letter three

第三封信

May 2, 1848, Tuesday; Concord, Massachusetts

1848年5月2日，星期二；马萨诸塞州康科德

The quotation beginning this letter— "We must have our bread" —is the first clear indication that Thoreau often and perhaps usually wrote on topics of Blake's choosing. In other words, his letters should be understood as one side of what was actually a dialogue between the two men.

信的开头引用了 “我们需要面包” ，这第一次清楚地表明，梭罗经常也可能总是按照布莱克选择的话题写信。换句话说，他的信应该当成对话双方的一方来理解。

Concord, May 2, 1848.

1848年5月2日于康科德

"We must have our bread. " But what is our bread? Is it baker's bread? Methinks it should be very home—made bread. What is our meat? Is it butcher's meat? What is that which we must have? Is that bread which we are now earning sweet? Is it not bread which has been suffered to sour, and then been sweetened with an alkali, which has undergone the vinous, acetous, and sometimes the putrid fermentation, and then been whitened with vitriol? Is this the bread which we must have? Man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, truly, but also by the sweat of his brain within his brow. The body can feed the body only. I have tasted but little bread in my life. It has been mere grub and provender for the most part. Of bread that nourished the brain and the heart, scarcely any. There is absolutely none even on the tables of the rich.

“我们需要面包。” 但什么是我们的面包呢？是面包房里的面包吗？我觉得应该就是家里自制的面包。什么是我们的肉？是肉铺里的肉吗？什么是我们必需的？我们现在通过劳动挣来的面包香甜吗？有的面包变质变酸，放入碱后却有了甜味，再经过酒精发酵、醋酸发酵，有时甚至是腐化发酵，然后放入明矾使之变白，不是这样的面包吗？这是我们必需的面包吗？的确，人类必须挥洒额头的汗水来挣自己的面包，但也要通过额头里面大脑的努力来挣面包。身体只能喂养身体。我一生中几乎没有品尝过面包。大多数面包不过是果腹的食物，滋养大脑和心灵的面包则极其罕见，即使在富人的餐桌上也绝对没有。

There is not one kind of food for all men. You must and you will feed those faculties which you exercise. The laborer whose body is weary does not require the same food with the scholar whose brain is weary. Men should not labor foolishly like brutes, but the brain and the body should always, or as much as possible, work and rest together, and then the work will be of such a kind that when the body is hungry the brain will be hungry also, and the same food will suffice for both; otherwise the food which repairs the waste energy of the overwrought body will oppress the sedentary brain, and the degenerate scholar will come to esteem all food vulgar, and all getting a living drudgery.

没有一种食物适合所有人。你必须并且势必喂养那些你使用的器官。筋疲力尽的体力劳动者与耗尽脑力的学者需要的食物是不同的。人类不应该像野兽那样愚蠢地劳动，应该让大脑和身体总是或尽可能地同时工作，同时休息，这样，当身体饥饿时，大脑也会饥饿，而相同的食物将满足两者的需要；否则，身体疲累后，为身体补充能量的食物会压迫习惯于案头工作的大脑，而体能退化的学者会认为所有食物都是粗糙的，一切谋生手段都是苦差事。

How shall we earn our bread is a grave question; yet it is a sweet and inviting question. Let us not shirk it, as is usually done. It is the most important and practical question which is put to man. Let us not answer it hastily. Let us not be content to get our bread in some gross, careless, and hasty manner. Some men go a—hunting, some a—fishing, some a—gaming, some to war; but none have so pleasant a time as they who in earnest seek to earn their bread. It is true actually as it is true really; it is true materially as it is true spiritually, that they who seek honestly and sincerely, with all their hearts and lives and strength, to earn their bread, do earn it, and it is sure to be very sweet to them. Avery little bread, —a very few crumbs are enough, if it be of the right quality, for it is infinitely nutritious. Let each man, then, earn at least a crumb of bread for his body before he dies, and know the taste of it, —that it is identical with the bread of life1, and that they both go down at one swallow.

