《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 23的内容，让我们一起来感受吉辛的四季吧!

All through the morning, the air was held in an ominous stillness. Sitting over my books, I seemed to feel the silence; when I turned my look to the window, I saw nothing but the broad, grey sky, a featureless expanse, cold, melancholy. Later, just as I was bestirring myself to go out for an afternoon walk, something white fell softly across my vision. A few minutes more, and all was hidden with a descending veil of silent snow.

整个早晨，空气中酝酿着一种令人不安的寂静。坐着看书的我，似乎也感到了这种沉默；我把目光投向窗外，看到的只是一片广阔的灰色天空，空旷而没有特色，寒冷，忧郁。后来到下午，正当我要起身出门散步时，某个白色的东西轻轻地落入我的视线。几分钟后，一切都隐藏在静静落下的雪花的面纱中了。

It is a disappointment. Yesterday I half believed that the winter drew to its end; the breath of the hills was soft; spaces of limpid azure shone amid slow-drifting clouds, and seemed the promise of spring. Idle by the fireside, in the gathering dusk, I began to long for the days of light and warmth. My fancy wandered, leading me far and wide in a dream of summer England. ...

这真叫人失望。昨天，我还以为冬天要走到尽头了，山峦的气息是柔和的，清澈如洗的碧空在缓慢飘游的白云间闪闪发亮，似乎预示着春天的来临。我在炉火旁无所事事，暮色渐浓，我开始渴望那些光明温暖的日子。我的思绪开始飘荡，带着我梦里遨游夏天的英格兰……

This is the valley of the Blythe. The stream ripples and glances over its brown bed warmed with sunbeams; by its bank the green f lags wave and rustle, and, all about, the meadows shine in pure gold of buttercups. The hawthorn hedges are a mass of gleaming blossom, which scents the breeze. There above rises the heath, yellow-mantled with gorse, and beyond, if I walk for an hour or two, I shall come out upon the sandy cliffs of Suffolk, and look over the northern sea. ...

这是布莱斯的河谷。溪流泛起阵阵涟漪，流过被阳光晒得暖洋洋的棕色河床；岸上，绿色水草像旗帜迎风飘扬，沙沙作响，四周芳草萋萋，中间闪耀着金色的毛茛花。山楂树组成的树篱，简直是一道道灿烂的花墙，让微风也芳香醉人了。那高处是石南，荫庇在黄色的金雀花下，再远处，走上一两个小时，便会来到萨福克郡的砂岩峭壁，俯视着北方的大海……

I am in Wensleydale, climbing from the rocky river that leaps amid broad pastures up to the rolling moor. Up and up, till my feet brush through heather, and the grouse whirrs away before me. Under a glowing sky of summer, this air of the uplands has still a life which spurs to movement, which makes the heart bound. The dale is hidden; I see only the brown and purple wilderness, cutting against the blue with great round shoulders, and, far away to the west, an horizon of sombre heights. ...

我在文斯利代尔，沿着宽阔草场间多礁的小河，爬到了地势起伏的荒野。我继续往上爬，直到脚边全都是石南花，松鸡在我前面呼呼地逃走。在夏日闪亮的天空下，这高地的空气中蕴藏着一种生命力，催人奋进，让人心跳。溪谷隐没不见，我只看到一片棕色和紫色相间的荒野，像一对宽阔圆实的肩膀倚接远处的蓝天，在遥远的西边，是幽暗的高地连成的一条地平线……

I ramble through a village in Gloucestershire, a village which seems forsaken in this drowsy warmth of the afternoon. The houses of grey stone are old and beautiful, telling of a time when Englishmen knew how to build whether for rich or poor; the gardens glow with flowers, and the air is delicately sweet. At the village end, I come into a lane, which winds upwards between grassy slopes, to turf and bracken and woods of noble beech. Here I am upon a spur of the Cotswolds23, and before me spreads the wide vale of Evesham, with its ripening crops, its fruiting orchards, watered by sacred Avon. Beyond, softly blue, the hills of Malvern. On the branch hard by warbles a little bird, glad in his leafy solitude. A rabbit jumps through the fern. There sounds the laugh of a woodpecker from the copse in yonder hollow. ...

我漫步在格洛斯特郡的一座村庄，在温暖的令人恹恹欲睡的午后，它似乎是废弃了的。灰色石头建成的房舍古老而美丽，诉说着一个英国人无论贫富都还懂得修建房屋的时代。花园中的鲜花流光溢彩，空气有微妙的甜美气息。在村子尽头，我走到一条小路上，它顺着绿草茵茵的斜坡蜿蜒向上，延伸到草坡、欧洲蕨和高贵的山毛榉树林中。我又来到了科茨沃尔德丘陵的一个支脉上，面前横亘着伊夫舍姆宽阔的山谷，那里的庄稼就要成熟，果树正在结实，都享受着神圣的埃文河水的灌溉。在远方，那一抹淡蓝色，是马尔文丘陵。附近的树枝上传来了一只小鸟婉转的啼鸣，在树阴下它是寂寞而快乐的；一只兔子跳着跑过那片蕨草；远处山谷的树林里传来了一只啄木鸟的笑声……

In the falling of a summer night, I walk by Ullswater. The sky is still warm with the afterglow of sunset, a dusky crimson smouldering above the dark mountain line. Below me spreads a long reach of the lake, steel-grey between its dim colourless shores. In the profound stillness, the trotting of a horse beyond the water sounds strangely near; it serves only to make more sensible the repose of Nature in this her sanctuary. I feel a solitude unutterable, yet nothing akin to desolation; the heart of the land I love seems to beat in the silent night gathering around me; amid things eternal, I touch the familiar and the kindly earth. Moving, I step softly, as though my footfall were an irreverence. A turn in the road, and there is wafted to me a faint perfume, that of meadow-sweet. Then I see a light glimmering in the farmhouse window—a little ray against the blackness of the great hillside, below which the water sleeps. ...

