輕鬆的, 這裡沒有精美概括的坦途。諺語所說的「只見樹木,不見樹林」，這正是我這裡要強調的困難。教育的問題正是如何使學生通過樹木而看見森林。……再有，不是每一門學科僅僅提供專門的知識和內容。大眾教育也是一門專門的學科。從另一方面講，培養一種專門愛好也是進行綜合教育的一條途徑。學問的綜合性是毋庸置疑的。教育所傳授的就是要建立對思想的力量、思想的美和思想的結構的親密感覺，此外還要有所專長，作為謀生的手段。對思維結構的理解也是智慧的一方面，只有靠學習專門知識才能培養起來。這就是那種通觀全局、善於把握各類思想之間聯繫的慧眼。只有學習專業知識,才能充分理解一般思想的形成，它們彼此間的關係以及對於人生的用途等。經受這樣的訓練,思維勢必既能更為抽象，又能更為具體。這是在抽象思想的領會與具體事實的分析的基礎上訓練出來的。On EducationAlfred North WhiteheadEducation is the acquisition of the art of the utilization of knowledge.This is an art very, difficult to impart.Whenever a text book is written of real ed ucational worth, you may be quite certain that some reviewer will say that it will be difficult to teach from it. Of course it will be difficult to teach from it. If it were easy, the book ought to be burned; for it cannot be educational. I n education, as elsewhere, the broad primrose path leads to a nasty place. This evil path is represented by a book or a set of lectures which will practically e nable the student to learn by heart all the questions likely to be asked at the next external examination. And I may say. in passing that no educational system is possible unless every question, directly asked of a pupil at any examination is either framed or modified by the actual teacher of that pupil in that subject …We now return to my previous point, that theoretical ideas should always fin d important applications within the pupil』s curriculum. This is not an easy doc trine to apply, but a very hard one. It contains within itself the problem of ke eping knowledge alive, of preventing it from becoming inert, which is the centra l problem of all education.…I appeal to you, as practical teachers. With good discipline, it is always p ossible to pump into the minds of a class a certain quantity of inert knowledge. You take a text book and make them learn it. So far, so good. The child then k nows how to solve a quadratic equation. But what is the point of teaching a chil d to solve a quadratic equation? There is a traditional answer to this question. It runs thus: The mind is an instrument, you first sharpen it, and then use it; the acquisition of the power of solving a quadratic equation is part of the pro cess of sharpening the mind. Now there is just enough truth in this answer to ha ve made it live through the ages. But for all its half truth, it embodies a rad ical error which bids fair to stifle the genius of the modern world. I do not kn ow who was first responsible for this analogy of the mind to a dead instrument. For aught I know, it may have been one of the seven wise men of Greece, or a com mittee of the whole lot of them. Whoever was the originator, there can be no dou bt of the authority which it has acquired by the continuous approval bestowed up on it by eminent persons.But whatever its weight of authority, whatever the high approval which it can quote, I have no hesitation in denouncing it as one of the most fatal, erroneous, and dangerous conceptions ever introduced into the theo ry of education. The mind is never passive; it is a perpetual activity, delicate , receptive, responsive to stimulus.You cannot postpone its life until you have sharpened it. Whatever interest attaches to your subject matter must be evoked hele and now; whatever powers you are strengthening in the pupil, must be exe rcised here and now; whatever possibilities of mental life your teaching should impart, must be exhibited here and now.That is the golden rule of education, and a very difficult rule to follow.The difficulty is just this: the apprehension of general ideas, intellectual habits of mind, and pleasurable interest in mental achievement can be evoked by no form of words, however accurately adjusted. All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of the mastery of details, minute by minute, hou r by hour, day by day.There is no royal roads to learning through an airy path o f brilliant generalizations.There is a proverb about the difficulty of seeing th e wood because of the trees. That difficulty is exatly the point which I am enfo rcing. The problem of education is to make the pupil see the wood by means of th e trees.…Again, there is not one course of study which merely gives general culture, and another which gives special knowledge. The subjects pursued for the sake of a general education are special subjects specially studied; and, on the other ha nd, one of the ways of encouraging general mental activity is to foster a specia l devotion. You may not divide the seamless coat of learning. What education has to impart is an intimate sense for the power of ideas, for the beauty of ideas, and for the structure of ideas together with a particular body of knowledge whi ch has peculiar reference to the life of the being possessing it.The appreciation of the structure of ideas is that side of a cultured mind w hich can only grow under the influence of a special study. I mean that eye for t he whole chess board, for the bearing of one set of ideas on another.Nothing bu t a special study can give any appreciation for the exact formulation of general ideas, for their relations when formulated, for their service in the comprehens ion of life. A mind so disciplined should be both more abstract and more concret e. It has been trained in the comprehension of abstract thought and in the analy sis of facts.莎士比亞的仙島喬治·吉辛喬治·吉辛（1857—1903），英國小說家與散文作者。出身寒苦，1880年後開始靠教書為生，同時為出版家編校稿件和撰寫小說。自此時起一生所著小說不下十六七部，此外尚有散文遊記與評論多種。今天我讀了《暴風雨》……在我因生於英國而自豪的理由中，有一個就是我能以我的母語來閱讀莎士比亞的著作。我曾設想，如果我對於他是相識不能相見，聲音在遠處只是依稀可辨，又要經過冥思苦想才能明白他的話語的真正含義，那我一定會飲譽受挫,若有所失了。我一向自以為能讀荷馬，並且深信自己有欣賞荷馬的能力，但是我曾夢想過荷馬已把他的全部音樂知識傳授於我。對我來說，他的言語如同古希臘當時漫步于海濱的人們一樣深沉。我深知，經過歲月的洗滌,最終我能獲得的只不過是一點微弱的回聲罷了。我深知,這個回聲會變得更加脆弱,若不是因為它和青春的記憶相連,閃爍著世界古代全盛時期的容光，願每塊土地都能愉悅它的詩人。因為詩人就是這塊土地，體現著她的偉大與芳馨,是人們為之生死的不可言傳的遺產。當我合攏書卷的時候，一種愛慕與崇敬的感情深深地支配著我。我的滿腔熱誠都給予了這位偉人的法術，還是傾倒在被他撒下魅力的仙島上了呢?我不清楚。在我的意識中我已不能將它們分開。崇高的聲音喚起了愛慕與崇敬的情感，莎士比亞與英吉利已經成為一體。Shakespeare』s IslandGeorge GissingTo day I have read The Tempest …Among the many reasons which make me glad to have been born in England, one of the first is that I read Shakespeare in my mother tongue. If I try to imagine myself as ono who cannot know him face to fac e, who hears him only speaking from afar, and that in accents which only through the labouring intelligence can touch the living soul, there comes upon me a sen se of chill discouragement, of dreary deprivation. I am wont to think that I can read Homer, and, assuredly, if any man enjoys him, it is I; but can I for a mom ent dream that Homer yields me all his music, that his word is to me as to him w ho walked by the Hellenic shore when Hellas lived? I know that there reaches me across the vast of time no more than a faint and broken echo;I know that it woul d be fainter still, but for its blending with those memories of youth which are as a glimmer of the world"s primeval glory. Let every land have joy of its poet; for the poet is the land itself, all its greatness and its sweetness, all that incommunicable heritage for which men live and die. As I close the book, love an d reverence possess me. Whether does my full heart turn to the great Enchanter, or to the Island upon which he has laid his spell? I know not. I cannot think of them apart. In the love and reverence awakened by that voice of voices,Shakespe are and England are but one.適合的才是最好的威廉·赫茲里特辭彙的嚴格意義不在辭彙本身，而在辭彙的應用。一個單詞可能音節嘹亮，字母很多，單就它的學術價值和新奇感來說，可能是令人嘆賞的，然而把它放在具體的語境中，也可能毫無意義。不是依靠辭彙的華麗和誇張,而是對作者主題的貼切適用,才能表達作者的寫作意圖。正如在建築中，不必在意材料的大小和光澤，只要它們用在那裡砌合得完整嚴實,就能牢固地支撐拱門。又或是在建築物中，木楔和釘子的支撐作用有時竟與大件木料同等重要，它的作用遠遠勝過那些徒有其表、不切實用的裝飾部件。我討厭那些白佔地方的東西，討厭滿載一大堆空紙盒的車招搖過市，也討厭堆砌那些大而無實際內容的辭彙。一個人寫文章，只要他不是故意用重重錦繡帳幔、多餘偽裝完全遮掩自己的寫作意圖，他總會從熟悉的日常用語中想出一二十種說法，這種語言更接近他所要表達的情感，最後，他就會因為不知道挑選哪一種說法能更好地表達自己而發愁！這樣看來，考拜特先生所謂的第一印象就是最好的說法未必可靠。這樣出現的字眼也許很好，可是經過一次次推敲，就會發現更好的字眼。這種字眼，也許來源於自然的暗示，但經過對主題清新活潑的觀念思維，會自然而然地想到。Suit Is BestWilliam HazlittThe proper force of words lies not in the words themselves, but in their app lication. A word may be a fine sounding word, of an unusual length, and very imp osing from its learning and novelty, and yet in the connection in which it is in troduced may be quite pointless and irrelevant, It is not pomp or pretension, bu t the adaptation of the expression to the idea, that clenches a writer"s meaning : as it is not the size or glossiness of the materials, but their being fitted e ach to its place, that gives strength to the arch; or as the pegs and nails are as necessary to the support of the building as the larger timbers, and more so t han the mere showy, unsubstantial ornaments. I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth. I hate to see a load of bandboxes go along the street, a nd I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them. A person who de ws not deliberately dimples of all his thoughts alike in cumbrous draperies and flimsy disguises may strike out twenty varieties of familiar everyday language, each coming somewhat nearer to the feeling he wants to convey, and at last not h it upon that particular and only one which may be said to be identical with the exact impression in his mind. This would seem to show that Mr. Cobalt is hardly right in saying that the first word that occurs is always the best. It may be a very good one; and yet a better may present itself on reflection or from time to time. It may be suggested naturally, however, and spontaneously, from a fresh a nd lively conception of the subject.書友塞繆爾·斯邁爾斯塞繆爾·斯邁爾斯(1812—1904)，英國傳記作家與青少年道德修養書籍作者。他所寫的《品格的力量》、《自勵》等書都是人們爭相傳頌的經典。與什麼書為伴,就像與什麼人為伴一樣,都能體現一個人的品格。有以人為伴的,也有以書為伴的。無論是書友或朋友，我們都應該慎重選擇,與佳為伴。好書猶如知己。不管過去,現在，還是將來,它都始終如一。它是最有耐心、最令人愉快的伴侶。困難之際,它也不離不棄。它總是以友善相待,在我們年輕時，好書能陶冶性情，增長知識；到我們年老時，它又會給我們以寬慰。好書可以使人結為朋友，就像兩個人會因為敬慕同一個人而交為朋友一樣。古諺說：「愛屋及烏」，但是，「愛我及書」這句話卻有更深的哲理。書是更為牢固和真實的情誼紐帶。假如擁有共同喜愛的作家,人們可以藉此溝通思想感情。他們可以由此和作者產生共鳴。哈茲利特曾經說過：「書潛移默化人們的內心，詩歌熏陶人們的氣質品性。少小所習，老大不忘，恍如身歷其事。書籍價廉物美，不啻我們呼吸的空氣。」好書猶如珍藏人一生思想精華的工具。人生的境界，主要就在於他思想的境界。所以，好書保藏著優美的語言，深邃的思想，倘若能銘記於心，就成為我們忠實的伴侶和永恆的慰藉。菲利普·悉尼爵士說得好：「有高尚思想做伴的人永不孤獨。」當我們面臨誘惑的時候，虔誠而公正的信念就像仁慈的天使，保衛我們的靈魂,使她依舊純潔。這同樣孕育著行為的衝動，往往成為善行的先導。書籍的品質是不朽的，是人類勤奮努力的最為持久的結晶。寺廟會倒坍，神像會朽爛，而書卻經久長存。在偉大的思想面前，時間顯得微不足道。多少年前曾經感動作者的思想今天依然清新如故。書籍記載了他們的言論和思想，現在看來依舊生動。時間惟一的作用是淘汰垃圾作品，只有真正的作品才能經受時間的檢驗而經久長存。書籍引導我們進入主流社會，與歷代偉人為伍，使我們如聞其聲，如觀其行，如見其人,如與他們朝夕相處,同歡喜,共傷悲。我們繼承他們的感受，好似覺得在他們所描繪的舞台上跟他們同台獻藝了。偉大傑出的人物在這世間也不會消逝，書籍記載他們的思想,然後傳播開來。書是人們至今仍在聆聽的思想回聲，永遠充滿著活力。因此，我們永遠都在受著歷代偉人的影響。多少年前的蓋世英才，就如同在他所生活的時代，今天依舊顯示著強大的生命力。Companionship of BooksSamuel SmilesA man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company h e keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men.A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it a lways was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of comp anions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age.Men often discover their affinity to each other by the love they have each f or a book — just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration w hich both have for a third. There is an old proverb,「Love me, love my dog.」 Bu t there is more wisdom in this:「Love me, love my book.」 The book is a truer an d higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other thro ugh their favorite author. They live in him together, and he in them.「Books,」 said Hazlitt, 「wind into the heart; the poet"s verse slides in t he current of our blood. We read them when young, we remember them when old. We feel that it has happened to ourselves. They are to be had very cheap and good. We breathe but the air of books.」A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life co uld think out; for the world of a man"s life is, for the most part, but the worl d of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant companions and co mforters. 「They are never alone,」 said Sir Philip Sidney,「that are accompanie d by noble thoughts.」The good and true thought may in times of temptation be as an angel of mercy purifying and guarding the soul. It also enshrines the germs of action, for goo d words almost always inspire to good works.Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting pr oducts of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first pas sed through their author"s minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time has been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long surviv e but what is really good.Books introduce us into the best society they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, gri eve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a mea sure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.The great and good do not die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their s pirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens. Hence we ever remain under the influence of the great men of old. The imperial intellects of the world are as much alive now as they were ages ag o.談讀書弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙（1882—1941），現代著名意識流小說家。她出生於倫敦，從小博覽群書，曾和兄妹們居住在倫敦的布盧姆斯伯里，形成一個影響廣泛的文人圈子。她的主要作品有小說《奧蘭多》、《去燈塔》、《戴洛威夫人》、《海浪》，散文集《一間自己的屋子》等。既然書籍有不同的種類，如小說、傳記、詩歌等，我們就應該把它們區分開來，並從每種中汲取應當對我們有用的成分。然而，很少有人能從書籍中獲得書籍所提供的有用價值。通常我們總是心不在焉,毫無目的地去看書：要求小說情節真實，要求詩歌內容虛構，要求傳記阿諛奉承，要求歷史能加深自己的偏見。如果我們讀書時能拋棄這些偏見，那將是一個令人羨慕的開端。我們無須盲從作者，而應站在作者的立場上，把自己當成作者的創作夥伴。假如一開始你就退縮不前，持保留甚至批判的態度,就會妨礙自己從閱讀中得到最大的益處。然而，如果你能盡量敞開思想，那麼，從開頭幾句迂迴曲折的話里,可以發現那些幾乎難以覺察的跡象和暗示，然後會把你引到一個與眾不同的人物的面前去。是自己深入進去,進一步體味作者的用心,很快就會領悟作者正在給你或試圖給你某些更為明確的東西。倘若我們首先考慮怎樣讀小說，那麼，一部小說中的32章就是企圖創造出像一座建築物那樣既有形式又能控制的東西，不過詞句要比磚塊難以捉摸，閱讀要比看更費時、更複雜。也許理解小說家創作要素的捷徑並不是讀，而是寫作，親自去嘗試寫作的艱難。那麼，回想一下給你留下鮮明印象的事項——比如，你走過大街拐角碰見兩個人說話時的情景,樹在搖曳、燈光在晃動，談話的語氣時喜時悲，這一瞬間就是一個完整的畫面，一個整體的構思。About Reading BooksVirginia WoolfIt is simple enough to say that since books have classes fiction, biography , poetry — we should separate them and take from each what is right that each s hould give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most common ly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it sh all be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be fla ttering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him.Be his fellow worker and accompli ce. If you hang back, and reserve, and criticize at first, you are preventing yo urself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you op en your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist, and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or a ttempting to give you, something far more definite. The thirty two chapters of a novel — if we consider how to read a novel first — are an attempt to make so mething as formed and controlled as a building: but words are more impalpable th an bricks, reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write, to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficul ties of words. Recall, then, some event that has left a distinct impression on you — how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you passed two people talking, A tree shook, an electric light danced, the tone of the talk was comic, but also tragic, a whole vision, an entire conception, seemed contained in that moment.真理是為一切人而設的羅賓德拉納德·泰戈爾羅賓德拉納德·泰戈爾（1861—1941），享譽世界的印度詩人、小說家、哲學家，1913 年以詩作《吉檀迦利》獲諾貝爾文學獎，是第一位獲得該榮譽的亞洲人。有一些很驕傲、明智、實際的人們，他們說，寬厚並不是人類的本性，人們將永遠互相爭鬥，強者將會征服弱者，人類的文明不可能有真實的道德基礎。我們不能否認他們所說的強者在人類世界上具有權勢這個事實，但是我拒絕把這種說法當作真理的啟示而加以接受……我們應該知道，真理——人類所獲得的任何真理——是為一切人而設的。金錢和財產屬於個人，屬於你們當中的每一個人，但是你們絕對不能利用真理來增長你們個人的財富和權勢，因為那樣做就等於出賣上帝的恩澤，藉以牟利。可是科學也是真理，它適當的職責在於救治病人，並為人類生活提供更多的食物與閑暇。如果它幫助強者去壓迫弱者，去掠奪那些在沉睡中的人們，它就是在利用真理去達成不虔敬的目的。那些以這種方式褻瀆神聖的人們定會遭到報應和懲罰，因為他們的武器將會被用來對付他們自己。Truth Is for EveryoneRabindranath TagoreThere are some people, who are proud and wise and practical, who say that it is not in human nature to be generous, that men will always fight one another, that the strong will conquer the weak, and that there can be no real moral found ation for man"s civilization. We cannot deny the facts of their assertion that t he strong have power in the human world, but I refuse to accept this as a revela tion of truth…We should know that truth, any truth that man acquires, is for everyone. Mon ey and property belong to individuals, to each of you, but you must never exploi t truth for your personal aggrandizement; that would be selling God"s blessing f or a profit. However, science is also truth; it has its place in the healing of the sick, and in giving more food and leisure for life. When it helps the strong crush the weak, and rob those who are asleep, it is using truth for impious end s. Those who are thus sacrilegious will suffer and be punished, for their own we apons will be turned against them.知識與美德約翰·亨利·紐曼約翰·亨利·紐曼(1801—1890)，英國詩人、小說家、宗教思想家。主要著作有《為自己的一生辯護》、《說教集》等。本文選自他的另一部重要著作《論大學》。知識是一回事，美德則是另外一回事。好意不是良心，優雅不是謙讓，廣博與公正的觀點也不是信仰。無論多麼富有啟迪或高深莫測的哲學，都無法左右感情，都不具備有影響力的動機，都不具有導致生動活潑的原理。文科教育並非為了造就基督教徒或者天主教徒，而是為了造就紳士。造就一個紳士是件美好的事，有教養的才智，優雅的情趣，正直、公正而冷靜的頭腦，高貴而彬彬有禮的舉止——這些是與淵博的學識生來固有的品質，也正是大學教育的目的。我倡導它們，並加以闡釋和堅持。不過我要說的是，它們仍然不能確保聖潔，或甚不能保證誠實。它們可以附庸於世故的俗人，附庸於玩世不恭的浪子。唉，當他們用它偽裝起來時，就更增加了他們外表上的冷靜、快活和魅力。就其本身而言，它們似乎已經面目全非，它們已成為一種只可遠觀的美德，只有經過長久的觀察方可探知真相。因此它們受到廣泛的責難，被指責為虛假、偽善。我想強調的是，這絕不是因為它們自身有什麼過錯，而是因為教授及其崇拜者們一味地把它們弄得面目全非，而且還殷勤地獻上其本身並未要求的讚揚。如果說用剃刀能開採花崗岩，用絲線能系住船隻，那麼你就可以希望能用人的知識和理性這樣美妙而優雅的東西去同人類的情感與高傲那樣的龐然大物進行抗爭。Knowledge and VirtueJ. H. NewmanKnowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, ref inement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy , however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Ch ristian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentleman, it i s well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, di spassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life — these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are the objects of a Uni versity; I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them; but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, they m ay attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless, pleasant , alas, and attractive as he shows when decked, out in them. Taken by themselves , they do but seem to be what they are not; they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and on the long run; and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretense and hypocrisy, not, I repeat, from t heir own fault, but because their professors and their admirers persist in takin g them for what they are not, and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim. Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the ve ssel with a thread of silk, then may you hope with such keen and delicate instru ments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the p assion and the pride of man.風格瓦爾特·羅利瓦爾特·羅利（1861—1922）近代英國文學批評家、作家，曾就讀於倫敦大學與劍橋皇家學院，後從事教學與寫作，是一位才情超群的文學批評家。本文節選自其名作《Style》。Style 這個在拉丁語中原義為「鐵筆」的名詞，久已被用來作為駕馭語言這種流動事物的藝術，而這種駕馭是具有日益蓬勃的生機和審慎的矯健性的。顯而易見的是，憑藉譬喻手段(譬喻仍不失為文學方法的一種概括)，使本來最刻板最簡單的工具竟能把它的名字假借給藝術中最精緻靈活的藝術。以這為起點，這個名稱又被廣泛地應用到文學以外的其他藝術，應用到人類全部活動範圍。我們使用style一詞來談論建築、雕刻、繪畫、音樂、舞蹈、歌劇、板球，我們使用這個詞來敘述人與獸的肢體上的那種自然遒勁的動作這一事實，正是我們對文學功能的一種最崇高的不自覺的禮讚。筆，這種吮蠟濡紙的工具，已經成為人性中所有富於表現力的、所有親切的事物的象徵。不但武力與技藝向它屈服，人類自身也向它屈服。人的聲音，它的起伏高低，並輔之以活躍的面部表情與體態姿勢上的千變萬化，都勢所必然地要藉助於這同一譬喻：演說家與演員也都渴望得到風格方面的鑒賞。「再真實不過的就是」，正如《悲哀的解剖》的作者所寫到的，「Stuylus Virum arguit，我們的風格暴露了我們自己」。其他姿態都可以是變動不定，了無痕迹的，風格卻是性格的最終極最經久的表露。演員與演說家不得不在不能歷久的材料上來求得短暫的效果；他們的業績與身俱亡。雕刻家與建築師所經營的材料雖較為耐久，但卻又操持困難，冥頑不靈，不容易承受心靈狀態的各種印記。所有的道德、哲理與美學、情態與信念、主義與幻想、熱情及表白等等——所有這一切，除文學以外，又有哪一種藝術足以把它們涵攝無遺，而又能避免其突然消亡的危險?又有其他哪一種藝術能夠對在習性上如此紛紜，趣味上如此歧異的人們，賦予其以充分發揮的餘地?事實上，不論歐幾里德與雪萊，埃德蒙·斯賓塞與赫伯特· 斯賓塞，大衛王與大衛·休謨，他們都是語言文字這門藝術的追逐者。……一切風格都是姿態，心智的姿態與靈魂的姿態。心智是我們所共有的，因為正確理性的規律對於不同的心智並沒有什麼不同。因此清晰與條理是可以通過施以教誨得到，而表達技巧上的極端無能也可以部分地得到矯正。但是又有誰能對靈魂強行制定規律呢，一個最常見的現象是，人們儘管可以並不喜愛甚至厭惡某一特殊風格，而同時卻又對它的純熟、氣勢以及這種風格與其內容的貼切一致由衷欽佩。彌爾頓以其文風論，是一位比莎士比亞更為簡潔樸實和精確無誤的大師，但卻未必具有這樣可愛的性格。當一個人本身價值非凡時，作為其標誌的風格的價值也不會太小。人們常說：「開口吧，我就能認識你」——聲音所表示的要比面龐更為深刻。動筆吧，只要你對手中的工具已有幾分掌握，你就會把你自己摹寫下來，不論你願意與否。不管你如何沒意識到的缺點，不管你如何想隱瞞的優點，在你性格中的不論是卑劣或寬厚，沒有一項是不會在文字上表現出來的。你雖早知道有最後審判日的到來，卻仍不免要對那職掌記錄的天使提供材料。文學中的批評藝術雖然經常受到貶低，而在藝術中處於卑微地位，但卻恰恰是判辨與解釋這些書面證據的一門藝術。人們常把批評和創造對立起來，這也可能是由於批評所試圖進行的那種創造還成效不大，於是世人遂忘記，批評的首要職務並不是去制定條律，也不是去做分類，而是去起死回生。墓穴在它的指揮之下，可把沉睡的人喚醒過來，打開墓門，令其悉數逸出。正是依靠這種藝術的創造力量，才有可能從先人遺留的殘缺不全、字跡模糊的故紙堆中按原樣再造出當年的活人來。StyleWalter RaleighStyle, the Latin name for an iron pen, has come to designate the art that ha ndles, with ever fresh vitality and wary alacrity, the fluid elements of speech. By a figure, obvious enough, which yet might serve for an epitome of literary m ethod, the most rigid and simplest of instruments has lent its name to the subtl est and most flexible of arts. Thence the application of the word has been exten ded to arts other than literature, to the whole range of the activities of man. The fact that we use the word 「style" in speaking of architecture and sculpture , painting and music, dancing, play acting, and cricket, that we can apply it t o the spontaneous animal movements of the limbs of man or beast, is the noblest of unconscious tributes to the faculty of letters. The pen, scratching on wax or paper, has become the symbol of all that is expressive, all that is intimate, i n human nature; not only arms and arts, but man himself, has yielded to it. His living voice, with its undulations and inflexions, assisted by the mobile play o f feature and an infinite variety of bodily gesture, is driven to borrow dignity from the same metaphor; the orator and the actor are fain to be judged by style .「It is most true」, says the author of The Anatomy of Melancholy，「stylus viru m arguit, our style bewrays us.」 Other gestures shift and change and flit, this is the ultimate and enduring revelation of personality. The actor and the orator are condemned to work evanescent effects on transitory material; the dust that they write on is blown about their graves. The sculptor and the architect deal i n less perishable ware; but the stuff is recalcitrant and stubborn, and will not take the impress of all states of the soul. Morals, philosophy, and aesthetic, mood and conviction, creed and whim, habit, passion, and demonstration — what a rt but the art of literature admits the entrance of all these, and guards them f rom the suddenness of mortality? What other art gives scope to natures and dispo sitions so diverse, and to tastes so contrarious? Euclid and Shelley, Edmund Spe nser and Herbert Spencer, King David and David Hume, are all followers of the ar t of letters.…All style is gesture, the gesture of the mind and of the soul. Mind we have in common, inasmuch as the laws of right reason are not different for different minds. Therefore clearness and arrangement can be taught, sheer incompetence in the art of expression can be partly remedied. But who shall impose laws upon the soul? It is thus of common note that one may dislike or even hate a particular style while admiring its facility, its strength, its skilful adaptation to the m atter set forth. Milton, a chaster and mote unerring master of the art than Shak espeare, reveals no such lovable personality. While persons count for much, styl e, the index to persons, can never count for little. 「Speak,」 it has been said, 「that I may know you」 — voice gesture is more than feature. Write, and after you have attained to some control over the instrument, you write yourself down whether you will or no. There is no vice, however unconscious, no virtue, howeve r shy, no touch of meanness or of generosity in your character, that will not pa ss on to the paper. You anticipate the Day of Judgment and furnish the recording angel with material. The Art of Criticism in Literature, so often decried and g iven a subordinate place among the arts, is none other than the art of reading a nd interpreting these written evidences. Criticism has been popularly opposed to creation, perhaps because the kind of creation that it attempts is rarely achie ved, and so the world forgets that the main business of Criticism, after all, is not to legislate, nor to classify, but to raise the dead. Graves, at its comman d, have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth. It is by the creative po wer of this art that the living man is reconstructed from the litter of blurred and fragmentary paper documents that he has left to posterity.