我们应该如何挣得面包，这是一个重大的问题，但也是一个令人愉快且引人入胜的问题。我们不要像往常那样逃避它。它是人类面对的最重要、最实际的问题。对这个问题，我们不要草率作答。我们不要满足于以某种粗俗、粗心、草率的方式获得面包。有人打猎，有人捕鱼，有人赌博，有人打仗；但他们的快乐程度都比不上认真挣取面包的人。通过诚挚的方式，全心全意、不遗余力地挣取面包的人，一定能获得面包，面包对他们来说也必定格外香甜。从真实的角度和实际的角度来说，这是毋庸置疑的，从物质的角度和精神的角度来说，这也是毋庸置疑的。一小块面包——少许面包屑就足够了，如果质量是上好的，因为好面包将提供无穷的营养。那就请每个人在去世之前，为他的身体至少挣得一片面包，然后品尝面包的味道——它与生命的面包是相同的，而且两种面包都是一口就能咽下去。

Our bread need not ever be sour or hard to digest. What Nature is to the mind she is also to the body. As she feeds my imagination, she will feed my body; for what she says she means, and is ready to do. She is not simply beautiful to the poet's eye. Not only the rainbow and sunset are beautiful, but to be fed and clothed, sheltered and warmed aright, are equally beautiful and inspiring. There is not necessarily any gross and ugly fact which may not be eradicated from the life of man. We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects. The heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high. So high as a tree aspires to grow, so high it will find an atmosphere suited to it. Every man should stand for a force which is perfectly irresistible. How can any man be weak who dares to be at all? Even the tenderest plants force their way up through the hardest earth, and the crevices of rocks; but a man no material power can resist. What a wedge, what a beetle, what a catapult, is an earnest man! What can resist him?

我们的面包从来都不必是酸的或者是难以消化的。大自然中有益心灵的也有益于身体。她滋养了我的想象力的同时，也将滋养我的身体；因为大自然向来说话算话，并且随时准备付诸行动。大自然不仅仅有诗人眼中的美丽。彩虹和落日固然是美丽的，而人类得到食物、衣服、住所和温暖，也同样是美好的、令人欢欣鼓舞的。在人类的生命中未必有根除不了的粗俗和丑陋。我们要在生活中实事求是地努力弥补想象力察觉到的一切缺陷。天空是高远的，而我们的抱负是远大的。无论一颗树渴望长到多高，它总会在那个高度找到适合自己生长的环境。每个人都应该代表一种完全不可抗拒的力量。敢于存在44的人怎么可能软弱呢？即使是最娇嫩的植物都能冲破最坚硬的土壤和岩石的缝隙向上生长，人类更是任何物质力量都不能阻挡的。一个认真的人，就是一根楔子、一把大槌、一支弹弓！有什么能阻挡他呢？

It is a momentous fact that a man may be good, or he may be bad; his life may be true, or it may be false; it may be either a shame or a glory to him. The good man builds himself up; the bad man destroys himself.

一个人可能是好人，也可能是坏人；他的生活可能是真实的，也可能是虚假的；对他来说生活可能是一种耻辱，也可能是一种荣耀；这是一个重要的事实。好人会逐步完善自我；坏人则逐渐毁灭自我。

But whatever we do we must do confidently (if we are timid, let us, then, act timidly), not expecting more 1ight, but having light enough. If we confidently expect more, then let us wait for it. But what is this which we have? Have we not already waited? Is this the beginning of time? Is there a man who does not see clearly beyond, though only a hair's breadth beyond where he at any time stands?

但是，不管做什么，我们都要充满信心地去做（如果我们胆小，我们就按照胆小的方式去做），不期待更多的光明，但已经拥有足够的光明。如果我们充满信心地期待更多，那就让我们耐心地等待。但是我们现在拥有的是什么呢？我们不是已经等待过了吗？这是时间的开始吗？会有人无法看清前方吗，即使前方距离他站立的地方仅一寸之遥？

If one hesitates in his path, let him not proceed. Let him respect his doubts, for doubts, too, may have some divinity in them. That we have but little faith is not sad, but that we have but little faithfulness. By faithfulness faith is earned. When, in the progress of a life, a man swerves, though only by an angle infinitely small, from his proper and allotted path (and this is never done quite unconsciously even at first; in fact, that was his broad and scarlet sin2, —ah, he knew of it more than he can tell), then the drama of his life turns to tragedy, and makes haste to its fifth act3. When once we thus fall behind ourselves, there is no accounting for the obstacles which rise up in our path, and no one is so wise as to advise, and no one so powerful as to aid us while we abide on that ground. Such are cursed with duties, and the neglect of their duties. For such the decalogue was made, and other far more voluminous and terrible codes.

