I. Of Kings' Treasuries
一、国王金库里的芝麻

I BELIEVE, ladies and gentlemen, that my first duty this evening is to ask your pardon for the ambiguity of title under which the subject of lecture has been announced; and for having endeavoured, as you may ultimately think, to obtain your audience under false pretence. For indeed I am not going to talk of kings, known as regnant, nor of treasuries, understood to contain wealth; but of quite another order of royalty, and another material of riches, than those usually acknowledged. I had even intended to ask your attention for a little while on trust, and (as sometimes one contrives, in taking a friend to see a favourite piece of scenery) to hide what I wanted most to show, with such imperfect cunning as I might, until we unexpectedly reached the best point of view by winding paths. But since my good plain-spoken friend, Canon Anson, has already partly anticipated my reserved "trot for the avenue" in his first advertised title of subject, "How and What to Read;"—and as also I have heard it said, by men practised in public address, that hearers are never so much fatigued as by the endeavour to follow a speaker who gives them no clue to his purposes, I will take the slight mask off at once, and tell you plainly that I want to speak to you about books; and about the way we read them, and could, or should read them. A grave subject, you will say; and a wide one! Yes; so wide that I shall make no effort to touch the compass of it. I will try only to bring before you a few simple thoughts about reading, which press themselves upon me every day more deeply, as I watch the course of the public mind with respect to our daily enlarging means of education, and the answeringly wider spreading, on the levels, of the irrigation of literature. It happens that I have practically some connextion with schools for different classes of youth; and I receive many letters from parents respecting the education of their children. In the mass of these letters, I am always struck by the precedence which the idea of a "position in life" takes above all other thoughts in the parents'—more especially in the mothers'—minds. "The education befitting such and such a station in life"—this is the phrase, this the object, always. They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in itself: the conception of abstract rightness in training rarely seems reached by the writers. But an education "which shall keep a good coat on my son's back;—an education which shall enable him to ring with confidence the visitors' bell at double-belled doors;—education which shall result ultimately in establishment of a double-belled door to his own house; in a word, which shall lead to advancement in life”. It never seems to occur to the parents that there may be an education which, in itself, is advancement in Life;—that any other than that may perhaps be advancement in Death;—and that this essential education might be more easily got, or given, than they fancy, if they set about it in the right way; while it is for no price, and by no favour, to be got, if they set about it in the wrong.

女士们、先生们，我认为今晚我的第一要务，是请诸位原谅本次演讲题目的模棱两可，但今晚的演讲的确是以此为题。原谅我，如果你们认为我是为了吸引你们的到来而极尽所能，使用了欺骗的手段。因为实际上，我既不打算谈论高高在上的国王，也不打算谈论容纳财富的宝库，而是想和大家谈谈与常识有别的另一种王权秩序和物质财富。我本来甚至打算凭借信任要求你们稍稍关注，听我如何用我拙劣的小聪明将最想说的先隐去（就像有时候我们想带朋友去参观一处美丽的风景时耍的小手段一样），曲径通幽之后，出其不意地将你们引到今天的主题。但是，.我那个坦白直率的好朋友，加农安森已经采用了“论读什么书和怎样读书”作为第一版宣传海报的标题部分预告了我“马路慢跑式”的保留手法。而且，我还听一些公众演讲高手说，讲演人说话拐弯抹角、隐晦其说的做法最容易使听众费劲劳神。既然如此，我还是马上扫除雾瘴，明明白白地告诉大家：我想和诸位聊聊书，聊聊读书的方法，聊聊读书的可能性或者说必要性。也许你们会说，这话题太严肃了，也太宽泛了！没错，它是太宽泛了，以至于我不打算面面俱到。我只会试着跟大家传达一些自己对阅读的简单想法，而结合教育方法日益扩展、文学作品也相应地产生更加广泛的多层面反响这一情况，我对公众的思维走向作了观察，所以上述想法也一天强似一天。碰巧我和一些为不同阶层的青年设立的学校有实际往来，收到很多家长来信，询问孩子的教育问题。读这一大堆信时，我时常会惊讶于家长——尤其是母亲——思想中那高于一切的“地位论”。“受教育就是为了取得这样或那样的社会地位”——永远是这句话，永远是这个目的。据我所知，他们从来不探究教育本身的意义：对训练的抽象正确性这一概念，这些写信的家长似乎很少领会。但是家长们认为教育“能让孩子外表体面；能让孩子到豪宅做客时充满自信；能最终帮助孩子建造自己的豪宅。总之，能引导孩子提高人生的品质”。家长们似乎从来没有意识到，有一种教育本身便代表着“人生品质的提高”；离开这种教育，可能就是在向死亡迈进；如果起步正确，获取或者给予这种基本的教育要比他们想象的容易；而如果起步错误，则无论花多大代价、拥有多少有利条件，也无法获取它。

Indeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effective in the mind of this busiest of countries, I suppose the first—at least that which is confessed with the greatest frankness, and put forward as the fittest stimulus to youthful exertion—is this of "Advancement in life." My main purpose this evening is to determine, with you, what this idea practically includes, and what it should include.

事实上，在这个最繁忙的国家里，在人们普遍认同和推崇为“有效”的那些想法中，我猜，排在首位的应该就是“提高人生品质”的思想——至少人们对此坦诚不讳，并把它作为激励青年人奋斗的最合适的动力提出来。今晚我主要想请大家和我一起确立这种想法实际上包含哪些内容，而它又应该包含哪些内容。

Practically, then, at present, "advancement in life" means becoming conspicuous in life;—obtaining a position which shall be acknowledged by others to be respectable or honourable. We do not understand by this advancement, in general, the mere making of money, but the being known to have made it; not the accomplishment of any great aim, but the being seen to have accomplished it. In a word, we mean the gratification of our thirst for applause. That thirst, if the last infirmity of noble minds, is also the first infirmity of weak ones; and, on the whole, the strongest impulsive influence of average humanity: the greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.

就目前而言，在现实生活中，“人生品质的提高”意味着人生的出类拔萃——获得人们认为值得尊敬的社会地位。通常，说到这种提高，我们不会仅仅将其理解为赚很多钱，而是别人知道我们赚了很多钱；我们也不会将其理解为达到某种伟大的目标，而是在别人看来，我们达到了这种目标。总而言之，我们想要的是自己对掌声的渴望得到满足。这种渴望，若对崇高的人来说是排在最后的缺点，那么对弱者而言，就是排在首位的缺点了；而且，总体上，它对普通人来说具有最强烈的推动性影响：正如人类最大的灾难都源于贪图享乐一样，人类最大的成就都源于渴望得到赞扬。

I am not about to attack or defend this impulse. I want you only to feel how it lies at the root of effort, especially of all modern effort. It is the gratification of vanity which is, with us, the stimulus of toil, and balm of repose; so closely does it touch the very springs of life that the wounding of our vanity is always spoken of (and truly) as in its measure mortal; we call it "mortification," using the same expression which we should apply to a gangrenous and incurable bodily hurt. And although few of us may be physicians enough to recognise the various effect of this passion upon health and energy, I believe most honest men know, and would at once acknowledge, its leading power with them as a motive. The seaman does not commonly desire to be made captain only because he knows he can manage the ship better than any other sailor on board. He wants to be made captain that he may be called captain. The clergyman does not usually want to be made a bishop only because he believes no other hand can, as firmly as his, direct the diocese through its difficulties. He wants to be made bishop primarily that he may be called "My Lord." And a prince does not usually desire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a kingdom because he believes that no one else can as well serve the state upon its throne; but, briefly, because he wishes to be addressed as "Your Majesty," by as many lips as may be brought to such utterance.

我既不打算攻击这种冲动，也不打算为其辩护。我只是想让大家认识到人类各种活动，尤其是所有现代社会的活动，其背后根源都是这种冲动。对虚荣心的满足是我们辛苦劳作的动力，也是我们休息放松时的慰藉；对虚荣心的满足触及我们根本的生命之泉，触及之深，使得虚荣心受伤往往被称作（实际上也是）致命的伤害；我们称之为“心疾”，这种表达和我们把身体某个部位的坏死或无法治愈的伤口称作“体疾”是一样的。尽管我们中很少有人能成为高明的医师并能意识到这种情绪对健康和精力的种种影响，但我相信，大多数诚实的人知道，而且当下就能承认，对虚荣心的满足是引导他们的一种动机。通常，水手不会仅因为知道自己比船上的其他水手更能管理好这艘船就想当船长，他想当船长是为了听到自己被称为船长。一般情况下，牧师也不会仅因为相信自己比其他人更能坚定地带领整个主教辖区走出困境而想要成为主教，他想成为主教主要是为了可以被尊称为“我尊敬的大人”。再比如，一位王子通常不会仅因为相信与其他人相比，自己当国王能更好地服务于国家就想要扩张一个王国的领土，一个臣民也不会因此而想要得到一个王国，简单地说，他们是希望从尽可能多的人的嘴里听到他们被称为“我的陛下”。

This, then, being the main idea of advancement in life, the force of it applies, for all of us, according to our station, particularly to that secondary result of such advancement which we call "getting into good society." We want to get into good society, not that we may have it, but that we may be seen in it; and our notion of its goodness depends primarily on its conspicuousness.

这便是“提高人生品质”的主导思想。在这种想法因地位而异对所有人产生的影响下，这种提高附带产生了一种我们称之为力求“融入上层社会”的衍生结果。我们想融入上层社会，不在于我们身处其中，而在于在别人眼里我们是身处其中的；我们之所以认为其美好主要是因为它惹人注目。

Will you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put what I fear you may think an impertinent question? I never can go on with an address unless I feel, or know, that my audience are either with me or against me: (I do not much care which, in beginning); but I must know where they are; and I would fain find out, at this instant, whether you think I am putting the motives of popular action too low. I am resolved, to-night, to state them low enough to be admitted as probable; for whenever, in my writings on Political Economy, I assume that a little honesty, or generosity,—or what used to be called "virtue"—may be calculated upon as a human motive of action, people always answer me, saying, "You must not calculate on that: that is not in human nature; you must not assume anything to be common to men but acquisitiveness and jealousy; no other feeling ever has influence on them, except accidentally, and in matters out of the way of business." I begin accordingly to-night low down in the scale of motives; but I must know if you think me right in doing so. Therefore, let me ask those who admit the love of praise to be usually the strongest motive in men's minds in seeking advancement, and the honest desire of doing any kind of duty to be an entirely secondary one, to hold up their hands. (About a dozen hands held up—the audience partly not being sure the lecturer is serious, and partly shy of expressing opinion.) I am quite serious—I really do want to know what you think; however, I can judge by putting the reverse question. Will those who think that duty is generally the first, and love of praise the second, motive, hold up their hands? (One hand reported to have been held up, behind the lecturer.) Very good: I see you are with me, and that you think I have not begun too near the ground. Now, without teasing you by putting farther question, I venture to assume that you will admit duty as at least a secondary or tertiary motive. You think that the desire of doing something useful, or obtaining some real good, is indeed an existent collateral idea, though a secondary one, in most men's desire of advancement. You will grant that moderately honest men desire place and office, at least in some measure for the sake of beneficent power; and would wish to associate rather with sensible and well-informed persons than with fools and ignorant persons, whether they are seen in the company of the sensible ones or not. And finally, without being troubled by repetition of any common truisms about the preciousness of friends, and the influence of companions, you will admit, doubtless, that according to the sincerity of our desire that our friends may be true, and our companions wise,—and in proportion to the earnestness and discretion with which we choose both, will be the general chances of our happiness and usefulness.

请原谅我停顿片刻，提一个你们可能会觉得莽撞的问题，好吗？除非我感受到或知道自己的听众是同意还是反对我的观点，我是讲不下去的（虽然开场的时候我不是很介意）。但我必须知道现在大家是怎么想的，我乐于去探究：在此刻，你们是不是觉得我把大众行为的动机说得太卑下了？其实，今晚我是下定决心要把它说得足够卑下，好让大家认可这种动机存在的可能性，因为每次我写政治经济学方面的文章，只要我说明我认为真诚或慷慨——或是曾被人们认为是美德的品质——可以被看作人类行动的动机，人们的回应总是：“你不应该指望这些：这些不是人类的本性；人类的共性只有贪婪和妒忌，除此之外，人类不会受其他情感的影响，除非是在极偶然并且不碍手碍脚的情况下。”所以今晚开场的时候，我把大众行为的动机降低档次，但是，我必须知道你们是否认同我这样做。那么，在座认为通常人们在追求发展时对赞扬的期许是人类头脑中最强烈的动机，而单纯地力图完成某项责任的想法完全是次要的听众，请举手示意一下。（大概只有十几个人举手——有些听众似乎以为讲演者不是真的想让他们表态，还有些听众羞于表达自己的观点。）我是很认真的——我真的想知道你们是怎么想的；虽然刚才似乎不太成功，但我可以通过一个相反的问题来作出判断。请在座认为一般来讲，责任是第一位的动机，而对赞扬的期许是第二位的听众举一下手好吗？（据说，只有坐在讲演者后面的一位听众举了手。）很好，我知道你们是赞同我的，而且你们认为我在开场时并没有把人们的动机放得太卑下。现在，我就不再问更多的问题来揶揄大家了，我大胆假设你们都同意责任至少是第二位或者第三位的动机。假设你们认为对做些有益之事的渴望，或者对某种真正美好的东西的获取，的确可以成为大多数人谋取发展的动机——即使是次要的动机，你们也就是同意诚实的普通人想要获得地位，至少其中一部分动机是想要善用权力；他们更愿意结交明智和见多识广的朋友而不是愚笨和孤陋寡闻的人，且不论别人是否认为他们是不是和聪明人为伍。最后，不需要我重复朋友的宝贵以及同伴关系对人们的影响这些众所周知的道理，你们也毫无疑问会同意：我们真心地希望自己的朋友是忠诚可靠的，希望我们的同伴是明智的，希望两样东西成为我们获得幸福感和成就感的重要机会，不枉费我们选择时付出的诚意和慎重。

But, granting that we had both the will and the sense to choose our friends well, how few of us have the power! or, at least, how limited, for most, is the sphere of choice! Nearly all our associations are determined by chance, or necessity; and restricted within a narrow circle. We cannot know whom we would; and those whom we know, we cannot have at our side when we most need them. All the higher circles of human intelligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and partially open. We may, by good fortune, obtain a glimpse of a great poet, and hear the sound of his voice; or put a question to a man of science, and be answered good-humoredly. We may intrude ten minutes' talk on a cabinet minister, answered probably with words worse than silence, being deceptive; or snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a bouquet in the path of a Princess, or arresting the kind glance of a Queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet; and spend our years, and passions, and powers in pursuit of little more than these; while, meantime, there is a society continually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or occupation; —talk to us in the best words they can choose, and with thanks if we listen to them. And this society, because it is so numerous and so gentle, —and can be kept waiting round us all day long, not to grant audience, but to gain it;—kings and statesmen lingering patiently in those plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, our bookcase shelves, —we make no account of that company, —perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day long!

但是，虽然我们认为自己既有意愿也有判断力去做到明智择友，但真正有能力做到的人没有几个！或者至少我们大多数人可以选择朋友的圈子是如此地有限！我们和朋友的结交，几乎全部都是出于偶然或者需要；而且限定在一个狭窄的圈子里。我们无法认识那些自己希望认识的人；而那些我们认识的人，当我们最需要他们的时候，他们并不在我们身边。大人物生活的上流社会圈子对他们之下的普通人只可能暂时和部分地开放。走运的话，我们或许能看到一位伟大的诗人一眼，听到他的声音；或者有机会向一位科学家提问，并得到和颜悦色的解答。我们还可能会和一位内阁大臣聊上十分钟，尽听他说些虚伪的假话，比不说还糟糕；或者在我们的一生中可能会争取到一两次往公主出行所经道路上抛撒花束的特权，或者得到一位王后和善的回眸一瞥。于是，我们热切期盼着这些偶然机遇的到来，不惜花费时间、投入热情和精力，所追求的不过就是这些而已。可是，与此同时，有一个社会圈一直对我们敞开着大门，只要我们愿意，想和这个圈子里的人们聊多久就聊多久，无论我们处于何种社会阶层或从事何种职业——他们都力求用自己最精妙而充满善意的语言跟我们谈话，并对我们的倾听心存感激。而且，这个社会圈里人数众多，成员们个个温文尔雅、和蔼可亲——他们会在我们身边等待一整天，为的不是准许我们做听众，而是积极争取我们的倾听——国王和政治家耐心地呆在装饰简单的狭窄的接见室里，在我们的书架上——但我们对他们视而不见——也许一整天都不会去听他们想说的哪怕一个字。

You may tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselves, that the apathy with which we regard this company of the noble, who are praying us to listen to them; and the passion with which we pursue the company, probably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who have nothing to teach us, are grounded in this,—that we can see the faces of the living men, and it is themselves, and not their sayings, with which we desire to become familiar. But it is not so. Suppose you never were to see their faces;—suppose you could be put behind a screen in the statesman's cabinet, or the prince's chamber, would you not be glad to listen to their words, though you were forbidden to advance beyond the screen? And when the screen is only a little less, folded in two, instead of four, and you can be hidden behind the cover of the two boards that bind a book, and listen, all day long, not to the casual talk, but to the studied, determined, chosen addresses of the wisest of men;—this station of audience, and honourable privy council, you despise!

也许你可能会告诉我，或者自己心里想，人们之所以对这些请求得到倾听的大人物如此冷漠，而如此热情地追求与那些轻视我们、对我们无所教益而又可能天性粗鄙的人们为伍，是因为我们能真实地看到活生生的后者；我们并非想要知道他们说些什么，而是渴望结识他们本人。可事实并不是这样的。假设你永远都不能见到他们本人——假设你身处内阁议员会议室或王子接见室，却被一扇屏风挡住，不允许越过，难道你不愿意听他们说话吗？现在，不过是把屏风缩小些，把四折变成两折，挡在你面前的是一本书的两张纸板封面而已。你可以一整天地聆听这些最智慧的人说话，他们不是和你闲聊，他们的话都是经过精心研究、反复推敲和慎重选择后才说给你听——而你却不屑成为享受这种规格待遇的听众，对这个由大人物们为你而设的社会圈不屑一顾！

But perhaps you will say that it is because the living people talk of things that are passing, and are of immediate interest to you, that you desire to hear them. Nay; that cannot be so, for the living people will themselves tell you about passing matters, much better in their writings than in their careless talk. But I admit that this motive does influence you, so far as you prefer those rapid and ephemeral writings to slow and enduring writings—books, properly so called. For all books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time. Mark this distinction—it is not one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a distinction of species. There are good books for the hour, and good ones for all time; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all time. I must define the two kinds before I go farther.

但或许你会说，活着的人说的都是当下的事情，是你最直接感兴趣的东西，所以你愿意听。不，事实不是这样的。因为即便是活着的人，他们讲当下的事情也是写在书里的比随便说说的好得多。但我承认，如果你喜欢那些适合快速阅读、生命力并不长久的作品，而不是那些需要慢慢体味、经得起时间考验的作品——称这些作品为书更合适，那么刚才的理由确实会影响你，因为所有的书都可以被分成两种：一时的书和永久的书。划分这两种书的标准不仅仅是质量。不仅仅是坏书不会流传、好书一定流传那么简单。这是关于种类的一种划分。好书有存在一时的，也有流芳百世的；坏书有存在一时的，也有遗害千载的。在继续深入话题之前，我必须为一时的书和永久的书这两个概念下定义。

The good book of the hour, then,—I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history;—all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, to-day: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read." A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would—the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; —this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down forever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing;" it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book."

