The Author
These pieces of moral prose have been written, dear Reader, by a large Carnivorous Mammal, belonging to that sub-order of the Animal Kingdom which includes also the Orang-outang, the tusked Gorilla, the Baboon with his bright blue and scarlet bottom, and the gentle Chimpanzee.
作者
亲爱的读者，写这些道德文章的，是一头硕大的食肉哺乳动物，属于动物界的一个亚目，该亚目还包括红毛猩猩、有獠牙的大猩猩、屁股大红大紫的狒狒，以及温文尔雅的黑猩猩。
Preface
‘You must beware of thinking too much about Style,’ said my kindly adviser, ‘or you will become like those fastidious people who polish and polish until there is nothing left.’
‘Then there really are such people?’ I asked eagerly. But the well-informed lady could give me no precise information about them.
I often hear of them in this tantalizing manner, and perhaps one of these days I shall have the luck to come across them.
前言
“您应该注意，别把太多心思花在风格上，”有人好心劝我，“要不然会像那些个抠字眼儿的人，一个劲儿地精雕细琢，到头来什么都抠没了。”
“当真有这样的人吗？”我热切地问道。可是那位见多识广的女士没能给我有关这种人的确切见识。
常常听人如此吊胃口地谈起他们，也许这几天我有幸会碰到他们。
Happiness
Cricketers on village greens, hay-makers in the evening sunshine, small boats that sail before the wind—all these create in me the illusion of Happiness, as if a land of cloudless pleasure, a piece of the old Golden World, were hidden, not (as poets have fancied) in far seas or beyond inaccessible mountains, but here close at hand, if one could find it, in some undiscovered valley. Certain grassy lanes seem to lead through the copses thither; the wild pigeons talk of it behind the woods.
幸福
村边草地上玩板球的人们，夕阳中晒着干草的农夫，河面上小船鼓着帆款款而行—这一切在我心中唤起了幸福的幻想，犹如一片晴空万里的福地，一隅往日的黄金世界，并不像诗人们想象的那样藏匿于遥远的海外，或者隔着高不可攀的崇山峻岭，而就在这儿，咫尺之遥，如果找得到的话，就在某一条不被外人发现的河谷中。有几条绿草如茵的小巷似乎穿过那边的矮树林，野鸽子们在树林后正谈论着呢。
To-day
I woke this morning out of dreams into what we call Reality, into the daylight, the furniture of my familiar bedroom—in fact into the well-known, often-discussed, but, to my mind, as yet unexplained Universe.
Then I, who came out of the eternal silence and seem to be on my way thither, got up and spent the day as I usually spend it. I read, I pottered, I complained, and took exercise; and I sat punctually down to eat the cooked meals that appeared at regular intervals.
今天
我今早醒来，从梦中醒到了我们所称的现实中，醒到了白天，醒到了我卧室中熟悉的家具中来—事实上是到了那个人人知道、常常讨论，而我觉得尚未得到解释的宇宙中来。
然后，我这个从永恒的静寂中出来，似乎又在向那里走去的人，起床了，像通常度日那样度过这一天。读读书、溜达溜达、发发牢骚、做做运动；而后正点入座，受用那煮好了的、有规律地出现在桌上的三餐。
The Afternoon Post
The village Post Office, with its clock and letter-box, its postmistress lost in the heartless seductions of the Aristocracy and tales of coroneted woe, and the sallow-faced grocer watching from his window opposite, is the scene of a daily crisis in my life, when every afternoon I walk there: through the country lanes and ask that well-read young lady for my letters. I always expect good news and cheques; and then, of course, there is the magical Fortune which is coming, and word of it may reach me any day. What it is, this strange Felicity, or whence it shall arrive, I have no notion; but I hurry down in the morning to find the news on the breakfast table, open telegrams in delighted panic, and cry ‘Here it comes!’ when in the night-silence I hear wheels approaching along the road. So, happy in the hope of Happiness, and not greatly concerned with any other interest or ambition, I live on in my quiet, ordered house; and so I shall live perhaps until the end. Is it merely the last great summons and revelation for which I am waiting?
午后邮件
村里的邮局，摆着时钟和信箱，有女局长埋头于贵族的偷香窃玉和王室的伤心故事，有那个脸色灰黄的杂货店老板从路对面玻璃窗望过来，在这里我每天都会经历生活中一个揪心的时刻—每天下午我穿过乡村小巷走来，问那位书读得很多的少妇有没有我的信。我总是期盼着好消息和支票；接着，当然了，是那正在到来的命中奇迹，谁知哪一天就有话传来了呢。到底是什么，这奇妙的好运气，会从何处降临呢？我一无所知。但我清晨会匆匆赶来找早餐桌上的新闻，又喜又怕地打开电报，夜深人静时听到路上过来的车轮声便大叫“来了！”。就这样，怀着幸福的希望幸福着，其他任何兴趣和志向都不大放心上，我在我宁静整洁的房子里过着日子；也许会这样终老。是不是就为了那最后的伟大召唤和启示我在等待着？
The Busy Bees
Sitting for hours idle in the shade of an apple tree, near the garden-hives, and under the aerial thoroughfares of those honey-merchants, —sometimes when the noonday heat is loud with their minute industry, or when they fall in crowds out of the late sun to their night-long labours, —I have sought instruction from the Bees, and tried to appropriate to myself the old industrious lesson.
And yet, hang it all, who by rights should be the teacher and who the learners? For those peevish, over-toiled, utilitarian insects, was there no lesson to be derived from the spectacle of Me? Gazing out at me with myriad eyes, from their joyless factories, might they not learn at last—could I not finally teach them—a wiser and more generous-hearted way to improve the shining hours?
蜜蜂营营
几个小时地闲坐在一棵苹果树的绿荫下，不远处是园里的蜂房，头顶上是那些贩蜜者来回的空中大道—有时，当正午的热气里营营响着它们那纤毫不漏的勤勉，或者当它们成群从暮色中降落开始彻夜的劳作—我便向蜜蜂们讨教，努力要把那古老的勤奋功课学过来。
且慢，谁天生就该当老师，谁天生又该当学生？那些个脾气乖张、操劳过度、营营役役的昆虫，难道我的做派就没有它们可学之处？从它们那没有欢乐的工厂里，拿无数的复眼瞪着我，难道它们不可能最终学会—难道我不能最终教给它们—一种更具智慧、更见豪爽的处世之道，让阳光灿烂的时辰更加美好？