On Going a Journey

The fields his study, nature was his book.

田野是他的书斋，自然是他的书。

A friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet.

在我隐居之处有一位朋友，
我可以对他低语：孤独是甜美的。

May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd,

可以梳理她的羽毛，让她的翅膀生长，
那翅膀在熙熙攘攘的人群喧闹之中，
都被弄得太凌乱，有时还受了损伤，

that I absent myself from the town for awhile, without feeling at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a post-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner—and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like 'sunken wrack and sumless treasuries,' burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations, antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do; but I sometimes had rather be without them. 'Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!' I have just now other business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is with me 'very stuff of the conscience.' Is not this wild rose sweet without a comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of emerald? Yet if I were to explain to you the circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better then keep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here to yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far-distant horizon? I should be but bad company all that way, and therefore prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, and indulge your reveries. But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you are thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. 'Out upon such half-faced fellowship,' say I. I like to be either entirely to myself, or entirely at the disposal of others; to talk or be silent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I was pleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's, that 'he thought it a bad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that an Englishman ought to do only one thing at a time.' So I cannot talk and think, or indulge in melancholy musing and lively conversation by fits and starts. 'Let me have a companion of my way,' says Sterne, 'were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines.' It is beautifully said; but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind of dumb show, it is insipid: if you have to explain it, it is making a toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature without being perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit of others. I am for the synthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I like to have it all my own way; and this is impossible unless you are alone, or in such company as I do not covet. I have no objection to argue a point with any one for twenty miles of measured road, but not for pleasure. If you remark the scent of a bean-field crossing the road, perhaps your fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a distant object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colour of a cloud, which hits your fancy, but the effect of which you are unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, and in the end probably produces ill-humour. Now I never quarrel with myself, and take all my own conclusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend them against objections. It is not merely that you may not be of accord on the objects and circumstances that present themselves before you—these may recall a number of objects, and lead to associations too delicate and refined to be possibly communicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before company seems extravagance or affectation; and, on the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being at every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise the end is not answered), is a task to which few are competent. We must 'give it an understanding, but no tongue.' My old friend C——, however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightful explanatory way over hill and dale a summer's day, and convert a landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. 'He talked far above singing.' If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and flowing words, I might perhaps wish to have some one with me to admire the swelling theme; or I could be more content, were it possible for me still to hear his echoing voice in the woods of All-Foxden. They had 'that fine madness in them which our first poets had'; and if they could have been caught by some rare instrument, would have breathed such strains as the following:—

