Self-Reliance

 自恃

                                     Ralph Waldo Emerson

拉尔瓦·沃尔多·爱默生（编译：王科军）

Man is his own star, and the sould that can

  Render an honest and a perfect man,

Command all light, all influence, all fate,

  Nothing to him falls early or too late.

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

--Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune.

人是自己的明星，灵魂能塑他诚实而完美。

他掌控所有光明、所有势力，所有命运，一切境遇都会来得恰如其时

如果我们的行为善良，那就是仙女在世，

如果行为是邪恶的，那就是致命的阴影在身旁悄悄作祟。

——博蒙特和弗来彻《老实人的命运》后记

I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they many contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in you private heart is true for all men—that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the univresal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgement. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses. Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes actross his mind from within more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of are have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

    几天前，我读了一位杰出画家的几首诗。立意新颖超凡脱俗。字里行间充满了对心灵的告诫。不说题材如何，就说那潜移默化的诗句，要比任何思想都有价值。相信自己的观点，相信内心深处的真情实感，这对所有的人来说，都是天才。说出你潜在心底的想法，可能成为一种普遍的认可；内心的东西在适当时机为成为外在的东西，而且这样最初的想法通过最后的裁定的号角反馈给我们。就像每个人对自己的心灵的声音那么熟悉一样，摩西、柏拉图和弥尔顿最大的功绩就在于蔑视书本，藐视传统而不发表别人的言论，只说自己的思想。和圣人先贤的光环相比，人应该更多地关注自己的心灵闪光点。然而有些人没有注重自己的思想，因为那是他自己的东西。但在天才的作品中我们往往发现被我们忽视了的思想，它们带着某种被疏离的权威回到我们的思维。伟大的艺术品给我们的教诲无非这些而已。他们教导我们在对方高唱自己的权威时，我们要遵守自己内心美好不可更改的思想。否则将来一位陌生人精准地感知说出我们一直以来的思想内涵，而我们被迫从别人那得得知自己的观点会感到羞愧难当的。

There is time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better ,for worse, as his portion; that, thought the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to come to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall that might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues. So it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliever. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

我们每个人在受教育期间总会坚信：忌妒就是无知；效仿等同于自杀。一个人必须要将自己的好不坏都视为自己的一部分；尽管广阔的世界充满了美好，但是如果不在自己的那块土地上辛苦耕作，营养丰富的谷物是不会自己送上门的。一个人身上蕴藏的力量是新奇的，除了自己谁也不知道他能做什么，但如果不去尝试，他自己也不知道。一张面孔，一位角色，一个真相，都会给他留下深刻的印象，却没有给另外人留下什么。这种记忆中的刻画无不因为是重新建立了和谐（共鸣）关系。将精力集中在光线应该投射的地方，那样才能发现这束光很特别。我们还不能充分地表达自己，还羞于提出自己的非凡观点。我们完全有理由相信自己的观点很正确，因此也一定会被如实地传达，但是上苍不会让懦弱的人彰显其杰作的。当一个人尽心尽力地工作时，那会感到踏实和快乐；但是如果他言行不一，他将不得安宁。那是一种没有摆脱的摆脱。没有创造，没有希望，没有思考的帮助，他的天才在这样的尝试下被放弃了。

Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the diving providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated as their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men and must accept in the highest mind the sametranscendent destiny; and not minor and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

相信自己，让每一颗心都随坚强信念行动。接受上苍为你的安排，授受当时的社会，接受事件的关联。伟大的人就是这样做的，并孩子似的向时代的天才吐露心声；将藏在心底的绝对可信的东西表达出来；将自己的命运交给双手。现在，我们都是成人了，必须要接受非凡命运的同样的挑战。我们不是求助里的老弱病残，也不是革命阵前的逃兵，我们是领袖，和救世主，是恩人，我们跟随着全能者尝试，朝着混沌与黑暗挺进。