铜山毛榉案
"To the man who loves art for its own sake," remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph,
"一个为艺术而爱好艺术的人,"歇洛克·福尔摩斯将《每日电讯报》的广告专页扔在一边说,
"it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.
"常常是从最不重要和最平凡的形象中得到最大的乐趣。
It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up,
华生,我高兴地观察到,从你诚诚恳恳地为我们的案件所作的那些记录中,你已经掌握了这个真理,
and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish,
而且,我肯定地讲,有时你还加以润色,
you have given prominence not so much to the many causes célèbres and sensational trials in which I have figured
你加以突出的并不是那些我曾经参与过的许多著名案件的侦破和轰动一时的审讯,
but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves,
而是那些本身情节可能是平凡琐细的案件,
but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province."
然而这些案件有发挥推论和逻辑综合的才能的余地,我把它们列入我的特殊的研究范围之内。"
"And yet," said I, smiling, "I cannot quite hold myself absolved from the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my records."
"然而,"我微笑着说,"我不能完全为自己在记录中采用耸人听闻的手法开脱。"
"You have erred, perhaps," he observed, taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe
"也许你确有错误,"他边评论述用火钳夹起火红的炉渣来点燃他那长把的樱挑木烟斗,
which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather than a meditative mood.
当他是在争论问题而不是在思考问题的时候,他常常是用这个烟斗来替换陶制烟斗的。
"You have erred perhaps in attempting to put colour and life into each of your statements
"也许你错就错在总是想把你的每项记述都写得生动活泼些,
instead of confining yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect
而不是将你的任务限制在记述事物因果关系的严谨的推理上,
which is really the only notable feature about the thing."
这实际上是事物唯一值得注意的特点。"