亨利ˇ戴维ˇ梭罗
(HENRY DAVID THOREAU)

湖滨散记
Walden

我到树林中去ˇ因爲我希望从容不迫地生活ˇ仅仅面对生活中最基本的事实ˇ看看我是否能掌握生活的教诲ˇ不至于在临终时才发ˇ自己不曾生活过。

梭罗在沃尔登塘生活了两年。在那儿ˇ他从日常事务和社会压力之中解脱了出来ˇ有时间思考生活中究竟什麽是重要的ˇ有时间进行写作。同普遍的传统作法不一样ˇ在这期间ˇ梭罗不是一位隐士ˇ而是一位生活在社会边缘的人。他离社会的距离不太远ˇ这样他还能够有客人造访ˇ但又不太近ˇ这样他才能够剔除生活的繁文褥节ˇ将其缩减到最基本的部分。

在十九世纪五十年代ˇ梭罗深深卷入了废除奴隶制的斗争之中。他抛弃了思索和孤僻的生活ˇ选择了积极的政治生活。他发表演说ˇ写文章反对奴隶制ˇ通过地下铁道帮助奴隶逃亡到北方。他身体不好ˇ死于1862年ˇ时年不到45岁。

以下摘选的《湖滨散记》在1854年最初发表时ˇ并未获得商业上的成功ˇ五年中仅ˇ出了2000本。不过ˇ从那以后ˇ它成了美国文学中的经典作品。因爲它是出色的新闻体作品ˇ是一个人试图在朴素的生活中寻找真理与意义的写照ˇ讴歌了与大自然和良知保持和谐的生活。

……许许多多人过着平静而又绝望的生活。所谓的听天由命ˇ便是根深蒂固的绝望。从绝望的城市到绝望的国家ˇ你得靠水ˇ与ˇ鼠般的勇气来安慰自己。甚至在人类所谓的运动与娱乐之下ˇ也隐藏着一成不变的、无意识的失望。其实ˇ那不是娱乐ˇ因爲它是劳作的结果。它只是一种明智的、不铤而走ˇ的特征。

用问答教学法的话来说ˇ当我们考虑人生的主要目的是什麽ˇ什麽是生活的真正需要ˇ什麽是生活的手段的时候ˇ看来人们似乎是故意选择了同一的生活方式ˇ因爲他们对它偏爱超过对其他的生活方式。可是ˇ他们又坦白地认爲ˇ除此之外别无其它选择。不过ˇ具有警觉、健康天性的人记得ˇ太阳升起时是纯洁无理的。抛弃偏见ˇ无论何时都不会太迟。不论是多麽古老的ˇ法或做法ˇ只要缺乏左证ˇ都不足信。今天人们随声附和或默认爲是真理的ˇ结果明天就可能被证明是错误的ˇ不过是如同烟云般的ˇ法而已ˇ而有些人却曾将这烟云奉作能够爲田园普降甘露的雨云。古人说你做不到的ˇ你试过之后却发ˇ能够做到。古法施 于古人ˇ新法施于新人。古人也许由于知识贫乏ˇ不懂得添加新燃料来促使火焰燃烧不熄ˇ新人在罐子下放一小块木柴ˇ便能以飞鸟的速度绕着大地转悠ˇ正如俗话说的那样ˇ“气死老头”。作爲导师ˇ年迈的丝毫不会比年轻的更称职ˇ甚至还未必能比得上年轻的ˇ因爲年龄使他失去超过他所得到的。人人几乎都怀疑ˇ最聪明的人是否能单凭活着就可以获得任何有绝对价值的知识。实际上ˇ老年人没有什麽非常重要的劝告可以给年轻人ˇ正如他们必然会承认的那样ˇ他们的个人经验是那麽片面ˇ他们的生活由于某些个人的原因又是那麽令人沮丧的失败。也许是由于他们还残留着某些信仰的缘故ˇ他们的经验具有某种假ˇˇ其实ˇ他们只不过是不那麽年轻罢了。我在这个星球上生活了大约三十年了ˇ我还未从长辈那儿听到过一句真正有价值的忠告ˇ甚至连句真诚的劝告都没有。他们什麽也没告诉我ˇ也许他们也无法中肯地告诉我任何事情。生活就在这儿。它是一ˇ在很大程度上我还未尝试过的试验。他人的尝试对我并无稗益。如果我有什麽我认爲是有价值的经验的话ˇ我肯定会ˇ到ˇ我的导师根本就没跟我说过这些……

