《四季随笔》是吉辛的散文代表作。其中对隐士赖克罗夫特醉心于书籍、自然景色与回忆过去生活的描述，其实是吉辛的自述，作者以此来抒发自己的情感，因而本书是一部富有自传色彩的小品文集。
吉辛穷困的一生，对文学名著的爱好与追求，以及对大自然恬静生活的向往，在书中均有充分的反映。本书分为春、夏、秋、冬四个部分，文笔优美，行文流畅，是英国文学中小品文的珍品之一。
以下是由网友分享的《四季随笔》节选 - 夏 06的内容，让我们一起来感受吉辛的四季吧!
Of how many dwellings can it be said that no word of anger is ever heard beneath its roof, and that no unkindly feeling ever exists between the inmates? Most men's experience would seem to justify them in declaring that, throughout the inhabited world, no such house exists. I, knowing at all events of one, admit the possibility that there may be more; yet I feel that it is to hazard a conjecture; I cannot point with certainty to any other instance, nor in all my secular life (I speak as one who has quitted the world) could I have named a single example.
天底下能有几户人家，屋檐下从没传出过吵嘴的声音，里面居住的人之间从没有过不和睦？依多数人的经验，或许可以说，在有人居住的世界里，这样的人家是不存在的。而我知道无论如何都有那么一户存在，所以也承认或许还可能有更多家。但我感觉这是在冒险臆测，我不能肯定地举出其他例子，在我全部的世俗生活中（我是以一个遁世之人的身份来说这句话的），也找不出一个这样的范例。
It is so difficult for human beings to live together; nay, it is so difficult for them to associate, however transitorily, and even under the most favourable conditions, without some shadow of mutual offence. Consider the differences of task and of habit, the conflict of prejudices, the divergence of opinions (though that is probably the same thing), which quickly reveal themselves between any two persons brought into more than casual contact, and think how much self-subdual is implicit whenever, for more than an hour or two, they co-exist in seeming harmony. Man is not made for peaceful intercourse with his fellows; he is by nature self-assertive, commonly aggressive, always critical in a more or less hostile spirit of any characteristic which seems strange to him. That he is capable of profound affections merely modifies here and there his natural contentiousness, and subdues its expression. Even love, in the largest and purest sense of the word, is no safeguard against perilous irritation and sensibilities inborn. And what were the durability of love without the powerful alliance of habit?
对人们来说，在一起生活是困难的；不，应该说，人与人之间交往是困难的，不管时间多么短暂，甚至在最有利的境遇下，都不可避免地要蒙上相互冒犯的阴影。想想人们工作和习惯的不同，偏见上的冲突，观点上的分歧（尽管那可能是一回事），如果两个人的接触有些密切，这些问题很快会出现。试想一下，让两个人维持一个或两个多小时表面上的和谐，这其中将隐含多少自我克制。人生来就不是要与同类和平共处的，他天性独断专行，通常还咄咄逼人，总怀着多少有些敌意的心态批评自己不熟悉的任何特性。他拥有的深沉情感，只是在某些地方缓和了他好斗的天性，遏制了它的表达。即便是最博大最纯粹意义上的爱心，也不能抵御人们天性里充满危险的怒气和情感。而如果没有习性的强力支撑，又何来爱情的天长地久？
Suppose yourself endowed with such power of hearing that all the talk going on at any moment beneath the domestic roofs of any town became clearly audible to you; the dominant note would be that of moods, tempers, opinions at jar. Who but the most amiable dreamer can doubt it? This, mind you, is not the same thing as saying that angry emotion is the ruling force in human life; the facts of our civilization prove the contrary. Just because, and only because, the natural spirit of conflict finds such frequent scope, does human society hold together, and, on the whole, present a pacific aspect. In the course of ages (one would like to know how many) man has attained a remarkable degree of self-control; dire experience has forced upon him the necessity of compromise, and habit has inclined him (the individual) to prefer a quiet, orderly life. But by instinct he is still a quarrelsome creature, and he gives vent to the impulse as far as it is compatible with his reasoned interests—often, to be sure, without regard for that limit. The average man or woman is always at open discord with some one; the great majority could not live without oft-recurrent squabble. Speak in confidence with any one you like, and get him to tell you how many cases of coldness, alienation, or downright enmity, between friends and kinsfolk, his memory registers; the number will be considerable, and what a vastly greater number of everyday "misunderstandings" may be thence inferred! Verbal contention is, of course, commoner among the poor and the vulgar than in the class of well-bred people living at their ease, but I doubt whether the lower ranks of society find personal association much more difficult than the refined minority above them.