一时的好书——不包括坏书——只不过就是把一些你无法通过其他途径与之交流的人说过的有用的或令人愉快的话印刷出来给你看。这些书往往很有用，能告诉你所需要知道的东西；这些书往往令人很愉快，就像是一个智慧的朋友在面对面和你聊天。这些书包括欢快的游记、诙谐的谈论、或喜或悲的小说故事和历史事件亲历者讲述的真实事件，等等。这些一时的书，随着教育的普及，越来越多地出现在我们的身边，是我们这个时代的特殊财富：我们应该真心地感谢这些书；如果我们没有好好利用它们，则真应该感到羞愧。但是，如果我们让这些书侵占了真正的书应该拥有的地盘，那我们可就是把它们用在了最不该用的地方，因为严格来讲，这些作品根本不是书，而只是印刷精美的信件或新闻报纸。朋友的来信可能令我们愉悦，或者在今天来说是必需的，但是值不值得一直保留下来，还需要再考虑考虑。新闻报纸也许非常适合在早餐时阅读，但肯定不能读上一整天。所以，这些谈论去年此地有哪些小酒馆和道路，天气如何，或者讲述有趣的故事，或者叙述某一事件的真实情况等的长信，虽然读起来令人很愉快，或偶尔有参考价值，但即便是装订成册，也根本不应该被称为真正意义上的“书”，甚至严格来讲，都不是用来“阅读”的。从本质上讲，书不是口头上的东西，而是写出来的文字；写作，不是仅仅为了交流，而是为了永恒。讲话类的书，印刷出来，仅仅是因为讲话的人不能同时对着成千上万的人说话；如果他能这样做，他肯定选择直接对着他们说——印刷成册不过是为了让更多的人听到他的声音。就好像，你没办法和身在印度的朋友面对面说话——如果可以，你肯定愿意——于是，你选择写信，而信不过是你声音的传送工具。但写书则不同，作者不仅仅是为了让更多的人听到他的声音，不仅仅是通过书来传送他的声音，而是为了使自己的心声得以永恒。作者想要讲述的是他认为真实和有用的东西，或者有益的美好事物。他说的是就他所知的以前别人没有说过，也没有其他人能说的东西。他必须说出这些东西，清楚地、并尽可能优美地表达出来；无论如何，一定要说得清清楚楚。回首所走过的人生，他发现这些是生活向他展示的一面或多面——这些真知灼见来源于他生活过的土地和沐浴过的阳光。他非常乐意将这些东西永远记录下来，如果能够将这些刻在石头上，他会这么做；他会写上：“这是我拥有的最好的东西；除此以外，我和其他人一样，吃、喝、睡、爱、恨；原本我的生命会像水蒸气般消失，但现在不会了；我看到了并明白了这些：如果我有什么值得你们记住的，就是这些了。”这就是他的“作品”，无论他内心的真实灵感有多少，他用人类平凡的文字，书写了自己的墓志铭，这是他的个人经文。这样的作品称为“书”。

Perhaps you think no books were ever so written?

也许你会认为从来就没有这样写书的?

But, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in honesty, or at all in kindness? or do you think there is never any honesty or benevolence in wise people? None of us, I hope, are so unhappy as to think that. Well, whatever bit of a wise man's work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is his book, or his piece of art. It is mixed always with evil fragments—ill-done, redundant, affected work. But if you read rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and those are the book.

但是，我还要再问你一句，你是否相信诚实与善良还是存在的？或者你认为聪明人从来不诚实也不仁慈？我希望，我们中没有人如此不幸地会这样想。既然不是这样的，聪明人写书时只要哪一部分是真诚地写出来的，那么这一部分就是他的书，就是他的艺术作品。好书里往往也掺杂着坏的成分——粗糙、冗长、矫情的部分。但如果你正确地去阅读，你很容易发现其中真正好的东西，这些东西才是书。

Now books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest men:—by great readers, great statesmen, and great thinkers. These are all at your choice; and Life is short. You have heard as much before;—yet have you measured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that—that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect that you jostle with the hungry and common crowd for entrée here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the mighty, of every place and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may take fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once entered into it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives with which you strive to take high place in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this company of the Dead.

这类书的作者是各个时代的伟人——伟大的读者、伟大的政治家和伟大的思想家。这些书就放在你的面前，如何选择在你自己；而生命是短暂的。你以前听过不少类似的话——但你是否真的思量过生命到底有多短，计划过人生究竟有多少可能性呢？你是否知道，如果你读了这本书，就读不了那本书——今天失去的，明天再也找不回来了？如果你现在有机会与国王和王后说话，你会去和女佣、和马夫闲聊吗？如果有一个永恒的王宫一直向你敞开大门，这里天地宽广，可以容纳整个世界，这里像现实世界一样有很多人，他们是不同国家、不同时代的精英和权贵，这时，你还会愿意去和饥渴的大众争抢进入某处的一张门票，或是挤破头地要去听某人的演讲吗？你还会以为后者是和你认为所应得的尊重相称的吗？要知道，你随时可以进入这个王宫；你可以在这里交朋友并按照自己的想法把他们排成三六九等；一旦进入王宫，除了你自己谁也不能驱逐你；通过你在这里结交的贵族朋友，可以确切地检验你自己内在的贵族气质，并且，这里的朋友都很真诚，因此通过你在这个由已故人群组成的世界中想得到的地位，可以衡量出你在现实社会中努力往上攀爬的动机。

"The place you desire," and the place you fit yourself for, I must also say; because, observe, this court of the past differs from all living aristocracy in this:—it is open to labour and to merit, but to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the portières of that silent Faubourg St. Germain ¹ , there is but brief question, "Do you deserve to enter? Pass. Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But on other terms?—no. If you will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate pain; but here we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if you would recognise our presence.”

“你想要得到的地位”，我认为也就是适合你的地位，因为请注意，这个逝者的王宫与现实的上流社会是有区别的——这里只欢迎勤劳和美德。守护这片乐土的卫士从来不会被金钱贿赂，或者被名望震慑，也不会被诡计欺骗。从深层来说，恶棍和粗俗的人都进不来。仿佛是在静静的巴黎圣日耳曼区的入口，只听到几个简短的问题：“你有资格进入这里吗？有，就进去吧。你愿意与高尚的人为友吗？只要你自己是高尚的，你就能交到这样的朋友。你渴望和有智慧的人谈话吗？学着理解他们的话，你就能听到他们说话。没有其他条件了吗？——没有了。如果你不能上升到我们的高度，我们也不可能弯腰去屈就你。还在世的君王可能会出于礼貌迁就你，现世的哲学家可能会费力向你解释他的思想；但是在这里，我们既不会假装礼貌也不会提供解释；你必须达到我们思想的高度才能感受到其中的愉悦，你必须体会到我们的感情，才能感受到我们的存在。”

This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that it is much. You must, in a word, love these people, if you are to be among them. No ambition is of any use. They scorn your ambition. You must love them, and show your love in these two following ways.

这就是你必须要做的，我承认这要求很高。总而言之，你必须喜爱这里的人才能融入这里。野心是没有用的。他们鄙视你的野心。你必须喜爱他们，必须通过下面两种方式来表达你的喜爱：

I.—First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to enter into their thoughts. To enter into theirs, observe; not to find your own expressed by them. If the person who wrote the book is not wiser than you, you need not read it; if he be, he will think differently from you in many respects.

(1)首先，出于真心想要向他们求教，并且进入他们的思想。请注意，是进入他们的思想 , 而不是去寻找由他们表达出来的你自己的思想。如果写书的人并不比你有智慧，那就不要读他的书；如果他比你有智慧，他会在很多方面与你的想法不一样。

Very ready we are to say of a book, "How good this is—that's exactly what I think!" But the right feeling is, "How strange that is! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day." But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards, if you think yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it first. And be sure also, if the author is worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning all at once;—nay, that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thought. They do not give it to you by way of help, but of reward, and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you and me, no reason why the electric forces of the earth should not carry whatever there is of gold within it at once to the mountain tops, so that kings and people might know that all the gold they could get was there; and without any trouble and digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and coin as much as they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where: you may dig long and find none; you must dig painfully to find any.

我们会很轻易地说：“这本书太好了！书里的想法和我的一模一样 !”但正确的感受应该是：“这本书太奇怪了！我以前从来没有这样想过，但我明白这种想法是对的；或者虽然我现在不明白，但我希望将来有一天能明白。”但无论是否如此恭敬，至少你一定要走近作者去理解他的意思，而不是去寻找你自己的想法。如果你觉得自己够资格评判这本书，你可以去评判，但在此之前你要先弄明白作者在说什么。而且对于值得花工夫去理解的作者，你不会一看就知道他想说什么——不仅如此，他会让你很长一段时间都不会感到有所顿悟。不是作者词不达意，也不是他的语言不够鲜明，而是他不能说得太明白；更奇怪的是，他也不愿意说得太明白，而是通过隐晦的方式和比喻的方法来表达，以便弄清楚你是否真的想要知道。我也不是很明白作者为什么这样做，也分析不出为什么智者总是将他们深邃的思想隐藏在心里，任凭我们如何痛苦思量，他们还是沉默寡言。他们不是通过帮助来向你传达他们的思想，而是以一种奖励的姿态；在允许你得到之前，他们要确信你值得拥有。这就好比“有形的智慧”——黄金。可能你我都会觉得，为什么不用地球上的电力把一切含有黄金的物质都马上运到山顶呢？这样一来，国王和人民就会知道他们能得到的所有金子都在山顶，就不必费力去挖掘、不必焦虑、不必投机、不必浪费时间，直接砍掉一块，想铸多少金币就铸多少。但大自然不这样安排。她把黄金放在地球的小缝隙中，没人知道在哪儿：你可能挖很久也挖不到一点；要找到黄金，你必须努力地挖。

And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, "Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my temper?" And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at the cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learning; your smelting-furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's meaning without those tools and that fire; often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before you can gather one grain of the metal.

对于人类伟大的智慧来说也是一样的道理。拿到一本好书，你必须问问自己：“我是不是愿意像澳大利亚矿工那样努力挖掘呢？镐子和铲子放好了吗？我自己准备好了吗？袖子挽到胳膊肘上面了吗？呼吸顺畅吗？心情愉快吗？”继续把自己想象成这个样子，即使觉得无聊，也别停下来。因为这是非常有用的想象，你要寻找的金子是作者的思想或意思，他所用的文字好比石头，你要砸碎它，熔炼它，才能得到里面的金子。你的镐是你的细心、智慧和知识；你的炼石炉是你善于思考的灵魂。别指望不使用这些工具、不经过火的熔炼，就能明白一位优秀作家的思想；往往你需要使用最锋利、最好的凿子和最耐心的熔炼，才能得到一粒金子。

And, therefore, first of all, I tell you, earnestly and authoritatively, (I know I am right in this,) you must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable—nay, letter by letter. For though it is only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of signs, to sounds in the function of signs, that the study of books is called "literature," and that a man versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a man of letters instead of a man of books, or of words, you may yet connect with that accidental nomenclature this real principle:—that you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough), and remain an utterly "illiterate," uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter,—that is to say, with real accuracy,—you are forevermore in some measure an educated person. The entire difference between education and non-education (as regards the merely intellectual part of it), consists in this accuracy. A well-educated gentleman may not know many languages,—may not be able to speak any but his own,—may have read very few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the peerage of words; (knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille); remembers all their ancestry—their inter-marriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, among the national noblesse of words at any time, and in any country. But an uneducated person may know by memory any number of languages, and talk them all, and yet truly know not a word of any,—not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to make his way ashore at most ports; yet he has only to speak a sentence of any language to be known for an illiterate person: so also the accent, or turn of expression of a single sentence will at once mark a scholar. And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively admitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign to a man a certain degree of inferior standing forever. And this is right; but it is a pity that the accuracy insisted on is not greater, and required to a serious purpose. It is right that a false Latin quantity should excite a smile in the House of Commons; but it is wrong that a false English meaning should not excite a frown there. Let the accent of words be watched, by all means, but let their meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the work. A few words well chosen and distinguished, will do work that a thousand cannot, when every one is acting, equivocally, in the function of another. Yes; and words, if they are not watched, will do deadly work sometimes. There are masked words droning and skulking about us in Europe just now,—(there never were so many, owing to the spread of a shallow, blotching, blundering, infectious, "information," or rather deformation, everywhere, and to the teaching of catechisms and phrases at schools instead of human meanings)—there are masked words abroad, I say, which nobody understands, but which everybody uses, and most people will also fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying they mean this, or that, or the other, of things dear to them: for such words wear chameleon cloaks—"groundlion" cloaks, of the colour of the ground of any man's fancy: on that ground they lie in wait, and rend him with a spring from it. There never were creatures of prey so mischievous, never diplomatists so cunning, never poisoners so deadly, as these masked words; they are the unjust stewards of all men's ideas: whatever fancy or favourite instinct a man most cherishes, he gives to his favourite masked word to take care of for him; the word at last comes to have an infinite power over him,—you cannot get at him but by its ministry. And in languages so mongrel in breed as the English, there is a fatal power of equivocation put into men's hands, almost whether they will or no, in being able to use Greek or Latin words for an idea when they want it to be respectable, and Saxon or otherwise common forms when they want to discredit it. What a singular and salutary effect, for instance, would be produced on the minds of people who are in the habit of taking the Form of the words they live by, for the Power of which those words tell them, if we always either retained, or refused, the Greek form "biblos," or "biblion," as the right expression for "book"—instead of employing it only in the one instance in which we wish to give dignity to the idea, and translating it into English everywhere else. How wholesome it would be for many simple persons who worship the Letter of God's Word instead of its Spirit, (just as other idolaters worship His picture instead of His Presence,) if, in such places (for instance) as Acts xix. 19 we retained the Greek expression, instead of translating it, and they had to read—"Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their bibles together, and burnt them before all men; and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver!" Or if, on the other hand, we translated where we retain it, and always spoke of "The Holy Book," instead of "Holy Bible," it might come into more heads than it does at present that the Word of God, by which the heavens were, of old, and by which they are now kept in store (2 Peter iii. 5-7), cannot be made a present of to anybody in morocco binding; nor sown on any wayside by help either of steam plough or steam press; but is nevertheless being offered to us daily, and by us with contumely refused; and sown in us daily, and by us as instantly as may be, choked.

因此，首先我认真而负责地（我知道自己这样说是44对的）告诉你，你必须养成认真看每一个字的习惯，确认你知道每一个字的意思，一个音节一个音节地—不，应该是一个字母一个字母地看。关于书的研究被人们称为“文学”，精通此道的人被所有国家称为文学家，而不是书人或字词家，只不过是因为字母与发音在符号功能中的对立。虽然如此，你还是能把这种带有偶然性的命名法同下面这个标准联系起来—有的人读遍了大英博物馆的书（假设他能活这么长时间），到最后还是一个彻底的“文盲”，一个没有受过教育的人；而有的人读了一本好书的十页，一个字母一个字母地看—也就是说，真正精确地读—在某种程度上便永远是受过教育的人。（仅从智力教育来看）一个人是否受过教育完全取决于这种精确性。一个受过良好教育的人，可能会的语言不多——可能只会说自己的母语——可能读过的书很少。但是只要是他会的语言，他都掌握得很精确；无论他读哪一个单词，他的发音都正确；更重要的是，他所精通的是“贵族词语”( 他一眼就能看44出哪些词语有正统的古典血统，哪些是现代的低俗用语)；他记得所有这些词语的出身——它们的联姻、它们的远亲，甚至还知道它们在各个年代、各个国家的贵族词汇中被接受的程度和被应用的场所。但是，一个没有受过教育的人可能靠记忆记住很多种语言，也都会说，然而实际上却没真正理解任何一个词——甚至是他自己的母语。一个智力和判断力都一般的海员可以在很多国家的港口顺利靠岸，但无论哪个国家的语言，他只要说一句就马上暴露出他是个没有受过教育的人。同样，只需要一句话，从口音或者表达方式上，就可以立即辨别出谁是学者。受过教育的人无不强烈感到并很肯定地认为，在任何一个文明国家的国会，口音不对或是发错一个音节就足以把一个人永远归于低人一等的位置了。这种想法是正确的，但很可惜人们对这种精确性的坚持还不够，目的也不严肃。在众议院发言，满口拉丁音的确会引人发笑，但用错一个英语单词的意思却没人为此而皱眉，这是不对的。我们要想尽各种4办法密切关注词语的发音，但是更要密切关注它们的意思，然而很少有人会这样做。几个精挑细选、反复推敲出来的好词，要比 1,000 个含糊不清、错乱混淆的词好用多了。是的，如果对词语不够重视，有时会犯致命的错误。现在，欧洲有很多伪词隐藏在我们身边嗡嗡作响——（这些词比以往任何时候都要多，这是因为浅薄、肮脏、愚蠢和传染病似的“信息” ——更准确的说是畸形信息——无处不在，还因为学校里教的是教条的知识和短语，而不是实际的词语意义）——我敢说，这些到处都是的伪词，没有人知道它们是什么意思，但每个人都在用，很多人还会捍卫它们的存在，为它们而活，甚至可以为它们去死，想象它们有这样那样的意义；还有人把它们看得很宝贵：因为这些词披着变色龙一样的外衣——或者说“地狮”(“groundlion”, 是“khamaileōn”（古希腊语，变色龙之义）的字面意思 ) 一样的外衣，能够迎合每个人想象中的色彩：它们潜伏在人们的头脑中，伺机跃起把人撕个粉碎。没有哪些猎食者比这些伪词更危险，没有哪位外交家比它们更狡猾，没有任何投毒者比它们更致命；它们是人们思想中无良的管家：无论一个人最珍惜的想象或喜爱的直觉是什么，他都交给最中意的伪词来替他保管；而这个伪词，最终无限地控制了他——不通过这个管家别人是无法明白这个人的。在像英语这样血统混杂的语言中，人们手中含糊的力量是致命的，几乎是不管他们愿不愿意，他们想要表达体面的想法时可以用希腊或拉丁词，想要通俗时又能用撒克逊或其他普通词汇。例如，如果我们总是采用或坚决不用希腊语“biblos”或“biblion”来表达英语中的“book（书）”, 而不是只在想表现自己思想高贵的时候才用，而其他时候都用英语表达，那么对我们这些习惯把“words（词）”这个词的形式当成这些词本身意义的人来说，这将给思想带来多么非凡而有益的影响啊！.如果 ( 比方说 ) 在《圣经 使徒行传》第 19 章第 19 小节中，我们保留希腊语表达，而不是像现在翻译成英语，那么很多信奉《圣经》的文字却不知道其实质的没头脑的人（就像那些只崇拜上帝画像而不是上帝本人的偶像崇拜者一样），就不得不这样读这段文字了——“平素行邪术的，也有许多人把书拿来，堆积在众人面前焚烧。他们算计书价，便知道共合五万块钱！”这将是多么有益啊！又或者，我们把现在保留的文字翻译成英语，不说“Holy Bible（《圣经》）”而说“Holy Book（《圣书》）”，那么可能会有比现在更多的人认识到古老的、来自天堂的上帝的话语，现在却陈列在商店待售(《彼得后书》第3章5—7小节——作者注)，这是不能用摩洛哥皮革捆起来送人的；也是不能用蒸汽犁或是蒸汽印刷机随便在路边播撒的；虽然每天都收到上帝的话语，但我们总是傲慢地拒绝；虽然每天都有上帝的福音撒播在身上，但我们总是尽可能快地将其扼杀。

So, again, consider what effect has been produced on the English vulgar mind by the use of the sonorous Latin form "damno", in translating the Greek "κατακρ?νω", when people charitably wish to make it forcible; and the substitution of the temperate "condemn" for it, when they choose to keep it gentle. And what notable sermons have been preached by illiterate clergymen on—"He that believeth not shall be damned;" though they would shrink with horror from translating, Heb. xi. 7, "The saving of his house, by which he damned the world," or John viii. 12, "Woman, hath no man damned thee? She saith, No man, Lord. Jesus answered her, Neither do I damn thee; go and sin no more." And divisions in the mind of Europe, which have cost seas of blood, and in the defense of which the noblest souls of men have been cast away in frantic desolation, countless as forest-leaves—though, in the heart of them, founded on deeper causes—have nevertheless been rendered practicably possible, namely, by the European adoption of the Greek word for a public meeting, to give peculiar respectability to such meetings, when held for religious purposes; and other collateral equivocations, such as the vulgar English one of using the word "priest" as a contraction for "presbyter."