我住到树林里ˇ也就是ˇ开始在那儿度过日日夜夜的第一天ˇ恰巧是独立日ˇ或者说是1845年7月4日。那时ˇ我的房子还未完工ˇ还不宜过冬。它还未粉刷ˇ也没有烟囱ˇ仅仅能避雨。墙壁是用粗糙、饱经风霜、污迹斑斑的木板钉成的ˇ墙上有很宽的裂缝。到了夜里ˇ房里倒是挺凉快。斧头劈得白白的笔直壁骨和新装上木板的门和窗框使房子给人一种干净、通风的感觉。尤其是在早晨ˇ当壁板浸泡了露水的时候ˇ我幻ˇ着ˇ到了中午ˇ从这些露水中会渗透出一些可爱的仙人。一整天ˇ这幻ˇ或多或少地带着曙光般的色彩留在我的ˇˇ中ˇ使我ˇ起一年前我在山中到过的一幢房子。那是一座通风、未粉刷过的木屋ˇ适合用来招待云游仙人ˇ或让仙女的婆娑衣裙在屋里掠过。那穿堂过室的风ˇ有如那掠过山脊之雄风ˇ带着断断续续的大地之声ˇ或者ˇ仅仅是大地乐声中的天 籁。早上ˇ总是晨风吹拂ˇ创造着无穷无尽的诗境ˇ不过ˇ能领略这诗意的却寥寥无几。奥林匹斯山彼彼皆是ˇ唯独不在尘世之间……

我到树林中去ˇ因爲我希望从容不迫地生活ˇ仅仅面对生活中最基本的事实ˇ看看我是否能掌握生活的教海ˇ不至于在临终时才发ˇ自己不曾生活过。我不希望过那种称不上是生活的生活ˇ因爲生存的代价是那麽昂贵ˇ我也不希望听天由命ˇ除非那是万不得已。我要生活得深沈ˇ吮吸生活的所有精髓ˇ我要生活得坚定ˇˇ斯巴顿人一样ˇ摒弃一切不属于生活的事物ˇ辛勤劳作ˇ生活简朴ˇ将生活局ˇ在小范围内ˇ将它降到最低水平。如果证明生活是低贱的ˇ那麽就完整、真实地了解其低贱之处ˇ并将之公诸于世ˇ如果证明生活是高尚的ˇ那麽就通过实践了解它ˇ并且下一次远足时ˇ就能对它作出真实的描述。因爲ˇ在我看来ˇ大部分人对生活ˇ不管它是魔鬼的産物还是上帝的创造ˇ都非常没有把握ˇ并且ˇ他们还颇有点仓促地下结论ˇ认爲“爲上帝增光和永远ˇ受上帝的福扯”是人类在这世界上的主要目的。

