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1. Four months before the election day, five men gathered in a small conference room at the Reagan-Bush headquarters and reviewed an oversize calendar that marked the remaining days of the 1984 presidential campaign. It was the last Saturday in June and at ten o'clock in the morning the rest of the office was practically deserted. Even so, the men kept the door shut and the drapes carefully drawn. The three principals and their two deputies had come from around the country for a critical meeting. Their aim was to devise a strategy that would guarantee Ronald Reagan's resounding reelection to a second term in the White House.
It should have been easy. These were battle-tested veterans with long ties to Reagan and even longer ones to the Republican party, men who understood presidential politics as well as any in the country. The backdrop of the campaign was hospitable, with lots of good news to work with: America was at peace, and the nation's economy, a key factor in any election, was rebounding vigorously after recession. Furthermore, the campaign itself was lavishly financed, with plenty of money for a topflight staff, travel, and television commercials. And, most important, their candidate was Ronald Reagan, a president of tremendous personal popularity and dazzling communication skills. Reagan has succeeded more than any president since John. F. Kennedy in projecting a broad vision of America -a nation of renewed military strength, individual initiative, and smaller federal government.
(1) 在离选举日还有四个月的时间，有五个人聚集在里根－布什总部的一个小型会议室里，翻着看一张硕大无比的日历，日历上清晰地标识出了1984年总统竞选剩下的日子。这是六月份的最后一个星期六的上午10时，整幢办公楼的其他部分几近人去楼空。即便如此，这几个人仍将大门紧闭，小心翼翼地拉下窗帘。三个主要人物及其二个副手从美国的不同地方汇聚在一起，召开一个殊为重要的会议。他们的目标是构思出一种策略，来确保里根能再次当选，在第二任期内再度入主白宫。
要谋求再次当选理应轻而易举。这是一些久经沙场的退伍老兵，与里根有着千丝万缕的漫长联系，与共和党的联系甚至更为久远。这些人深谙总统政治，一如他们熟知这个国家中的所有政治事务那样。竞选的背景十分宜人，可供大做文章的好消息俯拾皆是：美国正置身于太平盛世之中；作为选举的一个关键因素，整个国家的经济在步出萧条期之后正强劲反弹。此外，竞选本身所筹得的款项更是不计其数。用于支付一流水平的竞争班子工作人员工资、进行巡回造势、以及制作播放电视广告的钱款绰绰有余。最为重要的是，他们所推介的总统候选人是罗纳尔德• 里根（Ronald Reagan），一位风度翩翩，魅力无穷，又极具迷人沟通技巧的执政总统。与约翰•F•肯尼迪（John F. Kennedy）以来的任何一位历届总统相比，里根更成功地勾勒出了一幅广阔的关于美国未来的前景--美国将成了一个重振军事雄风、民众富于个人进取心、联邦政府更加精简高效的国家。
(2) 这应该不是件难事。这都是些跟着里根多年、久经沙场的老将，他们跟共和党则有更深厚的渊源，是这个国家里最熟悉总统政治的人。竞选的背景也很有利，也很多好消息可供炒作。例如，美国上下一片和平，美国经济这一竞选要素也在经过一段时间的衰退之后开始强劲反弹。此外，这次竞选本身得到了慷慨资助，因此有充裕的资用于组织一流的竞选班子、支付巡回演讲和电视广告的费用。而最重要的一点是，他们的候选人是罗纳德•里根，他可是位极具个人魅力和沟通技巧的总统。自约翰•F•肯尼迪总统以来，里根是最成功地勾勒出美国蓝图的总统：一个军事力量复兴、富有个人进取心、联邦政府得以精简的国家。
2. Opera is expensive: that much is inevitable. But expensive things are not inevitably the province of the rich unless we abdicate society's power of choice. We can choose to make opera, and other expensive forms of culture, accessible to those who cannot individually pay for it. The question is: why should we? Nobody denies the imperatives of food, shelter, defense, health and education. But even in a prehistoric cave, mankind stretched out a hand not just to eat, drink or fight, but also to draw. The impulse towards culture, the desire to express and explore the world through imagination and representation is fundamental. In Europe, this desire has found fulfillment in the masterpieces of our music, art, literature and theatre. These masterpieces are the touchstones for all our efforts; they are the touchstones for the possibilities to which human thought and imagination may aspire; they carry the most profound messages that can be sent from one human to another.
