第三冊第20篇：隨感錄

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This matter of other people’s learning and ccomplishments has been worrying me for some time. I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or to do in half a dozen life-times. To begin with, unless these people chance to be obvious invalids like Stevenson or Tchehov, they are always tremendous athletes with surprising strength, powers of endurance, and so forth.

一直以來，對別人學(xué)識淵博及造詣之深，我感到很不理解。只要你隨便讀一讀哪一位重要人物的傳記，就總會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)他的學(xué)問和才能，就算我活六輩子也休想學(xué)到和做到。首先，除了碰到像史蒂文森或契訶夫那樣的，有明顯殘疾的人以外，他們總是成績頂呱呱的運(yùn)動(dòng)員，他們有著驚人的氣力、耐力。

They could all walk and run and climb our heads off, even when they were seventy. Then they all have the gift of tongues. You never catch a glimpse of them sitting down to learn a new language, not even running an eye over its irregular verbs, yet it is admitted that they speak any number with an astonishing fluency and purity of accent. They never confine themselves to one science, but are inevitably masters of several. The big book of Nature they know by heart. Only the other day I was reading an account of a great novelist, a most sophisticated and subtle person, and was told that he knew the name and habits and history of every wild flower and plant and tree and bird in the country. Nor is that all. There is not one of these bigwigs who is not (I quote the customary phrases) a sensitive and accomplished musician, or an extraordinarily fine amateur water-colourist, or the possessor of a magnificent prose style. We are always told that, had circumstance been different, their talents were such that they need only have given their serious attention to one or other of these arts to have procured for themselves lasting and perhaps world-wide reputation. So runs the legend of the eulogists.

他們即使年屆七旬，在走路，跑步，翻山越嶺時(shí)我們都趕不上他們。其次，他們大都是語言方面的天才。你從來沒有看見他們坐下來學(xué)習(xí)一種新的語言，甚至連不規(guī)則動(dòng)詞表也沒有看見他們?yōu)g覽—下。但是大家都認(rèn)為他們隨便可以講幾種語言，不僅流利，而且發(fā)音純正。他們一般都精通幾門，而不會(huì)使局限在一門科學(xué)里。大自然這部巨著被他們熟記于心。不久以前，我還讀到一位杰出的小說家的事跡。他是一位非常老練而又精細(xì)的人，據(jù)說他熟悉鄉(xiāng)村每一種野花野草、樹木和禽鳥的名稱、習(xí)性和生活史。除此之外，請?jiān)徫矣靡恍┨渍Z來形容，這些大人物都是富于靈感的音樂大師，或是精妙絕倫的業(yè)余水彩畫家，或是風(fēng)格優(yōu)美的文體家。更使我們感到驚訝的是，要是他們的境遇不同，只要他們認(rèn)真從事這門或那門藝術(shù)，憑著他們的才能，而且日后一定會(huì)獲得不朽的聲譽(yù)，再者還會(huì)享譽(yù)全球。這些對他們的描述真是神乎其神。

I am baffled. How is it done? I ask the question again, my voice rises to a scream of envy and vexation. Consider what is involved in this matter (so lightly touched upon and dismissed) of music or water-colour painting or fine writing, what years of serious application, of drudgery at the keyboard, the easel, or the writing-desk. It is one thing to strum on the piano, as you and I do, faking the left-hand passages as we go along, or to daub a few patchy water colours, or to paste on to clumsy prose some old spangles of rhetoric, and it is quite another thing to be an accomplished musician or artist or writer. If the first were meant, I could understand it; but the second —— and as a mere recreation, too! And then to add the athleticism, the sciences, the tongues, the natural history! I am bewildered and crushed. The very idle rumour of fellow-creatures so wonderfully gifted makes me dwindle in my own estimation to the size of a gnat.

但是我被搞糊涂了。他們憑什么做得到?我再次想問這個(gè)問題，甚至忌妒和煩惱得要遙問蒼天。我們應(yīng)該仔細(xì)地想一想一首樂曲、一幅水彩畫或一篇美妙的文章究竟意味著什么(這一點(diǎn)卻被他們輕輕帶過或略而不論)，這需要很多年專心致志地在鍵盤上、在畫架上或者在寫字臺上辛勤操作，這樣才能有所成就。而像你我這樣，胡亂彈奏鋼琴曲，同時(shí)還用左手插入即興的過門，或者不管色彩是否協(xié)調(diào)，亂涂幾筆蘸上水彩，或者在一篇粗制濫造的散文里貼上幾句閃閃爍爍的陳詞濫調(diào)是一回事;而要成為一個(gè)有成就的音樂家、畫家或作家，卻是另一回事。要是那指的是前者，我可以理解;但是如果指的是后者呢?——尚且還不過是作為一種業(yè)余的消遣!更不用說他們還要從事體育運(yùn)動(dòng)，研究各門科學(xué)，學(xué)習(xí)各種語言，或者博物學(xué)!這使我迷惑不解，而且佩服得五體投地。這就是使我自己越看越小，小得像個(gè)小蚊蟲的原因。他們有如此神奇的天賦!正像傳說中講的那樣。