《四季随笔》节选 - 秋 16

《四季随笔》是吉辛的散文代表作。其中对隐士赖克罗夫特醉心于书籍、自然景色与回忆过去生活的描述，其实是吉辛的自述，作者以此来抒发自己的情感，因而本书是一部富有自传色彩的小品文集。

吉辛穷困的一生，对文学名著的爱好与追求，以及对大自然恬静生活的向往，在书中均有充分的反映。本书分为春、夏、秋、冬四个部分，文笔优美，行文流畅，是英国文学中小品文的珍品之一。

以下是由网友分享的《四季随笔》节选 - 秋 16的内容，让我们一起来感受吉辛的四季吧!

I stood to-day watching harvesters at work, and a foolish envy took hold upon me. To be one of those brawny, brown-necked men, who can string their muscles from dawn to sundown, and go home without an ache to the sound slumber which will make them fresh again for to-morrow's toil! I am a man in the middle years, with limbs shaped as those of another, and subject to no prostrating malady, yet I doubt whether I could endure the lightest part of this field labour even for half an hour. Is that indeed to be a man? Could I feel surprised if one of these stalwart fellows turned upon me a look of good-natured contempt? Yet he would never dream that I envied him; he would think it as probable, no doubt, that I should compare myself unfavourably with one of the farm horses.

今天，我看到农夫在收割庄稼，心上感到一种愚蠢的妒忌。如果能成为像他们一样肌肉结实、脖子晒得黝黑的人该多好，每天日出而作，日落而息，回家时身体不带一点酸痛，美美地休息一晚，第二天又精神抖擞地下地劳动。我现在已步入中年，四肢和常人无异，没有什么疾病缠身，但即使只是最轻松的农活，我都怀疑自己能否坚持半个小时。这样能算是一个男人吗？如果田里的一个壮汉对我善意地抛来一个轻视的眼神，我会感到惊讶吗？但是他做梦都想不到我会妒忌他；他很可能想，我无疑会把自己和田里的一匹马比较，并自愧不如。

There comes the old idle dream: balance of mind and body, perfect physical health combined with the fullness of intellectual vigour. Why should I not be there in the harvest field, if so it pleased me, yet none the less live for thought? Many a theorist holds the thing possible, and looks to its coming in a better time. If so, two changes must needs come before it; there will no longer exist a profession of literature, and all but the whole of every library will be destroyed, leaving only the few books which are universally recognized as national treasures. Thus, and thus only, can mental and physical equilibrium ever be brought about.

我又产生那个虚妄的老梦想了：头脑和身体的平衡，健康体魄和健全心智的结合。如果喜欢的话，我为什么不能在农田里收割劳作，同时还为思想而活？许多理论家都认为这是可能的，并且等待着它在一个更好的时代实现。如果是这样，事先必须发生两个变化：文学作为一个职业将不复存在；所有图书馆都被毁掉，只留下几本举世公认为国宝的书籍。这样，也只有这样，头脑和身体的平衡才能实现。

It is idle to talk to us of "the Greeks." The people we mean when so naming them were a few little communities, living under very peculiar conditions, and endowed by Nature with most exceptional characteristics. The sporadic civilization which we are too much in the habit of regarding as if it had been no less stable than brilliant, was a succession of the briefest splendours, gleaming here and there from the coasts of the Aegean to those of the western Mediterranean. Our heritage of Greek literature and art is priceless; the example of Greek life possesses for us not the slightest value. The Greeks had nothing alien to study—not even a foreign or a dead language. They read hardly at all, preferring to listen. They were a slave-holding people, much given to social amusement, and hardly knowing what we call industry. Their ignorance was vast, their wisdom a grace of the gods. Together with their fair intelligence, they had grave moral weaknesses. If we could see and speak with an average Athenian of the Periclean age27, he would cause no little disappointment—there would be so much more of the barbarian in him, and at the same time of the decadent, than we had anticipated. More than possibly, even his physique would be a disillusion. Leave him in that old world, which is precious to the imagination of a few, but to the business and bosoms of the modern multitude irrelevant as Memphis28 or Babylon.