夏夜将至时，我行走在阿尔斯沃特湖畔。天空在落日的余晖中依然温暖，黑色群山的轮廓上方，闷燃着一缕黯淡的深红色云霞。我的下方，延伸着一片青灰色的湖水，两边是灰暗乏味的河岸。在这深沉的寂静中，湖水远处的一阵马蹄声听起来出奇地清楚，似乎就在附近，更让人感受到大自然在这块庇护地上安憩是很明智的。我感到一种无法言说的孤独，但它与荒凉感毫不相同；我热爱的这块土地的心脏，似乎在聚集于我周围的静夜中跳动；在永恒事物中，我触摸着这块熟悉亲切的土地。我行走时把步伐放得很轻，似乎脚步声是一种不敬。转过一个弯，我嗅到一股淡淡的香气，那是草地的甜美气息。接着，我看到农舍窗户上闪烁着一点灯光——这点光线映衬着黑魆魆的山坡，下面是沉睡着的河水……

A pathway leads me by the winding of the river Ouse. Far on every side stretches a homely landscape, tilth and pasture, hedgerow and clustered trees, to where the sky rests upon the gentle hills. Slow, silent, the river lapses between its daisied banks, its grey-green osier beds. Yonder is the little town of St. Neots. In all England no simpler bit of rural scenery; in all the world nothing of its kind more beautiful. Cattle are lowing amid the rich meadows. Here one may loiter and dream in utter restfulness, whilst the great white clouds mirror themselves in the water as they pass above. ...

我顺着乌斯河蜿蜒的河畔小路前行。河两旁是广阔乡村景色，有田地和草场，灌木篱墙和树林，最远处天空慵懒地靠着温柔的山峦。河水缓慢安静地在雏菊点缀的河岸间流淌，河床上翠柳轻拂。那边是圣尼茨小镇。在整个英格兰，找不到比它更简朴的乡村景色；在全世界，也没有比它更美的风景。牛羊在丰美的草地上低沉哞叫。这里，你可以在完全的宁静中闲荡做梦，天上大块的白色云朵飘过时，在水中可以看到它们的倒影……

I am walking upon the South Downs. In the valleys, the sun lies hot, but here sings a breeze which freshens the forehead and fills the heart with gladness. My foot upon the short, soft turf has an unwearied lightness; I feel capable of walking on and on, even to that farthest horizon where the white cloud casts its floating shadow. Below me, but far off, is the summer sea, still, silent, its ever-changing blue and green dimmed at the long limit with luminous noontide mist. Inland spreads the undulant vastness of the sheep-spotted downs, beyond them the tillage and the woods of Sussex weald, coloured like to the pure sky above them, but in deeper tint. Near by, all but hidden among trees in yon lovely hollow, lies an old, old hamlet, its brown roofs decked with golden lichen; I see the low church-tower, and the little graveyard about it. Meanwhile, high in the heaven, a lark is singing. It descends; it drops to its nest, and I could dream that half the happiness of its exultant song was love of England. ...

我在南岗上散步。山谷中，阳光热辣辣照着，但这里有吟唱的微风轻拂额头，让人精神一振，心里充满喜悦。踩在低矮柔软的草地上，我的步伐轻快，不知疲惫；我觉得自己可以一直走啊走，走到远处的地平线，那里有白色浮云投下的阴影。我下面的远处，是夏天的海，静寂，沉默，在正午明亮的薄雾中，它不断变幻的蓝色和绿色因为遥远而模糊了。向内陆延伸的是开阔起伏的高地，上面点缀着白色的绵羊，高地的尽头，是苏塞克斯郡原野的田地和树林，它们的颜色点染得像上方的蓝天，不过更深浓。附近可爱山谷的树丛间，掩映着一座古老的小村落，棕色的房顶装饰着金色的苔藓；我看见教堂低矮的钟楼，还有它周围小小的墓地。此时，在天空高处，有一只云雀在歌唱。它飞回巢中，我可以想象，它欢愉歌声中一半的快乐是对英格兰的热爱……

It is all but dark. For a quarter of an hour I must have been writing by a glow of firelight reflected on to my desk; it seemed to me the sun of summer. Snow is still falling. I see its ghostly glimmer against the vanishing sky. To-morrow it will be thick upon my garden, and perchance for several days. But when it melts, when it melts, it will leave the snowdrop. The crocus, too, is waiting, down there under the white mantle which warms the earth.

夜幕完全降临了。我一定是借着映到书桌上的一缕炉火的光亮，写作了一刻钟，它在我眼里就像是夏天的艳阳。雪还在下着，我看到在逐渐变黑的天空中，落雪带着一丝惨淡的微光。明天，我的花园会覆上厚厚一层雪，也许要持续几天吧，但是当雪融化时，会留下雪滴莲。还有藏红花，它也在暖热大地的雪毯下面等待开放呢。