The Delights of Books

书之趣

Sir John Lubbock

约翰.卢布克爵士

作者简介

约翰.卢布克爵士（Sir John Lubbock，1834—1913），英国著名银行家、政治家、自然主义者。作为政治家，他促成了公共假日（Bank Holiday）的设立，并为保护国家古迹作出了杰出贡献。作为自然主义者，他在昆虫学和人类学方面颇有研究，撰写了大量科普读物，如《史前时代》（Prehistoric Times）、《蚂蚁、蜜蜂和马蜂》（Ants, Bees, and Wasps）、《昆虫的起源和变形》（The Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects）等。

本文选自1894年出版的《生活的乐趣》（The Use of Life）。该书为卢布克爵士的休闲之作，成就了这位科学家在文学领域的名声。文中，卢布克爵士以“国王与乞丐的故事”等为喻，展示了阅读的妙趣，发人深省。

Books are to mankind what memory is to the individual. They contain the history of our race, the discoveries we have made, the accumulated knowledge and experience of ages; they picture for us the marvels and beauties of Nature; help us in our difficulties, comfort us in sorrow and in suffering, change hours of ennui into moments of delight, store our minds with ideas, fill them with good and happy thoughts, and lift us out of and above ourselves.

There is an Oriental story of two men: one was a king, who every night dreamt he was a beggar; the other was a beggar, who every night dreamt he was a prince and lived in a palace. I am not sure that the king had very much the best of it. Imagination is sometimes more vivid than reality. But, however this may be, when we read, we may not only (if we wish it) be kings and live in palaces, but, what is far better, we may transport ourselves to the mountains or the seashore, and visit the most beautiful parts of the earth, without fatigue, inconvenience, or expense.

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书之于人类，正如记忆之于个人。书记录着人类的历史与发现，记载着人类日积月累的知识与经验，为我们描绘大自然的奇观美景。书助我们渡过困境，为我们抚慰伤痛，将倦怠时刻变为欢乐时光，让我们的心灵富有创意，头脑充满愉悦，同时不断提升和超越自我。

东方有个关于国王与乞丐的故事。每天晚上，国王梦见自己是个乞丐，乞丐则梦见自己是位王子，住在宫殿。我不能确定国王比乞丐幸福。想象有时比现实更鲜活。我们只要愿意，阅读时不仅能化身国王，住进宫殿，还能置身山峦、海滨，访遍世间至美之景，还毫不疲惫、便利快捷、不花分文。

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Many of those who have had, as we say, all that this world can give, have yet told us they owed much of their purest happiness to books. Ascham, in The Schoolmaster, tells a touching story of his last visit to Lady Jane Grey. He found her sitting in an oriel window reading Plato’s beautiful account of the death of Socrates. Her father and mother were hunting in the park, the hounds were in full cry and their voices came in through the open window. He expressed his surprise that she had not joined them. But said she, “I wist that all their pleasure in the park is but a shadow to the pleasure I find in Plato.”

Macaulay had wealth and fame, rank and power, and yet he tells us in his biography that he owed the happiest hours of his life to books. In a charming letter to a little girl, he says, “Thank you for your very pretty letter, I am always glad to make my little girl happy, and nothing pleases me so much as to see that she likes books, for when she is as old as I am, she will find that they are better than all the tarts and cakes, toys and plays and sights in the world. If anyone would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens and fine dinners, and wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I should not read books, I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.”

许多人拥有世间万物，却把自己许多最纯粹的快乐归功于书。阿斯克姆[1]在《教师》一书中，讲述了最后一次拜访简•格雷[2]女士的感人故事。他看见格雷女士坐在凸肚窗[3]前，读着柏拉图关于苏格拉底之死的精彩篇章。她父母在花园狩猎，敞开的窗户传来人喧、犬吠。作者对格雷女士并未参与表示惊讶。但她说：“与我阅读柏拉图作品的乐趣相比，他们在园中狩猎的乐趣实为幻影。”

麦考莱[4]有钱有势、有声望、有地位，却在自传中表示，自己一生中最快乐的光景是与书籍做伴之时。他曾给一个小女孩写过一封动人的信。信中写道：“你的来信内容很精彩，谢谢你。能让我的小姑娘高兴，我总是很开心。看到你喜欢书，我更是无比开心。当你到了我这个年龄，就会发现书胜过世间一切糕饼、玩具、游戏、美景。如果有人让我做有史以来最伟大的国王，坐拥宫殿花园、锦衣玉食、美酒贵辇、数百仆役，但不许我读书，那我宁愿不做这个国王。我宁愿做居斗室、拥群书的穷汉，也不做不爱阅读的君王。”

Books, indeed, endow us with a whole enchanted palace of thoughts. “There is a wider prospect,” says Jean Paul Richter, “from Parnassus than from the throne.” In one way they give us an even more vivid idea than the actual reality, just as reflections are often more beautiful than real nature. “All mirrors,” says George MacDonald, “are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I look in the glass.”

Precious and priceless are the blessings which the books scatter around our daily paths. We walk, in imagination, with the sublime and enchanting regions.

Without stirring from our firesides we may roam to the most remote regions of the earth, or soar into realms where Spenser’s shapes of unearthly beauty flock to meet us, where Milton’s angels peal in our ears the choral hymns of Paradise. Science, art, literature, philosophy—all that man has thought, all that man has done—the experience that has been bought with the sufferings of a hundred generations—all are garnered up for us in the world of books.

书确能为我们构筑思想的圣殿，魔力非凡。让•保罗•里赫特曾说：“与国王的御座相比，诗坛视野更加广阔。”从某个角度看，书赋予我们的思想比现实世界更鲜活，正如映像往往比自然本身更美妙。乔治•麦克唐纳也说：“所有镜子都是魔镜。向镜中望去，普通小屋亦会变成诗中之屋。”

沿着我们日常生活的小径，书洒下了无价的珍贵祝福。在想象中，我们走遍高山，访遍胜景。

无须离家，我们便能漫游至世上最遥远的地方。我们飞向斯宾塞描绘的国度，美丽仙女成群结队，前来迎接宾客；我们畅游在弥尔顿笔下的乐园，天使高唱颂歌，歌声萦绕耳畔。科学、艺术、文学、哲学——人之所想、人之所为——历代人民以痛苦换取的经验，一切都藏于书中世界。

书助我们渡过困境，为我们抚慰伤痛，将倦怠时刻变为欢乐时光，让我们的心灵富有创意，头脑充满愉悦，同时不断提升和超越自我。

Sir John Lubbock 约翰•卢布克爵士

[1]罗杰.阿斯克姆（Roger Ascham，1515—1568），英国人文主义者、学者。

[2]简.格雷（Lady Jane Grey，1537—1554），英国历史上的“九日女王”，宫廷权力斗争的牺牲品，17岁即被送上断头台。

[3]凸肚窗，突出壁外的窗户。

[4]托马斯.巴宾顿.麦考莱（Thomas Babington Macaulay，1800—1859），英国史学家、政治家，曾任陆军大臣。