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My mind stirred with the stirring times, and the characters round which the life of two contending nations centred seemed to move right before me. I wondered more and more, while Burke's masterly speech rolled on in mighty surges of eloquence, how it was that King George and his ministers could have turned a deaf ear to his warning prophecy of our victory and their humiliation. Then I entered into the melancholy details of the relation in which the great statesman stood to his party and to the representatives of the people. I thought how strange it was that such precious seeds of truth and wisdom should have fallen among the tares of ignorance and corruption.
我心潮起伏，在我面前，两个生活在共同屋檐下的敌对民族似乎在朝着和解的道路上迈进。令我越来越不解的是，面对伯克那激昂澎湃而富于雄辩的演讲，乔治国王和他手下的众臣怎么可能充耳不闻，置我们的胜利和他们的耻辱于不顾呢？对于这位大政治家所持的党派立场和人民的立场之间的关系，我在随后的研读中进行了深入的思考。我觉得，像这样一粒如此珍贵，蕴涵着真理和智慧的种子，竟然被湮没在无知和腐败的稗子中，这的确是一件很奇怪的事。
In a different way Macaulay's "Life of Samuel Johnson" was interesting. My heart went out to the lonely man who ate the bread of affliction in Grub Street, and yet, in the midst of toil and cruel suffering of body and soul, always had a kind word, and lent a helping hand to the poor and despised. I rejoiced over all his successes, I shut my eyes to his faults, and wondered, not that he had them, but that they had not crushed or dwarfed his soul. But in spite of Macaulay's brilliancy and his admirable faculty of making the commonplace seem fresh and picturesque, his positiveness wearied me at times, and his frequent sacrifices of truth to effect kept me in a questioning attitude very unlike the attitude of reverence in which I had listened to the Demosthenes of Great Britain.
无论从哪种角度来看，麦考雷写的《塞缪尔·约翰逊的一生》都很吸引人。这位在克鲁伯街上啃着面包的落魄男人令人同情，然而，即使在身体和灵魂遭受双重磨难的情况下，他始终保持着一种友善的言行，还向贫穷无助的人伸出援手。我为他取得的成功而欢欣鼓舞，而对他的过失则视而不见——奇怪的是，尽管重压缠身，但是种种压力并没有摧垮他的意志，那些瑕疵也无损于他的人格。麦考雷以其出色的文笔化腐朽为神奇，令生动的人物跃然纸上。他的信念偶尔也会让我感到厌倦，但是他那为探寻真理而孜孜以求的精神，使我看待事物的态度变得更加理性了；同我听到“大不列颠的狄摩西尼”雄辩演说后的敬畏之情相比，这是一种完全不同的感觉。
At the Cambridge school, for the first time in my life, I enjoyed the companionship of seeing and hearing girls of my own age.
在剑桥学习期间，我平生第一次沉浸在同学之间的友谊当中。当然，这些同学都是能看能听，和我同龄的女孩子。
