Yet I
experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and
encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor
misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to
him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still. There was never
yet such a storm but it was ;aEolian music to a healthy and innocent ear.
Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. While I
enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden
to me. The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house to-day
is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing
them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as
to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low
lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such
sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere
sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood
insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle
expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made
aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are
accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me
and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could
ever be strange to me again
friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied
advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of
them since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and
befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something
kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary,
and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a
villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.

times and places. The place where that may
occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the
most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our
occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest to all
things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest
laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom
we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we
are.
"How
vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of Heaven and of
Earth!"
"We
seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to hear them, and we do
not hear them; identified with the substance of things, they cannot be
separated from them."
"They
cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their hearts, and clothe
themselves in their holiday garments to offer sacrifices and oblations to their
ancestors. It is an ocean of subtile intelligences. They are every where, above
us, on our left, on our right; they environ us on all sides."
We
are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting to me. Can
we not do without the society of our gossips a little while under these
circumstances, -- have our own thoughts to cheer us? Confucius says truly,
"Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of necessity have
neighbors."
With
thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of
the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all
things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in
Nature. I may be either the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the sky
looking down on it. I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition; on the
other hand, I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to
concern me much more. I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to
speak, of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by
which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my
experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me,
which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience,
but taking note of it; and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it
may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his
way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was
concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends
sometimes.
I
find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company,
even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I
never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the
most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our
chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.


Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and
his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervis in
the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing
or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes
home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts,
but must be where he can "see the folks," and recreate, and as he
thinks remunerate, himself for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the
student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui
and "the blues;" but he does not realize that the student, though in
the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his
woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society
that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.
Society
is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to
acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and
give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had
to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make
this frequent meeting tolerable, and that we need not come to open war. We meet
at the post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we
live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I
think that we thus lose some respect for one another. Certainly less frequency
would suffice for all important and hearty communications. Consider the girls
in a factory, -- never alone, hardly in their dreams. It would be better if
there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where
I live. The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him.
I
have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and exhaustion at the
foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with
which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and
which he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and
strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural
society, and come to know that we are never alone.
I
have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when
nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons, that some one may convey an
idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs
so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What
company has that lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but
the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun is alone,
except in thick weather, when there sometimes appear to be two, but one is a
mock sun. God is alone, -- but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a
great deal of company; he is legion. I am no more lonely than a single mullein
or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a
humble-bee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the
northstar, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the
first spider in a new house.
I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when the snow falls fast
and the wind howls in the wood, from an old settler and original proprietor,
who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with
pine woods; who tells me stories of old time and of new eternity; and between
us we manage to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant views of
things, even without apples or cider, -- a most wise and humorous friend, whom
I love much, who keeps himself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley; and
though he is thought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An elderly
dame, too, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose
odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and listening
to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled

fertility,
and her memory runs back farther than mythology, and she can tell me the
original of every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the
incidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old dame, who delights
in all weathers and seasons, and is likely to outlive all her children yet.
The
indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature, -- of sun and wind and rain,
of summer and winter, -- such health, such cheer, they afford forever! and such
sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature would be affected, and
the sun's brightness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds
rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put on mourning in midsummer,
if any man should ever for a just cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence
with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?
What
is the pill which will keep us well, serene, contented? Not my or thy
great-grandfather's, but our great-grandmother Nature's universal, vegetable,
botanic medicines, by which she has kept herself young always, outlived so many
old Parrs in her day, and fed her health with their decaying fatness. For my
panacea, instead of one of those quack vials of a mixture dipped from Acheron
and the Dead Sea, which come out of those long shallow black-schooner looking
wagons which we sometimes see made to carry bottles, let me have a draught of
undiluted morning air. Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the
fountain-head of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in
the shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket to
morning time in this world. But remember, it will not keep quite till noon-day
even in the coolest cellar, but drive out the stopples long ere that and follow
westward the steps of Aurora.
I am no worshipper of Hygeia, who was the daughter of that old herb-doctor
Aesculapius, and who is represented on monuments holding a serpent in one hand,
and in the other a cup out of which the serpent sometimes drinks; but rather of
Hebe, cupbearer to Jupiter, who was the daughter of Juno and wild lettuce, and
who had the power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of youth. She was
probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy, and robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever she came it was spring.


一年前的文章了，题目就意译为“孤舟翳影 ”

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