所以，再想一想，翻译希腊语“κατακρ?νω”时，为了凸显它的强制性，人们会选择铿锵有力的拉丁词形“damno（罚入地狱受刑）”；想让它显得温和些时，又会选择温和的“condemn（判罪）”，这对英国普通大众的思想产生了怎样的影响？想一想，虽然一些牧师没受过什么教育，但他们在引用“He that believeth not shall be damned（不信的必被定罪）”这样保留希腊语特色的句子时显得多么庄严和神圣啊；虽然他们对翻译成英语的《圣经》害怕得要死，例如《希伯来书》第11章第7小节的“The saving of his house, by which he damned the world（使他全家得救，因此定了全世界的罪）”，或者《约翰福音》第8 章第12 小节的“Woman, hath no man damned thee? She saidth, No man, Lord. Jesus answered her, Neither do I damn thee; go and sin no more（耶稣对她说，妇人，没有人定你的罪吗？她说，主啊，没有。耶稣说，我也不定你的罪；去吧，从此不要再犯罪了）”。欧洲人头脑中对本国语言和外来语之间的区分曾令成千上万的人为之流血牺牲，为了捍卫这条界限，多少高尚的灵魂被抛弃在令人发狂的孤独中，这些灵魂多如林叶——尽管，在他们内心深处，有着更深层次的原因——但是，某些时候，例如为了给宗教集会这种公众活动赋予特别的尊重，借用希腊语来表达实际上也是可行的；某些时候界限也是模糊的，例如通俗英语中的“priest（牧师）”是作为"presbyter"的缩写使用的。

Now, in order to deal with words rightly, this is the habit you must form. Nearly every word in your language has been first a word of some other language—of Saxon, German, French, Latin, or Greek; (not to speak of eastern and primitive dialects). And many words have been all these;—that is to say, have been Greek first, Latin next, French or German next, and English last: undergoing a certain change of sense and use on the lips of each nation; but retaining a deep vital meaning which all good scholars feel in employing them, even at this day. If you do not know the Greek alphabet, learn it; young or old—girl or boy—whoever you may be, if you think of reading seriously (which, of course, implies that you have some leisure at command), learn your Greek alphabet; then get good dictionaries of all these languages, and whenever you are in doubt about a word, hunt it down patiently. Read Max Müller's lectures thoroughly, to begin with; and, after that, never let a word escape you that looks suspicious. It is severe work; but you will find it, even at first, interesting, and at last, endlessly amusing. And the general gain to your character, in power and precision, will be quite incalculable.

因此，要正确使用词语，你必须养成下面的习惯。你的母语中，几乎每一个词语最初都来源于其他的某种语言——撒克逊语、德语、法语、拉丁语或者希腊语（这还不包括东方和原始方言）。很多词都是这样的——也就是说，先是希腊语，然后是拉丁语，接着是法语或德语，最后是英语：每个民族讲出来时，词语的意义和用法都发生了一些变化，但深层的关键意义被保留了下来。所有优秀的学者在使用词语时都能感受到，即使在今天也不例外。如果你还不知道希腊字母表，现在就学吧；不管你是年轻人还是老年人，是女孩还是男孩，无论是谁——如果你想要认真阅读（当然，这也意味着你有可支配的空闲时间），就要熟悉希腊字母表；然后学所有这些语言你都要有好字典，无论何时你对某个词有疑问，都要耐心地追根溯源。.我建议可以从通读马克斯 缪勒的演讲稿开始；然后，不要放过任何一个看似可疑的词语。这是项艰苦的工作，但是甚至刚开始你就会发现它很有意思，到最后你则会觉得其乐无穷。而这种习惯对你性格的塑造，其益处是无法估量的，它能增强你的精神力量，培养你的精确思维能力。

Mind, this does not imply knowing, or trying to know, Greek, or Latin, or French. It takes a whole life to learn any language perfectly. But you can easily ascertain the meanings through which the English word has passed; and those which in a good writer's work it must still bear.

但是，要注意，这不是要你去学习或者尝试学习希腊语、拉丁语或者法语。要把任何一门语言学精都要耗费一生的心力。但英语单词历经的各种意义变化你都应该能信手拈来，而且这些意义必然会体现在优秀作家的作品当中。

And now, merely for example's sake, I will, with your permission, read a few lines of a true book with you, carefully; and see what will come out of them. I will take a book perfectly known to you all; No English words are more familiar to us, yet nothing perhaps has been less read with sincerity. I will take these few following lines of Lycidas: ² —

接下来，只是为了举例说明，请允许我给大家仔细诵读几行节选诗，它们出自一部真正的好书；然后我们一起看看这些话是什么意思。我选一本大家都熟知的书；这些词语都是我们熟悉到不能再熟的，但或许也是我们最容易掉以轻心的。我就读《利西达斯》中的几行：

"Last came, and last did go,

来得最晚，去得也最晚；

The pilot of the Galilean lake;

“加利利湖上的领航员，

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,

随身带着两把不同的金属大钥匙，

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain),

（金的用来开门，铁的用来把门紧锁），

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake,

他摇晃着戴着主教冠的脑袋，严厉地说，

How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,

年轻人，我为你可是竭尽全力啊！

Enow of such as for their bellies' sake

看够了那些为填饱肚子

Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!

溜进、闯进和爬进羊圈的人！

Of other care they little reckoning make,

对其他事情都不在乎，

Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,

他们只想着怎样混进剪羊毛人的宴会，

And shove away the worthy bidden guest;

挤走受邀赴宴的尊贵客人；

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

他们只知道瞎着眼吃！不知道如何使用牧羊杖，

A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else, the least

别的也不会，

That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs!

更别提能够懂得忠实的牧羊人的艺术！

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

他们顾虑什么？需要什么？他们成功富足；

And when they list, their lean and flashy songs

高兴的时候，用劣质的麦管笛子

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;

吹些无力庸俗的歌，又难听又刺耳；

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,

而饥饿的羊群抬起头求食，他们却不去喂，

But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,

任由羊群喝西北风，嗅着刺鼻的薄雾，

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;

任由它们的内脏腐烂，传播恶臭和疾病；

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

旁边还有藏着利爪的恶狼，

Daily devours apace, and nothing said.”

他们只知每日狼吞虎咽地吃，一言不发”

Let us think over this passage, and examine its words.

让我们仔细想想这段话，研究研究里面的用词。

First, is it not singular to find Milton assigning to St. Peter ³ , not only his full episcopal function, but the very types of it which Protestants usually refuse most passionately? His "mitred" locks! Milton was no Bishop-lover; how comes St. Peter to be "mitred?" "Two massy keys he bore." Is this, then, the power of the keys claimed by the Bishops of Rome, and is it acknowledged here by Milton only in a poetical licence, for the sake of its picturesqueness, that he may get the gleam of the golden keys to help his effect? Do not think it. Great men do not play stage tricks with doctrines of life and death: only little men do that. Milton means what he says; and means it with his might too—is going to put the whole strength of his spirit presently into the saying of it. For though not a lover of false bishops, he was a lover of true ones; and the Lake-pilot is here, in his thoughts, the type and head of true episcopal power. For Milton reads that text, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven"quite honestly. Puritan though he be, he would not blot it out of the book because there have been bad bishops; nay, in order to understand him, we must understand that verse first; it will not do to eye it askance, or whisper it under our breath, as if it were a weapon of an adverse sect. It is a solemn, universal assertion, deeply to be kept in mind by all sects. But perhaps we shall be better able to reason on it if we go on a little farther, and come back to it. For clearly, this marked insistence on the power of the true episcopate is to make us feel more weightily what is to be charged against the false claimants of episcopate; or generally, against false claimants of power and rank in the body of the clergy; they who, "for their bellies' sake, creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold."

首先，大家不觉得奇怪吗？弥尔顿不仅仅让圣彼得担当了主教的职责，而且还让他成为新教徒极力反对的英国国教圣公会的主教！圣彼得头上竟然戴着“主教冠”！弥尔顿并不喜欢主教，那为什么要让圣彼得戴上“主教冠”呢？“他随身带着两把钥匙。”这些是罗马主教口中象征权力的钥匙，还是应该看作弥尔顿借金钥匙的光芒作诗意化处理，以取得生动形象的效果呢？不要这样想。伟人从来不会把事关生死的教义拿到舞台上调侃：只有小人物才那么做。弥尔顿所说的就是他想表达的，而且他表达得很有力度——把他当时全部的精神力量都注入了语言当中。弥尔顿虽然不喜欢那些虚假的主教，但他是真正主教的推崇者；在弥尔顿的思想中，加利利湖的领航员在这里代表了真正的主教权力。在解读“我要把天国的钥匙给你”时，弥尔顿非常虔诚。虽然他是清教徒，但他不会因为世间有不好的主教就把主教从书里抹去；不，为了理解他，我们必须先理解这首诗；不必不敢正视，也不必低声私语，好像它是敌对教派的武器似的。这是一句严肃而具有普遍性的宣言，深植于所有教派的思想中。但是，如果我们先往后读一点儿，然后再回过头来，这样我们或许能更好地进行推理。很明显，这种对真正主教权力的明显坚持，目的是为了让我们更深刻地感受到对虚假的主教的控诉；或者更广泛地说，是对神职人员所代表的虚假的主教权力和阶层的控诉；他们就是那些人，即“为填饱肚子，溜进、闯进和爬进羊圈的人”。

Do not think Milton uses those three words to fill up his verse, as a loose writer would. He needs all the three; especially those three, and no more than those—"creep," and "intrude," and "climb;" no other words would or could serve the turn, and no more could be added. For they exhaustively comprehend the three classes, correspondent to the three characters, of men who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. First, those who "creep" into the fold; who do not care for office, nor name, but for secret influence, and do all things occultly and cunningly, consenting to any servility of office or conduct, so only that they may intimately discern, and unawares direct, the minds of men. Then those who "intrude" (thrust, that is) themselves into the fold, who by natural insolence of heart, and stout eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly perseverant self-assertion, obtain hearing and authority with the common crowd. Lastly, those who "climb," who by labour and learning, both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own ambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become "lords over the heritage," though not "ensamples to the flock."

不要认为弥尔顿像一个散漫的作家一样，是为了凑字数才用那三个词。他需要所有这三个词，尤其是这三个，别的都不行——“溜进”、“闯进”和“爬进”；其他词都不能、也不可能达到这样的效果，也不能再加别的词。这三个词最大限度地包含了三种人，对应了三种性格，这些人以不正当的手段谋取教会权力。首先是那些“溜进”羊圈的人，他们不是为了权力，也不是为了名誉，而是为了在暗中施加影响，做事情从来都是秘密进行，狡诈万分，他们赞同向权势卑躬屈膝，只有那样他们才能秘密洞察人们的心思，在不知不觉中左右人们的思想。接着是那些“闯进”（即强行进入）羊圈的人，他们生来傲慢、巧言善辩、专横自大，能够影响大众，树立权威。最后，是那些“爬进”羊圈的人，他们将努力和博学自私地用在实现个人野心上，坚定而彻底，为的是获得尊严和地位，成为“受上帝托付的大人”，而不是“羊群的榜样”。

Now go on:—

让我们接着刚才的话题，接着看下去：——

"Of other care they little reckoning make,

“对其他事情都不在乎，

Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast.

他们只想着怎样混进剪羊毛人的宴会。

Blind mouths—”

他们只知道瞎着眼吃——”

I pause again, for this is a strange expression; a broken metaphor, one might think, careless and unscholarly.

再停一下，因为这是一个奇怪的表达；可能有人会认为这是一个蹩脚的隐喻，漫不经心又不严谨。

Not so: its very audacity and pithiness are intended to make us look close at the phrase and remember it. Those two monosyllables express the precisely accurate contraries of right character, in the two great offices of the Church—those of bishop and pastor.

不是这样的：这种大胆而简洁有力的表达法是为了引起我们的注意，让我们仔细思考，并记住这个词组。这两个单音节词正好准确表达了教会内部与正直的性格相反的两种要人，即那些主教和牧师。

A Bishop means a person who sees.

“主教”是指“能看见的人”。

A Pastor means a person who feeds.

“牧师”是指“能喂食的人”。

The most unbishoply character a man can have is therefore to be Blind.

因此，最没有主教特点的人应该是“瞎眼的人”。

The most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed,—to be a Mouth.

最不像牧师的应该是想要被喂食而不是喂食别人的人——也就是张着嘴吃的人。

Take the two reverses together, and you have "blind mouths." We may advisably follow out this idea a little. Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. They want authority, not outlook. Whereas their real office is not to rule; though it may be vigorously to exhort and rebuke; it is the king's office to rule; the bishop's office is to oversee the flock; to number it, sheep by sheep; to be ready always to give full account of it. Now it is clear he cannot give account of the souls, if he has not so much as numbered the bodies of his flock. The first thing, therefore, that a bishop has to do is at least to put himself in a position in which, at any moment, he can obtain the history from childhood, of every living soul in his diocese, and of its present state. Down in that back street, Bill, and Nancy, knocking each other's teeth out!—Does the bishop know all about it? Has he his eye upon them? Has he had his eye upon them? Can he circumstantially explain to us how Bill got into the habit of beating Nancy about the head? If he cannot, he is no bishop, though he had a mitre as high as Salisbury steeple ⁴ ; he is no bishop,—he has sought to be at the helm instead of the masthead; he has no sight of things. "Nay," you say, it is not his duty to look after Bill in the backstreet. What! the fat sheep that have full fleeces—you think it is only those he should look after, while (go back to your Milton) "the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw" (bishops knowing nothing about it) "daily devours apace, and nothing said?"

将这两种颠倒的形象放在一起，形成了“瞎着眼吃”的形象。我们可以适当地将作者的思路延伸一下。教会中几乎一切的罪恶都源自主教对“权力”而不是“光明”的追逐。他们想要的是权威，而不是见解。尽管可以理直气壮地告诫和指责，但他们真正的职责不是去统治；统治是国王的职责；主教的职责是看管群羊（教民），一只羊一只羊地清点数量，随时都可以清楚地描述自己的羊群。很明显，如果他们没有仔细清点羊群，就不可能清楚羊群的灵魂。因此，主教要做的第一件事就是至少应该让自己随时可以了解教区内每一个教民从小到大的经历和现在的状况。在偏僻的街道，比尔和南希把彼此的牙都打掉了！——主教对这些都清楚吗？他看着他们吗？他是一直看着他们吗？他能一五一十地说明比尔是怎样养成了打南希头的习惯的吗？如果他说不出来，即使戴着索尔兹伯里尖塔一样高的主教冠，也不是主教；他不是真正的主教，他力求站在掌舵的地方而不是桅顶；他什么也看不到。“不，”你也许会说，主教没有责任照看僻静街道里的比尔。什么！难道你认为主教只应该照顾那些长满羊毛的肥羊，而（再次引用弥尔顿的诗）“饥饿的羊群抬起头求食，却不去喂，旁边还有藏着利爪的恶狼”（主教对此一无所知），“只知每日狼吞虎咽地吃，一言不发”？

"But that's not our idea of a bishop." Perhaps not; but it was St. Paul's; and it was Milton's. They may be right, or we may be; but we must not think we are reading either one or the other by putting our meaning into their words.

“但那不是我们心目中的主教形象。”也许不是，但那却是圣保罗心目中的主教形象，弥尔顿心目中的主教也是这样的。也许他们是对的，也许我们是对的，但是我们绝对不可以在解读他们语言的时候把我们的想法强加进去。

I go on.

我继续往下说。

"But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw."

“任由羊群喝西北风，嗅着刺鼻的薄雾。”

This is to meet the vulgar answer that "if the poor are not looked after in their bodies, they are in their souls; they have spiritual food."

这一句是针对“如果说穷人在肉体上没有得到照看，他们的灵魂得到了；他们有精神食粮”这一庸俗观点的。

And Milton says, "They have no such thing as spiritual food; they are only swollen with wind." At first you may think that is a coarse type, and an obscure one. But again, it is a quite literally accurate one. Take up your Latin and Greek dictionaries, and find out the meaning of "Spirit." It is only a contraction of the Latin word "breath," and an indistinct translation of the Greek word for "wind." The same word is used in writing, "The wind bloweth where is listeth;" and in writing, "So is every one that is born of the Spirit;" born of the breath, that is; for it means the breath of God, in soul and body. We have the true sense of it in our words "inspiration" and "expire." Now, there are two kinds of breath with which the flock may be filled; God's breath, and man's. The breath of God is health, and life, and peace to them, as the air of heaven is to the flocks on the hills; but man's breath—the word which he calls spiritual,—is disease and contagion to them, as the fog of the fen. They rot inwardly with it; they are puffed up by it, as a dead body by the vapours of its own decomposition. This is literally true of all false religious teaching; the first, and last, and fatalest sign of it is that "puffing up." Your converted children, who teach their parents; your converted convicts, who teach honest men; your converted dunces, who, having lived in cretinous stupefaction half their lives, suddenly awakening to the fact of there being a God, fancy themselves therefore His peculiar people and messengers; your sectarians of every species, small and great, Catholic or Protestant, of high church or low ⁵ , in so far as they think themselves exclusively in the right and others wrong; and pre-eminently, in every sect, those who hold that men can be saved by thinking rightly instead of doing rightly, by word instead of act, and wish instead of work:—these are the true fog children—clouds, these, without water; bodies, these, of putrescent vapour and skin, without blood or flesh: blown bag-pipes for the fiends to pipe with—corrupt, and corrupting,—"Swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw."

弥尔顿说 :“根本就没有精神食粮这种东西；他们只能喝西北风”。起初，你也许会认为这样的语言粗糙晦涩。但另一方面，这却是一个非常准确的用词。翻开你的拉丁语和希腊语字典，看一下“精神（Spirit）”这个词的意思。它只不过是拉丁语“呼吸（breath）”一词的缩写，是希腊语“风（wind）”一词的模糊翻译。同一个词还用在“风儿任意吹”和“凡从精神生的，也是如此”的写作当中；也就是，生于呼吸的人；这里指的是上帝的呼吸，灵魂与肉体上都是。在“吸气（inspiration）”和“呼气（expire）”这两个词中，我们可以体会到“精神（Spirit）”的真正含义。现在，羊群（教民）可以呼吸到的有两种气息：上帝的气息和人的气息。上帝的气息就像健康、生命以及和平一样，对他们很重要，正如空气对于山上的群羊一样重要；而人的气息——他所谓的精神——对于他们就像是疾病和传染，正如沼泽的雾气一样。这种气息让羊群的内脏腐烂；使它们膨胀起来，就像死尸被自身分解的气体吹起来一样。这对所有虚假的宗教学说来说都是真实的；其最初、最后，也是最重要的特征是“膨胀起来”。皈依了的孩子，反过来教训他们的父母；皈依了的罪人，开始教育诚实的人；皈依了的蠢人，原本半生生活得痴痴呆呆，迷迷糊糊，突然间认识到了上帝的存在，因此幻想自己是上帝眷顾的人，是上帝的使者；在各个宗派中，无论大小，无论是天主教徒还是新教徒，无论是高教会派还是低教会派，许多成员认为只有自己才是对的，别人都是错的；尤其是各个宗派中那些认为人是通过正确的思想而不是正确的行为，是通过说话而不是行动，是通过意愿而不是工作而获得救赎的人——这些人是真正的雾的孩子——是没有水汽的云；是没有了血肉的腐烂气体和躯壳：是魔鬼吹奏的风笛——已经腐败，而且还在继续腐败——“喝西北风，嗅着刺鼻的薄雾。

Lastly, let us return to the lines respecting the power of the keys, for now we can understand them. Note the difference between Milton and Dante in their interpretation of this power: for once, the latter is weaker in thought; he supposes both the keys to be of the gate of heaven; one is of gold, the other of silver: they are given by St. Peter to the sentinel angel; and it is not easy to determine the meaning either of the substances of the three steps of the gate, or of the two keys. But Milton makes one, of gold, the key of heaven; the other, of iron, the key of the prison, in which the wicked teachers are to be bound who "have taken away the key of knowledge, yet entered not in themselves."

