内容发布更新时间 : 2024/12/24 7:34:06星期一 下面是文章的全部内容请认真阅读。
would be welcomed. And that welcoming mode drew forth pleasing features. A tonic subjective at-homeness with the world pervaded my feelings. I was in the right mood to enjoy Nature.
我精神抖擞,感官敏锐。我真切地感受到周围的一切,急于体验这一切,渴望在最充分的感官体验中得到最大满足。因此我不但目光敏锐,听觉和嗅觉也十分灵敏—我敞开心扉,尽情地体验着美的滋味。沿途所见所闻,哪怕是一点小小的愉悦,鸟雀鸣唱、树影婆娑、云卷云舒,都着实让我动情。置身于这样一个处处蕴含着美的王国,我随时准备接纳任何不期而至的景色。这样一种心态更促生了令人赏心悦目的景致,一种心旷神怡的回归自然之情在我心中油然而生。这样一种心情最适于欣赏自然美景不过了。 Then the unexpected happened. I had no thought in reaching the natural heights that a human structure would be present. Normally, I would have avoided any such structure as I directed my steps toward the natural view. In retrospect it makes sense that a service building be present at the trail end. It may have had facilities for visitors and played an interpretive role. But the building was not present when I arrived. It was absent though its ruin was present. And that ruin spoke to my experience as related to what I had come to see. If I had been trudging on in a dulled state, passing the time in surroundings — like those of the railway station — that did not draw interest, I might well have missed the chimney, walked past it as if it were another tree on the way to the goal. The heightened intensity of my sensibility allowed the chimney to be integrated into the experiencing aesthetically. Readiness was all. The extraterrestrial aesthetician would explain that the creature it was observing on the trail was a specimen of an aesthetic being whose experiencing apparatus for the aesthetic was on full alert. The individual was completely given over to the enjoyment of its experience. And while headed in the direction of an anticipated goal it was nonetheless open to enjoying anything that came its way. Something quite unexpected came its way, and it was ready to attend to it, getting the maximum aesthetic value out of the encounter. The creature was embarked on an adventure in experience. Given the wide range of accessible natural wonders in the national park, the individual in the right mood was bound to make gratifying discoveries.
接着,出乎意料的景观出现了。我怎么也不曾想到,在抵达天然高地时竟然会出现一处人工建筑。在通常情况下,我要是徒步参观某处自然景点,一定会绕开这类建筑。回想起来,在山路尽头有一座服务性建筑也全在情理之中。这小屋也许曾为游客提供过方便,起过导游讲解作用。可我来到高地时,小屋不见了。虽有断垣残壁,房屋却荡然无存。而正是这片废墟使我体验到此行览胜的真正含义。如果我当时兴致索然地一路跋涉,比如像在火车站那样的地方消磨时光,周围的事物一点也不引人注意,那么我很可能会错过烟囱,只当它是沿途路过的又一棵树罢了。而现在,我的感悟力增强了,烟囱作为一
11
道景观融入了审美体验的始终。一切取决于心态。如果一个天外美学家看到我这模样,可能会认为,它观察到的路上这个怪人准是个充满审美细胞的动物,其审美感官正处于极度警觉的状态。他已完全沉浸在审美体验所带来的愉悦之中。他朝着既定的目标行进,同时又不放过闯入视野的任何景致。奇观乍现,立即映入眼帘,他便从中发掘出最大的审美价值。此人正在经历一次美的历险。有国家公园这般天地,随处可见自然奇现,心境舒畅的游人必定会获得心满意足的发现。
What are the contents of the aesthetic discovery? Formal properties of beauty may be pointed to in what I saw: the verticals as distinctively shaped and gathering space about them, and the interplay between the two kinds of vertical shapes over the enormous intervening space. The pleasure of perspective entered, for though the chimney is miniscule compared to Half Dome, my approaching it from the trail made it assume visual and spatial dignity equal to the mountain. Complexity of human meaning is encountered with poignant irony. The chimney is an enduring marker of the human value placed on the mountain visible from this point. Here human hands raised stones to shelter an experience of pure stone. So I have come to the right place; I am at home. But the human occupation has been lifted; our presence has turned to stone. Nature has reclaimed its elements. Half Dome presides over the petrifaction of the world. Chimney and mountain are in dialogue as I sense the switching between their perspectives. I am present in ruin and in unity.
