論自立

                                                                                      —— 愛默生         謝國芳（Roy Xie）譯     

     每個(gè)人的教育中都有一個(gè)時(shí)期會(huì)達(dá)到這樣的一種信念，那就是羨慕即是無知，模仿等于自殺；不管好壞，他必須接受自己的現(xiàn)狀，把它當(dāng)作自己的命運(yùn)；盡管廣袤的宇宙中充滿了善，然而若非通過在那塊交由他耕耘的土地上的辛勤勞作，他甚至不會(huì)收獲一顆有營養(yǎng)的谷粒。在他的體內(nèi)蘊(yùn)藏著一種性質(zhì)上全新的能力，除了他自己之外沒有人知道他能夠做什么，而他也只有在嘗試之后才能知曉。

      那么，就讓人懂得自己的價(jià)值，把身外之物踩在腳下。讓他在這個(gè)為他而存在的世界上不要偷窺，不要盜竊，不要帶著一個(gè)領(lǐng)救濟(jì)的孩童、一個(gè)私生子、一個(gè)非法闖入者的神情鬼鬼祟祟地來回潛行?？墒菈m世間的那些凡夫俗子，因?yàn)樵谒约旱膬?nèi)心找不到任何能相應(yīng)于建造塔樓或雕刻大理石神像的力量的價(jià)值，每當(dāng)他觀看它們時(shí)就自慚形穢。對他來說，一座宮殿、一尊雕像、或一本昂貴的書帶有一種格格不入而又令人生畏的神情，很像一個(gè)華麗的侍從，似乎在沖著他說，“你是誰？先生?！比欢鼈兌际撬模撬淖⒁饬Φ淖非笳?，是拜倒在他的才能前的請?jiān)刚撸埱笏l(fā)揮出來將其占有。這幅畫等待我的判決：它不能命令我，倒是我將決定它對于贊美的索求。那個(gè)民間流行的寓言故事講一個(gè)爛醉如泥的酒鬼在街上被人抬起，送到了公爵的家里，被人伺候沐浴更衣，臥倒在了公爵的床上。醒來后又被人像公爵一樣以百般奉承的禮儀對待，并被人說得確信自己以前是瘋了。這一故事的流行是由于它很好地象征了人的狀態(tài)，人在世上就像一個(gè)醉鬼，但偶爾也會(huì)清醒過來，運(yùn)用他的理智，于是發(fā)現(xiàn)自己原來是一個(gè)真正的君主。

      讓我們擯棄赴宴的銅鑼，而聆聽斯巴達(dá)橫笛的尖嘯。讓我們不要再彎腰鞠躬，不要再賠禮道歉。一個(gè)大人物要來我家里吃飯，我不想去取悅他，我倒希望他來迎合我。我將代表人類站在這里，雖然我會(huì)善意相待，但我絕不會(huì)虛情假意。讓我們公開蔑視和申斥這個(gè)時(shí)代滑頭的平庸和卑劣的滿足，并把一個(gè)鐵的事實(shí)——它是全部歷史的結(jié)論——猛擲在一切習(xí)俗、交易和事務(wù)所的面前。那就是，只要有一個(gè)人在工作的地方，就有一個(gè)偉大的富有責(zé)任感的思想者和行動(dòng)家存在；那就是，一個(gè)真正的人決不屬于別的時(shí)間和空間，他乃是萬物之中心。他在哪里，自然就和他同在。他衡量你，衡量一切人，一切事件。

      每一個(gè)真正的人就代表了一個(gè)事業(yè)，一個(gè)國家，一個(gè)時(shí)代。為了完成他的塑造需要無窮的空間、數(shù)字和時(shí)間，而后代則猶如一長隊(duì)隨從尾隨其后。一個(gè)人凱撒誕生了，多年之后才有羅馬帝國的輝煌；基督降生了，于是數(shù)百萬個(gè)心靈得以生長并緊緊依附于他的天才，以至于他被混同于美德和人類潛質(zhì)的化身。一個(gè)機(jī)構(gòu)無非是某個(gè)人延長了的影子，而全部歷史很容易歸結(jié)為幾個(gè)強(qiáng)有力的赤誠人物的傳記。

      堅(jiān)持你自己，決不要模仿。你自己的天賦你能夠以畢生培養(yǎng)所累積的力量隨時(shí)呈現(xiàn)，但對于從別人那里學(xué)來的才能，你只有某種臨時(shí)的不完全的占有。每個(gè)人最擅長的事情，只有上帝才能教他。直到那個(gè)人展現(xiàn)特長之前，尚沒有人知道——也不可能知道——它是什么。能夠教育莎士比亞的大師在哪里？能夠指導(dǎo)富蘭克林，或華盛頓，或培根，或牛頓的教師又何處尋覓？每一個(gè)偉人都是獨(dú)一無二的，西庇厄的西庇厄主義恰恰是他無法借自別人的那一部分，研究莎士比亞者永遠(yuǎn)成不了莎士比亞。從事上蒼分派給你的工作吧，你就不會(huì)奢望太多或者冒險(xiǎn)過甚。在這一刻，你就有了如菲迪亞斯的巨鑿、如古埃及人的泥刀、如摩西或但丁的神筆一般勇敢莊嚴(yán)、但同時(shí)又自成一格的話語。那些豐富雄辯、巧舌如簧的靈魂不可能屈尊降貴重復(fù)自身，但如果你能聽到這些先輩的話語，你也一定能用同樣的聲調(diào)回答他們，因?yàn)槎浜蜕囝^乃是同一本性的兩種器官。固守屬于你的生活的那簡樸而又崇高的圈子，聽從你的內(nèi)心，那么你就必將再現(xiàn)整個(gè)史前世界。

【英語原文】

Self-Reliance

                                                                                         by Ralph Waldo Emerson

    There is a time in every man ’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

    Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him. But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, or a costly book have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem to say like that, 'Who are you, Sir?” Yet they all are his, suitors for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict: it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact, that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, and finds himself a true prince.

    Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the center of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events.

    Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; It requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design; and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients. A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.

    Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life ’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses, or Dante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of your life, obey your heart, and you shall reproduce the Foreworld again.