The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamless whole.
这些人迹未到的漫长的溪谷;这些柔和青苍的山腰;一经过这些地方,不禁使人屏声弃息;简直叫人敢于发誓:在这样静穆的境地里,就象是在一种快乐的五月天里,玩累了的小孩,把树林里的野花都摘光后,正在大睡一通了。因为所有这一切跟你那最为神秘的心情交融在一起,所以,事实。幻想和偶然的遭遇就互相贯穿起来,形成一个天衣无缝的整体。
Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon them prove but tarnishing.
尽管这种令人获得慰藉的景色是多么的短暂,它至少对亚哈也暂时起了作用。不过,如果这些神秘的金钥匙真会打开他身上那秘密的金银宝库的话,但只消他一个哈气,又会使它失去光泽了。
Oh, grassy glades! oh ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye, — though long parched by the dead drought of the earthly life, — in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: — through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If.
长满青草的林间空地呵!愿无穷的春色永存在生命中——你虽然久经人间的苦旱生活而长期龟裂——人类却还可以象小马在清晨的三叶草上一般,在你身上打滚;还可以在霎忽而逝的工夫里,身上感到有生命不朽的凉露。但愿上帝让这种福祉的静穆永垂久远。可是生命的线已被经纬织成一片,混杂不清了:风暴勾消了宁静,一次风暴换来万般宁静。生命里并没有什么一定不能折回的进程;我们并不是循着固定的层次前进,最后就停将下来的——由孩提时代的无意识的牙牙学语,而少年时代的无思无想的信念,成人时代的怀疑(一般的命数),接着是疑惑,再接着是不信仰,最后寄托在人类的最具深思熟虑的"假定"上。