聆听歌剧，无疑昂贵至极。但是，昂贵的事物并非必定属于富人的范畴，除非我们放弃社会的选择权。我们可以选择去使歌剧以及其他某些昂贵的文化形式也能为那些不具备个人支付能力的人所享受。但问题是，我们有必要这么做吗？没人会否认食物、居所、防护、健康与教育的不可或缺性。但即便是在史前时代的洞穴中，人类伸出手来，早就不单纯是为了吃、喝或搏杀，而且亦进行绘画创作。人类对于文化的冲动，通过形象思维和再现手段来表现并探索世界的欲望，乃亘古有之。在欧洲，这一欲望在我们的音乐、艺术、文学和戏剧杰作中寻找到了其实现形式。这些杰作构成了我们全部努力的试金石。作为试金石，它们能衡量出人类的思想和想象力所可能企及的程度。它们携带着最寓意深刻的主题，可在人类彼此间相互传递。
3. I agree to some extent with my imaginary English reader. American literary historians are perhaps prone to view their own national scene too narrowly, mistaking prominence for uniqueness. They do over-phrase their own literature, or certainly its minor figures. And Americans do swing from aggressive overphrase of their literature to an equally unfortunate, imitative deference. But then, the English themselves are somewhat insular in their literary appraisals. Moreover, in fields where they are not pre-eminent - e. g. in painting and music -they too alternate between boasting of native products and copying those of the Continent. How many English paintings try to look as though they were done in Paris; how many times have we read in articles that they really represent an \"English tradition\" after all.
To speak of American literature, then, is not to assert that it is completely unlike that of Europe. Broadly speaking, America and Europe have kept step. At any given moment the traveler could find examples in both of the same architecture, the same styles in dress, the same books on the shelves. Ideas have crossed the Atlantic as freely as men and merchandise, though sometimes more slowly. When I refer to American habit, thoughts, etc., I intend some sort of qualification to precede the word, for frequently the difference between America and Europe (especially England) will be one of degree, sometimes only of a small degree. The amount of divergence is a subtle affair, liable to perplex the Englishman when he looks at America. He is looking at a country which in important senses grew out of his own, which in several ways still resembles his own - and which is yet a foreign country. There are odd overlappings and abrupt unfamiliarities; kinship yields to a sudden alienation, as when we hail a person across the street, only to discover from his blank response that we have mistaken a stranger for a friend.
在某种程度上，我赞同我那假想中的英国读者的观点。美国文学史家或许惯于过分狭隘地看待其本国文坛，误将卓著当作独特。他们确实会用过多的笔墨来渲染其本国文学，至少，对其次要作家他们肯定会这样做。此外，美国人确实会走极端，要么咄咄逼人地大肆渲染其文学，要么进行着同样不幸的亦步亦趋式的顶礼膜拜。但反过来说，英国人自己在其文学鉴赏中也显得有些狭隘愚陋。此外，在他们并无上乘表现的领域--例如绘画与音乐，他们也会走极端，不是吹嘘他们本国的作品，就是大肆模仿欧洲大陆的作品。有多少幅英国绘画试图看上去仿佛是在巴黎完成的；但我们又有多少次曾在文章中读到它们真正代表着一种\"英国式的传统\"呢？
那么，要谈论美国文学，倒并非意欲断言，它与欧洲文学全然大相径庭。广而言之，美国与欧洲一直同步发展，协调一致。在任何一个特定的时刻，旅行者在两地均能目睹同一样式的建筑实例，相同款式的服饰，书架上相同的书籍。在大西洋两岸，思想如同人员与货物往来一样自由交流，尽管有时会略显迟缓。当我提及美国式的习惯、思想等概念时，我意欲在\"美国式的\"这一词汇之前加上某种限定，因为欧美（尤其是英美）之间的差异往往只是程度上的差异而已，并且有时候仅仅只是微乎其微的一点程度差异而已。差异的多寡是件极为微妙的事务，这极容易使一个英国人在审视美国时大惑不解。他所审视的那个国家，从某些重要的意义上来说，诞生于他自己的国家，并在某些方面仍与他自己的国家相差无几--然而，它却实实在在是一个异邦。两者间存在着某些古怪的交替重迭，以及令人甚感突兀的陌生感；亲缘关系已让位于一种突如其来的异化与疏远，这种情景仿佛就像我们隔着马路向另一个人打招呼，结果却从这个人漠无表情的反应中发现，我们原来竟然错将生人当成了熟人。
4. In some societies people want children for what might be called familial reasons: to extend the family line or the family name, to propitiate the ancestors; to enable the proper functioning of religious rituals involving the family. Such reasons may seem thin in the modern, secularized society but they have been and are powerful indeed in other places.
In addition, one class of family reasons shares a border with the following category, namely, having children in order to maintain or improve a marriage: to hold the husband or occupy the wife; to repair or rejuvenate the marriage; to increase the number of children on the assumption that family happiness lies that way. The point is underlined by its converse: in some societies the failure to bear children (or males) is a threat to the marriage and a ready cause for divorce.