何謂偉大的藝術約翰·羅斯金繪畫，或者說一般的藝術本身，儘管它們技巧高妙、困難重重、目標獨特，其實也不過是一種高貴而富於表現力的語言，和思想的載體一樣，非常寶貴，不過它們自身毫無價值。一個人要想學會通常所說的繪畫藝術，也就是忠實地再現任何客觀物體的藝術，也不過是學會了表達思想的語言。為了成為受人尊敬的大師，他付出了艱辛的努力，但這種努力跟某個學會用合乎語法、音調悅耳的文字表達情意的人想成為偉大詩人所付出的努力是一樣的。這種語言的確比那種語言難學，當它訴諸智力時，也更能使人的感官感到愉悅。然而，它僅僅是語言，畫家認為獨特的各種優點，也就相當於詩人和演說家語言具有的節奏、旋律、精密和力量，這些只是他們偉大的必要條件，而不是檢驗他們是否偉大的標準。不管是畫家還是作家，他的偉大與否，最終不是看他表現與寫作的方式，而是看他表現與寫作的內容。所以，如果我說最偉大的畫，就是能向看畫人的大腦傳達最多偉大思想的畫，那麼，我這個定義就包括了藝術所能傳達的作為比較對象的全部樂趣。相反，如果我說最好的畫就是模仿自然模仿得最逼真的畫，我是在假定藝術只有模仿自然才能給人愉悅，我批評時就會拋開那些不是模仿的藝術作品，即具有自身色彩美和形式美的作品，以及像拉斐爾在梵蒂岡宮給繪製的壁畫那樣毫無模仿的一切藝術作品。現在，我想找個很廣的藝術定義，囊括目標各異的所有藝術種類。因此，我不說給人愉悅最多的藝術最偉大，因為也許某種藝術目的在於教育，不在於給人以愉悅。我不說教給我們知識最多的藝術最偉大，因為也許某種藝術目的在於給人愉悅，不在於教育。我不說模仿最佳的藝術最偉大，因為也許某種藝術目的在於創造而不在於模仿。但我要說，無論採用何種方式，只要是向觀眾大腦傳達最豐富最偉大的思想的藝術，就是最偉大的藝術；我所說的偉大思想是指它能夠為心智較高的人所接受，它能更徹底地佔有並在佔有過程中鍛煉和提高接受它的心智。如果說這就是偉大藝術的定義，那麼，偉大藝術家的定義自然就是這樣的：最偉大的藝術家就是其全部作品表現了最豐富最偉大的思想的藝術家。A Definition of Greatness in ArtJohn RuskinPainting, or art generally, as such, with all its technicalities, difficulti es, and particular ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invalua ble as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing. He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which hi s thoughts are to be expressed. He has done just as much towards being that whic h we ought to respect as a great painter, as a man who has learnt how to express himself grammatically and melodiously has towards being a great poet. The langu age is, indeed, more difficult of acquirement in the one case than in the other, and possesses more power of delighting the sense, while it speaks to the intell ect; but it is, nevertheless, nothing more than language, and all those excellen ces which are peculiar to the painter as such, are merely what rhythm, melody, p recision, and force are in the words of the orator and the poet, necessary to th eir greatness, but not the tests of their greatness. It is not by the mode of re presenting and saying, but by what is represented and said, that the respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be finally determined.So that, if I say that the greatest picture is that which conveys to the min d of the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a definitio n which will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art is capab le of conveying. If I were to say, on the contrary, that the best picture was th at which most closely imitated nature, I should assume that art could only pleas e by imitating nature; and I should cast out of the pale of criticism those part s of works of art which are not imitative, that is to say, intrinsic beauties of color and form, and those works of art wholly, which, like the Arabesques of Ra ffaelle in the Loggias, are not imitative at all. Now, I want a definition of ar t wide enough to include all its varieties of aim. I do not say, therefore, that the art is greatest which gives most pleasure, because perhaps there is some ar t whose end is to teach, and not to please. I do not say that the art is greates t which teaches us most, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to pleas e, and not to teach. I do not say that the art is greatest which imitates best, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to create and not to imitate. But I say that the art is greatest which conveys to the mind of the spectator, by a ny means whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest ideas; and I call an id ea great in proportion as it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it mere fully occupies, and in occupying, exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is received.If this, then, be the definition of great art, that of a great artist natura lly follows. He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works , the greatest number of the greatest ideas.小小偉人奧利弗·哥爾德斯密斯奧利弗·哥爾德斯密斯（1730—1774），英國劇作家、詩人、散文家。主要作品有小說《威克菲爾德牧師》，喜劇《曲身求愛》，詩歌《荒村》等。其散文風格平易近人，風趣幽默，本篇文章正體現了這種風格。在翻閱本地報紙的時候，我計算了一下，在不到半年的時間裡，這裡至少出了25名偉人，17名非常偉大的人，9名非常傑出的人。報上說，這些人都會受到後人的敬仰；他們顯赫的名字將為世世代代所驚嘆。讓我想想——如果半年出46名偉人，那一年下來就有92名。我不知道後來的人怎麼可能記住這麼多的偉人，也不知道將來人們除了背誦偉人名冊之外，還有沒有其他的事情要操心。公司的總裁開始演講了，他馬上被當成偉人記錄下來；平庸的學者壓縮他的著作出對開本了，很快也成為偉人；詩人用押韻的形式把陳舊的感傷串連起來，一時間也成為偉人。無論受到仰慕的對象多麼渺小，身後總會有一群更加渺小的仰慕者跟隨。隨行的人們一聲歡呼，他便大步走向偉大，得意洋洋地回頭看看那群追隨者，一路領略各式各樣古怪、離奇、荒誕和自命不凡的渺小者。昨天，有位先生請我吃飯，他保證請我吃一塊鹿的腰胴肉、一隻甲魚，並且晉見—位偉人。我如約而至。鹿肉味道不錯，甲魚也很好，但是，那個偉人卻讓人難以忍受。我剛一開口說話，立刻就遭到他的厲聲駁斥。為了挽回些面子，我試圖接二連三地發起進攻，卻又被稀里糊塗地擊退。我決定再次從戰壕發起衝鋒，把談論的焦點轉到中國政府上來。即使在這個問題上，他還是一如既往地斷言、斥責、反駁。天啊，我想，這個人竟然裝作比我還了解中國！我朝四下里望望，想看看有誰站在我這一邊，但是，每隻眼睛都敬慕地凝視著這位偉人。因此，我想自己還是安安靜靜地坐著，在其後的談話里當個好好先生才是上策。一個人一旦擁有了一批仰慕者，他就會做出自認為合理其實非常荒唐的事；別人還以為他的言行都是感情的升華或者是大智若愚。假如他違背了常識，就算把茶壺當成煙盒，也會有人辯解說，那是因為他在專心致志地思考大事：要是他們的言談舉止跟常人無異，那他們就跟常人一樣算不上偉人了。偉大這個概念涵蓋了某種奇特的東西，因為對於跟我們非常相似的事物，我們很少會感到驚訝。韃靼人立喇嘛，最先考慮的是把他放在寺廟裡的陰暗角落，讓他若隱若現地坐在那裡，調整手、嘴唇和眼睛的活動；但最重要的是，他必須做到莊嚴和肅靜。然而這只是把他奉為神明的序曲：一批使者被派到民間去，稱讚他是非常虔誠、莊嚴、熱愛混沌未開的眾生；人們聽信了使者的話，就把喇嘛當作偶像頂禮膜拜；他一動不動地接受人們的稱頌，於是成為神，從此由下面的僧人用那不朽的勺子餵養。這個國家也可以使用相同的辦法製造偉人。偶像只需把自己藏起來，然後派出手下的小使者為他高唱讚歌，不管是政治家還是作家，都會立即被列入偉人名單；如果時興讚美，如果他對公眾謹小慎微地掩蓋了自身的渺小，他會一直受到讚美。我遊歷過許多國家，也去過無數的城市，但沒有誕生過十一二位這種小偉人的城市，我還從來沒有見識過。他們都認為自己是世界聞名的，並且互相恭維對方的偉大。如果有兩個這樣的人相互客套、相互吹捧的時候，是非常有趣的。我曾見到過這樣一件事：一位德國醫生把一位修道士大肆讚揚了一番，在場的人們都把他當作了世上最有智慧的人；然後，修道士又反過來把醫生恭維了一番，跟他平分了這份美譽。於是，這兩人在眾人的掌聲中闊步離去。過分的讚美不僅僅陪伴著我們偉人的生前，甚至也會不多不少地伴隨他進入墳墓。經常會有下面事情發生：他的一個小小的崇拜者因為他這個大人物而取得成功，於是把他的生平和著作編成年表。把這稱之為爐火邊和安樂椅之間的人生革命，可能是恰當的。我們從這份年表中可以知道，這位偉人是哪年出生的，早年什麼時候就表現出了不同尋常的天分和勤奮的跡象，以及他的伯母和母親所收集的他小時候說過的一些妙語。第二本書會介紹他上大學時的情況，書中告訴我們，他在學業上取得了非常驚人進步，補襪子的技術非常高超，而且有用紙包書保護封面的新發明。緊接著，他又在文學界嶄露頭角，出版了對開本的書。現在，偉人成熟了，他的作品被所有喜歡收藏珍本的人爭相購買，各種學術團體競相邀請他參加；他跟某位拉丁名字很長的外國人辯論並戰勝對手，得到幾位嚴肅的大作家的讚揚；他特別喜歡吃豬肉蘸雞蛋沙司，他成為一家文學俱樂部的主席並在榮譽到達巔峰時去世。他們是多麼幸福啊，因為某個小小的忠實隨從，不僅不會拋棄他們，而且準備與每個反對者辯論，當著反對者的面歌頌他們；同時準備在他們生前渲染他們的驕傲，在他們死後美化他們的品行。至於你跟我，朋友，因為沒有謙恭的追隨者相伴，我們現在不是偉人，將來也不可能成為偉人，而且也不在乎自己是否是個偉人，但是，我們至少可以爭取做一個擁有平常心的老實人。A Little Great ManOliver GoldsmithIn reading the newspapers here, I have reckoned up not less than twenty fiv e great men, seventeen very great men, and nine very extraordinary men in less t han the compass of half a year. These, say the gazettes, are the men that poster ity are to gaze at with admiration; these the names that fame will be employed i n holding up for the astonishment of succeeding ages. Let me see — forty six g reat men in half a year, amounts to just ninety two in a year. — I wonder how posterity will be able to remember them all, or whether the people, in future ti mes, will have any other business to mind, but that of getting the catalogue by heart.Does the mayor of a corporation make a speech? He is instantly set down for a great man. Does a pedant digest his common place book into a folio? he quickly becomes great: Does a poet siring up trite sentiments in rhyme? he also becomes the great man of the hour. How diminutive soever the object of adminition， eac h is followed by a erowd of still more diminutive adminers. The shout begins in his train, onward he marches towards immortality, looks back at the pursuing cro wd with self satisfaction; catching all the oddities, the whimsies, the absurdi ties, and the littlenesses of conscious greatness, by the way.I was yesterday invited by a gentleman to dinner,who promised that our ente rtainment should consist of an haunch of venison, a turtle, and a great man. I c ame, according to appointment. The venison was fine, the turtle good, but the gr eat man insupportable. The moment I ventured to speak, I was at once contradicte d with a snap. I attempted, by a second and a third assault, to retrieve my lost reputation, but was still beat back with confusion. I was resolved to attack hi m once more from entrenchment, and turned the conversation upon the government o f China: but even here he asserted, snapped, and contradicted as before. Heavens , thought I, this man pretends to know China even better than myself! I looked r ound to see who was on my side, but every eye was fixed in admiration on the gre at man; I therefore, at last thought proper to sit silent, and act the pretty ge ntleman during the ensuing conversation.When a man has once secured a circle of admirers, he may be as ridiculous he re as he thinks proper; and it all passes for elevation of sentiment, or learned absence. If he transgresses the common forms of breeding, mistakes even a teapo t for a tobacco box, it is said, that his thoughts are fixed on more important objects：to speak and act like the rest of mankind is to be no greater than they . There is something of oddity in the very idea of greatness; for we are seldom astonished at a thing very much resembling ourselves.When the Tartars make a Lama, their first care is to place him in a dark cor ner of the temple; here he is to sit half concealed from view, to regulate the m otion of his hands, lips, and eyes; but, above ail, he is enjoined gravity and s ilence. This, however, is but the prelude to his apotheosis: a set of emissaries are dispatched among the people to cry up his piety, gravity, and love of raw f lesh; the people take them at their word, approach the Lama, now become an idol, with the most humble prostration: he receives their addresses without motion, c ommences a god, and is ever after fed by his priests with the spoon of immortali ty. The same receipt in this country serves to make a great man. The idol only k eeps close, sends out his little emissaries to be hearty in his praise; and stra ight, whether statesman or author, he is set down in the list of fame, continuin g to be praised while it is fashionable to praise, or while he prudently keeps h is minuteness, concealed from the public.I have visited many countries, and have been in cities without number, yet n ever did I enter a town which could not produce ten or twelve of those little gr eat men; all fancying themselves known to the rest of the world, and complimenti ng each other upon their extensive reputation. It is amusing enough when two of those domestic prodigies of learning mount the stage of ceremony, and give and t ake praise from each other. I have been present when a German doctor, for having pronounced a panegyric upon a certain monk, was thought the most ingenious man in the world; till the monk soon after divided this reputation by returning the compliment; by which means they both marched off with universal applause.The same degree of underserved adulation that attends our great man while li ving, often also follows him to tomb. It frequently happens that one of his litt le admirers sits down big with the important subject, and is delivered of the hi story of his life and writings. This may properly be called the revolutions of a life between the fireside and the easy chair. In this we learn, the year in wh ich he was born, at what an early age he gave symptoms of uncommon genius and ap plication, together with some of his smart sayings, collected by his aunt and mo ther, while yet but a boy. The next book introduces him to the University, where we are informed of his amazing progress in learning, his excellent skill in dar ning stockings, and his new invention for papering books to save the covers. He next makes his appearance in the republic of letters, and publishes his folio1. Now the colossus is reared, his works are eagerly bought up by all the purchaser s of scarce books. The learned societies invite him to become a member; he dispu tes against some foreigner with a long Latin name, conquers in the controversy, is complimented by several authors of gravity and importance, is excessively fon d of egg sauce with his pig, becomes president of a literary club, and dies in the meridian of his glory. Happy they, who thus have some little faithful attend ant, who never forsakes them, but prepares to wrangle and to praise against ever y opposer; at once ready to increase their pride while living, and their charact er when dead. For you and I, my friend, who have no humble admirer thus to atten d us, we, who neither are, nor ever will be great men, and who do not much care whether we are great men or no, at least let us strive to be honest men, and to have common sense.愛之絮語佚名設想男人是從火星上來的，女人是從金星上來的。很久以前的一天，火星人用望遠鏡張望遠方時，發現了金星人，這匆匆一瞥把火星人心中沉睡的感情喚醒了。他們對這種感情從未知曉。墜入愛河的火星人很快發明了太空旅行，飛往金星。金星上的女人們張開雙臂迎接他們的到來。火星男人與金星女人之間的愛情真是奇妙。他們愉快地共同生活，一起工作，同甘共苦，他們都忘了彼此是來自不同的星球，忘了本應具有的差異。一天早晨，火星人和金星人完全忘卻了彼此的不同。也就是從那天起，衝突開始在男人與女人之間發生。女人抱怨男人最多的地方是男人不會傾聽。當女人說話時，男人不是完全不理睬，就是稍聽片刻，掂量一下困擾女人的問題，然後自傲地拋給女人一個解決的辦法以安慰她就算完事。無論女人抱怨了多少次，說他沒有傾聽，他就是不懂，依然故伎重演。女人需要同情，可男人以為她需要的是解決辦法。男人最常抱怨女人總試圖改造自己。女人愛上男人時，便覺得幫助他成長是自己的責任，並儘力想幫助男人改進做事的方式。女人成立了家庭促進會，而男人就是首要目標。無論男人怎樣拒絕她的幫助，女人都一再堅持，伺機幫助他或是告訴他該做什麼。女人認為自己是在調教男人，而男人卻覺得自己被控制了。男人崇尚權力、個人能力和成功。他們本是以取得成功的能力作為給自己的定義。對他們而言，實現目標舉足輕重，因為這能證明他們自身的能力，會讓他們有良好的感覺。而男人要想自我感覺不錯，就必須獨立自主地取得種種成功。在男人看來，不請自來的建議就是認為他們不知道該做什麼，不能憑獨自的力量獲取勝利。他們對此很惱火，因為個人能力對於他們非常重要。然而，如果男人確實需要幫助，取得幫助也是明智的舉措。在這種情況下，他會和一位自己敬重的人談論自己的困難。男人談論困難就是請求他人提供意見。被請求的人因此會頗感榮幸，並順其自然地抒發感想，聽對方訴說，然後提供寶貴的建議。男人的這種習慣在一定程度上導致了他們在傾聽女人談論自己的情感和困惑時，本能地提供解決方案.女人卻對這些不重視。她們是在感情和與人相處的好壞以及交流中確定自我的感覺。女人在訴說感情和彼此聯繫中獲得滿足。交流對於她們至關重要，分擔私人感情比達到目的重要得多，讓她們獲得滿足感的巨大源泉之一就是交談與聯繫。男人看重的是目的，女人看重的是關係。她們更在意對善意、友愛和關懷的表達。女人具有敏銳的直覺，能處處為他人的需求和情感著想是她們引以為豪的事。不經邀請而主動向同伴提供幫助，被她們看做是偉大的愛的展示。女人不洞悉男人的天性，就很容易在不知不覺中傷害了摯愛的男人。愛情神奇而微妙，只有大家都記住男女之間的差異，愛情才會永恆。Whispering LoveAnonymousImagine that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. One day, long ago, the Martians, looking through their telescopes, discovered the Venusians. Just g limpsing the Venusians awakened feelings they had never known. They fell in love and quickly invented space travel and flew to Venus. The Venusians welcomed the Martians with open arms. The love between the Venusians and Martians was magical. They delighted in being together, doing things together and sharing together. Both the Martians and Venusians forgot that they were from different planets, a nd were supposed to be different. And one morning, everything they had learned a bout their differences was erased from their memory. And since that day, men and women have been in conflict.The most frequently expressed complaint women have about men is that men don "t listen. Either a man completely ignores her when she speaks, or he listens fo r a few beats, assesses what"s bothering her, and then he proudly puts on his Mr . Fix it hat, and offers her a solution to make her feel better. No matter how many times she tells him that he"s not listening, he doesn"t get it, and he keep s doing the same thing. She wants empathy, he thinks she wants solutions.The most frequently expressed complaint men have about women is that women a re always trying to change them. When a woman loves a man, she feels responsible to assist him in growing and tries to help him improve the way he does things. She forms the Home Improvement Committee, and he becomes her primary focus. No m atter how much he resists her help, she persists, waiting for an opportunity to help him or to tell him what to do. She thinks she"s nurturing him, while he fee ls he"s being controlled. Martians value power, competency, efficiency, and achi evement. Their sense of self is defined through their ability to achieve results. Achieving goals is very important to a Martian, because it"s the way for him to prove his competence and thus feel good about himself. And for him to feel goo d about himself, he must achieve these goals alone, by himself. To offer a man u nsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn"t know what to do or that he can"t do it on his own.Men are very touchy about this, because the issue of competence is so very i mportant to them. However, if he truly does need help, then it"s a sign of wisdo m to get it. In this case, he"ll find someone he respects and then talk about hi s problem. Talking about a problem on Mars is an invitation for advice. Another Martian feels honored by the opportunity. Automatically, he puts on his Mr. Fix it hat, listens for a few beats, and then offers some jewels of advice. This M artian custom is one of the reasons men instinctively offer solutions when a wom an talks about her feelings or about her problems.Venusians have different values. Their sense of self is defined through thei r feelings and the quality of their relationships and their communication. They experience fulfillment through sharing and relating. Communication is of primary importance. To share their personal feelings is much more important than achiev ing goals or success. Talking and relating to one another is a source of tremend ous fulfillment. Instead of being goal oriented, women are relationship orient ed. They are more concerned with expressing their goodness, their love, their ca ring. Venusians are very intuitive. They pride themselves on being considerate o f the needs and feelings of others. A sign of great love is to offer help and as sistance to another Venusian without even being asked. Without this insight into the nature of men, it"s very easy for a woman to unknowingly and unintentionally hurt and offend the man she loves most.Love is magical, and it can last if we remember our differences.愛是艱難的勒內·馬利亞·里爾克勒內·馬利亞·里爾克（1875—1926），奧地利詩人。大學攻讀哲學、藝術與文學史。里爾克的詩歌儘管充滿孤獨痛苦情緒和悲觀虛無思想，但藝術造詣很高。本篇節選自他的書信集《給一位青年詩人的十封信》。愛，很好。但愛是艱難的，因為我們去愛別人：這也許是神給予我們的最艱難、最重大的任務，是最後的考驗與測試，是最崇高的工作，別的工作都不過是為此而做的準備。所以那些一切都還剛剛開始的青年們還不能去愛，他們必須要學習。必須用他們整個的生命、用一切的力量，用集聚了他們寂寞、痛苦和榮譽感的心去學習愛。在學習時期這個長久而專註的過程中，愛就會永遠地銘刻心扉——深深的寂寞中孤獨地等待，是為了所愛的人。愛的要義並不是什麼傾心、獻身、或二人的結合（那會是怎樣的一種結合呢？是一種糊塗的、不負責任的、輕率的結合）。它對於個人是一種崇高的動力，是去成熟並實現自身的圓滿，去完成一個世界，是為了另一個人而完成一個自己的世界，這是一個艱巨的、不可妥協的目標，用堅定的信念，向遠方召喚。青年們應把愛當作他們的課業、他們的工作的意義，並在其中（「晝夜不停地探索、錘鍊」）去使用那些給與他們的愛。至於傾心、獻身，以及結合，還不是他們所能做的（他們還需長時間地剋制、積累），那是最後的終點，也許是我們現在還幾乎不能達到的境界。Love is DifficultRainer Maria RilkeIt is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to l ove another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been e ntrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginner s in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, an xious, upward beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning time is alw ays a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life, is solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at firs t mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent, it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himsel f, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him t o vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves (「to hearken and to hammer day and night」), may young people use the love that is gi ven to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for the m (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.喬治·戈登·拜倫勛爵致特蕾莎·古奇奧尼伯爵夫人喬治·戈登·拜倫喬治·戈登·拜倫（1788—1824），英國浪漫主義詩人，出身貴族，10歲時繼承了叔祖男爵爵位和祖傳領地。曾入劍橋大學學習，深受啟蒙思想影響。他的詩作表現了對上流社會醜惡現象的蔑視。我最親愛的特蕾莎：我在你的花園裡把這本書看完了。我的心上人，你當時不在這裡，不然我也不可能把它看完。這是你最喜歡的書，作者是我的一個朋友。你不懂這些英文，別人也不懂，這就是為什麼我沒有用義大利文寫信。但你會認出熱切地愛著你的人的筆跡，也會猜出在看你的書時，我只能想到愛。我現在和今後的生命都包含在這個字里。這個字在世界各國的語言中都是美麗的，而在你的語言中最美麗——我的愛——我感到我就在這兒，恐怕今後也會在這裡——至於為什麼，那要由你來決定；你的雙手掌握了我的命運；而你，芳齡17的女子，出修道院只有兩年。我倒真想如果你留在那兒反而好了——或至少相逢在你沒有嫁人之時。但一切都已為時過晚。我愛你，你也愛我——至少你是這樣說的，你Lord George Gord on Byron to Countess Teresa GuiccioliGeorge Gordon ByronBolognaAug. 25th, 1819My Dearest Teresa,I have read this book in your garden: My love, you were absent, or else I co uld not have read it. It is a favorite book of yours, and the writer was a frien d of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not unde rstand them, which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you wi ll recognize the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will div ine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love. In that word , beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours — Amor Mio — is comprised m y existence here and hereafter. I feel I exist here, and I fear that I shall exi st here after — to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, seventeen years of age, and two out of a convent. I wish that you had stayed there, with all my heart — or at least that I had never met you in your married state.But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me — at least you say so , and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot ease to love you.Think of me sometimes when the Alps and the ocean divide us — but they neve r will, unless you wish it.Byron貝婷·布倫塔諾致歌德貝婷·布倫塔諾貝婷·布倫塔諾（1785—1859），德國女作家，本名伊麗莎白·布倫塔諾，常與貝多芬 和歌德通信。1835年，其《歌德與一個孩子的通信》一書發表。她是當時德國革命文藝運動 「年輕的德國」的熱情支持者。親愛的歌德：你了解我的心；你明白我心裡只有嚮往、思念、預感和渴望；你生活在精神的世界裡，它們給你神聖的智慧。你一定要滋養給我的心智。我以前不曾懂得向你索求，你都已經給了我。我的才智很淺薄，但我的愛情卻很深厚；你一定要使它們得到平衡。愛情往前發展，理智卻不曾跟隨，這樣的愛不能平靜。你明白我有多愛你；你友好、溫柔、痴情。請告訴我，我的心在何時失去了平衡。我會明白你無聲的暗示。你落在我身上的注視、你印在我唇上的熱吻，都向我說明了這一切。對於我這樣的人來說，這令人高興的眼神和熱吻使我懂得了更多。我相隔很遠，我所給你的注視和熱吻，對我來說已逐漸陌生。我一定要回憶在你懷抱里的溫柔時光。於是我開始哭泣，但不知什麼時候眼淚已流干。是的，在深深的靜謐之中，他對我一往情深（我就是這樣想的）。難道我就不應該懷著永不動搖的深情，和他遙通心聲嗎？啊，想一想我的心要對你說些什麼吧！我要對你沒完沒了地耳鬢廝磨。我希望此生惟一的幸福就是你對我的情意連綿不絕。啊，親愛的朋友，我只需要你的暗示，說你的心裡只有我。愛你至永遠的貝婷1808年Bettina Brentano to GoetheBettina Brentano1808Dear Goethe,You know my heart; you know that all there is desire, thought, boding and lo nging; you live among spirits, and they give you divine wisdom. You must nourish me; you give all that in advance which I do not understand to ask for. My mind has a small embrace, my love a large one; you must bring them to a balance. Love cannot be quiet till the mind matches its growth; you are matched to my love; y ou are friendly, kind, and indulgent; let me know when my heart is off the balan ce. I understand your silent signs.A look from your eyes into mine, a kiss from you upon my lips, instructs me in all, what might seem delightful to learn, to one who, like me, had experience from those. I am far from you; mine are become strange to me. I must ever retur n in thought to that hour when you hold me in the soft fold of your arm. Then I begin to weep, but the tears dry again unawares. Yes, he reaches with his love ( thus I think) over to me in this concealed stillness; and should not I, with my eternal undisturbed longing, reach to him in the distance? Ah, conceive what my heart has to say to you; it overflows with soft sighs all whisper to you. Be my only happiness on earth your friendly will to me. O, dear friend, give me but a sign that you are conscious of me.Yours forever,Bettina被愛的人佚名如今，「被愛」的人有各種各樣的形象。最容易刺激戀情發生的人往往是異國他鄉的人。一個人年老力衰的老爺爺，很可能依然深愛著二十年前的某個午後在街上碰到的一個陌生女孩。一個傳教士可能愛上一個墮落的女子。被愛的那個人或許會心懷不忠、油頭粉面並且沾染惡習。對這些缺點，愛他的人也會和其他人一樣明白，但這些絲毫也不會影響愛情之火的燃燒。一個最普通的人，也會成為美如沼澤的毒百合的熾烈愛慕的對象。一個好人，很可能激起凶暴又品質惡劣的人的愛戀；一個胡言亂語的瘋子，很可能讓某人的靈魂產生一種溫柔而質樸的田園情調。所以，任何愛情的價值或品質，都是由施愛者本人所決定的。正是基於這個原因，大多數人寧願選擇「愛人」而不是選擇「被愛」。幾乎每個人都想成為一個施愛者。大概來說，有一點奇怪的是，大多數人難以承受被愛的狀態。被愛者有很明確的理由對施愛者既怕又恨，因為施愛者總是想方設法地要把被愛者看得清清楚楚。施愛者總渴望與被愛者儘可能有一些關係，儘管這樣做只會給他自己帶來痛苦。The BelovedAnonymousNow, the beloved can also be of any deion. The mostoutlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great grandfather and stil l love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two de cades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous , greasy headed and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as cl early as anyone else — but that does not affect the evolution of his love one w hit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravaga nt, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimu lus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about i n the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almos teveryone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hat es the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to s trip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.