所以我才离开城市一段时间，而且剩下自己一个人的时候，一点也不觉得茫然无措。与其和一位朋友同坐一辆驿车或一辆蒂尔伯里马车，交换些妙语，把那些同样陈腐的话题翻来覆去地变着花样，不如让我这一回同无聊的搅扰休战。给我头顶上晴朗的蓝天，脚下青青的草地，面前一条蜿蜒的路，走三个钟头到吃饭的地方——然后就去思考！如果我在这些寂寞的荒原上连一点猎物都惊不起来，那才怪呢。我笑，我跑，我跳，我高兴得唱起歌来。从那边翻卷的云头上，我纵身跳进我过去的生活，在那里纵情欢乐，就像晒黑了的印第安人一头扎进那把他送回故乡海岸的波浪。于是，那些久已忘却的事物，就像“沉没的残骸和数不清的宝藏”，迸现在我急切的眼前，我又开始感受、思考，又重新成为我自己。没有那种尴尬的沉默，被说俏皮话的尝试或者乏味的老生常谈打断；我有的是那种心灵的不受打扰的沉默，唯有它才是完美的雄辩。没有人比我更喜欢双关语、头韵、对偶、论辩和分析；但是有时候我宁愿没有它们。“走开吧，啊，让我安歇吧！”我此刻手头另有事情，在你看来似乎无所事事，于我却是“良心上的正经事”。这朵野玫瑰不加评论，难道就不香吗？这朵雏菊镶在它翠绿的外衣里，难道不是跳进了我的心里吗？然而，如果我向你解释那使它对我如此可爱的缘由，你只会微微一笑。那么，我岂不是最好把它留给自己，让它供我默想，从这里一直到那边嶙峋的山头，再从那里一直到遥远的地平线？那一路上我会是很糟糕的同伴，因此宁愿独自一人。我听人说过，当情绪上来的时候，你可以独自往前走，或者独自往前骑，沉浸在你的遐想里。但这看起来像是失礼，像是怠慢了别人，而且你一直在想，你应该回到同伴们中间去。“去他的这种半心半意的交情吧，”我说。我喜欢要么完全属于我自己，要么完全听凭别人支配；要么谈话，要么沉默；要么走路，要么静坐；要么合群，要么独处。科贝特先生有一句话我很赞成，他说，“他认为吃饭时喝葡萄酒是一种坏的法国习惯，一个英国人一次只应该做一件事。”所以我不能一边谈话一边思考，也不能时而沉浸于忧郁的默想、时而进行活泼的交谈。“让我有一个同路的伴侣吧，”斯特恩说，“哪怕只是为了说一句：太阳西沉时，影子怎样拉长了。”这话说得很美；但是在我看来，这样不断地交换心得，会妨碍事物在心灵上留下的不由自主的印象，伤害了那种情感。如果你只是用一种哑剧的方式暗示你的感受，那就索然无味；如果你不得不解释它，那就是把一种乐趣变成了苦役。你读自然这本书，不能总是被迫为了别人的方便而去翻译它。在旅途中，我赞成综合的方法，而不赞成分析的方法。那时候我满足于积攒下一批想法，以后再去考察、剖析它们。我想看着我那些模糊的念头像蓟花的冠毛一样在微风前飘浮，而不想让它们缠在争论的荆棘丛里。我这一回想完全照自己的意思来；而除非你是一个人，或者是和我并不想要的那种人在一起，这是不可能的。我不反对和任何人在立着里程碑的大路上把一个问题争论上二十英里，但那不是为了乐趣。如果你注意到横过路边的一片蚕豆田的香气，也许你的旅伴没有嗅觉。如果你指着远处的一样东西，也许他是近视眼，得掏出眼镜来看。空气中有一种感觉，一片云的颜色中有一种色调，触动了你的想象，但是你却说不出它的效果从何而来。于是就没有共鸣，只有一种对共鸣的不安的渴求，以及一路追随着你的不满，最后大概会生出坏脾气来。而我从不和自己争吵，在发现必须为自己的结论辩护、去对付反对意见之前，我总是把它们全都看作理所当然的。这不仅仅是因为你们可能对眼前出现的事物和情景意见不一——这些东西可能会唤起许多别的事物，引出一些太微妙、太精细、不可能传达给别人的联想。然而这些联想我却喜欢珍爱，有时，当我能够从人群中逃出来的时候，仍然深情地紧紧抓住它们。在旁人面前放任自己的感情，似乎是放纵或者做作；而另一方面，要时时刻刻解开我们存在的这个谜，并且让别人对它同样感兴趣（否则目的就达不到），这是很少有人能胜任的任务。我们必须“心里明白，嘴上不说”。不过，我的老朋友 C—— 两样都做得到。在一个夏日里，他能翻山越谷，用最令人愉快的解说方式一路讲下去，把一片风景变成一首说理诗或一首品达体颂歌。“他说起话来远胜于歌唱。”如果我也能这样用响亮流畅的语言来装扮我的思想，也许我会希望有个人和我一道，来赞赏那高昂的主题；或者，如果我仍然能在奥尔福克斯登的树林里听到他那回荡的声音，我也许会更满足些。它们有着“我们最早的诗人们所有的那种美妙的疯狂”；如果能用某种稀有的乐器把它们捕捉下来，就会吹奏出像下面这样的曲调：——

Here be woods as green
As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet
As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet
Face of the curled stream, with flow'rs as many
As the young spring gives, and as choice as any;
Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells,
Arbours o'ergrown with woodbine, caves and dells;
Choose where thou wilt, while I sit by and sing,
Or gather rushes to make many a ring
For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,
How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes
She took eternal fire that never dies;
How she convey'd him softly in a sleep,
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep
Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,
To kiss her sweetest.

