散文 6 Sunday Before the War
稍微吐槽一下简书的首页推送，真的一言难尽。
从昨天就在看On Familiar Style 这篇文，相当不喜。一股老学究的做派，还自以平易近人，文章结构散漫。一边批评别人的写作风气迂腐浮夸，一边自己带有种种偏见。不知道18世纪的评论家是否都如此驳斥他人使得自己的论点得以立足。文看似平和，通篇读完激进的火药味弥漫四围。或多有偏颇，但读这篇文受的罪实在一口气上不来。
反观EI Dorado《黄金国》这篇文读起来就很是和缓幽默，除去结尾个别感叹，举例生动，遣词简洁，行文顺畅。豹豹还专门做了纸质笔记。此公也是写《金银岛》《化身博士》《绑架》的那位。BBC的同名广播剧很是推荐。
本来想选爱默生的The American Scholar，奈何搜索均是英语系的部分论文，不是需要下载就是给出的部分与本文不符(本书选的是前半部分，网页大是后半部分)，而且深入研究也不符合豹豹的秉性，我能将其精神领悟就可以了。真的很好奇英文系的学生们到底学习的课程是什么，看起来蛮枯燥的样子。很喜欢爱默生的观点，To trust your own intuition and common sense rather than automatically following pouplar opinion and conforming to the will of the majority.不人云亦云，独自思考而不是屈从于大多数，在近200年前真的是充满了智慧。
所以，最后豹豹选取了网上能够搜到的《战前星期天》，文章不难，以山谷中的平静生活与山谷外的战事形成对比。虽然战争没有蔓延到这个和平的地方，淳朴的人们依旧为了民族和使命毅然走上战场，议论与抒情结合，也寄托作者"人们必须鼓起永远的勇气"。
On Sunday, in a remote valley in the West of England, where the people are few and scattered and placid, there was no more sign among them than the quiet hills of the anxiety that holds the world. They had no news and seemed to want none.
开篇给出地点，英格兰西部边远的山谷。人烟稀少，这里的居民性情平和，似乎没什么烦恼。
there was no more sign among them than the quiet hills of the anxiety that holds the world.
正常语序为there was no more sign of the anxiety that holds the world among them than the quiet hills .
第二段与第三段用了大量细致描写写出了山谷这些村落的平静祥和，世外桃源般的存在。似乎除了待命的邮务长，其他事务与平时没什么不同。
It rained in the morning, but the afternoon was clear and glorious and shining, with all distances revealed far into the heart of Wales and to the high ridges of the Welsh mountains. The cottages of that valley are not gathered into villages, but two or three together or lonely among their fruit-trees on the hillside; and the cottagers, who are always courteous and friendly, said a word or two as one went by, but just what they would have said on any other day and without any question about the war.
上午才下了雨，下午已放晴。远处威尔士山脉巍峨可见。这里的农舍不是集成一个个村落，而是三三两两散落，或孤单掩映在果树丛中。这里的人很友善，但平时的谈话从未涉及过打仗。
后文作者提到事实上他们也从不了解战争，对此也没有探究的欲望。
The country, more than any other in the England, has the secret of peace. It is not wild, though it looks into the wildness of Wales; but all its cultivation, its orchards and hopyards and fields of golden wheat, seem to have the beauty of time upon them, as if men there had long lived happily upon the earth with no desire for change nor fear of decay. It is not a sad beauty of a past cut off from the present, but a mellowness (柔和，温和) that the present inherits from the past; and in the mellowness all the hillside seems a garden to the spacious farmhouses and the little cottages; each led up to by its own narrow, flowery lane. There the meadows are all lawns with the lustrous green of spring even in August, and often over-shadowed by old fruit-trees – cherry, or apple, or pear; and on Sunday after the rain there was an April glory and freshness added to the quiet of the later summer.