拿破崙·波拿巴致瑪麗·約瑟芬拿破崙·波拿巴拿破崙·波拿巴（1769—1821），法國政治家，軍事家,法蘭西第一帝國和百日王朝的皇帝，曾率軍征服了幾乎整個歐洲。親愛的瑪麗：我收到你的信了，我愛慕的人兒。你的信使我充滿歡樂……自離開你以來，我一直愁眉不展、鬱鬱寡歡。我惟一的幸福就是伴隨著你。我不停地回想著你的吻、你的淚以及那甜蜜的嫉妒。我迷人的約瑟芬的魅力如同一團熾熱的火那樣在我的心裡燃燒著。我何時才能在你身邊度過每一分、每一刻，除了愛你以外，什麼也不做；除了愛你、向你傾訴我對你的愛並向你證明我愛你時的那種愉快，我什麼都不想。我不能相信不久之前愛過你，從那以後我感到自己對你的愛增加了一千倍。自從我們相識以後，我一天比一天更愛慕你。這恰恰證明了拉·布魯耶爾說的「愛總是突如其來」多麼地不合實際啊。啊，但願我能看到你有一點點的美中不足，但願你能少幾分優雅、少幾分姣好、再少幾分嫵媚吧。但是堅決不要嫉妒，堅決不要淚水。你的淚水可以使我神魂顛倒——它們使我血液沸騰、燃燒。請相信我，我每時每刻都在思念著你，因為你，這思念綿綿不絕，我所有的意願都順從你。你要好好休息，願你早日康復。請回到我身邊吧，不管怎麼說，在我們謝世之前，我們應當可以這麼說：「我們曾擁有過那麼多幸福的日子啊!」給你千百萬個甜蜜的吻，一併吻你的愛犬。Napoleon Bonaparte to Marie JosephineNapoleon BonaparteDear Marie,I have your letter, my adorable love. It has filled my heart with joy… since I left you I have been sad all the time.My only happiness is near you. I go over endlessly in my thought your kisses, your tears, your delicious jealousy. The charm of my wonderful Josephine kindl es a living, blazing fire in my heart and senses. When shall I be able to pass e very minute near you, with nothing to do but to love you and nothing to think of but the pleasure of telling you of it and giving you proof of it? I loved you s ome time ago; since then I feel that I love you a thousand times better. Ever si nce I have known you I adore you more every day. That proves how wrong is that s aying of La Bruyere 「Love comes all of a sudden.」 Ah, let me see some of your f aults; be less beautiful, less graceful, less tender, less good. But never be je alous and never shed tears. Your tears send me out of my mind they set my very blood on fire. Believe me that it is utterly impossible for me to have a single thought that is not yours, a single fancy that is not Submissive to your will. Rest well. Restore your health. Come back to me and then at any rate before we die we ought to be able to say: 「We were happy for so very many days!」 Millions o f kisses even to your dog.論愛情弗朗西斯·培根弗朗西斯·培根 (1561—1626)，英國著名的哲學家和科學家。他在文藝復興時期的巨人中被尊稱為哲學史和科學史上劃時代的人物。培根是近代哲學史上首先提出經驗論原則的哲學家，對近代科學的建立起了積極的推動作用，對人類哲學史、科學史都作出了重大的歷史貢獻。為此，羅素尊稱培根為「給科學研究程序進行邏輯組織化的先驅」。舞台上的愛情往往要比生活中的愛情美好得多。因為在舞台上，愛情只是喜劇和悲劇的素材，但在人生中，愛情卻常常招來不幸。它有時像那引誘人的魔女，有時又像那復仇的女神。你應該看到，一切真正偉大的人物（無論是古代、現代，只要是其英名能永銘於人類記憶中的），沒有一個人是因愛情而發狂的；完成偉大事業的人中只有羅馬的安東尼和克勞底亞是例外。雖然前者本性就荒淫好色，但後者卻是足智多謀的人。這說明愛情不僅會佔領開明寬廣的胸懷，也能闖入壁壘森嚴的心靈——只要你抵禦不嚴的話。埃辟克拉斯曾說過一句傻話：「人生不過是一場戲。」似乎人類不應去努力追求高尚的事業，而只應像玩偶般地逢場作戲。雖然做愛情的奴隸與那些只顧吃喝的禽獸是不同的，但畢竟也只是做皮肉色相的奴隸，而上帝賜人以眼睛是有更高尚的用途的。過度地追求愛情，必然會損害人本身的價值。例如，只有在愛情中，那種浮誇獻媚的詞令才大行其道。而在其他場合，這樣的詞令只能招人恥笑。古人有一句名言： 「 人們總是把最大的奉承留給自己。」——只有對情人的奉承要算例外。因為甚至那些最驕傲的人，也甘願在情人面前自輕自賤。所以古人說得好：「就是神在愛情中也難保持聰明。」情人的這種弱點不僅在外人眼中是明顯的，就是在被追求者的眼中也會很明顯——除非她（他）也在追求他（她）。所以，愛情的代價就是如此，如果得不到回愛，就會得到深藏心底的輕蔑，這是永恆的真理。由此可見，人們應當對這種感情十分警惕。因為它不但會使人喪失其他，而且可以使人迷失自己。甚至更重大的損失，古代詩人早告訴我們，那些海倫的追求者，放棄了財富和智慧。不知是什麼原因，許多軍人會更容易墮入情網，也許這正如他們嗜愛飲酒一樣，危險的生活更需要歡樂的補償。人們心中可能普遍都有一種博愛的傾向，若不是集中於某個專一的對象身上，就必將施之於更廣泛的大眾，他將成為仁善的人，像有的僧侶那樣。夫妻的愛，可以使人類繁衍；朋友的愛，可以給人以幫助。但那使人荒淫縱慾的愛，只會使人墮落毀滅！Of LoveFransics BaconThe stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury.You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent) there is not one, that hath been tra nsported to the mad degree of love: which shows that great spirits, and great bu siness, do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Ant onius, the half partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man, and inordinate; b ut the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely ) that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a hear t well fortified, if watch be not well kept.It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; a s if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet of the eye; which was given him for higher pur poses.It is a strange thing, to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature, and value of things, by this; that the speaking in a perpetual hype rbole, is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said, that the arch flatterer, with whom all the pet ty flatterers have intelligence, is a man"s self; certainly the lover is more. F or there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover d oth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said. That it is impossible t o love, and to be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and no t to the party loved; but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproqu e. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque , or with an inward and secret contempt.By how much the more, men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself! As for the other losses, the poet"s relation doth well figure them: that he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas. For whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection, quitteth both ric hes and wisdom.I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think, it is but as the y are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.There is in man"s nature, a secret inclination and motion, towards love of o thers, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread it self towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen so metime in friars.Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love co rrupteth, and embaseth it.維克多·雨果致阿黛勒·福契維克多·雨果維克多·雨果（1802—1885），法國偉大的浪漫主義作家，13歲即開始寫作。他的著作影響深遠，深刻反映了19世紀法國社會生活和政治鬥爭中的重大事件。主要作品有《巴黎聖母院》、《悲慘世界》、《笑面人》、《九三年》等。我親愛的阿黛勒：你的幾句話就改變了我的心情。是的，你可以隨意處置我。明天，如果你那溫柔的聲音和可愛的嘴唇的溫馨都不能使我復甦，我就真的一命嗚呼了。今夜，我躺下時的心情與昨夜是多麼不同啊！昨天，阿黛勒，因為我相信你不愛我了，死神降臨是我求之不得的。但我還是對自己說，就算她真的不愛我了，就算我已經沒有任何地方值得她去愛了，就算沒有了她的愛，餘生將索然無味，難道因此就要死去嗎？我活著難道是為了自己的幸福嗎？不！不論她愛不愛我，我的此生都是獻給她的。我有什麼權利敢要求她的愛？難道我能勝過天使或神靈？我愛她，不錯，即使沒有回報；我也甘願為她犧牲一切，甚至放棄被她愛的希望。為了她的一個微笑，為了她的一次顧盼，我願意為她做任何事。我有別的選擇嗎？我活著不就是為了愛她嗎？就算她對我漠不關心，甚至恨我，那只是我的不幸，如此而已。只要她幸福，又有什麼關係呢?是的，如果她不能愛我，我能責備的只有我自己。我的天職就是緊緊跟隨她，用我的生命去保護她；甘心做為她做抵禦一切危險的屏障；把頭顱獻給她做墊腳石，我要她永遠無憂無慮，不祈求獎勵，不希望報償。如果她能間或發發善心，對她的奴隸投來一絲憐憫的目光，在需要時記得他，那就是他莫大的幸福！唉！只要她肯讓我為滿足她的小小願望甚至任性而付出生命；只要她允許我滿懷崇敬地親吻她可愛的足跡；只要她同意在生活歷程的艱難時刻依靠我，我便得到了祈望的惟一幸福，因為我樂於為她犧牲一切。她受過我的恩惠嗎？我愛她是她的過失嗎？難道因為我愛她，她就非愛我不成？不，她可以玩弄我的感情，以怨報德，對我的崇拜不屑一顧。我也根本無權對我的天使有絲毫抱怨。儘管她趾高氣揚，我也不應當停止向她傾訴衷腸。即使我每天都為她做出犧牲，臨終時我也無法對她償以還不清的欠債，因為有了她我才活了下來。我心愛的阿黛勒，這就是我昨夜此刻的心緒，今天還是這樣。不同的是今天的想法摻進了幸福的信念——如此洪福，想到它，我幸福地顫抖，幾乎不敢相信。這麼說，你真是愛我了，阿黛勒？告訴我吧，我能相信這醉人的福音嗎？假如我能一輩子照顧你，又能使你像我一樣幸福，並使自己得到像我愛你般的你的愛，難道你不認為我會高興得發狂嗎？啊，你的信給我的幸福恢復了我的平靜。一千次地謝謝你，阿黛勒，我最心愛的天使，但願我能像匍匐在神像前那樣匍匐在你的腳下。你給了我多麼大的幸福啊！再見，晚安，我將在夢中與你歡聚！好好睡吧，讓你的丈夫接受你答應他的12個吻，還要加上你沒有答應的。永遠忠實於你的維克多·雨果1820年1月Victor Hugo to Adele FoucherVictor HugoJan.1820My beloved Adele,A few words from you have again changed the state of my mind. Yes, you can d o anything with me, and tomorrow, I should be dead indeed if the gentle sound of your voice, the tender pressure of your adored lips, does not suffice to recall the life to my body. With what different feeling to yesterday"s I shall lay mys elf down tonight! Yesterday, Adele, I not longer believe in your love; the hour of death would have been welcome to me.And yet I still said to myself, if it is true that she does not love me, if nothing in me could deserve the blessing of her love, without which there is no longer any charm in life, is that a reason for dying? Do I exist for my own pers onal happiness? No， my whole existence is devoted to her, even in spite of her. And by what right should I have dared to aspire to her love? Am I then, more th an an angel or a deity? I love her, true, even I; I am ready to sacrifice everyt hing gladly for her sake everything, even the hope of being loved by her; there is no devotedness of which I am not capable for her, for one of her smiles, for one of her looks. But could I do otherwise? Is she not the sole aim of my life? That she may show indifference to me, even hate me, will be my misfortune, that is all. What does it matter, so that it does not injure her happiness? Yes, if she cannot love me I ought to blame myself only. My duty is to keep close to her steps, to surround her existence with mine, to serve her as a barrier against all dangers; to offer her my head as a stepping stone, to place myself unceasing ly between her and all sorrows, without claiming reward, without expecting recom pense. Only too happy if she deigns some times to cast a pitying look upon her s lave, and to remember him in the hour of danger! Alas! If she only allow me to g ive my life to anticipate her every desire, all her caprices; if she but permit me to kiss with respect her adored footprints; if she but consent to lean upon me at times amidst the difficulties of life, then I shall have obtained the only happiness to which I have the presumption to aspire. Because I am ready to sacri fice all for her, does she owe me gratitude? Is it her fault that I love her? Mu st she, on that account, believe herself constrained to love me? No! She may spo rt with my devotions, repay my services with hate, and repulse my idolatry with scorn, without my having for a moment the right to complain of that angel; nor o ught I to cease for an instant to lavish upon her all that which she would disda in. And should every one of my days have been marked by some sacrifice for her, I should still, at the day of my death have discharged nothing of the infinite d ebt that my existence owes to her.Such, my beloved Adele, were the thoughts and resolutions of my mind at this time yesterday. Today they are still the same. Only there is mingled with them the certainty of happiness—such great happiness that I cannot think of it witho ut trembling, and scarcely dare to believe in it.Then it is true that you love me, Adele? Tell me, can I trust in this enchan ting idea? Don"t you think that I shall end by becoming insane with joy if ever I can pass the whole of my life at your feet, sure of making you as happy as I s hall be myself, sure of being adored by you as you are adored by me? Oh! Your le tter has restored peace to me with happiness. A thousand thanks, Adele, my well beloved angel. Would that I could prostrate myself before you as before a divini ty. How happy you make me! Adieu, adieu, I shall pass a very happy night dreamin g of you.Sleep well, and allow your husband to take the twelve kisses which you promi sed him besides all those yet unpromises.Yours affectionately,V.H.「我愛你」佚名「 我愛你」總是有許多不同的含義，而這也正好讓我們了解到愛情那種令人費解的本性。第一次永遠是一個驚喜、一次冒犯和一次攻擊性行動，而一旦說過「我愛你」 這句話，它就只能被不斷地重複下去。如果不是這樣的話，那簡直是無法想像的。因為當一個人不再說「我愛你」時，這本身就預示著一場危機的出現（「你為什麼有好幾個月沒有那樣說了？」）。從另一方面來看，「我愛你」也可以是一種威脅（「不要把它強加給我，你會失去我的」），或者是感情上的要挾（「我已經說過了，現在你應該做同樣的表示」），或者是一種警告（「正因為我愛你，所以才甘願忍受這些」），或者用來表達歉意（「我不是有意當著所有人的面那樣說你的 」）。它也能是一種工具——比高嗓門更有效——用來打斷一次無聊或心痛的談話。它也可以是哭泣、請求和口頭屈服（「注意聽我講！」），或者是一個借口（「 正是因為我愛你……」）。它也可以是一種偽裝（「我愛你，」他低語著，並且不安地看著那扇敞開的門）。它也可能是一種攻擊（「你怎麼能這麼對我？」），甚至意味著一種終結（「那就這樣吧。很遺憾，再見」）。如果一個簡單的短語有如此多的含義，那麼使它如此無常多變的一定是人的感情。「I Love You」Anonymous「I love you」 does not always have the same meaning, and this, too, should t ell us something about the elusive nature of love. The first time it is always a surprise, an invasion, an aggressive act, but once said, 「I love you」 can only be repeated. It is unthinkable that it should not be said again, and again, and again. When one has not said it for a while, this may itself precipitate a cris is. (「Now why haven"t you said that in all of these months! 」) On the other hand , 「I love you」 can also serve as a threat (「Don"t push me on this; you might l ose me」), emotional blackmail (「I"ve said it, now you have to respond in kind」) , a warning (「It"s only because I love you that I"m willing to put up with this 」), an apology (「I could not possibly have meant what I, have said to you, to y ou of all people」). It can be an instrument — more effective than the loudest n oise — to interrupt a dull or painful conversation. It can be a cry, a plea, a verbal flag (「Pay attention to me! 」) or it can be an excuse (「It"s only becaus e I love you…」). It can be a disguise (「I love you, 」 he whispered, looking aw kwardly askance at the open door). It can be an attack (「How can you do this to me? 」) or even an end (「So that"s that. With regrets, good bye」). If this sing le phrase has so many meanings, how varied and variable must be the emotion.約翰·濟慈致范妮·布洛恩約翰·濟慈你的時候，我也能感受到你的氣息和一股飄逸的溫情悄然襲來。我能發現我的全部意念、我最不幸的日日夜夜非但不能絲毫削弱我對美人兒的愛，反而使我對這種愛日益痴迷，因此一想到你不在這兒就使我苦不堪言……過去，我從來沒有明白過我對你萌生的愛究竟是怎麼回事，我不相信會有這種愛，很怕去想它，怕它使我燃燒起來。但如果你把全部的愛都給予我，就算會有些火焰，但在歡樂的浸潤中，還是能夠忍受的……除了你怡然自得的眼睛、甜蜜的嘴唇和輕盈的步子，我什麼也不要看。我願能看見你生活在適合你的秉性和愛好的愉快氛圍中，讓我們的愛充滿歡樂，不會產生煩惱和憂慮。永遠愛你的約翰·濟慈1819年7月24日John Keats to Fanny Brawne John KeatsJul. 24th, 1819My Sweet Girl,Your letter gave me more delight than anything in the world but yourself could do; indeed, I am almost astonished that any absent one should have that luxur ious power over my senses which I feel. Even when I am not thinking of you I rec eive your influence and I feel a tenderer nature stealing over me. All my though ts, my unhappiest days and nights, have, I find, not cured me of my love of beau ty, but made it so intense that I am miserable that you are not with me... I never knew before what such a love as you have made me feel was; I did no believe in it; my fancy was afraid of it, lest it should burn me up. But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, "twill not be more than we can bear wh en moistened and bedewed with pleasure…I would never see anything but pleasure in your eyes, love on your lips, and happiness in your steps. I would wish to see you among those amusements suitable to your inclinations and spirits; so that our loves might be a delight in the midst of pleasures agreeable enough, rather than resources from vexations and cares.Yours for ever,John Keats成功是一種選擇佚名我們每天都應該讓自己做好準備，迎接可以預見的挫折和挑戰。如果我們相信生活不可能是完美的，我們就能避免因一時的衝動而放棄追求。但即使你擁有堅強的意志，能夠挺過生活和工作中的困難，有時你也會遭遇逆境，它將會在背後給你狠狠一擊。不管是出現經濟損失，或是失去同輩及親人的尊敬，或是遭受生命重創，這些重大挫折都會使你對自己產生自我懷疑，並且懷疑情況是否能夠好轉。我們每個人都可能遭遇困境，而且它時常發生。有些大災難不是即刻發生就是呆在角落等待時機。忽視逆境其實就是在欺騙自己。但是你必須認識到歷史上有許多事例都講述了克服重重困難之後才獲得成功的人。那些困難之大，足以粉碎他們的意志，讓他們流落塵世。摩西有口吃，但他後來卻成為傳遞上帝福音的使者。阿伯拉罕·林肯戰勝了童年的困難、絕望、喪失兩個兒子的痛苦以及內戰中接踵而來的嘲笑，最終成為美國歷史上無可置疑的最偉大的總統。海倫·凱勒早年雙目失明，又是個啞巴，但是她還是對世界產生了巨大影響，而富蘭克林·羅斯福則患有小兒麻痹症。類似的例子不勝枚舉。這些人不僅大膽地面對困難，而且從中學到了克服困難的寶貴經驗，然後勇往直前。Success Is a ChoiceAnonymousAll of us ought to be able to brace ourselves for the predictable challenges and setbacks that crop up everyday. If we expect that life won"t be perfect, we "ll be able to avoid that impulse to quit. But even if you are strong enough to persist the obstacle course of life and work, sometimes you will encounter an ad verse event that will completely knock you on your back.Whether it"s a financial loss, the loss of respect of your peers or loved on es, or some other traumatic event in your life these major setbacks leave you do ubting yourself and wondering if things can ever change for the better again.Adversity happens to all of ns, and it happens all the time. Some form of ma jor adversity is either going to be there or it"s lying in wait just around the corner. To ignore adversity is to succumb to the ultimate self delusion.But you must recognize that history is full of examples of men and women who achieved greatness despite facing hurdles so steep that easily could have crash ed their spirit and left them lying in the dust. Moses was a stutterer, yet he was called on to be the voice of God. Abraham Lincoln overcomes a difficult child hood, depression, the death of two sons, and constant ridicule during the Civil War to become arguably our greatest president ever. Helen Keller made an impact on the world despite being deaf, dumb, and blind from an early age. Franklin Roo sevelt had polio.There are endless examples. These were people who not only looked adversity in the face but learned valuable lessons about overcoming difficult circumstance s and were able to move ahead.個性的表露阿諾德·本涅特一件認識起來很奇異也很受益的事是，一個人常常不清楚別人對他的印象是什麼。是好呢,是壞呢，還是不好不壞，這些倒是能夠十分準確地猜測出來——有些人甚至沒有必要讓你去猜測，他們差不多就講給你聽了——但是我想要說的不是這個。我想要說的遠不止這個。我想要說的是，一個人頭腦中對自己的印象和他本人在他朋友們頭腦中的印象，往往很不一致。你曾經想到這樣的事嗎?——世上有那麼一個詭異的人，到處跑來跑去，上街訪友，又說又笑，口出怨言，大發議論，他的朋友都對他很熟悉，對他早已知根知底，對他的看法早有定論——但除了偶爾且謹慎的隻言片語外，平時卻很少對你透露。而那個人就是你自己。比如，你走進一家客廳去喝茶，你敢說你便能認得這個人就是你自己嗎?我看不一定。很可能，你也會像客廳里的客人那樣，當你難以忍受其他客人的騷擾時心裡就盤算說：「這是哪個傢伙，真是怪異。但願他少討人嫌。」你的第一個反應就是略帶敵意。甚至就連你突然在一面鏡子前面遇到了你自己，穿的衣服也正是你心裡記得很清楚的那天的服裝，怎麼樣，你還是會因為認出了你是你這件事而感到吃驚。還有當你有時到鏡子前去整理頭髮時，儘管是在最清醒的大清早時刻，你不是也好像瞥見一個完全陌生的人嗎？而且這陌生人還讓你頗為好奇呢。如果說連形式顏色動作這類外觀準確的細節都是這樣，那麼對於像心智和道德這種不易把握的複雜效果又將怎樣呢？有人真心實意地去努力留下一個好印象。但結果怎樣呢，不過是被他的朋友們在內心深處認為他是一個刻意給人留下好印象的人。如果一切只憑著單獨會一次面或見幾次面，——這個人倒很能迫使另一個人接受他本人希望造成的某種印象。但是如果接受印象的人有足夠的時間來自由支配，那麼印象的給予者就乾脆束手靜坐了，因為他的所有招數都絲毫改變不了或影響不了他最終所造成的印象。真正的印象是在結尾，是無意而不是刻意造成的。同時，它也是無意而不是刻意接受的。它的形成要靠雙方，而且是事先就已經確定的，最終的欺騙是不可能的……Expressing One』s IndividualityArnold BennetA most curious and useful thing to realize is that one never knows the impre ssion one is creating on other people. One may often guess pretty accurately whe ther it is good, bad, or indifferent — some people render it unnecessary for one to guess, they practically inform one — but that is not what I mean. I mean much more than that. I mean that one has one"s self no mental picture correspondi ng to the mental picture which one"s personality leaves in the minds of one"s fr iends. Has it ever struck you that there is a mysterious individual going around , walking the streets, calling at houses for tea, chatting, laughing, grumbling, arguing, and that all your friends know him and have long since added him up an d come to a definite conclusion about him — without saying more than a chance, cautious word to you; and that that person is you? Supposing that you came into a drawing room where you were having tea, do you think you would recognize your self as an individuality? I think not. You would be apt to say to yourself as guests do when disturbed in drawing rooms by other guests: 「Who"s this chap? See ms rather queer. I hope he won"t be a bore.」 And your first telling would be sli ghtly hostile. Why, even when you meet yourself in an unsuspected mirror in the very clothes that you have put on that very day and that you know by heart, you are almost always shocked by the realization that you are you. And now and then, when you have gone to the glass to arrange your hair in the full sobriety of ea rly morning, have you not looked on an absolute stranger, and has not that stran ger piqued your curiosity? And if it is thus with precise external details of form, colour, and movement, what may it not be with the vague complex effect of the mental and moral individuality?A man honestly tries to make a good impression. What is the result? The resu lt merely is that his friends, in the privacy of their minds, set him down as a man who tries to make a good impression. If much depends on the result of a sing le interview, or a couple of interviews, a man may conceivably force another to accept an impression of himself which he would like to convey. But if the receiv er of the impression is to have time at his disposal, then the giver of the impr ession may just as well sit down and put his hands in his pockets, for nothing t hat he can do will modify or influence in any way the impression that he willul timately give. The real impress is, in the end, given unconsciously, not conscio usly; and further, it is received unconsciously, not consciously. It depends par tly on both persons. And it is immutably fixed beforehand. There can be no final deception…滾球佚名在我4歲時，我從大西洋城裡一個貨場的貨車上摔了下來，頭先著地，於是我失去了視力。現在我32歲了，我能模糊地記起陽光的燦爛，紅色的鮮艷。能恢復視力當然是件奇妙的事情，但一場災難也可以對人產生奇妙的作用。有一天，我突然想到，如果我沒有成為盲人，我可能不會像現在這樣熱愛生活。現在，我相信生活，但我不能肯定，如果自己的視力正常，會不會像現在這樣深深地相信生活。我並不是說我寧願失去視力，我的意思是由於視力的喪失使我更加珍惜自己其他方面的能力。我相信，生活要求人們不斷地調整自己去適應現實。人越能及時地調整自己，他的個人世界便越有意義。調整是件很困難的事。我一度感到茫然、恐懼，但我是幸運的。我的父母和老師在我身上發現了某種東西——你可以稱它為「活下去的潛力」——雖然我自己並沒有發現。他們激起我與失明搏鬥的勇氣。我不得不學會的最艱難的一課就是相信我自己，這一點是最基本的。如果做不到這點，我可能會精神崩潰，剩下的時光只能坐在前門廊的搖椅中度過。相信自己並不僅僅指支持我獨自走下陌生樓梯的那種自信。那只是自信的一部分。我指的是一些更大的事情：那就是堅信自己雖然有缺陷，卻是一個真正的有進取心的人；堅信在芸芸眾生錯綜複雜的格局當中，一定有一個特殊的位置供我立足。我花了很多年的時間才樹立起這一信念，並把它不斷地強化。這必須從最簡單的事情做起。有一次，一個人送給我一個室內玩的棒球，我想他在嘲笑我，感覺受到了傷害。「我不能玩這個東西。」我說，「你自己拿去吧。」他竭力勸我說：「你可以在地上滾。」他的話深深地印在我的腦海里。「在地上滾!」滾動的球可以使我聽見它朝哪個方向滾動。我馬上聯想到一個我曾認為不可能做到的事情：打棒球。在費城的奧弗布魯克盲人學校，我成功地發明了一種很受歡迎的棒球遊戲，我們稱它為地面球。我給自己的一生樹立了一系列目標，然後一次一個、竭盡全力地去實現它們。我必須知道自己的局限。如果一開始就知道某個目標根本不可能實現卻硬要去做，那不會帶來任何益處，因為它只會帶來失敗的苦果。我有時也會失敗，但一般說來我總會取得進步。A Ball to Roll AroundAnonymousI lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a frei ght yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty two. I can va guely remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be won derful to see again, but a calamity can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn"t been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don"t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his ow nprivate world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was bewildered and afra id. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me — a potenti al to live, you might call it — which I didn"t see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn"t been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rock er on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfa miliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I though t he was mocking me and I was hurt. 「I can"t use this.」 I said. 「Take it with you, 」 he urged me, 「and roll it around. 」 The words stuck in my head. 「Roll it around! 」 By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea ho w to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia" s Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for s omething I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited t he bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I mad e progress.健全的人生佚名從前，有個圓圈丟失了一塊楔子。它想保持完整，所以它到處尋找那塊楔子。但因為它是不完整的，所以它只能慢慢地往前滾。在路上，它對花兒表示羨慕；它與蟲子談天說地；它還欣賞到陽光之美。圓圈找到了許多不同的楔子，但沒有一件適合它。所以，它將它們全都扔在路邊，繼續尋覓。終於有一天，它找到了一個完美的楔子。圓圈是如此高興，因為現在它可以說是完美無缺了。它裝好配件，並開始滾動起來。它已成為一個完美的圓圈，所以它滾動得非常快，以至於沒有時間觀賞花兒，也無暇與蟲子交談。當圓圈意識到因為它滾得如此之快，以至於失去了原有的世界時，它停了下來，將找到的配件扔在路邊，又開始慢慢地往前滾動。我想，這個故事告訴人們，從某種奇怪的意義上來說，當我們失去了一些東西時，反而會更加完整。一個擁有一切的人在某些方面其實是個窮人，因為他永遠也體會不到什麼是渴望、期待及如何用美好夢想滋養自己的靈魂。他也永遠不可能有這樣的體驗——一個愛他的人送給他某種他夢寐以求的或者從未擁有過的東西意味著什麼。人生的完整性在於知道如何面對缺陷，如何勇敢地摒棄不現實的幻想而又不以此為憾。人生的完整性還在於學會勇敢地面對人生悲劇而繼續活下去，能夠在失去某人後依然能表現出完整的個人風範。人生並不是上帝為了譴責我們的缺陷而給我們設下的陷阱。人生也不是一場拼字遊戲的比賽——不管你拼出了多少單詞，一旦出現失誤，你便前功盡棄。人生更像是一個棒球賽季，即使最好的球隊也可能丟掉三分之一的比賽，而最差的球隊也有輝煌的勝利。我們的目標就是多贏球，少輸球。當我們接受「不完整性」是人類本性的一部分時，當我們不斷地進行人生滾動並能欣賞其價值時，我們就會獲得其他人僅能渴望的完整人生。我相信這就是上帝對我們的要求：不求「完美」，也不求 「永不犯錯」，而是追求人生的「完整」。如果我們有足夠的勇敢地去愛，有足夠的堅強去寬容，有足夠的大度地去為別人的快樂而高興，有足夠的睿智去理解充滿於我們身邊的愛，那麼我們就能取得別的生物所不能取得的滿足感。