De vertaling betrof de eerste alinea’s tot en met ‘hotel lounge’ van On not being a philosopher van de Ierse essayist en journalist Robert Wilson Lynd (1879-1949).
翻译内容为爱尔兰散文家兼记者罗伯特·威尔逊·林德（1879-1949）《论不是哲学家》一文中，直到“hotel lounge”为止的前几段。

‘HAVE YOU READ EPICTETUS LATELY?’ ‘No, not lately.’ ‘Oh, you ought to read him. Tommy’s been reading him for the first time, and is fearfully excited.’ I caught this scrap of dialogue from the next table in the lounge of a hotel. Like Tommy, I, too, felt ‘fearfully excited,’ for I had never really read Epictetus, though I had often looked at him on the shelf-perhaps even quoted him-and I wondered if here at last was the book of wisdom that I had been looking for at intervals ever since I was at school.
“你最近读过爱比克泰德吗？”“没有，最近没读。”“哦，你应该读一读。汤米第一次读他，现在激动得不得了。”我在酒店休息室隔壁桌听到这段对话。像汤米一样，我也感到“激动得不得了”，因为我其实从未真正读过爱比克泰德，虽然我常常在书架上看到他的书——也许还引用过他的话——我不禁想，也许这本书终于就是我自上学以来一直间歇性寻找的智慧之书。

Never have I lost my early faith that wisdom is to be found somewhere in a book-to be picked up as easily as a shell from the sand. I desire wisdom as eagerly as Solomon, but it must be wisdom that can be obtained with very little effort-wisdom, as it were, that is caught by infection. I have no time or energy for the laborious quest of philosophy. I wish the philosophers to perform the laborious quest and, at the end of it, to feed me with the fruits of their labors; just as I get eggs from the farmer, apples from the fruit grower, medicines from the chemist, so do I expect the philosopher to provide me with wisdom at the cost of a few shillings. That is why at one time I read Emerson and, at another, Marcus Aurelius.
我从未失去早年那种信念——相信智慧就藏在某本书里，可以像从沙滩上捡贝壳一样轻松获得。我渴望智慧，和所罗门一样迫切，但这必须是可以轻易获得的智慧——仿佛是可以被感染到的智慧。我没有时间和精力去艰苦追寻哲学。我希望哲学家们去完成艰苦的探索，最后把他们劳动的果实喂给我；就像我从农民那里买鸡蛋，从果农那里买苹果，从药剂师那里买药一样，我也希望哲学家能以几先令的代价为我提供智慧。这就是为什么我曾经读过爱默生，也读过马可·奥勒留。

To read them, I hoped, was to become wise by reading. But I did not become wise. I agreed with them while I read them, but, when I had finished reading, I was still much the same man as I had been before, incapable of concentrating on the things on which they said I should concentrate or of being indifferent to the things to which they said I should be indifferent.
我曾希望，通过阅读这些书籍可以变得睿智。但我并没有变得睿智。我在阅读时同意他们的观点，但当我读完后，我依然和以前一样，无法专注于他们说我应该专注的事情，也无法对他们说我应该漠视的事情保持冷漠。

Even so, I have never lost faith in books, believing that somewhere one exists from which one can absorb philosophy and strength of character while sitting smoking in an armchair. It was in this mood that I took down Epictetus after hearing the conversation in the hotel lounge.
即便如此，我从未对书籍失去信心，相信总有一本书存在，可以让我在扶手椅上抽着烟时吸收哲理和坚强的品格。正是在这种心情下，在听到酒店休息室里的谈话后，我取下了爱比克泰德的书。

I read him, I confess, with considerable excitement. He is the kind of philosopher I like, not treating life as if at its finest it were an argument conducted in jargon, but discussing, among other things, how men should behave in the affairs of ordinary life.
我承认，我怀着相当激动的心情读了他的书。他是我喜欢的那种哲学家，不把生活当作一场用术语进行的辩论，而是讨论包括普通生活事务中人们应如何行为在内的各种问题。

Also, I agreed with nearly everything he said. Indifference to pain, death, poverty-yes, that is eminently desirable. Not to be troubled about anything over which one has no control, whether the oppression of tyrants or the peril of earthquakes-on the necessity of this, Epictetus and I are at one.
此外，我几乎同意他所说的一切。对痛苦、死亡、贫穷保持冷漠——是的，这是极其值得追求的。不为自己无法控制的事情而烦恼，无论是暴君的压迫还是地震的威胁——在这一点上，爱比克泰德和我是完全一致的。

