《四季隨筆》節(jié)選 - 秋 17

《四季隨筆》是吉辛的散文代表作。其中對隱士賴克羅夫特醉心于書籍、自然景色與回憶過去生活的描述，其實是吉辛的自述，作者以此來抒發(fā)自己的情感，因而本書是一部富有自傳色彩的小品文集。

吉辛窮困的一生，對文學名著的愛好與追求，以及對大自然恬靜生活的向往，在書中均有充分的反映。本書分為春、夏、秋、冬四個部分，文筆優(yōu)美，行文流暢，是英國文學中小品文的珍品之一。

以下是由網(wǎng)友分享的《四季隨筆》節(jié)選 - 秋 17的內(nèi)容，讓我們一起來感受吉辛的四季吧!

That a labourer in the fields should stand very much on the level of the beast that toils with him, can be neither desirable nor necessary. He does so, as a matter of fact, and one hears that only the dullest-witted peasant will nowadays consent to the peasant life; his children, taught to read the newspaper, make what haste they can to the land of promise—where newspapers are printed. That here is something altogether wrong it needs no evangelist to tell us; the remedy no prophet has as yet even indicated. Husbandry has in our time been glorified in eloquence which for the most part is vain, endeavouring, as it does, to prove a falsity—that the agricultural life is, in itself, favourable to gentle emotions, to sweet thoughtfulness, and to all the human virtues. Agriculture is one of the most exhausting forms of toil, and, in itself, by no means conducive to spiritual development; that it played a civilizing part in the history of the world is merely due to the fact that, by creating wealth, it freed a portion of mankind from the labour of the plough. Enthusiasts have tried the experiment of turning husbandman; one of them writes of his experience in notable phrase.

在田間辛苦勞作的農(nóng)夫和他的牲畜基本站在同一水平線上，這一看法既不可取也不必要。但事實確實如此，我們聽說，今天只有最愚鈍的農(nóng)夫才會安于農(nóng)民生活；他的受過教育能讀報紙的孩子們，都急匆匆地來到希望之鄉(xiāng)——報紙印刷的地方。這其中有些不對勁，不需要福音傳道士的指點我們也清楚；關于補救的方法，預言家還未給出一點線索。在我們的時代，有很多贊美農(nóng)耕的詞句，這在很大程度上是虛飾的，因為它試圖證實一個偽命題，即農(nóng)耕生活本身對溫柔的情感、殷勤的體貼以及人類所有的美德都有幫助。農(nóng)業(yè)是最令人疲憊不堪的勞作形式之一，就其本身來講，對精神發(fā)展絕無益處；它在世界歷史上起了開化的作用，只是因為它創(chuàng)造了財富，使一部分人從農(nóng)耕勞作中解放出來。農(nóng)耕的推崇者曾嘗試過農(nóng)夫的生活，其中一人在下面這段著名的話中描述了自己的經(jīng)驗：

Oh, labour is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutified. Is it a praiseworthy matter that I have spent five golden months in providing food for cows and horses? It is not so.

“噢，勞動是世界的詛咒，任何從事農(nóng)業(yè)的人都不可避免沾染相應的獸性。我曾在黃金般的五個月里飼牛喂馬，這值得嘉許嗎？不，不是的?！?/p>

Thus Nathaniel Hawthorne30, at Brook Farm. In the bitterness of his disillusion he went too far. Labour may be, and very often is, an accursed and a brutalizing thing, but assuredly, it is not the curse of the world; nay, it is the world's supreme blessing. Hawthorne had committed a folly, and he paid for it in loss of mental balance. For him, plainly, it was no suitable task to feed cows and horses; yet many a man would perceive the nobler side of such occupation, for it signifies, of course, providing food for mankind. The interest of this quotation lies in the fact that, all unconsciously, so intelligent a man as Hawthorne had been reduced to the mental state of our agricultural labourers in revolt against the country life. Not only is his intellect in abeyance, but his emotions have ceased to be a true guide. The worst feature of the rustic mind in our day, is not its ignorance or grossness, but its rebellious discontent. Like all other evils, this is seen to be an inevitable outcome of the condition of things; one understands it only too well. The bucolic wants to "better" himself. He is sick of feeding cows and horses; he imagines that, on the pavement of London, he would walk with a manlier tread.