The Wholeness of LifeAnonymousOnce a circle missed a wedge. The circle wanted to be whole, so it went arou nd looking for its missing piece. But because it was incomplete and therefore co uld roll only very slowly, it admired the flowers along the way. It chatted with worms. It enjoyed the sunshine. It found lots of different pieces, but none of them fit. So it left them all by the side of the road and kept on searching. The n one day the circle found a piece that fit perfectly. It was so happy. Now it c ould be whole, with nothing missing. It incorporated the missing piece into itse lf and began to roll. Now that it was a perfect circle, it could roll very fast, too fast to notice flowers or talk to the worms. When it realized how different the world seemed when it rolled so quickly, it stopped, left its found piece by the side of the road and rolled slowly away.The lesson of the story, I suggested, was that in some strange sense we are more whole when we are missing something. The man who has everything is in some ways a poor man. He will never know what it feels like to yearn, to hope, to nou rish his soul with the dream of something better. He will never know the experie nce of having someone who loves him give him something he has always wanted or n ever had.There is a wholeness about the person who has come to terms with his limitat ions, who has been brave enough to let go of his unrealistic dreams and not feel like a failure for doing so. There is a wholeness about the man or woman who ha s learned that he or she is strong enough to go through a tragedy and survive, s he can lose someone and still feel like a complete person.Life is not a trap set for us by Cod so that he can condemn us for failing. Life is not a spelling bee, where no matter how many words you"ve gotten right, you"re disqualified if you make one mistake. Life is more like a baseball season , where even the best team loses one third of its games and even the worst team has its days of brilliance. Our goal is to win more games than we lose. When we accept that imperfection is part of being human, and when we can continue rollin g through life and appreciate it, we will have achieved a wholeness that others can only aspire to. That, I believe, is what God asks of us—not 「Be perfect」, not 「Don"t even make a mistake」, but 「Be whole」.If we are brave enough to love, strong enough to forgive, generous enough to rejoice in another"s happiness, and wise enough to know there is enough love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other living cr eature will ever know.面貌弗朗西斯·帕金森·凱絲這篇文章是女作家凱絲為了在新書廣告上刊登相片而引發的一段感想。文中先由林肯的名言談起容貌對人的影響，進而反觀自己臉上烙印的「時間軌跡」，終而肯定人生的經歷遠比刻意妝點修飾的外表重要。「忠於自身。」——莎士比亞我很喜歡一個故事。那是有關林肯內閣推薦職務的。他的一位顧問極力向他推薦一位候選人，但是林肯拒絕接受這個建議。因此，林肯被要求給出原因來。「我不喜歡那人的面貌長相。」林肯簡明扼要地回答到。「可是那個可憐的人不應對他的長相負責。」推薦人堅持道。「每個人一旦過了40歲就應該對自己的長相負責。」林肯答覆完就轉到其他事情的討論上了。最近在出版商的遊說之下，我拍了一些照片。他提醒我，我已經很久沒給他新照片了，我不能總使用一樣的姿勢呀。我不喜歡拍相的過程，當我看到最近一次痛苦經歷的結果後，就不喜歡這些照片了。我把新照片和25年前的一張照片比較之後，想到我要以現在的面貌面對公眾時，我的女性虛榮心開始遭受劇痛。我的第一個直覺就是「修飾」一下這些照片，雖然我從不修飾自己的臉或頭髮，因為我一直認為女人這麼做，除了騙自己之外誰也騙不了。當我深思過這些照片之後，我明白這其中蘊含著一個更重要的原則。四分之一世紀的生活在女人臉上除了留下了一些皺紋及不受歡迎的皺痕之外，還有更多的東西。在這段漫長的時間裡，她已經飽嘗痛苦與歡樂、開心與傷心以及生生死死。她生存與鬥爭，失敗和成功。她失去又重獲信心。作為結果，她應該比年輕時更英明、高雅、有耐心、有度量。她的幽默感應該成熟起來了，見解也應該更為拓展，同情心應該加深了。而所有的這一切都會表現出來。如果她試圖擦除這些歲月的痕迹，同時也冒了摧毀經驗與性格印痕的危險。我知道自己比25年前更有經驗，也希望我比以前更有個性。所以我按照原樣公布了我的照片。Face and FortuneFrances Parkinson Keyes「To thine own self be true. 」——ShakespeareThere is a story about a proposed appointment in Lincoln"s cabinet that I ha ve always liked very much. One of his advisers urgently recommended a candidate and Lincoln declined to follow the suggestion. So he was asked to give his reaso ns.「I don"t like the man"s face. 」 Lincoln explained briefly.「But the poor man is not responsible for his face. 」 his advocate insisted.「Every man over forty is responsible for his face. 」 Lincoln replied, and tu rned to the discussion of other matters.Recently, at the instigation of my publisher, I had some photographs taken. It was a long time, he reminded me, since I had supplied him with a new one; I c ould not go on using the same pose indefinitely. I do not enjoy the process of b eing photographed, and when I saw the results of this latest ordeal, I enjoyed t hese still less. I compared the new photograph with one that had been taken twenty five years ago, and my feminine vanity suffered an acute pang at the thought of being presented to the public as I am today. My first instinct was to have t he prints 「touched up, 」 though I have never 「touched up」 my own face or my own hair because I have always maintained that women who did this deceived no one e xcept themselves. As I thoughtfully considered the photographs, I knew that a st ill more important principle was involved.A quarter century of living should put a great deal into a woman"s face besi des a few wrinkles and some unwelcome folds around the chin. In that length of t ime she has become intimately acquainted with pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, life and death. She has struggled and survived, failed and succeeded. She has l ost and regained faith. And, as a result, she should be wiser, gentler, more pat ient and more tolerant than she was when she was young. Her sense of humor shoul d have mellowed, her outlook should have widened, her sympathies should have dee pened. And all this should show. If she tries to erase the imprint of age, she r uns the risk of destroying, at the same time, the imprint of experience and char acter.I know I am more experienced than I was a quarter century ago and I hope I h ave more character. I released the pictures as they were.人人想當別人塞繆爾·麥考德·克羅瑟斯塞繆爾·麥考德·克羅瑟斯(1867—1931)，美國優秀散文作家，生於伊利諾州，曾先後就讀於普林斯頓大學、聯合神學院與哈佛大學等學校，以學識淵博與善於講道著稱於世。人生許多微小不快的背後原因，都因為這種人人想當別人的自然慾望，它使社會不能圓滿合理地組織起來，不能讓每個人都各司其職，各就其位。想當別人的慾望常常引導我們去做一些嚴格意義上來說並不屬於自己範圍的事。我們的才幹本領常常超出我們自己行業與職務的狹小範圍。每個人都覺得自己才過其位，大才小用。因而無時無刻不在做著那種神學家們所謂的「額外余功」。一個態度認真的女佣人不會滿足於只干幾件被吩咐的差事。她身上有著剩餘精力沒有用完。她的志向是做一名改革家庭方面的專家。於是她來到那家虛有其名的主人的書桌面前，在那上面進行一番徹底改革。按照她的整潔觀點，所有文件都重新被做了歸置。當那位可憐的主人回來後，發現為他熟悉的雜亂已經變成可惡的整齊時，他簡直成了—個反動分子。一位秉性嚴肅的市街鐵道公司經理絕不會只從運送乘客方面，和使乘客覺得便宜、舒適這一簡單責任中獲得滿足感。他要發揮在一個道德促進會上一位宣講人的職能。於是，當一位可憐的乘客正在皮帶環的下面被弄得搖晃蹣跚站立不穩時，他卻要為這位乘客讀份東西，請求他發揚基督徒的美德，不要推擠。一個人走進理髮店，目的只是刮刮鬍子而已。但卻遇到一位雄心壯志的理髮師。這位志向高超的理髮師絕不滿足於僅對人類的幸福做微小的貢獻。他堅持認為，他這位顧客還需要洗髮、修指、按摩、在滾熱毛巾下發汗，在電風扇下冷卻，等等，並在進行所有這些的同時，他的皮鞋還必須被重新上油擦拭。當你看到有些人在接受種種他們並不需要的服務時所表現的這種忍耐，你不覺得奇怪嗎?其實也不過是為了不傷害情願多干點活的手藝人的感情罷了。你看，卧車中一些乘客站起身來讓人家為他刷衣服時，有著一副多麼耐心的神情啊，他們十有八九並不想讓人去刷。他們寧願衣服上留著灰塵也不願被迫忍受這種事。但是他們明白不能讓別人感到失望。這乃是一項整個旅行中的隆重儀式，是正式獻禮之前不可缺少的。人人想當別人，這種情形也是藝術家與文人學士出現越軌現象的一個重要原因。我們的畫家、劇作家、音樂家、詩人以及小說作者也就像上面說的女佣人，鐵路經理與列車員一樣，犯著人們所通有的毛病。他們總是希望「以最多的方式對最多的人們做最多的工作」。他們厭倦了自己所熟悉的東西，而喜歡嘗試種種新的結合。於是他們經常把不同的事物拉扯在一起。一種藝術的實踐者總是盡量用另外一種藝術製造出某種效果。於是有的音樂家想當畫家，像使用畫筆一樣來使用小提琴。他要讓我們看見他為我們描繪的落日彩霞。而畫家則想當音樂家，想把交響樂畫出來，並很苦惱那些缺乏修養的人聽不出他畫中的音樂，因為那些色彩明明在互相咆哮著。另一位畫家則想當建築師，希望他構制出的圖畫能產生磚石砌成的感覺。結果他的作品倒很像一所磚房，但可惜在一般正常人看來卻不像一張圖畫。再如一位散文作家厭倦了寫散文，而想當詩人。於是他在每一行開頭用了大寫字母以後，卻繼續照著他的散文寫法不誤。再比如看戲劇。你帶著你那簡單的莎土比亞式的觀念走進劇院，以為來到這裡就是看戲。但是你的劇作家卻想成為病理學家。於是你發現自己身陷診所，四周陰森難耐。你本來是到這裡來消遣，找個地方舒散舒散，但你這位不入流的人士卻走入這個專門為你準備的場所，因此你不得不熬到終場。至於你有你自己的苦衷這點並不成為充分的理由使你豁免。又如你拿起一部小說來看，以為這肯定是一則故事。誰料到你的小說家卻別有其見解。他想充當你的精神顧問。他要對你的心智有所建樹，他要把你的基本思想重新整理一番，他要按摩你的靈魂，對你的周身進行大掃除。儘管你並不想讓他為你做什麼掃除或調整，他卻要為你做所有這些事。你不願你的那顆心被他觸動。確實，你自己也只有那麼一顆可憐的心，你自己的工作也還需要它。Every Man』s Natural Desireto be Somebody ElseSamuel McChord CrothersThe natural desire of every man to be somebody else explains many of the min or irritations of life. It prevents that perfect or ganizatiott of society in wh ich everyone should know his place and keep it. The desire to be somebody else l eads us to practice on work that does, not strictly belong to us. We all have ap titudes and talents that overflow the narrow bounds of our trade or profession. Every man feels that he is bigger than his job, and he is all the time doing wha t theologians call 「works of supererogation.」The serious minded housemaid is not content to do what she is told to do. S he has an unexpended balance of energy. She wants to be a general household refo rmer. So she goes to the desk of the titular master of the house and gives it a thorough reformation. She arranges the papers according to her idea of neatness. When the poor gentleman returns and finds his familiar chaos transformed into a hateful order, he becomes a reactionary.The serious manager of a street railway company is not content with the simp le duty of transporting passengers cheaply and comfortably. He wants to exercise the functions of a lecturer in an ethical culture society. While the transporte d victim is swaying precariously from the end of a strap he reads a notice urgin g him to practise Christian courtesy and not to push.A man enters a barber"s shop with the simple desire of being shaved. But he meets with the more ambitious desires of the barber. The serious barber is not c ontent with any slight contribution to human welfare.He insists that his client shall be shampooed, manicured, massaged, steamed beneath boiling towels, cooled off by electric fans, and, while all this is going on, that he shall have his bo ots blacked.Have you never marveled at the patience of people in having so many things d one to them that they don"t want, just to avoid hurting the feelings of professi onal people who want to do more than is expected of them? You watch the stoical countenance of the passenger in a Pullman car as he stands up to be brushed. The chances are that he doesn"t want to be brushed. He would prefer to leave the du st on his coat rather than to be compelled to swallow it. But he knows what is e xpected of him. It is a part of the solemn ritual of traveling. It precedes the offering.The fact that every man desires to be somebody else explains many of the abe rrations of artists and literary men. The painters, dramatists, musicians, poets , and novelists are just as human as housemaids and railway managers and porters . They want to do 「all the good they can to all the people they can in all the ways they can. 」 They get tired of the ways they are used to and like to try new combinations. So they are continually mixing things. The practitioner of one art tries to produce effects that are proper to another art.A musician wants to be a painter and use his violin as if it were a brush.He would have us see the sunset glories that he is painting for us. A painter want s to be a musician and paint symphonies, and he is grieved because the uninstruc ted cannot hear his pictures, although the colors do swear at each other. Anothe r painter wants to be an architect and build up his picture as if it were made o f cubes of brick. It looks like brick work, but to the natural eye it doesn"t l ook like a picture. A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing pro se.You go to the theatre with the simple minded Shakespearean idea that the play"s the thing. But the playwright wants to be a pathologist. So you discover th at you have dropped into a gruesome clinic. You sought innocent relaxation, but you are one of the hon elect and have gone to the place prepared for you. You m ust see the thing through. The fact that you have troubles of your own is not a sufficient claim for exemption.Or you take up a novel expecting it to be a work of fiction.But the novelist has other views.He wants to be your spiritual adviser. He must do something to your mind, he must rearrange your fundamental ideas, he must massage your soul, and generally brush you off. All this in spite of the fact that you don"t want t o be brushed off and set to rights. You don"t want him to do anything to your mi nd. It"s the only mind you have and you need it in your own business.人生苦短佚名你們有些人聽任一些不幸的誤會年復一年地繼續存在，打算將來有一天再去澄清；你們有些人聽任一些可憐的爭執繼續為害，因為你們不能現在就下定決心犧牲自己的自尊，消除那些爭執；你們有些人在大街上遇見某些人的時候，由於某種愚蠢的怨恨，故意不同他們講話，但是你們自己心裡也知道，如果在明天早晨聽說其中的某個人離開了人世，自己的心中一定會充滿羞愧和悔恨之情；你們有些人吝惜一句感激或同情的話，因而使朋友在痛苦中等待——只要你們突然間知道、看到或感覺到 「人生苦短」，那你們的心胸就會豁然開朗，不再沉迷於那些無謂的計較，你會馬上去做一些如果現在不做以後也許就永遠沒有機會去做的事情。The Time Is ShortAnonymousYou who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, me aning to clear them up some day; you who are keeping wretched quarrels alive bec ause you cannot quite make up your mind that now is the day to sacrifice your pr ide and kill them; you who are passing men sullenly upon the street, not speakin g to them out of some silly spite, and yet knowing that it would fill you with s hame and remorse if you heard that one of those men were dead tomorrow morning; you who are letting your friend"s heart ache for a word of appreciation or sympa thy if only you could know and see and feel, all of a sudden, that 「the time is short」 how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thin g which you might never have another chance to do!人是為了別人而活著阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦(1879—1955)，美國籍猶太人，20世紀最偉大的科學家。1921年獲諾貝爾物理學獎。他一生崇尚科學與民主，追求真理和光明，畢生致力於國際和平事業。人類在這個世界上的處境真是奇怪。我們每個人都是來做一次短暫的訪問，不知道自己為何而來，然而有時候卻似乎推測出一種目的。但是從日常生活的觀點來看，有一件事情我們是肯定知道的，那就是人在這個世界上是為了別人而活著——尤其為了那些我們自身幸福寄托在他們的微笑和福祉之上的人們，以及那些由於同情之感而使我們同他們的命運聯繫起來的人們。每天都有很多次，我覺察到自己的肉體生活和精神生活是如何建立在別人——包括生者和死者 ——的勞動之上，以及自己必須如何地奮發努力，從而使我從別人那裡取得多少東西，我也可以把同等數量的東西給予別人，以此作為報答。我時常懷著一種憂鬱的心情，覺得自己從別人的工作中承襲得太多，因而心裡惴惴不安。沒完沒了地沉思著自己生存的理由或人生的意義，從客觀的觀點來看，我覺得這是近乎愚蠢的行為。可是，每個人都有—些理想作為他的抱負和判斷的指南針。經常在我的眼前閃耀發光，並使我充滿了快樂的理想，就是真、善、美。我從來沒有以追求舒適和幸福作為生活的目標，建立在這個基礎上的一套倫理觀念，只能滿足一群牲畜的需要。Man Is Here for the Sake of Other MenAlbert EinsteinStrange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know th at man is here for the sake of other men—above all for those upon whose smile and well being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown s ouls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fell ow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work of other men.To ponder interminably over the reason for one"s own existence or the meaning of life in general seems to me, from an objective point of view, to be sheer f olly. And yet everyone holds certain ideals by which he guides his aspiration an d his judgment. The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort and happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis woul d be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.生活的道路威廉·S．毛姆大多數人的生活被他們身處的環境所決定。他們不僅接受既定的命運，而且順從命運的安排。他們就像街上的電車一樣，在他們既定的軌道上行駛，而對於那些不時出沒於車水馬龍間和歡快地賓士在曠野上的廉價小汽車卻不屑一顧。我尊重他們，他們是好公民、好丈夫和好父親。當然，總得有些人來支付稅收，但是，他們並沒有令人激動的地方。另外有一些人，他們把生活掌握在自己的手裡，可以按照自己的喜好去創造生活，儘管這樣的人少之又少，但我卻被他們深深地吸引著。可能世界上並沒有諸如自由意志這樣的事情，但是無論怎樣，我們總有關於自由意志的幻想。當我們處在一個十字路口時，我們似乎可以決定向左走還是向右走，可是一旦做出選擇，我們卻很難意識到，實際上是世界歷史的全部進程強迫我們做出了那樣的選擇。The Road of LifeWilliam S. MaughamThe lives of most men are determined by their environment. They accept the c ircumstances amid which fate has thrown them not only with resignation but even with good will. They are like streetcars running contentedly on their rails and they despise the sprightly flitter that dashes in and out of the traffic and spe eds so jauntily across the open country. I respect them; they are good citizens, good husbands, and good fathers, and of course somebody has to pay the taxes; b ut I do not find them exciting. I am fascinated by the men, few enough in all co nscience, who take life in their own hands and seem to mould it to their own lik ing. It maybe that we have no such thing as free will, but at all events, we hav e the illusion of it. At a cross road it does seem to us that we might go eithe r to the right or the left and, the choice once made, it is difficult to see tha t the whole course of the world"s history obliged us to take the turning we did.生命美於變化佚名將所有事物和事物的原則統統歸結為經常變化著的形態或風尚，這已日益成為近代思想界的一個趨勢。我們可以從我們的生理活動等表面的事情說起。舉個例子來說，選定在酷暑中猛然浸入滔滔清流的一剎那和感覺極其愉快的這麼一個微妙的時刻。在那一瞬間的所有生理活動，難道不可以說是具有科學名稱的各種元素的一種化合作用嗎？但是，像磷、石灰、微細的纖維質等這些元素，不僅存在於人體之中，而且在與人體沒有絲毫關係的地方也能檢查出它們的存在。血液的流通，眼睛中水晶體的消耗和恢復，每一道光波、每一次聲浪對於腦組織所引起的變異——都不外是這些元素永久的運動。但是科學把這些運動過程還原為更為簡單和基本力量的作用。正如我們身體所賴以構成的元素所形成的我們的生理活動的力量，這些力量在我們身體以外也同樣發揮著作用——它可以使鐵生鏽，使穀物成熟。這些元素，在種種氣流吹送之下，從我們身外向四面八方傳播：人的誕生，人的姿態，人的死亡，以及在人的墳頭上生長出紫羅蘭——這不過是成千上萬化合結果的點滴例子而已。人類那輪廓分明、長久不變的面顏和肢體，不過是一種表象，在它那框架之內，我們好把種種化合的元素凝聚一團——這好像是蛛網的紋樣，那織網的細絲從網中穿出，又引向他方。在這一點上，我們的生命有些像那火焰——它也是種種力量匯合的結果，這匯合雖不斷延續，那些力量卻早晚要各自飄散。Change Makes Life BeautifulAnonymousTo regard all things and principles of things as inconstant modes or fashion s has more and more become the tendency of modern thought. Let us begin with tha t which is without —our physical life. Fix upon it in one of its more exquisit e intervals, the moment, for instance, of delicious recoil from the flood of wat er in summer heat. What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combinat ion of natural elements to which science gives their names? But these elements, phosphorus and lime and delicate fibers, are present not in the human body alone: we detect them in places most remote from it. Our physical life is a perpetual motion of them—the passage of the blood, the wasting and repairing of the le nses of the eye, the modification of the tissues of the brain under every ray of light and sound processes which science reduces to simpler and more elementary forces. Like the elements of which we are composed, the action of these forces extends beyond us: it rusts iron and ripens corn. Far out on every side of us th ose elements are broadcast, driven in many currents; and birth and gesture and d eath and the springing of violets from the grave are but a few out of ten thousa nd resultant combinations. That clear, perpetual outline of face and limb is but an image of ours, under which we group them a design in a web, the actual threa ds of which pass out beyond it. This at least of flame — like our life has, tha t it is but the concurrence, renewed from moment to moment, of forces parting so oner or later on their ways.隨 想約翰·博因頓·普里斯特利約翰·博因頓·普里斯特利（1894—1984），英國小說家、劇作家和散文家，他的散文以細膩著稱，文筆生動，廣受讀者喜愛。一直以來，對別人學識淵博及造詣之深，我感到很不理解。只要你隨便讀一讀哪一位重要人物的傳記，就總會發現他的學問和才能，就算我活六輩子也休想學到和做到。首先，除了碰到像史蒂文森或契訶夫那樣的，有明顯殘疾的人以外，他們總是成績頂呱呱的運動員，他們有著驚人的氣力、耐力。他們即使年屆七旬，在走路，跑步，翻山越嶺時我們都趕不上他們。其次，他們大都是語言方面的天才。你從來沒有看見他們坐下來學習一種新的語言，甚至連不規則動詞表也沒有看見他們瀏覽—下。但是大家都認為他們隨便可以講幾種語言，不僅流利，而且發音純正。他們一般都精通幾門，而不會使自己局限在一門科學裡。大自然這部巨著被他們熟記於心。不久以前，我還讀到一位傑出的小說家的事迹。他是一位非常老練而又精細的人，據說他熟悉鄉村每一種野花野草、樹木和禽鳥的名稱、習性和生活史。除此之外，請原諒我用一些套語來形容，這些大人物都是富於靈感的音樂大師，或是精妙絕倫的業餘水彩畫家，或是風格優美的文體家。更使我們感到驚訝的是，要是他們的境遇不同，只要他們認真從事這門或那門藝術，憑著他們的才能，而且日後一定會獲得不朽的聲譽，再者還會享譽全球。這些對他們的描述真是神乎其神。但是我被搞糊塗了。他們憑什麼做得到?我再次想問這個問題，甚至忌妒和煩惱得要遙問蒼天。我們應該仔細地想一想一首樂曲、一幅水彩畫或一篇美妙的文章究竟意味著什麼(這一點卻被他們輕輕帶過或略而不論)，這需要很多年專心致志地在鍵盤上、在畫架上或者在寫字檯上辛勤操作，這樣才能有所成就。而像你我這樣，胡亂彈奏鋼琴曲，同時還用左手插入即興的過門，或者不管色彩是否協調，亂塗幾筆蘸上水彩，或者在一篇粗製濫造的散文里貼上幾句閃閃爍爍的陳詞濫調是一回事；而要成為一個有成就的音樂家、畫家或作家，卻是另一回事。要是那指的是前者，我可以理解；但是如果指的是後者呢?——尚且還不過是作為一種業餘的消遣!更不用說他們還要從事體育運動，研究各門科學，學習各種語言，或者博物學!這使我迷惑不解，而且佩服得五體投地。這就是使我自己越看越小，小得像個小蚊蟲的原因。他們有如此神奇的天賦!正像傳說中講的那樣。Random ThoughtsJohn Boynton PriestleyThis matter of other people"s learning and accomplishments has been worrying me for some time. I never read the life of any important person without discove ring that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or to do in half a dozen lifetimes. To begin with, unless these people chance to be obvi ous invalids like Stevenson or Tchehov, they are always tremendous athletes, wit h surprising strength, powers of endurance, and so forth.They could all walk and run and climb our heads off, even when they were sev enty. Then they all have the gift of tongues. You never catch a glimpse of them sitting down to learn a new language, not even running an eye over its irregular verbs, yet it is admitted that they speak any number with an astonishing fluenc y and purity of accent. They never confine themselves to one science, but are in evitably masters of several. The big book of Nature they know by heart. Only the other day I was reading an account of a great novelist, a most sophisticated an d subtle person, and was told that he knew the name and habits and history of ev ery wild flower and plant and tree and bird in the country. Nor is that all. The re is not one of these bigwigs who is not ( I quote the customary phrases ) a se nsitive and accomplished musician, or an extraordinarily fine amateur water col ourist, or the possessor of a magnificent prose style. We are always told that, had circumstance been different, their talents were such that they need only hav e given their serious attention to one or other of these arts to have procured f or themselves lasting and perhaps world wide reputations. So runs the legend of the eulogists.I am baffled. How is it done? I ask the question again, my voice rises to a scream of envy and vexation. Consider what is involved in this matter (so lightl y touched upon and dismissed) of music or water colour painting or fine writing , what years of serious application, of drudgery at the keyboard, the easel, or the writing desk. It is one thing to strum on the piano, as you and I do, faking the left hand passages as we go along, or to daub a few patchy water colours, or to paste on to clumsy prose some old spangles of rhetoric, and it is quite a nother thing to be an accomplished musician or artist or writer. If the first we re meant, I could understand it; but the second and as a mere recreation, too! A nd then to add the athleticism, the sciences, the tongues, the natural history! I am bewildered and crushed. The very idle rumour of fellow creatures so wonder fully gifted makes me dwindle in my own estimation to the size of a gnat.我們在旅途中亨利·凡·戴克亨利·凡·戴克（1852—1933），美國作家、教育家、演說家和傳道士。他在本文中對人在旅途這個觀點作了平凡而深刻的描述。不論你處在什麼地方，也不論你是什麼人，不管是在此時此刻，還是在我們生命中的任何一個瞬間，有一件事對你我來說是恰巧相同的：我們不是在休息，我們是在一次旅途中。我們的生活是一種運動，一種趨勢，是向一個看不見的目標穩定而不停地進步。每一天，我們都會贏得某些東西，或者會失去某些東西。甚至當我們的位置和我們的性格看起來跟以前完全相似時，它們事實上仍然在變化著。因為僅僅是時間的前進就是一種變化。對於一塊荒地來說，在1月和7月是不同的，季節會製造差異。能力上的缺陷對於孩子來說是一種可愛的品質，但對於大人來說就是一種幼稚的表現。我們做的每一件事都是朝著一個或另一個方向前進一步。甚至「沒有做任何事情」這件事本身也是一種行為，它讓我們前進或後退；一根磁針陰極的作用和陽極的作用都是一樣真實的；拒絕也是一種接受——這些都是二中擇一的選擇。你今天比昨天更接近你的港口了嗎？是的——你必須接近某一個港口或者其它港口。自從你第一次被拋入生活之海，你的船連一分鐘都沒有靜止過；海是如此之深，你也不可能找到一個拋錨的地方；於是你不可能停下來，直到你到達自己的港口。We Are on a JourneyHenry Van DykeWherever you are, and whoever you may be, there is one thing in which you an d I are just alike at this moment, and in all the moments of our existence. We a re not at rest; we are on a journey. Our life is a movement, a tendency, a stead y, ceaseless progress towards an unseen goal. We are gaining something, or losin g something, everyday. Even when our position and our character seem to remain p recisely the same, they are changing. For the mere advance of time is a change. It is not the same thing to have a bare field in January and in July. The season makes the difference. The limitations that are childlike in the child are child ish in the man.Everything that we do is a step in one direction or another. Even the failur e to do something is in itself a deed. It sets us forward or backward. The actio n of the negative pole of a magnetic needle is just as real as the action of the positive pole. To decline is to accept — the other alternative.Are you nearer to your port today than you were yesterday? Yes,— you must b e a little nearer to some port or other; for since your ship was first launched upon the sea of life, you have never been still for a single moment; the sea is too deep, you could not find an anchorage if you would; there can be no pause un till you come into port.我為何而生伯特蘭·羅素伯特蘭·羅素(1872—1970)，英國著名的哲學家，數學家和文學家。他在多個領域都取得了巨大成就。他所著的《西方的智慧》、《西方哲學史》對中國讀者影響頗大。對愛的期望，對知識的追求以及對人類苦難難以忍受的憐憫之心——這三種質樸而不可抗拒的情感主宰著我的生活。這些情感像一陣陣颶風，把我隨意地吹得飄來盪去，穿過痛苦的海洋，抵達絕望的彼岸。我曾追求過愛，首先是因為愛可以使人欣喜狂放——它讓人如此高興。為了這片刻的快樂，我寧願拿我的餘生作為犧牲；我曾追尋過愛，其次是因為它能解除人孤獨的感覺——置身於這無比可怕的孤獨中，那讓人戰慄的感覺，會掠過這個世界的邊緣，把人帶入那無聲無息而且寒氣逼人的無底深淵。我曾追尋過愛，還因為在愛的結合、在這神秘的縮影中，我看到了聖人和詩人們曾經幻想的天堂美景。我追求的正是如此。儘管對凡人而言，這世間好像是一種奢望，但這是我最終所尋覓的。帶著同樣的情感，我曾追尋過知識。我曾希望對人類的心靈有所了解，我曾想知道星辰為什麼會發光，我曾試圖理解畢達哥拉斯的力量，他認為數的力量駕馭著萬物的變化。我得到了為數不多的一點知識。愛和知識可以把人帶入天堂。但是憐憫之心又常常把我拉回塵世之中，我的心中激蕩著痛苦的呼喚。嗷嗷待哺的孩子、被壓迫者鞭撻的受害者、孤苦無助的老人—— 他們是兒女們憎惡的負擔。還有那充滿著孤獨、貧窮和痛苦的世界，都在嘲弄著人類生活本應有的美好。我渴望減少人間的邪惡，對此卻無能為力，因此也承受著煎熬。這就是我的生活，我覺得值得活下去。如果天賜良機，我願意再快樂地活一次。What I Have Lived ForBertrand RussellThree passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward: course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the verge of despair.I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy — ecstasy so great tha t I would have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I ha ve sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness i n which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into cold un fathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what — at last — I have found.With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to ap prehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds away above the flux. A littl e of this, but not much, I have achieved.Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heav ens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverbera ted in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and I would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.觀舞約翰·高爾斯華綏約翰·高爾斯華綏（1867—1933）英國近代著名的小說家、劇作家、散文家，曾獲1932年的諾貝爾文學獎。本篇系他1910年所寫的一個短篇隨筆，文字工整秀麗，感情豐富飽滿。一天下午，友人邀我去一家劇場觀舞。幕啟後，台上除四周高垂的灰色幕布外，空無一物。不一會，從幕布厚重的皺摺處，孩子們一個個或一對對地聯翩而出，台上最後總共出現了十一二個。全部是女孩，年齡都不超過十三四歲，有一兩個最多只有八歲。衣衫都穿得很少，完全裸露著腿腳胳臂。她們的頭髮散開著，臉孔端莊之中卻滿帶笑容，竟是那樣的可愛活潑，讓人看後恍有被魔法置入蘋果仙園之感，此時此地身體已不復存在，唯有精魂浮游於縹渺的晴空。孩子們有的白晰而豐腴，有的黝深而窈窕；但個個都歡欣愉快，天真爛漫，絲毫沒有矯揉造作之態，儘管她們顯然都受過高超和認真的訓練。每個跳步，每個轉動，都彷彿出之於對生命的喜悅，而就在此時此地即興編成的——舞蹈對她們真是毫不費力，不論演出還是排練。這裡見不到躡足欠步、裝模作樣的姿態，也見不到徒耗體力，漫無目標的動作；眼前唯有節奏、音樂、光明、輕盈，特別是歡樂。笑與愛曾幫助塑造她們的舞姿，此刻笑與愛又正從她們的一張張笑靨中，從她們肢體的雪白而優美的旋轉中，息息透出，光彩動人。儘管她們全都逗人喜愛，但其中有兩人卻尤其引我注目。一個是她們中個子最高的女孩，她膚深腰纖，每個表情每個動作中都表現出一種莊重卻火辣的熱情。舞蹈節目之一是她扮演一個美童的追逐者，當然這個美童的一舉一動，順便說一句，也都異常嫵媚；在這場追逐中，宛如蜻蜓之戲舞於睡蓮之旁，或如仲夏之夜向明月吐訴衷曲，抒發出一縷縷攝人心魄的細細幽情。這個髮膚黝深的女獵手，情如火燎，實是世間一切渴求的最奇妙不過的象徵，而且實在動人。當我們從她身上看到她在追逐她那情人時所流露的一腔迷惘激情，那種既得輒止的曳猶神態，我們彷彿隱約窺見了那奔流於整個世界並且永遠如斯的偉大神秘力量。啊，令人傷痛的焦灼不安，永不逝去的悱惻纏綿。另一個使我迷戀不已的是從身材上數倒數第二的那個發色淺棕的孩子。這個頭戴白花半月冠的俊美女神，短裙之上，絳英瓣瓣；裙衫動處，飄飄欲仙。她的舞蹈已遠遠脫齣兒童的境界。她那嬌小的秀顱與肢體之間，處處都充滿著律動的聖潔火焰。在她的一小段「獨舞」中，她簡直成了節奏的化身。快睹之下，恍若一團喜悅驟從天降，並且登時凝聚在那裡；而滿台喜悅之聲則洋洋盈耳。此時台下也真的響起了一片嘖嘖之聲，繼而歡聲雷動。我看了看我的友人,他正在用指頭悄悄地從眼邊擦拭什麼。至於我自己，則氍毹之上幾乎一片模糊，世間萬物都頓覺可愛；彷彿經此飛仙用魔杖一點，一切都變得金光燦燦。或許唯有上帝知道她的這股力量是從哪裡得來的，能把喜悅帶給我們這些枯竭的心田；也唯有上帝知道她能把這力量保持多久,但是這個蹁躚的小愛神的身上卻蘊蓄著那種為濃稠色調、幽美樂曲、天風麗日以及那些偉大藝術珍品所特具的力量——足以把心靈從其一切窒礙之中解脫出來，使之充滿喜悅。DancersJohn GalsworthyI was taken by a friend one afternoon to a theatre. When the curtain was rai sed, the stage was perfectly empty save for tall grey curtains which enclosed it on all sides, and presently through the thick folds of those curtains children came dancing in, singly, or in pairs, till a whole troop of ten or twelve were a ssembled. They were all girls; none, I think, more than fourteen years old, one or two certainly not more than eight. They wore but little clothing, their legs, feet and arms being quite bare. Their hair, too, was unbound; and their faces, grave and smiling, were so utterly dear and joyful, that in looking on them one felt transported to some Garden of Hesperides, a where self was not,and the spir it floated in pure ether. Some of these children were fair and rounded, others d ark and elf like; but one and all looked entirely happy, and quite unself cons cious, giving no impression of artifice, though they had evidently had the highe st and most careful training. Each flight and whirling movement seemed conceived there and then out of the joy of being — dancing had surely never been a labou r to them, either in rehearsal or performance. There was no tiptoeing and postur ing, no hopeless muscular achievement; all was rhythm, music, light, air, and, a bove all things, happiness. Smiles and love had gone to the fashioning of their performance; and smiles and love shone from every one of their faces and from th e clever white turnings of their limbs.Amongst them — though all were delightful — there were two who especially riveted my attention. The first of these two was the tallest of all the children, a dark thin girl, in whose every expression and movement there was a kind of g rave, fiery love.During one of the many dances, it fell to her to be the pursuer of a fair ch ild, whose movements had a very strange soft charm; and this chase, which was li ke the hovering of a dragon fly round some water lily, or the wooing of a moon beam by the June night, had in it a most magical sweet passion. That dark, tende r huntress, so full of fire and yearning, had the queerest power of symbolising all longing, and moving one"s heart. In her, pursuing her white love with such w istful fervour, and ever arrested at the very movement of conquest, one seemed t o see the great secret force that hunts through the world, on and on, tragically unresting, immortally sweet.The other child who particularly enchanted me was the smallest but one, a br own haired fairy crowned with a half moon of white flowers, who wore a scanty little rose petal coloured shift that floated about her in the most delightful fashion. She danced as never child danced. Every inch of her small head and bod y was full of the sacred fire of motion; and in her little pas seul she seemed t o be the very spirit of movement. One felt that Joy had flown down, and was inha biting there; one heard the rippling of Joy"s laughter. And, indeed, through all the theatre had risen a rustling and whispering; and sudden bursts of laughing rapture.I looked at my friend; he was trying stealthily to remove something from his eyes with a finger. And to myself the stage seemed very misty, and all things i n the world lovable; as though that dancing fairy had touched them with tender f ire, and made them golden.God knows where she got that power of bringing joy to our dry hearts: God kn ows how long she will keep it! But that little flying Love had in her the qualit y that lies deep in colour, in music, in the wind, and the sun, and in certain g reat works of art — the power to set the heart free from every barrier, and flo od it with delight.聲 譽佚名在每個領域裡，一旦出了名就會使一些入迷者虔敬地表示讚揚和尊崇，這是種容易使人陶醉的東西。一位表演家很容易相信自己的成就和報章輿論所說的一樣。可是大多數人，大多數藝人並沒有得到聲名和財富。那些失敗的表演者又如何呢？其他任何一個失敗者又如何呢？奇怪的是，對很多人來說，失敗常常也會起一種報償的作用!有些人因為慶幸自己不像你那樣地失敗，就會對你表示同情，而你的親朋們也會降低對你的期望，你就不必去同那些才智勝於你而獲得成功的人們較量。他們會幫你找借口解釋你不成功不出名的原因，說什麼：你太敏感呀；你對金錢不感興趣呀；你對聲名所能帶來的權力沒有興趣呀；因為聲譽會使你喪失隱私權，所以你不感興趣呀，等等——這些無非都是借口而已，但這對失敗者或假裝不關心自己失敗的人來說，都多少能帶來一點安慰。歷史已充分證明在生命中的某些時刻遭遇失敗確實能促使有些人更努力奮鬥，繼續深信自己，並取得成功。美國小說家托馬斯·沃爾夫的第一部小說《安琪兒，往家裡看》在出版之前，被退稿39次，終於開始了他的寫作事業並贏得了聲譽。貝多芬從不屈服於他的專橫的父親，還忍氣當過樂師，但終於克服一切，成為了全世界最偉大最著名的音樂家。貝斯達洛齊是19世紀義大利著名教育家，他從事各項事業一無成就，但最後專心於兒童教育，從而研討了新教育法的基本原理，形成一種新的教育理論。托馬斯·愛迪生在10歲左右上四年級時被趕出校外，因為教師覺得他又笨又倔強。這種以失敗為動力，奮發向上，成名成家的人還有許多例子可舉。但不幸的是，對多數人來說，失敗是奮鬥的結束，而不是開始。成名者的失敗事例即使有，也只是少數。那麼，我們為什麼要追求聲譽呢？你在追求聲譽嗎？你希望許多人都知道你並讚賞你嗎？你想要那些往往隨聲譽而來的金錢嗎？你希望傳媒注意你在公開或私下裡的一言一行嗎？你想要他們像獵狗似的追逐你，向你提問，想辦法拆你的台腳嗎？這在美國政界中非常明顯，你要出名就得成為反對你的每個人的目標，當然也是傳播媒介的目標。聲譽把一切燈光打亮，一邊給你權力和威望，另一邊也把「你」趕出你的自身之外：你必須成為公眾意想之中的你，而不是那個真實的你或者可能的你。像表演家一樣，政治家必須去討好他的聽眾，這就往往意味著要講一點自己並不完全相信或同意的話。所以相信政治家的人是如此之少，這就不足為奇了。但是我們還沒有回答本節開始所提的問題：為什麼大家都追求聲譽呢？我們想到的理由有下列幾點：為了顯示出某方面的超越成就；贏得許多人的景仰愛慕；為了成為一個人人都提到的人；在親朋前顯示你超乎於他們對你的想像之上。也許你還可加些其他理由，但我覺得上述各點當然是普遍的。……我相信聲譽和讚揚、影響和權力。成功和失敗、現實和幻想都好像是精密地編織在一匹光潔無縫的織品之中，即我們稱之為現實的東西。對那些拚命追求聲譽、財富和讚賞的人們，我要說：祝您好運。但當你已抓住了成功、聲譽的尾巴之後，你將會做什麼呢？一直追逐下去嗎？如你確實抓住了它的話，就捨命也不要鬆手，因為下墜總比墜地要少痛苦一點。走在這蒼茫而不可理喻的星球上的芸芸過客們，我盼你們不久就能功成名就，或近乎功成名就吧!FameAnonymousFame brings celebrity and high regard from adoring and loyal fans in each field of endeavor and it is heady stuff. A performer can easily come to believe that he or she is as good as his or her press. But most people, most artists do no t gain fame and fortune. What about those performers who fail, or anyone who fai ls? Curiously enough, failure often serves as its own reward for many people! It brings sympathy from others who are delighted not to be you, and it allows family and friends to lower their expectations of you so that you need not compete with those who have more talent and who succeed. And they find excuses and explan ations for your inability to succeed and become famous: you are too sensitive, you are not interested in money, you are not interested in the power that fame br ings and you are not interested in the loss of privacy it demands, etc. — all excuses, but comforting to those who fail and those who pretend not to notice the failure.History has amply proven that some failure for some people at certain times in their lives does indeed motivate them to strive even harder to succeed and to continue believing in themselves. Thomas Wolfe, the American novelist, had his first novel Look Homeward, Angel rejected 39 times before it was finally publish ed and launched his career and created his fame. Beethoven overcame his tyrannic al father and grudging acceptance as a musician to become the greatest, most fam ous musician in the word, and Pestalozzi, the famous Italian educator in the 19th century, failed at every job he ever had until he came upon the idea of teachi ng children and developing the fundamental theories to produce a new form of edu cation. Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in fourth grade, at about age 10, because he seemed to the teacher to be quite dull and unruly. Many other cases may be found of people who failed and used the failure to motivate them to achie ve, to succeed, and to become famous. But, unfortunately, for most people failure is the end of their struggle, not the beginning. There are few, if any, famous failures.Well then, why does anyone want fame? Do you? Do you want to be known to man y people and admired by them? Do you want the money that usually comes with fame ? Do you want the media to notice everything you do or say both in public and in private? Do you want them hounding you, questioning you and trying to undo you? In American politics it is very obvious that to be famous is to be the target o f everyone who disagrees with you as well as of the media. Fame turns all the li ghts on and while it gives power and prestige, it takes the you out of you: you must be what the public thinks you are, not what you really are or could be. The politician, like the performer, must please his or her audiences and that often means saying things he does not moan or does not believe in fully. No wonder so few people trust politicians. But we have not answered the question at the begi nning of this paragraph: why does anyone want fame? Several reasons come to mind : to demonstrate excellence in some field; to gain the admiration and love of ma ny others; to be the one everyone talks about; to show family and friends you ar e more than they thought you were. Probably you can list some other reasons, but I think these are reasonably common.I believe that fame and celebrity, influence and power, success and failure, reality and illusion are all somehow neatly woven into a seamless fabric we lau ghingly call reality. I say to those who desperately seek fame and fortune, cele brity: good luck. But what will you do when you have caught your tail, your success, your fame? Keep chasing it? If you do catch it, hang on for dear life becau se falling is not as painful as landing. See you soon famous and almost famous, wayfarers on this unbright, nonlinear planet!給兒子的信F. D.斯坦厄普F. D.斯坦厄普（1694—1773），即切斯菲爾德勛爵，英國著名的政治家。他所著的《致子書》是英國文學名著，本文即節選自此書。親愛的孩子：惹人喜歡要有必備的條件，但又是一門不易學到的藝術，很難將其歸納成規則。你自己的良心與觀察力將比我教授給你的還要多。「己所不欲，勿施於人」是據我所知的取信於人的最可靠的辦法。細心留意別人怎樣做讓你愉快，那麼很可能你做同樣的事也會使別人愉悅。如果別人對你的性情、興趣甚至弱點甚為關心，讓你滿心喜歡，請相信，你對人施以同樣的熱情和關照，也一定會使他們歡心。與人為伴來往時，需因循其中的氛圍，勿矯揉造作，發現同伴的幽默之處時，就誠然開懷一樂甚至調笑一番，這是每個人對群體應具備的態度。在人前不要說瞎話，沒有比這更讓人討厭和不悅的事了。如果你恰好有一則很簡短而又相當切題的故事，可用最簡潔明了的語言敘述一番。即便如此，也要表示出你並不擅長講述，而僅是因為它實在太簡短才使你情不自禁地這樣做。在交談中，首先就要擯棄以自我為中心的癖好，決不試圖讓別人對自己的私事或者自己關注的事產生興趣。儘管這些事情對你來說興趣盎然，但對於別人卻味同嚼蠟，不得要領。再者，個人的私事也不可能永遠隱秘。無論你自以為有什麼好處，切忌在人前自愛自憐地展示，也不要像許多人那樣，挖空心思地引導談話，以伺機自我表現一番。如果你確有長處，必會被人發現，不必自己點出，何況這樣做最好。當與人有是非之爭時，絕不要激動地大喊大叫，即使你自以為正確或者知道自己是對的，也要善加控制，冷靜地說出自己的意見，這是說服人的惟一方法。但如果這樣仍不奏效，就試著變個話題，高高興興地說：「我倆誰也說服不了誰，而且也不是非得說服對方不可，我們討論別的吧。」要記住，與人交往時要尊重習俗的禮儀。在這一群人中恰如其分的話語，對另一群人而言卻不適宜。於某些人適宜的幽默、妙語、甚至小小的出格行為，換個地方會顯得平淡自然，或令人苦惱。說一個詞兒或者打個手勢，在某群人中即暗示著某種性格、習慣和隱語，而一旦離開那種特定的氛圍，就會毫無意義。人們常常在這一點上犯過失。他們喜歡把在某群人、某種環境中的得意言行到處搬到別的地方使用，而此時卻風趣盡失，或不合時宜，或張冠李戴而唐突無聊。是的，他們常用這樣笨拙的開場白：「告訴你一件很棒的事！」或者「我要告訴你世上最絕妙的……」希望這些話能勾起對方的期待，但結果是徹底的絕望，使得說這些話的人看起來像個十足的傻子。如果你獲得別人的好感和情感，無論是男人或女人，要特別留意去發現他們可能具備的長處，以及他們明顯的不足之處。人人都會有缺陷，但要公正而善意地對待別人的這個或那個不足。人們還會有許多過人之處，或者至少具有可以稱作優異的地方。儘管人們喜歡聽到對其自知的優點的讚美，但他們最感興趣的乃是對自己渴望具備然而尚不能自信的長處的讚許。Letter to His SonF. D. StanhopeDear boy,The art of pleasing is a very necessary one to possess, but a very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules; and your own good sense and observation will teach you more of it than I can. 「Do as you would be done by,」 is the surest method that I know of pleasing.Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and probably the same things in you will please others. If you are p leased with the complaisance and attention of others to your humors, your tastes, or your weaknesses, depend upon it, the same complaisance and attention on you r part to theirs will equally please them. Take the tone of the company that you are in, and do not pretend to give it; be serious, gay, or even trifling, as yo u find the present humor of the company; this is an attention due from every ind ividual to the majority. Do not tell stories in company; there is nothing more t edious and disagreeable; if by chance you know a very short story, and exceeding ly applicable to the present subject of conversation, tell it in as few words as possible; and even then, throw out that you do not love to tell stories, but th at the shortness of it tempted you.Of all things banish the egotism out of your conversation, and never think of entertaining people with your own personal concerns or private affairs; though they are interesting to you, they are tedious and impertinent to everybody else ; besides that, one cannot keep one"s own private affairs too secret. Whatever y ou think your own excellencies may be, do not affectedly display them in company ; nor labor, as many people do, to give that turn to the conversation, which may supply you with an opportunity of exhibiting them. If they are real, they will infallibly be discovered, without your pointing them out yourself, and with much more advantage. Never maintain an argument with heat and clamor, though you thi nk or know yourself to be in the right; but give your opinion modestly and coolly, which is the only way to convince; and, if that does not do, try to change th e conversation, by saying, with good humor, 「We shall hardly convince one anoth er; nor is it necessary that we should, so let us talk of something else. 」Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed in all companies; an d that what is extremely proper in one company may be, and often is, highly impr oper in another. The jokes, the bon mots, the little adventures, which may do v ery well in one company, will seem flat and tedious, when related in another. Th e particular characters, the habit, the cant of one company may give merit to a word, or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested of those accidental circumstances. Here people very commonly err; and fond of something that has en tertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emph asis in another, where it is either insipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill timed or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this silly preamble: 「I will tell you an excellent thing, 」 or, 「I will tell you the best thing in the world.」 This raises expectations, which, when absolutely disappointed, make the rela ror of this excellent thing look, very deservedly, like a fool.If you would particularly gain the affection and friendship of particular pe ople, whether men or women, endeavor to find out their predominant excellency, if they have one, and their prevailing weakness, which everybody has; and do just ice to the one, and something more than justice to the other. Men have various o bjects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel; and, thou gh they love to hear justice done to them, where they know that they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are doubtful whether they do or not.工作和娛樂溫斯頓·丘吉爾溫斯頓·丘吉爾(1874—1965)，英國政治家、作家。二戰中曾連任兩屆英國首相，為二戰勝利立下汗馬功勞。他在文學上也有很深的造詣，1953年獲諾貝爾文學獎。想要獲得真正的幸福與平安，一個人至少應該有兩三種業餘愛好，而且必須是真正的愛好。到了晚年才開始說「我對什麼什麼感興趣」是毫無益處的，這樣的嘗試只會增加精神上的負擔。在與自己日常工作無關的某些領域中，一個人可以獲得淵博的知識，但他幾乎得不到實在的益處或放鬆。喜歡幹什麼就幹什麼是無益的，你得干一行愛一行。廣義而言，人類可以分成三個階層：勞累而死的人、憂慮而死的人和煩惱而死的人。對於那些體力勞動者來說，在經過一周精疲力竭的工作之後，周六下午給他們提供踢足球或打棒球的機會是沒有意義的。對於政界人士、專業人士或商人來說，他們已為棘手的事務操勞或煩惱了6天，在周末再請他們為瑣事勞神，同樣是毫無意義的。或者可以這麼說，理智的、勤奮的、有用的人可以分為兩類：第一類，他們的工作就是工作，娛樂就是娛樂；第二類，他們的工作和娛樂是合二為一的。當然，很大一部分人都屬於第一類人。他們可以得到相應的補償。在辦公室或工廠里長時間的工作，帶給他們的不僅是維持生計的金錢，還帶給他們一種渴求娛樂的強烈慾望，哪怕這種娛樂消遣是以最簡單、最樸實的方式進行。命運的寵兒則屬於第二類人。他們的生活自然而和諧。在他們看來，工作時間永遠不夠多，每一天在他們看來都是假期；而當正常的假日到來時，他們總會抱怨他們正在全神貫注的休假被強行中斷。然而，有一些東西對於這兩類人來說是十分必要的，那就是變換一下視角，改變一下氛圍，努力做一件別的事情。事實上，每隔一段時間，那些把工作看做娛樂的人們很可能最需要以某種方式把工作驅趕出他們的大腦。Work and PleasureWinston ChurchillTo be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say:「I will take an interest in this or that. 」 Such an attempt only aggravates the st rain of mental effort. Aman may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the m anual labourer, tired out with a hard week"s sweat and effort, the chance of pla ying a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has been working or wor rying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the week end.It may also be said that rational, industrious, useful human beings are divi ded into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is plea sure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former a re the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, b ut a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. But Fortune"s favoured children belong to the second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most need the mea ns of banishing it at intervals from their minds.關於慷慨阿諾德·本涅特要做到真正的慷慨，也就是說將己之所欲施之與他人，我認為是很困難的。從嚴格的意義上看，我懷疑自己一生是否真正慷慨過。今天下午在和E談話時，我產生了這樣的感覺。當時的情形是我需要給人20鎊，而我還沒有確切地得到一個消息，就是我將從建築師那裡得到巴黎的房東已答應歸還的保證金。那20鎊也許真的是我很需要的。雖然我當即決定要給別人，但這份給予卻不是發自內心的慷慨本能，而是一種私下裡不情願的給予，是考慮體面與禮貌而做出的決定。這不叫慷慨。同樣地，在吃飯的時候，我坐在E和柏格里特夫人之間。前者滿眼淚水，一肚子苦水。後者是一位老女人，她邋遢、喜歡嘮叨而且性格怪僻，雖然有時也不乏詼諧。 M 遠在巴黎。我的心被惱人的、煩心的、空虛的灰暗生存狀態壓得沉甸甸的。我憎惡E的不幸，討厭B夫人的蒼老和怪僻，我渴望在我身邊環繞的是青春、美麗和世俗的成功。然而僅在4個小時前，我還在對自己說理智應把任何環境中的原材料轉化成幸福的果實。On GenerosityArnold BennettIt must be very difficult, I think, to be really generous, i.e. to give some thing which you need. I doubt whether in this strict sense I have ever been really generous in all my life. I felt in this afternoon, in talking with E., when it was a question of giving 20 before I had heard definitely from my architect th at the landlord at Paris had undertaken to refund my deposit. I might really wan t that 20, and though I decided at once to give it, I gave it not from a spontan eous instinct of generosity, but unwillingly (within myself), and in obedience to my ideas of rightness and propriety. Something forced me to give it. This is n ot generosity.As at meals I sat between E., in tears and full of disasters, and Mme. Berge ret, an old woman, untidy, radoteuse, maniaque, though witty sometimes, and M. a way in Paris, the unpleasant, empty, unsatisfying greyness of existence weighed on me. I en voulait(法語，意為怨恨) against E. for being unfortunate, and against Mme. B. for being old and maniaque, and I wanted to be surrounded by youth, be auty, and worldly success. Yet only 4 hours previously I had been preaching to myself that it was my Reason"s business to manufacture my happiness out of the rawmaterial of no natter what environment I found myself in.論處世傑羅姆·克雷克·傑羅姆傑羅姆·克雷克·傑羅姆（1859—1927），英國小說家，劇作家。著有小說《遊手好閒的閒情逸緻》、《三人在船上》等。《論處世》是一篇論人情世態的妙文。紛繁嘈雜的人群啊！王子與乞丐，罪人與聖人，屠夫、麵包師與燭台商，鐵匠與裁縫，農民與海員，所有的人一起向前擁擠著。這裡既有頭戴假髮、身穿禮服的法律顧問，又有頭纏骯髒毛巾的老年猶太成衣商；這裡既有一身紅軍裝的士兵，又有戴著飄帶帽子和舊棉手套的送喪吹鼓手；這裡既有動作笨拙的學者，翻閱著他那發黃的書頁，又有香氣襲人的演員，炫耀著華麗的豹皮大衣；既有圓滑的政客，叫喊著立法萬能，又有徒步遊歷的江湖小販，高舉著他那騙人的狗皮膏藥；這裡既有油嘴滑舌的資本家，又有身強力壯的僱傭工；這裡既有科學家，又有擦鞋匠；這裡既有詩人，又有收水費的人；這裡既有內閣部長，又有芭蕾舞演員；這裡既有自誇其酒好的糟鼻子酒商，又有每夜50鎊報酬的戒酒宣講者；這裡既有法官，又有騙子；這裡既有神父，又有賭徒；這裡既有珠光寶氣的公爵夫人，笑容可掬，雍容華貴，又有厭倦了烹調、瘦骨嶙峋的客棧老闆；這裡還有濃妝艷抹、趾高氣揚的貨色。他們肩並著肩掙扎著向前，摻雜著尖叫、咒罵、祈禱、歡笑、歌唱和悲嘆。他們的步伐永不停止，這種競爭也永不結束。沒有路邊的小憩，沒有陰涼噴泉旁的停留，也沒有綠蔭下的歇息。向前，向前，向前——他們頂著烈日，隨著擁擠的人群，滿面風塵——向前，一旦倒下，就難免被淘汰——向前，哪怕嘔心瀝血，路途坎坷 ——向前，直到心力交瘁、頭暈目眩，咕咕的呻吟聲告訴後來者時機已到。然而，儘管人群前進的速度使人疲於奔命，道路坎坷頗費腳力，除了懶漢、傻瓜，誰能避免這艱難的行程呢？誰能置身局外旁觀這喧囂嘈雜呢？正像夜行的旅客望著眼前仙子們的歡宴，情不自禁地奪杯暢飲，縱步融入狂舞的人群。我正是這種人。我知道路邊有樹陰、心滿意足的水煙筒、甜荷葉等比喻都不合適。這些比喻雖然聽起來美好、深刻，但我恐怕自己不是這種人——只要外界稍微有點趣事上演，我就無法安坐在樹陰下吸煙。想來我更像那些愛爾蘭人，一看見有人群聚集，便打發小女出去打聽是否在吵架，「若真是這樣，爸爸倒要去湊些熱鬧。」我喜歡激烈的競爭，而且喜歡旁觀競爭。我喜歡打聽他人的戰況，當然競爭靠的是勇敢頑強，光明正大，而不是投機取巧，玩弄詭計；它能激蕩撒克遜人傳統的戰鬥熱血，就像學童時代「與厄運抗爭的騎士」的故事一樣使我們童心振奮。人生的鬥爭也是一場同可怕的厄運的抗爭。每個時代都存在巨人、蒼龍之類的龐然大物，它們所守護的金子根本不可能像小說里描寫的那樣會被輕易拿走。在小說里，阿爾格農最後流連地望了一眼祖先的房屋，抹去眼角的淚珠，離家而去；三年後，他竟然衣錦還鄉、腰纏萬貫。小說家並沒有告訴我們「他是怎樣做到這一切的」，這真是個遺憾，因為這段經歷肯定會極為精彩。On Getting On in the WorldJ. K. JeromeA motley throng — a motley throng! Prince and beggar, sinner and saint, but cher and baker and candlestick maker, tinkers and tailors, and ploughboys and sailors — all jostling along together. Here the counsel in his wig and gown, and here the old Jew clothesman under his dingy tiara; here the soldier in his scar let, and here the undertaker"s mute in streaming hat band and worn cotton glove s; here the scholar, fumbling his faded leaves, and here the scented actor, dang ling his showy seals. Here the glib politician, crying his legislative panaceas; and here the peripatetic Cheap Jack, holding aloft his quack cures for human ills. Here The sleek capitalist, and there the sinewy labourer; here the man of sc ience, and here the shoe black; here the poet, and here the water rate collect or; here the cabinet minister, and there the ballet dancer. Here a red nosed p ublican, shouting the praises of his vats; and here a temperance lecturer at fif ty pounds a night; here a judge, and there a swindler; here a priest, and there a gambler. Here a jewelled duchess, smiling and gracious; here a thin lodging house keeper, irritable with cooking; and here a wabbling, strutting thing, tawdry in paint and finery.Cheek by cheek, they struggle onward. Screaming, cursing, and praying, laugh ing, singing, and moaning, they rush past side by side. Their speed never slacke ns, the race never ends. There is no wayside rest for them, no halt by cooling f ountains, no pause beneath green shades. On, on, on—on through the heat and t he crowd and the dust—on, or they will be trampled down, and lost — on, with throbbing brain and tottering limbs — on, till the heart grows sick, and the e yes grow blurred, and a gurgling groan tells those behind they may close up anot her space.And yet, in spite of the killing pace and the stony track, who, but the slug gard or the dolt, can hold aloof from the course? Who — like the belated travel ler that stands watching fairy revels till he snatches and drains the goblin cup , and springs into the whirling circle — can view the mad tumult, and not be dr awn into its midst? Not I, for one. I confess to the wayside arbour, the pipe of contentment, and the lotus leaves being altogether unsuitable metaphors. They s ounded very nice and philosophical, but I"m afraid I am not the sort of person to sit in arbours, smoking pipes, when there is any fun going on outside. I think I more resemble the Irishman, who, seeing a crowd collecting, sent his little g irl out to ask if there was going to be a row —「 "Cos, if so, father would like to be in it. 」I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. I like to hear of people getti ng on in it — battling their way bravely and fairly — that is, not slipping th rough by luck or trickery. It stirs one"s old Saxon fighting blood, like the tal es of 「knights who fought against fearful odds」 thrilled us in our schoolboy days.And fighting the battle of life is fighting against fearful odds, too.There are giants and dragons in every age, and the golden casket that they guard is not so easy to win as it appears in the story books. There, Algernon takes one long, last look at the ancestral hall, dashes the teardrop from his eye, and goes o ff — to return in three year"s time, rolling in riches. The authors do not tell us 「how it"s done, 」 which is a pity, for it would surely prove exciting.