《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 09的内容，让我们一起来感受吉辛的四季吧!

I read much less than I used to do; I think much more. Yet what is the use of thought which can no longer serve to direct life? Better, perhaps, to read and read incessantly, losing one's futile self in the activity of other minds.

我书读得比以前少，想的却比以前多得多了。然而若不能用来引导生活，那思想有什么用处？也许还不如一直不停地读啊读，把庸碌的自己湮没在他人的思想中。

This summer I have taken up no new book, but have renewed my acquaintance with several old ones which I had not opened for many a year. One or two have been books such as mature men rarely read at all—books which it is one's habit to "take as read"; to presume sufficiently known to speak of, but never to open. Thus, one day my hand fell upon the Anabasis7, the little Oxford edition which I used at school, with its boyish sign-manual on the fly-leaf, its blots and underlinings and marginal scrawls. To my shame I possess no other edition; yet this is a book one would like to have in beautiful form. I opened it, I began to read—a ghost of boyhood stirring in my heart—and from chapter to chapter was led on, until after a few days I had read the whole.

这个夏天，我没有读任何新书，只是重温了几本许多年不曾翻开的旧书。其中有一两本是成年人很少读的—是人们习惯上“以为读过”的书，觉得对其熟悉到可以谈论的地步，但其实从未打开过。一天，我的手落在了《远征记》上，这本牛津袖珍版的书，我上学时用过，它的扉页上还有我孩子气的签名，里面有污迹和下划线，书页边缘有潦草的字迹。惭愧的是，这本书我没有其他版本，而这是一本人们认为应该精美装潢的书。我打开它，开始阅读—童年的一个精灵在心里翻腾—我一章一章地读下去，几天后便读完了整本书。

I am glad this happened in the summer-time, I like to link childhood with these latter days, and no better way could I have found than this return to a school-book, which, even as a school-book, was my great delight.

我很高兴读这本书是在夏天。我喜欢把童年和夏日联系起来，而没有比重温学校读物更好的联结两者的方式了，是啊，即使只是学校读物，也给了我极大的欢乐。

By some trick of memory I always associate school-boy work on the classics with a sense of warm and sunny days; rain and gloom and a chilly atmosphere must have been far the more frequent conditions, but these things are forgotten. My old Liddell and Scott8 still serves me, and if, in opening it, I bend close enough to catch the SCENT of the leaves, I am back again at that day of boyhood (noted on the flyleaf by the hand of one long dead) when the book was new and I used it for the first time. It was a day of summer, and perhaps there fell upon the unfamiliar page, viewed with childish tremor, half apprehension and half delight, a mellow sunshine, which was to linger for ever in my mind.

也许是回忆作祟的缘故，我总是将学童时阅读经典作品与温暖清朗日子的感觉联系在一起；阴雨冰冷的天气一定是常有的，但我已经遗忘了。我的旧《希英字典》依然可用，打开它，俯身细嗅书页的味道，就好像又回到童年第一次用它的那一天（日期由一个已故很久的人写在了扉页上），这本字典还是崭新的。那是一个夏日，带着孩子气的激动，我忧喜参半地翻着那陌生的书页，或许有一缕和煦的阳光落在上面，也永远留在我的脑海中。

But I am thinking of the Anabasis. Were this the sole book existing in Greek, it would be abundantly worthwhile to learn the language in order to read it. The Anabasis is an admirable work of art, unique in its combination of concise and rapid narrative with colour and picturesqueness. Herodotus9 wrote a prose epic, in which the author's personality is ever before us. Xenophon, with curiosity and love of adventure which mark him of the same race, but self-forgetful in the pursuit of a new artistic virtue, created the historical romance. What a world of wonders in this little book, all aglow with ambitions and conflicts, with marvels of strange lands; full of perils and rescues, fresh with the air of mountain and of sea! Think of it for a moment by the side of Caesar's Commentaries10; not to compare things incomparable, but in order to appreciate the perfect art which shines through Xenophon's mastery of language, his brevity achieving a result so different from that of the like characteristic in the Roman writer. Caesar's conciseness comes of strength and pride; Xenophon's, of a vivid imagination. Many a single line of the Anabasis presents a picture which deeply stirs the emotions. A good instance occurs in the fourth book, where a delightful passage of unsurpassable narrative tells how the Greeks rewarded and dismissed a guide who had led them through dangerous country. The man himself was in peril of his life; laden with valuable things which the soldiers had given him in their gratitude, he turned to make his way through the hostile region.

