《论谋杀(英汉对照)》章节试读

《论谋杀(英汉对照)》的笔记-第176页 - The English Mail-Coach

Ah, reader! when I look back upon those days, it seems to me that all things change or perish. Even thunder and lightning, it pains me to say, are not the thunder and lightning which I seem to remember about the time of Waterloo. Roses, I fear, are degeneraing, and, without a Red revolution, must come to the dust. The Fannies of our island–though this I say with reluctance–are not improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change–that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharadohs. That may be; but the reason is, that the crocodile does not live fast–he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood amongst naturalists, that the crocodile is a blockhead. It is my own impression that the Pharaohs were also blockheads. Now, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile dominerred over Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular mistake that prevailed on the Nile. The crocodile made the ridiculous blunder of supposing man to be meant chiefly for his own eating. Man, taking a difference view of the subject, naturally met that mistake by another; he viewed the crocodile as a thing sometimes to worship, but always to run away from. And this continued until Mr. Waterton changed the relations between the animals. The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be, not by running away, but by leaping on its back, booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up–it is to be ridden; and the use of man is, that he may improve the health of the crocodile by riding him to fox-hunting before breakfast. And it is pretty certain that any crocodile, who has been regularly hunted through the season, and is master of the weight he carries, will take a six-barred gate now as well as ever he would have done in the infancy of the pyramids.Perhaps,therfore, the crocodile does not change, but all things else do: even the shadow of the pyramids grow less. And often the restoration in vision of Fanny and the Bath road, makes me too pathetically sensible of that truth. Out of the darkness, if I happen to call up the image of Fanny from thirty-five years back, arises suddenly a rose in June; or, if I think for an instant of the rose in June, up rises the heavenly face of Fanny. One after the other, like the antiphonies in the choral service, rises Fanny and the rose in June, the back again the rose in June and Fanny. Then come both together, as in a chorus; roses and Fannies, Fannies and roses, without end–thick as blossoms in paradise. Then comes a venerable crocodile, in a royal livery of scarlet and gold, or in a coat with sixteen capes; and the crocodile is driving four-in-hand from the box of the Bath mail. And suddenly we upon the mail are pulled up by a mighty dial, sculptured with the hours, and with the dreadful legend of TOO LATE. Then all at once we are arrived at Marlborough forest, amongst the lovely households of the roe-deer: these retire into the dewy thickets; the thickets are rich with roses; the roses call up (as ever) the sweet countenance of Fanny, who, being the granddaughter of a crocodile, awakens a dreadful host of wild semi-legendary animals,–griffins, dragons, basilisks, sphinxes,–till at length the whole vision of fighting images crowds into one towering armorial shield, a vast emblazonry of human charities and human loveliness that have perished, but quartered heraldically with unutterable horrors of monstrous and demoniac natures, whilst over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one fair female hand, with the forefinger pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, upwards to heaven, and having power (which, without experience, I never could have believed) to awaken the pathos that kills in the very bosom of the horrors that madden the grief that gnaws at the heart, together with the monstrous creations of darkness that shock the belief, and make dizzy the reason of man. This is the peculiarity that I wish the reader to notice, as having first been made known to me for a possibility by this early vision of Fanny on the Bath road. The peculiarity consisted in the confluence of two different keys, though apparently repelling each other, into the music and governing principles of the same dream; horror, such as possesses the maniac, and yet, by momentary transitions, grief, such as may be supposed to possess the dying mother when leaving her infant children to the mercies of the cruel. Usually, and perhaps always, in an unshaken nervous system, these two modes of misery exclude each other–here first they met in horrid reconciliation. There was also a separate peculiarity in the quality of the horror. This was afterwards developed into far more revolting complexities of misery and incomprehensible darkness; and perhaps I am wrong in ascribing any value as a causative agency to this particular case on the Bath road–possibly it furnished merely an occasion that accidentally introduced a mode of horrors certain, to any rate, to have grown up, with or without the Bath road, from more advanced stages of the nervous derangement. Yet, as the cubs of tigers of leopards, when domesticated, have been observed to suffer a sudden development of their latent ferocity under too eager an appeal to their playfulness–the gaieties of sport in them being too closely connected with the fiery brightness of their murderous instincts–so I have remarked that the caprices, the gay arabesques, and the lovely floral luxuriations of dreams, betray a shocking tendency to pass into finer maniacal splendors. That gaiety, for instance (for such as first it was,) in the dreaming faculty, by which one principal point of resemblance to crocodile in the mail-coachman was soon made to clothe him with the form of a crocodile, and yet was blended with accessory circumstances derived from his human functions, passed rapidly into a further development, no longer gay of playful, but terrific, the most terrific that besieges dreams, viz–the horrid inoculation upon each other of incompatible natures. This horror has always been secretly felt by man; it was felt even under pagan forms of religion, which offered a very feeble, and also very limited gamut for giving expression to the human capacities of sublimity or of horror. We read it in the fearful composition of the sphinx. The dragon, again, is the snake inoculated upon the scorpion. The basilisk unites the mysterious malice of evil eye, unintentional on the part of the unhappy agent, with the intentional venom of some other malignant natures. But these horrid complexities of evil agency are but objectively horrid; they inflict the horror suitable to their compound nature; but there is no insinuation that they feel that horror. Heraldry is so full of these fantastic creatures, that, in some zoologies, we find a separate chapter or a supplement dedicated to what is denominated heraldic zoology. And why not? For these hideous creatures, however visionary, have a real traditionary ground in medieval belife–since and partly reasonable, though adulterating with mendacity, blundering, credulity, and intense superstition. But the dream-horror which I speak of is far more frightful. The dreamer finds housed within himself–occupying, as it were, some separate chamber in his brain–holding, perhaps, from that station a secret and detestable commerce with his own heart–some horrid alien nature. What if it were his own nature repeated,–still, if the duality were distinctly perceptible, even that–even this mere numerical double of his own consciousness–might be a curse too mighty to be sustained. But how, if the alien nature contradicts his own, fights with it, perplexes, and confounds it? How, again, if not one alien nature, but two, but tree, but four, bug five, are introduced within what once he thought the inviolable sanctuary of himself? These, however, are horrors from the kingdoms of anarchy and darkness, which, by their very intensity, challenge the sanctity of concealment, and gloomily retire from exposition. Yet it was necessary to mention them, because the first introduction to such appearances (whether causal, or merely casual) lay in the heraldic monsters, (which monsters were themselves introduced though playfully) by the transfigured coachman of the Bath mail.