論奢華奧里弗·哥爾德史密斯哥爾德史密斯擅長創作批判性文章，嚴厲抨擊浮誇不實的假道學，強調人類原始的美德。本文即是他獨排眾議，否定「奢華」與人類罪惡的絕對關係，並讚揚它對世界文明的貢獻。看看這一幅原始單純的自然照片，告訴我，我最尊敬的朋友，你熱愛疲勞和孤獨嗎？你會感嘆四處漂泊的韃靼人的節儉，還是後悔生於文明人士的奢侈矯飾中？或者你會對我說，每種生活方式都有其特有的罪惡。文明的國家罪惡較多，不如此可怕兇殘或者不是最可怕的國家罪惡較少，這難道不是事實嗎？背信和欺詐是文明國家的醜行，荒蠻之地的居民則是輕信和暴力。文明之國的奢華能抵的上野蠻國家無人性罪惡的一半嗎？當然，那些痛責奢華的哲學家，對奢華益處只是一知半解；他們好像沒有察覺到，我們所擁有的奢華不僅是我們知識中最偉大的部分，甚至還是我們的美德。當一個高談闊論者講到抑制我們的慾望，只用最少的東西來滿足我們的感官，只用大自然所缺乏的東西來供給它們，這聽起來好像很美妙；但是，如果能無辜、安適地盡享這些慾望，這不比抑制它們更能令人滿意嗎?快樂生活所得到的滿足不比了無生趣地悶頭思考之滿足要好嗎?人工製造的必需品變化愈多，我們快樂的圈子就越大；只有需求被滿足之後，快樂才會存在；所以，奢華在增加我們需求的同時，也擴大了我們幸福的空間。仔細調查研究任何一個以富饒和智慧而聞名於世的國家的歷史，你將發現，沒有最初的奢華就沒有今天的英明智慧；你還會發現詩人、哲學家、甚至愛國者也在「奢華」的列車上行進。理由是明顯的：只有在發現知識繫於感官的逸樂時，我們才會好奇而去求知。各種感覺會為我們指明方向，產生對創造發明的種種評論。告訴戈壁沙漠土人月亮視差的精確測量，他不覺得這個信息能滿足他什麼需求；他迷惑：為什麼會有人肯這麼費勁，花這麼多錢去解決這麼無用的難題。但是如果把這個和他的幸福聯繫起來的話，向他表明這樣做可以改進海上航行，有了這樣的更暖的外套、更好的槍或者更棒的刀，立刻，他就會為如此偉大的改良而興奮。總之，我們只想知道我們渴望擁有什麼；無論我們如何反對它，奢華都激發了我們的好奇心，使我們渴望變得聰明。On LuxuryOliver GoldsmithFrom such a picture of Nature in primeval simplicity, tell me, my much respe cted friend, are you in love with fatigue and solitude? Do you sigh for the frug ality of the wandering Tartar, or regret being born amidst the luxury and dissim ulation of the polite? Rather tell me, has not every kind of life vices peculiarly its own? Is it not a truth, that refined countries have more vices, but those not so terrible barbarous nations few, and they of the most hideous complexion? Perfidy and fraud are the vices of civilized nations, credulity and violence those of the inhabitants of the desert. Does the luxury of the one produce half the evils of the inhumanity of the other? Certainly those philosophers, who declai magainst luxury, have but little understood its benefits; they seem insensible, that to luxury we owe not only the greatest part of our knowledge, but even of our virtue.It may sound fine in the mouth of a declaimer when he talks of subduing our appetites, of teaching every sense to be content with a bare sufficiency, and of supplying only the wants of Nature; but is there not more satisfaction in indul ging those appetites, if with innocence and safety, than in restraining them? Am not I better pleased in enjoyment than in the sullen satisfaction of thinking that I can live without enjoyment? The more various our artificial necessities, the wider is our circle of pleasure; for all pleasure consists in obviating neces sities as they rise; luxury, therefore, as it increases our wants, increases of capacity for happiness.Examine the history of any country remarkable for opulence and wisdom, you will find they would never have been wise had they not been first luxurious; you will find poets, philosophers, and even patriots, marching in Luxury"s train. The reason is obvious; we then only are curious after knowledge when we find it co nnected with sensual happiness. The senses ever point out the way, and reflectio ncomments upon the discovery. Inform a native of the desert of Kobi, of the exa ct measure of the parallax of the moon, he finds no satisfaction at all in the information; he wonders how any could take such pains, and lay out such treasures in order to solve so useless a difficulty; but connect it with his happiness, by showing that it improves navigation, that by such an investigation he may have a warmer coat, a better gun, or a finer knife, and he is instantly in raptures at so great an improvement. In short, we only desire to know what we desire to p ossess; and whatever we may talk against it, luxury adds the spur to curiosity, and gives us a desire of becoming more wise.如果我休息,我就會生鏽奧里森·馬登奧里森·馬登（1848—1924），美國著名的成功學家。他創辦的《成功》雜誌在美國無人不曉，它通過創造性地傳播成功學改變了無數美國人的命運。他被公認為美國成功學的奠基人和最偉大的成功勵志導師。在一把舊鑰匙上面發現的具有深遠意義的文字——如果我休息，我就生鏽。對於那些為懶散而苦惱的人而言，這無疑是一則最好的箴言。甚至那些勤勞的人都會接受並從中受益，將它視為警語。如果一個人讓他的身體機能休息，像鑰匙上沒有被使用的鐵一樣，那麼他的身體很快就會表現出生鏽的跡象，從而無法從事被授予的工作。想要獲得與偉人相同成就的人，必須持續不斷地使用身體，保持健康的體魄，這才足以打開知識之門——守衛著專業、科學、文學、農業——每一道人類知識領域的入口。勤勉能使鑰匙發亮，從而開啟成功的寶藏。如果修斯·米勒在一天的礦場勞累之後，在傍晚休息和娛樂，他絕不會成為一位名垂青史的地質學家。著名的數學家愛德蒙·斯通如果將休閑的時光用於消遣娛樂，他決不可能出版一本數學字典，也就不可能發現打開數學科學大門的鑰匙了。如果年輕的蘇格蘭青年，霍格森，在山腰上放羊時讓忙碌的大腦昏昏沉睡，而不是拿一串珠子來計算星座位置的話，他也無法成為一位聲名大振的天文學家了。勞動征服一切——這裡所指的的勞動，並非變化多端的、斷斷續續的或者偏離方向的勞動；而是實在的、持續的、朝著正確方向而每日堅持不斷的努力。正如自由的代價是無休止的警惕，永無止境的勤勉則是獲得崇高而持久的成功所必須付出的代價。If I rest,I rustOrison MardenThe significant inion found on an old key — 「If I rest, I rust」 — would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the slightest taint of idleness. Even the industrious might adopt it with advantage to serve as are minder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused ke y, they will soon show signs of rust, and, ultimately, cannot do the work requir ed of them.Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must keep their faculties polished by constant use, so that they may unlock the doors of knowledge, the gates that guard the entrances to the professions, to science, art, literature, agriculture, — every department of human endeavor.Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasure of achievement. If Hug h Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest an d recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist. The celebrated math ematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical dictionary, n ever have found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given his spare mom ents to idleness. Had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside, instead of calculating the p osition of the stars by a string of beads, he would never have become a famous a stronomer.Labor vanquished all,— not inconstant,spasmodic, or ill directed labor; bu t faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well directed purpose. Just as t ruly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the pr ice of noble and enduring success.如何安度晚年伯特蘭·羅素作為一個哲學家兼文學家，伯特蘭·羅素的文章以透闢、縝密著稱。這篇文章節選自他的散文集《來自回憶的畫像》。從心理學上來講，在老年時期要防止這樣兩種危險。第一是過分沉緬於過去。生活於過去之中，為已過的好時光而抱憾，或因朋友作古而痛苦，這些都是沒有什麼用處的。人的思想應該朝著未來，朝著還可以有所作為的方面。這並不是容易做到的，因為一個人的過去是一份不斷加重的負擔。人們容易承認自己的感情，過去比現在豐富，自己的思想，過去比現在深刻。如果這是事實，就把它忘掉。如果忘掉它，那它可能將不成其為事實。另外一件要避免的事情是跟著年輕人，渴望從他們的生機中吸取力量。當你的孩子們已經長大，他們就要過屬於他們自己的生活，如果你還是像小時候那樣對他們關心備至，你就可能成為他們的負擔，除非他們特別冷漠。我不是說對他們應該不聞不問，但是你所給予的關心應是理性的，解囊相助的（如果可能的話），而非過於感情衝動。動物在自己的後代一旦能夠生活自理時，就不再給予照顧，可是人類，因為幼年時期太長，很難做到這一點。我覺得一個人能做到對合適的活動興趣盎然、不理會自己的個人得失，那麼，他就很容易享有成功的晚年，因為經過長期積累的經驗在此可以結出累累的碩果，而經過經驗產生的智慧在這個時候既有用武之地，而又不至咄咄逼人。叫已經長大成人的孩子不要犯錯誤是沒有好處的，因為他們不會信任你，同時也由於犯錯誤是接受教育的不可缺少的一環。但如果你做不到不計個人得失，那麼，不將你的心放在兒孫後輩身上，你便會覺得生活空虛無聊。如果是這樣，你必須知道：儘管你還能給他們物質上的幫助，諸如給點補貼或織幾件毛衣，可是你千方不要指望他們會喜歡跟你在一起。有些老人為死的恐懼所困擾。假如年輕人有這種恐懼，那也沒有什麼可說的。年輕人有理由害怕戰死在戰場上；但當他們想到被騙走了生命所能賦予的美好生活時，他們有理由表示不滿。但假如對於一個嘗盡人間疾苦，已經完成該做的一切的老年人來講，怕死就有點不大好了。克服這種恐懼的最好辦法是——至少在我看來是這樣的——使你的愛好逐漸擴大，越來越超出個人的範圍，最後你的自我之牆將一點一點地退卻，你的生命將越來越和人類的生命融合在一起。一個人的一生應該像一條河——開始很小，被兩岸緊緊約束，激烈地衝過岩石和瀑布。漸漸地它變寬了，兩岸退卻了，河水靜靜地流著。到最後,不經過任何可見的停留，就和大海匯合在一起，毫無痛苦地失去它自身的存在。一個在老年能這樣對待生活的人，將不會感到死亡的恐懼，因為他所關心的事物將繼續下去。假如由於生命力的減退，倦意日增，安息的想法也許就是可喜之處。我希望我能死於工作之時，並且在我快死的時候能知道別人將繼續做我不能再做的工作，同時能為自己已完成力所能及的一切而心滿意足。How to Grow OldBertrand RussellPsychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One"s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is some thing to be done. This is not always easy; one"s own past is a gradually increas ing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one"s emotions used to be more v ivid than they are, and one"s mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgo tten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vi gour from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous — I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one" s interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional.Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong imper sonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive. It is no use telling grow nup children not to make mistakes, both because they will not believe you, and b ecause mistakes are an essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will bee mpty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material services, suc has making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble.The best way to overcome it — so at least it seems to me — is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. A n individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.論招人厭煩的人羅伯特·林德羅伯特·林德(1879—1949)，英國近代散文名家，生於愛爾蘭，曾任倫敦《新聞報》文學編輯，工作之餘著述頗豐，在散文創作方面有較高成就。我有時覺得，那種最招人厭煩的人就是那種喜歡跟人講從一個地方到另一地方有多少條路好走的人。我一生中感到最厭煩的一回，是聽一位老先生向一位上年紀的女人講解，她從拿丁山門回漢普斯台可能走的全部街道。她曾向他抱怨說她走的那條路太費時間。於是，他一大串的絮絮叨叨便開了頭，其中包括所有的公共汽車路線、街道名和站名。接下來，他用一種平鋪直敘的語調指點給她整個西部和北部倫敦的每一條路。他奉告給她所有可以換車地方的地名，並且還為她一一詳述一路上所有的酒店名字。最後我感覺到，他好像連他自己也被弄煩了，至於我們旁人就更不用說了；但他還是不敢把話停下來，想來或許因為他再沒有別的什麼好談了。等到最後他起身走開時，我早已陷入昏迷狀態，什麼卡門敦大街、威爾土親王路以及不列顛街等等之類街名在我的腦海中不斷碰撞，亂作一團。另外一種討人厭煩的談話方式是這樣一種人的談話方式。這種人一談起政治來，就把所有陳詞濫調的議論全都抖摟出來，那神氣活像他是第一次使用它們。我自己就一向是這類討人厭煩的人。年輕的時候，我因為認識不清，曾誤以為格萊斯頓先生的愛爾蘭自治提案是危險和有害的，於是每次遇見我那位倡議地方自治的好朋友時，我總愛把話扯到那個大問題上去。路上並肩走著的時候，我便往他的耳朵里搪塞那最荒唐的糊塗話，目光炯炯地為他講述了歷來英國對愛爾蘭的全部德政，並向他大聲疾呼那些從自治之前的格萊斯頓以及威廉·哈爾考特爵士那裡引來的盡人皆知的陳腐語言。我從來沒有發過一點新鮮議論，因為我對此一無所知。我像一隻被激怒了的鸚鵡，只知道重複一大堆可以想見的愚昧無知話語。就連他那張很有耐性的臉孔上的痛苦表情也不能讓我停止。但是有一天，他實在忍無可忍，突然臉上一紅，對著我冷冷來了一句：「我的天，你真是個夠討厭的人。」當然，誰也不願意被人當成討厭的人，而對一個當面說你討厭的人，你便很難繼續再和他辯論下去了。當我們了解到自己在招人厭煩時，我們就像泄氣的氣球。我當時的情況就是這樣。拉·羅施夫考曾說過：「我們能原諒那些使我們感到厭煩的人，但不能原諒感到我們厭煩的人。」不過震動一過，我倒沒有因為友人的坦率而減少了我對他的友情。從那次以後我肯定還曾經招不少人厭煩過；但是除了家裡人之外，一直倒還沒有人向我講過我討他們厭煩。我得認真研究別人的面部表情才能知道我是否在招他們厭煩……On Being a BoreRobert LyndThe worst bores, I sometimes think, are those who love telling people the va rious routes from one place to another.I have never been more bored in my life t han when listening to an old gentleman explaining to an old lady the several ways in which she might have come from Notting Hill Gate to Hampstead.She had compl ained of the time the journey had taken and immediately he was off on a long rig marole consisting of the number of buses and the frames of streets and stations. He went on in a flat voice conducting her, as it seemed to me, through every str eet in west and north London. He told her of all the various places where she mi ght have changed buses and named most of the public houses on the way.In the end, it seemed to me, he was boring himself as well as the rest of us; but he dare d not stop, I fancy, because he could think of nothing else to talk about.By the time he rose to go I was in a coma with words like Camden High Street, Prince of Wales Road and Britannia jostling each other in my brain.Another boring form of conversation is that of the man who, when talking politics, trots out all the old threadbare arguments withs the air of a person usin g them for the first time.I have been a bore of this kind myself. As a boy I was blind enough to regard Mr.Gladstone"s proposal of Home Rule for Ireland as bots dangerous and wicked, and, whenever I met a great friend of mine who was a Home Ruler, I would drag the conversation round to the great theme.I shouted the wil dest nonsense into his ear as I walked beside him in the streets, telling him with blazing eyes of all the good England had done to Ireland and yelling all the usual musty quotations from the Pre Home Rule Gladstone and Sir William Harcourt. Not once did I use an original argument, for I knew none. I was merely an in furiated parrot, speaking out of the richest store of ignorance conceivable. Sig ns of distress on his patient face could not stop me; but one day, driven beyond endurance, he turned to me with a slight flush and said quietly:「My God, what a bore you are! 」Now no one likes to be thought a bore, and it is difficult to go on arguing with a man who tells you that you are boring him.To realize that on e is boring somebody is to become a pricked balloon. I certainly did. La Roche foucauld tells us that 「we can forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgi ve those whom we bore, 」 yet, after the first moment of shock, I never liked my f riend the less for his candour. Since then I must have bored many people; but o utside the family circle no one has since told me that I was boring them. I have to study the expression on their faces to know.無知常樂羅伯特·林德普通人只會使用電話，卻無法解釋電話的工作原理。他把電話、火車、鑄造排字機、飛機都看作自然而然的事情，就像我們的祖父一代將福音書里的奇蹟故事視為理所當然一樣。對於這些事，他既不產生懷疑，也不去了解。我們每個人真正下工夫去了解、弄清楚的似乎只是很小範圍內的某幾件事。大多數人把日常工作以外的一切知識都當作花哨無用的東西。然而，我們還是時時抗拒著我們的無知。我們有時振作起來，進行思索。我們信手拈來一個什麼題目，思考它，甚至入迷——關於死後的生命，或者關於某些據說亞里士多德也迷惑不解的問題，例如：「打噴嚏，從中午到子夜則吉，從子夜至中午則凶，是什麼原因呢?」為求知識而陷入無知，這是人類所欣賞的最大樂事之一。歸根結底，無知的極大樂趣在於提出問題。一個人，如果喪失了這種提問的樂趣，或者把它換成了教條的答案，並且以此為樂，那麼，他的頭腦已經開始僵化了。裘伊這樣的勤學好問的人是我們所羨慕的，他到了六十多歲居然還能坐下來研究生理學。我們大多數人還沒到他這麼大的歲數就早已不再有自己無知的感覺了。我們甚至對自己一點淺薄的知識感到沾沾自喜，而把與日俱增的年齡看作是培養無所不知的天然學堂。我們忘記了：蘇格拉底之所以智慧名垂後世，並不是因為他無所不知，而是因為他在70歲高齡時還明白自己依然一無所知。Ignorance Make One HappyRobert LyndThe average man who uses a telephone could not explain how a telephone works. He takes for granted the telephone, the railway train, the linotype, the airpl ane, as our grandfathers took for granted the miracles of the gospels. He neithe r questions nor understands them. It is as though each of us investigated and ma de his own only a tiny circle of facts. Knowledge outside the day"s work is rega rded by most men as a gewgaw. Still we are constantly in reaction against our ig norance. We rouse ourselves at intervals and speculate. We revel in speculations about anything at all — about life after death or about such questions as that which is said to have puzzled Aristotle,「why sneezing from noon to midnight wa s good, but from night to noon unlucky. 」 One of the greatest joys known to man is to take such a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. The great pleasur e of ignorance is, after all, the pleasure of asking questions. The man who has lost this pleasure or exchanged it for the pleasure of dogma, which is the pleas ure of answering, is already beginning to stiffen. One envies so inquisitive a man as Jewell, who sat down to the study of physiology in his sixties. Most of us have lost the sense of our ignorance long before that age. We even become vain of our squirrel"s hoard of knowledge and regard increasing age itself as a schoo l of omniscience.We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom not because he was omniscient but because he realized at the age of seventy that he still knew not hing.鹽亨利·凡·戴克本文節選自亨利·凡·戴克1898年6月在哈佛大學發表的著名演說《鹽》。「你們是世上的鹽。」《馬太福音》，5：13。這是個平凡而且發人深省的比喻。鹽可以用來調味，又可以用來清潔、防腐。鹽是一種奢侈品，像某位偉大的法國才子所稱頌的那樣是「頭等必需品」。在人類歷史剛剛開始的時候，鹽就被認為有很高的價值，並開始在山洞和海灘採集它。盛產鹽的國家曾被視為富國。在原始部落里，一袋鹽比一個人還要珍貴。猶太人尤其珍視鹽，因為他們居住的地方氣候炎熱，很難儲藏食物。此外，他們的宗教特彆強調清潔，在向上帝獻祭時需要用大量的鹽。當基督對他的門徒說「你們是世上的鹽」時，選用了一個人們都熟悉的事物來做比喻。他用這個比喻來說明他認為眾門徒應該肩負的使命和應該發生的影響。他們到世上來就是要凈化、美化他們所生活的世界，使它免於腐敗，給人們的生活以清新的、健康的氣息。他們的作用不是消極的，而是積極的。他們活動的範圍是當下的生活，他們不必把鹽省下來帶到天國去，那裡不需要鹽。鹽的使命是滲入、調劑與凈化塵世的事物。……SaltHenry Van Dyke「Ye are the salt of the earth.」 Matthew 5: 13.This figure of speech is plain and pungent. Salt is savory, purifying, prese rvative. It is one of those superfluities which the great French wit defined as 「things that are very necessary」. From the very beginning of human history men have set a high value upon salt and sought for it in caves and by the seashore. The nation that had a good supply was counted rich. A bag of salt, among the bar barous tribes, was worth more than a man. The Jews prized it especially, because they lived in a warm climate where food was difficult to keep, and because thei r religion laid particular emphasis on cleanliness, and because salt was largely used in their sacrifices.Christ chose an image which was familiar, when He said to His disciples, 「Ye are the salt of the earth. 」 This was His conception of their mission, their in fluence. They were to cleanse and sweeten the world in which they lived, to keep it from decay, to give a new and more wholesome flavor to human existence. Their function was not to be passive, but active. The sphere of its action was to be this present life. There is no use in saving salt for heaven. It will not be ne eded there. Its mission is to permeate, season, and purify things on earth…擇 友佚名好友勝於財富，因為財富買不到基本的品德，而正是這些基本品德使人們之間的交往成為一件幸事。最好的朋友就是比我們更睿智、更出色的人，我們可以被他的智慧和美德所激勵，從而使我們的行為更加高尚。他們才智比我們更傑出，情操比我們更高尚，從而能使我們在精神和道德的境界得到提高。「觀察一個人所結交的朋友，就可以知道他是什麼樣的人」這句話總是對的。高層次的交友對於性情的培養特別有力。在交往中，性情對於性情的影響勝過其他一切因素。近朱者赤，近墨者黑，這一事實告訴人們，在年輕時代，擇友甚至比選擇老師和監護人更為重要。不可否認的是，有些朋友總是我們無法選擇的。有些人是由於生意和各種社會關係的緣故被硬塞給我們的。我們沒有選擇他們，我們也不喜歡他們，但是我們必須或多或少地跟他們交往。如果我們堅守內心的原則，承受一些壓力，這樣的經歷並非完全沒有補償。但總的來說，朋友可以選擇，也必須選擇。如果沒有事先的掂量或明確的目的，一個年輕人就隨便與張三、李四或王五交往，那是不妥當、不必要的。一些確定的交友之道應該被遵守。這一點應放在思想最重要的位置，並時時檢點自己。無論是有益的或者有害的友誼，都是一種教育；無論對男對女，它都可以滋養高尚或卑微的人格；它可以使靈魂升華，也可以使之墮落；它可以滋生美德，也可以催生邪惡。它的影響沒有折中之道。友誼，如果使人高尚，就會使人如天使般莊重；如果使人墮落，就會使人如魔鬼般邪惡。它可以有力地拯救一個人，也可以輕易地毀掉一個人。世上沒有什麼比這更確定無疑的事了。播種美德，收穫的就是美德；播種邪惡，收穫的就是邪惡。好的朋友可以幫助我們播種美德，壞的朋友促使我們播種邪惡。Choice of CompanionsAnonymousA good companion is better than a fortune, for a fortune cannot purchase tho se elements of character which make companionship a blessing. The best companion is one who is wiser and better than ourselves, for we are inspired by his wisdom and virtue to nobler deeds. Greater wisdom and goodness than we possess lifts us higher mentally and morally.「A man is known by the companion he keeps. 」 It is always true. Companionship of a high order is powerful to develop character. Character makes character in the associations of life faster than anything else. Purity begets purity, like begets like; and this fact makes the choice of companions in early life more imp ortant even than that of teachers and guardians.It is true that we cannot always choose all of our companions. Some are thru st upon us by business and the social relations of life. We do not choose them, we do not enjoy them; and yet, we have to associate with them more or less. The experience is not altogether without compensation, if there be principle enough in us to bear the strain. Still, in the main, choice of companions can be made, and must be made. It is not best or necessary for a young person to associate wi th 「Tom, Dick and Henry」 without forethought or purpose. Some fixed rules about the company he or she keeps should be observed. The subject should be uppermost in the thoughts, and canvassed often.Companionship is education, good or bad; it develops manhood or womanhood, h igh or low; it lifts the soul upward or drags it downward; it ministers to virtu e or vice. There is no half way work about its influence. If it ennobles, it doe sit grandly; if it demoralizes, it does it devilishly. It saves or destroys lus tily. Nothing in the world is surer than this. Sow virtue, and the harvest will be virtue. Sow vice, and the harvest will be vice. Good companions help us to so wvirtue; evil companions help us to sow vice.專 心喬治·埃勒迪斯·雷德爾喬治·埃勒迪斯·雷德爾（1865—1934），英國記者，新聞事業家。他在本文中對於成功的秘訣——專心作了深入淺出的描述。有些人的成功常常讓周圍的人大惑不解，因為他們似乎從來沒有工作，或者沒有持續很長時間地工作。他們的成功秘密在於能夠專心，因而能夠憑藉最低限度的明顯努力獲得最高限度的成果。愛默生說：「無論是在政治中、戰爭中、商業中，還是在一切人類事務的處理中，專心都是成功的秘訣。」專心是心靈的一種習慣。在專心的能力方面，人們並非生來完全相同，就像在玩撞球的能力方面，大家也不是生來完全相同。但是，每個人都可以把自己的能力朝著某個方向提高到某種程度。現在是一個專家的時代。要切記，專心不僅對於做事情來說是必需的，對於選擇要做什麼樣的事情時也的必需的。在當今這個時代，一個人如果不能專心於某一件事情，就不可能取得卓越的成就。我們必須記住，對那些還沒有習慣於專心的人們，專心真是一項使人心力交瘁的事情。所以，不要把專心的緊張狀態繼續太久，應該在適當的時候把注意力鬆弛一下。也就是說，專心的習慣是要逐漸養成的。在第一天，可以聚精會神地專心一刻鐘，然後逐漸增加，到月底時可以延長到每天兩小時或兩小時以上。專心最重要的是把心靈的全部力量集中於當前正在從事的工作上面。在身心疲乏的時候，一個人不能非常圓滿地做到這一點。而對於兒童和年輕人來說，持續太久的努力對他們還會有所傷害。ConcentrationGeorge Allardice RiddellThe success of some men bewilders those around them because they never seem to work, or to work for any length of time. Their secret is their power to conce ntrate, and thus to obtain the maximum of result with the minimum of apparent ef fort. 「Concentration」, says Emerson, 「is the secret of success in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all the management of human affairs. 」Concentration is a habit of mind. Men are not born equal in their power of c oncentration any more than in their power of playing billiards. But up to a poin t every one can improve his powers in every direction. This is the age of specia lists. Remember that concentration is necessary not only to do things, but to se lect what to do. In these days no one can achieve great distinction unless he co ncentrates on some one thing.It must be remembered that concentration is an exhausting mental and physica l business for those who are unaccustomed to it. Therefore, to begin with, thes train should not be too prolonged. Attention should be relaxed for a suitable pe riod. In other words the habit should be gradually formed. Brisk, vigorous conce ntration for a quarter of an hour on the first day may be gradually expanded into two hours or more at the end of a month. The essence of concentration is that the full powers of the mind should be centered on the task in hand. A tired mind and body cannot accomplish this to the best advantage, and in the case of child ren and young persons harm may result from too prolonged efforts.飛蛾之死弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙……然而，雖然他很小，卻是一種很簡單的能量形式。這種能量從打開的窗口紛至沓來，深入到我自己和他人頭腦里無數狹小複雜的角落，所以他身上有著某種可悲而神奇的東西。好像有人取來一小滴生命原汁，極其靈巧地為他裝上羽翼，叫他來回穿梭飛舞，向我們展示生命的實質。這種展現十分奇特，叫人難以忘懷。望著他弓腰駝背，受人差遣，被人裝扮，身負重荷，不得不特別小心特別莊嚴地飛舞，你會忘記一切。另外，你如果想想他生成另一種樣子會怎麼生活，就會帶著一種憐憫來看待他簡單的活動。過了一會兒，他顯然飛累了，落在陽光下的窗台上。奇怪的場面一結束，我也就把他忘了。後來，我抬起頭，目光又被他吸引住了。他想重新飛舞，但顯得很僵硬，很笨拙，只能飛到窗格底下；想飛到窗格上面卻沒有飛成。我因為注意旁的事情，一時間看到這種種徒勞的舉動也沒去細想，下意識地等著他重新飛起來，就像一台機器一時停了，等著它再啟動一樣，也不去考慮它停機的原因。大概試飛了7次以後，他在木質窗台上滑了一下，扇動著翅膀，背著地落到窗沿上。他那無可奈何的樣子引起了我的注意。我突然想到他遇到麻煩了。他自己爬不起來；雙腿徒勞地掙扎著。但是，我伸出鉛筆想幫他翻身的時候，才想到他飛不動、身體笨拙，是快要死了。我又把鉛筆放下。他的腿又抽搐了一下。我抬起頭來，彷彿要尋找他與之戰鬥的敵人。我朝門外望去。怎麼回事？想必到了中午，田裡沒有人幹活。靜謐與安寧代替了先前的喧鬧。白嘴鴉飛到河裡覓食去了。馬兒一動不動地站著。但是那種力量依然聚集在外面，冷冷冰冰，對什麼都不聞不問，似乎它在與這個乾草色的飛蛾作對。做什麼都沒用，只能眼睜睜地望著小飛蛾的兩條細腿在厄運即將來臨之際亂踢亂蹬。如果願意，厄運會淹沒整個城市，不光是一座城市，還有大批大批的人；我知道什麼也逃不了一死。然而，精疲力竭的飛蛾停了一會兒，又開始蹬腿，這最後的反抗非常精彩，十分激烈，終於他翻過身來。人的同情心自然都是向著生命的。而且，雖然沒有人在意，沒有人知道，這個微不足道的小飛蛾還是拚命地與這麼巨大的力量抗爭，保存別人看不起也不願保留的東西，此情此景會給你一種奇特的感動。同時，你不知怎麼又會看到生命，一滴純粹的生命。我又拿起鉛筆，雖然我知道不管用。但就在我拿著鉛筆的時候，死亡的跡象已經明白無誤地表現出來。飛蛾的身體鬆弛下來，立刻又僵硬了。抗爭結束了。現在微不足道的小生物死了。我打量著死飛蛾，是強大的力量打敗這麼卑微的對手，輕易取得了小小的勝利，這不能不讓我驚訝。幾分鐘以前，生命令人奇怪，而現在，死亡同樣令人奇怪。現在飛蛾翻過身來，體面安詳地躺著，沒有一絲怨言。是啊，他似乎在說：死亡比我強大。The Death of the MothVirginia Woolf…Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was ro lling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intri cate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was som ething marvelous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feat hers, had set it dancing and zigzagging to show us the true nature of life. Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it. One is apt to forget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished and cumbered so that it has to move with the greatest circumspection and dignity. Again, the thought of all that life might have been had he been born in any other shape caused one to view his simple activities with a kind of pity.After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge in the sun, and the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then, looking up, my eye was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the windowpane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent on o ther matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, uncons ciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to strut again without considering the reason for its fa ilure. After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from the wooden ledge and fell , fluttering his wings, on to his back on the windowsill. The helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his legs straggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pen cil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.The legs agitated themselves once more. I looked as if for the enemy against which he struggled. I looked of doors. What had happened there? Presumably it was midday, and work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animations. The birds had taken themselves off to feed in the brook s. The horses stood still. Yet the power was there all the same, massed outside indifferent, impersonal, not attending to anything in particular. Somehow it was opposed to the little hay coloured moth. It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance again st death. Nevertheless after a pause of exhaustion the legs fluttered again. It was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righti ng himself. One"s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life. Also, whe n there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an in significant little moth; against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely. Again, somehow, one saw l ife, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did se, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside tr iumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. Oyes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.