这里有树林，青翠得
不输任何树林，空气也同样清新甜美，
就像和煦的西风在卷起细浪的
溪流那流动的水面上嬉戏的时候；这里的花，多得
就像初春所给的，也和任何花一样精美；
这里有一切新的乐趣，清凉的溪流和泉井，
爬满忍冬的凉亭，岩洞和幽谷；
随你挑选你喜欢的地方，我坐在一旁唱歌，
或者采集灯心草，编成许多指环
给你纤长的手指；给你讲爱情的故事，
讲苍白的福柏怎样在林中狩猎，
第一次看见少年恩底弥翁，从他的眼睛里
她取得了永恒的、永不熄灭的火焰；
她怎样趁他熟睡时把他轻轻地带走，
他的鬓角缠着罂粟花，带到古老的拉特摩斯山
陡峭的山顶，她每夜都在那里俯下身来，
用她哥哥的光给山镀上金色，
去亲吻她最甜蜜的人。

Faithful Shepherdess.

《忠实的牧羊女》

In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it should be reserved for Table-talk. L—— is for this reason, I take it, the worst company in the world out of doors; because he is the best within. I grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey, and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conversation or friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every mile of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the end of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at the approach of night-fall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then, after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place affords, to 'take one's ease at one's inn'! These eventful moments in our lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heartfelt happiness to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I would have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop: they will do to talk of or to write about afterwards. What a delicate speculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea—

一般说来，一句妙语会破坏户外的景致：它应该留到席间闲谈时再说。L—— 正因为这个缘故，我想，在户外是世上最糟糕的同伴；因为他在室内是最好的同伴。我承认，有一个话题在旅途中谈起来是愉快的，那就是晚上到了客店，我们该吃些什么晚饭。户外的空气使胃口更加锐利，从而使这类谈话或者友好的争执更加有趣。路上每走一英里，都会使我们期待在终点吃到的菜肴更加有滋味。在夜幕刚刚降临的时候，走进一座有城墙和角楼的古城，或者来到一个零零落落的村庄，看见灯光透过四周的昏暗流泻出来；然后，打听过当地所能提供的最好的饭食之后，“在自己的客店里自在逍遥”，这是多么美妙啊！我们一生历史中这些重大的时刻，太宝贵了，太充满实实在在、发自内心的幸福了，不能在不完全的共鸣中零零碎碎地浪费掉。我要把它们全都留给自己，一饮而尽，喝到最后一滴：以后它们可以拿来谈论，或者拿来写作。喝下整杯整杯的茶之后——

and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what we shall have for supper—eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in onions, or an excellent veal-cutlet! Sancho in such a situation once, fixed upon cow-heel; and his choice, though he could not help it, is not to be disparaged. Then, in the intervals of pictured scenery and Shandean contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the kitchen—Procul, O procul este profani! These hours are sacred to silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and to feed the source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not waste them in idle talk; or if I must have the integrity of fancy broken in upon, I would rather it were by a stranger than a friend. A stranger takes his hue and character from the time and place; he is a part of the furniture and costume of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from the West Riding of Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try to sympathise with him, and he breaks no squares. I associate nothing with my travelling companion but present objects and passing events. In his ignorance of me and my affairs, I in a manner forget myself. But a friend reminds one of other things, rips up old grievances, and destroys the abstraction of the scene. He comes in ungraciously between us and our imaginary character. Something is dropped in the course of conversation that gives a hint of your profession and pursuits; or from having some one with you that knows the less sublime portions of your history, it seems that other people do. You are no longer a citizen of the world; but your 'unhoused free condition is put into circumscription and confine.' The incognito of an inn is one of its striking privileges—'lord of one's-self, uncumber'd with a name.' Oh! it is great to shake off the trammels of the world and of public opinion—to lose our importunate, tormenting, everlasting personal identity in the elements of nature, and become the creature of the moment, clear of all ties—to hold to the universe only by a dish of sweetbreads, and to owe nothing but the score of the evening—and no longer seeking for applause and meeting with contempt, to be known by no other title than the Gentleman in the parlour! One may take one's choice of all characters in this romantic state of uncertainty as to one's real pretensions, and become indefinitely respectable and negatively right-worshipful. We baffle prejudice and disappoint conjecture; and from being so to others, begin to be objects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no more those hackneyed common-places that we appear in the world; an inn restores us to the level of nature, and quits scores with society! I have certainly spent some enviable hours at inns—sometimes when I have been left entirely to myself, and have tried to solve some metaphysical problem, as once at Witham-common, where I found out the proof that likeness is not a case of the association of ideas—at other times, when there have been pictures in the room, as at St. Neot's (I think it was), where I first met with Gribelin's engravings of the Cartoons, into which I entered at once, and at a little inn on the borders of Wales, where there happened to be hanging some of Westall's drawings, which I compared triumphantly (for a theory that I had, not for the admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had ferried me over the Severn, standing up in the boat between me and the twilight—at other times I might mention luxuriating in books, with a peculiar interest in this way, as I remember sitting up half the night to read Paul and Virginia, which I picked up at an inn at Bridgewater, after being drenched in the rain all day; and at the same place I got through two volumes of Madame D'Arblay's Camilla. It was on the tenth of April, 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the New Eloise, at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. The letter I chose was that in which St. Preux describes his feelings as he first caught a glimpse from the heights of the Jura of the Pays de Vaud, which I had brought with me as a bon bouche to crown the evening with. It was my birth-day, and I had for the first time come from a place in the neighbourhood to visit this delightful spot. The road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; and on passing a certain point you come all at once upon the valley, which opens like an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills rising in majestic state on either side, with 'green upland swells that echo to the bleat of flocks' below, and the river Dee babbling over its stony bed in the midst of them. The valley at this time 'glittered green with sunny showers,' and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the chiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along the high road that overlooks the delicious prospect, repeating the lines which I have just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's poems! But besides the prospect which opened beneath my feet, another also opened to my inward sight, a heavenly vision, on which were written, in letters large as Hope could make them, these four words, LIBERTY, GENIUS, LOVE, VIRTUE; which have since faded into the light of common day, or mock my idle gaze.

