书城外语英语PARTY——文苑精华
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第13章 Prophet of Happiness快乐先知(2)

If you look around at the men and women whom you can call happy, you will see that they all have certain things in common. The most important of these things is an activity which at most gradually builds up something that you are glad to see coming into existence. Women who take an instinctive pleasure in their children can get this kind of satisfaction out of bringing up a family. Artists and authors and men of science get happiness in this way if their own work seems good to them. But there are many humbler forms of the same kind of pleasure. Many men who spend their working life in the city devote their weekends to voluntary and unremunerated toil in their gardens, and when the spring comes, they experience all the joys of having created beauty.

The whole subject of happiness has, in my opinion, been treated too solemnly. It had been thought that man cannot be happy without a theory of life or a religion. Perhaps those who have been rendered unhappy by a bad theory may need a better theory to help them to recovery, just as you may need a tonic when you have been ill. But when things are normal a man should be healthy without a tonic and happy without a theory. It is the simple things that really matter. If a man delights in his wife and children, has success in work, and finds pleasure in the alternationalternation n.交替, 轮流, 间隔 of day and night, spring and autumn, he will be happy whatever his philosophy may be. If, on the other hand, he finds his wife fateful, his children,s noise unendurable, and the office a nightmare; if in the daytime he longs for night, and at night sighs for the light of day, then what he needs is not a new philosophy but a new regimenregimen n.摄生法, 政权, 政体 - a different diet, or more exercise, or what not.

Man is an animal, and his happiness depends on his physiology more than he likes to think. This is a humble conclusion, but I cannot make myself disbelieve it. Unhappy businessmen, I am convinced, would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by any conceivableconceivable adj.可能的, 想得到的, 可想像的 change of philosophy.

幸福之道

伯·罗素

道德家们常说:幸福靠追求是得不到的。只有用不明智的方式去追求才是这样。蒙特卡洛城的赌徒们追求金钱,但多数人却把钱输掉了,而另外一些追求金钱的办法却常常成功。追求幸福也是一样。如果你通过畅饮来追求幸福,那你就忘记了酒醉后的不适。埃毕丘鲁斯追求幸福的办法是只和志趣相投的人一起生活,只吃不涂黄油的面包,节日才加一点奶酪。他的办法对他来说是成功的,但他是个体弱多病的人,而多数人需要的是精力充沛。就多数人来说,除非你有别的补充办法,这样追求快乐就过于抽象和脱离实际,不宜作为个人的生活准则。不过,我觉得无论你选择什么样的生活准则,除了那些罕见的和英雄人物的例子外,都应该是和幸福相容的。

很多人拥有获得幸福的全部物质条件,即健康的身体和丰足的收入,可是他们非常不快乐。就这种情况来说,似乎问题处在生活理论的错误上。从某种意义上讲,我们可以说任何关于生活的理论都是不正确的。我们和动物的区别并没有我们想像的那么大。动物是凭冲动生活的,只要客观条件有利,它们就会快乐。如果你有一只猫,它只要有东西吃,感到暖和,偶尔晚上得到机会去寻欢,它就会很快活。你的需要比你的猫要复杂一些,但还是以本能为基础的。在文明社会中,特别是在讲英语的社会中,这一点很容易被忘却。人们给自己定下一个最高的目标,对一切不利于实现这一目标的冲动都加以克制。生意人可能因为迫切希望发财以致不惜牺牲健康和爱情。等他终于发了财,他除了苦苦劝人效法他的好榜样而搅得别人心烦外,并没有得到快乐。很多有钱的贵妇人,尽管自然并未赋予她们任何欣赏文学或艺术的兴趣,却决意要使别人认为她们是有教养的,于是她们花费很多烦人的时间学习怎样谈论那些流行的新书。这些书写出来是要给人以乐趣的,而不是要给人以附庸风雅的机会的。

