Part of a Man's Life: Books Unread　人生必經(jīng)之途：未讀之書(shū)

Part of a Man's Life: Books Unread

人生必經(jīng)之途：未讀之書(shū)

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

托馬斯·溫特沃斯·希金森

作者簡(jiǎn)介

托馬斯·溫特沃斯·希金森（Thomas Wentworth Higginson，1823—1911），美國(guó)教士、作家、激進(jìn)的廢奴主義者。他在19世紀(jì)四五十年代的廢奴運(yùn)動(dòng)中非常活躍，在南北戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中為南軍立下不少戰(zhàn)功。內(nèi)戰(zhàn)結(jié)束后，他一直撰文維護(hù)黑人和婦女的權(quán)利，終其一生從未曾停下手中的筆。

希金森的作品文筆優(yōu)雅，詞情懇切，富有人文氣息，充滿對(duì)自然的向往。美國(guó)著名女詩(shī)人埃米莉·狄更生（Emily Dickinson）對(duì)希金森極為仰慕，曾去信懇求希金森擔(dān)任其導(dǎo)師，并自稱(chēng)“您的學(xué)生”。兩人一度保持通信，交流彼此對(duì)文學(xué)的看法。狄更生去世后，希金森等人整理出版的詩(shī)集引起世人關(guān)注，奠定了狄更生在美國(guó)文壇的地位。

希金森經(jīng)常在《大西洋月刊》（Atlantic Monthly）上發(fā)表文章，狄更生最初就是通過(guò)此刊物與其相識(shí)的。本文首次發(fā)表于1904年《大西洋月刊》，對(duì)“夢(mèng)中翻閱未讀之書(shū)”的描寫(xiě)尤為精彩。讀罷此文，你或許能夠理解狄更生何以對(duì)其仰慕不已。

“No longer delude thyself; for thou wilt never read thine own memoranda, nor the recorded deeds of old Romans and Greeks, and those passages in books which thou hast been reserving for thine old age.”

In the gradual growth of every student's library, he may—or—may not continue to admit literary friends and advisers; but he will be sure, sooner or later, to send for a man with a tool-chest. Sooner or later, every nook and corner will be filled with books, every window will be more or less darkened, and added shelves must be devised. He may find it hard to achieve just the arrangement he wants, but he will find it hardest of all to meet squarely that inevitable inquiry of the puzzled carpenter as he looks about him, “Have you really read all these books?”The expected answer is, “To be sure, how can you doubt it?”Yet if you asked him in turn, “Have you actually used every tool in your tool-chest?”you would very likely be told, “Not one half as yet, at least this season; I have the others by me, to use as I need them.”Now if this reply can be fairly made in a simple, well-defined, distinctly limited occupation like that of a joiner, how much more inevitable it is in a pursuit which covers the whole range of thought and all the facts in the universe. The library is the author's tool-chest. He must at least learn, as he grows older, to take what he wants and to leave the rest.

This never was more tersely expressed than by Margaret Fuller when she says, “A man who means to think and write a great deal must, after six and twenty, learn to read with his fingers.”A few men of leisure may satisfy themselves by reading over and over a single book and ignoring all others, like that English scholar who read Homer's Iliad and Odyssey every year in the original, devoting a week to each canto, and reserving the minor poems for his summer vacation. Nay, there are books in the English language so vast that the ordinary reader recoils before their text and their footnotes.

Of course, the books which go most thoroughly unread are those which certainly are books, but of which we explore the backs only, as in fine old European libraries; books as sacredly preserved as was once that library at Blenheim—now long since dispersed—in which, when I idly asked the custodian whether she did not find it a great deal of trouble to keep them dusted, she answered with surprise, “No, sir, the doors have not been unlocked for ten years.”It is so in some departments of even American libraries.

Matthew Arnold once replied to a critic who accused him of a lack of learning that the charge was true, but that he often wished he had still less of that possession, so hard did he find it to carry lightly what he knew. The only knowledge that involves no burden lies, it may be justly claimed, in the books that are left unread. I mean those which remain undisturbed, long and perhaps forever, on a student's bookshelves; books for which he possibly economized, and to obtain which he went without his dinner; books on whose backs his eyes have rested a thousand times, tenderly and almost lovingly, until he has perhaps forgotten the very language in which they are written. He has never read them, yet during these years there has never been a day when he would have sold them; they are a part of his youth. In dreams he turns to them; in dreams he reads Hebrew again; he knows what a Differential Equation is; “how happy could he be with either.”He awakens, and whole shelves of his library are, as it were, like fair maidens who smiled on him in their youth but once, and then passed away. Under different circumstances, who knows but one of them might have been his? As it is, they have grown old apart from him; yet for him they retain their charms.

