评论
打印
It seems to me that there is in each of us a capacity to comprehend the impressions and emotions which have been experienced by mankind from the beginning. Each individual has a subconscious memory of the green earth and murmuring waters, and blindness and deafness cannot rob him of this gift from past generations. This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense—a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in one.
在我看来，自人类出现以来，我们每一个人的内心深处就已经具备了感知种种情绪的经验。在每一个人的潜意识里，都会存留有关绿色土地和潺潺流水的记忆，即使失明和失聪，也无法剥夺祖先赐予人类的这份礼物。我们通常会将这种源自遗传的特质称之为第六感——一种集视觉、听觉、触觉于一身的“心灵的感觉”。
I have many tree friends in Wrentham. One of them, a splendid oak, is the special pride of my heart. I take all my other friends to see this king-tree. It stands on a bluff overlooking King Philip's Pond, and those who are wise in tree lore say it must have stood there eight hundred or a thousand years. There is a tradition that under this tree King Philip, the heroic Indian chief, gazed his last on earth and sky.
我在兰瑟姆有很多“大树朋友”，其中有一棵秀美的橡树可以说是令我引以为豪的伙伴。我曾带领我所有的朋友们参观过这位树王。这棵耸立在悬崖之上的大树径直俯瞰着菲利普国王池塘，那些熟谙树木知识的人一定会说，这棵树至少已有八百或者一千年的历史了。在这棵菲利普国王之树下面延续着一种传统——菲利普，这位英勇的印第安酋长，将他临终的凝望献给了大地和天空，他已经把自己的精神同自然融为一体。
I had another tree friend, gentle and more approachable than the great oak—a linden that grew in the dooryard at Red Farm. One afternoon, during a terrible thunderstorm, I felt a tremendous crash against the side of the house and knew, even before they told me, that the linden had fallen. We went out to see the hero that had withstood so many tempests, and it wrung my heart to see him prostrate who had mightily striven and was now mightily fallen.
我还有另外一位“树友”，同庄严的橡树相比，它显得相当随和而平易近人——这是一株生长在红色农庄庭院里的菩提树。在一个雷电交加的下午，我感觉房子的一边似乎受到了剧烈的碰撞，即使没有人告诉我，我也立刻猜出是菩提树被雷击倒了。于是我们都跑到院子里察看这位“英雄”到底经受了怎样的磨难，看到它奋勇抗争后又轰然倒地的景象，我不禁心如刀绞。
But I must not forget that I was going to write about last summer in particular. As soon as my examinations were over, Miss Sullivan and I hastened to this green nook, where we have a little cottage on one of the three lakes for which Wrentham is famous. Here the long, sunny days were mine, and all thoughts of work and college and the noisy city were thrust into the background. In Wrentham we caught echoes of what was happening in the world—war, alliance, social conflict. We heard of the cruel, unnecessary fighting in the far-away Pacific, and learned of the struggles going on between capital and labour. We knew that beyond the border of our Eden men were making history by the sweat of their brows when they might better make a holiday. But we little heeded these things. These things would pass away; here were lakes and woods and broad daisy-starred fields and sweet-breathed meadows, and they shall endure forever.
我决不会忘记我所要描述的那个特别的夏天。我的考试刚一结束，苏立文小姐和我就急匆匆地赶到了这个“绿色幽境”。兰瑟姆有三个很出名的湖，我们在其中的一个湖上拥有一所小房子。在这里，阳光普照的一整天都是属于我的。有关学院和课业的所有思绪，以及喧嚣聒噪的城市生活，统统地被这里的幽深美景消解殆尽。虽然身在兰瑟姆，我们仍然捕捉到了世界时事的回声——战争、盟约、社会矛盾。我们听说了残酷而不必要的太平洋战事，也了解到了资本和劳工之间日趋激烈的对抗形势。我们还知道，在我们的伊甸园边界之外，人类正在挥汗如雨创造着历史，虽然他们本可以给自己放个假。但是我们很少留意到这些事情，早晚有一天，世事会像过眼云烟般在我们眼前匆匆消逝；而此处的湖泊和林木，遍布雏菊的旷野和气味清新的草地，则延续着其永恒的生命。
People who think that all sensations reach us through the eye and the ear have expressed surprise that I should notice any difference, except possibly the absence of pavements, between walking in city streets and in country roads. They forget that my whole body is alive to the conditions about me. The rumble and roar of the city smite the nerves of my face, and I feel the ceaseless tramp of an unseen multitude, and the dissonant tumult frets my spirit. The grinding of heavy wagons on hard pavements and the monotonous clangour of machinery are all the more torturing to the nerves if one's attention is not diverted by the panorama that is always present in the noisy streets to people who can see.
人们都对我的鉴别视觉和听觉范畴事物的能力备感惊讶，除了能够发现人行道的断裂缺失，我还能辨别出城市行走和乡村漫步之间的差别。人们或许忘记了，我的整个身体都在实时感受着周围的环境，城市的嘈杂和低沉的隆隆声常常会撞击着我的面部神经，我可以感觉到看不见的人群踏着永无止息的沉重脚步，刺耳的喧嚣一点点地侵蚀着宁静的心灵。沉重的车轮在坚硬的路面上隆隆碾过，机器发出乏味的铿锵声。对于那些耳目俱全，常年在城市中穿梭往来的人而言，假如不是因为骚动的街道和纷乱的景象转移了他们的注意力，我想，他们一定会被这种单调的噪音逼疯的。