最后，让我们回到有关象征权力的钥匙那几句，因为现在我们可以理解它们了。注意弥尔顿和但丁在理解这种权力时的差别：曾经，但丁在思想上要薄弱一些；他认为两把都是天堂之门的钥匙；一把金的，一把银的：是圣彼得交给守门天使的；要判断天堂门前的三级台阶或是两把钥匙的意义不是件容易的事。但是，弥尔顿所说的是一把天堂的金钥匙和一把监狱的铁钥匙，这座监狱是用来囚禁那些“拿走了知识的钥匙，而他们自己却不进去”的邪恶教士的。

We have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor are to see, and feed; and, of all who do so, it is said, "He that watereth, shall be watered also himself." But the reverse is truth also. He that watereth not, shall be withered himself; and he that seeth not, shall himself be shut out of sight,—shut into the perpetual prison-house. And that prison opens here, as well as hereafter: he who is to be bound in heaven must first be bound on earth. That command to the strong angels, of which the rock-apostle is the image, "Take him, and bind him hand and foot, and cast him out," issues, in its measure, against the teacher, for every help withheld, and for every truth refused and for every falsehood enforced; so that he is more strictly fettered the more he fetters, and farther outcast, as he more and more misleads, till at last the bars of the iron cage close upon him, and as "the golden opes, the iron shuts amain."

我们已经看到了主教和牧师的职责是看管和喂养羊群；对于尽职的人，人们认为“滋润人的，必得滋润”。反之亦然，不能滋润别人的人，自己也将枯萎；看不到别人疾苦的人，自己也将看不到光明——被关入永久的监狱。这座监狱在这里敞开，而且今后一直敞开：要进入天堂的人必须先落入凡间。强壮的天使，也就是石像使徒所代表的形象，接受命令：“逮捕他，捆起他的手脚来，把他丢在外边”，这是对付邪恶教士的，惩罚他每一次拒绝伸出援手，每一次无视真理，每一次撒谎犯错；他越束缚别人，自己也被束缚得越紧，他越把别人往歧途上领，自己也被驱逐得越远，直到把自己锁进铁笼子里，正如诗里所说，“金的用来开门，铁的用来把门紧锁。”

We have got something out of the lines, I think, and much more is yet to be found in them; but we have done enough by way of example of the kind of word-by-word examination of your author which is rightly called "reading;" watching every accent and expression, and putting ourselves always in the author's place, annihilating our own personality, and seeking to enter into his, so as to be able assuredly to say, "Thus Milton thought," not "Thus I thought, in mis-reading Milton." And by this process you will gradually come to attach less weight to your own "Thus I thought" at other times. You will begin to perceive that what you thought was a matter of no serious importance;—that your thoughts on any subject are not perhaps the clearest and wisest that could be arrived at thereupon:—in fact, that unless you are a very singular person, you cannot be said to have any "thoughts" at all; that you have no materials for them, in any serious matters;—no right to "think," but only to try to learn more of the facts. Nay, most probably all your life (unless, as I said, you are a singular person) you will have no legitimate right to an "opinion" on any business, except that instantly under your hand. What must of necessity be done, you can always find out, beyond question, how to do. Have you a house to keep in order, a commodity to sell, a field to plough, a ditch to cleanse? There need be no two opinions about these proceedings; it is at your peril if you have not much more than an "opinion" on the way to manage such matters. And also, outside of your own business, there are one or two subjects on which you are bound to have but one opinion. That roguery and lying are objectionable, and are instantly to be flogged out of the way whenever discovered;—that covetousness and love of quarreling are dangerous dispositions even in children, and deadly dispositions in men and nations;—that in the end, the God of heaven and earth loves active, modest, and kind people, and hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel ones;—on these general facts you are bound to have but one, and that a very strong, opinion. For the rest, respecting religions, governments, sciences, arts, you will find that, on the whole, you can know NOTHING,—judge nothing; that the best you can do, even though you may be a well-educated person, is to be silent, and strive to be wiser every day, and to understand a little more of the thoughts of others, which so soon as you try to do honestly, you will discover that the thoughts even of the wisest are very little more than pertinent questions. To put the difficulty into a clear shape, and exhibit to you the grounds for indecision, that is all they can generally do for you!—and well for them and for us, if indeed they are able "to mix the music with our thoughts, and sadden us with heavenly doubts." This writer, from whom I have been reading to you, is not among the first or wisest: he sees shrewdly as far as he sees, and therefore it is easy to find out his full meaning; but with the greater men, you cannot fathom their meaning; they do not even wholly measure it themselves,—it is so wide. Suppose I had asked you, for instance, to seek for Shakespeare's opinion, instead of Milton's, on this matter of Church authority?—or for Dante's? Have any of you, at this instant, the least idea what either thought about it? Have you ever balanced the scene with the bishops in Richard III ⁶ .against the character of Cranmer ⁷ ? the description of St. Francis and St. Dominic ⁸ against that of him who made Virgil ⁹ wonder to gaze upon him,—"disteso, tanto vilmente, nell' eterno esilio;" or of him whom Dante stood beside, "come'l frate che confessa lo perfido assassin?" (Inf. xix. 71; xxiii. 117) Shakespeare and Alighieri knew men better than most of us, I presume! They were both in the midst of the main struggle between the temporal and spiritual powers. They had an opinion, we may guess? But where is it? Bring it into court! Put Shakespeare's or Dante's creed into articles, and send that up into the Ecclesiastical Courts!

我想我们已经从字里行间读出些什么来了，并且更多的意思还有待进一步发掘。但是鉴于我们只是为了举例说明如何逐字解读作者才能被称作“阅读”，我想我们已经做得够多了；要注意每一个发音和表达，始终把我们放在作者的立场上，消除自己的个性，努力进入作者的思想，然后才能坚定地说“弥尔顿就是这样想的”，而不是“误读弥尔顿时，我是这样想的”。通过这个过程，你会逐渐不那么重视“我是这样想的”这种平素自我的想法。你会发现你的想法并不是什么重要的思想——你对任何事物的想法都或许不是最清楚和最明智的——实际上，除非你卓越非凡，否则你根本就谈不上有什么“思想”；对于任何严肃的事物，你都没有掌握材料——你没有权利去“想”，而只能努力去了解更多的事实。不，很可能你的一生（就像我刚说的，除非你卓越非凡），除了手头上的事，对任何事物都没有发表“意见”的合法权利。对于必须要做的事情，毫无疑问，你总能发现该怎样去做。你有房间要打扫吗？有货要卖吗？有田要耕吗？要沟渠要清理吗？做这些事，不需要有两种意见；如果你在这些事情上有不止一种“意见”，那你就危险了。而且，除了你自己的琐事之外，还有一两件事，你也只能有一种意见。耍无赖和撒谎都是令人讨厌的，一旦被发现马上就会遭到驱逐——贪婪和爱争吵即便对儿童而言，也是危险的倾向，对成年人和国家来说，则是致命的——毕竟，主宰天地万物的上帝还是喜欢积极、谦虚和善良的人，憎恶懒惰、骄傲、贪婪和残忍的人——对于这些基本的事实，你必须只能有一种意见，而且要非常坚决。对于其他事情，涉及到宗教、政治、科学、艺术，你会发现，总的来说，你什么也不知道，什么也不能判断；即使你或许是一个受过良好教育的人，你所能做的，最好就是保持沉默，努力让自己每天变得聪明一点，多了解一些别人的思想。只要老老实实努力去做到这些，你就会发现即使是最聪明的想法也不过是些与之相关的问题而已。把难题表述清楚，向你展示无法定论的原因，一般而言，这就是这些思想所能做到的一切！如果确实能够“将音乐与我们的思想混合，用上天的疑惑使我们悲哀”，那么它们所起的作用，对于它们和我们来讲都是令人满意的，我向你们朗读的这位作家，不属于最顶尖的也不是最聪明的：只要是他能看到的，他都看得很精明，因此很容易就能发现他的全部意思；不过，对于更伟大的作家，你就无法测量他们的意思了，甚至他们自己也不能完全衡量这些意义——实在太广泛了，例如，假设我问你们的不是弥尔顿，而是莎士比亚或者但丁对教会权威的看法，你们当中有谁能有些许看法，知道他们是怎么想的吗？你们是否曾比较过《查理三世》中主教的形象和克兰麦这个角色？是否比较过对圣方济各和圣多明我的描述和那个让维吉尔惊奇地去注视的人物——“他目睹那人躺倒在地上成十字形，竟然如此可耻地经受这永被放逐的苦刑”，或者那个但丁旁边的人物，“我呆在那里，像是教.士听取不忠的杀手作忏悔”（《神曲 地狱》第 19 首第 71行；第 23 首 117 行——作者注）。我认为莎士比亚和但丁比我们大多数人都更了解人类！他们都身处世俗权力和精神力量的主要斗争之中。我们可以猜想他们有自己的观点吗？但他们的观点在哪里呢？带到法庭来！将莎士比亚或但丁的信条逐条列出，然后将它们送入教会法庭里！

You will not be able, I tell you again, for many and many a day, to come at the real purposes and teaching of these great men; but a very little honest study of them will enable you to perceive that what you took for your own "judgement" was mere chance prejudice, and drifted, helpless, entangled weed of castaway thought: nay, you will see that most men's minds are indeed little better than rough heath wilderness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren, partly overgrown with pestilent brakes and venomous wind-sown herbage of evil surmise; that the first thing you have to do for them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire to this; burn all the jungle into wholesome ash-heaps, and then plough and sow. All the true literary work before you, for life, must begin with obedience to that order, "Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns."

我再次重申，很长一段时间，你都不可能领会到这些伟人真正的意图和教诲，但是只要稍微用心地去研究他们，你就会发现自己所谓的“判断”只不过是偶然的偏见，是飘忽的、无用的、像杂草般纠结的、被摒弃的想法：不，你会发现大多数人的思想实际上比蛮荒之地好不了多少，无人问津又不开化，一部分贫瘠，一部分则长满了致命的蕨草和随风散布的邪恶臆测之毒草；为了他们和你自己，你所要做的第一件事就是马上轻蔑地放一把火，将整个荒林付之一炬，然后再耕地和播种。你一生所遇到的所有真正的文学作品，都一定始于服从这一规则：“你们要为自己开垦未经耕耘之地，不要撒种于荆棘中。”

II. Having then faithfully listened to the great teachers, that you may enter into their Thoughts, you have yet this higher advance to make;—you have to enter into their Hearts. As you go to them first for clear sight, so you must stay with them that you may share at last their just and mighty Passion. Passion, or "sensation." I am not afraid of the word; still less of the thing. You have heard many outcries against sensation lately; but, I can tell you, it is not less sensation we want, but more. The ennobling difference between one man and another,—between one animal and another,—is precisely in this, that one feels more than another. If we were sponges, perhaps sensation might not be easily got for us; if we were earth-worms, liable at every instant to be cut in two by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us. But being human creatures, it is good for us; nay, we are only human in so far as we are sensitive, and our honour is precisely in proportion to our passion.

2 诚心聆听过伟大导师的教诲之后，你才可能进入他们的思想，但你还需要更进一步——你还要进入他们的心里。因为你靠近他们首先是为了看得清楚，所以你必须和他们在一起，这样你才可能最终分享他们正确而强大的感情。感情，又或者说“感知”，我不害怕说这个词，更不害怕提及这件事。最近，你们已经听过不少对感知的斥责；但是，我可以告诉你们，我们所需要的不是较少的感知，而是更多的感知。区分人与人、动物与动物间高低贵贱的正是这一点，就在于一方比另一方感知到的要多。如果我们是海绵，可能感知对我们来说是不容易得到的；如果我们是蚯蚓，随时有可能被铁锹砍成两段，可能太多的感知对我们来说并不是好事。但作为人类，感知对我们来说是好的；不，甚至可以说，因为我们可以感知才成为人，我们的荣光恰恰与感情成正比。

You know I said of that great and pure society of the dead, that it would allow "no vain or vulgar person to enter there." What do you think I meant by a "vulgar" person? What do you yourselves mean by "vulgarity?" You will find it a fruitful subject of thought; but, briefly, the essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sensation. Simple and innocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped bluntness of body and mind; but in true inbred vulgarity, there is a deathful callousness, which, in extremity, becomes capable of every sort of bestial habit and crime, without fear, without pleasure, without horror, and without pity. It is in the blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased habit, in the hardened conscience, that men become vulgar; they are for ever vulgar, precisely in proportion as they are incapable of sympathy,—of quick understanding,—of all that, in deep insistence on the common, but most accurate term, may be called the "tact" or touch-faculty of body and soul: that tact which the Mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has above all creatures;—fineness and fulness of sensation beyond reason;—the guide and sanctifier of reason itself. Reason can but determine what is true:—it is the God-given passion of humanity which alone can recognise what God has made good.

你们都知道我曾提到的那个逝者所组成的伟大和纯净的社会，这个社会不会允许“愚蠢和粗俗的人进入”。你们觉得我所指的“粗俗”的人是什么意思呢？你们自己觉得“粗俗”是什么意思呢？你会发现这是个很值得思考的问题；但是，简单来说，所有粗俗的本质都在于缺乏感知。简单而天真的粗俗只是身体和思想上未经训练和开发所造成的迟钝，但真正内在的粗俗里却有一种致命的冷淡无情，这种冷淡无情在极端情况下会变成种种兽行和罪恶，没有畏惧，没有欢乐，没有惊恐，也没有同情心。麻木的手脚，死寂的心灵，病态的习惯和硬化的心肠使人变得粗俗；他们永远是粗俗的，恰恰就像他们缺乏同情心、领悟能力迟钝、以及缺乏那种常见而又最精确的可以称为“直觉”或“身体与灵魂的感触能力”的东西：也就是含羞草这种植物所拥有的触觉能力，在万物之中，纯洁的女人拥有最多这种能力——感知的细腻和丰富超出理智，引导和净化着理智本身。理智只能确定什么是真的：只有上帝赋予人类的感情才能认识到上帝创造的美好事物。

We come then to the great concourse of the Dead, not merely to know from them what is True, but chiefly to feel with them what is Righteous. Now, to feel with them, we must be like them; and none of us can become that without pains. As the true knowledge is disciplined and tested knowledge,—not the first thought that comes,—so the true passion is disciplined and tested passion,—not the first passion that comes. The first that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous; if you yield to them they will lead you wildly and far, in vain pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no true purpose and no true passion left. Not that any feeling possible to humanity is in itself wrong, but only wrong when undisciplined. Its nobility is in its force and justice; it is wrong when it is weak, and felt for paltry cause. There is a mean wonder, as of a child who sees a juggler tossing golden balls, and this is base, if you will. But do you think that the wonder is ignoble, or the sensation less, with which every human soul is called to watch the golden balls of heaven tossed through the night by the Hand that made them? There is a mean curiosity, as of a child opening a forbidden door, or a servant prying into her master's business;—and a noble curiosity, questioning, in the front of danger, the source of the great river beyond the sand,—the place of the great continents beyond the sea;—a nobler curiosity still, which questions of the source of the River of Life, and of the space of the Continent of Heaven,—things which "the angels desire to look into." So the anxiety is ignoble, with which you linger over the course and catastrophe of an idle tale; but do you think the anxiety is less, or greater, with which you watch, or ought to watch, the dealings of fate and destiny with the life of an agonized nation? Alas! it is the narrowness, selfishness, minuteness, of your sensation that you have to deplore in England at this day;—sensation which spends itself in bouquets and speeches; in revellings and junketings; in sham fights and gay puppet shows, while you can look on and see noble nations murdered, man by man, woman by woman, child by child, without an effort, or a tear.

然后我们来到了这个逝者伟大的聚集地，不仅仅是为了向他们学习什么是真的，而主要是和他们一起感受什么是正确的。现在，为了与他们一起感受，我们必须像他们一样；但是不经历痛苦，我们是不可能和他们一样的。因为真正的知识是经过训练和考验的，不是凭第一感觉。同样，真正的感情也是经过训练和考验的，不是最先有的冲动。最先出现的感觉是愚蠢的、虚假的和不可靠的；如果你向它们屈服，就会被引入歧途，越走越远，空有热情却徒劳无功，直到你忘记真正的目的，丧失真正的感情。人类的感觉本身并不都是错误的，只有未经过训练的才是错误的。感觉的高尚之处在于它的强大与正义；当它软弱时，因无关紧要的原因而生发时，它就是错误的。有一种低劣的惊叹，好像一个小孩子看到魔术师抛金球时那样，如果你愿意的话，可以说这就是卑贱的。但是，你是不是就因此认为：每一个人受到召唤去观看上帝之手将天国的金球抛过夜空时所产生的惊叹都是可耻的，或者这种感知是次要的？有一种低劣的好奇，就像一个小孩子打开一扇禁闭之门，或者一个佣人打听主人私事那样；也有一种高尚的好奇，在面对危险的时候，也要探寻沙漠尽头的大河之源，海洋彼岸的大陆之地；还有一种更高尚的好奇，勇于探寻生命之源和天国之地——那些“天使渴望探寻”的事物。因此，你为无聊的童话故事中的曲折和灾难而生出的焦虑是可耻的，但你认为，你看到或应当看到一个饱受痛苦的国家里的人们所遭受的种种命运时，你怀有的那种焦虑是减少了一些呢，还是增加了一些呢？哎，在今天的英国，你要悲哀的正是你感知的狭隘、自私和舍本逐末——浪费在鲜花和言语上，狂欢和宴会上，虚假的打斗和欢乐的木偶戏上的感知；而你看到高尚的国家遭到谋杀，一个个男人、女人和孩子死去时却没作出一点努力，甚至没流下一滴眼泪。

