◎ William Hazilitt
Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail!—And see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as we advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our inclinations, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of satisfying them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag; and it seems that we can go on so forever.
向遠方的美景歡呼!——只見美好風(fēng)光一望無垠,新鮮景致更是在我們前進的道路上徐徐展開。在這生活的開端,我們聽任自己的志向馳騁,放手給它們一切滿足的機會。我們還沒有碰上過什么障礙,也沒有感覺到什么疲憊,因此覺得似乎可以一直這樣走下去,直到永遠。
We look round in a new world, full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in ourselves all the vigor and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not foresee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in the natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into the grave. It is the simplicity, and as it were abstractedness of our feelings in youth, that (so to speak) identifies us with nature, and (our experience being slight and our passions strong) deludes us into a belief of being immortal like it.
我們看到四周一片新天地——生機盎然,日新月異;我們覺得自己活力充盈,精神飽滿,可與宇宙并駕齊驅(qū)。而且,眼前也無任何跡象可以證明,在大自然的前進過程中,我們會被遠遠地甩在后面,衰老,進入墳?zāi)埂S捎谀贻p人天真單純,可以說是茫然無知,因而將自己與大自然畫上等號;并且,由于缺少經(jīng)驗而感情極易被迷惑,誤以為自己也能和大自然一樣永世長存。
Our short-lives connexion with existence we fondly flatter ourselves, is an indissoluble and lasting union—a honeymoon that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation. As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our wayward fancies, and lulled into security by the roar of the universe around us — we quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the more-objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the strong of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.
我們一相情愿,癡心妄想,竟把自己在世上的暫時棲身,當(dāng)做一個千古不變、萬世長存的結(jié)合,好像沒有冷淡、爭執(zhí)、蜜月的分離。像嬰兒帶著微笑入睡,我們躺在用自己的想象力編織成的搖籃里,讓大千世界的萬籟之聲哄我們安然入夢;我們急切切、興沖沖地用生命之杯暢飲,卻怎么也不會飲干,反而好像永遠是滿滿欲溢;森羅萬象紛至沓來,各種欲望隨之而生,使我們騰不出工夫想死亡。