Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing,
Or gather rushes to make many a ring,
For the 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.”
...
I have no objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictures, in company with a friend or a party, but rather the contrary, for the former reason reserved. They are intelligible matters, and will bear talking about. The sentiment here is not tacit, but communicable and overt. Salisbury Plain is barren of criticism, but Stonehenge will bear a discussion antiquarian, picturesque, and philosophical. In setting out on a party of pleasure, the first consideration always is where we shall go to, in taking a solitary ramble, the question is what we shall meet with by the way. “The mind is its own place”; nor are we anxious to arrive at the end of our journey. I can myself do the honours indifferently well to works of art and curiosity. I once took a party to Oxford with no mean éclat—showed them that seat of the Muses at a distance, “With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn’d—”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from the grassy quadrangles and stone walls of halls and colleges—was at home in the Bodleian; And at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered Cicerone that attended us, and that pointed in vain with his wand to commonplace beauties in matchless pictures.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 confuse, 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, freedoms, 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 friend. So the poet somewhat quaintly sings, “Out of my country and myself I go.” Those who wish to forget painful thoughts, do well to absent themselves for a while from the ties and objects that recall them; but we can be said only to fulfill our destiny in the place that gave us birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home!
林湖重游
Once More to the Lake
埃尔文·布鲁克斯·怀特 / Elwyn Brooks White
大约在1904年的夏季，我父亲在缅因州的一个湖畔租了一间临时住房，把我们都带去了。整个八月，我们都是在那里度过的。我们从一些小猫身上传染了金钱癣，一天到晚不得不在胳膊和腿上都擦满旁氏冷霜；还有一次，我父亲从船上掉入水中，当时他穿着西装革履。不过除了这些，我们度过了一个愉快的假期。从那时起，我们大家都公认缅因州的这个湖是世上无与伦比的地方。连续几个夏天，我们都在那里度过——通常八月一日到达，过完整个八月。再后来，我爱上了海滨生活。但是在夏季的有些日子里，海浪汹涌不息，海水冰凉刺骨，海风从上午到下午吹个不停，这一切让我很是渴望山林中小湖边的清静。几周以前，这种情形愈加强烈。于是，我买了两根鲈鱼钓竿和一些诱饵，重新回到以前我们常去的那个湖畔，故地重游，钓上一个星期的鱼。
我是带着我儿子一起去的。他从没有游过淡水湖，只是透过火车上的玻璃窗看见过漂浮在水面上的莲叶。在驶向湖畔的路上，我开始想象它现在的样子。我猜测岁月会把这片独一无二的圣地破坏成怎样一副模样——那里的海湾和小溪、笼罩在落日里的山峦，还有宿营的小屋和屋后的小路。我相信这条柏油马路已经给了我答案，我还在想象其他哪些地方也被破坏了。很奇怪，一旦你任由思绪回归往日，很多旧地的记忆就会被重新唤醒。你记起了一件事情，就会联想起另一件事情。我想我记得最清楚的是那些爽朗的清晨，清凉的湖水；平静的湖面；卧室里弥漫着木屋的清香；屋子外面，湿润的树林散发的芳香穿透房间的墙板，依稀可嗅。木屋的隔板很薄，而且离房顶有一段距离。我总是第一个起床的人，为了不吵醒别人，我蹑手蹑脚地穿好衣服，悄悄地溜出屋来。外面一片馥郁芬芳，我坐上小船出发，沿着湖岸，在一条长长的松树阴影里划过。我记得当时我总是很谨慎，从来不让我的桨与船舷的上缘碰在一起，以免打破教堂的宁静。
这个湖绝不是人们所说的那种荒郊野湖。一些村舍零星地坐落在湖岸边上，尽管湖边都是茂密的树木，但这里还是农区。有些村舍是附近农家的，你可以住在湖边，到农舍里用餐——我们一家就是这样。不过，这个湖并不显得荒凉，它相当大且不受外界干扰。至少对于一个孩子来说，有些地方确实太过于沉静，而且有点儿原始的味道。