Yet, close as is the resemblance between our opinions, I could not help feeling, as I read, that Epictetus was wise in holding his opinions, and that I, though holding the same opinions, was far from wise. For, indeed, though I held the same opinions for purposes of theory, I could not entertain them for a moment for purposes of conduct.
然而，尽管我们的观点极为相似，我在阅读时仍不禁觉得，爱比克泰德持有这些观点是明智的，而我，虽然持有相同的观点，却远非明智。因为，事实上，虽然我在理论上持有这些观点，但在实际行为中，我却无法片刻采纳它们。

Death, pain, and poverty are to me very real evils, except when I am in an armchair reading a book by a philosopher. If an earthquake happened while I was reading a book of philosophy, I should forget the book of philosophy and think only of the earthquake and how to avoid tumbling walls and chimneys.
死亡、痛苦和贫穷对我来说都是非常真实的灾难，除非我正坐在扶手椅上读哲学家的书。如果我在读哲学书时遇到地震，我会立刻忘记哲学书，只想着地震本身，以及如何避开倒塌的墙壁和烟囱。

This, though I am the stanchest possible admirer of Socrates, Pliny, and people of that sort. Sound though I am as an armchair philosopher, at a crisis I find that both the spirit and the flesh are weak.
即便如此，我依然是苏格拉底、普林尼以及那类人的最坚定的崇拜者。作为一名扶手椅上的哲学家，我的理论很健全，但在危急关头，我发现无论精神还是肉体都很脆弱。

EVEN in the small things of life I cannot comport myself like a I philosopher of the school of Epictetus. Thus, when he advises us how to ‘eat acceptably to the gods’ and bids us to this end to be patient even under the most atrocious service at our meals, he commends a spiritual attitude of which my nature is incapable.
即使在生活中的小事上，我也无法像爱比克泰德学派的哲学家那样自处。例如，当他教导我们如何“以令神明满意的方式进食”，并为此劝诫我们即使在用餐时遭遇最恶劣的服务也要保持耐心时，他所推崇的那种精神态度，是我本性所无法做到的。
‘When you have asked for warm water,’ he says, 'and the slave does not heed you; or if he does heed you but brings tepid water; or if he is not even to be found in the house, then to refrain from anger and not to explode, is not this acceptable to the gods? ‘Do you not remember over whom you rule-that they are kinsmen, that they are brothers by nature, and they are the offspring of Zeus?’
“当你要求温水，”他说，“而仆人没有理会你；或者他理会了你却端来的是温吞水；又或者他甚至根本不在家，这时能够克制怒火、不发脾气，难道这不是神明所赞许的吗？你难道不记得你统治的是谁——他们是你的亲人，他们天生就是你的兄弟，他们是宙斯的子孙吗？”

That is all perfectly true, and I should love to be able to sit in a restaurant, smiling patiently and philosophically while the waiter brought all the wrong things or forgot to bring anything at all. But in point of fact bad waiting irritates me. I dislike having to ask three times for the wine list. I am annoyed when, after a quarter of an hour’s delay, I am told that there is no celery. It is true that I do not make a scene on such occasions. I have not enough courage for that. I am as sparing of objurgations as a philosopher, but I suspect that the scowling spirit within me must
这些都完全正确，我也很希望自己能坐在餐馆里，当服务员把所有东西都拿错了，或者干脆什么都忘了拿时，还能耐心而哲学地微笑。但事实上，糟糕的服务会让我恼火。我不喜欢要三次酒单才有人理会。当我等了十五分钟后被告知没有芹菜时，我会感到恼火。确实，在这种场合我不会大吵大闹。我没有那样的勇气。我像哲学家一样吝于责骂，但我怀疑我内心的怒气
somehow show itself in my features. Certainly, I do not think of telling myself: ‘This waiter is my kinsman; he is the offspring of Zeus.’ Besides, even if he were, why should the offspring of Zeus wait so badly?
总会在我的脸上流露出来。当然，我也不会想着对自己说：“这个服务员是我的亲人，他是宙斯的子孙。”再说了，即使他真的是宙斯的子孙，为什么宙斯的子孙服务会这么差呢？