I said "minuteness" and "selfishness" of sensation, but in a word, I ought to have said "injustice" or "unrighteousness" of sensation. For as in nothing is a gentleman better to be discerned from a vulgar person, so in nothing is a gentle nation (such nations have been) better to be discerned from a mob, than in this,—that their feelings are constant and just, results of due contemplation, and of equal thought. You can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be—usually are—on the whole generous and right; but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them; you may tease or tickle it into any, at your pleasure; it thinks by infection, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, when the fit is on;—nothing so great but it will forget in an hour, when the fit is past. But a gentleman's, or a gentle nation's, passions are just, measured, and continuous. A great nation, for instance, does not spend its entire national wits for a couple of months in weighing evidence of a single ruffian's having done a single murder; and for a couple of years, see its own children murder each other by their thousands or tens of thousands a day, considering only what the effect is likely to be on the price of cotton, and caring nowise to determine which side of battle is in the wrong. Neither does a great nation send its poor little boys to jail for stealing six walnuts; and allow its bankrupts to steal their hundreds or thousands with a bow, and its bankers, rich with poor men's savings, to close their doors "under circumstances over which they have no control," with a "by your leave;" and large landed estates to be bought by men who have made their money by going with armed steamers up and down the China Seas, selling opium at the cannon's mouth, and altering, for the benefit of the foreign nation, the common highwayman's demand of "your money or your life," into that of "your money and your life." Neither does a great nation allow the lives of its innocent poor to be parched out of them by fog fever, and rotted out of them by dunghill plague, for the sake of sixpence a life extra per week to its landlords; and then debate, with drivelling tears, and diabolical sympathies, whether it ought not piously to save, and nursingly cherish, the lives of its murderers. Also, a great nation, having made up its mind that hanging is quite the wholesomest process for its homicides in general, can yet with mercy distinguish between the degrees of guilt in homicides; and does not yelp like a pack of frost-pinched wolf-cubs on the blood-track of an unhappy crazed boy, or grey-haired clodpate Othello, "perplexed i' the extreme," at the very moment that it is sending a Minister of the Crown to make polite speeches to a man who is bayoneting young girls in their father's sight, and killing noble youths in cool blood, faster than a country butcher kills lambs in spring. And, lastly, a great nation does not mock Heaven and its Powers, by pretending belief in a revelation which asserts the love of money to be the root of all evil, and declaring, at the same time, that it is actuated, and intends to be actuated, in all chief national deeds and measures, by no other love.(See the evidence in the Medical officer's report to the Privy Council, just published. There are suggestions in its preface which will make some stir among us, I fancy, respecting which let me note these points following:—

我说到感知的“舍本逐末”和“自私”，但换言之我应该说感知的“不道义”或“不正当”。因为就像辨别绅士和粗俗的人一样，辨别温良的民族（这样的民族已经存在）和乌合之众，最好的方法就是看他们的感觉是不是始终如一和正当，是不是经过了深思熟虑，是不是公正的思想。你可以说服一群乌合之众做任何事情，总的来说，他们的感觉可能——通常是——慷慨和正确的，但这些都是无本之木、无源之水，你可以随性戏弄他们，他们中的大多数，在思想上都是人云亦云，就像被传染了一样。对他们来说，只要发作起来，再微不足道的小事也能让他们疯狂；而只要发作过后，无论多大的事都会在一个小时内忘记。但是，绅士或者温良的民族，他们的感情是正当的、经过深思熟虑的和持续的。比如，一个伟大的国家，不会将整个国家的心智连续几个月用来权衡某个恶棍是否杀了人的证据；也不会长达数年看着自己的子民互相残杀，看着每天死去成千上万的人，不会只顾着思考这可能会对棉花价格产生什么样的影响而丝毫不去思考战争中到底哪一方是错的。一个伟大的国家也不会因为一个贫穷的小男孩偷了六个胡桃就把他送进监狱；不会让破产的人鞠个躬就偷走成千上万元；不会让银行家拿着穷人的积蓄，借口“在这种情况下他们也无能为力”，一句“请原谅”就关门大吉；不会让那些驾着蒸汽船横行中国海域，用大炮强行贩卖鸦片的人，那些为了外国的利益而把强盗通常所要求的“要钱还是要命”改成“要钱也要命”的人，有钱大量买田置地。一个伟大的国家也不会让无辜的穷人饱受流感热病的灼烧，不会因为穷人没有每人每周向房东交付额外的 6 便士租金就任他们在恶臭和瘟疫中腐烂；不会流着愚蠢的眼泪和怀着恶毒的同情心，去争论是否应该虔诚地拯救和精心地呵护杀人犯们的性命。此外，一个伟大的国家，在下定决心对杀人犯普遍实行绞刑是很有益的程序之后，仍然能够仁慈地区分杀人犯罪行的不同程度；也不会像一群冻僵的狼崽子，对着一个不幸的疯男孩留下的血痕发出嚎叫，也不会像满头白发傻瓜似的奥赛罗一样，起初派王宫大臣向那个当着女孩父亲的面刺死女孩的凶手、那个冷血杀害高贵青年快过乡下屠夫宰杀羊羔的杀人犯，发表温和的演说，之后又感慨“我简直无法理解”。最后，一个伟大的国家不会嘲笑上帝和他的力量，不会假装相信对金钱的热爱是一切罪恶的根源，而同时又宣称其一切主要的国家行动和措施都是而且都会被这种对金钱的热爱所驱使。（有关证据可以参考刚刚发布的卫生官员呈枢密院的报告。我猜这份报告前言中的一些建议会在我们中引起轰动，考虑到这一点，请允许我摘录如下一些观点：

There are two theories on the subject of land now aboard, and in contention; both false.

有关海外土地这一问题，有两种相互竞争的理论；但两种都是错误的。

The first is that by Heavenly law, there have always existed, and must continue to exist, a certain number of hereditarily sacred persons, to whom the earth, air, and water of the world belong, as personal property; of which earth, air and the water these persons may, at their pleasant permit, or forbid, the rest of the human race to eat, to breathe or to drink. This theory is not for many years longer tenable. The adverse theory is that a division of the land of the world among the mob of the world would immediately elevate the said mob into scared personages; that houses would then build themselves, and corn grow of itself; and that everybody would able to live, without doing any work for his living. This theory would also be found highly untenable in practice.

第一种理论认为，依照天律，一直就存在并将必定会继续存在一定数量的世袭的圣人，他们拥有世上的土地、空气和水，并将其作为他们的私有财产；他们可以随心所欲地允许或禁止其他人享用这些资源。这种理论从长远来讲是站不住脚的。另一种相反的理论认为，把世界上的土地分给世界上的民众，这样这些民众都能马上提升为拥有神圣权利的人物；然后房子会自己拔地而起，粮食会自己生长出来；所有人不用劳动就能生活。现实中，这种理论也是很难站得住脚的。

It will, however, require some rough experiments, and rougher catastrophes, even in this magnesium-lighted epoch, before the generality of persons will be convinced that no law concerning anything, least of all concerning land, for either holding or dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it low, would be of the smallest ultimate use to the people, so long as the general contest for life, and for the means of life, remains one of mere brutal competition. That contest, in an unprincipled nation, will take one deadly form or another, whatever laws you make for it. For instance, it would be an entirely wholesome law for England, if it could be carried, that maxium limits should be assigned to incomes, according to classes; and that every nobleman's income should be paid to him as a fixed salary or pension by the nation; and not squeezed by him in a variable sum, at direction, out of the tenants of his land. But if you could get such a law passed tomorrow; and if, which would be father necessary, you could fix the value of the assigned incomes by making a given weight of pure wheat-flour legal tender for a given sum, a twelvemonth would not pass before another currency would have been tacitly established, and the power of accumulative wealth would have re-asserted itself in some other article, or some imaginary sign. Forbid man to buy each other's life for sovereigns, and they will for shells, or slates. There is only one cure for public distress—and that is public education, directed to make man thoughtful, merciful, and just. There are, indeed, many laws conceivable which would gradually better and strengthen the nation temper; but, for the most part, they are such as the national temper must be much bettered before it would bear. A nation in its youth may be helped by laws, as a weak child by backboards, but when it is old, it cannot that way straighten its crooked spine.

即便是在这个电器化的时代，大多数人也需要通过一些残酷的经历，甚至是更残酷的灾难，才会相信：只要对生存和生产资料的竞争依然是残酷的，就没有任何法则具有任何实际意义，更别提有关土地的那些法则，所有权也好，分配权也好，高价出租也好，低价出租也好。在一个没有原则的国家里，无论制定什么法则，这种竞争总会以这种或那种致命的方式出现。譬如，英格兰可以颁布法律，为不同的阶层设定收入上限；由国家向每位绅士支付固定的薪水或年金，而不是让他任意从佃农身上不定量地榨取，如果可以施行，这将是非常有益的。但是如果你明天就可以让这条法律通过，而且更重要的是，如果你可以将一定重量的小麦粉的价格固定下来，并以此定下收入上限的价值，那么最多不超过一年，另一种货币就会悄悄出现，积累下来的财富又要用其他某种物品或想象的符号来重新衡量价值。禁止人们为追求金币而买卖生命，他们就会为追求贝壳或石板而买卖生命。只有一种方法能解救大众的悲苦，那就是公共教育，让他们成为有思想、有慈悲心和有正义感的人。的确，可以有很多这样的法律，能够逐渐改善和增强这个国家的素质，但是其中的大多数，需要这个国家的素质大大提高以后才能承受。一个国家在年轻的时候或许可以通过法律的帮助来矫正自己，就像体弱的孩子使用脊椎矫正板一样，但是，当他年老以后，就不能用这样的方法来矫正弯曲的脊柱了。

And besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute the earth as you will, the principal question remains inexorable,—who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief words, is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest—and for what pay? Who is to do the pleasant and clean work, and for what pay? And there are curious moral and religious questions connected with these. How far is it lawful to suck a portion of the soul out of a great many persons, in order to put the abstracted psychical quantities together, and make one very beautiful or ideal soul? If we had to deal with mere blood, instead of spirit, and the thing might literally be done (as it has been done with infants before now) so that it were possible, by taking a certain quantity of blood from the arms of a given number of the mob, and putting it all into one person, to make a more azure-blooded gentleman of him, the thing would of course be managed; but secretly, I should conceive. But now, because it is brain and soul that we abstract, not visible blood, it can be done quite openly; and we live, we gentlemen, on delicatest prey, after the manner of weasels; that is to say we keep a certain number of clowns digging and ditching, and generally stupefied, in order that we, being fed gratis, may have all the thinking feeling to ourselves. Yet there is a great deal to be said for this. A highly-bred and trained English, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman (much more a lady) is a great production,—a better production than most statues; being beautifully coloured as well as shaped, and plus all the brains; aglorious thing to look at, a wonderful thing to talk to; and you cannot have it, any more than a pyramid or a church, but by sacrifice of much contributed life. And it is, perhaps, better to build a beautiful human creature than a beautiful dome of steeple; and more delightful to look up reverently to a creature far above us, than to a wall; only the beautiful human creature will have some duties to do in return—duties of living belfry and rampart—of which presently.)

此外，土地问题再严重也不过是个次要的问题。随你怎样分配土地，关键的问题仍未得到解决——谁来挖掘呢？简单来说，我们中谁来为其余的人做这些又脏又累的工作？报酬是什么？谁来做那些干净体面的工作？报酬又是什么？与之相关的，还有一些奇特的道德和宗教问题。为了将抽象的精神品质聚集在一起，形成一个非常美丽或者理想的灵魂，在多大程度上我们可以合法地提取大多数人的一部分精神？如果我们用的只是血液而不是精神，让这件事真正地实现就有可能（就像以前对孩童那样），通过从一定数量的民众胳膊中抽取一定量的血液，然后注射到一个人身上，让他成为血统更高贵的绅士这事一定可以办到，但我想这一定是秘密进行的。但是现在，因为我们要提取的是智慧和精神，而不是有形的血液，于是此事可以很公开地进行。我们这些绅士，像黄鼠狼一样，以最鲜美的猎物为生；换句话说，我们让一群小丑去挖掘，且通常会让他们处于愚昧状态，以便我们这些白吃白喝的人能去思考和感知。然而，有关于此，还有很多值得一说。一个受过良好教育和训练的英国、法国、奥地利或意大利绅士（更何况优雅的淑女）是一件伟大的作品，比大多数的艺术雕塑都伟大；无论是颜色还是形态都非常美丽，浑身上下散发着智慧的气息；是赏心悦目的观赏品，是奇妙的谈论焦点；就像金字塔或教堂一样，只有大量的牺牲和奉献才能成就这样的作品。也许，塑造一个美丽的人要比建造一个漂亮的尖塔的穹顶更有意义；仰望一个远远高于我们的人要比仰望一堵墙更令人愉快。只是这个美丽的人反过来也要承担一些义务——就像现在，作为会呼吸的塔楼和城墙。——作者注）

My friends, I do not know why any of us should talk about reading. We want some sharper discipline than that of reading; but, at all events, be assured, we cannot read. No reading is possible for a people with its mind in this state. No sentence of any great writer is intelligible to them. It is simply and sternly impossible for the English public, at this moment, to understand any thoughtful writing,—so incapable of thought has it become in its insanity of avarice. Happily, our disease is, as yet, little worse than this incapacity of thought; it is not corruption of the inner nature; we ring true still, when anything strikes home to us; and though the idea that everything should "pay" has infected our every purpose so deeply, that even when we would play the good Samaritan, we never take out our two pence and give them to the host, without saying, "When I come again, thou shalt give me fourpence," there is a capacity of noble passion left in our hearts' core. We show it in our work—in our war,—even in those unjust domestic affections which make us furious at a small private wrong, while we are polite to a boundless public one: we are still industrious to the last hour of the day, though we add the gambler's fury to the labourer's patience; we are still brave to the death, though incapable of discerning true cause for battle, and are still true in affection to our own flesh, to the death, as the sea-monsters are, and the rock-eagles. And there is hope for a nation while this can be still said of it. As long as it holds its life in its hand, ready to give it for its honour (though a foolish honour), for its love (though a selfish love), and for its business (though a base business) there is hope for it. But hope only; for this instinctive, reckless virtue cannot last. No nation can last, which has made a mob of itself, however generous at heart. It must discipline its passions, and direct them, or they will discipline it, one day, with scorpion whips. Above all, a nation cannot last as a money-making mob: it cannot with impunity,—it cannot with existence,—go on despising literature, despising science, despising art, despising nature, despising compassion, and concentrating its soul on Pence. Do you think these are harsh or wild words? Have patience with me but a little longer. I will prove their truth to you, clause by clause.

朋友们，我不知道我们为什么要谈论读书。我们需要比读书更苛刻的训练，但无论如何，可以肯定地说，我们是不懂读书的。处于这种思想状态下的人是无法读书的。他们不能理解任何伟大作者的语句。现在的英国大众，完完全全不可能理解任何有思想的作品——在越来越疯狂贪婪的过程中，他们已经丧失了思考的能力。幸运的是，迄今为止，我们的疾病仅仅是思想能力的缺失，还不是本性的堕落；当有事情触及我们的要害时，我们还是会真诚地作出反应；虽然万事均需“支付”的观念已经根深蒂固，甚至在施舍的时候，我们给出两便士后，也不会忘记说：“我再回来的时候，你要还我四便士”，但我们内心深处依然保留着高尚的感情。这份感情表现在我们的工作中、战争中甚至在不公平的亲情中，这些亲情让我们因某些个人的小错而震怒，却对大众的弥天大错和颜以对；即使劳动者的耐心里夹杂了赌徒的狂躁，我们每天依然辛勤劳作到日落；即使无法辨别战争的真实原因，我们依然能勇敢面对死亡；像海怪和岩鹰一样，我们依然对自己的身体和死亡怀抱真实的感情。只要还有这样的感情，一个国家就还有希望。只要将生命把握在自己手中，随时准备为荣誉（即使是愚蠢的荣誉）、爱情（即使是自私的爱情）和事业（即使是低劣的事业）而献出生命，那么它就还有希望。但也只是希望而已，因为这种本能的、鲁莽的美德是无法持久的。一个国家无论内心如何慷慨，一旦将自己变成暴徒之邦，就不会长久。它必须约束自己的感情，引导它，否则终有一天，感情将反过来像蝎子的毒鞭一样制约这个国家。毕竟，一个国家不能以一群只会赚钱的暴徒的形式长久存在：它不能逃脱惩罚，不能在鄙视文学、鄙视科学、鄙视艺术、鄙视自然、鄙视同情心，而只一门心思赚钱的状态下存在。你们是不是认为这些话太刺耳或者荒唐了？再耐心听我说一会儿。我将逐条向你们证明这些话是真的。

I. I say first we have despised literature. What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses? If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him mad—a biblio-maniac. But you never call any one a horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, as compared with the contents of its wine-cellars? What position would its expenditure on literature take, as compared with its expenditure on luxurious eating? We talk of food for the mind, as of food for the body: now a good book contains such food inexhaustibly; it is a provision for life, and for the best part of us; yet how long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it! Though there have been men who have pinched their stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than most men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such trial, and more the pity; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been won by work or economy; and if public libraries were half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish men and women might sometimes suspect there was good in reading, as well as in munching and sparkling; whereas the very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and reread, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armoury, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store. Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book; and the family must be poor indeed which, once in their lives, cannot, for such multipliable barley-loaves, pay their baker's bill. We call ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish enough to thumb each other's books out of circulating libraries!

（一）首先说我们鄙视了文学。作为一个国家，我们关心书的哪些方面呢？和花在马背上的时间相比，你认为我们花在图书馆里的时间，无论是公立的还是私立的，一共有多少？如果有人花过多的时间泡在图书馆里，你们会认为他疯了，是个读书狂。但即使是每天在马背上消磨时光自我毁灭的人，也没人说他是恋马狂，而实际上你们并没有听说过哪个人因为读书而毁了自己。或者再退一步说，和大英帝国酒窖里的酒相比，你认为大英帝国公立和私立图书馆里的书有多大的吸引力？和花在奢华美食上的钱相比，国家在文学上的支出处在什么位置？正如维持身体需要物质食粮一样，我们现在谈论的是精神食粮：一本好书里有无穷无尽的精神食粮，这是生命的必需品，是我们身上最好的东西的必需品，但在花一条大比目鱼的价钱买一本好书前，大多数人要观望多久啊！虽然也有人为了买一本书，饿着肚子、勒紧裤腰带，但我想最终他们的书房要比大多数人在晚餐上的花费便宜。更遗憾的是，我们很少有人问自己这些问题。的确，如果一种宝贵的东西需要我们付出劳动或是金钱才能得到，我们会觉得它更加宝贵；如果公共图书馆的价格抵得上社交聚餐价格的一半，或者买书需要花上手镯价格的十分之一，那么，即使是傻瓜也总有时会猜想：除了大吃大喝和珠光宝气之外，读书也是有好处的。反之，文学的廉价甚至让聪明人也忘记了：如果一本书值得读，那它也值得买。没有任何价值的书，不值得为之付出；除非一本书被反复阅读，广受好评，否则也说不上有用；读书还需要作标记，这样才能方便查阅你所需要的段落，就好比士兵要从兵器库取武器，家庭主妇要从储藏室拿调料一样。面粉做的面包好吃，但如果我们愿意品尝，会发现一本好书里也有像蜂蜜一样香甜的面包；如果有哪个家庭，一生之中从没有花上买面包的钱买过这种比大麦面包好上几倍的书，那可是真够穷的。我们自称是个富裕的国家，却邋遢和愚蠢地读流通图书馆里被不知多少人翻过的书！

II. I say we have despised science. "What!" (you exclaim) "are we not foremost in all discovery, and is not the whole world giddy by reason, or unreason, of our inventions?" Yes; but do you suppose that is national work? That work is all done in spite of the nation; by private people's zeal and money. We are glad enough, indeed, to make our profit of science; we snap up anything in the way of a scientific bone that has meat on it, eagerly enough; but if the scientific man comes for a bone or a crust to us, that is another story. What have we publicly done for science? We are obliged to know what o'clock it is, for the safety of our ships, and therefore we pay for an observatory; and we allow ourselves, in the person of our Parliament, to be annually tormented into doing something, in a slovenly way, for the British Museum; sullenly apprehending that to be a place for keeping stuffed birds in, to amuse our children. If anybody will pay for his own telescope, and resolve another nebula, we cackle over the discernment as if it were our own; if one in ten thousand of our hunting squires suddenly perceives that the earth was indeed made to be something else than a portion for foxes, and burrows in it himself, and tells us where the gold is, and where the coals, we understand that there is some use in that; and very properly knight him: but is the accident of his having found out how to employ himself usefully any credit to us? (The negation of such discovery among his brother squires may perhaps be some discredit to us, if we would consider of it.) But if you doubt these generalities, here is one fact for us all to meditate upon, illustrative of our love of science. Two years ago there was a collection of the fossils of Solenhofen to be sold in Bavaria; the best in existence, containing many specimens unique for perfectness, and one, unique as an example of a species (a whole kingdom of unknown living creatures being announced by that fossil). This collection, of which the mere market worth, among private buyers, would probably have been some thousand or twelve hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven hundred: but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole series would have been in the Munich Museum at this moment, if Professor Owen (I state this fact without Professor Owen's permission: which of course he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it; but I consider it so important that the public should be aware of the fact, that I do what seems to me right, though rude.) had not, with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the British public in person of its representatives, got leave to give four hundred pounds at once, and himself become answerable for the other three! which the said public will doubtless pay him eventually, but sulkily, and caring nothing about the matter all the while; only always ready to cackle if any credit comes of it. Consider, I beg of you, arithmetically, what this fact means. Your annual expenditure for public purposes (a third of it for military apparatus), is at least 50 millions. Now 700l. is to 50,000,000l. roughly, as seven pence to two thousand pounds. Suppose then, a gentleman of unknown income, but whose wealth was to be conjectured from the fact that he spent two thousand a year on his park-walls and footmen only, professes himself fond of science; and that one of his servants comes eagerly to tell him that an unique collection of fossils, giving clue to a new era of creation, is to be had for the sum of seven pence sterling; and that the gentleman, who is fond of science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping his servant waiting several months, "Well! I'll give you fourpence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra threepence yourself, till next year!"

