在《向大师学英文——边欣赏边思考边应用(3)》中,提到书籍中的内容就好像是精神营养,如果能主动自愿而不是别动的去吸收,就会让自己的思想处于良性的营养状态,也就是充满活力的思想新陈代谢过程:个人思想不断的去伪存真的过程。所以,我们不妨时不时问问自己,与过去相比,哪些理念已经不再认同,哪些新的思想又融入了自己的大脑。我反思自己思想的变化:一直以来总是相信目前的工作不是自己理想的工作,理想与现实的差距让我常常不能尽全力把眼前的事情做好,常常急躁的幻想瞬间改变现状。最近我通过阅读,开始重新思考这个局面:目前的新认知是接收现实才是改变的第一步。接受现实不是放弃梦想,而是认识到梦想需要时间和努力。接受现实就是要充分利用现有的资源,培养自己认真投入生活的习惯,这样才更有可能一步一步走到自己想要的未来。
复习上次的内容
insipid 复习读音,单词含义
接下来继续欣赏林语堂先生《生活的艺术》一书中有关“阅读的艺术”的第四段。
先看译文:
因此,必须是意在为培植面目的可爱和语言的有味而读书,照着黄山谷的说法,方可算做真正的读书。这个所谓“面目可爱”,显然不同于外表美(英文怎么表达?)的解释。黄山谷所谓“面目可憎”者,并不是相貌的丑恶。所以世有可憎的美面,也有可爱的丑面。我的本国朋友中,有一位头尖如炸弹形一般,但这个人终是悦目的。西方的作家中,我从肖像中看来,相貌最可爱者当属却斯德顿(G.K.Chesterton),他的胡须、眼镜、丛眉、眉间的皱纹,团聚在一起是多么的怪异可爱啊!这个形容使人觉得他的前脑中充满着何等丰富的活泼思想,好像随时从他的异常尖锐的双目中爆发出来。这就是黄山谷所谓可爱的面目,不是由花粉胭脂所装扮的面目,而是由思想力所华饰的面目。至于怎样可以“语言有味”,这全在他的书是怎样的读法。一个读者如能从书中得到它的味道,他便会在谈吐中显露出来。他的谈吐如有味,则他的著作中便也自然会富有滋味。
然后看原著:
Reading for the cultivation of personal charm of appearance and flavor in speech is then, according to Huang, the only admissible kind of reading. This charm of appearance must evidently be interpreted as something other than physical beauty.What Huang means by "hateful to look at" is not physical ugliness. There are ugly faces that have a fascinating charm and beautiful faces that are insipid to look at. I have among my Chinese friends one whose head is shaped like a bomb and yet who is nevertheless always a pleasure to see. The most beautiful face among Western authors,so far as I have seen them in pictures, was that of G. K. Chesterton. There was such a diabolical conglomeration of mustache, glasses, fairly bushy eyebrows and knitted lines where the eyebrows met! One felt there were a vast number of ideas playing about inside that forehead, ready at any time to burst out from those quizzically penetrating eyes. That is what Huang would call a beautiful face, a face not made up by powder and rouge, but by the sheer force of thinking. As for flavor of speech, it all depends on one's way of reading. Whether one has "flavor" or not in his talk,depends on his method of reading. If a reader gets the flavor of books, he will show that flavor in his conversations, and if he has flavor in his conversations, he cannot help also having a flavor in his writing.
我的思考与应用:
One felt there were a vast number of ideas playing about inside that forehead, ready at any time to burst out from those quizzically penetrating eyes.
朗文字典对 quizzically 的解释如下:
我对于"quizzically penetrating eyes"的理解是旁人不能理解这位睿智者的眼神而觉得有点可笑,而其本人则正因为沉浸于自己的思考而乐在其中。
I think "quizzically penetrating eyes"means that people can not understand the thinker's eyes so they feel them funny, but actually the thinker has happily immersed himself in his ideas.
这句话应该是林先生的想象,而我也会想象思想丰富而活跃的人头上会闪烁着各种宝石的光芒:钻石diamond、红宝石ruby、蓝宝石sapphire、祖母绿宝石emeraid、珍珠pearl等等。
This must be Mr. Lin's imagination. Sometimes I also imagine a person who has a lot of fresh ideas like sparkling precious stones :diamonds,ruby,sapphire, emeraid or pearl.
我个人觉得这个句子非常生动。这样的一位思想活跃者,表面上看也许是孤独的,但实际上却是狂欢的。这与另一种情况形成鲜明对比,那就是表面上看一大群人在一起狂欢,而其中的每个人又都真切感受到孤独。(孤独的狂欢与狂欢的孤独)
I feel this sentence is very vivid. Such a person with dancing ideas is not lonely at all , he is rather enjoyable. On the contrary, more often than not, when many people stay together and try to have fun, each of them still can feel the true loneliness .
physical beauty and personal charm
外表美必然会逝去,只关注外表美必然是绝望的;而气质美却可以与日俱增,语言和文字的风味可以通过不断积累酝酿而变得越来越优美可人,幽默睿智。我希望不断寻找并接近追求气质美的人,我希望我的气质美会每天多一点点,一直到离开世界的那一天达到最高值。
Physical beauty will gone, no matter how much you want to grasp it. But the good news is you can cultivate your personal charm as long as you live. Your words, your article, will be more attractive day by day if you want to make effort. I badly want to search that kind of person who is continuelly improving his or her personal charm. To me , I hope my charm reach the peak on the day when I leave the world.