翻译天堂  2016-09-08

Robert Lynd - Arguments against Smoking

It is always inspiring to see a brave man fighting for a lost cause, and I never cease to admire the Jacobitish zeal with which year after year Mr. John Ervine carries on a guerrilla warfare against the ever-increasing power of tobacco. I admire it all the more because I have fired a few shots in the war against tobacco myself, and have invariably retired defeated, with the sign of defeat, a cigarette in my mouth. I can go on fighting for a week or a month, but there always comes a time when I strike my colors--and a match.

看到勇敢无畏的人为着一种毫无成功希望的事业而奋斗的情形，是始终令人鼓舞的。对那个年复一年地以斯图亚特王室拥护者的热忱，来对抗不断增长的烟瘾，进行游击战的厄尔文，我一直都是衷心佩服的。我本人在对抗烟草的战争中，也曾开过几枪，而每次都败下阵来，口里都衔着一支香烟便是败北的标帜，因此我对于他的热诚更加佩服。我能继续战斗一星期，或一个月，但最后总有那么一个时候要到来，那就是我挂降旗——刮火柴。

Henry James - Too Distinguished to be a Personality

When the porter’s wife (she used to answer the house-bell), announced “A gentleman--with a lady, sir,” I had, as I often had in those days, for the wish was father to the thought, an immediate vision of sitters. Sitters my visitors in this case proved to be; but not in the sense I should have preferred. However, there was nothing at first to indicate that they might not have come for a portrait......It was a truth of which I had for some time been conscious that a figure with a good deal of frontage was, as one might say, almost never a public institution. A glance at the lady helped to remind me of this paradoxical law: She also looked too distinguished to be a “personality”. Moreover one would scarcely come across two variations together.

当守门人的妻子（她一向是在应门的）来通报说：“先生，有一位绅士带了一位女客来了。”因为愿望是思想的根源，正如我在当时所常有的情形一样，现在一听说有客人来，心理马上就想到是找我画像的人来了。这次来找我的人，果真是为画像而来的，不过却不是我所指望的对象。虽然如此，起初并没有一点什么迹象显示他们可能不是为画像而来的。……从不久以前起，我就留意到了一个事实，那就是一个风度翩翩的人物，我们不妨说，他差不多从来不会是一个社会上的名人。那个女客，一眼看去，就使我想起这种逆说的定则：她看去也是太杰出而不成其为一个名人呢。而且我们极少会同时遇到两个例外的。

Freya Stark - Happiness Consists in Love

Who can say in remoteness of time, in what difference of earthly shape, love first come to us as a stranger in the jungle? We, in our human family, know him through dependence in childhood, through possession in youth, through sorrow and loss in their season. In childhood we are happy to receive; it is the first opening of love. In youth we take and give, dedicate and possess—rapture and anguish are mingled, until parenthood brings a dedication that, to be happy, must ask for no return. All these are new horizons of content, which the lust of holding, the enemy of love, slowly contaminates. Loss, sorrow and separation come, sickness and death; possession, that tormented us, is nothing in our hands; it vanishes. Love’s elusive entrenchment, his ubiquitous pretence, again become apparent; and in age we may reach a haven that asking for nothing knows how to enjoy.

爱这东西，不管是在多么远古的时代，不管是采取怎样现世的形态出现，总好像在森林中遇到的陌生人一样，是一个谁也不能了解的哑谜。属于人类的我们，在孩童时代，由于依赖爱自己的人而认识爱；在青年时代，由于占有所爱的人而认识爱，于是时候一到，由于失去了所爱的人感到悲伤而认识爱。在孩童时代我们很高兴来接受；这是爱的最早的端倪。在青年时代我们有取有予，有献身有占有——悲喜交集，直到做了父母时，对儿女那种献身的爱，心甘情愿，不望报答。这一切都是令人满足的爱的新境界，可惜不免要为与爱为敌的所有欲，慢慢地加以污损。失去了爱的痛苦，离别的悲哀，随即到来，还有疾病和死亡。以前那种使我们受苦的占有，已不在我们掌握之中，而早烟消云散了。爱的难于捉摸的魅力，它那不即不离的灵性，再度变得明显起来，及来到老年，我们就可能达到一个由于不求报答，故能体味到那种平静无波的爱的佳境。

David Riesman - Aloneness is Worse than Failure

What is feared as failure in American society is, above all, aloneness. And aloneness is terrifying because it means that there is no one, no group, no approved cause to submit to. Even success often becomes impossible to bear when it is not socially approved or even known. This is perhaps why successful criminals often feel the need to confess, that is, to submit to the community’s judgment, represented in the person to whom the confession is made. They will confess even under circumstances where this will probably, if not certainly, endanger their previous success: proof, I think, that aloneness is more intolerable than mere failure. For mere failure, provided it is found in company, can rather easily be borne; many ideologies have the function of making it possible for people to digest the worst miseries and even death. Under the sway of the ideologies, they do not feel the impact of their failure; they are in the grip of an authority, even if it lets them down. On the other hand, one who is, alone lacks this solace which can make even failure comfortable.

在美国社会中作为失败而为人们所恐惧的，莫过于孤独了。而孤独之所以可怕，就因为那意味着没有一个可服从的人，没有一个可服从的团体，也没有一个可服从的公认的大义。即令获得成功，若不为社会所认可，或甚至不为世人所知道时，就是成功也常要变得使人不能忍受的。这也许就是成功的罪犯，时常觉得有必要去自首的原因，那就是，去服从那个听取自首的人所代表的公众的裁判。即令在如果不是一定的话，至少是可能危害他们前此的成功那种情形之下，他们仍然要去自首的。变成孤独比单纯的失败，更要难于忍受，我想这就足以证明了。因为单纯的失败，即令是与共同遭受的，毋宁是能够容易忍受的。许多意识形态的作用，可使人能够忍受极大的不幸，甚至是死亡。人们在意识形态掩护之下，便不会感到自己失败的冲击。意识形态以一种权威的力量，掌握住他们，虽则在紧要关头也不免要把他们抛弃。在另一方面，孤独的人便缺乏那种甚至可以使失败也感到舒服的安慰。