《海鷗喬納森·利文斯頓》節選理查德·貝奇理查德·貝奇曾是一位飛行員，參加過二戰，後從事寫作。本文節選自他的寓言體小說《海鷗喬納森·利文斯頓》。大多數海鷗只要學會最簡單的飛行本領就行了——怎樣從岸上飛出去覓食，再飛回來。對多數海鷗來說，重要的不是飛，而是吃。可是，對於這隻海鷗而言，重要的是飛，而不是吃。海鷗喬納森·利文斯頓喜愛飛行勝於其他一切。他發現自己的這種思想不會受到同類歡迎。他整天獨自練習飛行，做幾百次低飛滑翔，連他的父母都為此感到灰心。比如，他自己也不知道為什麼，只要他飛翔在離水面不到翼展一半的高度時，他在空中停留的時間就會更長，用的力氣也更小，這樣他就不需要用腳朝下濺落海中的一般方式落水，而可以兩腳呈流線型緊貼身體，在水面上留下長而平滑的波紋，然後落水。他在沙灘上滑翔著陸時開始用兩腳緊貼身體的方法，然後步測在沙面上滑行的長度。他的父母見了，也實在不知怎麼辦才好。「怎麼啦，喬恩!怎麼啦？」他母親問道，「難道像別的海鷗那樣就這麼難嗎，喬恩？低飛是鵜鶘和信天翁的事，你為什麼學這個？你怎麼不吃東西呢？孩子，你都瘦得皮包骨頭了。」「我不在乎瘦得像皮包骨頭，媽媽。我只是想知道，當我在空中時能做什麼，不能做什麼，就是這樣，我只是想了解而已。」「你瞧，喬納森，」他父親親切地說，「冬天快來了，船隻要減少了，海面上的魚也要往深處遊了。如果你一定要學，那就學學覓食吧。飛行這種事雖然好，可你不能拿滑翔當飯吃吧。別忘了，你飛行的目的就是為了覓食。」喬納森順從地點點頭。以後幾天，他盡量學其他海鷗的樣子，他真的這麼做了，他同鷗群一起，圍繞著碼頭和漁船，尖叫著爭奪食物吃，扎到海里，搶點碎魚和麵包渣。可這對他行不通。他有意把好不容易才弄到的一條鯉魚扔給一隻追逐他的飢餓的老海鷗。他想，這真沒意思，我可以用這些時間來學飛行。有很多東西需要學習!……「這兒為什麼沒有那麼多的海鷗呢?呃，在我原來住的那個地方有」「…… 我知道有成千上萬隻海鷗。」沙利文搖搖頭，「喬納森，我惟一知道的答案是，你是萬里挑一的好鳥兒。我們中間的大多數都是姍姍來遲。大多數鳥兒從一個世界進入另一個幾乎完全相同的世界，立刻就忘了是來自哪裡，也不在乎到哪裡去，只顧眼前。你是否知道，要初步領悟生活中比充饑、戰鬥、爭權更重要的事，我們要經過多少次生活經歷嗎？喬，要經過一千次一萬次呢!然後還要經過一百次，才能領悟到，存在著盡善盡美這樣的東西。然後再經過一百次，才會認識到，追求盡善盡美就是我們生活的目的，使之彰明昭著……」Excerpts from 「Jonathan Livingstone Seagull」Richard D. BachMost gulls don"t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight — h ow to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make one"s self popular w ith other birds. Even his parents were dismayed as Jonathan spent whole days alo ne, making hundreds of low level glides, experimenting.He didn"t know why, for instance, but when he flew at altitudes less than ha lf his wingspan above the water, he could stay in the air longer with less effort. His glides ended not with the usual feet down splash into the sea, but with long flat wake as he touched the surface with him feet tightly streamlined again st his body. When he began sliding in to feet up landings on the beach then pac ing the length of his slide in the sand, his parents were very much dismayed ind eed.「Why, Jon, why?」 his mother asked. 「Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can"t you leave low flying to the pelicans, the albatross ? Why don"t you eat? Son, you"re bone and feathers! 」「I don"t mind being bone and feathers, mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can"t, that"s all. I just want to know. 」「See here, Jonathan, 」 said his father, not unkindly. 「Winter isn"t far awa y. Boats will be few, and the surface fish will be swimming deep. It you must st udy, then study food, and how to get it. This flying business is all very well, but you can"t eat a glide, you know. Don"t you forget that the reason you fly is to eat?"Jonathan nodded obediently. For the next few days he tried to behave like the other gulls; he really tried, screeching and fighting with till flock around the piers and fishing boats, diving on scraps of fish and bread. But he couldn"t make it work.It"s all so pointless, he thought, deliberately dropping a hard won anchovy to a hungry old gull chasing him. I could be spending all this time learning to fly. There"s so much to learn!…「Why aren"t there more of us here? Why, where I came from there were…」「…thousands and thousands of gulls. I know. 」 Sullivan shook his head. 「Th e only answer I can see, Jonathan, is that you are pretty well a one in a mil lion bird. Most of us came along ever so slowly. We went from one world into ano ther that was almost exactly like it, forgetting right away where we had come from, not caring here we were headed, living for the moment. Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, power in the Flock? A thousand l ives, Jon, ten thousand! And then another hundred lives until we began to learn that there is such a thing as perfection, and another hundred again to get the i dea that our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth…"河之歌威廉·S 毛姆沿著整條河都可以聽見歌聲。它洪亮而有力度，那是船夫，他們劃著木船順流而下，船尾翹得很高，船邊系著桅杆。這也許是比較急促的號子。那些縴夫拉著纖逆流而上，如果拉的是小木船，也許就只要五六個人，如果拉的是要過急灘的揚著橫帆的大船，就要二百多人。一個漢子站在船中央不停地擊鼓助威，引導他們加勁。於是他們用盡全身的力量，像著了魔似的，腰彎成兩折，有時力量要全部用完了就全身趴在地上匍匐前進，就像田裡的牲口。他們用力，拚命用力，對抗著水流無情的威懾之力。領頭的在纖繩前後不停地奔跑，見到有人沒有用盡全力，就用竹板打他的光背。每個人都必須竭盡全力，否則就要前功盡棄。就這樣他們還是唱著激昂熱烈的號子，那洶湧澎湃的河水號子。我不知道用怎樣的詞語才能描寫出這其中的拼搏，它體現除了緊繃的心弦，幾乎要斷裂的筋肉，同時也體現了人類以頑強的精神克服著無情的自然力。雖然繩子可能扯斷，大船可能倒退，但險灘最終能通過，在結束筋疲力盡的一天之後，可以痛快地吃上一頓飽飯……然而最讓人難受的卻是苦力的歌，他們背著從船上卸下的大包，沿著陡坡爬上城牆。他們不停地來回地上下，和著沒有盡頭的勞動響起有節奏的喊聲：嗨，喲—— 嗨，喲。他們赤腳裸背，臉上的汗水不斷地向下流。他們的歌是痛苦的呻吟，失望的嘆息，讓人聽來心碎不已，簡直不像是人的聲音。這是在無盡的悲涼中的呼喊的靈魂，只不過配上了有節奏的音樂而已。那終曲簡直就是人性泯滅的低泣。生活如此艱難、如此殘酷，這喊聲正是最後絕望的抗議。這就是河之歌。The Song of the RiverWilliam S. MaughamYou hear it all along the river. You hear it, loud and strong, from the rowe rs as they urge the junk with its high stem, the mast lashed alongside, down the swift running stream. You hear it from the trackers, a more breathless chant, a s they pull desperately against the current, half a dozen of them perhaps if the y are taking up a sampan, a couple of hundred if they are hauling a splendid junk, its square sail set, over a rapid. On the junk a man stands amidships beating a drum incessantly to guide their efforts, and they pull with all their strengt h, like men possessed, bent double; and sometimes in the extremity of their trav ail they crawl on the ground, on all fours, like the beasts of the field. They s train, strain fiercely, against the pitiless might of the stream. The leader goe s up and down the line and when he sees one who is not putting all his will into the task he brings down his split bamboo on the naked back. Each one must do hi s utmost or the labour of all is vain. And still they sing a vehement, eager cha nt, the chant of the turbulent waters. I do not know how words can describe what there is in it of effort. It serves to express the straining heart, the breakin g muscles, and at the same time the indomitable spirit of man which overcomes the pitiless force of nature. Though the rope may part and the great junk swing ba ck, in the end the rapid will be蚯 蚓佚名世界各地都可以發現蚯蚓，它們有助於建造世界，它們有助於土地長出人類所需的糧食。你覺得這種說法很奇怪嗎？現在，讓我們來看看蚯蚓是怎麼做到這些的吧。蚯蚓生存於地下，它們在地下鑽來鑽去，把泥土鑽成一條條蜿蜒而長的孔道，如同街道一般。那些「長廊」或者「隧道」可以使泥土鬆弛，所以有利於植物的根部生長。這些孔道也有助於空氣輕易地透進泥土裡面。蚯蚓在泥土裡不停地鑽來鑽去，就如同人們在地面上用耙子、鏟或犁來掘松泥土一樣。蚯蚓首要的工作還是使土壤更加肥沃。當它們建造房子的時候，總是讓自己長長的身體蘸滿泥土，並帶到地上，堆成小堆，這就是人們所叫的蚯蚓糞。在每天早上或下雨之後，你都可以在花園的小徑上發現有蚯蚓糞。每年都有成千上萬的蚯蚓在忙碌工作著，它們每年可以挖動數以噸計的泥土。它們用嘴使泥土疏鬆並使之變得肥沃。那些本來是硬如堅石的土壤，經它們鑽動之後就變得肥沃而富饒了。The EarthwormAnonymousEarthworms are found in all parts of the world. They help to build the world. They help to prepare the earth to bring forth the food of man. Do you think th at very strange?Now let us see how this is done. The worms live underground. They make long, winding halls, like streets, some inches below the top soil. The halls or littl e tunnels help to keep the earth loose, so that the fine roots of the plants can grow well in it.These tunnels also serve to help the air move more easily through the soil. By their constant motion below the surface the worms till the earth, as rakes, s pades, or ploughs till it above.The chief work of the earthworms is to enrich the soil. When they make their houses, they fill their long bodies with the earth, and carry it to the top of the ground. There they pile it in heaps, called worm casts. Early in the day or after a rain you can find these worm casts over all the garden paths.There are so many worms busy all the time that each year they bring up tons of earth. They make the earth fine and loose by pinching it off with their mouth s. Fields once stony and hard have become rich and fine.人與自然漢密爾頓·懷特·馬堡漢密爾頓·懷特·馬堡（1846—1916），美國著名批評家、散文家。人與自然的關係是人們永遠關注的主題，馬堡也不例外，他在本篇中對人與自然關係的闡述，讓我們獲益匪淺。從地球上出現人類開始，人與自然之間的親密關係也隨之誕生，而且不斷地被發揚光大，這種關係每一世紀都比以前變得更為明智而深遠。所以，我們求助於自然，並把自然視為人類的最年長和最有影響力的老師。從某一個觀點來看，自然曾一度是我們的監工，現在卻變為我們的奴僕。但從另一個觀點來看，自然一直是我們的最忠實的朋友、教導者和啟發者。這種和諧緊密的關係，如果僅僅是少數人的特權，而大多數人並不能享有，那便會在人們心目中引發一種神秘和情趣。但是事實上，這種親密關係是被天下所有的人共享的，這就使那和諧緊密的關係失去神秘和情趣。對於少數人來說，這種關係在每個時代都充滿了奇妙和美好；對於多數人來說，這種關係只是理所當然的一件事。天空照耀著每一個人，但是只有在少數人的心目中具有一種變化多端的壯麗，他們在每一個午夜的天空都能看出一種蘊含著創造性的能力的莊嚴肅穆之美，不論那種景象重複多少次，都不會使那種美模糊不清。如果星辰每一千年才照耀一次大地，人們將懷著敬畏尊崇的心情凝視那種美景，而那種美景如果夜夜在全世界的上空出現，不但不會減損，反而更為增加它的奇妙。同樣，基於相同的原因，我們對於夏日天空的那種由浮雲聚散飄忽所形成的一日之間千變萬化的纖巧秀麗或壯麗動人的景色，也都漠然置之。海洋的神秘、恐怖和韻律，有助於醫療疲憊心靈和煩躁精神的森林所具有的奧妙和懾人魂魄的魔力；在其幽深之處保有光與大氣之奧秘的山巒所呈現的莊嚴肅穆之美；從不模仿或重複、永遠以一種出人意表的新鮮的美麗來衝擊人類想像力的風景變幻無窮——誰能感受到這些奇異景物的全部力量，或者能從它們那裡得到它們所賜予的健康、快樂和豐美呢？Man and NatureHamilton Wright MabieThe intimacy between man and Nature began with the birth of man on the earth , and becomes each century more intelligent and far reaching. To Nature, theref ore, we turn as to the oldest aim most influential teacher of our race; from one point of view once our task master, now our servant; from another point of vie w, our constant friend, instructor and inspirer. The very intimacy of this relat ion robs it of a certain mystery and richness which it would have for all minds if it were the reward of the few instead of being the privilege of the many. To the few it is, in every age, full of wonder and beauty; to the many it is a matt er of course. The heavens shine for all, but they have a changing splendor to th ose only who see in every midnight sky a majesty of creative energy and resource which no repetition of the spectacle can dim. If the stars shone but once in a thousand years, men would gaze, awe struck and worshipful, on a vision which is not less but more wonderful because it shines nightly above the whole earth. In like manner, and for the same reason, we become indifferent to that delicately beautiful or sublimely impressive sky scenery which the clouds form and reform, compose and dissipate, a thousand times on a summer day. The mystery, the terror , and the music of the sea; the secret and subduing charm of the woods, so full of healing for the spent mind or the restless spirit; the majesty of the hills, holding in their recesses the secrets of light and atmosphere; the infinite vari ety of landscape, never imitative or repetitious, but always appealing to the im agination with some fresh and unsuspected loveliness;— who feels the full power of these marvelous resources for the enrichment of life, or takes from them all the health, delight, and enrichment they have to bestow?掃帚把上的沉思喬納森·斯威夫特喬納森·斯威夫特(1667—1745)，英國18世紀傑出的諷剌文學作家，也是著名的散文家。他在本篇中由掃帚把聯想到人生，文筆幽默，發人深省。請看看這根掃帚把，它現在灰溜溜地躺在偏僻的角落，而以前我曾在樹林里碰見過它，那時它風華正茂，汁液充沛，枝葉繁盛。如今它完全變了樣，卻還有人自作聰明，想靠人類的手工同大自然競爭，拿來一束枯枝捆在它那早已乾癟的身上，結果是枉費心機，不過顛倒了它原來的位置，使它枝幹朝地，根梢朝天，成為一株頭朝下的樹，然後落在干臟活累活的女僕們的手裡使用。從此它受命運的擺布，把別人打掃乾淨，而自己卻變得又臟又臭，在女僕們手裡折騰多次之後，最後被扔出門外，或者作為引火的柴禾被投進火里。目睹了這一切，我不禁嘆息一番，自言自語道：人不也是一根掃帚把么？當大自然剛把他送到人間時，他是強壯而有力的，精力充沛，頭上是滿頭黑髮。如果把人比作一株有理性的植物，那就是枝繁葉茂。但是，沒過多久，酒色就如同一把斧子，砍掉了他的青枝綠葉，只留給他一根枯枝。於是他趕緊求助於人工，戴上撲滿香粉的假髮，並以之為榮。要是我們這把掃帚也這樣登場，由於把一些別的樹條收集到身上而得意洋洋，其實這些樹條上儘是塵土，即使是最高貴的夫人的房裡的塵土，我們一定會笑它是如何虛榮吧！我們就是這種偏心的審判官，偏向於自己的優點、別人的毛病！或許你會說，一根掃帚把不過象徵著一棵頭衝下的樹而已，那麼請問：人又是什麼？不也是一個顛倒的動物嗎？他的獸性總是騎在理性的背上，他的頭去了該腳應去的地方，總是在土裡趴著。可是儘管有這麼多毛病，他還自命為天下的改革家、除弊者、伸冤者，把手伸進人世間每個藏污納垢的角落，掃出來一大堆從未暴露過的臟物，把原來乾淨的地方弄得塵土滿天，非但沒掃走臟物，還把自己弄得滿身污垢。到了晚年，他又變成女人的奴隸，通常是一些最不堪的女人，直到他被折磨得只剩下一根枯枝，於是他也像他的掃帚老弟一樣，或者是被扔出門外，或者是被拿來生火，用於溫暖別人了。A Meditation Upon a Broom StickJonathan SwiftThis single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a Flourishing State in A Forest, it was full of Sap, ful l of Leaves, and full of Boughs; but now, in vain does the busie Art of Man pret end to Vye with Nature, by tying that wither"d Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Tr unk; "tis now at best but the Reverse of what was, a Tree turn"d upside down, th e Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air; "tis now handled by every Dirt y Wench, condemn"d to do her Drudgery, and by a Capricious kind of Fate, destin" d to make other Things Clean, and be Nasty it self: At Length, worn to the Stumps in the Service of the Maids, "tis either thrown out of Doors, or condemn"d to its last use of kindling Fires.When I beheld this, I sigh"d, and said within my self, Surely Man is a Broom Stick; Nature sent him into the World Strong and Lusty, in a Thriving Conditio n, wearing his own Hair on his Head, the proper Branches of this Reasoning Veget able, till the Axe of Intemperance has lopt off his Green Boughs, and left him a wither"d Trunk: He then flies unto Art, and puts on a Peruque, valuing himself upon an Unnatural Bundle of Hairs, all cover"d with Powder that never grew on hi s Head; but now should this our Broom Stick pretend to enter the Scene, pround of those Birchen Spoils it never bore, and all cover"d with Dust, tho"the Sweepi ngs of the Finest Lady"s Chamber, we should be apt to Ridicule and Despise its Vanity, Partial Judges that we are! of our own Excellencies, and other Men"s Faults.But a Broom stick, perhaps you"ll say, is an Emblem of a Tree standing on i ts Head; and pray what is Man, but a Topsyturvy Creature, his Animal Faculties p erpetually a Cock Horse and Rational; His Head where his Heels should be; grov eling on the Earth, and yet with all his Faults, he sets up to be an universal R eformer and Corrector of Abuses, a Remover of Grievances, rakes into every Slut" s Comer of Nature, bringing hidden Corruptions to the Light, and raises a mighty Dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while, in the very sam e Pollutions he pretends to sweep away: His last Days are spent in Slavery to Wo men, and generally the least deserving; "till worn to the Stumps, like his Broth er Bezom, he"s either kickt out of Doors, or made use of to kindle Flames, for o thers to warm Themselves by.天人合一拉爾夫·沃爾多·愛默生拉爾夫·沃爾多·愛默生(1803—1882)，美國19世紀著名的思想家、散文家、演說家、詩人，超驗主義的代表人物之一。他崇尚自然主義、強調個人價值，代表作有《論自然》、《美國學者》等。從真正的意義上來講，很少有成年人能夠看得見自然。甚至很多人並沒有真正看見太陽。至少，他們只有一種非常膚淺的視覺感受。太陽只能照亮成年人的眼睛，但對於孩子們來說，它還可以照進他們的心靈。對摯愛自然的人來說，內在和外在的感官可以真正地契合，就算已是成年，還依然保持著童稚之心。與天地交流，是他每天不可或缺的精神滋養。他們置身自然，任一種狂喜在全身流暢，真正的痛楚逃遁無形。自然說，他是我的孩子，儘管他有許多莫名的痛苦，但與我在一起，他將快樂無比。不僅僅是晴天和夏日，每一個時辰，每一個季節，自然都奉獻著快樂，因為每一個時辰，每一個變化，從無聲的正午到可怕的子夜，都暗合著不同的心境。自然就是一個大背景，上演喜劇或悲劇一樣適宜。在身心爽朗的日子，空氣就如同一杯醇美得令人難以置信的甜酒。踏著雪泥，走過平滑的廣場，在光明與黑暗交合之際，佇立於雲天之下，腦海中沒有一絲期盼好運突然降臨的雜念，欣欣然如入仙境。我幾乎不敢想自己是多麼快樂。在森林中也同樣如此，人們掙脫歲月的羈絆，如蛇蛻去它那羈絆自身的皮，無論處於人生的哪一個階段，總是猶如稚子。在森林中，青春可以永駐，這是上帝的御苑，其中充溢著禮儀和聖潔，一年四季無論何時都裝點得如同節日，在這裡待上一千年也不會感到厭倦。置身森林，我們會再次對理性和信念充滿嚮往。在這裡，我不會感到任何痛苦的壓迫——沒有恥辱，沒有不幸，而且這些缺憾是自然所無法修復的。站立在林中空地，我的思緒沐浴在快樂的空氣中，宛如升入無垠的太空，一切卑微自私的想法都隨風而去。我似乎化作一個透明的眼球，雖然無影無形，但卻看到一切。宇宙之流在我周身循環，我成為上帝的一部分或一個粒子。此時此刻，最親近的朋友的名字聽起來也那麼陌生，那麼無足輕重。不管是同胞兄弟，還是點頭之交的熟人，不管是主人，還是僕人，這一切都成了徒增煩擾的瑣事。我對充盈勃發、無聲無息的美頂禮膜拜。在曠野中，我發現了比城鎮或村落更親切、更貼近的東西。在寧靜的風景中，尤其在遙遠的地平線上，人們終於看到了像他的天性一樣美好的東西。Nature and Man in OneRalph Waldo EmersonTo speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other, who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food. In the presen ce of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nat ure says, he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different State of mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles , at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. Almost I fear to think how glad I am.In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth . Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial fes tival is dressed, and the guest sees not now he should tire of them in a thousan d years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,— no disgrace, no calamity, which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,— my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,— all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye ball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then for eign and accidental. To be brothers, to be acquaintances,— master or servent, is then a trifle and disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.無垠的宇宙布魯斯·邁舍爾布魯斯·邁舍爾原為會計師，後因感於世人爭相奪利之愚昧無知，轉而專心研讀宗教作品。這篇文章即是邁舍爾贊詠神恩，反思人類為政治鬥爭而自相殘害的家喻戶曉之作。涌動的海水，就像是牧師在為地球上人類的海岸進行聖潔的洗禮。——濟慈無論開心還是悲傷的時候，我都常會想到這兩行詩。悲傷的時候我想到它，是因為根據詩中所描寫的海水節奏得知，上帝永恆的耐心將通過大海這面鏡子反射出來。無論城市或會議室里的人們有多麼愚昧無知，海浪依然歌唱，唱著讚美詩。在成吉思汗之前他們就開始歌唱了，在原子彈時代之後，它們還會繼續歌唱。那些想法使我高興，所以我又低誦這兩行詩，因為我心中充滿了感激之情。World Without EndBruce Marshall「The moving waters at their priest — like task of pure ablution round eart h"s human shores…」——KeatsI think often of these lines, both when I am sad and when I am glad. I think of them when I am sad, because their rhythm teaches me that the timeless patience of God is reflected in the mirror of the sea. Whatever the stupidities of men in cities or council chambers, the waves will always be in choir, chanting thei r psalm. They sang before Genghis Khan and they will still sing after the atom b omb. Those thoughts make me glad and I murmur the words again, because I am also grateful.一棵樹的啟示沃爾特·惠特曼沃爾特·惠特曼(1819—1892)，美國19世紀最傑出的詩人，他的《草葉集》影響了一代又一代美國人，是19世紀以來世界文學中最偉大的長詩之一。本文是他所寫的一篇日記體隨筆。我不會選那最大最獨特的樹來描繪。在我的面前，有我最喜歡的一棵樹，那是一棵美麗的黃楊樹，它很直，可能有90英尺那麼高，最粗的地方直徑達4英尺。它是如此的強壯！如此的富有生命力！如此的挺立在風雨中！又是如此無言而善諭！它所啟示的泰然自若與生存本質與人生浮華的表象形成了如此鮮明的對比。可以說，一棵樹也是有情感的，它富有生動的藝術性質，它也是英勇無畏的。它是如此天真，不會傷害任何東西，它又是那麼原始粗野。它無言地存在著，用自己堅強而平和的寧靜有力地斥責了風雨雷電以及人類——這個一碰到風吹草動就躲進房子里的沒用的小東西。科學（或者更準確地說是半懂不懂的科學）對有關樹精、樹仙和會說話的樹等想像嗤之以鼻。然而，即使樹木不會說話，它們卻與大多數的語言、文字、詩歌、訓誡一樣善諭，甚至比它們有過之而無不及。我敢斷定那些古老的有關樹精的聯想是非常真實的，甚至比我們的大多數聯想都更為深刻。（「把它砍下來」，騙人的游醫這麼說，然後保存在你身邊。）請到樹叢中或林地間坐下來，與無言的樹木做伴，然後再把前面的那些話讀一讀、想一想。人們從一棵樹那裡得到的啟示——或者說大地、岩石以及動物賦予人們的最大道德教義，就是它們對於生存的內在本質的提示與觀望者（或批評者）的推測和述說完全無關，與他的喜好與憎惡完全無關。一種疾患在我們每個人和我們大家的心間充斥著，滲透於我們的文學、教育、彼此對待（甚至自我對待）的態度之中，這便是對錶面現象的喋喋不休，而對於人物、書籍、友誼、婚姻之合理的、逐漸增強的、經常存在的真實，亦即人類無形的本質和基礎不予過問或幾乎不加過問。還有什麼疾患比這更糟糕、更普遍嗎？The Lesson of a TreeWalter WhitmanI should not take either the biggest or the most picturesque tree to illustr ate it. Here is one of my favorites now before me, a fine yellow poplar, quites traight, perhaps 90 feet high, and four thick at the butt. How strong, vital end uring! How dumbly eloquent! What suggestions of imperturbability and being, as a gainst the human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, pa lpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and equable serenity as weathe rs, this gusty temper"d little whiffet, man that runs indoors at a mite of rain or snow. Science (or rather half way science) scoffs at reminiscence of dryad and hama dryad, and of trees speaking. But, if they don"t, they do as well as mo st speaking, writing, poetry, sermons — or rather they do a great deal better. I should say indeed that those old dryad — reminiscences are quit as true as an y, and profounder than most reminiscences we get. (「Cut this out,」 as the quac k mediciners say, and keep by you.) Go and sit in a grove or woods, with one or more of those voiceless companions, and read the fore going, and think.One lesson from affiliating a tree — perhaps the greatest moral lesson anyh ow from earth, rock, animals, is that same lesson of inherency, of what is, with out the least regard to what the looker or (the critic) supposes or says, or whe ther he likes or dislikes. What worse—what more general malady pervades each and all of us, our literature, education, attitude toward each other, (even towa rd ourselves,) than a morbid trouble about seems, and no trouble at all, or hard ly any, about the sane, slow growing perennial, real parts of character, books, friendship, marriage — humanity"s invisible foundations and hold together.月亮的啟示佚名「月盈則虧，晦則明。」——中國古諺這句中國的古語里有種平靜的智慧，它最初是由佛教寺院中的一位和尚告訴我的，當時我在中國，這句話給我的印象很深。從那時起，每當我遭遇困難阻礙，或者遇到可能使我過於興奮的成功或好運的時候，這句話對我的幫助很大，它使我保持鎮定，泰然處之。這句話啟示我們，不論痛苦或困難的時刻有多麼黑暗，它們不會長久持續下去，我們因此會感到希望和寬慰；這句話同時也警示我們，財富、權力或鴻運當頭的榮耀，都不過是過眼雲煙，我們不必太放在心上。這個道理對個人如此，對於國家和政治領袖也是如此。這句諺語所提供的希望和警示，是整個人類歷史經驗的結晶。除此之外，我們從這句話裡面還可以聆聽到使宇宙保持平衡狀態的法則與秩序的回聲。Lesson from the MoonAnonymousWhen the moon is fullest it begins to wane,When it is darkest it begins to grow.——Chinese ProverbThere is a calm wisdom in this old saying that impressed me when I heard it first from a monk of a Buddhist monastery in China. It has often, helped me to r etain a good measure of equanimity under stress and hardship as well as when some unexpected success or good luck might have made me too exuberant. There is hope and consolation in the sure knowledge that even the darkest hours of pains and troubles won"t last: but also a warning against overrating the passing glories of wealth, power and great good fortune. A warning and a hope, not only for the individual, but also for governments, nations and their leaders, a brief summing up of all that history and human experience can tell us. And beyond all that we might hear in it an echo of the law and order that holds our universe in safe b alance.在海邊雷切爾·卡森雷切爾·卡森（1907—1964），美國海洋生物學家，也是位頗有成就的作家。這篇遊記體散文是她在1955年的作品，表達了她對大自然美的深情和稍縱即逝的自然美的嘆惜。她最偉大的作品是1962年出版的《寂靜的春天》，該書對發動美國環境保護運動起了重要作用。海岸是一個古老的世界。自從有地球和大海以來，就有這個水陸相接的地方。但人們卻感覺它是一個總在進行創造、生命力頑強而又充沛的世界。每當我踏入這個世界，感覺到生物彼此之間以及每一生物與它周圍環境之間，通過錯綜複雜的生命結構彼此相連的時候，我對它的美，對它的深層意蘊，都產生某種新的認識。每當我想起海岸，就有一個地方因為它所表現出的獨特美妙而佔有突出的地位。那就是一個隱匿於洞中的水潭。平時，這個洞被海水所淹沒，一年當中只有海潮降落到最低，以至低於水潭時，人們才能在這難得的短時間內看見它。也許正應如此，它獲得了某種特殊的美。我選好這樣一個低潮的時機，希望能看一眼水潭。根據推算，潮水將在清晨退下去。我知道，如果不刮西北風，遠處的風暴不再掀起驚濤駭浪進行干擾，海平面就會落得比水潭的入口還低。夜裡突然下了幾場預示不祥的陣雨，一把把碎石般的雨點被拋到屋頂上。清晨我向外眺望，只見天空籠罩著灰濛濛的曙光，只是太陽還沒有升起。水和空氣一片暗淡。一輪明月掛在海灣對面的西天上，月下灰暗的一線就是遠方的海岸——8月的望月把海潮吸得很低，直到那與人世隔離的海的世界的門檻。在我觀望的時候，一隻海鷗飛過雲杉。呼之欲出的太陽把它的腹部映成粉色。天終於晴了。後來，當我在高于海潮的水潭入口處附近站著時，四周已是瑰紅色的晨光。從我立腳的峭岩底部，一塊被青苔覆蓋的礁石伸向大海的最深處。海水拍擊著礁石周圍，水藻上下左右地飄動，像皮面般滑溜發亮。通往隱藏的小洞和洞中水潭的路徑是那些凸現的礁石。間或一陣強於一陣的波濤悠然地漫過礁石的邊緣並在岩壁上擊成水沫。這種波濤間歇的時間足以讓我踏上礁石，足以讓我探視那仙境般的水潭，那平時不露面、露面也只是一瞬間的水潭。我就跪在那海苔蘚鋪成的濕漉漉的地毯上，向那些黑洞里窺探，就是這些黑洞把水潭環抱成淺盆模樣，只見洞的底部距離頂部只有幾英寸。真是一面天造明鏡。洞頂上的一切生物都倒映在底下紋絲不動的水中。在清明如鏡的水底鋪著一層碧綠的海綿。洞頂上一片片灰色的海蛸閃閃發光，一堆堆軟珊瑚披著淡淡的杏黃色衣裳。就在我朝洞里探望時，從洞頂上掛下一隻小海星，僅僅懸在一條線上，或許就在它的一隻管足上。它向下接觸到自己的倒影。多麼完美的畫面!彷彿不是一隻海星，而是一對海星。水中倒影的美，清澈的水潭本身的美，這都是些轉眼即逝的事物所體現的強烈而動人心扉的美——海水一旦漫過小洞，這種美便不復存在了。