这一段写景实在是太恬静了，忍不住都贴了过来。像是口渴喝了一大杯的凉白开。
这个地方无时不美，比起英格兰其他地区。深得和平三味。尽管面对荒原，但山谷并不荒野。果园，啤酒花栽种场以及金黄的麦田似乎都带有时光流动的美感。生活就像习惯了这里的人们一样，并不想做出什么改变。
这里的美不是与世隔绝的悲凉美，而是继承往昔的成熟美，即使是八月也是一派春光，绿意盎然。各种果树投下浓荫。在这个雨霁的星期天，宁静的晚夏有一种四月的荣光和清新。
读这一段莫名想起指环王中对霍比屯的描述。
Nowhere and never in the world can there have been a deeper peace; and the bells from the little red church down by the river seemed to be the music of it, as the song of birds is the music of spring. There one saw how beautiful the life of man can be, and how men by the innocent labours of many generations can give to the earth a beauty it has never known in its wildness.
没有什么地方比这里更有深沉的和平了。山下河边小教堂的钟声，如同春日里百灵鸟清脆的啼鸣。这里的生活美好，人们世世代代淳朴的劳作给这片大地带来荒蛮时代从未有过的美。
但是，这里的平和也感受到了威胁，尽管战争怎么也不会打到这个地方，总有少部分的人不愿意，打开了潘多拉的盒子。于是全世界的人们都要为这些手握胆寒力量的少数人为之受苦受难。
So the next morning one saw a reservist in his uniform saying goodbye to his wife and children at his cottage-gate and then walking up the hill that leads out of the valley with a cheerful smile still on his face. There was the first open sign of trouble, a very little one, and he made the least of it; and, after all, this valley is very far from any possible war, and its harvest and its vintages of perry and cider will surely be gathered in peace.
于是，第二天早晨，人们看见一名预备军身着军服，在自家的农舍门前与妻儿告别。攀过山谷，脸上依旧挂着愉悦的笑容。这是麻烦出现的第一个征兆，一丝蛛丝马迹，而当事人也尽量如无事一般保持镇定，无论怎样仗是打不到家里来的。这里依旧会如同往昔该丰收的丰收，该生活的生活。
But what happiness can there be in that peace, or what security in the mind of man, when the madness of war is let loose in so many other valleys? Here there is a beauty inherited from the past, and added to the earth by man’s will; but the men here are of the same nature and subject to the same madness as those who are gathering to fight on the frontiers.
但作者结尾又提到战争就是战争，即使这里和平，其他的许多山谷正在遭受肆虐，这种和平又有什么心安理得的幸福呢？这里扎根的人民也没什么安稳可言。
人类具有极大的创造力和破坏力，似乎是一种天性，都带着一丝疯狂。总会有人做一些我们厌恶，或许他们也厌恶的事情。但是人类又不是野兽，不能互不相干，漠不关心。一个民族遗忘了共同的人性和人类的前途，那必定会有另一个民族接过这个神圣的使命，无畏无惧捍卫它，直至疯狂尽殆尽，希望才会来临。we are not separate and indifferent like the beasts; and if one nation for the moment forgets our common humanity and its future, then another must take over that sacred charge and guard it without hatred or fear until the madness is passed.
May that be our task now, so that we may wage war only for the future peace of the world and with the lasting courage that needs no stimulant of hate.
结尾点题，人民必须鼓起永远的勇气。
读下来很喜欢的一篇散文，笔随心至，亦庄亦谐。网页有全篇，可自行搜索。
参考本书中文部分。参考陆谷孙老师译文。
这两天没完成计划，只是听完读完了罗尔德大爷的The Twits，有声书不大喜欢，听得耳朵有些躁。王尔德童话五篇全部结束，太喜欢The Remarkable Rocket，里面金句不少。听到"敏感的人就是自己长了鸡眼就要去踩别人两脚的那些人"实在是很不厚道笑喷了。(What is a sensitive person?' said the Cracker to the Roman Candle. 'A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people's toes,' answered the Roman Candle)
剩一篇额外的炸叔朗读的young king,因为没文本准备大概听一听就全部结束。
读了太久散文有些累，准备11月份最后几天将missing may读一读，听一听。书很薄，12月份不准备这么赶了，就这样。