Beyond all that is the profound significance of children to the very institution of the family itself. To many people, husband and wife alone do not seem a proper family -they need children to enrich the circle, to validate its family character, to gather the redemptive influence of offspring. Children need the family, but the family seems also to need children, as the social institution uniquely available, at least in principle, for security, comfort, assurance, and direction in a changing, often hostile, world. To most people, such a home base, in the literal sense, needs more than one person for sustenance and in generational extension.
(1) 在某些社会中，人们希望拥有孩子是出于所谓的家庭原因：传宗接代，光宗耀祖，博取祖辈的欢心，使那些涉及到整个家族的宗教仪式得以发挥其应有的作用。此类原因在现代世俗化的社会中似显苍白，但它们在其他地方曾一度构成并确实仍在构成强有力的理由。 此外，有一类家庭原因与下列类别不无共通之处，这便是：生儿育女是为着维系或改善婚姻：能拴住丈夫或者使妻子不致于无所事事；修复婚姻或为婚姻注入新的活力；多子多孙，以为家庭幸福，惟系于此。这一点更可因其相反情形而得以凸现：在某些社会中，无法生儿育女（或无法生育男孩）于婚姻而言可构成一种威胁，并可作为离婚的一个顺理成章的（或现成的）缘由。
除了所有这一切以外，还有一个原因，那就是后代对于家庭这一体制本身所具有的深远意义。对许多人来说，夫妇两人尚不足以构成一个真正意义上的家庭--夫妻需要孩子来丰富其两人小天地，赋予该小天地以真正意义上的家庭性质，并从子孙后代身上获取某种回报。
孩子需要家庭，但家庭似乎也需要孩子。作为一种社会体制，家庭以其特有的方式，至少从原则上说，可在一个变幻莫测、常常是充满敌意的世界中让人从中获取某种安全、慰藉、保障，以及价值取向。于大多数人而言，这样的一个家庭基础，即使从其表层意义上来讲，也需要不至一个人来维持其存在，并使其世代相传，生生不息。
(2) 在某些社会中，人们希望拥有孩子是出于所谓的家庭原因：传宗接代，光宗耀祖，讨好祖辈，使那些涉及到家庭的宗教仪式得以正常进行。此类原因在现代世俗化的社会中似显苍白，但它们在其他地方曾一度构成并确实仍在构成强有力的理由。
此外，有一类家庭原因与下列类别不无共通之处，这便是：生儿育女是为了维系或改善婚姻：能拴住丈夫或者使妻子不致于无所事事；修复或重振婚姻；多子多孙，以为家庭幸福惟有此法。这一点更可以由其反 面得到昭示：在某些社会中，无法生儿育女（或无法生育男孩）对婚姻而言是一种威胁，还可作为离婚的现成借口。
后代对于家庭这一体制本身所具有的深远意义远非如此。对许多人来说，夫妻两人尚不足以构成一个真正意义上的家庭——夫妻需要孩子来丰富其两人小天地，赋予该小天地以真正意义上的家庭性质，并从子孙后代身上获取某种回报。
孩子需要家庭，但家庭似乎也需要孩子。家庭作为一种社会机构，以其特有的方式，至少从原则上说，可在一个变幻莫测、常常是充满敌意的世界中让人从中获取某种安全、慰藉、保障，以及价值取向。
5. The thirty-second day out of Bombay began inauspiciously. In the morning a sea smashed one of the galley doors. We dashed in through lots of steam and found the cook very wet and indignant with the ship: \"She's getting worse every day. She's trying to drown me in front of my own stove!\" He was very angry. We pacified him, and the carpenter, though washed away twice from there, managed to repair the door. Through that accident our dinner was not ready till late, but it didn't matter in the end because Knowles, who went to fetch it, got knocked down by a sea and the dinner went over the side. The ship's captain, looking more hard and thin-lipped than ever, would not notice that the ship, asked to do too much, appeared to lose heart altogether for the first time since we knew her.
出孟买湾之后的第32天开始就透着些许的不祥。清晨，海浪先是将一扇船门砸坏。我们冒着浓浓的雾气冲了进去，发现厨师浑身湿透，正在对这条船大发牢骚。\"它变得一天比一天不中用了。它愣是要想法子把我淹死在这炉灶前。\"他显得异常的愤怒。我们设法让他平静下来，而木工尽管被海水冲走过两次，但还是努力把门修好。由于发生了这一变故，我们的晚饭直到很晚才弄好，但这一点最终也变得无关紧要，因为前去厨房端饭菜的Knowles被汹涌的波涛掀倒在地，饭菜顺着船舷全都撒入海中。船长脸上的表情变得愈发严峻，双唇紧咬。他全然没能意识到，整条船由于被要求去完成许多它力所不能及的任务，打从我们认识它以来，首次出现了力不从心的迹象。
6. Michael Jordan, a basketball player in whom commentators have discerned aristocratic qualities and supernatural powers, has retired from the game that made him one of the worlds' best known and best paid sportsmen.
