今天出最后一篇散文，剩下的12篇准备自己慢慢消化。

《我生活的地方，我为什么生活》实在太出名了，豹豹个人也很喜爱这一篇散文，出自《瓦尔登湖》(Walden)第二篇，全文其实很长，本书选段只给出了占全篇1/5的第一部分。

Henry David Thoreau ，近200年前的哲学家，诗人，博物学家，超验主义者，与之前提到的爱默生同为代表。终生未婚，在瓦尔登湖隐居生活两年零两个月，《瓦尔登湖》是他索居的详实写照。书中大量引用了希腊，罗马，印度，中国等典故，包含了大量动植物细微描写，是很能让人心静的一本书。当然这本书并不好读，买来也只是静静待在书架一角。等能力到达了再说吧。

这篇文是第二章的开头部分，衔接了第一篇Economy，但在第二篇更深入进行了生命的思考。比如在本文中出现了But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.

以及本文后半部分出现的很经典的I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.对于梭罗来说"如果我像大多数人那样，把自己的上午和下午卖给社会，生活也就没什么值得过了。"(梭罗是孤家寡人，当然无牵无挂，这种情感很美，但在现在生活进行借鉴太有限制。)

豹豹很喜欢结尾处的一小点描写Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. 时间只是我垂钓的溪。我喝溪水;喝水时看它那沙底，它多么浅啊。它的汩汩的流水逝去了，可是永恒留了下来。(选自徐迟老先生译文)

这篇文稍微出一些，比起翻阅更愿意轻轻将它们读出来。

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to(习惯于) consider every spot as the possible site of a hou se. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live.

到达我们生命的某个时期，我们就习惯于把可以安家落户的地方，一个个地加以考察了。

开头写的是作者在建造自己的房子前对所有可能得场所进行了考察。后文还想象了各种可能性，比如和农场主聊天谈谈农业，尝尝他们的野苹果，以及开价甚至抵押等。结构较散，对应走路时边走边想的发散性。

Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? -- better if a country seat.

无论我坐在哪里，都是能够生活的。风景也随之任我想象，房子不就是一个座位吗？--如果这个座位在乡间就更好了。(富人的房子是个座位，穷人的房子是屋顶)

Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off(流逝), buffet (与...搏斗)the winter through, and see the spring come in.

这一段话很美。

不过我哪都能住，我可以在那住下；我就在那过一小时夏天的和冬天的生活；看那些流年飞逝，挨过了冬季，看见春天来临。

An afternoon sufficed to(足以) lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree(枯树) could be seen to the best advantage(发挥最大价值); and then I let it (指前面的枯树) lie, fallow, perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to (成比例)the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

只要一个下午就能在田地里设计出果园，树林和牧场，就能决定门前应该留着哪些优美的橡树或松树，每棵枯树如何发挥最大的价值，然后不去管它，让它闲置。一个人越对许多事物释然越会富有。

但是作者想的很好，唯独没想到过会被拒绝，定下来的一个农场又被农场主的妻子反悔了。作者退回了农场和10美元违约金，所以作者后来说 I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty.他当了一回富人，又无损于贫穷。(因为花钱买农场本身会让人变穷，更不提农场附带的各种负担)

'I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute.'

我勘察一切，像一个皇帝，

谁也不能够否认我的权利。

这两句取自英诗人William Cowper 的 Verses Supposed to Be Written by Alexander Selkirk ，诗中survey有双关之意，纵览或勘测，对应作者的工作。

(英文参考许乃夫老师英文原版注解，中文参考译者徐迟老先生译本)

I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk.

这一段有点幽默。

我时常看到一个诗人，在欣赏了一片田园风景中的最珍贵部分之后，就扬长而去，那些固执的农夫还以为他拿走的仅只是几枚野苹果。诗人却把他的田园押上了韵脚，而且多少年之后，农夫还不知道这回事，这么一道最可羡慕的、肉眼不能见的篱笆已经把它圈了起来，还挤出了它的牛乳，去掉了奶油，把所有的奶油都拿走了，他只把去掉了奶油的奶水留给了农夫。(太长了，直接用了中文版翻译)

这里的诗人a poet指的是美国诗人William Elleny Channing，紧跟出现的rhyme指的便是The Woodman & Other Poems中的Baker Farm.

这一段用了比喻，很形象描述农场最好最精华的部分已经被诗人拿到了诗作中。

The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me,were: its complete retirement(隐匿处), being, about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous(ruin+ous废弃的) state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated(破旧的，坍塌的) fences, which put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered ([ˈlaɪkən]注意发音)  apple trees, nawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but above all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river, ...

这一段没什么太难的地方，略有几个生词，描写还是蛮细节的。

作者将地方定在瓦尔登湖的时候，其实相中过一处，就是本段中提到的Hollowell farm, 它的僻静;离村子，邻居和公路的距离;它的农场旁边还有条河，春天河上会有雾气不会下霜。这都没什么，房子谷仓都很破败，篱笆也坍塌了，足见作者与上一个住户之间隔着多么漫长的时间。长满地衣的苹果树被兔子啃过，这一切让作者想起多次乘船逆流而上给他的感觉。

后来作者等不及农场主搬走那些石头，砍到那些苹果树，挖掉冒出来的小桦树就准备大干一场，如同阿特拉斯(Atlas-希腊神话中以肩顶天的巨人，普罗米修斯的兄弟)扛起整个世界，但最终结局没有买成。

写这一篇文章挺费劲的，整两个多小时断断续续，倒不是文章难度，而是文中透露的气息，一种细腻却又闲散，率性而又了无牵挂的心境很不好捉摸。整篇第二章写出了要简单生活，却充实而自由。推荐看原文。

最后以本文中开头已经引用的一句话结尾As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.(尽可能长久地生活得自由，生活得并不执著才好。不管是醉心于田园还是关进监狱本没什么不同。)

参考本文，参考许乃夫老师版本Walden，参考徐迟老先生中文版(上海译文)。

散文就暂时告一段落，明天准备开始复习，没办法，谁让语言的一大要素就是重复呢。