霍顿平原粗砺壮阔的美，我的言语太贫瘠，只能借用哈代在《还乡》中写埃格顿荒原的话来描绘。
“蒙住苍穹的是这片灰白的帐幕，遍布大地的是这片黑苍苍的石南植物，它们在天际处交接，呈现出一条清晰分明的界线。”
The distant rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in matter.
这片荒原只有在以朦朦胧胧的面目呈现在世人面前之际，才能让人最深切地感受到它，感受到从此时直到下一个黎明出现的整个这段时光里它的全部力量，才能真正理解它；那时，也只有到了那时，荒原才向世人娓娓道出了它的真实故事。
It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true tale.
唯有沉沉暮色加上埃顿荒原的苍茫景色，才能促成这么一种氛围：庄严而不严峻，深沉而不显露，它的警示是那么醒目，它的淳朴是那么凝重。
Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a thing majestic without severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity.
人类还处于年轻时代之际，对凄凉阴郁的外在事物会觉得格格不入，然而随着岁月变迁，我们会觉得对这类事物变得越来越心灵相通。当一个荒原、一片海洋，或是一座山脉，在历经沧桑岁月的磨砺后显出一种庄严肃穆的本性时，它就会同人类中更具思想的那些人的心灵极为吻合，这样的时代似乎正在临近，即使它实际上并未来临。
human souls may find themselves in closer and closer harmony with external things wearing a sombreness distasteful to our race when it was young. The time seems near, if it has not actually arrived, when the chastened sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain will be all of nature that is absolutely in keeping with the moods of the more thinking among mankind.
最彻底的苦行者会很自然地感觉到，他有权在埃顿荒原漫游：在他敞开胸怀去感受这片荒原的种种意境时，他的沉溺绝不会超越正常的限度。领略如此淡泊的色彩和静寂的风光，至少是每个人都生而有之的权利。
The most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had a natural right to wander on Egdon--he was keeping within the line of legitimate indulgence when he laid himself open to influences such as these.
半夜的噩梦让我们在朦胧中感到灾难和溃逃的逼近，过后我们的脑中再也不会出现这种梦境，除非我们又看到跟它相似的自然景象，然而此时的埃顿荒原就正是昏暗骇人的梦境的杂乱无章、缥缈无际的发源地。
and it was found to be the hitherto unrecognized original of those wild regions of obscurity which are vaguely felt to be compassing us about in midnight dreams of flight and disaster, and are never thought of after the dream till revived by scenes like this.
此刻，这儿成了跟人的性情完美吻合的地方——既不可怕、可恨，又不可憎；既不平凡、无意义，又不平淡乏味；不过，它跟人一样，是那么的无足轻重，那么的忍辱负重；依然只是以它那黑苍苍的单调色彩表现出其独特的不凡和神秘。就跟一些长期离群索居的人一样，从它的外表景致中似乎就显出了一种孤寂寥落。它有一张孤独的外貌，让人联想到会发生种种悲剧的可能性。
It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's nature--neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons who have long lived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.
这个伟大的未受侵扰的地方具有一种亘古的恒久性
The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence which the sea cannot claim.
就像现在这个时刻——一个人斜倚在埃顿荒原中心山谷的一蓬灌木丛上，放眼四望，整个世界除了满披石南的山顶和山腰外，什么也看不到，于是他便知道，四周和底下的一切，从史前到现今一直没发生过变化，犹如苍穹中的繁星一样，这一来，因世事变迁而产生的心神不宁、被新事物的发展而搅得心烦意乱的心绪便顿时会变得平稳沉静下来。这个伟大的未受侵扰的地方具有一种亘古的恒久性，连大海也不具备的恒久性。谁能说某一片大海真有那么年代久远？太阳将海水蒸发，月光将海水轻抚。每年，每天，甚至每个小时，它都在变化不停。大海在变，大地在变，还有那河流、村庄，以及人都在变，唯独埃顿荒原依然故我。它的地形既不是陡峭得要经受风雨的侵蚀，也不是平坦得可以听凭洪水冲刷、淤泥堆积。只有一条年代久远的古道和一座即将要提及的更为古老的古冢——它们本身几乎可称得上是漫漫岁月中自然产物的结晶——除外，而就是这条古道和这座古丘的些微不规则的变化也不是因为鹤嘴锄、农耕和锹铲的挖掘所造成，而是因最近的地理变化的轻微触摸所造成。
...as now, where the eye could reach nothing of the world outside the summits and shoulders of heathland which filled the whole circumference of its glance, and to know that everything around and underneath had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars overhead, gave ballast to the mind adrift on change, and harassed by the irrepressible New. The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence which the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea that it is old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is renewed in a year, in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained. Those surfaces were neither so steep as to be destructible by weather, nor so flat as to be the victims of floods and deposits. With the exception of an aged highway, and a still more aged barrow presently to be referred to--themselves almost crystallized to natural products by long continuance--even the trifling irregularities were not caused by pickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of the last geological change.