尽管寓言告诉我们说ˇ很久以前我们就进化成人了ˇ但是ˇ我们却活得低贱ˇ就ˇ蚂蚁一样。我们仍然不自量力地ˇ小精灵似地与鹤争斗。这是错上加错ˇ雪上加霜ˇ我们最优秀的德性ˇ也有其过分的、但又是可以避免的鄙贱性。我们的生活被细节ˇ耗殆尽。老实人用十个手指头计数就差不多了ˇ若在极特殊情况下ˇ他可以凑上十个脚趾ˇ至于其它的可以合在一起算。要简单、简单、再简单!依我说ˇ你要做的事应当是两、三件ˇ而不是成百上千件ˇ数上半打ˇ而不要数上百万ˇ把你的帐日记在你的大姆指指甲上。在这多变的文明生活的海洋里ˇ云雾、风暴、流沙和许许多多事情都得考虑。如果一个人不ˇ沈沦到底层ˇ又不短躲进港湾ˇ就得靠精心算计ˇ才能活下去。他要成功ˇ就必须是台出色的计算器。简化、再简化ˇ如果吃饭是必须的话ˇ那麽就一天吃一餐ˇ而不要吃三餐ˇ不要吃上百道菜ˇ就吃五道菜ˇ其它的东西也作ˇ应的ˇ减。我们的生活就ˇ由许多小国家组成的德国联盟一样ˇ边界老是在变动ˇ即使德国人自己也无法告诉你ˇ某时某刻它的边界在那里。国家本身ˇ尽管内部有些所谓的改善ˇ(顺便指出ˇ这些改善都是表面上的、肤浅的)但它仍是一个庞大而且畸形发展的机构ˇ就ˇ这片土地上的千千万万座楼房一样ˇ里面挤满了家具ˇ被自己设下的ˇ阱所制约ˇ被奢侈和毫无顾忌的开支、被缺乏精打细算和缺乏有价值的目标弄得倾家荡产。挽救它的唯一方法ˇ就ˇ挽救那些房子一样ˇ是严格的精打细算ˇ是一种严格的、比斯巴顿人更简朴的生活方武和高尚的生活目标。生活的节奏太快了。人们认爲ˇ至关重要的是国家要有商业ˇ要出口冰块ˇ要通过电报交谈ˇ要每小时行驶三十英里ˇ而毫不质疑ˇ他们做得到还是做不到ˇ但是ˇ我们是否应当ˇ狒狒一样生活ˇ还是ˇ人一样生活ˇ却仍是个不定之数……

我们爲什麽要生活得如此匆忙ˇ如此浪费生命呢?我们还不曾感到饿ˇ便断定会挨饿。人们说ˇ及时缝一针ˇ省得缝九针ˇ于是ˇ他们便在今天缝上千百针ˇ好爲明天省下九针。至于工作ˇ我们还没有过任何有价值的工作。我们跳圣ˇ维图斯舞ˇ可却无法保持头不动……饭后ˇ人们几乎不午睡ˇ可是当他醒来时ˇ他擡头便问ˇ“有什麽ˇ息?”好ˇ人类其它人都在爲他站岗放哨似的。毫无疑义ˇ有些人嘱咐别人每半小时叫醒他一次ˇ其目的却仅仅是爲了被这样叫醒。尔后ˇ作爲回报ˇ他们就敍述自己梦到的事情。睡了一夜之后ˇ新闻就跟早餐一样不可缺少。“求你告诉我ˇ世界上什麽地方ˇ什麽人发生了什麽新鲜事。”ˇˇ他一边喝咖啡吃面卷ˇ一边阅读新闻ˇ在瓦赫土河有个人的眼睛被挖掉了ˇ同时ˇ他却没ˇ到他正生活在世界上深不可测的猛马洞穴里ˇ而且他自己也只有一只发育不健全的眼睛。

就我来说ˇ没有邮局ˇ我也能够轻松对付。我觉得ˇ没有什麽非常重要的ˇ息是通过邮局得到的。挑剔地说ˇ我一生中仅收到过一、两封信ˇ其内容值得付那邮资ˇˇ这是我数年前写的。通常收费低廉的邮局只是一种机构ˇ通过它你能一本正经地付上一点钱ˇ便可购买他人心中的ˇ法ˇ而且付这麽点钱还常常是爲了开个肯定不会出差错的玩笑。我确信ˇ我从未在报纸上读到过任何值得记忆的ˇ息。如果我们读一则关于有个人遭抢劫的ˇ息ˇ或者有人被谋杀ˇ或者有人在事故中丧生ˇ或者有座房子被烧了ˇ或者条船沈没了ˇ或者有艘汽轮爆炸了ˇ或者有只母牛在西部铁路被压死了ˇ或者一条疯狗被宰了ˇ或者冬季里来了一批蝗虫ˇˇ那麽ˇ我就绝对不必再读其它ˇ息了。一则就够了。如果你已经认识了这条原则ˇ那麽你搭理那一大堆具体例子和该原则的实际应用情况又有什麽用呢?对于哲学家来说ˇ所有的新闻ˇ所谓的新闻ˇ都是闲话ˇ其 编辑和读者都是些老妇人ˇ一边喝茶ˇ一边藉以度日。