想象一下，如果你天赋异禀，能随时清晰地听到任何城镇中所有人家屋里的所有谈话；那其中的主旋律可能是情绪、脾气和观点的互相冲突。除了性情最随和的空想家，谁还会怀疑这一点？但是，注意了，这不等于说怒气是人类生活的主导力量，我们的文明证明了事实恰恰相反。正是因为，也仅仅因为人类冲突的自然性情能常常得到宣泄，人类社会才能凝聚在一起，并且在总体上呈现出和平的一面。多少个世纪以来（也许你想知道到底多少个），人们获得了一种高度的自制力。悲惨的经验迫使他认识到妥协的必要性，习惯也让他（单个人）更喜欢过一种安静、有条理的生活。但是，他天性仍旧是一个动辄争吵的生灵，只要他认为符合自己合理的利益，那么他便会发泄这种冲动—当然，他常常忽视这种限制。普通男女总会和他人公开发生冲突，大多数人在生活中难免经常发生争吵。私下里和你喜欢的任何一个人谈谈，让他告诉你，在他的记忆中，朋友和亲人之间有过多少次冷战、疏远或是彻底闹翻。这个数量会很惊人，你由此可以推测出日常“误会”的次数会多么庞大！当然，穷人和俗人中发生口角的机会要多于生活舒适的教养好的人们，但是，社会底层人们的人际交往是否就比上流社会的少数人更困难呢，这一点我表示怀疑。
High cultivation may help to self-command, but it multiplies the chances of irritative contact. In mansion, as in hovel, the strain of life is perpetually felt—between the married, between parents and children, between relatives of every degree, between employers and employed. They debate, they dispute, they wrangle, they explode—then nerves are relieved, and they are ready to begin over again. Quit the home and quarrelling is less obvious, but it goes on all about one. What proportion of the letters delivered any morning would be found to be written in displeasure, in petulance, in wrath? The postbag shrieks insults or bursts with suppressed malice. Is it not wonderful—nay, is it not the marvel of marvels—that human life has reached such a high point of public and private organization?
优良的教养也许有助于增强自制力，但也大大增加了交往中激发怒气的机会。不管在豪门大户，还是寒舍陋室，生活的压力总是永恒存在的—在夫妇之间，在父母和孩子之间，在三亲六戚之间，在雇主和雇员之间。他们辩论，争执，吵架，最后战争爆发—然后怒气消退，他们又能够重新开始。离开家后，吵架的机会减少了，但它仍在你的周围继续。早晨送抵的信件中，其中有多少封是在不快、暴躁和发怒的情绪下写就的呢？邮包好像扯着嗓子骂着脏话，或者是压抑的恶意将它撑破。人类生活在公共和私人组织上居然达到这样一个高度—这难道不是很好吗—不，应该说，这不是奇迹中的奇迹吗？
And gentle idealists utter their indignant wonder at the continuance of war! Why, it passes the wit of man to explain how it is that nations are ever at peace! For, if only by the rarest good fortune do individuals associate harmoniously, there would seem to be much less likelihood of mutual understanding and good-will between the peoples of alien lands. As a matter of fact, no two nations are ever friendly, in the sense of truly liking each other; with the reciprocal criticism of countries there always mingles a sentiment of animosity. The original meaning of hostis is merely stranger, and a stranger who is likewise a foreigner will only by curious exception fail to stir antipathy in the average human being. Add to this that a great number of persons in every country find their delight and their business in exasperating international disrelish, and with what vestige of common sense can one feel surprise that war is ceaselessly talked of, often enough declared. In days gone by, distance and rarity of communication assured peace between many realms. Now that every country is in proximity to every other, what need is there to elaborate explanations of the distrust, the fear, the hatred, which are a perpetual theme of journalists and statesmen? By approximation, all countries have entered the sphere of natural quarrel. That they f nd plenty of things to quarrel about is no cause for astonishment. A hundred years hence there will be some possibility of perceiving whether international relations are likely to obey the law which has acted with such beneficence in the life of each civilized people; whether this country and that will be content to ease their tempers with bloodless squabbling, subduing the more violent promptings for the common good. Yet I suspect that a century is a very short time to allow for even justifiable surmise of such an outcome. If by any chance newspapers ceased to exist... Talk of war, and one gets involved in such utopian musings!
而温和的理想家们对战争的连绵不断却表示讶异和愤怒！唉，其实国与国之间相安无事倒是人类智慧无法解释的！因为如果人和人之间只有在罕有的境遇里才能和谐相处，那么不同国家的人们之间更不可能有多少机会互相理解和善意相待了。事实上，就真正喜欢对方的意义而言，国家之间从来不是友好的；在国与国的互相抨击中，总是掺杂着一种敌对的情愫。hostis原本的意思只是陌生人，一个陌生人同时又是外国人，如果不引起普通人的反感，那就是奇怪的例外了。加之每个国家都有很多人专司挑起国际社会敌对情绪，并以此为乐，所以如果你还有一丝常识，就不该对人们无休止讨论战争和频繁宣战表示惊讶。以前，由于距离和通讯手段的匮乏，许多领土间维持了和平。现在各国之间距离如此接近，还需要解释为什么不信任、恐惧、厌恶会成为记者和政治家口中永远的主题吗？由于相互接近，所有国家都进入了必然争吵的领域。他们能找到许多争吵的缘由，这并不让人感到惊奇。一百年后，我们有可能会看到：国际关系能否遵从文明人生活中相得益彰的法则；国家间是否会满足于只用不流血的口角来平息怒火，并为了人们的整体利益而抑制暴力冲动。但是，我怀疑一个世纪的时间太短，甚至不能为这样的结果提供一个合理的猜测。万一报纸停印……一谈起战争，我就会陷入这种乌托邦式的冥想！