Books which we have first read in odd places always retain their charm, whether read or neglected. Thus Hazlitt always remembered that it was on the 10th of April, 1798, that he “set down to a volume of the New Eloise at the Inn at Llangollen over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken.”In the same way I remember how Professor Longfellow in college recommended to us, for forming a good French style, to read Balzac's Peau de Chagrin; and yet it was a dozen years later before I found it in a country inn, on a lecture trip, and sat up half the night to read it. It may be, on the other hand, that such haphazard meetings with books sometimes present them under conditions hopelessly unfavorable, as when I encountered Whitman's Leaves of Grass for the first time on my first voyage in an Azorian barque; and it inspires to this day a slight sense of nausea, which it might, after all, have inspired equally on land.

Wordsworth says in his Personal Talk, “Dreams, books are each a world.”And the books unread mingle with the dreams and unite the charm of both. This applies especially, I think, to books of travel: we buy them, finding their attractions strong, but somehow we do not read them over and over, unless they prove to be such books as those of Urquhart—the Pillars of Hercules especially, where the wealth of learning and originality is so great that we seem in a different region of the globe on every page. One of the most poetic things about Whittier's temperament lay in this fact, that he felt most eager to visit each foreign country before he had read any book about it. After reading, the dream was half fulfilled, and he turned to something else, so that he died without visiting any foreign country. But the very possession of such books, and their presence on the shelves, carries one to the Arctic regions or to the Indian Ocean.

“After all,”as the brilliant and melancholy Rufus Choate said, “a book is the only immortality”and sometimes when a book is attacked and even denounced, its destiny of fame is only confirmed. Thus the vivacious and cheery Pope, Pio Nono, when asked by a too daring author to help on his latest publication, suggested that he could only aid it by putting it in the Index Expurgatorius. Yet if a book is to be left unread at last, the fault must ultimately rest on the author, even as the brilliant Lady Eastlake complained, when she wrote of modern English novelists, “Things are written now to be read once, and no more; that is, they are read as often as they deserve. A book in old times took five years to write and was read five hundred times by five hundred people. Now it is written in three months, and read once by five hundred thousand people. That's the proper proportion.”

“別再自欺欺人；因?yàn)槟銓⒃僖矡o(wú)法閱讀自己的備忘錄、希臘羅馬的先賢著作，或是為晚年預(yù)留的書(shū)中段落。”1

隨著藏書(shū)日益增多，學(xué)者或許不承認(rèn)文學(xué)是良師益友，但他遲早會(huì)需要找個(gè)木匠。遲早有一天，屋里每個(gè)角落都會(huì)被書(shū)占據(jù)，每扇窗戶或多或少都會(huì)被書(shū)遮擋，有必要新添幾個(gè)書(shū)架。他會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，要把書(shū)收拾成理想的樣子實(shí)在不易，但要回答木匠的提問(wèn)更加困難。困惑的木匠四處張望一番后，不免要提出這樣的問(wèn)題：“你真的讀過(guò)所有這些書(shū)？”他預(yù)計(jì)得到的答案是：“那當(dāng)然，你難道還懷疑嗎？”但如果你反問(wèn)他：“你真的用過(guò)工具箱里的每件工具？”他很可能這么說(shuō)：“一半都沒(méi)用過(guò)呢，至少這個(gè)季節(jié)是這樣。我還帶著別的工具，需要的時(shí)候用得著?！比绻业幕卮鹨蚕衲窘车囊粯雍?jiǎn)單、定義清晰、限定明確，那么“打破沙鍋問(wèn)到底”將更加不可避免。書(shū)房正是作家的工具箱。隨著年齡的增長(zhǎng)，他至少應(yīng)該學(xué)會(huì)取舍。

對(duì)此，沒(méi)有人比瑪格麗特·富勒2表達(dá)得更加簡(jiǎn)明扼要。她說(shuō)：“欲成為思想家之人，6歲后需學(xué)會(huì)‘動(dòng)手’讀書(shū)；欲成為作家之人，20歲后也需如此?！庇行╅e人滿足于反復(fù)閱讀同一本書(shū)，而忽視其他所有書(shū)。比如，某位英國(guó)學(xué)者每年都讀一遍荷馬的《伊利亞特》和《奧德賽》3原本。他每周讀一篇長(zhǎng)詩(shī)，短詩(shī)則留到暑假讀。然而，英文書(shū)籍如此浩瀚無(wú)垠，普通讀者還沒(méi)看到正文和腳注，就已經(jīng)望而卻步了。

