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What a list! Something old and something new, something cosmic yet something trivial too, for the creative worrier must forever blend the pedestrian with the immemorial. If the sun burns out, will the Mets be able to play their entire schedule at night? If cryogenically frozen human beings are ever revived, will they have to re-register to vote? And if the little toe disappears, will field goals play a smaller part in the National Football League?
一份多么可观的忧愁单！有旧愁，也有新忧，有事关宇宙者，也有小到不足挂齿者，因为创造性的发愁人必须永远将普通的忧愁与古老的忧愁融为一体。如果太阳烧光了，梅茨棒球队还能在夜里打完全部赛程吗？如果低温冷冻的人体复活了，他们还得重新登记参加选举吗？如果小脚趾消失了，三分球在全国橄榄球联赛中所起的作用会不会减少？
Actually, I've never had a worry as worrisome as the universe-destroying black holes. I mean, the universe is where I do all my worrying, and if it suddenly disappears I may not be able to relocate. My only hope comes from a first principle of worry that I have learned in a lifetime of anxiety; i.e., some of the biggest problems are half of a self-cancelling pair. A nice example is that dreaded polar ice cap, which some scientists say isn't starting to melt at all but instead will shortly begin to enlarge rapidly, giving birth to a new ice age that soon will cover the entire United States. I worried about this ice layer formlast February 9th until about Labor Day, by which time my worry about the price of bottom round had reduced it to the size of a rink. Lately, however, I have turned my mind back to the ice again, and I have been worrying about the fact that you cannot have ice that is growing and melting at the same time. One of these terrors is a dud, and the job of the dedicated worrier is to find out which one it is.
事实上，我还从来没有遇上一件忧愁的事，像可能摧毁宇宙的黑洞这么令人忧心如焚。我的意思是说，宇宙是我发愁的地方，如果它突然消失了，我可能没法重新安家。我唯一的希望，就只有那我忧虑了一辈子而学得的关于发愁的第一准则了，这就是，一些最大的问题往往存在对立面，两者正好形成自相抵消的一对。那个令人生畏的地极冰帽就是一个绝好的例子。一些科学家说，它根本没有开始融化，相反，不久将开始迅速增大，从而造成一个新的冰河时期，且不久将覆盖整个美国。我从2月9日开始，就为这一冰层发愁，直到劳动节。那个时候，我对底部圆腿牛肉价格的担忧已将冰层减缩到只有一个溜冰场那么大。然而，近来我又为冰河期发起愁来，我愁的是，冰层不可能同时既在增大又在融化。两种可怖的情况之中，有一种必定是假的，一个献身忧愁的人的任务是找出来哪一种是假的。
Applying this principle to the black holes, I wonder if there may not be some white holes in space as well —— pretty, glowing things that won't digest a universe but may prefer to spit it out again. All I need is a new flash from the Institute about one of these, and then perhaps I will be able to start worrying about chinch bugs and the male menopause and all the other gentle terrors my grandfather could endorse.
把这一原理应用到黑洞上，我在想，在宇宙空间会不会也存在某种白洞——一些漂亮的发光的东西，它们不会吃掉宇宙，而是宁愿将宇宙吐将出来。我唯一需要的是，高级研究院能就某一白洞发条新的简短报道。然后，说不定我就可以开始为麦长蝽、男性更年期以及其它一切我祖父能够赞同的温和恐怖犯愁了。
Is that the right way to spell "chinch bugs"?
"麦长蝽"是这么个写法吗？
