悦读｜蕾切尔·卡逊《让爱美的天性常在》（双语）

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蕾切尔·卡逊（Rachel Carson，1907—1964），美国海洋生物学家，代表作《寂静的春天》（Silent Spring）引发了美国乃至全世界的环境保护事业。她是美国20世纪具有强大影响力的自然作家之一。

王楫，1920年10月生，江苏南通人，国立西南联合大学外国语言文学系毕业，教授，英文翻译家，曾任教扬州师范学院外语系，江苏翻译工作者协会理事。

（朗读：侯润娟）

A True Instinct for the Beautiful

让爱美的天性常在

By Rachel Carson

文/蕾切尔·卡逊

译/王楫

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 for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and 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. 

儿童的世界新奇而美丽，充满惊异和兴奋。可是，对我们多数人来说，等不到成年，这种锐利的目光、爱一切美丽的和令人敬畏的事物的天性，就已经迟钝，甚至丧失殆尽，这真是我们的不幸。据说有一位善良的仙女主持所有儿童的洗礼，假如我能对她有所影响，我倒想向她提个要求，请她赋予世间儿童以新奇感——无可摧毁、能伴随他们终身的新奇感——并使它成为万灵的解药，有了它，他们在以后的岁月中就会永远陶醉在新奇之中，不致产生厌倦感，不致徒劳地全神贯注于人为虚假的事物，不致脱离力量的源泉。

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 and mystery of the world we live in. Parents often have a sense of inadequacy when confronted on the one hand with the eager, sensitive 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 one another!” 

假如一个儿童没有仙女的赏赐而要保持他的天生的新奇感常新，他至少需要有一个能与他共享新奇感的成年人和他作伴，并且跟他一起不断再发现我们生活的这个世界的一切欢乐、刺激和神秘。做父母的常有力不从心之感，他们一方面要满足孩子的感觉灵敏而又急于求知的心灵，可是另一方面复杂的物质世界却使他们感到难于应付，这个世界的生活形形色色，他们自己都感到生疏，好像没有理出头绪、弄个明白的希望。他们自己就泄了气，喊道：“我哪能教我的孩子认识大自然！啊，我连两只鸟都分不清哩！”

I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, 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 unkown, 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 diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.

我真诚地相信，对于儿童，以及对力求引导儿童的父母来说，感觉远比知识更为重要。如果说事实等于种子，以后会萌发知识和智慧，那么，激情以及感官得到的印象就等于是肥沃的土壤，种子离开它将无法生长。童年早期是准备土壤的时期。一旦唤起了种种感情——美感、对新鲜事物和未知事物的兴奋感、同情心、恻隐之心、钦羡之情、爱慕之心——那末，我们就希望获得引起感情反应的事物的知识。而这种知识一旦获得，就有深远的意义。为孩子的求知欲铺路，比像喂食似地规定孩子吞下他吸收不了的事实更为重要。

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