Last week's announcement was premature by most people's measurement - Jordan is 30 and at the height of his playing and earning power - but it was not, by his own account, taken hastily, or rashly. \"This is, \" he said, with a rare stumble, \" the perfect timing for me to walk away.\"
After three championships with the Chicago Bulls, a second gold medal with the US team at the 1992 Olympics, Jordan felt his motivation slipping away. \"I'm at the pinnacle, \" he told a thronged press conference. \"I just feel I don't have anything else to prove.\"
But this explanation may appear too simple to satisfy the skeptics, who have recently discovered that Jordan does not lead an untroubled private life. First came the allegations that he gambled - in a country where gambling is mostly illegal - and that his gambling was out of control. Then his father was shot dead on July 23.
迈克尔．乔丹，一位被评论家们誉为有着贵族气质和超凡才华的篮球运动员，已经从篮坛隐退，而正是篮球这项运动。使其成为世界上最为著名和报酬最为丰厚的运动员之一。
依照大多数人的衡量标准，上周的宣布显得为时过早，因为乔丹刚年届30，正处在其运动生涯和赚钱本领之颠峰。但按他自己的说法，他作出这一决定，既非一时冲动，亦非出于鲁莽。\"这于我而言--\"他说道，带着一种罕见的吞吞吐吐，\"不啻是淡出体坛的绝佳时机。\"
在随芝加哥公牛队赢取了三次冠军，并随美国队在1992年奥运会上再夺金牌之后，乔丹觉得他的行为动机正在悄然消逝。\"我已攀至我事业的顶峰\"，他在一个人满为患的记者招待会上告诉大家，\"我真的觉得我已经没有什么别的东西好去证明的了。\"
但此番解释对于那些持怀疑态度的人来说显得过于简单，无法令人置信。这些怀疑论调者最近发现，乔丹并非过着一种风平浪静的个人生活。首先传出的是他进行赌博的传言--在一个赌博很大程度上为非法的国家里，并且，他的赌博已到了无法收拾的地步。其次是他的父亲于7月23日被人枪杀身亡。
7. Though fond of many acquaintances, I desire an intimacy only with a few. The Man in Black, whom I have often mentioned, is one whose friendship I could wish to acquire, because he possesses my esteem. His manners, it is true, are tinctured with some strange inconsistencies, and he may be justly termed a humorist in a nation of humorists. Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects to be thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence; though his conversation be replete with the most sordid and selfish maxims, his heart is dilated with the most unbounded love. I have known him profess himself a man-hater, while his cheek was glowing with compassion; and, while his looks were softened into pity, I have heard him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature. Some affect humanity and tenderness, others boast of having such dispositions from Nature; but he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his natural benevolence. He takes as much pains to hide his feelings, as any hypocrite would to conceal his indifference; but on every unguarded moment the mask drops off, and reveals him to the most superficial observer.
尽管我喜欢广交朋友，但我只愿与为数不多的几人成为至交。我所提及的那位黑衣男士，就是那样一个我希冀与其成为莫逆之交的人，因为他深得我的景仰。诚然，其行为举止不乏某些怪异的出尔反尔，他全然可被称为幽默家王国中的幽默大师。虽然他慷慨大方，乃至奢靡无度，但他仍假惺惺地希望人们将其视作节俭与审慎之奇才。尽管其言谈之中满是污秽和自私的格言，其内心却充盈着最博大无际的爱心。据我所知，他常宣称自己是人类憎恶者；然而，他的脸庞上却总漾溢着怜悯之情。虽然其神情会柔化为一片慈悲，我却听到过他使用最为恶劣的言辞，其恶劣程度可谓无以复加。有些人佯装人道与柔情，也有一些人则夸耀说这样的秉性乃天性使然。但在我所有认识的人当中，唯有他似乎羞耻于其与生俱有的慈悲之心。他会竭力掩饰其真情，一如任何一个伪君子会掩饰其冷漠那样。然则，在每一个毫无防范的瞬间，那戴着的假面具便会脱落下来，使其毕露于哪怕是最为肤浅的观察者。
8. The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be. Women have often more of what is called good sense than men. They have fewer pretensions; are less implicated in theories; and judge of objects more from their immediate and involuntary impression on the mind, and, therefore, more truly and naturally. They cannot reason wrong; for they do not reason at all. They do not think or speak by rule; and they have in general more eloquence and wit as well as sense, on that account. By their wit, sense, and eloquence together, they generally contrive to govern their husbands. Their style, when they write to their friends, is better than that of most authors. - Uneducated people have most exuberance of invention.
