《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 - 冬 11的内容，让我们一起来感受吉辛的四季吧!
It angers me to pass a grocer's shop, and see in the window a display of foreign butter. This is the kind of thing that makes one gloom over the prospects of England. The deterioration of English butter is one of the worst signs of the moral state of our people. Naturally, this article of food would at once betray a decline in the virtues of its maker; butter must be a subject of the dairyman's honest pride, or there is no hope of its goodness. Begin to save your labour, to aim at dishonest profits, to feel disgust or contempt for your work—and the churn declares every one of these vices. They must be very prevalent, for it is getting to be a rare thing to eat English butter which is even tolerable. What! England dependent for dairy-produce upon France, Denmark, America? Had we but one true statesman—but one genuine leader of the people—the ears of English landowners and farmers would ring and tingle with this proof of their imbecility.
经过食品店，看到橱窗里面陈列着外国黄油，我感到一阵愤怒。正是这种事情让人担忧英格兰的未来，英国黄油的衰退是我们民族道德状态最糟糕的象征之一。自然，这种食品也同时反映出它的制造者美德上的堕落；黄油一定要是乳牛场主的骄傲，否则不能指望它的品质优良。如果他开始节省劳力，依靠不诚实手段获利，厌恶或鄙视自己的工作，那搅乳器会将这些恶习一一反映出来。这种行为一定是非常普遍的，因为仅仅是让人可以容忍的英国黄油，现在也越来越难以吃到了。什么！英格兰食用的乳制品竟然要依赖从法国、丹麦和美国进口？假使我们有一个真正的政治家——一个真正的人民领袖——英国的地主和农场主的耳朵，就会听到对他们愚蠢低能的指证而隐隐作痛了。
Nobody cares. Who cares for anything but the show and bluster which are threatening our ruin? English food, not long ago the best in the world, is falling off in quality, and even our national genius for cooking shows a decline; to anyone who knows England, these are facts significant enough. Foolish persons have prated about "our insular cuisine," demanding its reform on Continental models, and they have found too many like unto themselves who were ready to listen; the result will be, before long, that our excellence will be forgotten, and paltry methods be universally introduced, together with the indifferent viands to which they are suited. Yet, if any generality at all be true, it is a plain fact that English diet and English virtue—in the largest sense of the word—are inseparably bound together.
没有人在意这个，除了预示我们毁灭的迹象和恐吓外，谁还在乎其他呢？不久前还是世界顶级的英国食物，质量正在退步，甚至我们国家烹饪天才的水平也显示出退步；对任何了解英格兰的人来说，这些都是意义重大的情况。愚蠢的人们空谈“我们岛国的烹饪术”，要求它按照欧洲大陆模式进行改革，而且还找到了许多和他们一样的人愿意听；结果是，我们的优良传统不久之后会被遗忘，不高明的烹调方法和与之搭配的平庸食品，会被广泛引进。但是，如果确实有任何正确的普遍结论，那这个事实是很明显的，英国饮食和英国美德——在这个词最广泛的意义上——是不可分割地结合在一起的。
Our supremacy in this matter of the table came with little taking of thought; what we should now do is to reflect upon the things which used to be instinctive, perceive the reasons of our excellence, and set to work to re-establish it. Of course the vilest cooking in the kingdom is found in London; is it not with the exorbitant growth of London that many an ill has spread over the land? London is the antithesis of the domestic ideal; a social reformer would not even glance in that direction, but would turn all his zeal upon small towns and country districts, where blight may perhaps be arrested, and whence, some day, a reconstituted national life may act upon the great centre of corruption. I had far rather see England covered with schools of cookery than with schools of the ordinary kind; the issue would be infinitely more hopeful. Little girls should be taught cooking and baking more assiduously than they are taught to read. But with ever in view the great English principle—that food is only cooked aright when it yields the utmost of its native and characteristic savour. Let sauces be utterly forbidden—save the natural sauce made of gravy. In the same way with sweets; keep in view the insurpassable English ideals of baked tarts (or pies, if so you call them), and boiled puddings; as they are the wholesomest, so are they the most delicious of sweet cakes yet invented; it is merely a question of having them well made and cooked. Bread, again; we are getting used to bread of poor quality, and ill-made, but the English loaf at its best—such as you were once sure of getting in every village—is the faultless form of the staff of life. Think of the glorious revolution that could be wrought in our troubled England if it could be ordained that no maid, of whatever rank, might become a wife unless she had proved her ability to make and bake a perfect loaf of bread.
我们在餐桌上的霸权，得来没费什么思量。现在我们要做的，就是思考那些过去曾是本能的东西，体会我们优秀的原因，并着手重建它。当然，这个王国最糟糕的烹饪在伦敦可以找到，许多恶习不正是由于伦敦的过度扩张，才在这块国土蔓延吗？伦敦是家庭理想的对立面，社会改革者甚至都不愿朝那个方向扫上一眼，而把所有的热情放在小镇和乡村地区，社会病害在那里或许会得到抑制，从那里重建的国民生活，有一天可能会影响到腐败中心。比起普通学校，我更愿意看到英国遍地都是烹调学校，这样一来，这件事成功的希望就大大增加了。比起读书，我们应该教授女孩子更用心地学习烹煮烘焙。但要根据伟大的英国原则——只有调出食物最天然的特有味道，才算正确的烹饪方法。彻底禁用调味料吧——除了肉汤做成的天然调味料。同样也禁用糖果吧，请牢记烤果馅饼（或派，如果你这么叫的话）和煮布丁这些无法超越的英国理想食物吧，它们是最健康的，也是迄今发明出的甜蛋糕中最美味的，问题只在于正确地准备和制作它们。再来说说面包，我们正习惯于吃粗制滥造的劣质面包，而最好的英国面包——就是你曾经在每一个村庄都能吃到的那种——它是生活中最完美无缺的主食。如果规定每个未婚女子，不管属于哪个社会阶层，必须证明自己能够制作并烤出一块完美的面包，然后才能嫁作人妇，那想想在我们堪忧的英格兰会发生怎样一场光荣的革命吧！