让我们ˇ大自然一样ˇ从容不迫地过上一天吧ˇ别让一些落在枕木上的坚果和蚊子的翅膀将我们颠出轨。让我们一早起来ˇ不吃早饭或吃早饭ˇ一切慢慢来ˇ不带任何烦乱。朋友来也罢ˇ走也罢ˇ门铃ˇ也罢ˇ孩子哭也罢ˇˇˇ横下一条心ˇ过一天这样的日子。我们爲什麽应当ˇ潮流屈服和顺应潮流呢?午饭ˇ有如位于浅滩中央的湍急而又可怕的 漩涡ˇ届时我们万万不可心烦意乱ˇ不知所措。度过这个危ˇˇ你就平安了ˇ因爲剩下的时间就如下山ˇ带着未松懈的勇气和上午的活力ˇ扬帆而下ˇ缚于桅杆上ˇˇ尤利西斯一样ˇ领略另一侧风光。如果引擎发出ˇ声ˇ就让它一直ˇ到声音嘶哑ˇ痛苦不已。如果铃声ˇ了ˇ我们干嘛得跑呢?我们可以ˇˇ铃声ˇ何种音乐。让我们安下心来工作吧。观念、偏见、传统、妄ˇ和表面ˇˇ组成的泥泞淤积层覆盖了整个地球ˇ从巴黎到伦敦ˇ从纽约到波士顿再到康科ˇ从教会到政府ˇ从诗学到哲学再到宗教ˇ全部被覆盖着。我们要迈开双脚ˇ踏着淤泥前进ˇ一直到我们抵达我们称之爲“ˇ实”的实地和礁石爲止。我们说ˇ就是这个ˇ没错……不论是生还是死ˇ我们仅追求ˇ实。如果我们真的要死了ˇ那就让我们听到喉头的呼吓声ˇ感到临终的冰冷ˇ如果还活着ˇ那就让我们干我们的事业。

时间不过是我垂钓的小溪。我饮用溪中水ˇ喝水时ˇ我看到沙质的水底ˇ发觉溪水是那麽浅。那浅浅的水流一溜而过ˇ留下的是永恒。我要喝得深一些ˇ到空中垂钓ˇ苍穹的尽头是有如鹅卵石的星星。我不识数ˇ我连字母表上的第ˇ个字母都不认得ˇ我一直后悔我不能ˇ初生时那麽聪明。理智是一把利刃ˇ它辨清方ˇˇ一路剖切直抵事物的奥秘之所在。如非必需ˇ我不希望动手忙碌。我的大脑就是手和脚。我觉得ˇ我的所有最精华的能力都集中在大脑里。我的本能告诉我ˇ我的大脑是挖掘器官ˇ就ˇ一些生灵用嘴或前爪挖穴一样ˇ我用大脑挖掘一条穿过这些山峦的隧道。我ˇˇ最富足的矿脉就在这儿的某个地方ˇ凭借这魔杖和这淡淡升腾起的雾气ˇ我的判断也是如此。我要在这儿开始我的挖掘。

Walden

 . . . . The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

    When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion,. which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me any thing to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about....

    When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a traveling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere. . . .

    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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

    Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way, are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. ...

    Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. As for work, we haven't any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus' dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. ... Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. "Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe,"--and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

    For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life--1 wrote this some years ago--that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,--we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. . . .

    Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry,--determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through Church and State, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake. . . . Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

    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. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.