當(dāng)然，還有些書(shū)根本沒(méi)人讀。它們確確實(shí)實(shí)是書(shū)，但就像在很好的歐洲舊式圖書(shū)館里一樣，人們只查看它們的書(shū)脊。這些書(shū)曾被鄭重其事地保存在布倫海姆圖書(shū)館4里，不過(guò)如今早已散落八方。我曾順口問(wèn)過(guò)布倫海姆的書(shū)庫(kù)保管員，讓那些書(shū)保持清潔是不是很麻煩，她一臉驚訝地答道：“不麻煩，先生，書(shū)庫(kù)大門(mén)已經(jīng)10年沒(méi)開(kāi)過(guò)了?！泵绹?guó)圖書(shū)館的某些部門(mén)也是如此。

有位評(píng)論家曾指責(zé)馬修·阿諾德5知識(shí)不夠豐富。阿諾德回應(yīng)說(shuō)，這個(gè)說(shuō)法完全正確，但他還常常希望能再少點(diǎn)，因?yàn)橹R(shí)讓人不堪重負(fù)，攜現(xiàn)有知識(shí)已難輕裝上陣。你或許可以理直氣壯地宣稱(chēng)，唯一不會(huì)成為負(fù)擔(dān)的知識(shí)只存在于沒(méi)有讀過(guò)的書(shū)里。我指的是學(xué)者書(shū)架上那些久被遺忘、或許將永被遺忘的書(shū)。為了那些書(shū)，他或許節(jié)儉度日；為了那些書(shū)，他或許不吃晚飯便跑去買(mǎi)；買(mǎi)回書(shū)之后，他曾帶著愛(ài)意和柔情，千萬(wàn)次掃視它們的書(shū)脊，直到可能忘卻它們是用何種語(yǔ)言寫(xiě)成。他從沒(méi)讀過(guò)那些書(shū)，但多年來(lái)從未動(dòng)過(guò)賣(mài)書(shū)的念頭；它們是他青春的一部分。在夢(mèng)里，他會(huì)翻開(kāi)那些書(shū)；在夢(mèng)里，他又會(huì)讀希伯來(lái)文了，也知道微分方程是什么了；“只會(huì)其中之一他也會(huì)開(kāi)心！”他醒來(lái)，滿架藏書(shū)依然如故，恰如青春少女對(duì)他嫣然一笑，然后便飄然而去。如果一切重來(lái)，夢(mèng)中場(chǎng)景或能成真？現(xiàn)實(shí)中，書(shū)已老朽，離他遠(yuǎn)去；但對(duì)他而言，書(shū)的魅力猶存。

在非同尋常的情形下第一次讀的書(shū)，無(wú)論你是讀完了還是半途而廢，它的魅力都將永存。哈茲利特6總是憶起1798年4月10日，他“坐在蘭戈倫一間小酒館里，就著一瓶雪利酒和一個(gè)雞肉冷盤(pán)讀《新愛(ài)洛伊絲》7?！蔽覄t以同樣的方式憶起，大學(xué)里朗費(fèi)羅教授推薦我們讀巴爾扎克的《驢皮記》8，以便培養(yǎng)良好的法式格調(diào)；而直到十幾年后，我在一次演說(shuō)之旅中，在鄉(xiāng)間客棧發(fā)現(xiàn)了這本書(shū)，才拿來(lái)熬夜苦讀。有些時(shí)候，人和書(shū)的邂逅也會(huì)發(fā)生在不太理想的情況下。比如我初次遇見(jiàn)惠特曼的《草葉集》9時(shí)，正好趕上頭一回坐亞速爾帆船出海。直至今日，翻開(kāi)《草葉集》還會(huì)讓我有點(diǎn)頭暈?zāi)垦?，即使在陸地上也一樣?

