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