在这个社会上，所能碰见的最为贤达的人士乃商人及饱经世事沧桑者。其言谈，其论点全然基于其所见所知，而不会去编织某些迂腐的区分，以设定事物理应如何如何。女士们往往要比男士们更富于所谓的\"见识\"。她们不那么自命不凡，不那么惯于纠缠于理论，在对事物形成判断时更多地凭藉这些事物在其头脑中所烙下的直接和不自觉的印象，因而会来得更为真实，更为自然。她们绝不犯任何逻辑错误，因为她们从不进行任何的逻辑推理。她们的所思所言决不受制于任何条条框框，正因为如此，总体而言她们不仅更具见识，而且更机智，更能言善辩。凭借其机智、其见识、其如簧巧舌这三件利器，她们大都会图谋主宰她们的丈夫。她们在给朋友写信时，其文笔之雅致与绝大多数作家相比均有过之而无不及。--未受教育者最富于创造。
9. The Reagan administration's most serious foreign policy problem surfaced near the end of the president's second term. In 1987 Americans learned that the administration had secretly sold arms to Iran in an attempt to win freedom for American hostages held in Lebanon by radical organizations controlled by Iran's Khomeini government. Investigation also revealed that funds from the arms sales had been diverted to the Nicaraguan contras during a period when Congress had prohibited such military aid.
The ensuing Iran-contra hearings before a joint House-Senate committee examined issues of possible illegality as well as the broader question of defining American foreign policy interests in the Middle East and Central America. In a larger sense, the Iran-contra hearings, like the celebrated Senate Watergate hearings 14 years earlier, addressed fundamental questions about the government's accountability to the public, and the proper balance between the executive and legislative branches of government.
里根政府最严重的对外政策问题在总统第二任期行将结束之际浮出水面。1987年，美国人得知里根政府曾秘密向伊朗出售武器，试图为那些美国人质换取人身自由，这些人质被伊朗霍梅尼政府所控制的激进组织囚禁于黎巴嫩。此外，调查也披露，这些武器交易中所得的款项被转移到尼加拉瓜反政府武装组织的手里，但在这一时期，美国国会早已禁止此类性质的军事援助。
随后所举行的参众两院联合委员会的有关\"伊朗-反政府武装组织事件\"听证会审议了有可能存在的非法问题，以及对美国在中东和中美洲对外政策利益进行界定这一更为广泛的问题。从某种较为宽泛的意义上说，有关\"伊朗-反政府武装组织事件\"的听证会，犹如14年前著名的参议员水门事件听证会那样，所涉及到的都是某些根本性问题，即政府应如何向公众负责，以及政府行政与立法部门之间如何才能达成某种恰如其分的平衡。
10. Although the American economy has transformed itself over the years, certain issues have persisted since the early days of the republic. One is the continuing debate over the proper role for government in what is basically a marketplace economy. An economy based on free enterprise is generally characterized by private ownership and initiative, with a relative absence of government involvement. However, government intervention has been found necessary from time to time to ensure that economic opportunities are fair and accessible to the people, to prevent flagrant abuses, to dampen inflation and to stimulate growth.
Ever since colonial times, the government has been involved, to some extent, in economic decision-making. The federal government, for example, has made huge investments in infrastructure, and it has provided social welfare programs that the private sector was unable or unwilling to provide. In a myriad of ways and over many decades, the government has supported and promoted the development of agriculture.
虽然美国经济在过去几年中已实现了转型，但某些问题自美国建国之初以来一直持续至今，依然悬而未决。其中之一便是围绕着政府在一个基本上属于市场性质的经济中的恰当角色所展开的持久争论。以自由企业为基础的经济体制，其普遍特征便是私有制和个人创新精神，政府介入应相对微弱。然而，人们发现，政府的干预时不时地也是必要的，以确保经济机会人人均等，能为全部民众所获得，并防范肆无忌惮的权力滥用，平抑通货膨胀，刺激经济增长。 自殖民地时期以来，美国政府或多或少地参与到经济决策中来。例如，联邦政府曾在基础设施方面进行过巨额投资，它也提供了私营业主们没有能力或不愿意提供的社会福利项目。在过去数十年中，政府也以无数的方式支持并促进农业发展。
11. If people mean anything at all by the expression \"untimely death\", they must believe that some deaths run on a better schedule than others. Death in old age is rarely called untimely---a long life is thought to be a full one. But with the passing of a young person, one assumes that the best years lay ahead and the measure of that life was still to be taken.
