我的生活海伦凯勒摘抄 海伦·凯勒自传《我的生活》第51期

海伦·凯勒自传《我的生活》第51期  

Last year
my second year at Radcliffe
I studied English position
the Bible as English position
the governments of America and Europe
the Odes of Horace
and Latin edy. The class in position was the pleasantest. It was very lively. The lectures were always interesting
vivacious
witty; for the instructor
Mr. Charles Townsend Copeland
more than any one else I have had until this year
brings before you literature in all its original freshness and power. For one short hour you are permitted to drink in the eternal beauty of the old masters without needless interpretation or exposition. You revel in their fine thoughts. You enjoy with all your soul the sweet thunder of the Old Testament
fetting the existence of Jahweh and Elohim; and you go home feeling that you have had "a glimpse of that perfection in which spirit and form dwell in immortal harmony; truth and beauty bearing a new growth on the ancient stem of time."
This year is the happiest because I am studying subjects that especially interest me
economics
Elizabethan literature
Shakespeare under Professor Gee L. Kittredge
and the History of Philosophy under Professor Josiah Royce. Through philosophy one enters with sympathy of prehension into the traditions of remote ages and other modes of thought
which erewhile seemed alien and without reason.
But college is not the universal Athens I thought it was. There one does not meet the great and the wise face to face; one does not even feel their living touch. They are there
it is true; but they seem mummified. We must extract them from the crannied wall of learning and dissect and analyze them before we can be sure that we have a Milton or an Isaiah
and not merely a clever imitation. Many scholars fet
it seems to me
that our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding. The trouble is that very few of their laborious explanations stick in the memory. The mind drops them as a branch drops its overripe fruit. It is possible to know a flower
root and stem and all
and all the processes of growth
and yet to have no appreciation of the flower fresh bathed in heaven's dew. Again and again I ask impatiently
"Why concern myself with these explanations and hypotheses?" They fly hither and thither in my thought like blind birds beatingthe air with ineffectual wings. I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable ments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men. But when a great scholar like Professor Kittredge interprets what the master said
it is "as if new sight were given the blind." He brings back Shakespeare
the poet.
不过，大学并不是万能的“雅典学园”。你不会在这里遇到伟大的灵魂，也不会与智慧面面相对，你甚至感觉不到他们手指的触摸。虽然他们是确实存在的，但是他们似乎已经变成了干枯的木乃伊。在我们确信已经拥有了弥尔顿或者以赛亚之前，我们必须要将他们从知识的缝隙中抽取出来，并对其进行细致入微的分析，而不仅仅是自作聪明的模仿。在我看来，很多学者都忘记了这样一个事实，我们因伟大文学作品而产生的共鸣，更多地是依赖于我们深切的同情心，而非我们的理解力。问题是留存在人们记忆中的文化精髓极其稀少。不妨说，精髓的传承犹如枝条上垂下的成熟果实——你能够寻觅到一朵花、一条根茎和一束枝条的生长轨迹，但是你却不会对滋润鲜花的天堂雨露心存感激。我不耐烦地反复问自己：“为什么你要在意那些个解释和臆测？”这样的念头在我的脑中飞来飞去，就像失明的鸟儿无助地在空中扑打着翅膀。当然，对于我们所读过的那些著名作品的精髓，我并没有全盘否定的意思。我所反对的只是冗长而令人困惑的评论，但有一件事是肯定的：有多少人就有多少种观点。像吉特莱芝教授这样的大学者在阐释大师作品时曾说过，大师之作“恰如赐予盲人的新视觉”。的确，他正是把莎士比亚的诗人地位复原如初的先驱，也是带给我们光明的使者。
There are
however
times when I long to sweep away half the things I am expected to learn; for the overtaxed mind cannot enjoy the treasure it has secured at the greatest cost. It is impossible
I think
to read in one day four or five different books in different languages and treating of widely different subjects
and not lose sight of the very ends for which one reads. When one reads hurriedly and nervously
having in mind written tests and examinations
one's brain bees encumbered with a lot of choice bric-?brac for which there seems to be little use. At the present time my mind is so full of heterogeneous matter that I almost despair of ever being able to put it in order. Whenever I enter the region that was the kingdom of my mind I feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop. A thousand odds and ends of knowledge e crashing about my head like hailstones
and when I try to escape them
theme-goblins and college nixies of all sorts pursue me
until I wish—oh
may I be fiven the wicked wish!—that I might smash the idols I came to worship.