跟我们谈“希腊人”是无益的。我们给他们这样命名时，指的不过是几个小社区的居民，生活在非常特殊的环境，获得最优越的天赋。我们习惯上认为辉煌又稳固的希腊文明，不过是一连串极为短暂的光辉岁月，零散分布在爱琴海到西地中海沿岸，此起彼伏地闪耀着光芒。希腊文学和艺术的遗产是无价的，但希腊人树立的生活榜样对我们没有什么价值。希腊人不用学习任何外来的事物——甚至都不用学习一门外语或已经废弃的语言。他们几乎不读书，更愿意倾听。他们是一个蓄奴的民族，热衷于社交娱乐，对我们所谓的工业几乎一无所知。他们可以说非常无知，而他们的智慧是神明的恩赐。他们拥有不错的智慧，同时也有严重的道德缺陷。如果能看见一个培里克里斯时代的雅典人，和他交谈后，你会大失所望——他身上的蛮性和堕落会远远超出我们的预想。很可能连他的体格也会让你失望。把他留在那个古老的世界吧，这世界对少数人的想象力来说是弥足珍贵的，但对现代多数人的所思所想和日常事务来说，它和古埃及孟斐斯或巴比伦一样无关紧要。

The man of thought, as we understand him, is all but necessarily the man of impaired health. The rare exception will be found to come of a stock which may, indeed, have been distinguished by intelligence, but represented in all its members the active rather than the studious or contemplative life; whilst the children of such fortunate thinkers are sure either to revert to the active type or to exhibit the familiar sacrifice of body to mind. I am not denying the possibility of mens sana in corpore sano; that is another thing. Nor do I speak of the healthy people (happily still numerous) who are at the same time bright-witted and fond of books. The man I have in view is he who pursues the things of the mind with passion, who turns impatiently from all common interests or cares which encroach upon his sacred time, who is haunted by a sense of the infinity of thought and learning, who, sadly aware of the conditions on which he holds his mental vitality, cannot resist the hourly temptation to ignore them. Add to these native characteristics the frequent fact that such a man must make merchandise of his attainments, must toil under the perpetual menace of destitution; and what hope remains that his blood will keep the true rhythm, that his nerves will play as Nature bade them, that his sinews will bide the strain of exceptional task? Such a man may gaze with envy at those who "sweat in the eye of Phoebus," 29 but he knows that no choice was offered him. And if life has so far been benignant as to grant him frequent tranquillity of studious hours, let him look from the reapers to the golden harvest, and fare on in thankfulness.

有思想的人，在我们的理解中，差不多都是健康受损的人。也有少数例外，他们往往智慧出众，生活积极，而非沉迷于学问和沉思。这些幸运的思想者的儿女肯定要么成为积极的类型，要么会像常见的那样，为头脑牺牲了身体。我并不否认“健全之心寓于健全之身”的可能性；但那又是另外一回事。我谈的也不是那些才思敏捷、酷爱读书的健康人（让人高兴的是，这类人还有很多）。我考虑的是这样的人，他充满激情地探索思想领域，不耐烦地避免任何普通爱好和琐事去侵蚀他神圣的时间，心里始终感到思维和学问的无限，他意识到思想所寄身的现实条件，虽然感觉忧伤，却又忍不住要忽视现实生活。在这些天然的特征外，还有一个普遍的事实，即他必须把成就作为商品出卖，因为面临穷困的不断威胁而必须辛苦工作。我们还能指望他的血流会保持正常的节奏，他的神经会根据自然规律活动，他的肌肉会承受超常工作的压力？这种人可能会妒忌地望着那些“在日神的眼里流汗”的人们，但他知道自己别无选择。如果生活待他不薄，经常赐予他许多安静时光来读书的话，那么让他把视线从收割的农夫身上转到金灿灿的稻谷上，怀着一颗感恩的心继续生活吧。