Epictetus, I am sure, never dined at the Restaurant. And yet his patience might have served him even then. If so, what a difference between Epictetus and me! And, if I cannot achieve his imperturbability in such small affairs as that, what hope is there of being able to play the philosopher in the presence of tyrants and earthquakes?
我敢肯定，爱比克泰德从未在餐馆用过餐。尽管如此，他的耐心即使在那时也能派上用场。如果真是这样，那我和爱比克泰德之间的差距可就大了！如果我连在这种小事上都无法做到他那样的泰然自若，那在暴君和地震面前还能指望自己像个哲学家吗？

Again, when Epictetus expresses his opinions on material possessions and counsels us to be so indifferent to them that we should not object to their being stolen, I agree with him in theory and yet in practice I know I should be unable to obey him. There is nothing more certain than that a man whose happiness depends on his possessions is not happy. I am sure a wise man can be happy on a pittance.
同样，当爱比克泰德表达他对物质财富的看法，并劝告我们对这些东西应当如此漠然，以至于即使它们被偷走我们也不应反对时，我在理论上同意他的观点，但在实践中我知道自己无法做到。毫无疑问，一个人的幸福如果依赖于他的财产，那他并不幸福。我相信一个聪明人即使只有微薄的收入也能感到幸福。

Not that happiness should be the aim of life, according to Epictetus or (in theory) to myself. But Epictetus at least holds up an ideal of imperturbability, and he assures us that we shall achieve this if we care so little for material things that it does not matter to us whether somebody steals them or not.
不过，按照爱比克泰德的观点，或者说（理论上）按照我自己的观点，幸福并不应当是人生的目标。但至少爱比克泰德树立了一个内心平静的理想，他向我们保证，如果我们对物质之物漠不关心到无论别人是否偷走它们都无所谓的地步，我们就能实现这种内心的平静。
‘Stop admiring your clothes,’ he bids us, ‘and you are not angry at the man who steals them.’ And he goes on persuasively: ‘He does not know wherein the true good of man consists, but fancies that it consists in having fine clothes, the very same fancy that you also entertain. Shall he not come, then, and carry them off?’
“别再欣赏你的衣服了，”他告诫我们，“这样你就不会对偷你衣服的人生气。”他还继续劝说道：“他并不知道人生真正的幸福所在，只是以为拥有漂亮的衣服就是幸福，这正是你也抱有的想法。那么，他为什么不来把它们拿走呢？”

Yes, logically I suppose he should, and yet I cannot feel so at the moment at which I find that a guest at a party has taken my new hat and left his old one in its place. It gives me no comfort to say to myself: ‘He does not know wherein the true good of life consists, but fancies that it consists in having my hat.’
是的，从逻辑上讲我想他应该这样做，但当我发现聚会上的一位客人拿走了我的新帽子，留下了他那顶旧帽子时，我却无法如此坦然。对自己说“他并不知道人生真正的幸福所在，只是以为拥有我的帽子就是幸福”并不能让我感到安慰。

Nor should I dream of attempting to console a guest at a party in my own house with such philosophy in similar circumstances. It is very irritating to lose a new hat. It is very irritating to lose anything at all, if one thinks it has been taken on purpose.
我也绝不会在自己家里举办的聚会上，用这样的哲学去安慰在类似情况下的客人。丢了一顶新帽子确实让人恼火。失去任何东西都会让人恼火，尤其是当你认为那是被人故意拿走的时候。

I feel that I could imitate Epictetus if I lived in a world in which nothing happened. But in a world in which things disappear through loss, theft, and ‘pinching,’ and in which bad meals are served by bad waiters in not very good restaurants, and a thousand other disagreeable things happen, an ordinary man might as well set out to climb the Himalayas in walking shoes as attempt to live the life of a philosopher at all hours.
我觉得，如果我生活在一个什么都不会发生的世界里，我也许能模仿爱比克泰德。但在这个世界里，东西会因为丢失、被偷和“顺手牵羊”而消失，糟糕的餐厅里糟糕的服务员会端上糟糕的饭菜，还有成千上万件令人不快的事情发生，一个普通人想要时时刻刻过哲学家的生活，无异于穿着步行鞋去攀登喜马拉雅山。

IN SPITE of this, however, most of us cannot help believing that the philosophers were right-right when they proclaimed, amid all their differences, that most of the things we bother about are not worth bothering about.
尽管如此，我们大多数人还是忍不住相信，哲学家们是对的——尽管他们彼此有分歧，但他们都宣称，我们所烦恼的大多数事情其实根本不值得烦恼。