History denies this, of course. Among prominent summer deaths, one recalls those of Marilyn Monroe and James Deans, whose lives seemed equally brief and complete. Writers cannot bear the fact that poet John Keats died at 26, and only half playfully judge their own lives as failures when they pass that year. The idea that the life cut short is unfilled is illogical because lives are measured by the impressions they leave on the world and by their intensity and virtue.
如果人们藉\"英年早逝\"这一字眼真的意欲表达什么含义的话，他们必然相信某些人的辞世可以算是寿终正寝，而另一些人则\"死不逢时\" 。死于年迈很少被冠以\"死不逢时\"之名，因为能度过漫长的一生被认为是甚为圆满的。反之，如果所碰到的是一位年轻人之死，人们会以为这位年轻人风华正茂，前途无可限量，生命的倒计时尚未真正开始。
当然，历史否定这一切。在诸多较为著名的\"英年早逝\"的情形中，我们会忆起玛丽莲.梦露与詹姆斯.迪恩斯之死，其生命并不因其短暂而有损其圆满。对于约翰.济慈年方26便溘然长逝这一事实，文人墨客们皆痛不欲生，但他们中仅有半数人诙谐地认为，设若他们也死于这一年龄，其一生可视为失败。视英年早逝为不圆满，这一观念有悖于逻辑，因为衡量生命的尺度乃是留给世界的印记，是生命的力度及其美德。
12. Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreau's idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening one's perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more important efforts.
Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfaction we get from a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of \"The pleasure of taking pains\". The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.
We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When someone ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.
梭罗所理解的\"低层次\"，即为了拥有而去拥有，或与所有的邻居明争暗斗而致拥有。他心目中的\"高层次\"，则是这样一种积极的人生戒律，即要使自己对自然界永恒之物的感悟臻于完美。对于他从低层次上节省下来的时间和精力，他可将其致力于对高层次的追求。勿庸置疑，梭罗不赞成忍饥挨饿，但他在膳食方面所投入的精力仅果腹而已，只要可确保他能去从事更为重要的事务，他便别无所求。
殚精竭虑，全力以赴，便是其精髓所在。除非我们愿意直面那些需要我们全身心投入的艰难困苦，否则便不会有幸福可言。正如叶芝所言，除却某些不可能的情形，我们于人生中所获取的满足皆取决于我们在多高的境界中选择我们所愿意面对的艰难困苦。当罗伯特•弗罗斯特言及\"以苦为乐\"时，他内心所思，大体如此。商业广告中所宣扬的那种幸福观，其致命的缺陷就在于这样一个事实，即它宣称，一切幸福皆唾手可得，不费吹灰之力。
即便于游戏之中，我们也需要有艰难困苦。我们之所以需要它，因为设若没有困难，便断无游戏可言。游戏即是这样一种方式，为了享受其中的情趣而人为地使事情变得不那么轻而易举。游戏中的种种规则，便是将困难武断地强加于人。当有人将情趣摧毁殆尽时，他总是因为拒不按游戏规则行事而使然。这犹如下棋；如果你随心所欲、心血来潮地去更改那些全然武断的游戏规则，这样去赢棋当然会更加容易。但下棋的情趣则在于，应在规则的限定范围内赢取胜利。一言以蔽之，没有艰难，断无情趣。
13. The word \"winner\" and \"loser\" have many meanings. When we refer to a person as a winner, we do not mean one who makes someone else lose. To us, a winner is one who responds authentically by being credible, trustworthy, responsive, and genuine, both as an individual and as a member of a society.
Winners do not dedicate their lives to a concept of what they imagine they should be; rather, they are themselves and as such do not use their energy putting on a performance, maintaining pretence, and manipulating others. They are aware that there is a difference between being loving and acting loving, between being stupid and acting stupid, between being knowledgeable and acting knowledgeable. Winners do not need to hide behind a mask.
Winners are not afraid to do their own thinking and to use their own knowledge. They can separate facts from opinions and don't pretend to have all the answers. They listen to others, evaluate what they say, but come to their own conclusions. Although winners can admire and respect other people, they are not totally defined, demolished, bound, or awed by them.
Winners do not play \"helpless\", nor do they play the blaming game. Instead, they assume responsibility for their own lives.