At the Edge of the SeaRachel CarsonThe shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and se a there has been this place of the meeting of land and water. Yet it is a world that keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time that I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and it sdeeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings.In my thoughts of the shore, one place stands apart for its revelation of exquisite beauty. It is a pool hidden within a cave that one can visit only rarely and briefly when the lowest of the year"s low tides fall below it, and perhaps from that very fact it acquires some of its special beauty. Choosing such a tide , I hoped for a glimpse of the pool. The ebb was to fall early in the morning. I knew that if the wind held from the northwest and no interfering swell ran in f rom a distant storm the level of the sea should drop below the entrance to the pool. There had been sudden ominous showers in the night, with rain like handfuls of gravel flung on the roof. When I looked out into the early morning the sky was full of a gray dawn light but the sun had not yet risen. Water and air were pallid. Across the bay the moon was a luminous disc in the western sky, suspended above the dim line of distant shore — the full August moon, drawing the tide to the low, low levels of the threshold of the alien sea world. As I watched, a gull flew by, above the spruces. Its breast was rosy with the light of the unrisen sun. The day was, after all, to be fair.Later, as I stood above the tide near the entrance to the pool, the promise of that rosy light was sustained. From the base of the steep wall of rock on which I stood, a moss covered ledge jutted seaward into deep water. In the surge at the rim of the ledge the dark fronds of oarweeds swayed smooth and gleaming as leather. The projecting ledge was the path to the small hidden cave and its pool. Occasionally a swell, stronger than the rest, rolled smoothly over the rim and broke in foam against the cliff. But the intervals between such swells were lo ng enough to admit me to the ledge and long enough for a glimpse of that fairy pool, so seldom and so briefly exposed.And so I knelt on the wet carpet of sea moss and looked back into the dark cavern that held the pool in a shallow basin. The floor of the cave was only a fewinches below the roof, and a mirror had been created in which all that grew on the ceiling was reflected in the still water below.Under water that was clear as glass the pool was carpeted with green sponge. Gray patches of sea squirts glistened on the ceiling and colonies of raft coral were a pale apricot color. In the moment when I looked into the cave a little e lfin starfish hung down, suspended by the merest thread, perhaps by only a single tube foot. It reached down to touch its own reflection, so perfectly delineated that there might have been, not one starfish, but two. The beauty of the refle cted images and of the limpid pool itself was the poignant beauty of things that are ephemeral, existing only until the sea should return to fill the little cave.在自然威力之下埃德加·愛倫·坡蕭伯納曾說：「美國出了兩個偉大的作家——埃德加·愛倫·坡和馬克·吐溫。」埃德加·愛倫坡（1809—1849）以其詩歌、小說和文學評論廣受推崇，對於美國文學乃至世界文學影響甚大。本文節選自其短篇小說《厄謝爾宅第的倒塌》。那年秋天，一個天氣陰沉、昏暗而又寂靜的日子，低壓的雲層籠罩著大地。整整一天，我獨自騎著馬，在一條異常沉悶的鄉間小路上行進；暮色降臨時分，凄涼的厄謝爾宅第終於呈現在我眼前。但是，不知出於什麼原因，第一眼望見這幢房子，我就被一種令人難以忍受的陰鬱抓住了。我說難以忍受，是因為往常即使人們看到荒山野嶺或其他令人生畏的自然景象時，也可能產生一些詩意，心中或許有幾分快感，但此時此地的情景在我心中卻絲毫引不起此種感情。我看著眼前的這番景象—— 宅第本身、房子周圍單調的景象、光禿禿的牆壁、空空的圓窗、幾叢雜亂的茅草、幾株灰白的枯樹——心情十分沮喪，這種沮喪，無法拿人世間的任何心情來比擬，除非把它比作過足鴉片煙癮的人從夢幻中回到現實生活里的那種痛苦心情。我只覺心中一涼，往下一沉，異常難受。還有一種揮之不去的凄涼之感，無論如何也不能激起我的興緻。那麼，究竟是什麼——我停下來仔細思量——究竟是什麼使我的心緒在凝望厄謝爾宅第時如此煩亂呢？這完全是一個無法解答的謎，在我思量的時候，腦海里充滿了模模糊糊的想法，卻無法弄得清楚明白。我只好用那個不能令人滿意的解釋來安慰自己——儘管一些非常簡單的自然景物結合在一起，也具有影響我們的威力，但要仔細分析這種威力，卻遠在我們思考的深度之外。Under the Power of NatureEdgar Allan PoeDuring the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung up pressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length fo und myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I knew not how it was — but, with the first glimpse of the buil ding, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half pleasurable, because poetic,sent iment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of t he desolate or terrible, I looked upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon t he vacant eye like windows, upon a few randy sedges, and upon a few white trunk s of decayed trees with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no e arthly sensation more properly than to the afterdream of the reveler upon opium; the bitter lapse into everyday life,the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed torture into ought of the sublime. What was it I paused to think what was it that so unnerve d me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered . I was forded to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyo nd doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the p ower of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considera tions beyond our depth.風車愛德華·凡爾拉萊·盧卡斯愛德華·凡爾拉萊·盧卡斯（1868—1938），英國作家，散文家，畢業於倫敦大學，長期從事編輯、出版工作，同時致力於寫作，是20世紀初期英國文壇的知名人士。不久之前，一個偶然的機會曾使我成為一座風車的住客。但並不是真的住進去，而且說來遺憾，也不是進去磨點什麼東西，只是興緻來時進去轉了轉，從它最頂的窗戶遙望港口的船隻，或者俯視周圍的羊群和原野。這座風車又大又白——而且白得很厲害，每當雷雨雲繞到它的背後時，整個風車就光亮得如同鋁製的一樣。從風車的其他幾個窗口往外看，你還可以看到另外的四個風車，這些風車和它一樣，也都在閑置著。其中有一個已經破損得非常厲害，還有一個也只剩下了兩個翅膀。但就在下一道山岡、遠得望不見的東北方向，就有一座風車在那裡歡快地轉動著，另外由此再折向西北四五英里的地方，也有一個風車非常活躍。所以這個地方的情形還不至於像全國其他地方那麼糟糕，任由陣陣好風從身邊白白吹過……一旦想起由於蒸氣機以及工程師的聰明才智所帶給英國的種種損失，人們總會把風車的衰落列為其中的第一項。也許如果只從景物的美觀別緻來說，英國所遭遇的最大不幸乃是鋅鍍鐵屋頂的發明；不過，畢竟紅色屋頂的美好也不只是安詳富麗與舒適而已，但是轉動著的風車不僅看起來美麗，而且非常浪漫：一個受制於自然的魔力但情願為人類服務的溫順傢伙，一個飛舞旋轉的怪物或者往往是一個使人懼怕的東西。如果誰在風力正強的時候靠近一座風車轟鳴的翅膀，心裡都會驟然緊張起來 ——那感覺就像人們在暴風雨中望見水浪衝擊堤岸的情景一樣。而此時待在風車裡邊的話，就能對聲音的來歷有些體會，因為這裡就是聲音的洞穴。當然有些孔洞中所發出的轟鳴聲震耳欲聾，具有很大的威力，但風車的聲音則大體來說是比較自然的，它們是木頭與西南風搏鬥時產生的，它充盈於人耳而不會震耳欲聾。而且這種效果並不因為沒有風或者磨坊主人及其傭人的淡漠而有所減弱，這些人即使是在震耳欲聾的喧鬧之下，也總是一副文靜態度，如同教堂管事人一般有條不紊地辦事。當然，我進入的磨坊並沒有如此喧鬧，我只是偶爾聽到那些冷落的車翼上的橫木幾聲擺動罷了，一切都是如此寂靜。更使人惆悵的是，一切又彷彿已完全就緒，就等著當天開工了。這個風車以前——大約幾十年前——也曾是生氣勃勃的，但是從那以後，它就永歸沉寂，毫無生氣，就像一條溪流在夜裡突然遭遇封凍，或者像丁尼遜《睡美人》詩中的宮殿那樣寂寞。這風車並沒損壞——它只是失去了魂魄。風車上幾個蘋果木的榫子已從輪機上脫落了，地板上的木條也有幾根爛掉了，但也僅是如此而已。只要一周的時間，就足以把這一切都修好。但永遠沒有這種可能了。因此，以前曾經使千千萬萬個英國風車一起歡舞的陣陣好風，而今也只能在英吉利海峽之上徒勞吹過。The WindmillEdward Verrall LucasChance recently made me for a while the tenant of a windmill. Not to live in , and unhappily not to grind corn in, but to visit as the mood arose, and see th e ships in the harbour from the topmost window, and look down on the sheep and the green world all around. For this mill stands high and white — so white, inde ed, that when there is a thunder cloud behind it, it seems a thing of polished aluminium.From its windows you can see four other mills, all, like itself, idle, and o ne merely a ruin and one with only two sweeps left. But just over the next range of hills, out of sight，to the north east, is a windmill that still merrily go es, and about five miles away to the north west is another also active; so that things are not quite so bad hereabouts as in many parts of the country, where t he good breezes blow altogether in vain…Thinking over the losses which England has had forced upon her by steam and the ingenuity of the engineer, one is disposed to count the decay of the windmil l among the first. Perhaps in the matter of pure picturesqueness the most seriou s thing that ever happened to England was the discovery of galvanized iron roofi ng; but, after all, there was never anything but quiet and rich and comfortable beauty about red roofs, whereas the living windmill is not only beautiful but ro mantic too: a willing, man serving creature, yoked to the elements, a whirling monster, often a thing of terror. No one can stand very near the crashing sweeps of a windmill in half a gale without a tightening of the heart — a feeling com parable to that which comes from watching the waves break over a wall in a storm . And to be within the mill at such a time is to know something of sound"s very sources; it is the cave of noise itself. No doubt there are dens of hammering en ergy which are more shattering, but the noise of a windmill is largely natural, the product of wood striving with the good sou" wester; it fills the ears rathe r than assaults them. The effect, moreover，is by no means lessened by the absen ce of the wind itself and the silent nonchalance of the miller and his man, who move about in the midst of this appalling racket with the quiet efficiency of ve rgers.In my mill, of course, there is no such uproar; nothing but the occasional s haking of the cross pieces of the idle sails. Everything is still; and the pity of it is that everything is in almost perfect order for the day"s work. The mil l one day — some score years ago — was full of life; the next, and ever after, mute and lifeless, like a stream frozen in a night or the palace in Tennyson"s ballad of the 『Sleeping Beauty." There is no decay — merely inanition. One or two of the apple wood cogs have been broken from the great wheel; a few floor p lanks have been rotted; but that is all. A week"s overhauling would put everythi ng right. But it will never come, and the cheerful winds that once were to drive a thousand English mills so happily now bustle over the Channel in vain.林鳥威廉·亨利·哈德遜威廉·亨利·哈德遜（1841—1922），英國博物學家兼作家。自幼酷愛自然，尤其喜歡觀察鳥類的生活習慣，他的散文清新自然，樸實親切。有很長的一段時間，我總是在攀登一座低矮寬闊的平頂小山。當我從灌木叢中脫身而出，又出現在一片空地時，我已身在一片平坦的高地，周圍非常空曠，到處是石楠與荊棘叢生的地方，這中間偶爾也有幾處稠密的冷杉與樺木之類的植物。在我面前以及高地的兩側，一眼望去，都是廣袤的原野；地面上的景物有時會中斷，但這蔚為大觀的青蔥翠綠卻是連綿不斷的，這可能跟最近降雨量的充沛有關。在我看來，南德文郡的綠色實在是很多的，但是它色調的柔和與亮度卻過於單一。在領略這番景色之後，山頂上那些棕褐刺目的稀疏草木反而使人心情爽朗。這片石楠叢生之地宛如一片綠洲與趨避之地，我在這裡漫遊了很久，直到腿腳淋濕；然後我又坐下讓它們晾乾，就這樣在那裡度過了幾個小時的愉快時光。讓我高興的是這裡沒有我們的同類前來打擾，然而，鳥類朋友卻有很多。在小道附近的叢林中間，雄雉的啼叫聲警告我，我已經進入了禁獵區。不過，禁獵並不嚴格，因為我所熟識的食腐肉的烏鴉正在那裡為它的幼雛尋食。它低飛著穿過樹梢間，從我身邊掠過，隨即逝去。在當下的季節，即早夏時期，當它飛起來的時候，人們是很容易將它與它的近親白嘴鴨辨別開來。在覓食的時候，這種烏鴉在空中平穩而迅速地滑翔著，經常會改變方向，一會兒貼近地面，一會兒又飛升得很高，但它一般會保持著大概與樹梢平齊的高度。它滑翔與轉彎的動作看起來跟鯡魚鷗相似，但在滑動的時候，翅膀會挺得直直的，那修長的尖端呈現出一種輕翹曲線。但它們之間最主要的區別還是飛行時頭部的姿勢不同。白嘴鴨像蒼鷺與鶴那樣，總是把它的利喙像長矛那樣直挺挺地伸在前面。它飛翔的時候方向明確，毫不猶豫，它簡直可說是跟著自己的鼻子尖在跑，絕不左顧右盼。而那尋覓肉食的烏鴉卻不停地轉動著它的頭部，就像海鷗與獵狗那樣，一會兒看這邊，一會兒又看那邊，彷彿正在徹底地搜查地面，或是睜大了眼睛盯著什麼模糊的東西。這個地方不僅有烏鴉，當我從草叢中走出來時，一隻喜鵲正在鳴叫，只是不肯露面；過了一會兒，一隻橙鳥也以它那獨特的叫聲向我鳴叫。對於這聒噪不已的警告和咒罵中所流露的那種心情，對於這受驚的鳥兒在看到生人侵入其林中凈地時胸中突然而生的盛怒，我有時也有深深的同感。這個地方有很多小鳥，好像這裡的荒蕪貧瘠對它們也有吸引力。各種山雀、鳴禽、雲雀以及其他鳥類都正在到處忙著尋找棲息的地方，它們唱著各種各樣的歌，時而來自樹頂，時而來自地面，時而逼近，時而遙遠；而隨著歌唱者的或遠或近，或上或下，也給這些歌聲本身帶來不同的特點，這樣所產生的效果自然就是有千萬種聲調，非常豐富。唯有峋鴨始終停留在一個地方或保持一種姿勢不變，歌聲也總是重複著一個調子。儘管如此，這種鳥的鳴叫也並沒有像人們所說的那樣單調……BirdsWilliam Henry HudsonFor some time past I had been ascending a low, broad, flattopped hill, and o n forcing my way through the undergrowth into the open I found myself on the lev el plateau, an unenclosed spot overgrown with heather and scattered furze bushes, with clumps of fir and birch trees. Before me and on either hand at this elev ation a vast extent of country was disclosed. The surface was everywhere broken, but there was no break in the wonderful greenness, which the recent rain had in tensified. There is too much green, to my thinking, with too much uniformity in its soft, bright tone, in South Devon. After gazing on such a landscape the brow n, harsh, scanty vegetation of the hill top seemed all the more grateful. The h eath was an oasis and a refuge; I rambled about in it until my feet and legs wer e wet; then I sat down to let them dry and altogether spent several agreeable ho urs at that spot, pleased at the thought that no human fellow creature would in trude upon me. Feathered companions were, however, not wanting. The crowing of cock pheasants from the thicket beside the old road warned me that I was on prese rved grounds. Not too strictly preserved, however, for there was my old friend the carrion crow out foraging for his young. He dropped down over the trees, swe pt past me, and was gone. At this season, in the early summer, he may be easily distinguished, when flying, from his relation the rock. When on the prowl the cr ow glides smoothly and rapidly through the air, often changing his direction, no w flying close to the surface, anon mounting high, but oftenest keeping nearly on a level with the tree tops. His gliding and curving motions are somewhat like those of the herring gull, but the wings in gliding are carried stiff and strai ght, the tips of the long flight feathers showing a slight upward curve. But the greatest difference is in the way the head is carried. The rook, like the hero n and stork, carries his beak pointing lance like straight before him. He knows his destination, and makes for it; he follows his nose, so to speak, turning ne ither to the right nor the left. The foraging crow continually turns his head, g ull like and harrier like, from side to side, as if to search the ground thoro ughly or to concentrate his vision on some vaguely seen object.Not only the crow was there: a magpie chattered as I came from the brake, bu t refused to show himself; and a little later a jay screamed at me, as only a jay can. There are times when I am intensely in sympathy with the feeling expressed in this earsplitting warning and execration, the startled solitary"s outburst of uncontrolled rage at the abhorred sight of a fellow being in his woodland ha unt.Small birds were numerous at that spot, as if for them also its wildness and infertility had an attraction. Tits, warblers, pipits, finches, all were busy r anging from place to place, emitting their various notes now from the tree tops, then from near the ground; now close at hand, then far off; each change in the height, distance, and position of the singer giving the sound a different charac ter, so that the effect produced was one of infinite variety. Only the yellow h ammer remained constant in one spot, in one position, and the song at each repet ition was the same. Nevertheless this bird is not so monotonous a singer as he is reputed…霧喬治·斯萊思·斯特里特喬治·斯萊思·斯特里特（1867—1936），英國作家，散文家，是一個寫小品文的能手。在本篇中，作者通過切身的體驗，描述了他對世界聞名的霧都倫敦的感受。無論它是美還是不美，一場倫敦大霧總是有值得大書特書的地方。它能給我們帶來我們每時每刻都需要的那種「變化」。最初，這個世界幾乎是白茫茫的一片，然後，慢慢地一點一點地清晰起來，這和我們平常所見完全不同。這時，就算是最愚蠢的人也不會察覺不到眼前的景物起了變化。這種變化之大，絕不亞於從倫敦到格拉斯哥。又比如，回到家裡，或來到俱樂部，這種平凡單調的日常瑣事，在霧天也幾乎成為驚人的壯舉，完成之後不免要深深地鬆一口氣，自幸安全脫險——這時人們至少得到一種不同尋常的新鮮之感。這時我們已經不像是一個到俱樂部去玩的人，而像是一個航行遇險的海員在九死一生之際，終於得救，並且受到一群以前非常淡漠而這時卻非常激動的侍者們的熱烈歡迎。的確，一場迷霧帶給倫敦人的變化非常之大，比起去里維埃拉避霧度假所帶來的變化都要大。其次，霧還能使人的善良之心和喜悅之情充分表現出來，這是倫敦人引以為榮的兩大特點。當然，它也會把富人的那種極度自私自利揭露出來。那些幾乎是無憂無慮地活在世上的人，自然會因為這點小小不便或痛哭流涕，或咒罵不已。但是為生計奔波的倫敦人，比如那些馬車夫和汽車夫，比如你和我，卻會把我們那種歡快心情充分展現出來。某個星期一，我在海德公園拐角那個街區的的一輛公共汽車頂端乘坐過半個小時，一路上與司機攀談。人們往往對一個汽車司機感到失望，因為他們認為他應該會說會罵，而他卻沒有這類長處。但是我們應該看到，這是個工作非常辛苦但卻又非常快樂的人，非常勤快，服務周到，笑口常開。他在自己的工作上是個行家——這點在霧天最能突出——而他對工作的熟練程度很高，對於那種憑藉經驗，總以為從事實際行業的人往往不是愚蠢就是冒失，因而就其絕大多數都不稱職的人士來說，總是一件快事吧。最後我離開他時，他的副手引我繞過車輪馬蹄，一直把我送到人行道上，這時我有一種感覺，覺得我的周圍的確都是好人。上周日的晚上，我曾步行一英里回到我的寓所，一路上，我每碰到一個人就向他問路。但是沒有一個人給予粗魯甚至簡慢的回答：每個人都是彬彬有禮，俏皮風趣，談古論今，有說有笑。我們這個民族確實是個友好的民族，能體會這一點，即使是遇上一次霧天，也是值得的。霧的另外一種樂趣，就如同我們聽到某個百萬富翁摔斷了腿時所感到的那種樂趣相差無幾，只是在性質上比較溫和比較沖淡而已。那種命運特別好的人往往並不快樂，即使健康良好也不能把它驅除掉。在某個街區的一輛寬敞的布魯厄姆馬車上坐著一位派頭十足的老頭，他口吐白沫，大發雷霆。看到這個情景，人們不禁會想，在這件事上，命運總算暫時是公平的。這些就是我們在一場倫敦的霧中所找到的一些樂趣。FogG.S.StreetBeauty or none, there is much to be said for a London fog. It gives us all t hat 「change」 which we are always needing. When our world is all but invisible, and growing visible bit by bit looks utterly different from its accustomed self, the stupidest of us all can hardly fail to observe a change for our eyes at least as great as there would have been in going to Glasgow. When, arriving at one" s house or one"s club; that monotonous diurnal incident seems an almost incredib le feat, accomplished with profound relief and gratitude for a safe deliverance, one has at least an unaccustomed sensation. One is not a man going into his clu b, but a mariner saved from shipwreck at the last gasp, to be greeted with emoti on by erst indifferent waiters. Yes, a fog gives Londoners a more thorough chang e than going to the Riviera to avoid it. Then it brings out the kindness and che erfulness, which are their prime claim to honour, into strong relief. True, it a lso throws into relief the incomparable egoism of the prosperous among them. Peo ple with no serious cares or worries in the world of course bemoan and upbraid t his trifling inconvenience. But the working, struggling Londoners, cabmen and bu smen, you and I, display our indomitable good humour to advantage. I stayed on top of a bus for half an hour in the block on Monday at Hyde Park Corner and tal ked with the driver. People are often disappointed in a bus driver because they expect a wit and a pretty swearer. They find neither, but they find an overwork ed man of extraordinary cheerfulness, responsive, ready to laugh. He is master o f his business—a fact emphasised by the fog — to a degree refreshing to one whose experience of men professing some practical calling is that the great majo rity, some from mere stupidity, some from over hasty enthusiasm, are quite inco mpetent. When finally I left him, his mate piloted me through wheels and horses to the pavement, and I felt I had been among folk who deserve to live. On Sunday night I walked a mile to my abode, and made a point of asking my whereabouts of every one I met. Not one churlish or even hurried answer: politeness, jokes, re miniscences, laughter. We are a kindly people, and it is worth a fog to know it. Another pleasure of a fog is a mild but extended form of the pleasure we feel when we hear that a millionaire has broken his leg, The too fortunate are sufferi ng a discontent health cannot remove. There was in that block a fat brougham co ntaining an important looking old man who foamed at the mouth, and one reflecte d that there was a temporary equality of fortunes.Such are the pleasures we may take in a London fog.一撮黏土亨利·凡·戴克很久以前，在一條河邊有這樣一撮黏土。說起來它也不過是普普通通的黏土，質地粗糙；不過它對自己的價值卻看得很高，它對自己在世界上所可能佔有的地位具有奇特的想像，認為只要能得到機會，自己的美德一定會被人們發現。在這撮黏土的頭頂，明媚的春光里，樹木正在交頭接耳地竊竊私語，講述著當纖細的花兒和樹葉開始綻放、林中一片澄澈碧綠時，它們身上所閃耀的無盡光輝，那種景象就如無數紅綠寶石粉末所形成的彩雲，輕輕地漂浮在大地之上。花兒們看到這樣的美景，非常驚喜，它們在春風的吹拂中探頭欠身，相互祝賀：「姐妹們，你們出落得多可愛啊，你們給白日增添了不少光輝。」河水也為新力量的加入而感到高興。它沉浸在水流重聚的喜悅之中，不斷地用美好的音調向河岸低語，傾訴著自己是如何掙脫冰雪的束縛，如何從積雪覆蓋的群山奔流到這裡，以及它匆忙前往擔負的重任——許多水車的輪子等著它去推動，巨大的船舶等著它去運送。那撮黏土懵懵懂懂地在河床上等待著，不停地用各種遠大理想來自我安慰。「我的時運定將來到，」它說，「我不可能長久被埋沒在這裡。世上的光彩、榮耀，在一定的時候，肯定會降臨到我的身上。」有一天，黏土發現自己的位置被挪動了，它已經不待在原來長期等候的地方了。它被一個鏟土的鐵鏟挖了起來，然後和別的泥土一起被裝在一輛車上，沿著一條似乎坎坷的鋪著石塊的路，運送到一個遙遠的地方。但是它沒有害怕，也沒有氣餒，而只是在心裡暗想：「這是必要的步驟，因為通往光榮的道路總是崎嶇不平的。現在，我就要到世上去完成我那重大的使命了。」雖然這段路途非常艱辛，但是比起後來所經受的種種痛苦和折磨卻算不了什麼。黏土被丟進一個槽子裡面，然後經過一番攙和、捶打、攪拌、踐踏，那過程真是不堪其苦。但它一想到某種美好崇高的事物一定會從這一番歷練中產生，它就感到釋然。黏土非常堅定地相信，只要它有足夠的耐心去等待，它總有一天會得到回報。接下來，它被放到一隻快速旋轉著的轉盤上，團團旋轉起來，那種感覺就像自己就要被甩得粉身碎骨了。在旋轉之中，似乎有一種神力把它緊緊地揉捏在一起，因此，它雖然經歷了頭暈目眩的痛苦，但它覺著自己開始變成了一種新的形狀。然後它被一隻陌生的手放進了爐灶。周圍有熊熊烈火在燃燒——那可真是痛心刺骨啊——灼熱的程度比盛夏時節河邊最毒的太陽還要厲害很多。不過黏土始終十分堅強，經受了一切考驗，挺了過來，並且對自己的偉大前途依然堅信不疑。它想：「既然他們對我下了這麼大的功夫，那我肯定會有一番美好前程的。看來我如果不是去充當廟堂殿宇里的華美裝飾，就是將成為帝王几案上珍貴的花瓶。」在烘焙完畢之後，黏土被從爐灶中取出了出來，被放置在一塊木板上面，讓它在晴空之下、涼風之中慢慢冷卻。既然經歷了一番磨難，那離得到回報的日子也不太遠了。木板的旁邊便有一泓潭水，水不深也不清，但水面上卻波紋平靜，能把潭邊的事物如實地反映出來。當黏土被人從板上拿起的時候，它終於第一次看到了自己的新形狀，這就是它歷經千辛萬苦後所得的回報，它的全部心愿的成果——只是一隻很普通的花盆，線條粗糙，又紅又丑。在這個時候，它才發現自己既不可能榮登帝王之家，也不可能進入藝術的殿堂，因為自己的容貌既不高雅也不華貴，於是它開始埋怨那位無名的製造者：「你為什麼要把我塑造成這個樣子？」於是，它一連幾天都悶悶不樂。接著它被裝上了土，還有另外一件東西——它弄不清是什麼，但灰黃粗糙，樣子很難看——也被插到了土的中間，然後用東西蓋上。這個新的屈辱激起了黏土的更大的不滿：「我的不幸可以說是到了極點，被人用來裝臟土垃圾了。我這一輩子算是沒希望了。」但是，不久之後，黏土又被人放進了一間溫室，這裡有和煦的陽光照射，還有人經常給它洒水。於是就在它一天天耐心等待的時候，有一種變化終於來到了。有種東西正在它體內萌動——莫非是希望重生？但它對此仍然不能理解，也不明白這希望意味著什麼。有一天，黏土又被人從原地搬起，送進了一座宏偉的教堂。它多年的夢想這次終於實現了。它在世上真的是有所作為的。這時，空中有陣陣音樂，周圍有百花飄香。但它仍然不明白這一切。於是它就向旁邊跟它一模一樣的另一個黏土器皿悄聲問道：「為什麼我被他們放在這裡，為什麼所有的人都在向我們凝望？」那個器皿答說：「怎麼，你還不知道嗎？你現在身上正懷著一棵狀如王杖的美麗百合。它的花瓣如同皎皎白雪，它的花心如同燦爛純金。人們的目光之所以集中到這裡，是因為這株花是世界上最了不起的，而它的根就在你的心裡。」這時黏土感到心滿意足了，它暗暗地感激它的製造者，因為自己雖然只是一隻普通泥土器皿，但裡面裝的卻是一件無比珍貴的寶物。A Handful of ClayHenry Van DykeThere was a handful of clay in the bank of a river. It was only common clay, coarse and heavy; but it had high thoughts of its own value, and wonderful dre ams of the great place which it was to fill in the world when the time came for its virtues to be discovered.Overhead, in the spring sunshine, the trees whispered together of the glory which descended upon them when the delicate blossoms and leaves began to expand, and the forest glowed the fair, clear colors, as if the dust of thousands of ru bies and emeralds were hanging, in soft clouds, above the earth.The flowers, surprised with the joy of beauty, bent their heads to one anoth er, as the wind caressed them, and said: 「Sisters, how lovely you have become. You make the day bright.」The river, glad of new strength and rejoicing in the unison of all its water s, murmured to the shores in music, telling of its release from icy fetters, its swift flight from the snow clad mountains, and the mighty work to which it was hurrying — the wheels of many mills to be turned, and great ships to be floate d to the sea.Waiting blindly in its bed, the clay comforted itself with lofty hopes. 「My time will come, 」it said. 「I was not made to be hidden forever. Glory and beau ty and honor are coming to me in due season. 」One day the clay felt itself taken from the place where it had waited so long. A fiat blade of iron passed beneath it, and lifted it, and tossed it into a cart with other lumps of clay, and it was carried far away, as it seemed, over a rough and stony road. But it was not afraid, nor discouraged, for it said to its elf: 「This is necessary. The path to glory is always rugged. Now I am on my way to play a great part in the world. 」But the hard journey was nothing, compared with the tribulation and distress that came after it. The clay was put into a trough and mixed and beaten and sti rred and trampled. It seemed almost unbearable. But there was consolation in the thought that something very fine and noble was certainly coming out of all this trouble. The clay felt sure that, if it could only wait long enough, a wonderful reward was in store for it.Then it was put upon a swiftly turning wheel, and whirled around until it se emed as if it must fly into a thousand pieces. A strange power pressed it and mo ulded it, as it revolved, and through all the dizziness and pain it felt that it was taking a new form.Then an unknown hand put it into an oven, and fires were kindled about it — fierce and penetrating — hotter than all the heats of summer that had ever bro oded upon the bank of the river. But through all, the clay held itself together and endured its trials, in the confidence of a great future. 「Surely, 」 it thoug ht, 「I am intended for something very splendid, since such pains are taken with me. Perhaps I am fashioned for the ornament of a temple, or a precious vase for the table of a king. 」At last the baking was finished. The clay was taken from the furnace and set down upon a board, in the cool air, under the blue sky. The tribulation was pas sed. The reward was at hand.Close beside the board there was a pool of water, not very deep, nor very cl ear, but calm enough to reflect, with impartial truth, every image that felt upon it. There for the first time, as it was lifted from the board, the clay saw it s new shape, the reward of all its patience and pain, the consummation of its ho pes — a common flower pot straight and stiff, red and ugly. And then it felt t hat it was not destined for a king"s house, nor for a palace of art, because it was made without glory or beauty or honor; and it murmured against the unknown m aker, saying, 「Why hast thou made me thus? 」Many days it passed in sullen discontent. Then it was filled with earth, and something — it knew not what — but something rough and brown and dead lookin g, was thrust into the middle of the earth and covered over. The clay rebelled at this new disgrace. 「This is the worst of all that has happened to me, to be f illed with dirt and rubbish. Surely I am a failure. 」But presently it was set in a greenhouse, where the sunlight fell warm upon it, and water was sprinkled over it, and day by day as it waited, a change began to come to it. Something was stirring within it — a new hope. Still it was ign orant, and knew not what the new hope meant.One day the clay was lifted again from its place, and carried into a great church. Its dream was coming true after all. It had a fine part to play in the world. Glorious music flowed over it. It was surrounded with flowers. Still it could not understand. So it whispered to another vessel of clay, like itself, close beside it, 「Why have they set me here? Why do all the people look towards us?」 And the other vessel answered, 「Do you not know? You are carrying a royal scep ter of lilies. Their petals are white as snow, and the heart of them is like pure gold. The people look this way because the flower is the most wonderful in the world. And the root of it is in your heart. 」Then the clay was content, and silently thanked its maker, because, though a nearthen vessel, it held so great a treasure. http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=singapore_best&MsgID=11072

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