如果一个人在路上犹豫不决，那就让他停止不前吧。让他尊重自己的疑惑，因为疑惑本身也可能包含着神性。只有一点点信念并不可悲，可悲的是对我们的信念只有一点点的忠诚。通过忠诚，我们获得信念。在生命的旅程中，如果一个人偏离了正确的预定的道路，即使偏离的角度微乎其微（而且即使在最初，这也绝不是在无意中发生的；事实上，这是他又大又红的罪恶——啊，他心里明白，但说不出来），那么他人生这出戏将变成悲剧，匆匆忙忙走向第五幕。一旦我们因此落后于自己，我们将会在途中碰到闻所未闻的障碍，在那条路上彷徨时，没有人拥有足够的智慧向我们提出忠告，没有人拥有足够的力量帮助我们。这些是责任的诅咒，因为他们忽视了自己的责任。因此才出现了十诫和其他更加复杂更加可怕的法典。

These departures, —who have not made them? —for they are as faint as the parallax of a fixed star, and at the commencement we say they are nothing, —that is, they originate in a kind of sleep and forget fullness of the soul when it is naught. A man cannot be too circumspect in order to keep in the straight road, and be sure that he sees all that he may at any time see, that so he may distinguish his true path.

这些偏离——谁没有经历过呢？——因为它们像恒星视差一样微小，开始时我们说它们什么都不是，换句话说，它们从虚无中产生于灵魂的一种休眠和遗忘状态。人要慎之又慎才不会偏离正道，一定要高瞻远瞩，这样才能认清自己真正的道路。

You ask if there is no doctrine of sorrow in my philosophy. Of acute sorrow I suppose that I know comparatively little. My saddest and most genuine sorrows are apt to be but transient regrets. The place of sorrow is supplied, perchance, by a certain hard and proportionately barren indifference. I am of kin to the sod, and partake largely of its dull patience, —in winter expecting the sun of spring. In my cheapest moments I am apt to think that it is not my business to be "seeking thespirit, " 4but as much its business to be seeking me. I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much patience of this kind. I am too easily contented with a slight and almost animal happiness. My happiness is a good deal like that of the woodchucks.

你问我，在我的哲学信条中是不是没有 “悲伤” 二字。对于极度悲伤，我想我还没怎么体验过。发自肺腑的最真最深切的悲痛在我这里往往化为转瞬即逝的遗憾。或许悲伤的空间已被某种坚实而荒凉的冷漠填满。我和草地是近亲，所以在很大程度上具有草地固执的耐性——在冬天期盼春天的太阳。在我最怠惰的时刻，我会想与其由我来 “寻找神灵” ，不如由神灵来寻找我。歌德说他从来没有懊恼，但他用懊恼来写诗，我非常明白他的意思。这样的耐性我有很多。我很容易满足于微小的快乐，几乎像动物一样容易满足。我的幸福很像土拨鼠的幸福。

Methinks I am never quite committed, never wholly the creature of my moods, being always to some extent their critic. My only integral experience is in my vision. I see, perchance, with more integrity than I feel.

我认为自己从未沉迷于某物，也从来不是一个完全情绪化的人，在某种程度上，我总是情绪的批评者。我唯一完整的体验是我的视野。或许，我的所见比我的所感更为完整。

But I need not tell you what manner of man I am, —my virtues or my vices. You can guess if it is worth the while; and I do not discriminate them well.

但我不必告诉你我的为人——我的美德或陋习。如果值得这样做，你可以揣测；而我也不能很好地分清自己的优缺点。

I do not write this time at my hut in the woods. I am at present living with Mrs. Emerson, whose house is an old home of mine, for company during Mr. Emerson's absence.

此刻我没有在林中的小屋里写信。目前，我和爱默生夫人住在一起，她的房子是我的老家，爱默生先生外出时我就在这里陪伴他的夫人。

You will perceive that I am as often talking to myself, perhaps, as speaking to you.

你会发现在和你交谈，我也许也是在与自己交谈。