With its baby rivers and little towns, each with its abbey or its cathedral,
有很多河流和小镇，每个镇上都有修道院或大教堂；
with voices–one voice perhaps, echoing through the transept–the
有各种声音——也许是同一种声音，在走廊回响——那里
criterion of suitability and convenience; and Italy with its equal
生活便利，很适合人居住：意大利有与之匹配的
shores–contriving an epicureanism from which the grossness has been
海岸——创造了一种享乐主义，粗糙从其中被
extracted: and Greece with its goat and its gourds, the nest of modified illusions:
剔除：希腊有它的山羊和葫芦，被修正过的幻觉之巢穴：
and France, the “chrysalis of the nocturnal butterfly,” in
法兰西，“夜间蝴蝶的蛹”在它的
whose products, mystery of construction diverts one from what was originally one’s
物产中，建筑的神秘令人在搜寻某个目标时无法集中
object–substance at the core: and the East with its snails, its emotional
注意力——什么才是核心内容：东方与蜗牛，其情感
shorthand and jade cockroaches, its rock crystal and its imperturbability,
的简化和玉蟑螂，其岩石水晶，其冷静，
all of museum quality: and America where there
所有东西都像是从博物馆里拿出来的：美利坚与其南方
is the little old ramshackle victoria in the south, where cigars are smoked on the
小小的摇摇欲坠的维多利亚，而北方，人们在大街上
street in the north; where there are no proofreaders, no silk-worms, no digressions;
抽雪茄，没有校对员，没有蚕，没有废话；
the wild man’s land; grassless, linksless, languageless country in which letters are written
野人之地，无草，无纽带，无语言的国家——在这里，文字
not in Spanish, not in Greek, not in Latin, not in shorthand,
不是用西班牙语写成，不是希腊语，不是拉丁语，不是速记，
but in plain American which cats and dogs can read! The letter a in psalm and calm, when
而是简单的美式英语，猫狗都能读！字母“a”，蜡烛 candle 里的 a 音，
pronounced with the sound of a in candle, is very noticeable,
与圣经诗章 psalm 和平静 calm 中的 a 发音很不一样，非常明显，但
but why should continents of misapprehension have to be accounted for by the
为什么大量的误解，必须由事实来
fact? Does it follow that because there are poisonous toadstools
澄清？是否因为有毒的菌类
which resemble mushrooms, both are dangerous? Of mettlesomeness which may be
类似蘑菇，那么两者就都是危险的？对于可能被误解成食欲的勇气而言
mistaken for appetite, of heat which may appear to be haste, no con-
激情似乎是焦躁的，不可以
clusions may be drawn. To have misapprehended the matter is to have confessed
给它下结论。对事物有误解，等于承认
that one has not loooked far enough. The sublimated wisdom
眼光看得还不够远。中国的
of China, Egyptian discernment, the cataclysmic torrent of emotion compressed
崇高智慧，埃及的辨别能力，灾难性的情感洪流
in the verbs of the Hebrew language, the books of the man who is able
在希伯来语的动词中压缩，写出这些书的人
to say, “I envy nobody but him, and him only, who catches more fish than
如此说：“我谁也不羡慕，只羡慕比我钓鱼
I do”–the flower and fruit of all that noted superi-
钓得多的人”——所有显著且优越的花朵
ority–should one not have stumbled upon it in America, must one imagine
和果实——如果一个人没有在美国偶然发现它，就必须想象
that it is not there? It has never been confined to one locality.
美国没有吗？优越从来就不局限于一个地方。