让热气升到脑子里，坐着考虑晚饭吃什么——鸡蛋和一片咸肉，洋葱焖兔肉，还是一块上好的小牛排——这是多么精妙的思量啊！桑丘有一次处在这样的境地，选定了牛蹄；他的选择虽然出于无奈，却是不可轻视的。然后，在欣赏画一般的景色和作项狄式的沉思的间歇，留意厨房里的准备和忙碌——“走开吧，走开吧，你们这些凡俗的人！”这些时辰是献给沉默和默想的，要珍藏在记忆里，好在以后滋养那些含笑的思绪。我不愿把它们浪费在闲谈上；或者，如果我那完整的想象非被打断不可，我宁愿打断它的是一个陌生人而不是一个朋友。陌生人的色彩和性格取自那时那地；他是客店的陈设和服饰的一部分。如果他是一个贵格会教徒，或者来自约克郡的西赖丁，那就更好了。我甚至不去试着同他交流感情，他也不会坏了什么事。我把我的旅伴只同眼前的事物和过往的事件联系在一起。在他对我和我的事情一无所知的时候，我也在某种程度上忘掉了我自己。但是一个朋友会让人想起别的事情，翻出旧日的委屈，破坏了这个场景的超然。他毫不客气地插进我们和我们想象中的角色之间。谈话中漏出了什么话，透露了你的职业和追求；或者，因为有一个知道你历史中那些不那么崇高的部分的人和你在一起，就仿佛别人也都知道了似的。你不再是一个世界公民；你那“无家无室的自由身，被关进了圈子，受到了拘束”。客店里的隐姓埋名，是它显著的特权之一——“做自己的主人，不为名字所累。”啊！摆脱世俗和舆论的羁绊，这是多么了不起——把我们那纠缠不休、折磨人的、永无休止的个人身份消融在自然的元素之中，成为那一刻的造物，摆脱一切牵挂——只凭一盘牛胰脏维系着与宇宙的关系，除了当晚的账以外什么也不欠——不再寻求喝彩而遭到轻蔑，除了“客厅里的那位先生”以外，不以任何别的称号为人所知！在这种对自己真实身份捉摸不定的浪漫状态中，一个人可以从一切角色中任意挑选，变得无限地体面，消极地可敬。我们挫败了偏见，使猜测落空；而且由于对别人是这样，我们开始连对自己也成了好奇和惊异的对象。我们不再是我们在世人面前显出的那些陈腐的老生常谈了；客店使我们回到了自然的水平，同社会两清了！我确实在客店里度过了一些令人羡慕的时光——有时候完全是我一个人，试着去解决某个形而上学的问题，就像有一次在威瑟姆公地，我在那里找到了证明，证明相似并不是观念联想的一种情形——另一些时候，屋里挂着画，就像在圣尼奥茨（我想是那里），我在那里第一次见到格里伯林刻的那些拉斐尔底图的版画，我立刻就进入了画中；还有在威尔士边境上的一家小客店里，那里碰巧挂着几幅韦斯托尔的素描，我把它们同一个姑娘的身影作了比较，而且得意洋洋（是为了我的一个理论，而不是为了那位受人赞赏的画家）；那个姑娘曾经渡我过塞文河，她站在船上，在我和暮色之间——还有些时候，我可以说说沉浸在书里的情形，在这方面有一种特别的趣味，我记得我曾熬了半夜读《保罗和维吉妮》，那是我在布里奇沃特的一家客店里随手拿起来的，那天我在雨里淋了一整天；在同一个地方，我还读完了达布莱夫人的《卡米拉》的两卷。那是 1798 年 4 月 10 日，我在兰戈伦的客店里，对着一瓶雪利酒和一只冷鸡，坐下来读一卷《新爱洛伊丝》。我选的那封信，是圣普乐描写他从汝拉山的高处第一次望见沃州时的心情的那一封，我把它带在身边，作为一道留到最后的美味，用来给那个晚上加冕。那天是我的生日，我第一次从附近的一个地方来游览这个令人愉快的处所。去兰戈伦的路在奇尔克和雷克瑟姆之间拐弯；过了某一处，你就突然来到山谷前，它像一座圆形剧场一样展开，宽阔而荒凉的山峦以庄严的姿态在两边升起，下面是“回荡着羊群咩咩声的绿色高地”，迪河在它们中间，在它的石床上潺潺流过。那时，山谷“在阳光照耀的阵雨中闪着绿光”，一棵正在抽芽的白蜡树把它嫩嫩的枝条垂进那喧闹的溪流里。我沿着俯瞰这片美妙景色的大路走着，背诵着我刚才引用的柯勒律治先生诗中的那几行，那时我是多么骄傲，多么欢喜啊！但是，除了在我脚下展开的景色，另一片景色也向我内心的眼睛展开了，那是一个天国般的幻景，上面用希望所能写出的那么大的字母，写着这四个词：自由、天才、爱、德性；这些词后来都已褪色，化入了寻常日子的光里，或者嘲弄着我那无所事事的凝视。

