The Lesson of a Tree
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一棵樹的啟示
I should not take either the biggest or the most picturesque tree to illustrate it. Here is one of my favorites now before me, a fine yellow poplar, quite straight, perhaps 90 feet high, and four thick at the butt. How strong, vital, enduring! How dumbly eloquent! What suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and equable serenity all weathers, this gusty-temper’d little whiffet, man, that runs indoors at a mite of rain or snow. Science (or rather half-way science) scoffs at reminiscence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking. But, if they don’t, they do as well as most speaking, writing, poetry, sermons—or rather they do a great deal better. I should say indeed that those old dryad-reminiscences are quite as true as any, and profounder than most reminiscences we get. (“Cut this out,” as the quack mediciners say, and keep by you.) Go and sit in a grove or woods, with one or more of those voiceless companions, and read the foregoing, and think.我不會列舉最直聳云天或者最絢爛奪目的樹來說明這個問題。現在我面前的是一棵我最愛的樹，一棵茂盛的黃白楊，樹干筆直，可能有九十英尺高，最粗的地方有四英尺寬。多么強壯，多么生機勃勃，多么堅忍不拔！多么口若懸河，而又默默無聞！這是沉著冷靜、存在即真的表現，與人僅僅注重外表的性格恰恰相反。一棵樹情感豐富，藝術感唾手可得，英雄氣十足；天真無知，無心害人，而又冷酷無情。一棵樹具備這些氣質，卻從不言語。樹以堅強和一如既往的平靜指責所有雨雪陰晴天氣，大風來襲也只是輕輕搖曳，只要有一絲雨水或者一片雪花，人們就會跑進室內。科學（或者偽科學）嘲笑人們回憶森林女神和樹神，嘲笑樹間的輕語。但是，如果他們不介意，他們同樣可以講演，可以寫作，可以吟詩，可以布道—或者他們可以做得更好。我應該說這些古老的回憶的確千真萬確，比我們所作的大多數追憶更加深刻。（“把樹切斷”，庸醫說這話的時候，你把樹據為己有。）坐在小樹林或者森林中，與這些默默無語的朋友相伴，回憶往事，陷入沉思。 One lesson from affiliating a tree—perhaps the greatest moral lesson anyhow from earth, rocks, animals, is that same lesson of inherency, of what is, without the least regard to what the looker on (the critic) supposes or says, or whether he likes or dislikes. What worse—what more general malady pervades each and all of us, our literature, education, attitude toward each other, (even toward ourselves,) than a morbid trouble about seems, (generally temporarily seems too,) and no trouble at all, or hardly any, about the sane, slow-growing, perennial, real parts of character, books, friendship, marriage—humanity’s invisible foundations and hold-together?追溯一棵樹的根源得到的啟示—也許從土地、巖石、動物身上獲得的最偉大的道德啟示同樣是內在屬性，無論旁觀者（評論家）如何猜想或者評論，無論他喜歡抑或厭惡，都堅守自己的初衷。更糟糕的是—我們之間常常出現的流行疾病，我們的文學、教育、待人態度（甚至待己態度）之間常常出現的問題和疾病一樣看起來不會造成困難，或者根本就沒有困難，只是健全的、慢慢生長的、終年存在的人性本質，書籍、友情、婚姻的本質———無形的根基，緊緊地連接在一起？By Walter Whitman
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