（二）我说到我们鄙视了科学。“什么！”（你们大叫）“难道在各项发现中我们不是最领先的吗？难道整个世界没有因为我们的发明的理智性或非理智性而眼花缭乱吗？”是的，我们做到了。但你是不是认为这些是国家的成就呢？这些成就和国家没有关系，是靠个人的热情和金钱达成的。我们的确非常乐于从科学中谋取利益；迫不及待地争夺那根带肉的科学的骨头。但如果是科学家来我们这儿想要得到一根骨头或是一块面包皮，那就是另一回事了。我们公众为科学做过些什么呢？为了船舰的安全，必须知道时间，所以我们才出钱建造天文台；我们允许自己通过议会每年勉强地为大英博物馆随便做些事，生气地认为那只是一个保存鸟类标本的地方，不过是为了娱乐儿童。如果有人自掏腰包买望远镜，分析出另一团星云，我们会喋喋不休地谈论这一发现，就像是我们自己的一样；如果我们一万个狩猎骑士中有一个忽然发现地球上不只是有若干的狐狸，还有其他东西，然后亲自探寻，告诉我们哪里有黄金，哪里有煤矿，我们会认为这样是有些用处的；然后非常理所当然地给他加官进爵。但是，这只不过是一个人偶然发现了怎样使自己成为有用之人，我们有什么值得骄傲呢？（如果我们想一想就会发现，他的同圈兄弟对这一发现的否定，可能倒是我们应该觉得丢脸的事。）不过，如果你们怀疑这些概括性的表述，这里倒是有个事实可以让我们思考，表现我们对科学的热爱。两年前，德国巴伐利亚州有一批索伦霍芬的化石出售，这是现存最好的化石了，包含很多保存完好程度罕见的标本，以及一个稀有物种的仅存标本（整块化石展示了一个完整的未知生物的王国）。在私人收藏家中，这批化石纯粹的市场价格可能达到 1,000 至 1,200 英镑，而给英国的报价是 700 英镑。但我们不愿出 700 英镑。如果不是欧文教授费时奔走（我在这里引用的事实，并没有得到欧文教授的允许：如果我事先征求他的意见，他肯定会有所顾忌，不同意我引用；但是我想这件事很重要，应该引起公众的注意。所以尽管有些无礼，但我还是做了自己认为正确的事。——作者注），耐心地逐个苦劝英国公众的代表，得到批准及时支付 400 英镑，然后自掏腰包支付了另外 300 英镑，那么这批化石现在早已进了慕尼黑博物馆。毫无疑问，政府最终肯定还是会把钱还给他，但是并不高兴，从始至终根本不关心这件事；只要从中可以获得任何利益，随时准备好开怀一笑。我请你们想一想，计算一下这件事究竟意味着什么。每年我们的公共开支（其中有三分之一用于军事装备）至少有 5,000 万英镑。现在 700 英镑对 5,000 英镑，大致相当于 7 便士对 2,000 英镑。那么假设有一位绅士，收入未知，但从他每年仅仅花在花园墙和男佣身上的钱就有 2,000 英镑这一事实，我们可以推算出他的财产不菲，同时他声称自己喜欢科学。假设他的一个仆人热心地来告诉他有一批可以揭示生命新纪元的稀有的化石用 7 便士的价格就可以买到；这位喜欢科学的绅士，这位每年花2,000 英镑打理花园的绅士，让他的仆人等了几个月后，答复说：“好吧！我可以付 4 便士，如果你明年以前先垫付另外3便士的话！”

III. I say you have despised Art! "What!" you again answer, "have we not Art exhibitions, miles long? and do we not pay thousands of pounds for single pictures? and have we not Art schools and institutions, more than ever nation had before?" Yes, truly, but all that is for the sake of the shop. You would fain sell canvas as well as coals, and crockery as well as iron; you would take every other nation's bread out of its mouth if you could; not being able to do that, your ideal of life is to stand in the thoroughfares of the world, like Ludgate ¹⁰ apprentices, screaming to every passer by, "What d'ye lack?" You know nothing of your own faculties or circumstances; you fancy that, among your damp, flat, fat fields of clay, you can have as quick art-fancy as the Frenchman among his bronzed vines, or the Italian under his volcanic cliffs;—that Art may be learned as book-keeping is, and when learned, will give you more books to keep. You care for pictures, absolutely, no more than you do for the bills pasted on your dead walls. There is always room on the walls for the bills to be read,—never for the pictures to be seen. You do not know what pictures you have (by repute) in the country, nor whether they are false or true, nor whether they are taken care of or not; in foreign countries, you calmly see the noblest existing pictures in the world rotting in abandoned wreck—(and, in Venice, with the Austrian guns deliberately pointed at the palaces containing them), and if you heard that all the Titians in Europe were made into sand-bags to-morrow on the Austrian forts, it would not trouble you so much as the chance of a brace or two of game less in your own bags in a day's shooting. That is your national love of Art.

（三）我说到你们鄙视过艺术。“什么！”你们又回答，“难道我们没有举行艺术展览吗？那可是绵延几英里啊！我们不是为了一幅画肯一掷千金吗？难道我们没有艺术院校吗？难道我们国家的艺术院校不比以前任何国家的都要多吗？”是的，没错，但这都是为了做生意。你们愿意卖油画就像愿意卖煤炭一样，乐于卖陶器就像乐于卖铁一样。如果可以的话，你们会把别的国家的面包都从他们嘴里抢过来。因为抢不到，你们的生活理想就是站在世界的大道上，就像卢德盖特的学徒，对过路的每个人高喊：“你缺点什么？”你们对自己的能力或是环境一无所知，想象着可以在自己潮湿、平坦、肥沃的土地上，就像法国人在青铜色的葡萄树下或是意大利人在火山壁下那样，获得敏锐的艺术细胞。你们想象着可能学习艺术就像学习记账一样，一旦学会了，就会有更多的账要记。你们对绘画是关心的，但绝对不会超过你们对死气沉沉的墙上贴着的广告的兴趣。墙上永远有地方贴广告供人来读，从来没有地方挂张画来欣赏。你们不知道自己的国家有多少画（名义上），不知道这些画的真假，也不知道它们是否得到了妥善保存。在国外，你们平静地看着世界上最宏伟的现存画作在失事残骸中烂掉（还有，在威尼斯，你们看着奥地利的枪炮故意瞄准保存大量名画的宫殿）。如果听说欧洲所有精美的画作明天都会变成奥地利碉堡上的沙袋，你们也不会感到这比打了一天猎后，袋子里少了一两个弓箭防护垫更令人烦恼。这就是你们国家对艺术的热爱。

IV. You have despised nature; that is to say, all the deep and sacred sensations of natural scenery. The French revolutionists made stables of the cathedrals of France; you have made race-courses of the cathedrals of the earth. Your one conception of pleasure is to drive in railroad carriages round their aisles, and eat off their altars. You have put a railroad bridge over the fall of Schaffhausen. You have tunnelled the cliffs of Lucerne by Tell's chapel; you have destroyed the Clarens shore of the Lake of Geneva; there is not a quiet valley in England that you have not filled with bellowing fire; there is no particle left of English land which you have not trampled coal ashes into—nor any foreign city in which the spread of your presence is not marked among its fair old streets and happy gardens by a consuming white leprosy of new hotels and perfumers' shops: the Alps themselves, which your own poets used to love so reverently, you look upon as soaped poles in a bear-garden, which you set yourselves to climb, and slide down again, with "shrieks of delight." When you are past shrieking, having no human articulate voice to say you are glad with, you fill the quietude of their valleys with gunpowder blasts, and rush home, red with cutaneous eruption of conceit, and voluble with convulsive hiccough of self-satisfaction. I think nearly the two sorrowfullest spectacles I have ever seen in humanity, taking the deep inner significance of them, are the English mobs in the valley of Chamouni ¹¹ , amusing themselves with firing rusty howitzers; and the Swiss vintagers of Zurich expressing their Christian thanks for the gift of the vine, by assembling in knots in the "towers of the vineyards," and slowly loading and firing horse-pistols from morning till evening. It is pitiful, to have dim conceptions of duty; more pitiful, it seems to me, to have conceptions like these, of mirth.

（四）你们鄙视过自然，也就是自然景色中所有深奥和神圣的感觉。法国革命者把法国的教堂变成了马厩；你们则把地球上的教堂变成了赛马场。你们的快乐之一就是坐在火车车厢里围着教堂的走廊跑，毁掉圣坛。你们在沙夫豪森大瀑布上架起了铁路桥，在泰尔小教堂附近的卢塞恩悬崖峭壁上凿通了火车隧道，毁掉了日内瓦湖的克拉伦斯河岸。在英格兰已经没有一个幽静山谷不被咆哮的火焰充斥，没有一片土地不被煤灰侵犯——任何一个外国城市，只要你们的足迹所至，那些美丽的古老街道和洋溢着欢乐的花园就会被像感染了白色麻风病一样的新旅馆和香水店所毁灭。就连阿尔卑斯山本身，这座曾经深受你们自己诗人热爱的山，你们也把它看成在嘈杂的场所里涂满肥皂的柱子，你让自己爬上去再滑下来，“快乐地大喊大叫”。当你们不再叫喊、无法用人类的语言清晰地表达快乐时，你们就会用爆破声打破山谷的宁静，然后冲回家，皮肤因为自负而兴奋地发红，说话的声音因为自鸣得意而断断续续。就内在的深刻意义而言，我认为在人类身上见到的下面两个场景几乎是最悲哀的：一幕是英国暴徒为了取乐，在夏莫尼山谷里乱扔炸弹；另一幕是瑞士苏黎世的酿酒商为了感谢上帝赐予他们的葡萄藤，聚集在“葡萄园的塔楼里”，从早到晚悠哉游哉地给马枪装上子弹、发射，再装上子弹、再发射。对职责的概念模糊不清是可怜的；而在我看来，对快乐抱有这种概念则更可怜。

Lastly. You despise compassion. There is no need of words of mine for proof of this. I will merely print one of the newspaper paragraphs which I am in the habit of cutting out and throwing into my store-drawer; here is one from a Daily Telegraph of an early date this year; date which, though by me carelessly left unmarked, is easily discoverable; for on the back of the slip, there is the announcement that "yesterday the seventh of the special services of this year was performed by the Bishop of Ripon in St.Paul's;" and there is a pretty piece of modern political economy besides, worth preserving note of, I think, so I print it in the note below (It is announced that arrangement has been concluded between the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Credit for the payment of the eleven millions which the State has to pay to the National Bank by the 14th inst. This sum will be raised as follows:—The eleven commercial members of the committee of the Bank of Credit will each borrow a million of florins for three months of this bank, which will accept their bills, which again will be discounted by the National Bank. By this arrangement the National Bank will itself furnish the funds with which it wil be paid. ). But my business is with the main paragraph, relating one of such facts as happen now daily, which, by chance, has taken a form in which it came before the coroner. I will print the paragraph in red. Be sure, the facts themselves are written in that colour, in a book which we shall all of us, literate or illiterate, have to read our page of, some day.

最后，你们鄙视同情心。这一点不需要我说任何话来证明。剪报并将其收藏在抽屉中是我的一个习惯，我就引述一段报纸上的话。这是今年（1867）早些时候《每日电讯报》上的一段话，虽然我不小心忘了标注日期，但应该很容易就查清，因为剪报背面写着“昨天在圣保罗教堂里彭主教主持了今年第七次特别宗教仪式”；旁边还有一段现代政治经济学的精辟论断，我认为值得记下来，所以就写在下面的脚注里。（据报道，国家财政部与信贷银行已达成协议，政府将于本月 14 日之前，向国家银行支付1,100 万。这笔钱将通过以下方式筹得：信贷银行委员会的 11 位商业成员每人从这家银行借 100 万银币，借款期为 3 个月；信贷银行将承兑他们的汇票，再由国家银行贴现。根据这项协议，实际上是国家银行用自己提供的资金来付给自己。——作者注）但我要说的是主要的段落，关系到每天都会发生的众多事情中的一件。巧合的是，这件事呈现在了验尸官面前。我把引用的段落印成红色。注意，我们所有人，无论是否识字，总有一天都要读到生命这本书中我们的那一页，在那本书中，这些事本身就是用红色书写的。

"An inquiry was held on Friday by Mr. Richards, deputy coroner, at the White Horse Tavern, Christ Church, Spitalfields, respecting the death of Michael Collins, aged 58 years. Mary Collins, a miserable-looking woman, said that she lived with the deceased and his son in a room at 2, Cobb's Court, Christ Church. Deceased was a 'translator' of boots. Witness went out and bought old boots; deceased and his son made them into good ones, and then witness sold them for what she could get at the shops, which was very little indeed. Deceased and his son used to work night and day to try and get a little bread and tea, and pay for the room (2s. a week), so as to keep the home together. On Friday-night week deceased got up from his bench and began to shiver. He threw down the boots, saying, 'Somebody else must finish them when I am gone, for I can do no more.' There was no fire, and he said, 'I would be better if I was warm.' Witness therefore took two pairs of translated boots to sell at the shop, but she could only get 14d. for the two pairs, for the people at the shop said, 'We must have our profit.' Witness got 14lb. of coal, and a little tea and bread. Her son sat up the whole night to make the 'translations,' to get money, but deceased died on Saturday morning. The family never had enough to eat.—Coroner: 'It seems to me deplorable that you did not go into the workhouse.' —Witness: 'We wanted the comforts of our little home.' A juror asked what the comforts were, for he only saw a little straw in the corner of the room, the windows of which were broken. The witness began to cry, and said that they had a quilt and other little things. The deceased said he never would go into the workhouse. In summer, when the season was good, they sometimes made as much as 10s. profit in a week. They then always saved towards the next week, which was generally a bad one. In winter they made not half so much. For three years they had been getting from bad to worse.—Cornelius Collins said that he had assisted his father since 1847. They used to work so far into the night that both nearly lost their eyesight. Witness now had a film over his eyes. Five years ago deceased applied to the parish for aid. The relieving officer gave him a 4lb. loaf, and told him if he came again he should 'get the stones.' (I do not know what this means. It is curiously coincident in verbal form, with a certain passage which some of us may remember. It may perhaps be well to preserve beside this paragraph, another cutting out of my store-drawer, from the Morning Post, of about a parallel date, Friday, March 10th, 1865:—The salons of Mme. C—, who did the honours with clever imitative grace and elegance, were crowded with princes, dukes, marquises, and counts—in fact, with the same male company as one meets at the parties the Princess Metternich and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys. Some English peers and members of Parliament were present, and appeared to enjoy the animated and dazzlingly improper scene. On the second floor the supper tables were loaded with every delicacy of the season. That your readers may form some idea of the dainty fare of the Parisian demi-monde, I copy the menu of the supper, which was served to all the guests (about 200) seated at four o'clock. Choice Yquem, Johannisberg, Laffitte, Tokay, and Champagne of the finest vintages were served most lavishly throughout the morning. After supper dancing was resumed with increased animation, and the ball terminated with a chaine diabalique and a cancan d'enfer at seven in the morning. (Morning service—‘Ere the fresh lawns appeared, under the opening eyelids of the Morn. —') Here is the menu:—‘Consommé de volaille à la Bagration; 16 hors-d'?vres variés. Bouchées à la Talleyrand. Saumons froids, sauce Ravigote. Filets de bauf en Bellevue, timbales milanaises chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes truffées. Patés de foies gras, buissons d'écrevisses, salads vénétiennes, gelees blanches aux fruits, gateaux mancini, parisiens et parisiennes. Fromages glacés. Ananas. Dessert. ') That disgusted deceased, and he would have nothing to do with them since. They got worse and worse until last Friday week, when they had not even a half penny to buy a candle. Deceased then lay down on the straw, and said he could not live till morning.—A juror: 'You are dying of starvation yourself, and you ought to go into the house until the summer.' —Witness: 'If we went in we should die. When we come out in the summer we should be like people dropped from the sky. No one would know us, and we would not have even a room. I could work now if I had food, for my sight would get better.' —Dr. G. P. Walker said deceased died from syncope, from exhaustion from want of food. The deceased had had no bed-clothes. For four months he had had nothing but bread to eat. There was not a particle of fat in the body. There was no disease, but, if there had been medical attendance, he might have survived the syncope or fainting. —The coroner having remarked upon the painful nature of the case, the jury returned the following verdict, 'That deceased died from exhaustion from want of food and the common necessaries of life; also through want of medical aid.'"