《论谋杀(英汉对照)》的笔记-第3页

Here I pause for one moment,to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding ,however useful and indispensable,is the meanest faculty in the human mind ,and the most to be distrusted; and yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else; which may do for ordinary life,but not for philosophical purpose.Of this out of ten thousand instances that i might produce, i will cite one. Ask of any person whatsoever,who is not previously prepared for the demand by a knowledge of perspective,to draw in the rudest way the commonest appearance which depends upon the laws of that science ;as for instance ,to represent the effect of two walls standing at the right angles to each other,or the appearance of the houses on each side of the street,as seen by a person looking down the street from one extremity.Now in all cases,unless the person has happened to observe in pictures how it is what artists produce these effects,he will be utterly unable to make the smallest approximation to it.Yet why?For he has actually seen the effect every day of his life.The reason is — that he allows his understanding overrule his eyes.His understanding,which includes no intuitive knowledge of the laws if vision,can furnish him with no reason why a line which is known and can be proved to be a horizontal line ,,should nor appear a horizontal line ; a line that made any angle with the perpendicular less than a right angle,would seem to him to indicate that his houses were all tumbling down together.Accordingly he makes the line of his houses a horizontal line,and fails of course to produce the effect demanded.Here then is one instance out of many,in which not only the understanding is allowed to overrule his eyes as it were,for not only does the man believe the evidence of his understanding in opposition to that of his eyes,but,(what is monstrous!)the idiot is not aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence.He does not know that he has seen(and therefore quoad his consciousness has not seen)that which he has seen everyday of his life.
我想在此劝解读者，当他们自己对眼前事物的理解与脑海中的其他知识相互对立时，千万不要去在意这些理解。这种理解无论多么有用，多么不可或缺，都是人类思想中低劣、不可信的。而然大多数人群却相信自己的理解，或许这对于日常生活的是适用的，但它绝对不能成为哲学原理服务。此类例子不胜枚举，我这里列出一个来。举例来说，我们无法让一个没有丝毫透视基础知识的人按科学原理去粗略地绘制物体的轮廓。让他以一个站在街道尽头的人的视角来面会两堵相会垂直的墙，或是描绘街道两侧房屋的外形轮廓，这些都行不通。除非此人看到过艺术家是怎么样表现出这些效果的，他可能话的画得稍微有些象样。既然他每天的的确确看到过这种效果，那么他为何无法将它呈现出来呢？原因就是他的双眼受到他理解力的支配。他的理解并不包含于对于视觉现象的本能知识，并不会告诉他为什么这么广为人知的、为人正式的水平线条在却不呈现出水平的形状，为什么垂直的线条的角度比直角小一些。理解似乎暗示着他所见到的房屋都是倾斜的。这样他就将房屋画成水平的线条，当然也无法表现出所要求的那种效果。这只是一个例子，此类例子还有很多，这些例子的一个共性就是理解不仅支配了眼睛，甚至于完全淹没了眼睛的作用，因为人们确实是知道他们的理解与他们亲眼所见相背，但是他们采取了荒谬和白痴似的处理方式，因为白痴不会意识到他们的双眼曾给予过他们类似证据，白痴不会知道他有一次看见了（因此就这点而言他没有意识到）他每天都会看见的景象。