这次审美体验的发现是什么?我所目睹的景致或许可以说明美的外在特征:悬崖峭壁,造型奇特,给人以强烈的空间感,两道石壁形状迥异,广袤交错,凌空矗立。此外,还有透视效果带来的愉悦:虽然与半穹顶相比石烟囱显得非常渺小,但我从山道这边靠近,看上去无论在视觉上还是空间上其气势都一点儿不亚于半穹顶。人类的复杂意图受到了辛辣的讽刺。从这一视点看过去,那烟囱是人的价值置于大山上的一道永久性标记。人类在那里垒石筑屋,以观苍石。这样看来,我来对了地方,我找到了归宿。不过人类对自然的占据被消除掉了,我们的存在与石头融为一体。大自然索回了自己的要素,半穹顶主宰着石头的世界。我感受到两种不同景致的交替,仿佛听见烟囱在和大山对话。我站在小屋废墟上,也置身于和谐统一中。 (集体讨论 许建平 执笔)
A Person Who Apologizes Has the Moral Ball in His Court by Paul Johnson
谁给别人道歉,谁就在道义上掌握了主动 保罗·约翰逊
I have sympathy for the butler in The Big Sleep. Marlowe detects him in a contradiction and asks him aggressively, “You made a mistake, didn’t you?” To which the man replies, sadly and sweetly, “I make many mistakes, sir.” And so do I. I am, by instinct and training, a very specific writer, and so my errors are numerous. Recent ones include misspelling Geoffrey
12
Madan’s name —I phoned the printers with a correction but my page had already gone to press — and crediting Richard Tauber with Donald Peers’s signature-tune, “By a babbling brook” (Tauber’s, of course, was “You are my heart’s delight”). I apologise for these mistakes, and for others in the past, and for those to come.
我同情《长眠》这部影片中的男管家。马洛探长发现了他讲话前后有矛盾,就逼问道:“你犯了一个错,对不?”管家伤感而乖巧地答曰:“我犯下的错可多去啦,先生。” 我又何尝不是如此呢?我有点灵气并且训练有素,写起东西来旁征博引,力求翔实,自然就言多语失喽。最近犯下的错误包括把杰弗瑞·马丹的名字拼写错了—我给印厂打了个电话,把更正告诉他们,可是我的那页已经开印了;我把唐纳德·皮尔斯的信号曲“在潺潺的小溪旁”安到了理查德·陶波的头上(陶波的信号曲自然是“你是我心中的喜悦”。)对于这些错误,以及过去犯的错误和今后会犯的错误,在下这厢有礼啦。
Disraeli thought that, in politics, apologies don’t work. I see why. Such being the nature of parliamentary conflict, an apology in politics merely leads to fresh accusations and further demands for embarrassing details. I once said to Harold Wilson when he was prime minister, “It would be a good idea, Harold, to admit the government’s mistakes occasionally, and apologise.” He replied, “That’s a shrewd suggestion, Paul, and I entirely agree with it.” (Harold being Harold, I knew an untruth was coming.) “The trouble is, though, I can’t actually think of any mistakes, and so there’s nothing to apologise for.” Which was to make Disraeli’s point, though in a Wilsonian way.
迪斯累里首相认为在政治问题上,给别人道歉行不通。我明白个中的缘由。议会斗争的本质就是如此,在政治问题上,道歉只会招致新的诘责和进一步要求交待让你左右为难的详情。还是哈罗德·威尔逊担任首相的时候,有一次我向他进言:“哈罗德,偶尔承认一下政府的错误,并且道个歉,不失为一个好主意吧。” 他答道:“你这个建议高,保罗,本人完全赞同。”(哈罗德毕竟是哈罗德,我知道一句言不由衷的话就要脱口而出了。)“然而难办的是我实在想不出有哪些错误,因此,也就没有甚么好道歉的喽。” 这正是以威尔逊的方式表达出了迪斯累里的意思。
Apologise is one of those words which has effectively reversed its original meaning. Its origin, in the Greek lawcourts, was jurisprudential: it signified the speech for the defence in which the prosecution’s case was answered point by point. It retained its original meaning until at least the 16th century. Thus Sir Thomas More, after resigning from office, drew up his “Apologie of Syr Thomas More, Knyght; made by him, after he had geuen ouer the office of Lord Chancellor of Englande”. Today we would say vindication. Only gradually did the word acquire the connotation of excuse, withdrawal, admission of fault and plea for forbearance. It still bore its original meaning in theology: Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua was not an apology at all but a vigorous rebuttal of Charles Kingsley’s charges. Dickens’s unfortunate
13
statement about his reasons for splitting up with his wife, which his friends begged him not to publish, was self-destructive precisely because it was halfway between the two meanings: half defiant vindication, half admission of guilt.
有那么一些词儿,已经彻底演变得与本义完全相反,“Apologise”即是其中之一。该词的本义,在希腊法庭上,具有法理学意义:该词即指辩护词,在辩护过程中,对于诉讼方的指控,逐一予以回答。其原义至少到了16世纪还一直保留着。托马斯·莫尔爵士在挂印辞官之后,就是这样撰写了他的“托马斯·莫尔爵士之辩护词;辞去英格兰大法官之职后所作。”今天我们会使用“Vindication”(辩白,辩护)一词。只是渐渐地“Apologise”这个词才获得了“原谅、撤回所说的话、承认错误并请求宽恕”之含义。在神学中该词仍保留原来的意义:纽曼的《为吾生辩》(Apologia pro Vita Sua)根本就不是什么道歉,而是对查尔士·金斯菜的指控所作的强硬辩驳。讲狄更斯与其妻分手理由的那篇倒霉的陈词(其友人求他不要发表),就是自毁其身,恰恰是它介于两个意义之间:一半是倔强的辩白,一半是承认有愧。
No doubt everyone has to apologise for his life, sooner or later. When we appear at the Last Judgment and the Recording Angel reads out a list of our sins, we will presumably be given an opportunity to apologise, in the old sense of rebuttal, and in the new sense too, by way of confession and plea of repentance. In this life, it is well to apologise (in the new sense), but promptly, voluntarily, fully and sincerely. If the error is a matter of opinion and unpunishable, so much the better —an apology then becomes a gracious and creditable occasion, and an example to all. An enforced apology is a miserable affair.