只要你观察一下周围那些你可称之为幸福的男男女女,就会看出他们都有某些共同之处。在这些共同之处中有一点是最重要的:那就是活动本身,它在大多数情况下本身就很有趣,而且可逐渐的使你的愿望得以实现。生性喜爱孩子的妇女,能够从抚养子女中得到这种满足。艺术家、作家和科学家如果对自己的工作感到满意,也能以同样的方式得到快乐。不过,还有很多是较低层次的快乐。许多在城里工作的人到了周末自愿地在自家的庭院里做无偿的劳动,春天来时,他们就可尽情享受自己创造的美景带来的快乐。

在我看来,整个关于快乐的话题一向都被太严肃的对待了。过去一直有这样的看法:如果没有一种生活的理论或者宗教信仰,人是不可能幸福的。也许那些由于理论不好才导致不快乐的人需要一种较好的理论帮助他们重新快活起来,就像你生过病需要吃补药一样。但是,正常情况下,一个人不吃补药也应当是健康的;没有理论也应当是幸福的。真正有关系的是一些简单的事情。如果一个男人喜爱他的妻子儿女,事业有成,而且无论白天黑夜,春去秋来,总是感到高兴,那么不管他的理论如何,都会是快乐的。反之,如果他讨厌自己的妻子,受不了孩子们的吵闹,而且害怕上班;如果他白天盼望夜晚,而到了晚上又巴望着天明,那么,他所需要的就不是一种新的理论,而是一种新的生活——改变饮食习惯,多锻炼身体等等。

人是动物,他的幸福更多的时候取决于其生理状况而非思想状况。这是一个很庸俗的结论,然而我无法使自己怀疑它。我确信,不幸福的商人与其找到新的理论来使自己幸福,还不如每天步行六英里更见效。

Insouciance

D. H. Lawrence

My balcony is on the east side of the hotel, and my neighbors on the right are a Frenchman, whitehaired, and his whitehaired wife; my neighbors on the left are two little whitehaired English ladies. And we are all mortally shy of one another.

When I peep out of my room in the morning and see the matronly French lady in a purplepurple adj.紫色的n.紫色 silk wrapper, standing like the captain on the bridge surveying the morning, I pop in again before she can see me. And whenever I emergeemerge vi.显现, 浮现, 暴露, 形成, (由某种状态)脱出, (事实)显现出来 during the day, I am aware of the two little whitehaired ladies popping back like two white rabbits, so that literally I only see the whisk of their skirthems.

This afternoon being hot and thundery, I woke up suddenly and went out on the balcony barefoot. There I sat serenely contemplating the world, and ignoring the two bundles of feet of the two little ladies which protruded from their open doorways, upon the end of the two chaises tongues. A hot, still afternoon! The lake shining rather glassy away below, the mountains rather sulky, the greenness very green, all a little silent and lurid, and two mowers mowing with scythes, downhill just near: slush! slush ! Sound the scythestrokes.

The two little ladies become aware of my presence. I become aware of a certain agitationagitation n.激动, 兴奋, 煽动, 搅动 in the two bundles of feet wrapped in two discreet steamer rugs and protruding on the end of two chaises tongues from the pair of doorways upon the balcony next me. One bundle of feet suddenly disappears; so does the other. Silence!

Then look ! with odd sliding suddenness a little whitehaired lady in grey silk, with round blue eyes, emerges and looks straight at me, and remarks that it is pleasant now. A little cooler, say I, with false amiability. She quite agrees, and we speak of the men mowing; how plainlyplainly adv.平坦地, 明白地 one hears the long breaths of the scythes.

By now we are teteatete. We speak of cherries, strawberries, and the promise of the vine crop. This somehow leads to Italy, and to Signor Mussolini. Before I know where I am, the little whitehaired lady has swept me off my balconybalcony n.阳台, 包厢, (戏院)楼厅, away from the glassy lake, the veiled mountains, the two men mowing, and the cherry trees, away into the troubled ether of international politics.