晨讀美文欣賞：The Instinct for the Beautiful愛美的天性

考研英語來源：文都教育 2017-06-09　

A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct of what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed or even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

兒童的世界新奇而美麗，充滿了驚異和興奮。可是，對我們多數人來說，還未到成年，這種銳利的目光，這種愛一切美麗的和令人敬畏的事物的天性，就已經變得遲鈍，甚至喪失殆盡。這真是我們的不幸。據說，有一位善心的仙女主持所有兒童的洗禮。假如我能對她有所影響的話，我倒想向她提個要求：請她賦予世間的兒童以新奇感(一種能伴隨他們終身的無可摧毀的新奇感)，并使它成為萬靈的解藥。有了它，他們在以后的歲月中就會永遠陶醉在新奇之中，不致產生厭倦感，不致徒勞地全神貫注于人為的虛假的事物，不致脫離力量的源泉。

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement of mystery of the world we live in. Parents often have a sense of inadequacy when confronted on the hand with eager, sensitive child mind of a child and on the other with a world of complex physical nature, inhabited by a life so various and unfamiliar that it seems hopeless to reduce it to order and knowledge. In a mood of self-defeat, they exclaim, "How can I possibly teach my child about nature - why, I don't even know one bird from another!"

假如一個兒童沒有受到仙女的賜予而想要持久地保持他那天生的新奇感，他至少需要有一個能與他共享新奇感的成年人和他作伴，并且跟他一起不斷去發現我們所生活的這個世界中的一切歡樂、刺激和神秘。做父母的常有力不從心之感。一方面，他們要滿足孩子那感覺靈敏而又渴望求知的心靈。另一方面，復雜的物質世界卻使他們感到難于應付，他們自己對于這個世界形形色色的生活都感到生疏，好像未抱有理出頭緒、弄個明白的愿望。他們自己就泄了氣，喊道：“我哪能教我的孩子認識大自然!啊，我連兩只鳥都分不清哩!”

I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide them, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused - a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love - then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.

我真誠地相信，對于兒童以及期望引導兒童的父母來說，感覺力比理解力相對更為重要。如果將事實比作是以后會萌發知識和智慧的“種子”的話，那么，情感激情與感官印象就好比是肥沃的“土壤”，“種子”離開它就無法生長。童年早期是準備、培育“土壤”的時期。一旦喚起了內心中的種種情感，如美感、對新鮮事物和未知事物的興奮感、同情心、惻隱之心、欽慕之情、愛慕之心，我們繼而就會希望獲得關于引起我們產生情感反應的事物的知識。而這種知識一旦獲得，就會產生深遠的意義與影響。顯而易見，培養、激發孩子的求知欲與探究欲，比像飲食似地讓孩子吞咽下他還吸收不了的種種知識更為重要。

I am sure there is something much deeper, something lasting and significant. Those who dwell, as scientists or laypeople, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the problems or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner satisfaction and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.

我確信有某種深刻得多的東西,某種持久而意義深淵的東西。那些生活在地球上的美與神奇的東西之間的科學家或者準科學家,永遠不會孤單或對生活趕到厭倦.無論他們的個人生活有什么問題或憂慮,他們的思想都能夠知道到同往內心的滿足和對生活重燃激情的途徑.那些凝視地球之美的人能找到終生受用的力量儲備.在鳥類的遷徙中,在潮水的漲落中,在含苞待放的花蕾中,即有距離的美也有象征性的美.在大自然反反復復的循環中,有一種具有無限的治愈力的東西-黑夜過后一定是黎明,冬天過后必然是春天.