華茲華斯在他的《私語(yǔ)》10中寫(xiě)道：“夢(mèng)與書(shū)，各是一個(gè)世界。”未讀之書(shū)與夢(mèng)境交會(huì)，兩者的魅力融于一體。我想，這句話尤其適合游記：我們買(mǎi)下游記，覺(jué)得它們極具吸引力，但我們不會(huì)一遍又一遍地閱讀，除非是厄克赫特11的作品，尤其是像《赫拉克勒斯之柱》12這樣知識(shí)豐富的原創(chuàng)作品，每一頁(yè)都能讓你馳騁于地球上不同的角落?；莸侔?3的氣質(zhì)中最富詩(shī)意之處是，他在讀關(guān)于某國(guó)的作品之前，極度渴望前往該國(guó)一游，但讀完書(shū)后，夢(mèng)想實(shí)現(xiàn)了一半，他就轉(zhuǎn)頭迷上了別國(guó)。因此直至去世，他從未踏出國(guó)門(mén)一步。但擁有這些游記，把它們擱在架上展示，足以讓你的想象飛向南極或是印度洋。

正如才華橫溢而憂郁深沉的魯弗斯·喬特14所說(shuō)，“畢竟，書(shū)是唯一不朽之物”。有時(shí)，人們抨擊甚至譴責(zé)某書(shū)，只會(huì)讓它一舉成名。因此，當(dāng)一位大膽的作家請(qǐng)教皇皮奧·諾諾15幫忙宣傳新書(shū)時(shí)，這位詼諧的教皇表示，他只能幫忙將此書(shū)列入教廷禁書(shū)目錄。但如果一本書(shū)最后無(wú)人閱讀，作者本人應(yīng)該對(duì)此負(fù)責(zé)。才華橫溢的伊斯特萊克夫人16在描述英國(guó)現(xiàn)代小說(shuō)家時(shí)，曾這樣抱怨過(guò)：“如今的書(shū)寫(xiě)來(lái)只為讓人讀一遍，無(wú)需多讀；也就是說(shuō)，它們只配讓人讀一遍。過(guò)去一本書(shū)寫(xiě)好需要5年，會(huì)被500人讀500遍；如今一本書(shū)寫(xiě)好只需3個(gè)月，會(huì)被50萬(wàn)人讀一遍。這個(gè)比例很恰當(dāng)?！?

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1．節(jié)選自《沉思錄》，古羅馬皇帝馬可·奧勒留·安東尼·奧古斯都的哲理閑思錄。該書(shū)記錄了作者對(duì)人生哲理的感悟，是古羅馬斯多葛派哲學(xué)的里程碑。

2．薩拉·瑪格麗特·富勒（Sarah Margaret Fuller，1810—1850），美國(guó)著名記者、評(píng)論家、作家。

3．史詩(shī)《伊利亞特》和《奧德賽》均以特洛伊戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)為背景，相傳為古希臘吟游詩(shī)人荷馬所著。

4．布倫海姆圖書(shū)館，坐落于布倫海姆宮，藏書(shū)約1萬(wàn)冊(cè)。

5．馬修·阿諾德（Matthew Arnold，1822—1888），英國(guó)詩(shī)人、文藝評(píng)論家，牛津大學(xué)教授。

6．威廉·哈茲利特（William Hazlitt，1778—1830），英語(yǔ)隨筆首屈一指的大家，英語(yǔ)文學(xué)批評(píng)的大家。

7．《新愛(ài)洛伊絲》，法國(guó)文學(xué)家讓·雅克·盧梭的愛(ài)情小說(shuō)，其中包含了盧梭的教育觀點(diǎn)、文藝觀點(diǎn)以及社會(huì)平等的思想。

8．《驢皮記》，法國(guó)文學(xué)家?jiàn)W諾雷·德·巴爾扎克的第一部長(zhǎng)篇哲理小說(shuō)。

9．《草葉集》，美國(guó)著名詩(shī)人沃爾特·惠特曼的代表作。

10．《私語(yǔ)》是英國(guó)詩(shī)人威廉·華茲華斯的一首關(guān)于孤獨(dú)的詩(shī)歌。

11．托馬斯·厄克赫特（Thomas Urquhart，1611—1660），英國(guó)作家、翻譯家。

12．《赫拉克勒斯之柱》，地中海游記。

13．約翰·格林里夫·惠蒂埃（John Greenleaf Whittier，1807—1892），美國(guó)詩(shī)人。

14．魯弗斯·喬特（Rufus Choate，1799—1859），美國(guó)律師、議員、演說(shuō)家，1915年入選美國(guó)名人榜。

15．皮奧·諾諾（Pio Nono），教皇庇護(hù)九世的意大利文昵稱(chēng)。

16．伊斯特萊克夫人（Lady Eastlake，1809—1893），原名伊麗莎白，英國(guó)女作家。