All through my boyhood and youth, I was known as an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a note-book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or write some poor lines of verse. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no future use; it was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I practiced to acquire it. Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to any one with scenes there is always something worth describing, and town and country are but one continuous subject. But I worked in other ways also; I often accompanied my walks with dramatic dialogues, in which I played many parts; and often exercised myself in writing down conversations from memory.
从我的童年到青年时期，大家一直把我看做一个游手好闲的人，其实我一直在为个人的目标私下忙着，那就是练习写作。我口袋里经常带着两个本本，一本是读的，一本是写的。行走时，我忙于找适当的词句来表达我看到的事物。坐在路旁，我或者看书，或者拿出铅笔和笔记本，记下所见景物的特点，或者写几行不像样的诗句。我就这样生活在词语的天地里。这样写出来的东西并不是要留作将来之用，而是有意识地练习写作。与其说我想做一个作家(虽说也有这种愿望)，还不如说我曾经发誓要学会写作。写作对我具有吸引力，我要通过练习来熟练地掌握它。练习的主要范围是描写，因为任何人只要有知觉，总有值得他描写的东西，而城市和乡村不过是可以经常描写的项目之一。不过我也采用其他练习方式。我时常一边走路，一边进行戏剧的对话，在对话中我扮演好几个角色。我也时常练习凭记忆把谈话写下来。
This was all excellent, no doubt. And yet this was not the most efficient part of my training. Good as it was, it only taught me the choice of the essential note and the right word. And regarded as training, it had one grave defect; for it set me no standards of achievement. So there was perhaps more profit, as there was certainly more effort, in my secret labours at home. Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful and always unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the coordination of parts. I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to lamb, to Wordsworth, to Defoe, To Hawthorne.
这样练习无疑是很好的，但还不是我的训练中最有成效的部分。它好虽好，但只能教会我怎样选择基本的笔调和恰当的词语。作为训练，它有一个严重的缺点，因为它没有给我规定成功的标准。相比之下，当我在家里悄悄地工作时，也许收益更大，因为我肯定要做出更大的努力。每当我读到特别中意的书籍或段落，其中有某一件事说得恰到好处，收到恰如其分的效果，或者表达得特别有力，或者在风格上有巧妙的特色，我非立即坐下来模仿这些特点不可。当然不成功，我自己明白。再试一次，还是不成功，而且一直不成功。可是在这些失败的尝试中，我至少在韵律、匀称、篇章结构方面得到了练习的机会。我曾经这样依样画葫芦地模仿赫兹里特、兰姆、华兹华斯、笛福和霍桑。
That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I have profited or not, that is the way. It was so, if we could trace it out, that all men have learned. Perhaps I hear some one cry out: But this is not the way to be original! It is not; nor is there any way but to be born so. Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this training that shall clip the wings of your originality. Burns is the very type of a most original force in letters, he was of all men the most imitative. Shakespeare himself proceeds directly from a school. It is only from a school that we expect to have good writers; it is almost invariably from a school that great writers issue. Nor is there anything here that should astonish the considerate. Before he can tell what cadences he truly prefers, the student should have tried all that are possible; before he can choose a fitting key of words, he should long have practiced the literary scales; and it is only after years of such exercises that he can sit down at last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing what he want to do and (within the narrow limit of a man’s ability) able to do it.
不管你喜欢不喜欢，这就是学习写作的方法。无论我有没有从中获益，这就是方法。其实，追根究底，人人都是这样学会写作的。或许会有人大声反对：这种方法会使人失去独创性!对，但也没有任何方法会给你带来独创性，除非你天生如此。再说，假如你生而有独创性，这种训练方法也不可能剪断你独创性的翅膀。彭斯可以说是文学上最富于独创性的代表人物，他又偏偏是最善于模仿的。莎士比亚本人直接继承了一个流派。只有继承一个流派，我们才能希望产生优秀作家。伟大作家几乎总是出于某一流派。仔细想一想，这并不奇怪。一个学生只有试验过一切可能试验的曲调，才说出他真正喜欢的曲调;只有对文学的音阶作过长期的练习之后，才能选择最合适的词句的琴键;只有在长年的练习之后，他才能最后坐定下来，那时就会有大批词语召之即来，会有数十个有特色的措辞同时等他挑选，他本人也会知道应该做些什么，并且在个人力所能及的范围内是能够做到这一点的。
