翻译 李文东 liwendong@china.com

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JOHN RUSKIN　英国散文家，著作＜the stones of Venice＞写了很多评论性的东西，

他有名的一句话是＂life without industry is guilt/ but industry without art is brutality＂

（没有伟业的生活是有罪的，但是没有艺术的伟业却是野蛮的．）

translated by madbird, improvisional translation only.
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

The Love of Beauty 

爱美 

The love of beauty is an essential part of all healthy human nature.
对美之热爱是所有健康人性的必不可少的一部分
 It is a moral quality. 这是一种道德品质
The absence of it is not an assured ground of condemnation, but the presence of it is an invariable sign of goodness of heart. 
缺乏美并不是注定要遭受谴责,但是当美出现的时候,却都是仁爱之心的一致表现.

In proportion to the degree in which it is felt will probably be the degree in which nobleness and beauty of character will be attained. 
感受美的深度也就是高尚情操与美好品德的程度.


Natural beauty is an all-pervading presence. 
自然的美是无处不在的.

The universe is its temple.
整个宇宙都是美的所在.

 It unfolds into the numberless flowers of spring. It waves in the branches of trees and the green blades of grass. 
美存在于春天无数之花草之中,它舞动在树枝上,和那绿草的青青叶片上.


It haunts the depths of the earth and the sea. It gleams from the hues of the shell and the precious stone. 
美飘荡于大地之上,游弋在深海之中.它闪烁在海摈贝壳和宝石的色调中.

And not only these minute objects but the oceans, the mountains, the clouds, the stars, the rising and the setting sun - all overflow with beauty. 
美不仅仅存在于这些细微之处,也存在于大海中,山巅上,白云间,群星畔,旭日与孤霞中--万物都浸润在美之中．

This beauty is so precious, and so congenial to our tenderest and noblest feelings, that it is painful to think of the multitude of people living in the midst of it and yet remaining almost blind to it.  
美是如此宝贵,如此适意于我们的最温柔和高贵的情感, 所以一想到芸芸众生居处在美之间,却对美几乎视而不见,就会令人内心苦痛.

All persons should seek to become acquainted with the beauty in nature. 
所有的人都应该谙熟自然之美.

There is not a worm we tread upon, nor a leaf that dances merrily as it falls before the autumn winds, but calls for our study and admiration. 
我们脚下的爬虫,秋风来临之时轻盈飘落的树叶, 一切都等我们去观察,去欣赏.

The power to appreciate beauty not merely increases our sources of happiness - it enlarges our moral nature, too. 
欣赏美的能力不仅仅能够增加我们的快乐之源泉--它也使得我们的品德情操更加高尚.

Beauty calms our restlessness and dispels our cares. 
在我们浮躁之时,美使得我们平静,驱散我们的忧虑.

Go into the fields or the woods, spend a summer day by the sea or the mountains, and all your little perplexities and anxieties will vanish. 
到田野或者树林中去,在海边或者山间度一夏日, 那么你所有小小的疑惑和焦躁都将一扫而光.

Listen to sweet music, and your foolish fears and petty jealousies will pass away. The beauty of the world helps us to seek and find the beauty of goodness. 
倾听那天籁之音,那么你所有愚蠢的恐惧感和小小的嫉妒心都会消失.
这个世界的自然之美帮助我们去追求和寻找心灵的善良之美.

by John Ruskin, English essayist and artist 

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Ruskin, John (1819-1900), English writer, art critic, and reformer, a dominant tastemaker among intellectuals of the Victorian period. Ruskin is best known for his monumental studies of architecture and its social and historical implications described in The Seven Lamps of Architecture and its sequel, The Stones of Venice.

Ruskin was born February 8, 1819, in London and educated at the University of Oxford. His youthful passions for art, literature, and travel were encouraged by his father, a wealthy merchant. The story of his early years was told by Ruskin himself in his last work, an unfinished autobiography, Praeterita (1885-1889). His main theme, the relationship between art and morality, was first set forth, and his influence as aesthete and art critic established, with the publication in 1843 of the first volume of his Modern Painters. This work was in part a defense of the then-controversial painter J. M. W. Turner. The two books that followed, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851-1853), were studies in the religious, moral, economic, and political significance of domestic architecture. Ruskin, renowned for his style, was also an effective lecturer. Rebelling against the aesthetically numbing and socially debasing effects of the Industrial Revolution, he put forth the theory that art, which is essentially spiritual, reached its zenith in the Gothic art of the late Middle Ages, which was inspired by religious and moral zeal.

Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Art at Oxford in 1869, remaining in the post until 1879. He was elected to the professorship again in 1883 but resigned the next year in protest against the practice of vivisection in the university laboratories. Ruskin, with a family history of mental disturbance, had periodic bouts with insanity beginning in about 1870, and remained an invalid from 1889 until his death on January 20, 1900, in Coniston, Lancashire. His later works include Lectures on Architecture and Painting (1854), Lectures on the Political Economy of Art (1858), and Fors Clavigera (Club of Fate, 1871-1884), a series of letters to the workers of Britain that influenced socialist reformers for three generations.