\"胜者\"与\"败者\"这两个字眼含有众多的意思。当我们将某人称作胜者时，我们并非指他是一个致使他人一败涂地的人。对我们来说，胜者乃这样一位君子，他无论是作为一个个人抑或是作为社会的一份子，一切反应均能由衷而发，做到诚信，可靠，乐善好施，且绝不伪善。
胜者不会穷其毕生之精力，去拘泥于某个他们所想象的为人之道；相反，他们会保持其真我本色，并且，作为这种追求真我的仁者，他们不会耗费精力来装腔作势，维持一种自命不凡的姿态，或去操纵他人。他们深知，在爱戴他人和装作爱戴他人之间，在愚顽不化和大智若愚之间，在学识渊博和佯装学富五车之间，实质上存在着天壤之别。胜者断无必要去藏匿于面具背后。
胜者无畏于独立的思维和运用其自己的知识。他们能够在事实与舆论之间明辨是非，不会僭称自己无所不晓。他们会倾听他人的见解，对他人所言作出鉴别，而最终所得出的却是其自己的结论。虽然胜者可能会钦佩并敬重他人，但他们不会受制于他人，惧悚于他人，为他人所囿，或被他人所摧垮。
胜者绝不耍\"凄惨无助\"之把戏，也决不玩\"委过于人\" 之游戏。相反，他们会毅然肩负起对自身人生的责任（忍辱负重， 无怨亦无悔）。
14. Until early in this century, the isolationist tendency prevailed in American foreign policy. Then two factors projected America into world affairs: its rapidly expanding power, and the gradual collapse of the international system centered on Europe. The watershed presidencies marked this progression: Theodore Roosevelt's (1) and Woodrow Wilson's (2). These men held the reins of government when world affairs were drawing a reluctant nation into their vortex. Both recognized that America had a crucial role to play in world affairs though they justified its emergence from isolation with opposite philosophies.
Roosevelt was a sophisticated analyst of the balance of power. He insisted on an international role for America because its national interest demanded it, and because a global balance of power was inconceivable to him without American participation. For Wilson, the justification of America's international role was messianic: America had an obligation, not to the balance of power, but to spread its principles throughout the world. During the Wilson's Administration, America emerged as a key player in world affairs, proclaiming principles which, while reflecting the truisms of American though, nevertheless marked a revolutionary departure for Old World diplomats. These principles held that peace depends on the spread of democracy, that states should be judged by the same ethical criteria as individuals, and that the national interest consists of adhering to a universal system of law.
To hardened veterans of a European diplomacy based on the balance of power, Wilson's views about the ultimately moral foundations of foreign policy appeared strange, even hypocritical. Yet Wilsonianism has survived while history has bypassed the reservations of his contemporaries. Wilson was the originator of the vision of a universal world organization, the League of Nations, which would keep the peace through collective security rather than alliance. Though Wilson could not convince his own country of its merit, the idea lived on. It is above all to the drumbeat of Wilsonian idealism that American foreign policy has marched since his watershed presidency, and continues to march to this day.
America's singular approach to international affairs did not develop all at once, or as the consequence of a solitary inspiration. In the early years of the Republic, American foreign policy was in fact a sophisticated reflection of the American national interest, which was, simply, to fortify the new nation's independence. Since no European country was capable of posing an actual threat so long as it had to contend with rivals, the Founding Fathers showed themselves quite ready to manipulate the despised balance of power when it suited their needs indeed, they could be extraordinarily skillful at maneuvering between France and Great Britain not only to preserve America's independence but to enlarge its frontiers. Because they really wanted neither side to win a decisive victory in the wars of the French Revolution, they declared neutrality. Jefferson defined the Napoleonic Wars as a contest between the tyrant on the land (France) and the tyrant of the ocean (England) -in other words, the parties in the European struggle were morally equivalent. Practicing an early form of nonalignment, the new nation discovered the benefit of neutrality as a bargaining tool, just as many an emerging nation has since.