“本周五，代理验尸官理查兹先生在斯毕塔菲尔德地.区克里斯特教堂辖区的白马客栈就 58 岁的迈克尔 柯林.斯之死展开调查。神情悲痛的妇人玛丽 柯林斯说自己和死者以及他们的儿子住在克里斯特教堂辖区考伯院 2 号的一间屋子里。死者生前是一个皮靴的“翻改者”。女证人负责到外面收购旧靴子，死者和儿子将旧鞋翻新，然后再由女证人拿到商店去卖些钱，能卖多少算多少，不过收入微薄。死者和他的儿子常常日以继夜地工作，为了尽力换取少量的面包和茶，并支付房租（每星期 2 先令），以使全家共居一处。周五晚上，死者从长凳上站起来后开始发抖。他扔下手里的鞋，说道：“这双要我走以后让别人来修补了，我已经干不了了。”房间里没生火，他说：“要是暖和些，我会感觉好点。”于是女证人拿了两双修好的靴子到商店去卖，但两双鞋只卖了 14 便士。商店的人说：“我们必须要盈利啊。”证人买了 14 磅煤，以及一点茶和面包。她的儿子为了赚钱，修了一夜鞋，但死者还是在星期六早上去世了。这一家子从来没有足够的东西可吃——验尸官说：“在我看来，你们没去救济院真是令人感叹。”女证人说：“我们需要这个小家庭带来的舒适。”一名陪审员问有哪些舒适，因为他只在房屋的角落里看到了几根稻草和已经破烂不堪的窗户。女证人开始哭了起来，说他们有一床被子和其他一些小东西。死者生前说过他绝不会到救济院去。夏天生意好的时候，他们有时每周可以赚到 10先令。那时他们总是会为下个星期省下一些钱，因为下个星期往往生意不好。冬天他们的收入连夏天的一半都没.有。3 年来，他们的状况越来越差——科尼利厄斯 柯林斯说他从 1847 年起就帮爸爸干活。他们常常工作到很晚，以致于两个人几乎都要失明了。男证人（儿子）现在眼睛里还有翳影。5 年前，死者曾向教区求助。救济官给了他4 磅面包，然后告诉他要是再来的话，就只能“吃闭门羹”了。（我不知道这是什么意思。很凑巧，这个动词形式和某段文章中的那个一样，也许我们中还有人记得。除了这一段外，也许我还可以再引用一段我抽屉里的剪报新闻。这篇新闻的日期和第一篇几乎是平行的，摘自 1865 年 3月 10 日星期五的《晨报》。内容如下：“C女士的沙龙——她通过巧妙地模仿优美和雅致而使整个沙龙显得很高贵，这里云集了王子、公爵、侯爵夫人和伯爵等贵族——事实. .上，这些人与出现在梅特里奇公主和德劳恩 德 鲁伊斯夫人聚会上的是同一群男士。也有些英国贵族和国会议员出席，他们看起来很喜欢这里充满活力和令人眼花缭乱的非正统氛围。二楼的餐桌上，摆放着各种时令美食。为了让读者对巴黎上层风流社会的美食有些概念，我抄下了晚餐的菜单。下午 4 点钟的时候，所有客人（约 200 人）都坐了下来享受这些美食。不限量供应上等依奎姆葡萄酒、德国的高级白葡萄酒、拉斐特葡萄酒、匈牙利芳香葡萄酒、以及优质葡萄酒香槟，直至凌晨。晚餐过后，歌舞表演更浓，舞会一直持续到凌晨 7 点，在魔鬼的锁链和地狱的流言中结束。（早礼拜——“清晨睁开了眼睛，面前是一片清新的草坪。”）菜单如下：巴格拉季昂炖鸡汤、16 道冷盘、塔列兰巧克力夹心糖、冷鲑鱼、调味沙司、百利威牛里脊肉、米兰烩饭、烤火鸡、肥肝罐头、成堆的螯虾、威尼斯沙拉、冰镇水果、曼奇尼蛋糕、巴黎宫庭菜、奶酪冰激凌、凤梨、餐后点心等等。——作者注）这令死者非常厌恶，从那以后他再也不想和这些救济官员有什么瓜葛了。他们的状况越来越差，直到上周五，他们连买蜡烛的半个便士也没有了。死者躺在稻草上，说自己活不到第二天早上了——一名陪审员接着说：“你们自己也快饿死了，应该到救济院去住 , 直到夏天。” ——男证人说：“如果进去了，我们会死的。夏天离开救济院的时候，我们会像从天上掉下来的人一样。没有人会认识我们，甚至连个房间也没有。只要有食物，我现在就可以工作，因为我的眼睛会变好的。” G. P.沃克医生说死者死于昏厥，是由于缺少食物而导致的精疲力竭所引起的。死者连被褥也没有。4个月以来，他只能吃面包。他的身体里没有一点脂肪。虽然他没有生病，但是如果曾得到医疗护理，他可能会在昏厥过后生存下来。验尸官评论完这起令人悲痛的案件之后，陪审团作出如下判决：“死者死于缺少食物以及生活必需品而导致的精疲力竭，另一原因是没有得到医治。”

"Why would witness not go into the workhouse?" you ask. Well, the poor seem to have a prejudice against the workhouse which the rich have not; for of course every one who takes a pension from Government goes into the workhouse on a grand scale: only the workhouses for the rich do not involve the idea of work, and should be called play-houses. But the poor like to die independently, it appears; perhaps if we made the play-houses for them pretty and pleasant enough, or gave them their pensions at home, and allowed them a little introductory peculation with the public money, their minds might be reconciled to it. Meantime, here are the facts: we make our relief either so insulting to them, or so painful, that they rather die than take it at our hands; or, for third alternative, we leave them so untaught and foolish that they starve like brute creatures, wild and dumb, not knowing what to do, or what to ask. I say, you despise compassion; if you did not, such a newspaper paragraph would be as impossible in a Christian country as a deliberate assassination permitted in its public streets. (I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the Pall Mall Gazette established; for the power of the press in the hands of highly-educated men, in independent position, and of honest purpose, may indeed become all that it has been hitherto vainly vaunted to be. Its editor will therefore, I doubt not, pardon me, in that, by very reason of my respect for the journal, I do not let pass unnoticed an article in its third number, page 5, which was wrong in every word of it, with the intense wrongness which only an honest man can achieve who has taken a false turn of thought in the outset, and is following it, regardless of consequences. It contained at the end this notable passage: —

你们问：“证人为什么不进救济院？”噢，这个，似乎穷人对救济院有偏见而富人却没有，因为每一个从政府领取保障金的人当然都可以说是进了广泛意义上的救济院：只是富人的救济院不需要工作，更应该被称为游乐园。看起来好像穷人喜欢独自死去，但也许如果我们也给他们建一座足够漂亮、足够舒服的游乐园，或者让他们在家就可以领取保障金，允许他们稍稍侵吞点公款，那么他们的想法可能会因此改变，使他们自己去接受这一安排。而事实却是：我们的救济要么使他们觉得受辱，要么使他们痛苦，以至于他们宁愿死也不愿意接受我们的帮助；又或者，第三种情况，我们任由他们不受教育，任由他们愚蠢下去，以致于他们像野兽般饥饿得发狂却说不出来，不知道该做些什么，或是该要些什么。我说你们是鄙视同情心的，如果你们没有，一个基督教国家是不会任由这段新闻里所描述的事情发生的，就像不会允许在大街上发生蓄意谋杀一样。（我非常高兴看到像《佩尔美尔公报》这样一份报纸问世，因为新闻舆论的力量掌握在学识渊博的人手中，处在独立的位置，抱着诚实的目的，可能真的会将新闻界长期自我标榜的形象变成现实。因此，我相信这份报纸的编辑会原谅我出于对这份刊物的尊重，指出第 3 期第 5 页的那篇文章从头到尾大错特错了。只有诚实的人才会犯这样严重的错误，从一开始想法就是错的，然后不计后果地一路错下去。文章的结尾有这样值得注意的一段：

"The bread of affliction, and the water of affliction—aye, and the bedsteads and blankets of affliction, are the very utmost that the law ought to give to outcasts merely as outcasts." I merely put beside this expression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 1865, a part of the message which Isaiah was ordered to "lift up his voice like a trumpet" in declaring to the gentlemen of his day: "Ye fast for strife, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Is not this fast that I have chosen, to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out (margin, 'afflicted') to thy house." The falsehood on which the writer had "To confound the functions of the dispensers of the poor-rates with those of the dispensers of a charitable institution is a great and pernicious error." This sentence is so accurately and exquisitely wrong, that its substance must be thus reversed in our minds before we can deal with any existing problem of national distress. "To understand that the dispensers of the poor-rates are the almoners of the nation, and should distribute its alms with a gentleness and freedom of hand as much greater and franker than that possible to individual charity, as the collective national wisdom and power may be supposed greater than those of any single person, is the foundation of all law respecting pauperism.”) "Christian" did I say? Alas, if we were but wholesomely un-Christian, it would be impossible: it is our imaginary Christianity that helps us to commit these crimes, for we revel and luxuriate in our faith, for the lewd sensation of it; dressing it up, like everything else, in fiction. The dramatic Christianity of the organ and aisle, of dawn-service and twilight-revival—the Christianity which we do not fear to mix the mockery of, pictorially, with our play about the devil, in our Satanellas, —Roberts, —Fausts; chanting hymns through traceried windows for back-ground effect, and artistically modulating the "Dio" through variation on variation of mimicked prayer: (while we distribute tracts, next day, for the benefit of uncultivated swearers, upon what we suppose to be the signification of the Third Commandment); —this gas-lighted, and gas-inspired, Christianity, we are triumphant in, and draw back the hem of our robes from the touch of the heretics who dispute it. But to do a piece of common Christian righteousness in a plain English word or deed; to make Christian law any rule of life, and found one National act or hope thereon, —we know too well what our faith comes to for that! You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion. You had better get rid of the smoke, and the organ pipes, both: leave them, and the Gothic windows, and the painted glass, to the property man; give up your carburetted hydrogen ghost in one healthy expiration, and look after Lazarus at the door-step. For there is a true Church wherever one hand meets another helpfully, and that is the only holy or Mother Church which ever was, or ever shall be.

“法律应该把流浪汉仅仅当作流浪汉对待，给予他们的最多不过是痛苦之面包和痛苦之水；是的，还有痛苦之床铺和被褥。”我只是在这位 1865 年英国绅士的话旁边标注了几句话，即以赛亚受命“像喇叭一样高声”向他那个时代的绅士们宣布：“你们禁食，为的是吵闹和竞争，拿凶恶的拳头打人。难道我选择的禁食不是要你们把面包分给饥饿的人，把被驱逐的穷人带到你们的房屋吗？”就像作者前面提到的那样，该文章的错误思想建立在：“将贫民救济税分配人的职责和慈善机构分配人的职责混在一起是一个重大的、致命的错误。”这句话错得实在离谱，要想解决英国现存的国民贫困问题，我们必须将这句话在脑海中反过来理解。“要知道贫民救济税的分配者是国家的施赈人员，在发放救济品时应该温柔、自主，要比个人慈善行为更加大方和诚恳；就像国家的集体智慧和力量理应比任何个人更伟大一样，这一点是一切有关贫困问题的法律基础。” ——作者注）我说了“基督教”吗？天啊，如果我们有幸都不是基督教徒，这样的事似乎也不可能发生；正是我们想象中的基督教促使我们犯下了这些罪行，因为我们任由自己陶醉沉湎于自己的信仰，贪恋它所带来的邪恶感官刺激；就像对待其他任何事物一样，用想象把它伪装起来。装饰着风琴和走廊，每天晨仪暮诵的戏剧化的基督教——我们不害怕《撒旦尼拉斯》、《罗伯茨》和《浮士德》剧目里魔鬼出场时嘲讽地从雕花窗户里传出赞美诗的背景音乐，不害怕抑扬顿挫的优美唱诗音"Dio"（上帝）实际上不过是模仿祈祷中音调的变换（当翌日为未受教洗的宣誓者分发宗教宣传册时，我们认为自己是受了第三戒律的感召）。这种靠煤气灯照耀和启发的基督教，我们为之欢欣鼓舞，拉回我们法袍的褶边，以免质疑我们信仰的异教徒碰到。即便是在日常的语言和行为上，我们也谨守基督教徒共有的正直；将基督教的训诫当作生活的准则，在其基础上建立我们国家的法律和希望。我们对于自己的信仰所要实现的这些目的再清楚不过了！从熏香烟里得到闪电也要比从你们现代英国宗教里得到真正的行动力和激情来得容易。你们最好把烟雾和管风琴统统扔掉，把它们以及哥特式窗户和彩画玻璃，留给道具管理员；放弃健康体魄中虚无缥缈的幻象去照顾门前台阶上的穷人。因为凡是人与人之间愿意伸出援手的地方，就有真正的教堂，而且只有那样的教堂才是神圣的，过去是，将来也是。

All these pleasures, then, and all these virtues, I repeat, you nationally despise. You have, indeed, men among you who do not; by whose work, by whose strength, by whose life, by whose death, you live, and never thank them. Your wealth, your amusement, your pride would all be alike impossible, but for those whom you scorn or forget. The policeman, who is walking up and down the black lane all night to watch the guilt you have created there; and may have his brains beaten out, and be maimed for life at any moment, and never be thanked: the sailor wrestling with the sea's rage; the quiet student poring over his book or his vial, the common worker, without praise, and nearly without bread, fulfilling his task as your horses drag your carts, hopeless, and spurned of all: these are the men by whom England lives; but they are not the nation; they are only the body and nervous force of it, acting still from old habit in a convulsive perseverance, while the mind is gone. Our National wish and purpose are to be amused; our National religion, the performance of church ceremonies, and preaching of soporific truths (or untruths) to keep the mob quietly at work, while we amuse ourselves; and the necessity for this amusement is fastening on us as a feverous disease of parched throat and wandering eyes—senseless, dissolute, merciless. When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower; —when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly, as the idolatrous Jews with their pictures on cavern walls, which men had to dig to detect. The justice we do not execute, we mimic in the novel and on the stage; for the beauty we destroy in nature, we substitute the metamorphosis of the pantomime, and (the human nature of us imperatively requiring awe and sorrow of some kind) for the noble grief we should have borne with our fellows, and the pure tears we should have wept with them, we gloat over the pathos of the police court, and gather the night-dew of the grave.

再重申一次，所有这些快乐和所有这些美德，你们全国上下一致鄙视。你们中的确有人不鄙视这一切，你们正是靠着这些人的工作、力量、生命和死亡在生活，但却从来没有感激过他们。要不是这些遭到你们嘲笑或者遗忘的人，你们根本不可能拥有财富、快乐和自豪。整夜在黑暗的小巷里巡逻，看护你们所犯下的罪行，随时可能被打破脑袋、终身残废，但却从来没有得到感激的警察；与狂风巨浪搏斗的水手；安静地啃书本或者做实验的学生；在没有赞扬，也几乎没有面包的情况下，依然完成工作，就像马一样绝望而又义无反顾地为你们拉车的普通工人：这些就是英格兰赖以生存的人们。但他们不是这个国家，他们只是这个国家的肉体和神经系统，虽然还能靠惯性抽搐地坚持着，但思想已经没有了。我们国家的愿望和目的就是娱乐；我们国家的宗教就是履行教堂仪式，就是到处宣讲蒙蔽人的真理（或者说谎言），以便暴民能安静地工作，而我们却在寻欢作乐。对我们来说，这种娱乐是必须的，紧紧绑着我们，就像发烧会出现喉咙发炎、目光迷离一样，让我们失去意识，放任自流，冷漠无情。当人们真正投入的时候，他们的乐趣来自工作，就像艳丽的花瓣来自能结果的花一样；当人们的互助之情和同情心是出于真心时，他们的一切感情就会变得稳定、深刻、持久，给灵魂带来勃勃生机，就像自然的脉动带给身体生命力一样。但是现在，我们没有什么真正的事情可做，就将全部精力投入到赚钱的虚假事情中去；我们没有真正的感情，因此必须要有错误的感情装扮起来把玩，不是像孩子玩洋娃娃那样天真地玩耍，而是鬼鬼祟祟、偷偷摸摸，就像崇拜偶像的犹太人把他们的画藏在深山洞穴的墙壁上一样，需要人们挖掘才能发现。我们在生活中不行正义，却在小说和舞台上模仿；我们毁掉自然中的美丽，却用变了形的哑剧取而代之；我们本该对同伴怀有高尚的悲悯之心，本该为他们洒下纯洁的泪滴（人类的本性使我们必须怀有某种敬畏和哀伤），但我们却幸灾乐祸地看着警庭里一幕幕的悲剧，在他们的墓地收集夜晚的露水。

It is difficult to estimate the true significance of these things; the facts are frightful enough;—the measure of national fault involved in them is perhaps not as great as it would at first seem. We permit, or cause, thousands of deaths daily, but we mean no harm; we set fire to houses, and ravage peasants' fields; yet we should be sorry to find we had injured anybody. We are still kind at heart; still capable of virtue, but only as children are. Chalmers ¹² , at the end of his long life, having had much power with the public, being plagued in some serious matter by a reference to "public opinion," uttered the impatient exclamation, "The public is just a great baby!" And the reason that I have allowed all these graver subjects of thought to mix themselves up with an inquiry into methods of reading, is that, the more I see of our national faults and miseries, the more they resolve themselves into conditions of childish illiterateness, and want of education in the most ordinary habits of thought. It is, I repeat, not vice, not selfishness, not dullness of brain, which we have to lament; but an unreachable schoolboy's recklessness, only differing from the true schoolboy's in its incapacity of being helped, because it acknowledges no master. There is a curious type of us given in one of the lovely, neglected works of the last of our great painters. It is a drawing of Kirkby Lonsdale ¹³ churchyard, and of its brook, and valley, and hills, and folded morning sky beyond. And unmindful alike of these, and of the dead who have left these for other valleys and for other skies, a group of schoolboys have piled their little books upon a grave, to strike them off with stones. So do we play with the words of the dead that would teach us, and strike them far from us with our bitter, reckless will, little thinking that those leaves which the wind scatters had been piled, not only upon a gravestone, but upon the seal of an enchanted vault—nay, the gate of a great city of sleeping kings, who would awake for us, and walk with us, if we knew but how to call them by their names. How often, even if we lift the marble entrance gate, do we but wander among those old kings in their repose, and finger the robes they lie in, and stir the crowns on their foreheads; and still they are silent to us, and seem but a dusty imagery; because we know not the incantation of the heart that would wake them;—which, if they once heard, they would start up to meet us in their power of long ago, narrowly to look upon us, and consider us; and, as the fallen kings of Hades meet the newly fallen, saying, "Art thou also become weak as we—art thou also become one of us?" so would these kings, with their undimmed, unshaken diadems, meet us, saying, "Art thou also become pure and mighty of heart as we? art thou also become one of us?"

很难估量这些事的真正意义；事实已经足够可怕了，国家的过错可能已经没有当初看起来那么严重了。我们每天眼睁睁看着、甚至是一手造成成千上万的人死去，却并无恶意；我们到处焚烧别人的房子，掠夺农民的土地，但发现已经伤到了人时我们竟很难过。我们仍然心怀善念，仍然具有美德，但也只是像孩子一样。查尔姆斯晚年在公众中有很强的影响力，但在某些严肃的事情上因“公众意见”影响而深受折磨，他曾很不耐烦地惊呼：“公众就是个大婴儿！”我之所以把这些思想方面的沉重话题带到有关读书方法的探讨中来，是因为我越多地看到我们国家的缺点和不幸，就越觉得这是由于我们国家在文学素养方面的幼稚和缺乏，在对最基本的思维方式的培养方面的缺乏所造成的。再重复一次，我们应该感到悲哀的不是我们的恶习，不是自私自利，也不是大脑迟钝，而是那种无法触及的小学生般的鲁莽。只不过，与真正的小学生不同的是，它无可救药了，因为我们的国家不承认任何权威。一位还称得上伟大的英国画家有一幅可爱但没引起太多关注的画作，它可以反映出我们一种很奇怪的特质。画中是柯比朗斯代尔墓地的景色，溪水潺潺、峡谷幽深、山峦层叠，远处的天空露出清晨的曙光。一群小学生来到这里，没有留意这些美景，也没有注意到逝者已经离开，到别处的山谷和天空去了。孩子们拿出几本书堆在一座坟上，然后用石子把书堆击倒。就像这样，我们也把那些可以给我们教诲的逝者的语言拿来玩，用我们冰冷无情的意志攻击他们。我们很少会去想那些随风飘散的树叶曾经不仅仅是堆积在墓碑上，而且也堆在了魔法墓室的封印之上——不，应该说是沉睡中的国王的伟大城邦的城门之上。如果我们仅仅知道如何呼唤他们的名字，这些沉睡的国王将为我们醒来，与我们同行。有多少次，尽管我们打开了大理石门，但却只能徘徊在那些沉睡的老国王之中，抚摸他们的长袍，摇动他们额头上的王冠，但他们对我们仍然保持沉默，看起来不过是一个落满灰尘的雕像，因为我们不知道可以唤醒他们的心灵咒语。一旦听到那种咒语，他们就会突然站起来以很久之前的那种威严接见我们，仔细观察我们，打量我们；就像冥间死去的国王接见刚刚死去的人一样，说：“你们也变得和我们一样虚弱了吗？你们也成为我们中的一员了吗？”这些从睡梦中醒来的国王头顶耀眼稳固的王冠，见到我们也会说：“你们也变得像我们一样心灵纯洁而强大了吗？你们也成为我们中的一员了吗？”

Mighty of heart, mighty of mind—"magnanimous"—to be this, is indeed to be great in life; to become this increasingly, is, indeed, "to advance in life,"—in life itself—not in the trappings of it. My friends, do you remember that old Scythian ¹⁴ custom, when the head of a house died? How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered to you, in plain words, as it is offered to you in dire facts, that you should gain this Scythian honour, gradually, while you yet thought yourself alive. Suppose the offer were this: "You shall die slowly; your blood shall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, your heart beat at last only as a rusted group of iron valves. Your life shall fade from you, and sink through the earth into the ice of Caina ¹⁵ ; but, day by day, your body shall be dressed more gaily, and set in higher chariots, and have more orders on its breast—crowns on its head, if you will. Men shall bow before it, stare and shout round it, crowd after it up and down the streets; build palaces for it, feast with it at their tables' heads all the night long; your soul shall stay enough within it to know what they do, and feel the weight of the golden dress on its shoulders, and the furrow of the crown-edge on the skull;—no more. Would you take the offer, verbally made by the death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; many of us grasp at it in its fulness of horror. Every man accepts it, who desires to advance in life without knowing what life is; who means only that he is to get more horses, and more footmen, and more fortune, and more public honour, and—not more personal soul. He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth—they, and they only. All other kingships, so far as they are true, are only the practical issue and expression of theirs; if less than this, they are either dramatic royalties,—costly shows, with real jewels instead of tinsel,—the toys of nations; or else, they are no royalties at all, but tyrannies, or the mere active and practical issue of national folly; for which reason I have said of them elsewhere, "Visible governments are the toys of some nations, the diseases of others, the harness of some, the burdens of more."