It is easier to believe that oneself is a fool than that Socrates was a fool, and yet, if he was not right, he must have been the greatest fool who ever lived.
相信自己是个傻瓜，比相信苏格拉底是个傻瓜要容易得多。然而，如果苏格拉底不是对的，那他一定是有史以来最大的傻瓜。

The truth is, nearly everybody is agreed that such men as Socrates and Epictetus were right in their indifference to external things. Even men earning $\pounds 10,000$$\pounds 10,000$£10,000£ 10,000 a year and working for more would admit this. Yet, even while admitting it, most of us would be alarmed if one of our dearest friends began to put the philosophy of Epictetus into practice too literally.
事实上，几乎所有人都同意苏格拉底和爱比克泰德对外在事物的淡然态度是正确的。即使是年收入 $\pounds 10,000$$\pounds 10,000$£10,000£ 10,000 并且还在为赚更多钱而努力的人也会承认这一点。然而，即使承认了，大多数人如果发现自己最亲密的朋友开始过于字面地实践爱比克泰德的哲学，还是会感到震惊。

What we regard as wisdom in Epictetus we should look on as insanity in an acquaintance. Or, perhaps, not in an acquaintance, but at least in a near relation.
我们认为爱比克泰德的智慧，如果出现在熟人身上，就会被视为疯狂。或者，也许不是在熟人身上，至少如果发生在亲近的亲人身上会是这样。

I am sure that if I became as indifferent to money and comfort and all external things as Epictetus, and reasoned like him with a happy smile over the loss of a watch or a (fairly) expensive overcoat, my relations would become more perturbed than if I became a successful company promoter with the most materialistic philosophy conceivable.
我敢肯定，如果我像爱比克泰德那样对金钱、舒适和一切外在事物都变得漠不关心，并且像他那样在丢失手表或（一件相当）昂贵的大衣时还能带着愉快的微笑讲道理，我的亲人们会比我成为一个拥有极端物质主义哲学的成功公司推销商时还要不安。

Think, for example, of the reasoning of Epictetus over the thief who stole his iron lamp:-
比如，想想爱比克泰德对那个偷了他铁灯的小偷的推理：

He bought a lamp for a very high price; for a lamp he became a thief, for a lamp he became faithless, for a lamp he became bestial. This is what seemed to him to be profitable!
他以极高的价格买了一盏灯；为了这盏灯，他成了小偷；为了这盏灯，他变得不忠；为了这盏灯，他变得像野兽。这就是他认为有利可图的事情！

The reasoning is sound, yet neither individually nor as a society do we live in that contempt of property on which it is based.
这种推理是有道理的，然而无论是个人还是社会，我们都没有按照这种对财产的蔑视来生活。

A few saints do, but even they are at first a matter of great concern to their friends.
只有少数圣人做到了，但即便如此，他们一开始也让朋友们非常担忧。

When the world is at peace, we hold the paradoxical belief that the philosophers were wise men, but that we should be fools to imitate them.
当世界太平时，我们抱有一种自相矛盾的信念：哲学家们是智者，但如果我们效仿他们，我们就是傻瓜。

We believe that, while philosophers are worth reading, material things are worth bothering about. It is as though we enjoyed wisdom as a spectacle-a delightful spectacle on a stage which it would be unseemly for the audience to attempt to invade.
我们认为，虽然哲学家值得一读，但物质的事情同样值得我们去关心。这就好像我们把智慧当作一种奇观来欣赏——一种在舞台上上演的美妙奇观，而观众若试图闯入舞台则显得不合适。

Were the Greeks and the Romans made differently? Did the audiences of Socrates and Epictetus really attempt to become philosophers themselves, or were they like ourselves, hopeful of achieving wisdom, not by practice but by a magic potion administered by a wiser man than they?
希腊人和罗马人是与众不同的吗？苏格拉底和爱比克泰德的听众真的试图成为哲学家吗，还是像我们一样，希望通过比自己更有智慧的人施以魔法药剂，而不是通过实践来获得智慧？

To become wise without effort-by listening to a voice, by reading a book-it is at once the most exciting and the most soothing of dreams. In such a dream I took down Epictetus. And, behold, it was only a dream.
不费力气地变得智慧——只需听一段声音，读一本书——这既是最令人兴奋又最令人安慰的梦想。在这样的梦境中，我取下了《爱比克泰德》。然而，事实证明，这只是一场梦。
https://robertlynd.wordpress.com/

$By$$By$ByB y W.G.M.

