I have never failed to read the Literary Supplement of The Times (《泰晤士报》文学增刊).
It is a salutary (有益的) discipline to consider the vast number of books that are written, the fair hopes with which their authors see them published, and the fate which awaits them.
What chance is there that any book will make its way among that multitude (众多)? And the successful books are but the successes of a season. {1}
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Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxation or to while away the tedium (沉闷) of a journey.
And if I may judge from the reviews (评论), many of these books are well and carefully written; much thought has gone to their composition (作品); to some even has been given the anxious labour of a lifetime.
The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thought;
and, indifferent to aught (任何事物，等于anything) else, care nothing for praise or censure (责难), failure or success.
Now the war has come, bringing with it a new attitude. Youth has turned to gods we of an earlier day knew not, and it is possible to see already the direction in which those who come after us will move.
The younger generation, conscious of strength and tumultuous (喧哗的), have done with knocking at the door; they have burst in and seated themselves in our seats.
The air is noisy with their shouts. Of their elders some, by imitating (效仿) the antics (古怪而可笑的举动) of youth, strive to persuade themselves that their day is not yet over;
they shout with the lustiest (精力充沛的), but the war cry sounds hollow (空洞的) in their mouth; they are like poor wantons (荡妇) attempting with pencil (眉笔), paint and powder, with shrill gaiety, to recover the illusion of their spring.
The wiser go their way with a decent grace. In their chastened smile is an indulgent (宽容的) mockery (嘲弄).
They remember that they too trod down a sated generation, with just such clamor and with just such scorn (轻蔑), and they foresee that these brave torch-bearers will presently yield their place also.
There is no last word. The new evangel was old when Nineveh reared her greatness to the sky.
These gallant (华丽的) words which seem so novel (新奇的) to those that speak them were said in accents scarcely changed a hundred times before. {2}
The pendulum (钟摆) swings backwards and forwards. The circle is ever travelled anew.
Sometimes a man survives a considerable time from an era in which he had his place into one which is strange to him, and then the curious are offered one of the most singular spectacles in the human comedy.
Who now, for example, thinks of George Crabbe? He was a famous poet in his day, and the world recognised his genius with a unanimity (一致同意) which the greater complexity of modern life has rendered infrequent (很少发生的).
He had learnt his craft at the school of Alexander Pope, and he wrote moral stories in rhymed (押韵的) couplets.
Then came the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and the poets sang new songs.
Mr. Crabbe continued to write moral stories in rhymed couplets. I think he must have read the verse of these young men who were making so great a stir in the world, and I fancy he found it poor stuff. Of course, much of it was.
But the odes (诗歌) of Keats (济慈，英国诗人) and of Wordsworth (华滋华斯，英国诗人), a poem or two by Coleridge, a few more by Shelley, discovered vast realms of the spirit that none had explored before. {3}
Mr. Crabbe was as dead as mutton, but Mr. Crabbe continued to write moral stories in rhymed couplets.
I have read desultorily (随意地) the writings of the younger generation. It may be that among them a more fervid (热心的) Keats, a more ethereal (超凡的) Shelley, has already published numbers the world will willingly remember.
I cannot tell. I admire their polish -- their youth is already so accomplished that it seems absurd (荒谬的) to speak of promise -- I marvel (对…惊奇) at the felicity (快乐) of their style;
but with all their copiousness (旺盛) (their vocabulary suggests that they fingered Roget's Thesaurus in their cradles) they say nothing to me:
to my mind they know too much and feel too obviously; I cannot stomach (忍受) the heartiness (热心) with which they slap me on the back or the emotion with which they hurl themselves on my bosom;
their passion seems to me a little anaemic (无活力的) and their dreams a trifle dull. I do not like them. I am on the shelf.
I will continue to write moral stories in rhymed couplets. But I should be thrice (非常) a fool if I did it for aught (任何事物) but my own entertainment.
But all this is by the way.
I was very young when I wrote my first book. By a lucky chance it excited attention, and various persons sought my acquaintance.
It is not without melancholy (忧郁) that I wander among my recollections of the world of letters in London when first, bashful (腼腆的) but eager, I was introduced to it. {4}
It is long since I frequented (常去) it, and if the novels that describe its present singularities are accurate much in it is now changed.
The venue (集合地点) is different. Chelsea and Bloomsbury have taken the place of Hampstead, Notting Hill Gate, and High Street, Kensington.
Then it was a distinction (荣誉) to be under forty, but now to be more than twenty-five is absurd (可笑的).
I think in those days we were a little shy of our emotions, and the fear of ridicule tempered the more obvious forms of pretentiousness (自负).
I do not believe that there was in that genteel Bohemia an intensive culture of chastity, but I do not remember so crude a promiscuity as seems to be practised in the present day.
We did not think it hypocritical to draw over our vagaries the curtain of a decent silence.
The spade was not invariably called a bloody shovel. Woman had not yet altogether come into her own.
I lived near Victoria Station, and I recall long excursions by bus to the hospitable houses of the literary.
In my timidity (胆怯) I wandered up and down the street while I screwed up my courage to ring the bell; and then, sick with apprehension (恐惧), was ushered into an airless room full of people.
I was introduced to this celebrated person after that one, and the kind words they said about my book made me excessively uncomfortable.
I felt they expected me to say clever things, and I never could think of any till after the party was over.
I tried to conceal my embarrassment by handing round cups of tea and rather ill-cut bread-and-butter.
I wanted no one to take notice of me, so that I could observe these famous creatures at my ease and listen to the clever things they said.
