亨利·詹姆斯致友人:悲伤终将过去,但我们仍在

悲伤总会过去,而到那时你会发现:我们仍在这里

Sorrow passes and we remain. (Excerpt)

July 28, 1883

My dear Grace,

Before the sufferings of others I am always utterly powerless, and the letter you gave me reveals such depths of suffering that I hardly know what to say to you. You appear to make all the misery of all mankind your own; only I have a terrible sense that you give all and receive nothing—that there is no reciprocity(互惠关系) in your sympathy. However—I am determined not to speak to you except with the voice of stoicism(斯多亚学派).

I don't know why we live, but I believe we can go on living for the reason that life is the most valuable thing we know anything about and it is therefore presumptively(假设地) a great mistake to surrender it while there is any yet left in the cup. You are noble when your interest and pity as to everything that surrounds you, appears to have a sustaining and harmonizing power. Only don't, I beseech(恳求) you, generalize too much in these sympathies and tendernesses—remember that every life is a special problem which is not yours but another's, and content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own. Don't melt too much into the universe, but be as solid and dense and fixed as you can. We all live together, and those of us who love and know, live so most.

Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother(使窒息) us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong we are stronger,in as much as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it anduse it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see.

My dear Grace, you are passing through a darkness; but it is only a darkness, it is not an end, or the end. Don't think, don't feel, any more than you can help, don't conclude or decide—don't do anything but wait. Everything will pass, and serenity and accepted mysteries and disillusionments, and the tenderness of a few good people, and new opportunities and ever so much of life, in a word, will remain. The only thing is not to melt in the meanwhile so that however fast the horse may run away there will, when he pulls up, be a somewhat agitated(受到震荡) but perfectly identical G. N. left in the saddle. Try not to be ill—that is all; for in that there is a future.You are marked out for success, and you must not fail. You have my tenderest affection and all my confidence.

Ever your faithful friend—

Henry James

▍语言点

It's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's…. That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your

own.你永远不可能真正体会别人的痛苦。

depth: n.深度;严重程度

depths: n.(pl)某物的深处(depths of the woods森林深处;depths of suffering痛苦这个黑洞的深处)

reciprocity: n.互惠关系(a mutual exchange)

stoicism: n.公元300年左右在雅典创立的一个哲学学派,翻译成斯多亚学派

surrender: vt.放弃

beseech: vt.恳求,哀求

generalize: vt.概括

content oneself

with sth.:使某人满足于什么

algebra: n.代数

What is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.

生活里悲惨的事情太多了,要哭可是哭不完的。

smother: vt.使窒息

in as much as: conj.因为,由于

wear: vt.消磨,耗费

Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life for he who has understood existence.

幸福的生活几乎不需要什么物质的堆积,而在于你对生活的理解程度。

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