Nmodern essayist more ably maintained the Addison tradition than Robert Lynd, whose death last week at the age of 70 will be regretted by countless readers who were stimulated by his wit, charmed by his kindly wisdom and heartened by his urbanity and friendliness.
在现代散文作家中，没有人比罗伯特·林德更好地继承了艾迪生的传统。上周他以七十岁高龄去世，无数读者会为此感到惋惜，因为他们曾被他的机智所激励，被他温和的智慧所吸引，并因他的文雅与友善而备受鼓舞。
The essay has never fallen out of favour since the 18th Century masters made it popular by broadening its scope and deftly shortening it to a familiar, entertaining ten-minute gossip. Some of Bacon’s essays are short enough, but they do not seek to be merry as well as wise; Cowley’s have a cultured, leisured mellowness that makes no particular appeal to the man in the street.
自 18 世纪大师们通过拓宽散文的题材并巧妙地将其缩短为一种熟悉而有趣的十分钟闲谈，使其流行起来以来，散文从未失宠。培根的一些散文虽然足够简短，但它们并不追求既幽默又睿智；考利的散文则有一种有教养、悠闲的醇厚感，但对普通大众并没有特别的吸引力。
But Steele and Addison brought the essay home to every man by simplifying it into a brief and easily readable article about his own affairs-dealing with current problems, with fashions and foibles of the moment, sketching a character, telling a story, criticising a book or a play, describing urban scenes and events, chronicling excursions into the country, moralising on vices or follies, philosophising on life at large-bandling the gravest or most trivial themes, so long as they were of common interest, and doing it all, seriously or humorously, with a grace of style and plainness of language that pleased all sorts of readers.
然而，斯蒂尔和艾迪生通过将散文简化为一篇简短且易读的文章，使其贴近每个人的生活——内容涉及当下的问题、时尚与当下的怪癖、人物素描、讲述故事、评论书籍或戏剧、描写城市景象与事件、记录乡村游历、对恶习或愚行进行道德评判、对人生进行哲学思考——无论是最严肃还是最琐碎的主题，只要是大家共同关心的，都能以严肃或幽默的方式，用优雅的文风和朴实的语言表达出来，令各种读者都感到愉悦。

Of distinguished writers who in our day have added fresh lustre to the essay-form, because they have used it without affectation or literary foppishness and have given it the grace of their own remarkable personalities, the most notable have been G. K. Chesterton, E. V. Lucas, A. G. Gardiner, C. E. Montague, Robert Lynd, J. B. Priestley, Max Beerbohm and Hilaire Belloc. It is a melancholy thought that within the last few years death has claimed all but the last three.
在我们这个时代，有一些杰出的作家为随笔这一文体增添了新的光彩，因为他们使用随笔时没有矫揉造作或文学上的浮夸，而是赋予了它自己非凡个性的优雅。其中最著名的有 G. K. 切斯特顿、E. V. 卢卡斯、A. G. 加迪纳、C. E. 蒙塔古、罗伯特·林德、J. B. 普里斯特利、马克斯·比尔博姆和伊莱尔·贝洛克。令人感伤的是，在过去几年中，除了最后三位之外，其余都已去世。
In this high company Robert Lynd held an honoured place for
在这个高尚的群体中，罗伯特·林德占有一个受人尊敬的位置，
close on half a century. For many years, as literary editor, first of the “Daily News” and then of the “News Chronicle,” he wrote a Saturday essay and also one for the “New Statesman and Nation” (under the initials “YY,” which became renowned throughout England), at the same time contributing regularly to “John o’ London’s Weekly,” with which, apart from “John o’ London” (the late Wilfred Whitten) himself, he was more closely associated than any other writer.
近半个世纪之久。多年来，作为“每日新闻”以及后来的“新闻纪事报”的文学编辑，他每周六都会写一篇随笔，同时还为“新政治家与民族”撰写随笔（署名“YY”，这个名字在全英格兰都很有名），并定期为“伦敦约翰周刊”供稿。除了“伦敦约翰”（已故的威尔弗雷德·惠顿）本人之外，他与这本杂志的联系比其他任何作家都要紧密。