毋庸置疑,任何人都要为自己的一生辩护,不管是今生还是来世。当我们出席最后的审判时,记录天使诵读出所罗列的我们的罪孽,我们作了忏悔并请求宽恕,这样大概会被给予辩白(这个词的老义)和表示歉意(它的新义)的机会。在今生中,道歉(新义)是桩对的事, 但是要做到及时、要心甘情愿、要完完全全、要诚心诚意。如果过错是看法上的事,并且错不当罚,那最好不过—说一声“对不起”就成了一个显示大度的机会,可赞可叹,众人之楷模也。而被迫去道歉,那可就难受了。
Newspaper apologies nearly always seem inadequate. The most audacious one I know was brought back from America by the artist Edward Burne-Jones to show his friend Lady Homer of Mells. It read: “Instead of being arrested as we stated, for kicking his wife down a flight of stairs, and hurling a lighted kerosene lamp after her, the Revd. James P. Wellman died unmarried four years ago.” This sentence is remarkable for the enormity of the error and the succinctness of the correction — not, be it noted, an apology, for the law of libel, in the United States as in England, offers no redress to a dead person. I suspect the extract is from the New York World when it was a sensational paper owned by Pulitzer. For reasons which a recent biography of him does not clarify, he had a particular hatred for clergymen of all
14
denominations, and frequently exaggerated or invented discreditable news items about them. He also discovered that such items invariably put on circulation.
报社的道歉几乎从来是不到位的。据我所知,最为厚颜的一次是艺术家爱德华·伯恩 — 琼斯从美国带回来,让他的友人麦尔斯庄园的洪纳夫人看的,曰:“詹姆士·P. 维尔曼神甫没有像我们所述说的那样,因为将妻子一脚踹下了楼梯,随后又将一支点燃的煤油灯朝她掷去而被逮捕,而是于四年之前过世,从未婚娶。”对于如此之大的错误,而更正又如此之简短,这一句话可谓妙矣也哉—请注意,这算不上是“赔礼道歉”,因为在美国(正如在英国一样),根据诽谤法,是不给死人纠错的。我猜想这条剪报取自《纽约世界报》,曾是一家轰动的报纸,由普利策拥有。不知何故(最近有关普氏的传记并未澄清)他尤其痛恨各个教派的教士们,经常将一些诋毁他们的新闻段子加以渲染,或是编造出一些这样的段子。他还发现此类新闻段子总是会使发行量剧增。
The most famous apology in history was made to a much maligned, though far from innocent, cleric: Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. He had become involved in what is known as the Investiture Dispute, a fierce Church-State Kulturkampf, revolving round the appointment of bishops. His chief opponent, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV — not a nice man but not a monster either — had called him an impostor, an antipope, an Antichrist and I know not what, but had got the worst of it in the armed struggle that followed. Henry decided to purge his excommunication and get the interdict on his territories withdrawn by apologising and doing penance. The Pope had sought the protection of Countess Matilda of Tuscany, then the world’s richest woman, and princess of startling beauty, taste and wisdom. He was sheltering at her stupendous mountain stronghold of Canossa, not far from Modena, and the Emperor had to climb there barefoot, in the depths of winter, to make his kowtow. Why has this amazing story not been the subject of a great opera? Perhaps it has. Needless to say, the apology was insincere and the tragic story ended in tears on both sides, the Pope’s bitter last words being: “I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.” But the fact that the Church was slow to canonise this remarkable man suggests that to begin with it did not accept his version of events. A century later. Henry II of England was locked in mortal struggle over the same issue with Becket, and also apologised after he caused the archbishop’s murder. This, too, was in some degree insincere, and trouble broke out afresh soon after Henry had donned sackcloth. Becket was at least as intemperate as Hildebrand, but he not only got his halo but did so in the fastest time on record. But then he was a martyr, and they always move to canonisation faster than any other category of saint.
历史上最为有名的“道歉”是向一位神职人士所致:此公乃是希尔得布兰德,即教皇格列高利七世,他被人诋毁多多,然而也并非无辜。他卷入了史书所记载的“授职争议”,即一次围绕教会与国家之间有关任命主教问题的激烈的“文化冲突”。他的主要对手就
15