我又想起了《远征记》。如果它是唯一幸存的希腊文书籍，那也有充足的理由来学习希腊语以便阅读原著。《远征记》是一本令人钦佩的艺术品，它的独特之处在于叙事之简练迅疾，并且有丰富的色彩和画面感。希罗多德创作了一部抒情史诗，作者的人格镌刻在作品中，永远呈现在我们面前。与他同属一类人物，色诺芬对冒险有同样的好奇和热爱，但在追求新的艺术价值上却是忘我的，他创作了一部历史传奇。这本小书中蕴藏了一个奇妙的世界，其中有熠熠生辉的雄心、冲突和异域风物；充满了危险和拯救的故事，散发出大山和海洋的清新气息！把它和恺撒的《内战记》放到一起来思量，并非要试图比较无相比基础的事物，而是为了欣赏色诺芬在文字驾驭上表现出来的完美艺术。和那位与他风格相似的罗马作家相比，他的简洁达到的效果截然不同。恺撒的简练是源自一种力量和骄傲，而色诺芬则是源自他鲜活的想象力。《远征记》里的许多单句描绘了一幅感人至深的图画。第四本书中有一个很好的例子：这是一段让人愉悦的文字，用无与伦比的叙事手法，讲述了希腊人犒赏并送别一个将他们带出危险地域的引路人。这个引路人自己也是命悬一线，他带着士兵们出于感激赠予他的贵重物品，转身横穿敌占区而去。

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced].

[原为希腊文，恕难提供。]

When evening came he took leave of us, and went his way by night.

“当夜晚来临，他与我们告别，消失在茫茫夜色中”。

To my mind, words of wonderful suggestiveness. You see the wild, eastern landscape, upon which the sun has set. There are the Hellenes, safe for the moment on their long march, and there the mountain tribesman, the serviceable barbarian, going away, alone, with his tempting guerdon, into the hazards of the darkness.

在我的脑海中，这是饶有意味的妙句。你似乎看到血色夕阳落入东方的荒野。有一些在长途跋涉中暂时安全了的希腊人，还有一个山地部落族人，也就是那个引路的没有开化的人，他带着令人垂涎的酬劳独自离开，消失在险象环生的黑暗中。

Also in the fourth book, another picture moves one in another way. Among the Carduchian Hills two men were seized, and information was sought from them about the track to be followed. "One of them would say nothing, and kept silence in spite of every threat; so, in the presence of his companion, he was slain. Thereupon that other made known the man's reason for refusing to point out the way; in the direction the Greeks must take there dwelt a daughter of his, who was married."

也是在第四本书里，有一幅画面让人生出另一种感动。在卡迪克亚山里，他们抓住两个人盘问方向。“其中一个在百般威胁下，始终不发一言，结果他在同伴面前被杀死。后来他的同伴道出了他拒绝指路的原因，原来在希腊人的必经之路上，住着他已经出嫁的女儿。”

It would not be easy to express more pathos than is conveyed in these few words. Xenophon himself, one may be sure, did not feel it quite as we do, but he preserved the incident for its own sake, and there, in a line or two, shines something of human love and sacrifice, significant for all time.

以寥寥数语传达出这样深沉的悲伤，是不易超越的。也许可以肯定，连色诺芬自己都没有我们感受得深刻，但是他把事件的原貌描摹了下来，在这几行文字间，闪耀着的人类爱和牺牲的光芒，这在所有时代都是有意义的。