翻譯偵探事務所: 張心漪：像媽媽一樣的譯者
tysharon.blogspot.com/2014/09/blog-post_3.htmlTranslate this pageSep 3, 2014 - 張心漪(1916- )是名門之後，曾國藩的外曾孫女，出生於上海，念過當時名門閨秀雲集的中西女中，燕京大學畢業，臺大外文系教授，曾教過白先勇那一 ...
親愛的約翰：有件事我昨天信裡應該提的。是關於繪畫的事。不要因為一幅畫是現代的，是最新的就跟它學。到羅浮宮去，花多點時間鑑賞林布蘭、德拉克洛瓦的作品。學習素描，使你的手能不知不覺地熟練，能筆隨意走，然後你可想到你面前的東西。....關於顏色，你要小心。多到大自然裡去找，別到顏料店去找──那是別人的調色板──而在各種光線下看房屋的側面。
你不會一下子登峰造極。成功是吃盡辛苦得來的。
我所企望的不是你的成功。我希望你對於人，對於工作，都抱著正確的態度。單是這一點也許就可以使你成為大丈夫了。 |
| 1968年「美國名家書信選集」 |
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| 1987年大地版改題「名人書信選集」 |
Whither mankind: a panorama of modern civilization Charles Austin Beard
此書有漢譯本
原書主編是著名的史學家。名言：
All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
"When we analyze ourselves we find conflicting motives. We have moments of shivering selfishness, when we think only of our personal gain. And we have moments of exaltation when we feel the thrill of the prodigious and hear the call to high action. That seems to be true of all men and women, high and low, and the outcome in each case is a matter of proportion.
"For myself I may say that as I look over the grand drama of history, I find (or seem to find) amid the apparent chaos and tragedy, evidence of law and plan and immense achievement of the human spirit in spite of disasters. I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves in the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amid the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail. If there was no grand design in the beginning of the universe, fragments of one are evident and mankind can complete the picture. A knowledge of the good life is our certain philosophic heritage, and technology has given us a power over nature which enables us to provide the conditions of the good life for all the earth's multitudes. That seems to me to be the most engaging possibility of the drama, and faith in its potentialities keeps me working at it even in the worst hours of disillusionment. The good life -- an end in itself to be loved and enjoyed; and intelligent labor directed to the task of making the good life prevail. There is the little philosophy, the circle of thought, within which I keep my little mill turning.
"This is the appearance of things as I see them, and even profound philosophers can merely say what they find here." (這篇的翻譯，請參考《美國名家書信選集》張心漪譯，香港：今日世界，1968，頁267-68。)
Durant's On The Meaning of Life
Will Durant's On The Meaning Of Life is one of those great old books: hardbound without a jacket, no flashy images on the cover or overwrought blurbs in back; published by an obscure house no longer extant (Ray Long & Richard Smith, Inc., 1932); drab in appearance, gray and dusty around the edges -- and yet, every page sparkles with some scintillating insight into life and humanity. Durant was a prolific writer, widely respected educator, and an avid student of history and philosophy.
"Dear ________:
Will you interrupt your work for a moment and play the game of philosophy with me?
"I am attempting to face a question which our generation, perhaps more than any, seems always ready to ask and never able to answer -- What is the meaning or worth of human life? Heretofore this question has been dealt with chiefly by theorists, from Ikhnaton and Lao-tse to Bergson and Spengler. The result has been a kind of intellectual suicide: thought, by its very development, seems to have destroyed the value and significance of life. The growth and spread of knowledge, for which so many idealists and reformers prayed, has resulted in a disillusionment which has almost broken the spirit of our race.
"Astronomers have told us that human affairs constitute but a moment in the trajectory of a star; geologists have told us that civilization is but a precarious interlude between ice ages; biologists have told us that all life is war, a struggle for existence among individuals, groups, nations, alliances, and species; historians have told us that 'progress' is a delusion, whose glory ends in inevitable decay; psychologists have told us that the will and the self are the helpless instruments of heredity and environment, and that the once incorruptible soul is but a transient incandescence of the brain. The Industrial Revolution has destroyed the home, and the discovery of contraceptives is destroying the family, the old morality, and perhaps (through the sterility of the intelligent) the race. Love is analyzed into a physical congestion, and marriage becomes a temporary physiological convenience slightly superior to promiscuity. Democracy has degenerated into such corruption as only Milo's Rome knew; and our youthful dreams of a socialist Utopia disappear as we see, day after day, the inexhaustible acquisitiveness of men. Every invention strengthens the strong and weakens the weak; every new mechanism displaces men, and multiplies the horror of war. God, who was once the consolation of our brief life, and our refuge in bereavement and suffering, has apparently vanished from the scene; no telescope, no microscope discovers him. Life has become, in that total perspective which is philosophy, a fitful pullulation of human insects on the earth, a planetary eczema that may soon be cured; nothing is certain in it except defeat and death -- a sleep from which, it seems, there is no awakening.
"We are driven to conclude that the greatest mistake in human history was the discovery of 'truth.' It has not made us free, except from delusions that comforted us and restraints that preserved us. It has not made us happy, for truth is not beautiful, and did not deserve to be so passionately chased. As we look on it now we wonder why we hurried so to find it. For it has taken from us every reason for existence except the moment's pleasure and tomorrow's trivial hope.
"This is the pass to which science and philosophy have brought us. I, who have loved philosophy for many years, now turn back to life itself, and ask you, as one who has lived as well as thought, to help me understand. Perhaps the verdict of those who have lived is different from that of those who have merely thought. Spare me a moment to tell me what meaning life has for you, what keeps you going, what help -- if any -- religion gives you, what are the sources of your inspiration and your energy, what is the goal or motive-force of your toil, where you find your consolations and your happiness, where, in the last resort, your treasure lies. Write briefly if you must; write at length and at leisure if you possibly can; for every word from you will be precious to me.
Sincerely yours,
Will Durant