拥有强大的心灵和思想，也就是“宽广的胸怀”，做到这一点，也就确实成就了人生中的伟大；逐渐向着这一目标努力就是真正的“人生品质的提高” ——是人生本身而不是它的装饰品的提升。朋友们，你们还记得旧时斯基台人在一家之主去世时的习俗吗？他是如何被穿上最华丽的衣服，安放到马车里，运到他朋友们的家，他们中的每一个人都把他奉为上宾，在他面前大摆盛宴？假设有人明确无误地告诉你们，就像用可怕的事实告诉你们一样，在你们以为自己还活着的时候，可以慢慢地享受到这种斯基台人的礼遇。情形是这样的：“你将慢慢死去，血液一天天变冷，肌肉变僵，心脏最终像一组生锈的铁阀那样费力地跳动。你的生命将失去活力，穿过地面，沉入地狱深处的凯伊纳冰川。但是，日复一日，你身上的衣服越来越华丽，乘坐在越来越高的马车上，胸前的勋章越来越多——要是愿意的话，还可以戴上王冠。人们会向你的肉体鞠躬，凝视着，围着它呼喊着，在街上来来回回追随着；人们为它建造宫殿，把它摆在餐桌首席位置上，大摆筵席，整夜狂欢；你的灵魂会留在体内，让你知道他们在做什么，让你感受黄金衣压在肩上的重量和头盖骨上王冠边缘的沟壑——仅此而已。你们会接受死亡天使口述的这个机会吗？想一想，我们中最卑劣的人会接受吗？然而，我们每一个人，在某种程度上，都确确实实、毫无疑问地抓住了这样的机会；很多人在深深的恐惧中抓住了它。每个渴望提高人生品质却不知道什么是人生的人，每个只是想要得到更多马匹、更多佣人、更多财富和更多荣耀，而不是更多个人灵魂的人，都接受这样的机会。只有那些心更加柔和、血更加温暖、思维更加敏捷，心灵正在进入充满生机的平静状态下的人，才真正在提高其人生的品质。拥有这样人生的人是世上真正的君王——他们，也只有他们才是。其他一切王权，如果是真实的，也不过是王权实质上的体现和表达而已；不太真实的那些，要么是戏剧化的王权——用真正的珠宝而不是金属箔片装扮的奢华表演——就像国家的玩具；要么就根本不是王权，而是暴政，或者说只不过是国家愚蠢行为积极和现实的表现。其中的原因，我在其他地方已经说过：“有形的政府是一些国家的玩具，另一些国家的毒瘤，一些国家的护甲，更多国家的负担。”

But I have no words for the wonder with which I hear Kinghood still spoken of, even among thoughtful men, as if governed nations were a personal property, and might be bought and sold, or otherwise acquired, as sheep, of whose flesh their king was to feed, and whose fleece he was to gather; as if Achilles' ¹⁶ indignant epithet of base kings, "people-eating" were the constant and proper title of all monarchs; and enlargement of a king's dominion meant the same thing as the increase of a private man's estate! Kings who think so, however powerful, can no more be the true kings of the nation than gad-flies are the kings of a horse; they suck it, and may drive it wild, but do not guide it. They, and their courts, and their armies are, if one could see clearly, only a large species of marsh mosquito, with bayonet proboscis and melodious, band-mastered, trumpeting in the summer air; the twilight being, perhaps, sometimes fairer, but hardly more wholesome, for its glittering mists of midge companies. The true kings, meanwhile, rule quietly, if at all, and hate ruling; too many of them make "il gran refiúto;" and if they do not, the mob, as soon as they are likely to become useful to it, is pretty sure to make its "gran refiúto" of them.

然而，令我吃惊到无话可说的是，我听到甚至那些有思想的人仍会谈论王权，好像受统治的国家是私人的财产一样，可以买卖或通过其他方法得到，像绵羊一样，羊肉国王吃，羊毛国王收；仿佛阿喀琉斯对那些卑鄙的国王愤怒的称呼一样，“吃人者”是对所有君主持久和贴切的称号；一个王国领土的扩张和一个人私有财产的增加是一样的事！凡是这样想的国王，无论多么强大，都不会是一个国家真正的国王，就像牛虻不会是马的国王一样；他们吸国家的血，可能会让国家发疯狂奔，但却无法领导它。如果有人能看清楚些，会发现这些国王和他们的王庭以及军队，都只不过是一大堆沼泽地上的蚊子，他们的嘴巴像刺刀一样又长又尖，在夏日中像乐队般嗡嗡地吹着曲调优美的喇叭；黎明和黄昏也许有时好些，但也不是让人更舒服，因为蚊群会像雾一样集结。同时，真正的国王不管怎样，都会从容地统治，并且痛恨统治；他们中很多人“坚决拒绝”；如果他们不拒绝，暴民一旦形成习惯，就肯定会“坚决拒绝”他们。

Yet the visible king may also be a true one, some day, if ever day comes when he will estimate his dominion by the force of it,—not the geographical boundaries. It matters very little whether Trent ¹⁷ cuts you a cantel out here, or Rhine ¹⁸ rounds you a castle less there. But it does matter to you, king of men, whether you can verily say to this man, "Go," and he goeth; and to another, "Come," and he cometh. Whether you can turn your people as you can Trent—and where it is that you bid them come, and where go. It matters to you, king of men, whether your people hate you, and die by you, or love you, and live by you. You may measure your dominion by multitudes, better than by miles; and count degrees of love-latitude, not from, but to, a wonderfully warm and indefinite equator. Measure!—nay, you cannot measure. Who shall measure the difference between the power of those who "do and teach," and who are greatest in the kingdoms of earth, as of heaven—and the power of those who undo, and consume—whose power, at the fullest, is only the power of the moth and the rust? Strange! to think how the Moth-kings lay up treasures for the moth, and the Rusk-kings, who are to their peoples' strength as rust to armour, lay up treasures for the rust; and the Robber-kings, treasures for the robber; but how few kings have ever laid up treasures that needed no guarding—treasures of which, the more thieves there were, the better! Broidered robe, only to be rent—helm and sword, only to be dimmed; jewel and gold, only to be scattered—there have been three kinds of kings who have gathered these. Suppose there ever should arise a Fourth order of kings, who had read, in some obscure writing of long ago, that there was a Fourth kind of treasure, which the jewel and gold could not equal, neither should it be valued with pure gold. A web made fair in the weaving, by Athena's shuttle; an armour, forged in divine fire by Vulcanian force—a gold to be mined in the sun's red heart, where he sets over the Delphian cliffs;—deep-pictured tissue, impenetrable armour, potable gold!—the three great Angels of Conduct, Toil, and Thought, still calling to us, and waiting at the posts of our doors, to lead us, with their winged power, and guide us, with their unerring eyes, by the path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye has not seen! Suppose kings should ever arise, who heard and believed this word, and at last gathered and brought forth treasures of—Wisdom—for their people?

但如果有一天，万众瞩目的国王用统治的力量而不是地理边界来衡量自己的统治范围，那么他也可以成为一个真正的国王。无论是特伦特河在这里侵蚀了你的一块儿土地，还是莱茵河在那里少围了一个城堡，这些都不重要。但作为人民的国王，对你来说重要的是，你是否能够使臣民呼之即来，挥之即去；你能否能像引导特伦特河那样，领导你的臣民——让他们去哪里，他们就去哪里。作为人民的国王，对你来说重要的是，你的臣民是否憎恨你，因你而死；还是热爱你，靠你生活。你或许可以用臣民的数量来衡量你的统治胜过用面积来衡量；计算爱的纬度，不是离开，而是到达那个令人惊叹的温暖而又无限的赤道似的圈。衡量！——不，你们无法衡量。谁会去衡量那些天上人间“有所作为、教导人民”的伟大国王所拥有的力量和那些无所事事、只知索取的人的力量的不同呢？后者的力量，最多不过相当于蛀虫和锈菌。多奇怪啊！想到蛀虫国王是怎样为了蛀虫积聚财富；想到像铁锈腐蚀盔甲般侵蚀臣民力量的锈菌国王是怎样为了锈菌积聚财富；想到强盗国王是怎样为了强盗积聚财富；然而又有几个国王积聚的财富不需要看守呢？又有几个认为觊觎这些财富的小偷越多越好呢？绣花的袍子只是为了出租；头盔和宝剑只是为了任其暗淡；珠宝和黄金，只是为了散尽——积聚这些财富的已经有三种国王了。假设出现了第四种国王，很久以前从某种晦涩的古老文字中得知世上还有第四种财富，这种财富是珠宝和黄金无法比拟的，也不应该用纯金来衡量其价值。一张由雅典娜的梭子织成的漂亮的网；一副靠火神的力量用神圣的火焰锻造的盔甲；一块从特尔斐阿波罗神庙边的悬崖上太阳红心中挖掘出的黄金——专心描绘的薄纱，牢不可破的盔甲，可以喝的黄金！行动、苦干和思想这三位伟大的天使仍然在召唤我们，等候在我们的门柱旁，用他们飞翔的力量带领我们，用他们可靠的眼睛引导我们，帮我们踏上那条任何鸟类都不知道，就算秃鹰的眼睛也未曾看到过的道路！想一想，会有这样的国王出现吗？他们听到并相信了这些话，最终为了人民积聚并带来智慧的财富。

Think what an amazing business that would be! How inconceivable, in the state of our present national wisdom! That we should bring up our peasants to a book exercise instead of a bayonet exercise!—organise, drill, maintain with pay, and good generalship, armies of thinkers, instead of armies of stabbers!—find national amusement in reading-rooms as well as rifle-grounds; give prizes for a fair shot at a fact, as well as for a leaden splash on a target. What an absurd idea it seems, put fairly in words, that the wealth of the capitalists of civilised nations should ever come to support literature instead of war! Have yet patience with me, while I read you a single sentence out of the only book, properly to be called a book, that I have yet written myself, the one that will stand, (if anything stand), surest and longest of all work of mine.

想一想，那将是多么奇妙的事啊！以我们国家目前的智慧，那是多么不可思议啊！我们竟然让农民接受书本教育而不是刺杀训练——组织、训练一支支带薪的、有才干的思想者的部队，而不是善于刺杀的部队——不仅在射击场，也可以在阅览室找到国家的乐趣；不仅嘉奖子弹击中靶心的人，也嘉奖对事实一针见血的人。话虽说得好听，可要把文明国家资本家的财富用来支持文学，而不是战争，这似乎是多么荒缪的想法啊！但是，请再耐心点听我说，引用一句我作品中的话，这是我唯一一部可以称为书的作品，这本书是我所有作品中最可靠（如果我还有可靠的书）、最经得起时间考验的。

"It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that it is entirely capitalists' wealth that supports unjust wars. Just wars do not need so much money to support them; for most of the men who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust war, men's bodies and souls have both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them besides, which make such war costly to the maximum; not to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between nations which have not grace nor honesty enough in all their multitudes to buy an hour's peace of mind with; as, at present France and England, purchasing of each other ten millions' sterling worth of consternation, annually (a remarkably light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves, sown, reaped, and granaried by the 'science' of the modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of truth). And, all unjust war being supportable, if not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will in the matter, the capitalists' will being the primary root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole nation, rendering it incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and punishment to each person."

“在欧洲，财富以一种很糟糕的形式运作，就是用整个资产阶级的财富来支持非正义的战争。正义的战争是不需要这么多钱来支持的，因为大多数参与正义战争的人都是不要钱的。但对非正义的战争来说，人的身体和灵魂都是要用钱来买的，除此之外，还要为他们买最好的战争武器，这使得这样的战争的花费达到了极限；这些还不包括那些底层民众的恐惧和国与国之间愤怒的猜忌所导致的花费，这些国家民众中全部的优雅和诚信，尚不足以买到一个小时的思想平静。就像现在英法两国一样，每年要花费,000 万英镑来让彼此感到恐惧（一种非常易燃的作物，一半是带刺的植物，一半是白杨树叶，经过现代政治经济学家的“科学”来种植、收割和仓储，教人们的是贪婪而不是真理）。而且，所有非正义的战争，如果不是通过掠夺敌人来支持，那就只能是通过资本家的贷款来支持，而这些贷款将通过随后对人民的税收来偿还，这些人民并没有要发动战争的意愿。战争主要的根源是资本家的意愿，但真正的根源是整个国家的贪婪。贪婪已经使国家丧失信仰、真诚和正义感，与此同时也给每个人带来损失，使每个人承受处罚。”

France and England literally, observe, buy panic of each other; they pay, each of them, for ten thousand thousand pounds worth of terror, a year. Now suppose, instead of buying these ten millions' worth of panic annually, they made up their minds to be at peace with each other, and buy ten millions' worth of knowledge annually; and that each nation spent its ten thousand thousand pounds a year in founding royal libraries, royal art galleries, royal museums, royal gardens, and places of rest. Might it not be better somewhat for both French and English?

请注意，英法两国的确互相收买彼此的恐慌；每年他们分别要为购买恐惧支付 1,000 万英镑。现在假设，如果他们决定彼此和平相处，不是每年买 1,000 万的恐慌，而是把这笔钱用来购买知识；每一个国家每年拿出 1,000 万来建立皇家图书馆、皇家艺术馆、皇家博物馆、皇家园林以及其余的一些地方。这样从某种程度上讲是不是对英法两国都更好呢？

It will be long, yet, before that comes to pass. Nevertheless, I hope it will not be long before royal or national libraries will be founded in every considerable city, with a royal series of books in them; the same series in every one of them, chosen books, the best in every kind, prepared for that national series in the most perfect way possible; their text printed all on leaves of equal size, broad of margin, and divided into pleasant volumes, light in the hand, beautiful, and strong, and thorough as examples of binders' work; and that these great libraries will be accessible to all clean and orderly persons at all times of the day and evening; strict law being enforced for this cleanliness and quietness.

但要这些事成真，恐怕还要很长时间。尽管如此，我希望不久以后，每一座大城市都能建立皇家或国家图书馆，里面摆放着一系列一流的书。每一个图书馆的书都是同一个系列的，是每种书中挑选出来的最好的书，是以尽可能最完美的方式为国家的特色系列图书作准备的。这些书的大小相同，留白较宽，分卷恰当，手感轻便，精美、牢固、完整，简直是装帧的典范。这些伟大的图书馆日夜开放，所有干净整齐的人随时可以进入，有严格的法律来保证馆内的安静和整洁。

I could shape for you other plans, for art-galleries, and for natural history galleries, and for many precious—many, it seems to me, needful—things; but this book plan is the easiest and needfullest, and would prove a considerable tonic to what we call our British constitution, which has fallen dropsical of late, and has an evil thirst, and evil hunger, and wants healthier feeding. You have got its corn laws repealed for it; try if you cannot get corn laws established for it, dealing in a better bread;—bread made of that old enchanted Arabian grain, the Sesame, which opens doors;—doors, not of robbers', but of Kings' Treasuries.

我还可以为你们制定其他方案，例如艺术馆、自然历史博物馆，和许多珍贵的、对我来说是必需的东西。但这个图书馆方案对我们所说的英国国体来讲是最简单、最必要的一剂值得考虑的补品，我们的国家已经严重水肿，对罪恶极度饥渴，需要健康的饮食。你们已经废除了知识的《谷物法》，试试看你们能否为之制定新的《谷物法》，制作出更好的面包——由古老的、有魔力的阿拉伯谷物芝麻做成的面包，用来敲开大门——不是强盗的大门，而是国王宝库的大门。

Friends, the treasuries of true kings are the streets of their cities; and the gold they gather, which for others is as the mire of the streets, changes itself, for them and their people, into a crystalline pavement for evermore.

朋友们，真正的国王所拥有的财富是他们城市里的街道；他们收集的黄金在别人眼中是城市中的泥潭。只不过，为了他们也为了他们的人民，泥潭永远地变成了水晶大道。

(1) 圣日耳曼区是巴黎的一个街区，是左岸著名的高级住宅区。位于巴黎市中心塞纳河的南岸，是巴黎的文化艺术中心。

(2) 《利西达斯》，约 翰 弥尔顿（John Milton）的一首诗。

(3) 圣彼得，基督教《圣经》里的故事人物，耶稣十二使徒之一，耶稣死后，为众使徒之首在罗马殉教被追封为第一代教皇。

(4) 索尔兹伯里教堂的尖塔高约123米，是英国教堂中最高的。

(5) 高教会派和低教会派是英国圣公会中的两个派别，前者要求维持教会较高的权威地位，主张在教义、礼仪和规章上大量保持天主教的传统；后者主张简化仪式，反对过分强调教会的权威地位，较倾向于清教徒。

(6) 《查理三世》是莎士比亚的一部历史剧。

(7) 克 兰 麦（1489—1556），是16世纪英国著名教士，英国改革教会的首任坎特伯雷大主教。他对英国教会的教义、教规和仪式等方面进行了改革，为英国国教奠定了基础。

(8) 圣方济各和圣多米尼克圣多明我都是中世纪欧洲的大主教。

(9) 维吉尔（公元前70—前19），古罗马诗人，《神曲》中，但丁称他为“老师”，虚构他解救了迷路的自己，并邀请自己去游览地狱和天国。

(10) 卢德盖特，伦敦旧城墙最西边的一个城门，现已不存在。但伦敦的地名中有 LudgateHill 和 LudgateCircus保留下来。

(11) 夏 莫 尼， 亦 作Chamonix, 是 瑞士城市日内瓦东南的一个山谷，以美景和冰川而闻名，通常人们攀登勃朗峰即从此地出发。

(12) 查尔姆斯（1780—1847），苏格兰自然神学家、政治经济学家。

(13) 柯比朗斯代尔英格兰坎布里亚郡小镇，风景优美，保留有14世纪的小桥。

(14) 斯基台人，骑马游牧的古伊朗人，于古典时代（公元前8世纪—公元1000年间）生活在黑海与里海之间的大草原。

(15) 凯伊纳冰川，奇幻角色扮演游戏Dungeon & Dragon中九层地狱之第八层，极为寒冷。

(16) 阿喀琉斯，古希腊神话里的勇士。

(17) 特伦特河，英格兰中部河流，为英格兰南北的基本分界线。

(18) 莱茵河，欧洲最大河流之一，流经欧洲多国。 rbS3MeSn5No+vSC7Y+m8Nha35ozlK/jXTbEfv71tWH5O3zqp7hSsNoGNxp7/49Or