直到本世纪初，孤立主义倾向在外交政策中一直大行其道。后来，两大因素致使美国置身于世界事务之中。其一是它迅猛膨胀的国力，其二是以欧洲为中心的国际体系的渐趋崩溃。两届具有分水岭意义的总统任期标志着这种事态的发展，（1）罗斯福; （2）威尔逊。这两人执掌政府权力之际，正值世界事务正将美国这个不愿介入国际事务的国家卷入它们的漩涡之时。这两位总统均认识到，美国应在世界事务中扮演关键角色，尽管他们用截然相反的两套学说来为美国从孤立状态中脱颖而出寻找理据。
罗斯福对均势的分析可谓老谋深算。他坚定不移地认为，美国应扮演某种国际角色，因为美国的国家利益需要这一国际角色，并且因为对他来说，没有美国参与的全球均势将是无法想象的。对于威尔逊总统来说，美国扮演国际角色的理由更多地带有救世主的色彩：美国不仅仅对均势负有义务，而且也有义务将其自身的原则传播到全球每个角落。威尔逊总统执政其间，美国一跃而成为国际事务中的一个主要角色，到处宣扬其自身的原则。这些原则虽然折射出了美国思想中那些老生常谈的内容，但对于旧世界的外交家而言，仍标志着一种革命性的更弦易辙。美国的这些原则坚持认为，世界和平取决于民主的传播，人们在对国家进行评判时应采用与评判个人相同的道德准则，并且，国家利益在于坚持一套放之四海而皆准的法律体系。
对于那些以均势为依据的强硬的欧洲外交老手而言，威尔逊总统所提出的有关外交政策终极道德基础的论点似乎显得有点怪异，甚至虚伪。然而，威尔逊主义在历史上经久不衰，而他同代人对其论点所怀有的保留意见则早已烟消云散。威尔逊总统是\"国际联盟\"这一全球性世界组织的构想的始作俑者，这一组织旨在通过集体安全而非结盟的方式维护世界和平。虽然威尔逊总统没能说服他的国家相信这一组织的价值，但他的理念却得以沿续下来。毕竟而言，正是自从威尔逊具有分水岭意义的总统任期以来，美国的外交政策才得以伴随着威尔逊总统理想主义的阵阵鼓点不断迈进，且时至今日依然奋进不辍。
美国对国际事务所采取的那种独特手法并非一蹴而就，或纯粹缘起于一种心血来潮，异想天开。在立国之初，美国的外交政策实质上错综复杂地折射出了美国的国家利益，即，一言以蔽之，强化这一新兴国家的独立。既然任何一个欧洲国家，只要它不得不与其对手们展开竞争，就不足以构成一种实际威胁，故美利坚共和国的奠基者们表现得十分愿意去利用受人鄙视的均势，因为均势确实能顺应他们的需要。他们极其擅长于在英法之间挑拨离间，不仅仅得以维护美国的独立，而且得以拓展其疆域。因为他们并不真正希望任何一方在法国大革命的战争中赢得决定性的胜利，他们便宣布中立。杰佛逊总统将拿破仑战争定义为陆地霸主（法国）和海洋霸主（英国）之间的一场搏杀--换言之，这场欧洲争斗中的双方在道德层面上实乃一丘之貉。通过推行一种早期的不结盟政策，美国这个新兴国家尝到了中立作为一种讨价还价的工具的甜头，正如自此以后，许多崛起中的国家大多乐此不倦那样。 15. Though fond of many acquaintances, I desire an intimacy only with a few. The Man in Black, whom I have often mentioned, is one whose friendship I could wish to acquire, because he possesses my esteem. His manners, it is true, are tinctured with some strange inconsistencies, and he may be justly termed a humorist in a nation of humorists. Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects to be thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence; though his conversation be replete with the most sordid and selfish maxims, his heart is dilated with the most unbounded love. I have known him profess himself a man-hater, while his cheek was glowing with compassion; and, while his looks were softened into pity, I have heard him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature. Some affect humanity and tenderness, others boast of having such dispositions from Nature; but he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his natural benevolence. He takes as much pains to hide his feelings, as any hypocrite would to conceal his indifference; but on every unguarded moment the mask drops off, and reveals him to the most superficial observer.
尽管我喜欢广交朋友，但我只愿与为数不多的几人成为至交。我所提及的那位黑衣男士，就是那样一个我希冀与其成为莫逆之交的人，因为他深得我的景仰。诚然，其行为举止不乏某些怪异的出尔反尔，他全然可被称为幽默家王国中的幽默大师。虽然他慷慨大方，乃至奢靡无度，但他仍假惺惺地希望人们将其视作节俭与审慎之奇才。尽管其言谈之中满是污秽和自私的格言，其内心却充盈着最博大无际的爱心。据我所知，他常宣称自己是人类憎恶者；然而，他的脸庞上却总漾溢着怜悯之情。虽然其神情会柔化为一片慈悲，我却听到过他使用最为恶劣的言辞，其恶劣程度可谓无以复加。有些人佯装人道与柔情，也有一些人则夸耀说这样的秉性乃天性使然。但在我所有认识的人当中，唯有他羞耻于其与生俱有的慈悲之心。他会竭力掩饰其真情，一如任何一个伪君子会掩饰其冷漠那样。然则，在每一个毫无防范的瞬间，那戴着的假面具便会脱落下来，使其毕露于哪怕是最为肤浅的观察者。 |
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发表于 2007-2-28 11:42:35