Robert Lynd infused his work with the ife
罗伯特·林德将生活注入了他的作品

ROBERT LYND.  罗伯特·林德。
(From a pencil study by Augustus John.)
（奥古斯都·约翰的铅笔素描）
the home, the street, the sports ground, and the human heart. He brought it into contact with problems of faith, of politics, of conflict against tyranny, of the dangers and excitements of a shifting civilisation. Above all, he used the essay as an instrument to assert the right of the individual, in a mass-producing world, to think his own thoughts, make with his own hands, and love or hate or laugh at the inclination of his own spirit.
他将生活带入了家庭、街道、运动场和人类的心灵。他让生活与信仰、政治、反抗暴政的斗争以及动荡文明中的危险与刺激相接触。最重要的是，他把随笔作为一种工具，在这个大规模生产的世界里，主张个人有权思考自己的思想，用自己的双手创造，并按照自己内心的倾向去爱、去恨或去嘲笑。
Born at Belfast in 1879, son of a Presbyterian minister, Lynd has given us some delightful glimpses
1879 年出生于贝尔法斯特，是一位长老会牧师的儿子，林德为我们带来了一些令人愉快的见解
of his childhood in his first book, published in 1908, "Irish and English: Portraits and Impressions"a collection of essays he had contributed to divers weekly journals, most of them written, as he remarks in a preface, “under various damaging conditions,” and the greater part “in haste to catch late posts.” He tells us of the influence on his youthful mind of a benign but fiercely Protestant old nurse, “who believed in her heart that God was an Orangeman, and also believed that a strong family likeness existed between Satan and the Pope of Rome.”
他在 1908 年出版的第一本书《爱尔兰人与英国人：肖像与印象》中回忆了自己的童年，这本书是他为各类周刊撰写的随笔合集。他在前言中提到，这些文章大多是在“各种不利条件下”写成的，而且大部分都是“为了赶上晚邮而匆忙完成的”。他告诉我们，一位和蔼但极端新教的老保姆对他年幼的心灵产生了影响，“她内心深信上帝是橙党成员，也相信撒旦和罗马教皇之间有着极为相似的家族特征。”
But by the time he arrived in London as a tall (six-foot) gaunt young man he had shed religious prejudices and become the reasonable, tolerant, equable-minded citizen of the world who is revealed in his essays as one more amused than irritated by the follies, vanities and self-importances of mankind, who, secing both sides of a question, could sympathise with hopes, ambitions, beliefs he did not share, had too keen a sense of the ridiculous ever to be oracular, but could lose his temper gloriously, and grow angry and bitter against manifest injustice to nations or to individuals, against wrongs done by the strong to those who have not the strength or the means to retaliate successfully. With all his tolerance he was implacable in his detestation of bunkum and brutality. “The passion for justice,” he says in one of his essays, “will outlive any statesman that God has yet created”: and it is the only passion, apparently, that ever broke up his engaging, genial quietude and roused him to hot indignation.
但当他以一个高大（六英尺）、瘦削的青年抵达伦敦时，他已经抛弃了宗教偏见，成为了一个理性、宽容、心态平和的世界公民。在他的随笔中，这样的形象展现得淋漓尽致：他对人类的愚蠢、虚荣和自以为是更多的是感到好笑而非恼怒；他能看到问题的两面，能够同情那些他并不认同的希望、抱负和信仰；他对荒谬事物的敏锐感知使他从不居高临下地说教，但面对明显的不公正，无论是对国家还是个人，无论是强者对弱者的欺凌，他都能愤怒地失去冷静，变得激烈而尖锐。尽管他极为宽容，但对虚伪和暴力却毫不妥协地憎恶。他在一篇随笔中写道：“对正义的激情，将比上帝迄今创造的任何政治家都更长久地存在。”显然，这也是唯一能打破他那迷人、和善的平静，让他愤怒不已的激情。
By and large, he was contented to live and let live; his own views were good enough for him, and he was willing to assume that other men’s views might be good enough for them, and, except when he was frankly frivolous, or playing with an odd or grotesque fancy. it was this gracious spirit of reasonableness and commonsense philosophy that were the charm and distinctive notes of his essays. Many volumes of them have been published; get hold of some of them and read or reread them; they tell you far more about the kind of man he was than can be told by anyone else.
总的来说，他满足于随遇而安，安于本分；他自己的观点对他来说已经足够好，他也愿意假定别人的观点对他们来说也足够好，除非他坦率地表现得轻浮，或者在玩味某种奇特或怪诞的想法。正是这种宽厚的理性精神和常识哲学，构成了他散文的魅力和独特风格。他的散文已经出版了许多卷；找来其中几本读一读或重读一遍吧；这些作品比任何人所能描述的都更能告诉你他是怎样的一个人。