如果用英文描写一个湖泊，这些英文就用上了

Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe；and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were.

译文：实际上，老人并不能给年轻人提供什么重要的意见，老人们的经验其实非常片面，私下里老人们心里得有数，他们的人生其实惨败；大概是他们剩余的一点信仰让他们误以为是经验，而实际上他们不过是不再年轻了。

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

我家中有三把椅子；一把给独处，第二把给友谊，第三把给全社会。

I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another.

我曾把二十五到三十个左右的灵魂，连同其肉体，一总聚集在我的屋顶下，到了分别的时候，似乎彼此并未意识到我们曾彼此如此接近。

If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other’s breath; but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate.

如果我们不过是健谈又大声地聊天，我们便可以容忍彼此靠近，脸贴着脸，感觉着交谈时彼此的呼吸；但如果交谈时彼此客气又周到的话，会稍微离得远一些，让所有人身上动物性的体温和气息得以蒸发掉。

They had nothing to eat themselves, and they were wiser than to think that apologies could supply the place of food to their guests; so they drew their belts tighter and said nothing about it.

他们自己都没有食物吃，但至少他们比那些拿道歉来填塞来客的肚子聪明一点；他们把腰带扎紧，并对此不发一言。

Vice and disease, which cast such a somber moral hue over the world, seemed to have hardly any existence for him.

给世界蒙上灰暗道德色彩的许多恶习与疾病，在他的身上几乎毫不存在。

To a stranger he appeared to know nothing of things in general; yet I sometimes saw in him a man whom I had not seen before, and I did not know whether he was as wise as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as a child, whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or of stupidity.

对于陌生人，他表现得一无所知；然而有时我看到他的内心里隐藏着一个我从未认识的他，我既无法了解他是否像莎士比亚一样有智慧也没办法简单地当他是无知的孩子，认为他有诗人的知性亦或是愚不可及都不合适。

The old and infirm and timid, of whatever age or sex, thought most of sickness, and sudden accident and death; to them life seemed full of danger——what danger is there if you don’t think of any?——and they thought that a prudent man would carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might be on hand at a moment’s warning.

老人、羸弱者或羞怯的人，无论年龄与性别，想得最多的就是生病，发生意外与死亡；对他们来说，生命充满了危险——其实如果不是想得太多，哪儿来的那么多危险？——在他们认为，一个慎重的人应该能认真选择一个最安全的住处，最好是一有不良征兆时医生立刻就能赶过来。

There the sun lighted me to hoe beans, pacing slowly backward and forward over that yellow gravelly upland, between the long green rows, fifteen rods, the one end terminating in a shrub oak copse where I could rest in the shade, the other in a blackberry field where the green berries deepened their tints by the time I had made another bout.

在那里，阳光照着我去那满是黄色沙子的高地上锄豆子，在一排排绿色的横陇间，有15根竿子，最末的一根在一片树丛里，那里我可以在荫凉里休息，另一端的一根插在黑莓田里，每次我过去的时候都觉得那的绿莓果让黑莓显得更黑些。

A very Agricola laboriosus was I to travelers bound westward through Lincoln and Wayland to nobody knows where; they sitting at their ease in gigs, with elbows on knees, and reins loosely hanging in festoons; I the home staying, laborious native of the soil.

相对于喜欢向西穿过林肯和魏兰德恣意旅行他方的行者，我是个勤劳的耕作者；他们喜欢舒适地坐在双轮马车里，胳膊肘放在膝盖上，缰绳松弛地挂着装饰；而我，喜欢把劳作放在土地上，不然就呆在家里

They were beans cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that I cultivated, and my hoe played the Ranz des Vaches for them.

豆子愉快地回到野地里，等待我去耕种这块土地，我的锄头像是为豆子们演奏着成长的欢歌。

The nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons-for I sometimes made a day of it-like a mote in the eye, or in heaven’s eye, falling from time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent, torn at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope remained; small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the ground on bare sand or rocks on the tops of hills, where few have found them; graceful and slender like ripples caught up from the pond, as leaves are raised by the wind to float in the heavens; such kindredship is in nature.

夜鹰在晴朗的下午盘旋于空中，我有时看它们能看上一天，在天空中好像我的视野里添了一点瑕疵，或者可以说像是天空中的一个黑点，时不时来个俯冲，附带着一声轻啸，仿似要撕开天空，来来回回地要把天空撕成一块一块，但天空依然一碧如洗；空气中还有许多飞旋的小东西，把卵产在人迹罕至的白沙与山上的岩石上；优美柔和地好似池塘里的波纹，叶子因风而起在空中飘荡；这些都是自然创造的景象。

These martial strains seemed as far away as Palestine, and reminded me of a march of crusaders in the horizon, with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of the elm tree tops which overhang the village.

这些战争的伤痕感觉像巴勒斯坦那么远，让我想起军队队列出现在地平线上，轻轻的号角声由远及近，村子里的大榆树仿似战栗着抖了一抖。

Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid. This generation is very sure to plant corn and beans each new year precisely as the Indians as did centuries ago and taught the first settlers to do, as if there were a fate in it.

一般要是父辈是勇敢的，那这一辈人也会勇敢，胆小也一样能遗传。好比我们这一辈人种植玉米和大豆的方法，和最初印第安人数个世纪以前的方法是一样的，印第安人教会了第一批定居者，这方法便世代流传下来，这好像是注定的。