這就是納撒尼爾·霍桑在布魯克農(nóng)場的感受。由于品嘗了幻想破滅的苦果，他有些言過其實。勞動也許是，也常常是一件可憎的野蠻的事情，但可以肯定，它絕不是世界的詛咒；不對，它是世界至上的福澤。霍桑做下一樁蠢事，他付出了心理失衡的代價。對他來說，飼養(yǎng)牛馬顯然不是一件合宜的工作，但是許多人會看到這種工作更高貴的方面，因為它意味著為人類提供食物。引用的這段話，它的有趣之處在于，像霍桑這樣一個智慧的人，在完全不知不覺中，他的心態(tài)也淪落到和那些對農(nóng)村生活不滿的農(nóng)夫一樣。其中不僅看不到他的智慧，他的情感也不復作為可靠的向?qū)?。在我們的時代，農(nóng)民思想中最壞的方面，不是它的無知或遲鈍，而是它懷有反叛的不滿。和其他所有罪惡一樣，這被視為現(xiàn)實條件的必然后果，我們對此再了解不過了。農(nóng)夫想要“改善”自我，他厭煩了飼牛喂馬，他幻想自己能夠昂首挺胸地走在倫敦的人行道上。

There is no help in visions of Arcadia31; yet it is plain fact that in days gone by the peasantry found life more than endurable, and yet were more intelligent than our clod-hoppers who still hold by the plough. They had their folk-songs, now utterly forgotten. They had romances and fairy lore, which their descendants could no more appreciate than an idyll of Theocritus32. Ah, but let it be remembered that they had also a HOME, and this is the illumining word. If your peasant love the fields which give him bread, he will not think it hard to labour in them; his toil will no longer be as that of the beast, but upward-looking and touched with a light from other than the visible heavens. No use to blink the hard and dull features of rustic existence; let them rather be insisted upon, that those who own and derive profit from the land may be constant in human care for the lives which make it fruitful. Such care may perchance avail, in some degree, to counteract the restless tendency of the time; the dweller in a pleasant cottage is not so likely to wish to wander from it as he who shelters himself in a hovel. Wellmeaning folk talk about reawakening love of the country by means of deliberate instruction. Lies any hope that way? Does it seem to promise a return of the time when the old English names of all our flowers were common on rustic lips—by which, indeed, they were first uttered? The fact that flowers and birds are well-nigh forgotten, together with the songs and the elves, shows how advanced is the process of rural degeneration. Most likely it is foolishness to hope for the revival of any bygone social virtue. The husbandman of the future will be, I daresay, a well-paid mechanic, of the engine-driver species; as he goes about his work he will sing the last refrain of the music-hall, and his oft-recurring holidays will be spent in the nearest great town. For him, I fancy, there will be little attraction in ever such melodious talk about "common objects of the country." Flowers, perhaps, at all events those of tilth and pasture, will have been all but improved away. And, as likely as not, the word Home will have only a special significance, indicating the common abode of retired labourers who are drawing old-age pensions.

阿卡狄亞的美景不會有什么幫助，而事實上，在過去，農(nóng)夫們覺得自己的生活沒有那么難熬，他們也比現(xiàn)在仍在駕馭鐵犁的鄉(xiāng)巴佬更有智慧。他們有自己的歌謠，現(xiàn)在已被完全遺忘。他們有浪漫故事和民間傳說，但他們的后代已無法欣賞，就像無法欣賞忒奧克里托斯的田園詩一樣。啊，但是別忘了他們還有一個“家”，這是一個很有啟發(fā)性的詞。如果農(nóng)夫熱愛給他提供面包的土地，他就不會覺得在田里勞作是件苦差事；他的勞作也將有別于牲畜的苦役，是積極向上的，并受到遙不可見的天堂之光的眷顧。無視農(nóng)村生活的艱難單調(diào)是沒用的，還是讓我們強調(diào)這一點吧，以便讓那些擁有田地并從中獲利的人們，可以經(jīng)常關心為田地收成而勞作的人們的生活。這種關心可能會在一定程度上有助于抵制時代躁動不安的趨勢。住在舒適農(nóng)舍里的人，是不大會和住茅草屋的人一樣，想要逃離的。善意的人建議，通過刻意的教導來重新喚醒對鄉(xiāng)村的熱愛。這樣做有什么希望嗎？曾幾何時，農(nóng)夫口中所有花卉的舊時英國名字不絕于耳——而且也確實是他們首先叫出的——那個時代還能回歸嗎？如今，花朵和鳥兒，還有歌聲和小精靈都幾乎被遺忘，這顯示了鄉(xiāng)村衰退已經(jīng)到了多么嚴重的地步。奢望復興任何舊時的社會美德，很可能是一種愚蠢行徑。將來的農(nóng)民，我敢說，將是一個工資高的技工，像火車司機一類的人。他干活時，嘴里哼唱的是音樂廳里最后一段副歌，他還會定期到最近的大城市里休假。我想，對他來說，興致勃勃地談論“鄉(xiāng)村平常事物”沒什么吸引力。耕地和牧場上的花朵，也許將隨著時代進步而最終消失。另外，“家”這個詞可能將只剩下一個特殊含義，即領取養(yǎng)老金的退休農(nóng)夫們的公共居所。