英译中习作一篇

                                       Of Literature

In the collected body of writing we call literature, there may be distinguished two separate groupings, capable of blending, but also fitted for reciprocal repulsion. There is first the literature of knowledge, and secondly the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach; the function of the second is to move. The first is a rudder, the second an oar or sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks to the higher understanding or reason, but always through the affections of pleasure and sympathy. Whenever we talk in ordinary language of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand the words as connected with absolute novelty. But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests, although it may not be absolutely novel even to the meanest of minds.

What do we learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all. What do we learn from a cookbook? Something new, something we did not know before, in every paragraph. But would we therefore put the wretched cookbook on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What we owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million advancing steps on the same earthly level. What we owe is power, that is, the exercise and expansion of your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upwards—a step ascending as upon Jacob’s ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry us farther on the same plane, but could never raise us one foot above your ancient level on earth; whereas, the very first step of power is flight—an ascending into another element where earth is forgotten.

文之道

                                         譯：錢坤強

    夫文章者，天下所書之集大成也，其中迥然可識兩門類，彼此既相融，亦互斥。首授人知識之文，次予人力量之文。前者之功，誨人以事理；後者之效，動之以情感。之於舟楫，前為舵，後為槳，或為帆。前者所訴者，人之單純邏輯悟性也；後者所訴者，終為更高一籌之悟性，或曰理性，然固由愉悅與同感而使然。常言所謂探知求識，每每必與新奇未知之物相涉牽。然則，唯有終極真理之輝煌，方能居高位于人類諸般利益中，雖於最愚劣之心靈，未顯絲毫之新意。

    捧《失樂園》而誦讀，何所學？答曰：一無所獲。執一食肆之書而研習，何所獲？答曰：每一章節，悉有新得。如此這般，彼食肆之書，雖不足掛齒，然比诸彌翁之神聖詩篇，豈有過之而無不及哉？吾等受惠于彌翁者，決非世事俗知也，此類學識，縱然習得其中百萬之眾，亦無非臨塵世之平地而前行百萬之碎步耳。彌翁惠澤世人者，惟力量是焉，猶吾輩與天地交感之潛質之激發與拓展也；此間，力之博動，勢之翻湧，皆生命之騰越，猶若緣雅各（Jacob）通天之梯，抵超越塵寰之上界。凡知識之步伐，自首至末，徒令世人躑躅於亘古不變之層面，雖漸行漸遠，然斷難淩塵世而越其樊籬，雖毫釐亦不能為。反之，力量之步伐，雖一步之勞，当屬淩空翱翔，化入超凡脱俗之境界，拒浊世于雲霄之外。