我的生活海伦凯勒摘抄 海伦·凯勒自传《我的生活》第49期

海伦·凯勒自传《我的生活》第49期  

Chapter XX
The struggle for admission to college was ended
and I could now enter Radcliffe whenever I pleased. Before I entered college
however
it was thought best that I should study another year under Mr. Keith. It was not
therefore
until the fall of 1900 that my dream of going to college was realized.
I remember my first day at Radcliffe. It was a day full of interest for me. I had looked forward to it for years. A potent force within me
stronger than the persuasion of my friends
stronger even than the pleadings of my heart
had impelled me to try my strength by the standards of those who see and hear. I knew that there were obstacles in the way; but I was eager to overe them. I had taken to heart the words of the wise Roman who said
"To be banished from Rome is but to live outside of Rome." Debarred from the great highways of knowledge
I was pelled to make the journey across country by unfrequented roads—that was all; and I knew that in college there were many bypaths where I could touch hands with girls who were thinking
loving and struggling like me.
我仍然记得入学第一天的情景，对我而言，那真是兴味盎然的一天。我期盼这一天已经很多年了。在我心里蕴涵着一股强大的力量，它比朋友们的规劝更具有说服力，它甚至比我内心的祈求更加强烈，它驱策我竭尽全力向那些耳目功能俱全的正常人看齐。我深知行路艰难，但是我有克服一切困难的雄心。我将睿智的古罗马格言铭记于心：“虽然被逐出罗马，却依旧活在罗马城下。”我已被阻挡在知识的大道之外，那么我只能迫使自己穿越人迹罕至的乡村小路——这就是我所做的一切。我当然知道大学里面遍布着许多条这样的小路，在行进途中，我用双手触摸到的姑娘们都怀着和我一样的心理，她们勤于思考，热爱知识，而且斗志昂扬。
I began my studies with eagerness. Before me I saw a new world opening in beauty and light
and I felt within me the capacity to know all things. In the wonderland of Mind I should be as free as another. Its people
scenery
manners
joys
tragedies should be living
tangible interpreters of the real world. The lecture-halls seemed filled with the spirit of the great and the wise
and I thought the professors were the embodiment of wisdom. If I have since learned differently
I am not going to tell anybody.
But I soon discovered that college was not quite the romantic lyceum I had imagined. Many of the dreams that had delighted my young inexperience became beautifully less and "faded into the light of mon day." Gradually I began to find that there were disadvantages in going to college.
The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think
to reflect
my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit
which one hears only in leisure moments when the words of some loved poet touch a deep
sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to mune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn
it seems
not to think. When one enters the portals of learning
one leaves the dearest pleasures—solitude
books and imagination—outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I ought to find some fort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment
but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day.