The beautiful is vanished, and returns not.

美的东西已经消逝，再也不会回来。

There is hardly anything that shows the short-sightedness or capriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. With change of place we change our ideas; nay, our opinions and feelings. We can by an effort indeed transport ourselves to old and long-forgotten scenes, and then the picture of the mind revives again; but we forget those that we have just left. It seems that we can think but of one place at a time. The canvas of the fancy is but of a certain extent, and if we paint one set of objects upon it, they immediately efface every other. We cannot enlarge our conceptions, we only shift our point of view. The landscape bares its bosom to the enraptured eye, we take our fill of it, and seem as if we could form no other image of beauty or grandeur. We pass on, and think no more of it: the horizon that shuts it from our sight also blots it from our memory like a dream. In travelling through a wild barren country I can form no idea of a woody and cultivated one. It appears to me that all the world must be barren, like what I see of it. In the country we forget the town, and in town we despise the country. 'Beyond Hyde Park,' says Sir Topling Flutter, 'all is a desert.' All that part of the map that we do not see before us is a blank. The world in our conceit of it is not much bigger than a nutshell. It is not one prospect expanded into another, county joined to county, kingdom to kingdom, lands to seas, making an image voluminous and vast; the mind can form no larger idea of space than the eye can take in at a single glance. The rest is a name written in a map, a calculation of arithmetic. For instance, what is the true signification of that immense mass of territory and population known by the name of China to us? An inch of pasteboard on a wooden globe, of no more account than a China orange! Things near us are seen of the size of life: things at a distance are diminished to the size of the understanding. We measure the universe by ourselves, and even comprehend the texture of our own being only piece-meal. In this way, however, we remember an infinity of things and places. The mind is like a mechanical instrument that plays a great variety of tunes, but it must play them in succession. One idea recalls another, but it at the same time excludes all others. In trying to renew old recollections, we cannot as it were unfold the whole web of our existence; we must pick out the single threads. So in coming to a place where we have formerly lived, and with which we have intimate associations, every one must have found that the feeling grows more vivid the nearer we approach the spot, from the mere anticipation of the actual impression: we remember circumstances, feelings, persons, faces, names that we had not thought of for years; but for the time all the rest of the world is forgotten!—To return to the question I have quitted above:

