《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 27的内容，让我们一起来感受吉辛的四季吧!

Today I have read The Tempest20. It is perhaps the play that I love best, and, because I seem to myself to know it so well, I commonly pass it over in opening the book. Yet, as always in regard to Shakespeare, having read it once more, I find that my knowledge was less complete than I supposed. So it would be, live as long as one might; so it would ever be, whilst one had strength to turn the pages and a mind left to read them.

今天，我读了《暴风雨》。这可能是我最喜欢的一部戏剧作品，一直以来，我自认为对它非常熟悉，所以常常不会打开书来看。但是，正如莎士比亚的所有作品一样，每读上一遍，我就发现我对这部戏剧的了解并非我自以为的那样完整。不管一个人活到多久都是这样的，只要他还有翻动书页的力气和阅读的心思，这一点都永远不会改变。

I like to believe that this was the poet's last work, that he wrote it in his home at Stratford, walking day by day in the fields which had taught his boyhood to love rural England. It is ripe fruit of the supreme imagination, perfect craft of the master hand. For a man whose life's business it has been to study the English tongue, what joy can equal that of marking the happy ease wherewith Shakespeare surpasses, in mere command of words, every achievement of those even who, apart from him, are great? I could fancy that, in The Tempest, he wrought with a peculiar consciousness of this power, smiling as the word of inimitable felicity, the phrase of incomparable cadence, was whispered to him by the Ariel21 that was his genius. He seems to sport with language, to amuse himself with new discovery of its resources. From king to beggar, men of every rank and every order of mind have spoken with his lips; he has uttered the lore of fairyland; now it pleases him to create a being neither man nor fairy, a something between brute and human nature, and to endow its purposes with words. These words, how they smack of the moist and spawning earth, of the life of creatures that cannot rise above the soil! We do not think of it enough; we stint our wonder because we fall short in appreciation. A miracle is worked before us, and we scarce give heed; it has become familiar to our minds as any other of nature's marvels, which we rarely pause to reflect upon.

我愿意相信这是诗人最后的作品，是他在斯特拉特福的家中创作的，那时他每天在原野上散步，这里的原野景色也培养了他从小对英国乡村的热爱。这部作品是高超想象力的成熟果实，是文坛巨擘的完美作品。对于一个终身致力于研究英语语言的英国人，能够体会到莎士比亚仅仅在文字的驾驭上，便轻松怡然地超越了所有可称为伟大作家的成就，试问有什么能与这种快乐相比？我能想象，在创作《暴风雨》时，他对这种力量一定有强烈的感受，他面带笑容倾听埃里厄尔—他的天才精灵—将那巧妙无双的词汇和节奏优美无比的短语轻声告诉他。他似乎在和文字做游戏，靠发现文字的新妙用来取悦自己。从国王到乞丐，每个阶层每种心性的人，都通过他来说话；他将仙境的传说娓娓道来；现在他怀着快乐的心情，创造出一个非人非神的生物，一个介于兽和人之间的东西，并赋予它语言表达的能力。这些语言带着孕育生机的温润泥土的味道，带着未能超越大地的生灵的味道。我们对它的思索还不够，因为欣赏能力不够，我们的惊叹还显得吝啬。一个奇迹在我们面前再现，而我们几乎没有留意；它像大自然的奇迹一样，我们已经司空见惯，很少会停下来仔细考虑。

The Tempest contains the noblest meditative passage in all the plays; that which embodies Shakespeare's final view of life, and is the inevitable quotation of all who would sum the teachings of philosophy. It contains his most exquisite lyrics, his tenderest love passages, and one glimpse of fairyland which—I cannot but think—outshines the utmost beauty of A Midsummer Night's Dream22: Prospero's farewell to the "elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves." Again a miracle; these are things which cannot be staled by repetition. Come to them often as you will, they are ever fresh as though new minted from the brain of the poet. Being perfect, they can never droop under that satiety which arises from the perception of fault; their virtue can never be so entirely savoured as to leave no pungency of gusto for the next approach.

在《暴风雨》中，能找到所有戏剧里最高贵的沉思段落：它表达了莎翁对生命的终极思考，是所有想总结哲学教育精义的人不可避免都会引用的。这部作品里还有莎翁最优美的诗行，有关于爱情最温柔的段落，有对仙境的惊鸿一瞥—我不得不认为—《仲夏夜之梦》最美的文字在它面前也会黯然失色，那就是普洛斯彼罗对“小山、溪流、静湖和丛林的精灵们”的告别词。这又是一个奇迹，这些东西是无论如何重复都不会变味的。不管你看多少遍，这些文字都好像刚从诗人头脑中产生时那样新鲜。它们是完美的，不会让你发现瑕疵而心生厌腻。它们的好处永远无法完全品味殆尽，让你总是心存再次探究它的热情。

Among the many reasons which make me glad to have been born in England, one of the first is that I read Shakespeare in my mother tongue. If I try to imagine myself as one who cannot know him face to face, who hears him only speaking from afar, and that in accents which only through the labouring intelligence can touch the living soul, there comes upon me a sense of chill discouragement, of dreary deprivation. I am wont to think that I can read Homer, and, assuredly, if any man enjoys him, it is I; but can I for a moment dream that Homer yields me all his music, that his word is to me as to him who walked by the Hellenic shore when Hellas lived? I know that there reaches me across the vast of time no more than a faint and broken echo; I know that it would be fainter still, but for its blending with those memories of youth which are as a glimmer of the world's primeval glory. Let every land have joy of its poet; for the poet is the land itself, all its greatness and its sweetness, all that incommunicable heritage for which men live and die. As I close the book, love and reverence possess me. Whether does my full heart turn to the great Enchanter, or to the Island upon which he has laid his spell? I know not. I cannot think of them apart. In the love and reverence awakened by that voice of voices, Shakespeare and England are but one.

有许多原因让我为自己生在英国而高兴，其中最重要的便是我能够用母语阅读莎翁的作品。试想一下，如果我不能面对面地认识他，只能在遥远的地方听到他的声音，并且还是方言，需要费尽心思才能触摸到鲜活的灵魂，那我会感到多么冷落沮丧，多么忧郁失落。我总自以为能读懂荷马，如果只有一个人能欣赏他，那就是我；但是我怎能梦想荷马把他全部的音乐献给我，而我听到的和在昔日古希腊海滩上散步的人听到的是一样的话？我知道，穿过漫长岁月的阻隔，现在传入我耳中的不过是若有若无时断时续的回声罢了；如果不和幼时的记忆相融合，这回声会变得更加微弱，因为幼时的记忆犹如世界远古时代辉煌的一丝微光。让每块土地都享受它的诗人带来的快乐吧；因为诗人代表着土地本身，代表着它所有的伟大与可爱，代表着人们为之生为之死的无以言传的传统。我合上这本书，心中充满着热爱和崇敬。我的心是属于这位伟大的“魔术师”，还是属于那座被他施了魔法的“岛屿”呢？我不知道。我无法将两者分开考虑。当我的热爱与崇敬之情被他那个最优美的诗音唤醒时，莎士比亚和英格兰已经融为一体了。