没有什么比旅行更能显出想象力的短视或者反复无常了。随着地点的改变，我们改变了我们的观念，甚至改变了我们的意见和感情。我们的确可以费一番力气，把自己带回到古老的、久已忘却的情景中去，于是心中的图画又重新活过来；但是我们却忘记了刚刚离开的那些情景。看来我们一次只能想一个地方。想象的画布只有一定的大小，如果我们在上面画了一组事物，它们就立刻抹掉了其他的一切。我们不能扩大我们的概念，只能移动我们的视点。风景向着狂喜的眼睛袒露胸怀，我们饱看一番，似乎再也形成不了别的美或者壮丽的形象了。我们走过去，就不再想它了：把它从我们视线中遮断的地平线，也像一场梦一样把它从我们的记忆中抹去了。在一片荒凉贫瘠的乡野里旅行时，我想象不出林木葱茏、耕作良好的乡野是什么样子。在我看来，整个世界都必定是贫瘠的，就像我所看到的那一部分一样。在乡下，我们忘记了城市；在城里，我们又看不起乡下。“海德公园以外，”托普林·弗勒特爵士说，“全是一片荒漠。”我们面前看不见的地图上的那一部分，全是一片空白。在我们的想象中，世界并不比一个坚果壳大多少。它不是一片景色扩展到另一片景色，一个郡连着一个郡，一个王国连着一个王国，陆地连着海洋，构成一个浩瀚广大的形象；心灵所能形成的空间观念，不会比眼睛一眼所能看到的更大。其余的不过是写在地图上的一个名字，一笔算术上的计算。比如说，我们叫作“中国”的那一大片疆土和人口，对我们来说真正的意义是什么呢？不过是木头地球仪上一英寸的纸板，并不比一只中国橘子更重要！近处的东西，我们看到的是实物的大小；远处的东西，就缩小到了理解力的大小。我们用我们自己来衡量宇宙，甚至对我们自身存在的结构，也只能一块一块地理解。然而，正是以这种方式，我们记住了无数的事物和地方。心灵就像一架能奏出许许多多曲调的机械乐器，但它必须一支接一支地奏。一个观念唤起另一个观念，但同时也就排斥了其他一切观念。在试图重温旧日的回忆时，我们可以说不能把我们生命的整张网一下子展开；我们必须挑出单独的线来。所以，来到一个我们从前住过、与之有着亲密联想的地方，每个人一定都发现过，越是走近那个地方，感觉就越是鲜明，仅仅是由于预先期待着真实的印象：我们想起了许多年没有想到过的情景、感情、人物、面孔和名字；但是在那段时间里，世界上其余的一切都被忘记了！——回到我在上面撇下的那个问题上来：

descanted on the learned air that breathes from the grassy quadrangles and stone walls of halls and colleges—was at home in the Bodleian; and at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered Ciceroni that attended us, and that pointed in vain with his wand to commonplace beauties in matchless pictures. As another exception to the above reasoning, I should not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreign country without a companion. I should want at intervals to hear the sound of my own language. There is an involuntary antipathy in the mind of an Englishman to foreign manners and notions that requires the assistance of social sympathy to carry it off. As the distance from home increases, this relief, which was at first a luxury, becomes a passion and an appetite. A person would almost feel stifled to find himself in the deserts of Arabia without friends and countrymen: there must be allowed to be something in the view of Athens or old Rome that claims the utterance of speech; and I own that the Pyramids are too mighty for any single contemplation. In such situations, so opposite to all one's ordinary train of ideas, one seems a species by one's-self, a limb torn off from society, unless one can meet with instant fellowship and support. Yet I did not feel this want or craving very pressing once, when I first set my foot on the laughing shores of France. Calais was peopled with novelty and delight. The confused, busy murmur of the place was like oil and wine poured into my ears; nor did the mariners' hymn, which was sung from the top of an old crazy vessel in the harbour, as the sun went down, send an alien sound into my soul. I only breathed the air of general humanity. I walked over 'the vine-covered hills and gay regions of France,' erect and satisfied; for the image of man was not cast down and chained to the foot of arbitrary thrones: I was at no loss for language, for that of all the great schools of painting was open to me. The whole is vanished like a shade. Pictures, heroes, glory, freedom, all are fled: nothing remains but the Bourbons and the French people!—There is undoubtedly a sensation in travelling into foreign parts that is to be had nowhere else; but it is more pleasing at the time than lasting. It is too remote from our habitual associations to be a common topic of discourse or reference, and, like a dream or another state of existence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is an animated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an effort to exchange our actual for our ideal identity; and to feel the pulse of our old transports revive very keenly, we must 'jump' all our present comforts and connexions. Our romantic and itinerant character is not to be domesticated. Dr. Johnson remarked how little foreign travel added to the facilities of conversation in those who had been abroad. In fact, the time we have spent there is both delightful, and in one sense instructive; but it appears to be cut out of our substantial, downright existence, and never to join kindly on to it. We are not the same, but another, and perhaps more enviable individual, all the time we are out of our own country. We are lost to ourselves, as well as our friends. So the poet somewhat quaintly sings:

大谈那从绿草如茵的方庭、从学院和会堂的石墙中散发出来的学术气息——在博德利图书馆里像在家里一样自在；在布伦海姆宫，我完全取代了那位陪着我们的、扑了粉的导游，他拿着他的小棒，徒然地指着那些无与伦比的画中平凡的美处。作为对上述道理的另一个例外，我不敢没有同伴就到外国去旅行。我会时不时地想听听自己语言的声音。一个英国人心里对外国的风俗和观念有一种不由自主的反感，需要靠社会的同情来消除。随着离家越来越远，这种起初是奢侈的慰藉，就变成了一种激情和欲望。一个人如果发现自己在阿拉伯的沙漠里，没有朋友，没有同胞，几乎会感到窒息：必须承认，雅典或古罗马的景象中有某种东西，要求人说出话来；我也承认，金字塔太雄伟了，不是一个人独自观照得了的。在这样的处境里，与一个人平常的一切思路截然相反，一个人似乎自成一个物种，是从社会上撕下来的一条肢体，除非他能立刻遇到友谊和支持。然而有一次，我第一次踏上法国那欢笑的海岸时，并没有觉得这种需要或渴望十分迫切。加来充满了新奇和欢乐。那地方嘈杂、忙碌的嗡嗡声，就像油和酒倒进了我的耳朵；夕阳西下时，港口里一条破旧的老船顶上传来水手们唱的赞美诗，也没有给我的灵魂送来异样的声音。我只是呼吸着普遍人性的空气。我走过“葡萄藤覆盖的山冈和法兰西欢乐的地方”，昂首挺胸，心满意足；因为人的形象并没有被打倒，被锁在专制王座的脚下：我不缺语言，因为所有伟大画派的语言都向我敞开着。这一切都已像影子一样消逝了。绘画、英雄、荣耀、自由，全都逃走了：剩下的只有波旁王朝和法国人民！——到外国去旅行，无疑有一种在别处得不到的感受；但是它在当时比较愉快，却不能持久。它离我们习惯的联想太远，不能成为谈话或提及的寻常话题，而且，就像一场梦或者另一种存在状态，与我们日常的生活方式拼合不到一起。它是一种生动的、但却短暂的幻觉。要把我们实际的身份换成我们理想的身份，需要一番努力；而要强烈地感觉到我们旧日的狂喜重新搏动起来，我们就必须“跳过”我们眼前的一切安逸和关系。我们那浪漫的、漂泊的性格是驯化不了的。约翰逊博士曾经说过，到国外去过的人，从外国旅行中给谈话增添的便利是多么少。事实上，我们在那里度过的时光，既令人愉快，在某种意义上也有教益；但是它似乎是从我们实实在在、地地道道的生活中剪下来的，永远不能和它好好地接上。我们不在自己的国家的时候，一直都不是同一个人，而是另一个、也许更令人羡慕的人。我们迷失了自己，也迷失了我们的朋友。所以那位诗人有些古怪地唱道：